Crystalline Conflict tweak for Casual/restoring casual play

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Ngl reading the idea of casual having exclusive rewards along with the shared reward pool (Wolfmarks, Trophy Crystals, Wolf Collars, Battlepass) while having none of the challenge and bite of Ranked is perhaps the third dumbest thing I have heard this week.

Casual participation is not suffering. Casual playerpool does have players like me (Diamond+, Top100 candidates) in there ripping people a new one. You will not fix that by making arbitrary walls to bar us from entering your spawn nor will you fix that with a magical fix-it-all matchmaker.

You fix it by making us stick in ranked because we have things to play for. Frankly, the reward from Bronze to Platinum is insulting and does not encourage participation of low-ranks in the slightest where Diamond + Crystal have "just" gotten their first actual Ranked rewards that arent paltry, carbon-copy portrait elements with each season. It's a start, but it doesn't fix low-rank participation nor are Augmented Hellhound weapons particularly eye-catching.

[Elfidan]

Ngl reading the idea of casual having exclusive rewards along with the shared reward pool (Wolfmarks, Trophy Crystals, Wolf Collars, Battlepass) while having none of the challenge and bite of Ranked is perhaps the third dumbest thing I have heard this week.

Well, that's pretty rude mister paragraph champion. I don't remember setting a bar for the obtaining of said rewards, and the point isn't to give them exclusives based on current participation.

Casual participation is not suffering. Casual playerpool does have players like me (Diamond+, Top100 candidates) in there ripping people a new one. You will not fix that by making arbitrary walls to bar us from entering your spawn nor will you fix that with a magical fix-it-all matchmaker.

Separating rewards is a thought toward not trading one dead queue for the other. I love how you skipped over the commentary on the need for better (or any) match making though.

You fix it by making us stick in ranked because we have things to play for. Frankly, the reward from Bronze to Platinum is insulting and does not encourage participation of low-ranks in the slightest where Diamond + Crystal have "just" gotten their first actual Ranked rewards that arent paltry, carbon-copy portrait elements with each season. It's a start, but it doesn't fix low-rank participation nor are Augmented Hellhound weapons particularly eye-catching.

There's like three people on the entire forum arguing against more rewards for ranked and they are only doing it because they are thinking about old top 100 rewards rather than an outlet for currency based on placement etc. Low level participation isn't the problem in ranked either or did you just stop playing? I wouldn't say high plat and all of diamond is low rank. Unranked through entry Plat still pops just fine. There's just the big dead spot between plat 1-2 and crystal. As it stands now unless you spam during the first week or two and have the skill you just won't hit crystal because there's no games to get from plat to crystal in.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Well, that's pretty rude mister paragraph champion. I don't remember setting a bar for the obtaining of said rewards, and the point isn't to give them exclusives based on current participation.

Ah, greetings Elfidan, overreacting to my opinion on the matter as always. I specifically meant that the idea is dumb, not that you are so there was no rudeness intended. If you still think it is, be my guest and strap in a helmet for protection. But I give you that, "paragraph champion" is quite an original insult, I actually kinda like it.

[1] Separating rewards is a thought toward not trading one dead queue for the other.
[2] I love how you skipped over the commentary on the need for better (or any) match making though.

1.) Having exclusive (desirable) rewards in Ranked will not lead to the death of queues in Casual Mode. The reason why Casual PvP (The Feast) had dead queues was due to the high bar of entry with the forced 1-1-1-1 team composition and high skill floor for healers. You also couldn't see which jobs were missing when queueing. While I believe that rewards for the general PvP playerbase could be upped (Trophy Crystal, Wolfmarks, Wolfcollars, Battlepass), I do not think "exclusive rewards in CC Casual Mode" is the way to go - not because I don't think they deserve it, but because I know that it will drive high ranks to further bite on casuals for the same rewards, making it a miserable experience for those who play casual mode exclusively. Casual Mode's key selling point is accessibility.

2.) I "skipped" it because A.) I don't see the benefit of arbtitrary pooling / segregation of the casual pool in an attempt to filter out skill differences (leading to inflated queue times OR same players each match) and B.) because I frankly do not have a lot of thoughts to share on the matter of matchmaking beyond this. I didn't intend to cherrypick, I simply don't have a lot to say about it.

There's like three people on the entire forum arguing against more rewards for ranked and they are only doing it because they are thinking about old top 100 rewards rather than an outlet for currency based on placement etc. Low level participation isn't the problem in ranked either or did you just stop playing? I wouldn't say high plat and all of diamond is low rank. Unranked through entry Plat still pops just fine. There's just the big dead spot between plat 1-2 and crystal. As it stands now unless you spam during the first week or two and have the skill you just won't hit crystal because there's no games to get from plat to crystal in.

