Revert Shatter back to the Original Map

[RyanCousland]

Worth dropping this here, I think:

"The new Shatter, and why you're playing it wrong"
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ying_it_wrong/

Maybe I'm wrong in my interpretation/inference but it seems like the post can be summed up in "prioritize kills over objectives" which isn't a new concept hell one of the pvp discords has/had a whole thread devoting to this principle so the buzzfeed esque post doesn't offer anything useful aside from a good eye roll, my apologies if in the event this comes off as me directing my criticism at you which isn't the case,

[Archeron]

Worth dropping this here, I think:

"The new Shatter, and why you're playing it wrong"
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ying_it_wrong/

This person making that reddit post assumes that Frontline players Understand the objective, and how points are rewarded/taken away. The vast majority of people just doing frontlines for the roulette have no idea about any of this, and honestly they don't care. This would be different if we were talking about a more skilled group of players perhaps the likes of CC or Ranked.

PvP maps need to be accessible, and easily understood by people who are half-paying attention. If you give the vast majority of Frontline players the choice they're just going to plonk away at ice rather than attack other players, and thats the problem with this map. Nobody is doing PvP.

[HermitUK]

This person making that reddit post assumes that Frontline players Understand the objective, and how points are rewarded/taken away. The vast majority of people just doing frontlines for the roulette have no idea about any of this, and honestly they don't care. This would be different if we were talking about a more skilled group of players perhaps the likes of CC or Ranked.

PvP maps need to be accessible, and easily understood by people who are half-paying attention. If you give the vast majority of Frontline players the choice they're just going to plonk away at ice rather than attack other players, and thats the problem with this map. Nobody is doing PvP.

An easy fix for this would be to add score to the Floating Damage Numbers and kill feed in the chat. Players know what an ice is worth because the chat log tells them; if players saw a "+10" over enemy players as they died and a "-5" over their own head when they died, it might help convey why PvP matters.

I'm trying to make a habit of snipping scoreboards so I can get a better feel for the scoring breakdown, but I've seen a few teams doing the full PvP approach and it is very effective:

[Bergfinn]

I would say yes and no. Strictly speaking it's their fault, but they aren't taught what to do in the PVP maps. Square is really bad about PVP instructions. How many people just skip the guide, or outright have it silenced because it's so overbearing in PVE? The problem is trying to explain to newer players mid match they will never get the better of that MNK MCH etc. seldom hits home but also wastes your attention as well effectively downing your team by two players.

That's I agree, tbh they should copy GW2 structured PvP (they are kinda mini frontlines with two teams), where soon you enter the match a pop up appears on your screen briefly explaining how to deal with the map objectives, giving a simple but easy to understand directions.

At the same time, in terms of skill and how job works in pvp, a lot only comes to test and practice, everyone will commit mistakes gradually learn from them. (and since we are from the same datacenter, most of the people who ignores and go full yolo/jebaited aren't even new players, may the Twelve have mercy for us)

Now for the HUD, one of the very first thing people found out is how to hide it due "being too ugly on their clean UI", the same reason they also hide the duty list where the old score board is located... (again may the Twelve have mercy for us)

pre 6.1 FLs was the exact same stuff. Rose tinted glasses much.

The biggest issue pre 6.1 FL were white mages being almost invincible divine beings that needed 10+ people to focus on them to get killed... And on 6.1 the devs addressed the issue giving them not only the best cc in the game (imp) but also the best LB in the game, a 40 yalm kamehameha with really fast recharge that did hit like a truck, stuns everything that got hit by it and also heals your party.

[Cidel]

This person making that reddit post assumes that Frontline players Understand the objective, and how points are rewarded/taken away. The vast majority of people just doing frontlines for the roulette have no idea about any of this, and honestly they don't care. This would be different if we were talking about a more skilled group of players perhaps the likes of CC or Ranked.

PvP maps need to be accessible, and easily understood by people who are half-paying attention. If you give the vast majority of Frontline players the choice they're just going to plonk away at ice rather than attack other players, and thats the problem with this map. Nobody is doing PvP.

Unfortunately yes, most of the lukewarm bodies (mindless fodder) queuing Shatter don't actually understand anything beyond "hit ice, get points" thinking that is the sole objective in the mode. But even if the ice spawned less frequently, these are the same people that spend the whole game with no Battle High because they have no sense of awareness or Recuperate isn't a thing for them (ever see someone in your party die slowly with a full MP bar? it's painful). They're in every mode. So naturally this mode enables those people to run back and forth between ice and the only PvP they engage in is when they've somehow wandered near another team and someone attacks them and they fold. I don't know if the devs created this new Shatter to cater to the people who don't even know what their job's "burst" is, but from my experience, the team that has the aggressive players charging in and steamrolling the mindless fodder and accumulating Battle High nearly always ends up winning.

[Archeron]

It doesn't seem like a surefire victory being just under 200 points away from second to win by pure PvP, though if your team was particularily aggressive (and coordinated enough.) you could just steamroll the two other PvE teams that are split apart plonking at small nodes the entire game.

