My take on why FFXIV PvP is unsatisfactory.

[Reese_Clairdale]

Thanks for the support and replies, everyone.

they NEED to drive PvE focused players to engage in PvP. People who often have no interest in PvP, and just do so for quick rewards, and who have limited experience with PvP in general. This manifests in lack of map awareness, being unable to coordinate with their team, and not prioritizing high value targets. This may not be noticed so much in CC, but in Frontlines and Rival Wings (When it does pop) it's infuriating when you are trying to play to win, and your team is just running around aimlessly, or attacking third place for no logical reason. PvP in this game requires team based cooperation, and coordination. Something that NA players especially aren't capable of doing naturally.

If they started with a more unifying vision for the game it would have resulted in a more tightly knit and engaged playerbase for all facets of the game, for sure. Unfortunately the game is well past that point, and forcing people to learn modes they simply don't like always ends in disaster. I think the problem for FFXIV PvP specifically in this regard is that Final Fantasy as a franchise is deeply rooted in the single player, linear, slow paced, story driven experience. That's completely fine on its own, but the developers have a responsibility to realize that leveraging the FF name for an MMO will inherently attract at least two very different playerbases. Once upon a time, story was actually tied to PvP somewhat in the sense that your chosen Grand Company was also your chosen Frontlines team, there was no optional and later forced freelancer system. Maybe this was their attempt at trying to get lore driven players more emotionally invested in PvP, but it's ancient history now. One thing that Guild Wars 2 has implemented recently to alleviate this issue is allowing people to define their own daily tasks. Players can go all-in on PvE, PvP, WvW, or any mix of the three. Basically, a player that doesn't like PvP is never forced to engage with it to maximize their daily rewards.

I wish for is a wider variety of objectives that FORCE teams to split up into offensive, and defensive teams. Most of FFXIV PvP modes force you to work within a single "Deathmob". It's restrictive. I don't enjoy it.

I think this is something they should definitely consider, but the more immediate problem to me that instigates the "Deathmob" or "Deathball" tactics is that kills are far too rewarding compared to points from objectives. Not only does the killing team gain points and a damage buff in the form of Battle High stacks, the weaker team loses points and Battle High for dying. Regardless of the map, stacking as many kills as possible is always the quickest path to victory, but this effect is exaggerated even further in Shatter since Battle High increases damage on the ice objectives.

Maps similar to Warsong Gulch, and Arathi Basin on WoW I feel have potential to be highly successful in an FFXIV pvp format, if they had the balls to implement it.

I agree that adding more WoW style modes for FFXIV would only be beneficial. Yoshi-P insists that WoW is the greatest MMO of all time, so he might as well steal more things that are actually good. For anyone that isn't familiar, Warsong Gulch is just a traditional 2 team Capture the Flag mode, and Arathi Basin is a sort of King of the Hill / Conquest mode.

Initially, the only Frontlines map in FFXIV was Borderland Ruins: Secure, which actually started out quite similar to Arathi Basin, just with 3 teams. After they altered the map with additional ramps to access the neutral areas faster, it made the side nodes far less defensible, which may have been the first misstep into Frontlines tactics devolving into the dreaded Deathball.

It felt like they had 20 faders on a sound board to play with, and set them all at new places because the resultant noise was, to them, pleasing.

This is a great way of summing it up as well. It's like they were trying to usher in a new era of music, but instead created a bizarre genre that nobody wants to dance to.

One aspect of FL that has never been utilized correctly, at least on Aether, is each team has three alliances. Even with the current objectives and maps, those alliances could often accomplish more by working independently. But how does one arrange that? You can encourage it with more interesting design, as Archeron suggests, but if a third of the team doesn't really want to be there anyway, I am not optimistic how it will play out.

This is relevant to my comments about the original Borderland Ruins mode. In the very early days it was beneficial to have the teams split and defend because holding side nodes generated significant points over time. The prevailing strategy was that Alliance A would rush the left neutral base from spawn, C would go right, and B would act as the skirmisher team that would assist A or C, then tackle the drones that spawned in mid. No subsequent map was designed quite like this.

...a cap to aoe targets

I've seen this mentioned in a lot of different PvP threads, it's something that Guild Wars 2 implemented a while back to prevent a small team of elite players from obliterating an army of 20+ casual players in WvW. Crowd control AoEs now have a limited number of charges before they expire early, and damage AoEs can only affect a very limited number of targets. I think this was a feature to definitely consider for 6.1, but since you can walk out of many AoEs in 7.1 I'm not sure it's so necessary now. Time will tell.

Death balls in FLs used to be a lesser issue before they increased mount speed.

Great point. Changes like this are very insidious, because they can easily be passed off as QoL features. Quality of life doesn't necessarily translate into quality of gameplay.

