List of 7.1 PvP Change Grievances

[Mawlzy]

Two weeks have given me enough time on the field to reach the following conclusions (based mostly on FL).

While job balance is not great, that was completely predictable and something one can work around to some degree.

The fundamental issue is that the mode is hyperactive in terms of movement speed, but seriously unresponsive in skill application. This is significantly magnified by the enormous amount of CC, some of which applies for way too long.

The net result is stop-start engagements and frustration, with skill expression even further reduced relative to 7.0.

I understand some people like Shatter. I don't.

Add to this the fact that a third of any team is lethargic at best, and a sub-population that is playing a game within a game on voice, and this is not a mode I have any interest in. Maybe the role actions in 7.2 will change my mind, but overall we seem to be going backwards.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

The fundamental issue is that the mode is hyperactive in terms of movement speed, but seriously unresponsive in skill application.

Posted this in another thread, but I'm gonna throw this in here to explain why the underlined part is happening to a variety but not all players. Felt like spreading the info a bit.

Honestly, to me the hit detection changes have actually been fairly beneficial and allowed me to do things I couldn't do otherwise, like moving AOEs before they go off so they snapshot better. I also do not have any issues with the Purify reaction time because it is nigh-instant for me, same for Guard - I guarded vs Primal Rend about 0.1s before impact the other day.

I am not discrediting the experience here, but there is clearly a factor they completely ignored when designing these changes - LATENCY.

For context I play at 10ms (10 Ping) as I live in Germany connecting to a german datacenter (Light + Chaos) through a VPN to ensure I get a direct connection with basically no hiccups. I literally do not have "any" issues regarding hitreg and anytime I miss, it's actually my fault.

Inversely, this means that this netcode is working, but is absolutely brutal at latency exceeding 50-70ms. Things like stuns hitting after pressing Guard making Guard go on cooldown, Resilience not protecting against follow-up CC in time, AOEs not landing (particularly position based AOEs like Holy Sheltron bomb, Impalement, Bioblaster, etc.) are MAJORLY affected by latency, as you are actually no longer snapshotting at a single point in time where you know the player is for sure, but you have to track them where they actually "might be".

It will favour you at low latency, it will be basically soft-gambling at high latency. Given North America Datacenter location(s) generally being unable to favour the entire region at once and JP being a relatively small region (geographically), it makes sense they did not consider high latency when designing the netcode changes.


"Technically" how it works is just different from what we are used to and can be learned, but our network infrastructure world wide does not allow for low latency gaming worldwide, let alone regionwide. As long as this is a factor, this will remain a problem, therefore this netcode without adjustments is flawed.

[Mawlzy]

Potentially important, agreed. But I am near the NA servers and am typically around 30ms and it feels lousy.

A large part of the "unresponsive" experience is a result of skills with long animations. They should rename "Primal Rend" "Primal When?"

I mentioned in another post it almost feels like the animation locks are being used to disguise latency/netcode issues.

[DendrielConcade]

I'd rather them to deal with AST/WHM combined to tanks being able to sustain for eons, which allows people to casually elixir again and again without their team disintegrating while they take their time, and see where we end up first. It's weird when you're in a team without an AST and tanks because suddenly your team feels incredibly brittle.

Because otherwise those solutions, honestly, even if I understand where you're coming from, don't sound fun to play with at all to me.

I appreciate the input, of course what I said is just suggestions at the end of the day that, if we're being honest won't probably ever make it to live no matter what I say. PvP in FF is fundamentally screwy with how things work, I've always seen Endwalker/Dawntrail PvP as almost being balanced like a Fighting Game, just poorly. This isn't a Hero Shooter or whatever, but due to that basically every class is capable of killing every class(with exceptions of course, don't ask me specifics though because I'm not a ranked player or super serious) which makes literal raw heals and regens stupid to deal with while still dealing good damage or CC/Debuffs. If you aren't stacked up with comically high burst damage/massive CC/a Limit that nulls peoples ability to live, then hunting someone down to prevent them from using Elixir is fruitless and you just gotta deal with a full reset person walking back into the fight casually in a tiny amount of time since stopping them is now a very very small punish window with how attacks are more delayed due to hits matching their animations more.

Like no option feels good because it just seemingly adds another issue, like how you wouldn't want to be standing around for 10 whole seconds to heal, or being stuck not being able to heal after you just did and got bursted down. Its another reason I absolutely hate the thing, damned if you do damned if you don't feeling.

[IDontPetLalas]

Potentially important, agreed. But I am near the NA servers and am typically around 30ms and it feels lousy.

A large part of the "unresponsive" experience is a result of skills with long animations. They should rename "Primal Rend" "Primal When?"

I mentioned in another post it almost feels like the animation locks are being used to disguise latency/netcode issues.

30 ms!!!!! That must feel incredible, being on the East coast I'm usually around 100ms. I would agree that animation locks do seem to be used as some type of mechanism to try to cope for some back-end issues, it would also seem to affect the jobs to different degrees.

