Why is it so difficult Ranking up from Bronze to Crystal

[flowerfairy]

All I'm asking is a way to eventually earn commendation crystals through time invested.

If I understand your point right, then I'd also assume that you share the same feelings for Ultimate weapons only being locked behind clearing an ultimate? Maybe there should be a way to earn a fraction of an ultimate token's worth if the game is somehow able to detect that you cleared a phase or something?
It's not a very popular opinion, but it's fair, I guess.
Personally I don't think time invested alone amounts to anything, because you could've been doing anything in that time, such as trolling your team and running into the enemy team to die. Not an activity that makes sense to reward.

I think climbing is hard because the queue rarely pops from Bronze to Platinum, and when it does pop, you're usually going to play the same 10 people for a good while, which means a higher chance to get someone on your team that doesn't know what Recuperate is. The only advice I have to offer is to unlock all your jobs and play as one that someone you don't want on your team is playing.
Diamond to Crystal is where the queue pops more often, and also where you'll see an extreme shift of playstyle to targeting one person with stuns, silence, and burst damage at a time. I think it's a significant learning curve here, as you'll have to adjust to bait cooldowns and figure out when it's time for your team to be defensive or offensive.

[TimotheusReed]

If I understand your point right, then I'd also assume that you share the same feelings for Ultimate weapons only being locked behind clearing an ultimate? Maybe there should be a way to earn a fraction of an ultimate token's worth if the game is somehow able to detect that you cleared a phase or something?
It's not a very popular opinion, but it's fair, I guess.
Personally I don't think time invested alone amounts to anything, because you could've been doing anything in that time, such as trolling your team and running into the enemy team to die. Not an activity that makes sense to reward.

In threads like these there are always people like this making bad faith arguments.
You can't really compare getting an Ultimate weapon in PVE to earning recommendation crystals or ranked rewards in Pvp.

Let's look at the numbers first: If you compare the raw numbers on FFXIV achievment sites 10% of players have cleared an Ultimate. If you compare this to the players who reach Crystal in Pvp it is 3% on achievment sites.
So for the general playerbase it is already harder to get to Crystal than to clear an Ultimate. And even then you won't really be able to something from it (like the new armor) if you don't reach Crystal several seasons in a row.
Also Pvp rewards are locked behind FOMO and if you want to get the new armor sets you have to either reach Diamond/Crystal several seasons in a row or consistently reach Top 300 (which is not even 0.1% of the playerbase).

You are comparing rewards which are obtainable to 10% of the playerbase to rewards which are obtainable only for 0.1% of the playerbase.
We can maybe start comparing getting pvp rewards with getting an Ultimate weapon once the high-rank Pvp rewards can also be obtained by 10% of players.

But as long as they are still only obtainable for 0.1% of players the demand to adjust the obtainability of pvp rewards is justified in my opinion.

And I wasn't even mentioning that you are locked out of even ranking up during the season if you dont play at the right time.
But you can ALWAYS do an Ultimate as long as you find a group of players willing to do the content.

[flowerfairy]

Let's look at the numbers first: If you compare the raw numbers on FFXIV achievment sites 10% of players have cleared an Ultimate. If you compare this to the players who reach Crystal in Pvp it is 3% on achievment sites.
So for the general playerbase it is already harder to get to Crystal than to clear an Ultimate. And even then you won't really be able to something from it (like the new armor) if you don't reach Crystal several seasons in a row.
Also Pvp rewards are locked behind FOMO and if you want to get the new armor sets you have to either reach Diamond/Crystal several seasons in a row or consistently reach Top 300 (which is not even 0.1% of the playerbase).

I compared commendation crystals to ultimate tokens in the sense of prestige. I'm talking about how to measure someone's worthiness to earn a commendation crystal.
You're talking about total achievement percentiles from the entirety of the game's population, which is already known to not engage in PvP as much as they do PvE. I'm sure that's also evident in whatever you use to track achievements.
I don't disagree with what you're saying, but also it's not even what I said. There's no FOMO in commendation crystals, and nobody's even talking about the battle pass series rewards (aren't they putting the old ones up for trophy crystals already?) Isn't this a bad faith argument itself?

And I wasn't even mentioning that you are locked out of even ranking up during the season if you dont play at the right time.

The new ranked season always starts after the last one so I'm not really sure what you mean here...
Are you talking about not enough people playing? Or that your rank gets reset after the season ends?

[Loggos]

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I agree with this. And I think another point is that PvP's reward psychology is different from ultimate reward psychology.

Conceptually ultimate is all-or-nothing. You either clear it or you don't. Comparing progress to ranks below crystal is a contrived comparison in my opinion because ultimate has one goal (clear it) and mere progress means you haven't reached it. It's cool that you got this far but you didn't succeed at the one thing you needed to do.
It's also a lot more about long-term team success, clearing one thing together after weeks/months of work.

