Would you want a new series from February till 7.0?

[Cynric]

First I would say I don't mind another series, I was able to do mine and I didn't have much time to play FFXIV this year at all.

snip.

Not that I don't agree with you, but what kind of rewards would you want to see them do?

Honestly my biggest struggle with this is I don't think they should return to mounts and armor FOMO style rewards. I just don't really know what they could give us that would make ranked worthwhile to do. Ideally in the past I've suggested that there could be mounts or armor, but with a currency you could only obtain by hitting top 100. Though this won't solve any of the issues if I'm being honest.
I think the only thing that actually might solve the issue would be some sort of ranking decay.

But even that is only a bandaid fix. So I'm personally kind of stuck on what should come from ranked. I think the commendation crystals at least offers us a currency to use, though it is very under utilized and the Hellhound upgrades weren't really that big of a deal. The other problem with those crystals is they're very easy to obtain and don't require continued ranked participation. After I saw Vipers trailer even though I was in school I just went and quickly got crystal in about 3 days of very little play then I had no reason to go back into ranked. Not that I should've been forced to do so mind you, but it does show that rewards like that don't necessarily do the job of increasing participation. That's when I realized that no matter what you give, it might struggle to increase participation.

While the Mounts and Armor were here they did not increase participation very much from season to season either. Some seasons were a bit more populated due to them existing, however at the higher end most people just obtained ranks early and sat, this prevented players from moving up through the lower ranks and into the higher ranks. They did however decrease participation from season to season by a large amount, most seasons that ran rerun items, or unattractive items were underplayed so much that the floors were sometimes even at Silver rank. It may seem like there was an increase in more valued items, but realistically it was just everyone playing for something they were scared would go away. Most people didn't even want to play, but felt forced to in order to get items.

However, the biggest determining factor from season to season was how square handled updates. Every expansion they changed pvp, and every time it had less players. When CC started they had a perfect storm of everyone staying at home due to the pandemic, a new more user friendly pvp, and a fresh update chain. But since then, they haven't done very much overall to improve CC and PvP, instead we're basically waiting for Dawntrail for things to improve. They had many questionable balances as well.

So like that's a lot to say tl;dr : Better rewards in the past haven't worked well, participation rewards like commendation crystals won't help the higher ranks, what should be offered to players in order to get them to actually queue up and continue playing in your opinion? Do you feel like ranked decay would be more helpful?

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

-snip-

First of all, we need to honestly start relinquishing the blind fear of FOMO for Ranked. There is a difference between event FOMO that essentially gets people to buy a sub for a time-limited reward and ranked top 100 FOMO that is intended for active ranked players that already play the game and are there to duke it out for a big prize. Yes they are time-limited, but they are also amount-limited; they are trophies first and foremost, not everyone is supposed to have them (I think that's their idea) and people who have them should stand out. One drives sub number actvitiy, the other drives high-end ranked fierceness and quality.

Secondly, we wouldn't need 100% unique rewards for Top 100 - they could take the battlepass rewards and change the colours, add an additional glow or in case of mounts add additional parts like armour or halos. Example - Archfiend set was black-silver with red glow. A Top 100 set would be the same except the red is now blue/green. Similar, but unique enough to drive engagement for high-end. Example 2 - Fierce Tyrant's set, make the cloth blue/purple and boom, good armour both on battlepass AND Top 100.

Anyhow, that is just Top 100 ranting, which they EASILY could have not completely ravaged since CC season 1 but decided to do so and the activity and engagement of the high level players really had to bleed for it. The fact that we no longer have a reason to reach top 100 AND defend our position is a driving factor to high-end game quality bleeding out.

For starters, all ranks need ranked-only rewards that aren't what we have right now. Currency akin to Trophy Crystals that lets you buy stuff from a vendor that gets filled with desireable items. NOT just Augmented Hellhound Weapons. Something that would drive you to play season after season, even if you are just in low ranks like Silver or Gold. Maybe armour glow augmentation of various sets, like beams of light around the Virtu PLD set, dark flames around the Virtu DRK set, maybe simply unique items and mounts tied to it. Hell, Replica versions of the Feast Top 100 items could work (though that one is controversial taking the devs and JP players into account).

But yeah, they really dropped the ball since 6.1. Some balance changes here and there, two new maps but nothing else to show for. This is not what I expect of treatment of a staple sub-gamemode in an MMORPG. They DID improve the casual experience quite a bit and PvP is more accessible than ever but I don't understand why SE ripped every reason out of Ranked to be played. What I further don't understand is a lot of players now utterly refuse the idea of Ranked to have any rewards at all like as if we want to go full reversal of pre 6.1 where casuals get nothing interesting - we want both playerpools to have incentivisation. They can coexist, but the blind hate makes things a lot harder and is honestly a bit unfair given how much old time PvPers were clamouring for the casuals to have some cool stuff too. The full reversal is grating.


To your TL;DR:
- Better rewards have helped the bracket that did play - which was Diamond and Top 100. Before those brackets the rewards were equally shit if not more shit.
- Pre-6.1 PvP also had to contend with Feast 1-1-1-1 forced roles and cookie cutter action setup for trinity MMO pvp. This made Feast training extremely inaccessible and certain roles a nightmare to play outside of Frontline.
- Ranked decay in a setting with no rewards to care for holds no meaning. If there were actual desirable Top 100 rewards (i.e. the only bracket rank decay makes sense for) then it would help with top-end queues, but it won't help bottom-end.

[Cynric]

snip

Thanks that honestly makes a lot of sense.

For the FOMO rewards part, at least personally I don't like the idea of it because I don't really like FOMO items in general. I do think that there needs to be some sort of reward increase though, and as you say there are a lot of options for it. It's just not my ideal solution to the issue, but I do understand that there aren't many things they can offer. I like the idea of adding enhanced versions of existing gear that you can change the look of personally.

Anything they do would certainly be better than a different number on the same reward.

I also understand what you say about decay, it wouldn't really help with nothing to fight for.

Thanks for your answer, I'm really hoping things get much better in Dawntrail.

I pretty much agree with you, though I don't like the idea of FOMO rewards returning, I feel like they'll need to do something to change the reward structure because currently it's just really not worthwhile.