Protesting Frontlines

[Nalien]

I'm just going to leave these here;

PvP needs its own stat to differentiate PvP progress from PvE progress. If there was no Morale, there would be no need for PvP gear, and then the person with the advantage becomes the person who's cleared Coil and got the drops.

Now, you might say that they could just set an iLv cap at 50, after all everyone can reach that fairly easily, and then everyone in PvP is equal. The problem with that though, is that then there is no progression in PvP. Without progression, it's just a dead piece of content people say they'd do "for fun", but in reality they try to queue up and it takes so long that they don't, because nobody is doing PvP regularly for progression. For PvP to properly function, it needs a solid community participating in it for more than just fun, if it doesn't, even the people who would just go there "for fun" cannot.

Again, the main problem with Wolves' Den is how they worked progression. They made it far too steep, such that the majority out right ignored it. With no reasonable progression, the majority didn't stick around, and Wolves' Den was left with a community that could barely sustain itself, let alone anyone who wanted to jump in just for fun.

So, again, can we please stop with the strawman that people only want Morale to be "teh leetz!"? That is not the case. Any rational person wants Morale so that Wolves' Den and Frontlines can be functional pieces of content with a community that sticks around to aim for something, so that "casuals" can just drop by for fun when they want, and hopefully stick around to aim for the same gear and become part of the community. It's not even about wanting world renowned quality PvP in XIV, it's simply about wanting a PvP community in a MMO we enjoy.

Morale didn't damage Wolves' Den, they way they handled Wolves' Den damaged it.

They could have simply split the queues into iLv brackets, instead of what we currently have;
iLv55, where the crafted stuff can actually server a purpose for beginners rather than just using your PvE stuff.
iLv70, where you go once you've started getting some of that iLv70 PvP gear.
iLv90, and so on.
iLv100, you get the idea.
If you add progressively better rewards for winning in those matches, the grind could have been handled much better as well. By the time you get to iLv100, you're either there to play with your Rank 40 gear and they could just add Tomestone rewards instead (if Wolves' Den rewarded you with Mythology? Oh boy would I love that). They could even have changed the Wolves' Den layout a bit with each bracket. How many dungeons did you do going from Lv1 to Lv40? Not to mention different forms of leveling in PvE. Yet Wolves' Den just gets the single arena? Slapping different brackets on it doesn't really give you new places to level, but it's a nice illusion.

With that, PvE gear becomes worthless in PvP and Morale has a very real purpose, it defines PvP gear and you're only punished if you don't bother getting the iLv55 stuff (I think a vendor should have sold this for Gil, too). As you progress and get new gear, you want to try out that gear so you enter the next bracket. That would have provided a proper sense of progression, rather than "I'm now Rank 20, doing the exact same thing I did at Rank 1".

Add to that some additional game modes, and Wolves' Den would have been fine in my opinion. Frontlines seems to have a Capture the Flag and King of the Hill style going for it, why couldn't those concepts have been introduced to Wolves' Den months ago, when everyone was complaining how boring it is doing the same thing over and over? Wolves' Den is meant to be a training arena, isn't it?

With all that, Frontlines as a iLv80 bracket for PvP would actually work fairly well, they could even just add another iLv100 version that people can eventually work their way towards (not in the same update, but once it becomes clear enough would be able, and willing, to participate). People would be able to jump into Frontlines and get a feel for PvP, then they'd go to Wolves' Den to improve; with better rewards and two extra game modes they may not even hate Wolves' Den as much as I do. Frontlines would only end up with three real distinct players with a iLv80 cap; PvE players capped at iLv80, PvP players in iLv70, PvP players in iLv90+ capped at iLv80, with a proper spread the difference wouldn't be too disastrous.

EDIT; Oh, and with iLv based PvP brackets, PvP Roulette would be nice too, to keep people going down to the iLv55 as it's needed. PvP EXP and Wolf Marks rewards daily, with a small amount of Wolf Marks for being the "Adventurer in Need" as well. Perfect.

I think that's the sum of everything I can possibly say on the subject of PvP at the moment. Honestly I'm tired of posting about it now, I don't want to hate on PvE players, I'd rather welcome them into PvP eventually, but when some of them just continually make strawmans or ridiculous and ignorant claims that PvP balance will effect PvE... Ugh...