Firstly, regional differences apply. While one region may have zero issues getting a particular tier to pop another may have issues. The reason I am saying this is because I am actively supporting aspiring pvpers in ranked and have heard issues getting low ranks to pop on Light DC for example. On the other hand our Plat-to-Crystal population is fairly active.

Regardless whether or not a particular datacenter has issues within a skill tier or not, at least one thing is true - the rewards for Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum are quite frankly not worth bothering for, which compared to the old days of Wolf collars was not the case. Even if you scored 2x Bronze and 1x Silver you still earned yourself a Hellhound weapon, as opposed to now you get... 1000-4000 Trophy crystals. And portrait elements that you might already own, with a different number.


Sincerely, your Paragraph Champion
Reinhardt Azureheim

[Elfidan]

Ah, greetings Elfidan, overreacting to my opinion on the matter as always. I specifically meant that the idea is dumb, not that you are so there was no rudeness intended. If you still think it is, be my guest and strap in a helmet for protection. But I give you that, "paragraph champion" is quite an original insult, I actually kinda like it.

It's not so much an insult as a title for those who fail to relate their opinions in a concise manner. If I had to guess I would say you're probably an academic of some sort. Perhaps a teacher or a lifetime language student.
'Don't take my statement of your idea being dumb as an insult.' That's very interesting.

1.) Having exclusive (desirable) rewards in Ranked will not lead to the death of queues in Casual Mode. The reason why Casual PvP (The Feast) had dead queues was due to the high bar of entry with the forced 1-1-1-1 team composition and high skill floor for healers. You also couldn't see which jobs were missing when queueing. While I believe that rewards for the general PvP playerbase could be upped (Trophy Crystal, Wolfmarks, Wolfcollars, Battlepass), I do not think "exclusive rewards in CC Casual Mode" is the way to go - not because I don't think they deserve it, but because I know that it will drive high ranks to further bite on casuals for the same rewards, making it a miserable experience for those who play casual mode exclusively. Casual Mode's key selling point is accessibility.

2.) I "skipped" it because A.) I don't see the benefit of arbtitrary pooling / segregation of the casual pool in an attempt to filter out skill differences (leading to inflated queue times OR same players each match) and B.) because I frankly do not have a lot of thoughts to share on the matter of matchmaking beyond this. I didn't intend to cherrypick, I simply don't have a lot to say about it.

1.) If you add a good enough reason to keep people playing and striving all season where will the time for casual be in their schedule? The Feast and the Fold before it died for a myriad of reasons. There weren't any rewards for lower tier players outside hellhound weapons which nobody cared about since the regularly added pve weapons generally just looked better. This is an issue they have brought forward into CC unfortunately. The initial kits weren't very inviting when players were used to standing and hitting or moving in set pattern while preforming a rotation. For the average player this was too much of an ask with the chaotic movement of actual players in combat. People complain about cheaters now but there were full on automated healers running around in matches back in the day. The forced 1 tank 1 healer 1 dps 1 ranged was a debatable choice. On one hand it did cause an increase in queue time but on the other at least you knew that when you lost there was a potential for a win from the start. I don't really think it would. Their already hanging out there 100% after the initial season start. Don't try anything different though because you might get a different result. I still think people miss the point of casual modes in games like this. It's intended for practice. People just play them more because there's no pressure on a loss(although people still get toxic here on ffxiv. Thanks community!).

2.) I see a lot of benefit to making sure 3+ crystal players don't end up on the same team v.s. 5 casual only players. That's like saying let's not have weight classes for boxing. A foolish point to skip if you were going to pass on anything I said.

Firstly, regional differences apply. While one region may have zero issues getting a particular tier to pop another may have issues. The reason I am saying this is because I am actively supporting aspiring pvpers in ranked and have heard issues getting low ranks to pop on Light DC for example. On the other hand our Plat-to-Crystal population is fairly active.

Regardless whether or not a particular datacenter has issues within a skill tier or not, at least one thing is true - the rewards for Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum are quite frankly not worth bothering for, which compared to the old days of Wolf collars was not the case. Even if you scored 2x Bronze and 1x Silver you still earned yourself a Hellhound weapon, as opposed to now you get... 1000-4000 Trophy crystals. And portrait elements that you might already own, with a different number.


Sincerely, your Paragraph Champion
Reinhardt Azureheim

You won't find a one size fits all solution. If you just add things to Ranked and call it a day we will be right back here responding to angry threads about how anyone past OP's rank is a cheater. All I'm saying is keep it equitable to continue playing that mode while making it more appealing to play ranked more often.

