Make it so changing GC's doesn't reset your PvP Rank

[Namasu]

I know that the community rep and Yoshi's team are still tired from being hammered by post e3 interviews but it would be great to know what Yoshi's stance on this matter. Just a yay or a nay on separating pvp rank from GC would be enough (I'll take a "maybe" as a nay as well).

Why does this matter to me as a player? Well, at this point, depending on the community rep's response and patch note preview, I might have to start funneling my fc members and close friends into a single GC so we can all play with each other (because we are playing an MMO, shocking right?)
Personally, I don't mind switching and re-lvling my rank from scratch. As long as Frontline is fun in the long term, then the exp will flow naturally. Obviously some people will be unhappy. It would be great for me to know in advance what the plan is with Frontline so I can at least ease these people into transitioning to a new GC for frontline.

I feel like we owe at least an official reply on this matter because after all, way back in beta when we had no frontline, GC only affected PVE aspects. Things didn't even mattered with the Wolves' Den because you could queue with anyone regardless of GC.

Lastly, can I just reiterate how backward it is for pvp experience to be tied to a faction? Seeing as how GC is so tied down by lore then from a lore perspective, it doesn't even make sense how switching GC would make you lose the experience that you've earned by yourself, for yourself from all your battles. Is there some GC magician that brainwash you and turn you into a noob at pvp again when you switch to a new GC? I don't even know anymore.

[Dhex]

Just pasting this in from a thread I started asking the same thing;

"Today's patch preview offers a closer look at Frontline, where adventurers will do battle to claim disputed territory in the name of their respective Grand Companies."

"Frontline is a new PvP challenge which engages three teams of adventurers, each team representing one of the three Grand Companies. Teams consist of up to 24 players in an alliance, allowing for a grand total of 72 players in a single battle."

Questions this brings up;

• Can we only party & queue with players that are members of the same GC?
• Will the queue sort people by GC solely or will ranking be involved??
• How do we play with friends if they're in another Grand Company?
• Will switching Grand Companies still cost 50,000 gil and reset our PVP Ranking?
• Example: too many Maelstorm players queue and not enough Twin Adders queue for Frontlines will the game balance the teams accordingly?
• Will we be forced to re-queue if the game cannot balance the queue according to Grand Company?
• Do teams simply get assigned to a Grand Company for the duration of the battle?

The last point is bold because I am hoping this is the case; as much as we all love our Grand Companies we can all acknowledge that a system that is stringently locked by your Company affiliation would be a nightmare & would likely lead to "trending" in communities where players will flock to whichever Company seems to win more frequently (thus further disrupting the balancing act that would be required to even enter a match)!

I hope that Square has answers for all these questions; I know these are specific questions and may not be immediately answered but please understand how absolutely critical some of these points are.

If it is locked by Grand Company allegiance I do hope the requirements for changing are not so stringent as to completely negate the possibility of participating with friends.

Could these points please be defined a little more clearly when you're giving us a preview?

Thanks!

[ZaxLavayi]

Yes, please!

[Vittorino]

To The Top, Thanks.

[Parz3val]

Sure PvP Rank 'may' not change 'that much' (unless they don't significantly rebalance the current abils/traits... the traits are extremely significant)...

But it's more for me about unhindering the ability for us to play with our friends, period.

I'm about Rank 30 now, regardless how much bonus xp Frontlines gives, heck no am I about to start from scratch. Or impose a friend begin anew... that's ludicrous.

[Saccharin]

The faction you queue with should be random. There are two issues I can see. If there is a player balancing them the most popular GC will have to queue until there's space whereas the smallest GC will always have spaces. If there is no faction balancing then the most popular GC will always win due to sheer numbers. Mass PvP is a zerg no matter the game.

[Oscillate_Wildly]

euuuugh. I kind of hope it's with FC alignment and not personal. As much as I 'like' Ul'dah, I don't love it, but that's a price I'd pay to fight with my friends and people I have easy access to organize PvP nights with.
If it's personal GC based then fml. Here's to queueing with total strangers all by myself. I would never join another GC at this point, total waste of time just for PvP.

[Archadius]

Yep... This is brutal.

Devs, please don't lock out friends from playing with friends. There are some good suggestions for ways around the lore in this thread, try to make use of them or create your own. We can all understand the necessity for grinds and time-sinks, but PvP is not the place for it. The "magical PvP GC wizard who wipes your battle memory and turns you into a PvP noob again" comment made me laugh. It's a good point though, my experience is my experience and my GC should not reflect that, it's simply a crest I wear on my chest, a symbol of the nation I stand for. Just like the military in real life. Switching allegiance does not strip me of my skills.

An official response on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

[Camate]

Greetings,

To coincide with the release of Frontline in patch 2.3, we’ll be changing the cool down period that you need to wait after changing your Grand Companies allegiance from 30 days to 15 days.

Aside from this, we currently don’t have any plans to make changes to how the system is currently set up.

[Zirael_Foxfire]

Greetings,

To coincide with the release of Frontline in patch 2.3, we’ll be changing the cool down period that you need to wait after changing your Grand Companies allegiance from 30 days to 15 days.

Aside from this, we currently don’t have any plans to make changes to how the system is currently set up.

I support this. Furthermore, please make it so that every time we change job (ie WAR->SCH) it is reset back to lv1. People should be allowed to play only one job at a time and if they want to play something else, they should go get 2.5M experience points again to change. I miss losing XP on death too - if someone fails too much, they should eventually delevel to 49 and go do some dungeons or FATE to le-rearn how to play.