Can we have the hellhound gearset available to buy with Trophy Crystals?

[Bonoki]

Ranked competitive gameplay should not be treated as everyday content that all players can get rewards for. Elite players should be rewarded.

And I'm saying that as a player who is not that skilled by any means, if they add new top 10 rewards I'll probably never get them. If they add week 1 clear rewards, or 1st place competition rewards, or whatever, I'll never get any of that. And frankly that should be perfectly ok.

Right now the situation is that there was a first place ribbon given out, and not only do the people in last place who already got a shiny participation ribbon think they should be able to be able to get a 1st place ribbon too, but the people sitting on the bench and anyone else who didn't even participate also wants to be able to get one.

We may not see eye to eye on this matter, and that's perfectly fine. However, I believe there's a misinterpretation in your definition of an "elite player." The current state of affairs offers flawed matchmaking systems and leaderboards tainted by cheaters and various issues suggesting that leaderboard rankings are less a reflection of skill and more a testament to the time invested. Even under these circumstances, individuals with a strong desire for rewards can strategically transfer to low-population data centers like Dynamis, significantly improving their odds of breaking into the top 100 compared to other data centers.

The current situation highlights that the prestigious "first place ribbon," so to speak, has been unfairly awarded to some individuals who manipulated the system. Consequently, there's a widespread desire for a second chance—an opportunity, wherever it may arise, to pursue these rewards once more. Ideally, this opportunity would remain unconstrained by time limits, granting players a fair chance at success regardless of whether they stumbled on their initial attempt or joined the game later in its lifecycle. The points I've raised apply equally to the Ishgardian Restoration titles, extending beyond just the PvP aspects of the game.

Edit:
Moreover, I firmly believe that these "rewards" should be account-wide, particularly if they're gated. This approach would help curb the practice of players utilizing multiple alternate characters (alts), which only serves to further deplete the already scarce pool of rewards, often benefiting the same individual multiple times.

[PotatoTree]

...

I agree on the point that ranked rewards should be account wide. One reason is that some seasons I want to play multiple roles, but practicing healer on a character in top 100 would just be griefing my team. But on my alt with enough practice I made it to top 100 too. Would be nice to have all the alts linked and just take the highest score, or have a way to play on a single char all the roles. Like job-based top 100 or something that the Firmament did with crafting.

I don't disagree that there were cheaters, but honestly once you get experienced this was easy to spot, and there weren't actually that many. People assume old pvp was just 95% cheaters, when it was just a few bad apples. Granted later on in seasons 15+, if you were on Primal you would never be able to get top 10 due to a literal cartel of cheating forming, but for top 100 it was all fair game still.

And the fact that there were plenty of players who got top 100 without cheating gives evidence that everyone here could do it too if they tried. It was not something impossible. In current top 100 CC you'll find the players still play like apes, so if you just play a tiny bit better then top 100 is yours.

I personally don't care people data transfer for easier games, on other DCs you get less games so each loss you had back then in feast was more impactful, so you trade losing some competition to having less games and requiring every win, while still competing against all the other players and alts that had the bright idea of transferring. Even then, this wasn't cheating and within the rules, if you want the top 100 do whatever it takes to win. For example if a job was overpowered people shouldn't criticize you for climbing on that job, and anyone who does should just swap to that job if they want to win instead of complaining.

And on another note I'd like to distinguish between actual cheating with hacks, vs. cheating by wintrading, vs cheating by buying a top 100 from a pilot:
- hacks like stuff that made you invincible or fly around were basically non existent, or banned within the week.
- there were scripts that did stuff like auto silence you LB at seasons 18+, which were also rare and the users would be obvious. It was also easy to play around, especially with how much slower feast was compared to CC. Often it would hurt them more than help, since they wouldn't use their biggest silence in the burst and just wait for your LB all game which you'd use behind a wall.
- wintrading happened, but it was just a few bad apples (unless going for top 10 on Primal in the later seasons)
- buying a top 100 is whatever imo, since this player wasn't actively griefing my games and they were still playing to win. I don't really distinguish this from a real player trying to get top 100, whether or not the reward was deserved is on their conscience only.

[Chasingstars]

Nobody every asks about ultimate relics or other big titles and such, because everyone has them nowadays.

Because ultimates and their relics and titles are evergreen content. More people have the field commander's coat from the seal rock achievement than they do top 100 ranked, because its evergreen content, its within someones reach.

While ranked feast seasonal stuff was cool looking and as a walking advertisement to try and incentivize ranked play, it didn't pull in the numbers they wanted. Which is why every new mount and new armor set that might've been for feast originally, gets released as part of the season pass style of content, where any player can get it, that it just asks time and patience to do so. In a sense, ranked pvp for top 100 players was a mistake that creates a walled garden of a community, which is not what they want. Those walking advertisements that can come from any style of content like a mount, weapon, armor, title, or even minion are to encourage old and new players to go play and earn that same thing years later and therefore naturally get players to interact with that very content.