The game is made with japanese internet infrastructure in mind

This is an unfortunate truth as well, and something I avoided mentioning simply because I didn't want to dial my initial nerd-out to 11. Long story short, Just by observing player's movements in fast paced combat, it's clear that the server's tick rate is quite low. Tick rate defines how fast the game relays information per second between players. As far I can tell, lag compensation algorithms also are either minimal or non-existent. The only reason why I've enjoyed some success in PvP in recent years is because when they did the great server migration, they moved into an area where I had single digit ping. It was nigh unplayable before this.

[Sinstrel]

Not sure how new/old OP is to PvP in XIV, but jobs usually go through a significant overhaul with every expansion where new abilities are added to all jobs. This is true in many other games as well, most notably WoW. Where the class/job identity often changes drastically as a result of new skills being added/removed on expansion launch.

It may seem quite jarring if this is only your first or 2nd time experiencing this, but it happens with every expansion. You can find PvP videos of the jobs throughout each expansion and see how drastically they change every 2 years.

In my opinion, this is healthy for the game. I can't imagine playing PvP with Stormblood actions barely changing 6 years later.

[Reese_Clairdale]

Not sure how new/old OP is to PvP in XIV.

I've been playing since before PvP was implemented, but it didn't really catch my interest until Frontlines was added. My goal with this topic was to strike at the heart of FFXIV combat in general and avoid dwelling on any particular patch for too long. If I recall correctly, 7.1 is the first patch that has implemented such drastic changes to the underlying behaviors of skills regardless of what expansion they come from, which is what prompted me to make this thread.

jobs usually go through a significant overhaul with every expansion where new abilities are added to all jobs. This is true in many other games as well, most notably WoW. Where the class/job identity often changes drastically as a result of new skills being added/removed on expansion launch.

I am very keenly aware of this. The entire reason I finally activated my forum account was to show my disdain and give my feedback on the state of 6.1 Samurai in PvE. I had finally settled on a true main job in 4.0, but this patch, at least for me, finally warped it beyond recognition. The only thing that kept me playing through Endwalker was the 6.1 PvP changes were overall a massive step in the right direction IMO, despite the extra work that was clearly needed to bring Frontlines back to a more balanced state. In regards to WoW, I played from 2004 to around mid-late 2010. I decided to drop the game specifically because they detailed their plan to literally and figuratively destroy the world with the Cataclysm expansion. All I could think of at that time was if they were willing to do that, then they were probably willing to destroy more of the class design and other gameplay aspects as well. As I mentioned in the preface of my original post, none of the games I am mentioning are perfect, but there's still some particular aspects that are genuinely innovative or have stood the test of time, which all games can learn from.

In my opinion, this is healthy for the game. I can't imagine playing PvP with Stormblood actions barely changing 6 years later.

Have to completely disagree here. The Ship of Theseus / Revolving door approach to job design in FFXIV means that a job that is beloved to you one moment can be quickly murdered in the next patch or expansion. This applies to both PvE as well as PvP. All of the drastic changes they have imposed over the years could have been implemented as part of a custom trait system or entire new jobs.

[Sinstrel]

If I recall correctly, 7.1 is the first patch that has implemented such drastic changes to the underlying behaviors of skills regardless of what expansion they come from, which is what prompted me to make this thread.

This has happened in every X.1 patch since Stormblood actually. From Directly using PvE actions in PvP, to a complete overhaul with Stormblood PvP Actions, to then another overhaul with Shadowbringers PvP with potions that scale with HP lost, to Endwalker's complete overhaul of all PvP job actions, and to 7.1's improved iteration of Endwalker PvP actions. Every X.1 patch with every new expansion.

For example, DRG went from brawler melee, to next a rapid fire continuous pressure ranged "melee," to then high burst pressure melee, to a tankier iteration (introduction of horrid roar) with decent mix of the previous three iterations. The fundamental behavior of how the job plays has changed considerably in PvP throughout the expansions.

Many DRG who were very accustomed to playing it as a ranged dps have had a lot of trouble adapting to its now tankier high risk high reward playstyle with horrid roar + Geirskogul vuln up mechanics. I use DRG as an example because that's what I mostly play, but the same is true for other jobs, Dancer is another good example of how it used to actually need to perform dance steps in PvP and has since had its playstyle pretty drastically changed.

You might even remember the bland and generic LB's that each role had prior to Endwalker PvP. I'd say going from playing MCH doing line AoE limit breaks to fishing for analysis chainsaw 3% insta kills and Marksman's Spite 1-shot combo's is a very drastic change as well.

All of the drastic changes they have imposed over the years could have been implemented as part of a custom trait system or entire new jobs.

But I do see your reasoning here. I do think that right now, the PvP job actions are in a pretty solid state fundamentally. I really like that each job has their own limit break and an amazing job identity/class fantasy. Whenever I play DRG, I really feel like a DRG. Same for the other jobs as well. I think a custom trait system could work really well now that we have such a good foundation for the jobs.

Like I think it would be very interesting if each job got 2 limit breaks to choose from every expansion. Keeping the LB we have now as a foundation, and then with each expansion adding a new LB option that you can choose from similar to how we used to be able to choose role actions before queing into PvP. Summoner already has 2 different LB's so I think this is an entirely reasonable request.