I feel like if you want to win with pure PvP in this version of shatter you have to be aggressive against 2nd place the entire game, and not ignoring the big ice nodes - and making enough kills to pay for the small ices your team isn't hitting, and balancing out your attacks on both teams else the one not being focused will surpass you in whacking pinatas for points.

I preferred employing the pure PvP strategy in the original shatter. Ignoring nodes and mopping up both teams 2 or 3 times could end the game in less than 6 minutes. If this map of shatter wants to be on that same level they need to cut the ice spawns down, get rid of small nodes, or maybe remove plonking at ice entirely and just reward points for being in a capture zone. Reducing the number of points to earn a win would also be necessary.

[Elfidan]

At the same time, in terms of skill and how job works in pvp, a lot only comes to test and practice, everyone will commit mistakes gradually learn from them. (and since we are from the same datacenter, most of the people who ignores and go full yolo/jebaited aren't even new players, may the Twelve have mercy for us)

I guess it's fairer to say new to PVP. Mainly people drawn in by promises of series rewards and the like.

Now for the HUD, one of the very first thing people found out is how to hide it due "being too ugly on their clean UI", the same reason they also hide the duty list where the old score board is located... (again may the Twelve have mercy for us)

Yeah, I believe it and it causes me mental anguish.

[Valence]

Not saying there weren't problems with pre 6.1 but at least each class had single target and aoe abilities whereas now some classes have more aoe capabilities than others plus the latency/lag or wutever you wanna call it wasn't as bad and roles had better utility all which is not present in today's FL

Role utility was a lot more cancerous with healers. Everybody seems to have forgotten how having a pocket healer that had the ability to spamm heals AND rescue you when shit hits the fan literally made you almost invincible. Those kinds of BH5 players were literally playing on god mode.

And then the pvp reworks before mid ShB it was no medkits at all, so it was essentially the team fielding 2-3 healers vs the one fielding none that was guaranteed a win.

[RyanCousland]

Role utility was a lot more cancerous with healers. Everybody seems to have forgotten how having a pocket healer that had the ability to spamm heals AND rescue you when shit hits the fan literally made you almost invincible. Those kinds of BH5 players were literally playing on god mode.

And then the pvp reworks before mid ShB it was no medkits at all, so it was essentially the team fielding 2-3 healers vs the one fielding none that was guaranteed a win.

And instead of cancerous healing we have complaints of LBs or specific skills or jobs that are "op" not to mention the tank disparity that is the opposite of the healer problems in pre 6.1, I understand the healer concern truly but I think a potency reduction across the board would've alleviated that, (a cure 3 that was 400 and instead 300 is still better than no cure), now we've dug ourselves in this pit where we can't touch a job without neutering it

[PangTong]

I've given the new Shatter a fair shot now, 15 games or so, and I think I can confidently say now that it's inferior to the previous iteration.

The smaller map, reduced points from ice, and no bases, has made the mode EXTREMELY kills-focused. While in other modes, you sometimes see comebacks and close games because of how teams play around the objectives, in the new Shatter, typically the most aggressive team gets a runaway lead and wins easily. Premades are already pretty dominant but the new Shatter takes it to another level, with teams facing a premade having virtually no hope of victory. The snowballing effect of Battle High and the incredible point potential of kills causes aggressive teams to dominate this mode in every single aspect.

Due to the low value of objectives compared to kills, teams which prioritize objectives almost always end up losing. Usually objectives give teams an idea of where to focus their efforts, but in the new Shatter the optimal approach is to outright ignore objectives to instead focus on kills. The typical Frontlines player is easily distracted by objectives, particularly in this mode as it allows them to avoid fighting other players (something which they are deathly scared of), yet counterintuitively this works to their team's detriment. By splitting off from their team's main force to attack ice, they diminish their killing ability and leave their team open to attacks from larger forces. All those points they think they're earning by diligently smashing ice are quickly siphoned away by aggressive teams killing their teammates and hastening their defeat.

I initially thought the mode was more fair with the more frequent ice spawns, but the spawns are not distributed evenly. Each large ice gives an advantage to one team, the one which has a slope from the ice leading to their base. The other teams must risk being pinched by entering from the cliffside or the center, leaving them only one viable exit. This wouldn't be a problem if the ice spawned evenly, but frequently it spawns in the same spot repeatedly, advantaging the same team over and over. So the map is arguably less fair than the previous iteration where each ice could only spawn once.


The fix for this isn't simple or obvious. The value of objectives vs killing needs to be balanced, and the way nodes work needs to be adjusted so that players cannot simply hide away and peck at ice all game without ever needing to PvP. Fewer ice active at once, less frequent spawns, higher point value of nodes. Hmm, this is starting to sound familiar. Kinda sounds like how the old map used to work.

Yeah, just go back to the old map. The new one isn't worth the work it would require to salvage when they could just bring back the original and solve basically every problem immediately. I'm not even sure why they changed it.