Like when they have the FF16 crossover event, that is to get people to engage not only with the questline and solo encounter, but also to get people to interact with the gold saucer in a more natural form. And just recently with Yokai Watch, that incentivizes even more for old and returning players to engage with the event naturally by also introducing a new framer's kit that just simply requires interacting with the gold saucer's content. Same with the Garo event, but for pvp.

Because while its nice to get a tell or two about having a fancy and rarely seen mount, that same mount also kills any interest in the very thing you want more people to join in on. Because the inevitability will always be:
Random Player: "Hey where did you get that cool mount?"
Top 100 Player: "Oh I got it from pvp."
Random Player: "Cool, I will work on that later."
Top 100 Player:"Sorry this was the prior season's reward, its not available anymore.""

While true this can still apply to seasonal pass stuff, there is at least the caveat, that other players can gain interest within those same months as you did to earn that very same thing. And that previous seasonal rewards from the season pass, at least according to Yoshi P, will be available later.

Which is why they can only give ranked players a framer's kit. Because that item is the least likely thing to cause disinterest in the content.

[Commander_Justitia]

Impressive, very nice. Let's see some more 10000letter post arguments.

The potato is right though. If you don't win, you lose. I know it's a hard concept for some.

[Doozer]

If you want me to stand by something, I personally think you do not deserve the reward if you are not skilled enough. So are you skilled enough?

That is probably the cringiest thing I've ever seen on the forums, trolls included. If someone has something, it doesn't matter if you think they have skill. "Deserve". Get out of here.

[PotatoTree]

That is probably the cringiest thing I've ever seen on the forums, trolls included. If someone has something, it doesn't matter if you think they have skill. "Deserve". Get out of here.

So that's a no then? Let's ignore any past fomo rewards, even in current CC you have some ranked participation experience right? Please tell me you have some teeth in the game outside of "I just want the shiny loot"?

Because for example if I never even attempted Necromancer, why should my opinion on PoTD balance/rewards/gameplay or whatever even matter? The same applies here.

[PotatoTree]

Because ultimates and their relics and titles are evergreen content. More people have the field commander's coat from the seal rock achievement than they do top 100 ranked, because its evergreen content, its within someones reach.

More people have the field commander coat because it's literally free to get. You can queue in and afk and eventually get it.

I'm pretty sure the amount of people enticed to play ranked pvp by seeing a reward could be counted on on hand, as evidenced by the fact that there were like 30 actual participants for top 100 in feast even with all the rewards and ads. People just don't want to do ranked, cause it's "stressful".

CC being much less stressful while having nothing for rewards is way more popular.

I still think this proposal would be the most fair:

1. Make the previous rewards from actual top 100 glow/shiny. Re-release non shiny ones for the masses. Now old players won't be disappointed that it was "harder" to top 100 in feast, or they were working for a reward they were promised wouldn't be re-released but now is.
2. The non shiny ones will be obtained from top 100, from any season, but not as trade in from random crystals you can just sit an afk grind for.

There, new players can get "evergreen" rewards, and it's still competitive because you have to still get top 100, and old players are not disappointment.

[Duskane]

always funny how fast these threads fill up

[Chasingstars]

I still think this proposal would be the most fair:

1. Make the previous rewards from actual top 100 glow/shiny. Re-release non shiny ones for the masses. Now old players won't be disappointed that it was "harder" to top 100 in feast, or they were working for a reward they were promised wouldn't be re-released but now is.
2. The non shiny ones will be obtained from top 100, from any season, but not as trade in from random crystals you can just sit an afk grind for.

There, new players can get "evergreen" rewards, and it's still competitive because you have to still get top 100, and old players are not disappointment.

It doesn't quite fix that problem though, the goal post has simply been moved. As instead of someone being like "I wish I had that armor" it would be "I wish I had that glowy armor". Obviously until we know otherwise that armor in general is off limits to other players.

A better thing to do incentivize ranked play would be to an achievement with a requirement of reaching crystal rank in ranked CC and being at least #100. As that would be a more natural way to get players to pursue trying to get up to higher ranking placements. For subsequent seasons you can have more achievements like that. Where there is eventually 100 achievements but each one is for earning a different spot in crystal rank, eventually asking the player to pursue being #1. Which also means a hypothetical total of 100 seasons of ranked play worth in rewards.

That way its still evergreen rewards and content yet it makes a player work for that reward by asking them to climb very high.

[Nyxs]

Make all the old rewards through all past pvp content an option through trophy crystals or wolf collars. People like to collect mounts etc so having ones they cant get sucks. Lets be honest most of them who got them dont use them anyways so it doesn't harm anyone to let them fill in their collection or have new things to wear. Besides alot of things they claimed were limited time only have been brought back that I am sure pvpers have indulged in.