Revert Shatter back to the Original Map

[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:

[Rexxus]

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:

I've also been keeping track of the post-screen data. I'm up to 50 matches of Shatter since the revamp and in 48/50 of those - the team with the highest 'Data Retrieved from Enemy Forces' (IE: A more pvp focused team), was the winner.

96%

To anyone who is trying to make the claim that new Shatter is 'too PVE' - It isn't. Its incredibly frustrating to have half of your team running around gathering small ice, when they should be focused on fighting enemy teams - yes.

EDIT: What is truly frustrating about this map, and has always been frustrating (even in its previous iteration) - is that you can tell you are on a losing team within minutes of starting the match. Usually by the end of the first big ice exchange. And without one of the other two teams just completely falling apart, you have almost zero chance of recovery and are forced to just kind of go through the motions for another 10 minutes of a losing match. Which, for anyone who actually cares about wins, is incredibly frustrating.

[Guesswhat]

To anyone who is trying to make the claim that new Shatter is 'too PVE' - It isn't. Its incredibly frustrating to have half of your team running around gathering small ice, when they should be focused on fighting enemy teams - yes.

You're not wrong, but I think the argument is that the new shatter gives the "normie" little incentive to actually try and pvp, even more than the old shatter due to the fast spawn rate of the ice. In most of my fight so far, 8-9/10 times my team just runs to whatever ice is closest. "Do the objectivives pls", sigh... So, yes, the best obvious strat is to focus on the pvp part, but it's called pve because that is what ruins this mode.

[AnotherPerson]

I say the biggest difference between the two maps is how much time can be spent in actively PvPing against other players. The previous PvP shatter map allows a lot more flexibility and a lot less rigidity because nodes take time to spawn and are randomized/cannot be camped, thereby also opening skirmishes to best position yourself before the spawn. Old shatter map nodes certainly wasn't as abundant as it was currently, where engaging again results in losing more nodes in various locations -- and therefore a net loss to stay fighting.

It feels less than a PvP match, and more like "who can break the most ice wins". There's not much strategy to be had because there's a bunch of enclosures that keep you trapped from certain nodes and because there's always ice spawning in very short intervals that people generally don't stay fighting or they lose out on some incredibly large amount of points, making the optimal strategy to simply chase the nodes rather than create opportunities. I was hoping to see if I can find more nuances to counter this, but the map layout & frequency of node spawns prevents much of that in its design. There isn't much room TO maneuver around when you're losing when taking account of how the ice spawns and the map's layout design. Likewise, if you're winning, you stay in the lead, and there's not much anyone can do about it.

From my experience, the teams that PvP and win in the small times where nodes aren't spawning will pull ahead since they can get both the node and the players. However, because these periods are so infrequent and discouraged in the current shatter map, once you pull ahead, it's hard for either GC to come back and pull you down since they can easily get sandwiched in an unfavorable spot due to the map layout preventing a third team from easily leaving. I might not be the biggest fan of the old shatter map, but the old shatter map does miles better at giving players an advantage to turn the tides because it enables easier access & duration for either GC to retaliate against the winning GC.

All in all, if I wanted a PvE-style fight in a PvP mode, the new map is not it. It's certainly much more restrictive than any of the other maps so far. Maybe the new map will grow on me after I play it a couple more times, but so far the new map really doesn't feel enjoyable at all and gives an entirely bad sense of feeling in contrast to the other maps that are much more traversable. The amount of variations and actions that a GC can do are far too limited to make the new shatter map feel very dynamic due to the travel time to reach other nodes relative to their spawn rate. I'll have to play the map a couple more times to see if I can find any new strategies with the map layout, but so far it doesn't seem very likely.