Recommended Crystalline Conflict changes after a month of observation

[Lammas]

This'll be multiple posts due to the 3000 character limit.

You can circumvent the ancient forum software by editing your message. Write something up to 3000 char and then edit > copy-paste whatever didn't fit in afterwards. SE really should make their forums less clunky if they insist this as being their platform of choice.

Improve UX for Clarity and Readability

Mostly agree. Visual and audible signs are some of the things this mode most sorely needs. A chime at 10 seconds left would do a lot to remedy needless losses. I'm fairly certain that your team is always blue and enemy is always red. As for ground effects I'm just gonna nope out of that all-red thing. Enemy DRG LB being red would make sense but an enemy Slipstream being red along with everything else would just make EVERYTHING harder to see. You don't need colorblind settings if you design your shit functionally to begin with and that's coming from a colorblind person. If anything turn the friendly slipstream blue but I'd even argue that there's no need for me to see the friendly slipstream begin with. It's not like it's offering a ton of synergy to anything with it's measly potency but in case that's buffed in the future I'd change the color of the friendly one. Having EVERYTHING the enemy does being red wouldn't really help anyone.

Rework Ranking System, decide between "casual" or something more "competitive"

There's room inbetween these two extremes. I've been ranking up an alt and I see people who were stuck on silver/gold/plat/diamond still being stuck on those ranks (and that's just the names I recognize and remember, there's plenty more) and I know they play a lot thanks to also seeing them on my friends rank up streams. The current system is not extremely effective at weeding out "undesirables" from crystal but it's doing something and just getting there with enough wins no questions asked is a horrible idea. I can't think of a single argument why anyone would want that to be a thing.
On the other hand I don't think the competitive option needs to be that harsh either. If you made each tier take 5 risers you'd already make people place a lot closer to where they actually belong without even touching win streaks. I don't really care for the idea of dropping ranks if ranking up was just made a bit harder to begin with. I really don't see a reason to touch win streaks as a PVP mechanic tied to PVP results instead of tying it to something completely else that I don't give 2 shits about. I don't really see the problem especially if risers were added. I'm quite fond of the mechanic myself. If you really want to push that back on top of that then I'd make the streak start at 4 wins tp weed out more people but I'd just start with adding risers before doing anything more drastic than that.

Allow players to change class during the setup period (Casual only?)

Honest question: Why? The fact that you can get exp on a job you're not actually going to play in some other mode seems more like an oversight if anything. Bizarre holdover as you say. Letting people change after queuing is just going to at worst make people expect that you'd change into a meta comp once you're in and at best you're gaining some measly extra exp that you can get so much more of elsewhere if leveling is your goal. The fact that you're getting what you see is part of the fun for me at least.

Allow queuing with one friend (Casual only)

Both agree and disagree. Early on not being able to queue with my friends was one of my biggest gripes about the mode but on those few occasions that I've ended up in the same match with people that I'm on voice coms with... whooo boy. I don't think casual is the grounds to introduce that kind of stomping. On the other hand adding it to ranked would be very unfair to solo queuers. I'm pretty sure that some live letter said that team queue is coming at some point and it's going to be against other teams. That's fair and I can wait for that. We got custom matches to scratch that itch for now although it's not super common for people to have 10 people to queue with I'd imagine.

Limit Overtime to 3 minutes, and identify and resolve remaining bugs

This I have a pretty large problem with. What your describing here is basically just saying make the matches last 8 minutes. Like seriously what's the difference between 8 minute match vs 5 minute match + 3 minute overtime with what you're suggesting? And how would that solve any of the things that overtime is there to solve, mainly people throwing once they're down in a match? Overtime as a mechanic is fine as it gives a team who's still in the fight a change to bring it back from a losing position. If anything make it so that the winners are in an even more advantageous position by nerfing or even removing the advantages that the losing team currently gets.

Reduce Purify cooldown, and add priority to Resilience

Purify / resilience needs an overhaul something bad and I'm more than surprised when that was not included in the 6.15 update. Resilience should be unconditional. That would remove the delay between pressing it and getting the buff and it would also allow you to use resilience pro-actively. 20 second cooldown might be a bit much but I'd personally agree that 25 seconds would be ok with maybe adding a second or two to the resilience buff timer. Also since better visuals have been discussed I'll just mention that resilience seriously needs some effect shown on the player model instead of having to scope for it on the buff bars. I do agree that DNC / RPR LB's should be unpurifyable and I'm not sure who's disagreeing with that anyway. WHM's I'm on the fence about. It doesn't bother me since it's one of the only things the jobs got going for it but I wouldn't mind making it otherwise more relevant while removing that either. I don't really care one way or the other on that one.

Class Adjustments

I really wish you hadn't written this stuff here at all. Your subjective list of balance changes looks quite different than mine so I disagree with it to begin with but also what use is throwing this stuff in here when the focus of every other post is on overall QOL changes and design philosophy? At best it's muddying up the perception of this topic, at worst it might end up derailing the whole discussion into job balance arguments.