[Eastwall]

There are skill based match making, But maybe not as strict as call of duty. If some Top 100 destroy people in casual match, They will eventually get several games of Jimmy no thumb teammates to balance it out. I have seen a ninja that only uses the basic combo won a game because matchmaking gave him teammates that carried hard

[Elfidan]

I wouldn't believe that for a second Eastwall. I've seen the same teams matched 3-5 games in a row where it's a complete stomp. I wouldn't be surprised if it literally just took the first 10 divided into 5 unique jobs and fired a match. It would be in perfect keeping with everything else in FFXIV which is to say random. This is of course to say nothing of the people sabotaging the matches like petulant children because they aren't allowed to queue as a party and don't respect the request of the director to refrain from this behavior. But both of our experiences are anecdotal and not a proper sample that has been impartially reviewed.

I had three separate people today that basically just walked around the match or sat in the respawn. We were at 70% in the lead one game and our BRD died because he was trying to solo a BLM and he just checked out completely. We lost by the way.

I did look for it but failed to find a post rework interview where Yoshi was asked about match making and various things for casual replied something to the gist of 'Long queue time bad, so no'. Since I couldn't find it though we'll discount that though.

I'm starting to think consistency will always be a problem because frequent adjustments to pvp content in this game doesn't seem to matter to the development team. Also, there are a lot of people who make wild claims that any change is bad change and still others that want things to change in ways they used to be that were quite terrible. Something's got to give, and the beauty of life is it's always changing. If something doesn't work, then you've learned from that and can try again.

[Atreus]

I don't understand this. You want good players to just not be in your game? PvP is competitive by its very nature, ranked or not.

[Sinstrel]

OP,

I do have to remember that the majority of folks do not care about "getting good" and simply just want to play a few games for job xp and battle pass progress.

However, if you are interested in improving... Take advantage of the games you get that are blowouts by more experienced players than you. These are chances to play with teammates much higher ranked than you are that you would otherwise not be able to be paired with to learn from. Its what I have recommended to my FC mates, friends and fam and they've all made significant improvements over relatively short periods of time.

It will definitely suck being on the recieving end, but there will be times where you are on the winning side as well, where your team is steamrolling the other team. Take these opportunities to focus less on your gameplay and really observe how your teammates are playing. Assuming your team isnt actually a pre-made que-sync squad, you might be able to pick up a few new tricks from them or combine what you observe with your own flair and come up with something new.

[Valence]

I don't understand this. You want good players to just not be in your game? PvP is competitive by its very nature, ranked or not.

To be fair, if I was doing football one sunday out of two with my little cousin for one hour or two, and I was told that a pro player was going to participate as well from now on, I'm not sure I'd be especially thrilled about it.

But that's a problem on every multiplayer game that has a ranked ladder, and unranked quick matches. If one wants to make sure they play with similarly rated players, they need to play ranked. The problem being that ranked is sweaty, and has stakes (your rank) which a lot of players playing unranked don't want to deal with.

I'd like everybody in the game to actually have a hidden elo rating so that the matchmaker could take it into account even in casual, but let's be honest, even in casual that pops all day long (which is already a miracle, all praise yoshiprimal our lord and savior), you still end up with the same pool of players one game out of two, or even every game depending on the time of the day. At best you can hope that the system tries to balance out the ratings, but it won't magically make the good players being split from the more casual ones.

[Eastwall]

I wouldn't believe that for a second Eastwall. I've seen the same teams matched 3-5 games in a row where it's a complete stomp. I wouldn't be surprised if it literally just took the first 10 divided into 5 unique jobs and fired a match. It would be in perfect keeping with everything else in FFXIV which is to say random. This is of course to say nothing of the people sabotaging the matches like petulant children because they aren't allowed to queue as a party and don't respect the request of the director to refrain from this behavior. But both of our experiences are anecdotal and not a proper sample that has been impartially reviewed.

I had three separate people today that basically just walked around the match or sat in the respawn. We were at 70% in the lead one game and our BRD died because he was trying to solo a BLM and he just checked out completely. We lost by the way.

I did look for it but failed to find a post rework interview where Yoshi was asked about match making and various things for casual replied something to the gist of 'Long queue time bad, so no'. Since I couldn't find it though we'll discount that though.

I'm starting to think consistency will always be a problem because frequent adjustments to pvp content in this game doesn't seem to matter to the development team. Also, there are a lot of people who make wild claims that any change is bad change and still others that want things to change in ways they used to be that were quite terrible. Something's got to give, and the beauty of life is it's always changing. If something doesn't work, then you've learned from that and can try again.

That's fine if you believe it is random. I noticed that after l Do well, l would get 2 to 4 teammates that do bottom damage out of all 10 people. After l get destroyed for like usually 4 games, l would get easy opponents or skilled teammates again. I lean towards sbmm exists. It wouldn't make sense to not to exists. From a business perspective, you got to make sure bad players can win so they keep their interest