PvP ranking is different. Unlike ultimates, personal progress in PvP is the end goal.
It is a perfectly reasonable motivation to reach a rank below crystal. You didn't fail your one objective if you haven't reached the latter (and some people might never reach crystal anyway).
It's a lot more individualistic because PvP is about measuring nothing but your own growth/state vs. the long-term team aspect of ultimates.

To make a cheesy comparison, ultimate is a lot more about the destination (clear an ultimate and then the next when it releases) and PvP is a lot more about the journey (steadily become better/reach a higher score across a continuous time frame).

That personal journey is also reflected in the fact that it can take several seasons for somebody to become good enough to reach crystal but you'll still have a feeling of success while you progress through the ranks over time.
It might also take you several ultimates until you manage to beat (a current) one, but the progress experience is different. It's not "I reached this new official milestone and maybe next season I can score even higher", it's a lot more binary: "no success, no success, no success" until you finally have a "success".

I don't know what the best reward system is so I don't want to comment on commendation crystals in particular but I do agree that PvP's reward structure should better reward the journey/the personal progress which lies at the heart of its mode.

--

(Yes, ideally playing pvp/progressing should be a reward in and of itself and a lot of pvp regulars are intrinsically motivated. But imo in its current iteration CC is just not appealing to people who might potentially enjoy ranked PvP but aren't sold on it yet/have little experience. If you are just starting out or stuck at lower ranks your experience might be so miserable you associate nothing but negativity with this mode.
So I think especially at the start/at lower ranks small but steady experiences of success are important to keep people engaged until they are in a place where they can extract feelings of success from their progress itself and the satisfaction of getting better has turned into an intrinsic motivator.)

[flowerfairy]

PvP ranking is different. Unlike ultimates, personal progress in PvP is the end goal.
It is a perfectly reasonable motivation to reach a rank below crystal. You didn't fail your one objective if you haven't reached the latter (and some people might never reach crystal anyway).

I find this point more agreeable than population and time invested. Yes, every rank should be rewarded.
It's a specific reward which OP wants, which is commendation crystals, which are used for glowing weapons and the feast glamour. Right now those are deemed as "prestige" as getting a Diamond/Crystal portrait background, proof of your personal progress.
If I understand you right, you're talking about a generalized, more rewarding system, which doesn't specifically have to be commendation crystals. And when I take a closer look, I suppose the reward from Bronze to Crystal is just a portrait background, basically a "all I got was this stupid tshirt" deal
If there was another reward glamour for reaching at least Bronze to Platinum, would that also be satisfactory? Or does it HAVE to be commendation crystals?
I guess the point I'm trying to make is, if all rewards can be reached through any rank, is it really motivation to climb or continue playing?
Or maybe the "ultimate" reward just be the Diamond/Crystal background, and glamour should stay accessible to everyone?
This is sort of why I brought up Ultimate weapons. Perhaps the weapons can be more easily achieved, but the legend titles go to those that made that end goal.

I think another fair point is that it takes months for a season to finish, which means months until you can receive your reward, and this is really unacceptable for a monthly subscription game. You should be able to receive your reward as soon as you get the rank.

[Loggos]

I find this point more agreeable than population and time invested. Yes, every rank should be rewarded.
It's a specific reward which OP wants, which is commendation crystals, which are used for glowing weapons and the feast glamour. Right now those are deemed as "prestige" as getting a Diamond/Crystal portrait background, proof of your personal progress.
If I understand you right, you're talking about a generalized, more rewarding system, which doesn't specifically have to be commendation crystals. And when I take a closer look, I suppose the reward from Bronze to Crystal is just a portrait background, basically a "all I got was this stupid tshirt" deal
If there was another reward glamour for reaching at least Bronze to Platinum, would that also be satisfactory? Or does it HAVE to be commendation crystals?
I guess the point I'm trying to make is, if all rewards can be reached through any rank, is it really motivation to climb or continue playing?
Or maybe the "ultimate" reward just be the Diamond/Crystal background, and glamour should stay accessible to everyone?
This is sort of why I brought up Ultimate weapons. Perhaps the weapons can be more easily achieved, but the legend titles go to those that made that end goal.

I think another fair point is that it takes months for a season to finish, which means months until you can receive your reward, and this is really unacceptable for a monthly subscription game. You should be able to receive your reward as soon as you get the rank.

Ah ok, then I understand your point better now. Thank you for clarifying!

I cannot speak for others of course, but personally I think as long as there is any satisfying/truly motivating prize that rewards the principle of progress/your journey it would be good.
Because you're right, my point is that the current reward structure doesn't work for new and lower-rank players in my opinion.

(The rest of my reply is so long, I put it under the spoiler thingy to be less obstructive.)