It would also give players some ability to slightly adjust their jobs to their own playstyles, or create new metas each expansion/season with theorycrafting how to mix/match LB's in party comps (mostly custom matches but also very interesting to see how the solo que meta would evolve). This could go really hard if they also gave us a ranked and/or custom match 8v8v8 Frontline with party finder teams.

[Reese_Clairdale]

My original post wasn't simply discussing swapping out old skills for new expansion skills, shifting potency numbers around, or conditional effects. Those are all things that are expected and clearly stated in update notes and in-game descriptions, thankfully. What I was talking about was the changes that went on under the hood, altering the behavior of existing skills. To use a Monk skill as an example, Phantom Rush in 6.1 dealt its damage instantly. After 7.1 it's dealt near the end of the animation. If you read my original post, this is what I am talking about when I mention vague terms. This new behavior is not explicitly mentioned anywhere, and historically, the exact timing for all skills has never been mentioned anywhere at any point in time. You would think that this information would be extremely vital to mastering PvP, but apparently not to SE.

[Valence]

I honestly have the feeling that FLs being about big death balls is what SE has in mind when they design for it. They just want to replicate that Carteneau cinematic trailer with armies clashing in a big epic mess. They even removed 8v8v8 and argued it was because the mode was more popular and queue wasn't as dead to justify it, and it tends to show that to them it was just a crutch they were happy to get rid of. This also explains the incredibly high innate DR applied to every job since ShB to ensure that people don't instantly melt (especially melees) due to contending with gigantic battlefields of 72 players.

Meanwhile they do have RW with way smaller DRs because the mode is designed to spread teams between multiple objectives happening at the same time, but even then I think they half dropped the ball because there is little directions ingame, it's confusing for most casuals, and you end up with games where half the lanes aren't filled or ceruleum or train jobs aren't filled because people just run around like headless chickens. In spite of those failings, the mode, that by the way still has kept basic mount speed for that specific reason, tries to enable multiple lanes of smaller skirmishes at the same time.

I wish we had other modes. I'll never praise SWTOR for many things, but for its pvp actually? Yeah, it was frankly fun and creative. They had the normal capture the objective mode (like FLs kinda, just less people stacked into death balls due to smaller teams, which felt funnier and more skilled based), they had their own frontline mode which worked completely differently (a long dungeon where a team of attackers needs to clear through checkpoints and if possible clear the last ending one, and the defenders preventing that to happen... with a lot of chasms to fall into, then both teams swapped for round 2), and hutt ball, which honestly FF could replicate without even trying with a blitzball skin.

[YumieYumiki]

When I reminisce about pvp in wow, I have just so many memories of fun things I managed to pull off as a rogue.

I have done plenty of pvp in ffxiv, and yet I have no such memories. Frontline in particular, for which the only thing that comes to mind is endless zerging. Even winning isn't satisfying.

Honestly without proper stealth it'll never get better. Stealthers are what forces you to keep defending bases behind the front line. And in turn this is what makes the "big zerg ball" strategy unviable.

Honestly this "just spam shit in a big death ball" is a PvEer idea of pvp. No thinking required, just brute forcing your way through.

[Chasingstars]

To me, it just doesn't make much lick of sense. At least with other mmorpgs, you have talents and gear sets and stuff to play in a specific playstyle for a specific pvp game mode. While FFXIV it just goes for "a one shoe fits all" style approach. Like just being honest, CC is just too different compared to RW & FL. Anything that is Fine in CC with its small scale is either undertuned or overtuned in FL, less egregious in RW. As the the latter two are meant to have lots of players. And its been crystal clear for two and a half years that instead of actually dealing with one of the various problems of certain jobs overperforming with certain AoEs in FL or RW, they stepped around it instead. Mostly by implementing a new system that makes the game feel strange, stuff that was instant now feels delayed. It might sound egregious, yet there should be two different sets of abilities for pvp, one for the CC folks and one for the RW/FL folks, as clearly the one size approach doesn't work and hasn't worked for two and a half years, probably 5 or 6 years by 8.1 as they shown how sluggish and unwilling they are to tinker with pvp stuff during an expansion after the X.1 patch.

[Valence]

Unfortunately I have the feeling that the devs go by the mentality that like for pve, balancing casual doesn't matter much, only savage matters. Feels a bit similar with how they tackle CC vs FL unfortunately.

[Sinstrel]

Unfortunately I have the feeling that the devs go by the mentality that like for pve, balancing casual doesn't matter much, only savage matters. Feels a bit similar with how they tackle CC vs FL unfortunately.

We'll know definitively about this come 7.2. I hope for sweeping changes to the mode entirely much like the Feast to CC changes. But I'm not holding my breath. I do find it odd that map gimmicks, environmental insta-kill mechanics, environmental buffs, and ground items are all part of the ranked mode which is supposed to be a measure of one's skill. But not part of the casual friendly modes which don't require skill and are supposed to be made for fun.

Isn't this backwards?