Are you enjoying this?

[BraveKaiser]

No. I don't like CC.

Bit of a disclaimer: I'm no PvP master. I admit that a lot of the losses I've had are my fault, despite me trying changes to lessen the losses (i.e. get enemy team health bars near hotbars, turn off battle effect, etc.), and that PvP's likely not for me.

With that said, holy crap I hate CC.

Whenever I play Ranked or Casual, no matter the time of day, 8/10 I'm with other players who think that "run around like a headless chicken " or "focus on enemy players, forget about the stupid crystal" is a good strategy, and I end up getting swarmed by the other team's players, even if I'm not a job that's considered OP, and I'm sick of it.

Why bother with PvP if I'm having a hard time? For the GARO event and Rank 25 rewards.

I got into the game right as the 1st GARO event was coming to an end, and I had hoped that I would get another chance someday. When I heard that it was finally coming back, I hoped that the requirements for getting the gear/mounts would be easier, as last time I tried & failed to get through Feast with only one win. Unfortunately that wasn't the case, and I hoped that I would at least be paired up with players who weren't as good like me after a while. Either "players who weren't as good like me" becomes "players that don't care about the game mode", or I just have bad luck, because all of my CC matches have been as Umbra, and I almost always end up with possibly the worst kind of team one can get.

Frontline, on the other hand, is right around 50/50. Sure, there's times where I'm on an Alliance where the players go anywhere and no one is calling out where to go or what to do (I'm certainly no leader so I never tried), but there are times when I have either a winning game or get close to one, but end up losing either cause of being out of time or the other team(s) being better. Heck, I managed to get the Frontline GARO mount recently.

Sadly, while CC and I apparently don't mix, I can't say that I have a solution for it. I don't know how to determine who's cheating/ a bot/ very good at the mode aside from comparing wins/assists to their losses. I also refuse to join in on the cheating because it would never work out (even if I knew how to hack), and I can't "get gud" because as far as I know, there's no preparing for what kind of player you may meet.

Ultimately, with how upset I've been getting every time I try CC, I'm strongly leaning towards leaving the mode behind until GARO nearly ends again, and just do Daily Frontline stuff instead. Will I miss out on the Rank 25 gear? Maybe not, I heard it'll go to the Trophy Crystal merchant's list of wares after 6.18, so that may be what I need to do.

TL;DR, I despise CC for multiple reasons, I can't determine how to turn it around, & since I'm not having fun, my only option is to stop playing it before I explode.

Honestly, if PvP goes to crap again as it apparently did before 6.0, I wouldn't care less.

[Lymberey]

I do like PVP for several reasons. The main reason is gimmick and unique LB, the close second is gear independent, and the last reason, limited chat.

I used to play alot of PVP games, but most games aren't exactly flexible or unique in their designs.
Some games, every single class is the same with some differences, but it boils down to being very spammy.
Still, those games are designed based on 1-1 situation so the design is going to be different from team-based design.
Unique LBs are pretty much like Ults from MOBAs, a genre which i also play. Love it.

Being gear-independent is very very fantastic. Most game i played, PVP progression mostly tied to your gear, and level, and you need to grind the shit out of it for eternity. cough cough Korean and Chinese MMOs cough cough Now i dont have to grind those gear, put up with the notorious enhancement system, or powerleveling every single patch and can log off to do something else. Still, there are games that are good at gearing system, like Guild Wars II for example.

People might say limited chat is bad, but for me? Im too tired from handling a lot of foul-mouthed kids and adults from other games. It doesn't matter if i win or lose, i just absolutely despise these people. I know trashtalking is very common in competitive environment, but being respectful is also a common sense and courtesy.
There are some toxicity, yes, but i had a lot of experiences in open-world PK cesspools so its not that big of a deal. However, i do understand why the devs are very sensitive to toxicity and i don't disagree with them.

[Ransu]

I do like PVP for several reasons. The main reason is gimmick and unique LB, the close second is gear independent, and the last reason, limited chat.

I used to play alot of PVP games, but most games aren't exactly flexible or unique in their designs.
Some games, every single class is the same with some differences, but it boils down to being very spammy.
Still, those games are designed based on 1-1 situation so the design is going to be different from team-based design.
Unique LBs are pretty much like Ults from MOBAs, a genre which i also play. Love it.

Being gear-independent is very very fantastic. Most game i played, PVP progression mostly tied to your gear, and level, and you need to grind the shit out of it for eternity. cough cough Korean and Chinese MMOs cough cough Now i dont have to grind those gear, put up with the notorious enhancement system, or powerleveling every single patch and can log off to do something else. Still, there are games that are good at gearing system, like Guild Wars II for example.

People might say limited chat is bad, but for me? Im too tired from handling a lot of foul-mouthed kids and adults from other games. It doesn't matter if i win or lose, i just absolutely despise these people. I know trashtalking is very common in competitive environment, but being respectful is also a common sense and courtesy.
There are some toxicity, yes, but i had a lot of experiences in open-world PK cesspools so its not that big of a deal. However, i do understand why the devs are very sensitive to toxicity and i don't disagree with them.

I used to be all in favor of pvp gear and to a point I still kind of am. I do enjoy the lack of gear requirements for pvp in FFXIV though, especially given the heavy focus of playing multiple jobs and being able to just swap and play whatever without worrying about gear is quite nice.

I think my main issue with MMO's is when pve gear is effective in pvp. SWTOR removed their pvp gear and I ONLY pvp'd in that game thus forcing me to pve to be viable.

[Gserpent]

I used to be all in favor of pvp gear and to a point I still kind of am. I do enjoy the lack of gear requirements for pvp in FFXIV though, especially given the heavy focus of playing multiple jobs and being able to just swap and play whatever without worrying about gear is quite nice.

I think my main issue with MMO's is when pve gear is effective in pvp. SWTOR removed their pvp gear and I ONLY pvp'd in that game thus forcing me to pve to be viable.

I'm in a weird place with it. I prefer a system that's gear agnostic, like what we have now. But at the same time, being able to be creative and combine different pieces of gear to optimize for certain playstyles is a lot of fun. It would have no place in XIV, though.

[Gserpent]

No. I don't like CC.

Bit of a disclaimer: I'm no PvP master. I admit that a lot of the losses I've had are my fault, despite me trying changes to lessen the losses (i.e. get enemy team health bars near hotbars, turn off battle effect, etc.), and that PvP's likely not for me.

With that said, holy crap I hate CC.

PvP was pretty active in 5.x and before that. FL has always been popular, and RW was active during tomestone events when attention was heaped on it as a way of getting tomes. Feast was... mostly not played. So FL is still active and CC is *far* more active than Feast ever was (even discounting GARO participation), so I'd say the 6.1 revamp is a success so far.

I will say that the complete lack of any kind of matchmaking makes Casual CC pretty miserable, though. Ranked has so many issues, but at the end of the day at least it has *some* kind of rudimentary matchmaking.

Honestly, I think gentle (even hidden) matchmaking would be a good idea for *all* PvP. FL, casual CC, RW, etc. They should all use gentle matchmaking, where the system uses a hidden value to try and balance teams out. Skill-based matchmaking is unlikely to be possible, but it could still try and account for things like PvP Level, Series Level, games played, proportional win-loss rate against games played, etc.

It's really unfortunate when it's clear you got mostly newbies or goldbrickers on your team since it feels like you're all just having your time wasted. It's unfortunately not an uncommon thing for me to see a lot of "Frontline mains" all end up on the same team, when the system *should* be ensuring these players are evenly distributed across the teams.