I think some long(er)-term goal that keeps you playing even at lower ranks but that is still reasonable to achieve is needed.

It's correct that you only get a portrait frame and tbh I just don't think this incentivises anybody to play (in fact I guess for many people decorating your portrait with a bronze frame would probably feel like inviting others to point at you and laugh that "you didnt even make it out of bronze").

I can understand other people's point with the glamour sets though (I think a user discussed this in another thread) because tbh for most people glam is probably the only really valuable reward outside of meta weapons/gear.

Whereas I think it's fine if some extra effects like weapon glows are reserved for the crème de la crème I can also see why fashion rewards in a broader sense being impossible to get is more frustrating for non-crystal players.

I know this circles back to the fundamental debate whether cosmetic rewards (in a game with character customisation as an important aspect) should be tied to top performance or not (welcome back, chaotic raid discourse - at least you could buy the hair from the market board which doesn't apply to PvP rewards). It also begs the question how far you can stretch this (should mounts not be tied to performance since they're basically transportation cosmetics? How about minions and furniture? etc.).

And then of course casual players could also say "hey, I want that glam but I don't want to play ranked. So cosmetics should not be tied to your ranked progress".

I can't give a satisfying answer to all that (dodging this issue like I dodge the crystal in CC).
But I think
1. there can be a middle ground between "cosmetic" and "top performance" rewards, e.g., cosmetic rewards that very specifically communicate "performance" (titles, trophies, medals, a big victory belt that matches the bag you bought in an earth kingdom boutique)
and
2. cosmetics for some performance are still a perfectly fine reward. If the whole system for a long-term, progress-based ranked reward structure is based on putting in effort (as opposed to results only) then it means everyone can get them (in a reasonable time frame) while also rewarding good performance because you'll get them faster.

My guess is that the current topic about commendation crystals might also have a lot to do with the fact that this simply is SE's current reward structure. And the chance that they will fundamentally change it is lower than just slightly adjusting what they already have.
So instead of asking for them to rethink the system more thoroughly, making commendation crystals more accessible might be a more realistic fix.

This is also made more complicated by the fact that we already have several cosmetic rewards in PvP via trophy crystals and the battle pass, and a third avenue to get glams (via playing ranked) might feel too convoluted for SE.

But I still think that high-quality cosmetic rewards (incl. mounts, minions, hair styles, furniture and emotes) is where it's at if you want to reward long-term/loyal participation in ranked. Because in my opinion those are the kinds of rewards that draw in players the most.

So I'd make:
1) glams for all (casuals/ranked) via trophy crystals, as we have them now
2) long-term participation cosmetics for ranked CC (fashion, hair, emotes, mounts, minions, housing items, some universal/funny non-champion titles)
3) "Champion" rewards (cosmetic and/or otherwise) via collecting (something like) commendation crystals that very specifically showcase high performance

4) battle pass for all I guess (I'm not a fan of the whole fomo business but I don't see SE axing it for something better)

[Stormfur]

And I wasn't even mentioning that you are locked out of even ranking up during the season if you dont play at the right time.
But you can ALWAYS do an Ultimate as long as you find a group of players willing to do the content.

I'm going to add to this that, when you do an Ultimate, you can strategize with your party. You can keep practicing until you get it. Imagine if Ultimates were done like CC:

"Okay guys, you've got 3 weeks to get this weapon. We're going to pair you up with random people, some of whom may never have set foot in an Ultimate in their lives. Also all your skills are different. Oh and no potions or food. You can't chat either except for these five pre-selected commands. Also if you're not one of the first 300 people on the server to clear it, you don't get squat and those weapons will never be made available again."

People. would. lose. their. MINDS.

I understand PVP is a different beast but you can still make a mode competitive without turning the suffering knob up to 11.

[TimotheusReed]

I'm going to add to this that, when you do an Ultimate, you can strategize with your party. You can keep practicing until you get it. Imagine if Ultimates were done like CC:

"Okay guys, you've got 3 weeks to get this weapon. We're going to pair you up with random people, some of whom may never have set foot in an Ultimate in their lives. Also all your skills are different. Oh and no potions or food. You can't chat either except for these five pre-selected commands. Also if you're not one of the first 300 people on the server to clear it, you don't get squat and those weapons will never be made available again."

People. would. lose. their. MINDS.

I understand PVP is a different beast but you can still make a mode competitive without turning the suffering knob up to 11.

Completely agree. Nothing more to add to this from my side.

But how do we make SE aware? Do they know?
Do they simply ignore EU feedback? What do we have to do to be recognized?

[Stormfur]

Completely agree. Nothing more to add to this from my side.

But how do we make SE aware? Do they know?
Do they simply ignore EU feedback? What do we have to do to be recognized?

That's the million-dollar question. I made a post here: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...81%84%E3%80%82 (hopefully the link shows right, it's on the japanese PVP forums)