Failing to address multiplayer in PVP is a mistake

[ovIm]

Entire communities could form around this gameplay and yet SE insists on making it a solo experience. It's truly baffling.

Sometimes it feels like Square likes their solo experience too much..

However, it also makes me wonder if the pool of PVP Players is so low that Square also does that to ensure fast duty pops. Cause if we do end up allowing duo and trio queues, we essentially divide the amount of players available to DF. That's something people will only be able to assume though, I fear.

[undull1]

Sometimes it feels like Square likes their solo experience too much..

Oh god, I can already picture it....

"In response to player feedback we will be spending all PvP resources on implementing solo trust PvP with all your favourite scions.
Maps and jobs will be adjusted accordingly, please enjoy it!"

[Ritsugamesh]

To be fair, a lot of these before-mentioned 5v5 games already have "bot matches" where its you with 4 AI against 5 AI, or you and 2-4 humans against 5 AI. Play 'em on easy, and it's so scripted you can play with your eyes closed, play 'em on hard and the AI literally cheats, lol. Said modes still see activity though, with the only caveat being that the human players (regardless of how many) receive reduced rewards, usually half, compared to playing a "real" match and most if not all achievements aren't counted. Given how many players only queue PVP in FF14 for marks/crystals/tomes/XP, it *could* be an avenue to funnel low/zero skill players out of the normal version. (Though what affect that would have on queue times of the normal mode when the majority moves out of it...)

That said, HELL NO to premades in Crystaline Conflict. They're already a goddamn blight in Frontlines and Rival Wings, and that's still taking into account the RNG of the rest of the team. Only 5 people with that level of coordination? Absolute clown show where solo queue folks would just give up and not try (thereby bringing the same lethargy that premades brought to Frontlines/Rival Wings). The only way it could work is if premades got splintered off into their own separate queue, but I don't know if we have the numbers to sustain that either.

The problem with PVP in general in FF14 is that there's one group that wants to turn it into sweaty all-day competition, another group that just wants to faff about and get their goodies, and there's the third group stuck in the middle who just wants non-obnoxious PVP but keeps getting forced to deal with the first two groups. Suggestions have been made before to divide them into different tiers & queues (ranked/premade for the hardcore, bots for the zipcore, and what we have now for everyone else), but it always comes back to one issue: Would there be enough people to populate each mode and the answer is always a big fat "EH... I DON'T KNOW".

I swear to god people don't even read the 'other side' of the argument. Nobody wants a 5 stack premade stomping 5 solo players. That is so obviously a terrible idea it amazes me people think this is what is requested. Literally no game with PVP would do this, can we stop already.

If a duo is in the match, the matchmaker puts a duo on the other team. Literally perfectly balanced and duo q is implemented. Job done. How is this so hard to comprehend?

[Ath192]

Eh... I've played stuff like Smite, Paladins, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, and League of Legends and it happens quite often that a group of solo players is put up against a team and gets bodied. Maybe those games *try* to put premades against premades, but when no other premades are around... they absolutely will throw the solo queue to the wolves, or they'll sic a full stack onto a duo and such because "technically" its team vs team.

Hell, that's exactly what happens now in Frontlines, where all it takes is one 4-man/8-man stack of "friends" to shut down the whole match and reduce the other 64/68 players to NPCs who get to watch, zero guardrails there either to prevent premade abuse to the point there's entire Discords centered around "taking turns" so said premades can avoid each other because, and this part is hilarious, a lot of Frontline premades in FF14 *don't* want to fight other premades, they just want easy wins against uncoordinated fodder.

And maybe you only want duos vs duos, but we'll have someone else coming in here asking for trios, and so forth and so on until Crystaline Conflict is having to separate and main 5 different kind of queues because even just a 2-man versus a 5-man will end poorly for the duo in that equation. If you have a problem with people hating on premades though, take it up with the people who soured the whole concept for several years on Frontlines, to the extent that we just automatically assume anyone wanting it for CC is just out to abuse solo players too but in their preferred mode.

Even if you personally had no ill intentions and actually do want competition against other teams, that makes you rarer than you think.

I completely disagree with your argument because it just screams of a bunch of reason why you should just give up. And you know, maybe thats why PVP has always died in this game. Sure all the games you mention have their issues, but they are thriving or thrived because even if sometimes stuff happens they are ultimately fun to play even if not perfect.

So taking your friends away from you as a safeguard against potential multiplayer imbalances is just about the worse thing you can do. Literally any other balancing system is better than isolating you so you can't play with your friends.

[ArchlordPie]

I swear to god people don't even read the 'other side' of the argument. Nobody wants a 5 stack premade stomping 5 solo players. That is so obviously a terrible idea it amazes me people think this is what is requested. Literally no game with PVP would do this, can we stop already.

If a duo is in the match, the matchmaker puts a duo on the other team. Literally perfectly balanced and duo q is implemented. Job done. How is this so hard to comprehend?

Your post is funny because I've played League of Legends since season 3, Overwatch since launch, Heroes of the Storm since launch... all of these are PVP-centric games and ALL OF THEM can and do regularly throw full teams of solo players up against full-size premades, specifically because queue times are supposed to be no longer than a minute or two, but the premade has been in queue for half an hour and matchmaking just wants to put them in a game already.

Overwatch in particular got so much grief for this that eventually, Blizzard changed matchmaking to intentionally skew MMR balancing when premades are involved, to the point where if you're in a full-size premade, everyone in your premade is bronze, and you get matched against a full solo team, the solos will all be gold and platinum and steamroll you through skill difference alone. I get that they were trying to override the community's perception of "5-stack vs solos, I'm best off leaving the game or inting to get it over with faster", but it ruined the game for my friend group and most of us uninstalled after we went multiple extended sessions without a single win. Eventually someone went and looked up our opponents and that's how we found out.

[Ritsugamesh]

Your post is funny because I've played League of Legends since season 3, Overwatch since launch, Heroes of the Storm since launch... all of these are PVP-centric games and ALL OF THEM can and do regularly throw full teams of solo players up against full-size premades, specifically because queue times are supposed to be no longer than a minute or two, but the premade has been in queue for half an hour and matchmaking just wants to put them in a game already.

Overwatch in particular got so much grief for this that eventually, Blizzard changed matchmaking to intentionally skew MMR balancing when premades are involved, to the point where if you're in a full-size premade, everyone in your premade is bronze, and you get matched against a full solo team, the solos will all be gold and platinum and steamroll you through skill difference alone. I get that they were trying to override the community's perception of "5-stack vs solos, I'm best off leaving the game or inting to get it over with faster", but it ruined the game for my friend group and most of us uninstalled after we went multiple extended sessions without a single win. Eventually someone went and looked up our opponents and that's how we found out.

This just isn't true, certainly not League of Legends. It has a cap at duos, then it has a separate queue for 3+ teams. Queues are like 30s to 5 mins at absolute most. Please no misinformation if you're trying to put an argument out there.

[Kinazu]

This just isn't true, certainly not League of Legends. It has a cap at duos, then it has a separate queue for 3+ teams. Queues are like 30s to 5 mins at absolute most. Please no misinformation if you're trying to put an argument out there.

In particular for League, you're right. This isn't true anymore. Because Riot changed it later in the game's lifespan. However, this was the case in the past, it was a real thing. Be happy you never got a chance to experience it, because it wasn't fun at all when it happened.