By the way- on a separate topic- I've learned to keep a sense of humour in FL. Every once in a while (depending upon the patch, perhaps) , the latency will get particularly bad, I've had the enjoyable experience to dying to invisible opponents because they just shown up after I die

[Mawlzy]

30 ms!!!!! That must feel incredible, being on the East coast I'm usually around 100ms. I would agree that animation locks do seem to be used as some type of mechanism to try to cope for some back-end issues, it would also seem to affect the jobs to different degrees.

By the way- on a separate topic- I've learned to keep a sense of humour in FL. Every once in a while (depending upon the patch, perhaps) , the latency will get particularly bad, I've had the enjoyable experience to dying to invisible opponents because they just shown up after I die

I used to be limited by my PC, so yeah 30ms with no FPS issues is pretty sweet, but likely makes the animation locks more noticeable.

Agreed a sense of humor is a big help for multiple reasons.

[Loggos]

I think some of this was a feature in 7.0, and the hit detection changes made matters significantly worse in 7.1. Of the things you mention, I think the following are particularly galling and non-sensical:

1. A skill doesn't land because the target died, yet the skill still goes on cooldown. This is bad in general and completely incomprehensible when the animation does not even start.

2. Health steal via damage actions. This used to be somewhat reliable (e.g., WAR under bloodwhetting). In 7.1 it seems mostly ineffective, or at least unpredictable and based on the whims of hit detection.

Along with the other issues you mention, this leads to a situation where the game appears very fast (lots of motion), but skill application feels like you're playing on ketamine.

This was already a thing before 7.1. I've lost countless Wyrmwind Thrusts because I was polymorphed as I fired it, and even though the button was pressed, no damage or animation happened.

Yes because the damage resolution, even if calculated at snapshot, resolved later. Right now it still does resolve later (and sometimes much later depending on the skill), but whether it's calculated when it resolve due to the changes or not doesn't change the fact that the server thinks you pressed the button and used the skill anyway. Right now I'm getting ghosted Dances of the Dawn with no buff gained when I cast it on a target that dies too early before it lands.

That's the problem with increased delays like those, and the more time it takes for a skill to land, the more chances are that you'll either overkill/ghost/lose effects.

Thanks for the feedback! Then I know without a doubt now that I’m not imagining things at least and that it’s not just a problem on my end.

It sucks that this was already a thing before but I have the feeling that it happens a lot more often now (probably because of the things Valence explained). At least I don’t remember this level of unreliability before.
Esp. in situations where I was about to die I am relatively sure that I used to achieve “mutual” kills (or at least non-lethal counter hits) from time to time in the past because my last skill would still go off in time. That hasn’t happened once now.

Two other things I noticed:

When I get stunned I lose my skill without triggering an effect, which is probably the same thing Aco505 described when being polymorphed.

But, I think I have also observed entire AoEs being nullified when I hit someone guarding. Or perhaps it hits but now the guard effects (massively decreased damage and canceled effects) apply to the AoE as a whole?
I am certain that at least once or twice somebody who was not the target but stood directly in front of me and tanked a stun + damage beam right to the face was unaffected by it. And there are many more cases where I at least believe it happened. I could also swear Black Comet (12k circle AoE) gets eaten regularly when the target guards, leaving people standing right beside the guarding person and clearly still in the AoE’s range unscathed.

Are other people having the same problems or was I probably just weirdly unlucky (people pre-purifying or having shields in those moments without me catching it)? Because it feels as if it happens too often to be a coincidence.
But I'm really not sure on this one because I don't know if it even makes sense/could possibly happen from a technical standpoint.

[Valence]

It was not a problem before because like in pve calculations and effects were granted at snapshot, even if damage and healing resolved later.

[Loggos]

You mean AoEs (potentially) getting eaten by guard?
But that change in the calculation process should only be relevant for the person guarding right? Everybody else hit by the same AoE should suffer its full effect if they don't guard/mit etc.?

[illutian]

Late to the party, I know....

Biggest issue I have with the update to PVP. Is the Warrior's Primal Scream into Primal Wrath requirement...I have 15 seconds to use 3 weapon skills. But...there's a 2second GCD so that means 3 skills takes 6 second to execute. Leaving me with 9 seconds to fight against the horrible Tab-targeting (don't even get me started; and yes, I know what I'm talking about, I tried all the settings and their combinations). Then execute the attack while spinning to keep the target in front of me and in range.

But Oro doesn't count, which if off the GCD. Blota and Onslaught also don't count, but Inner Chaos (Blota morph) does.

This means I only have Fell Cleave, Primal Rend and Primal Ruination as "immediate use" abilities to trigger the 3 weapon skills.

So, what ends up happening is I pretty much never get Primal Wrath before it expires.

Meanwhile, Dragoon gets to instantly use their Sky Shatter upon executing Sky High.

As far as I know, Warrior is the only one that has a "charge up" (3 attacks) requirement on their Ultimate.

If it's the 'Bind' that's tripping us up and forcing the "charge up" (3 attacks) 'for balance'....just replace it with 'Heavy' then. Or remove the secondary effect all together. - Personally, I'd go for a second Inner Release "rebuff". That way we could 'pre-use' Primal Scream to setup for a wrecking crew charge in.