Thread: 3.2 PvP: Feast Game Mode Discussion Thread.

Originally Posted by Kyani

SCH performs a lot under it.

I was gonna bring up SCH being weak in a thread. Compared to the other 2 healers and the way Feast is currently played relying on a minute long resource just to survive burst phases is harsh especially with the ebb and flow of the fights and how respawns work. Then you have the possibility to vs a Monk, where unless im missing something there is 0 counterplay for the sch themselves apart from make sure they have 100% buff uptime which is unrealistic, instead you need to race to kill the enemy asap because if the sch loses stacks it really is rip. At 50 you could play around the arena having 0 stacks, but at 60 burst potential is just too high to not have them up. I also feel equanimity and aura blast are pretty meh skills for sch right now, im pretty sure under pressure you receive more damage than the adlo spam heals. Whilst aura blast is basically a worse fluid aura on 4 times the CD.

The Feast does feel as if one can simply ignore mechanics. So far the queues have been longer than the actual game. I am writing this from the perspective of a 100% win rate. Overall, fights are far too quick and this has to be addressed. I would like to see:

1. There should be more than one round per game. It should be best of three given how long the queue can be.


2. It should not be safe for the opposing party to go into the other teams safe zone. I am not saying it should not be possible, but it should be high risk high reward. Place a medal coffer far in, but also place some kind of activatable hazard the defending team can turn on and unleash on you.


3. The middle part of the battlefield where the parties rush to meet should not be static. It should be a live platform. Perhaps with
a) walls that move
b) walls that appear in different patterns
c) hazards (eruptions, ice slides, titan bombs, instant KO falls, etc)


4. Players should have the option to pass their medals to a teammate, with a relevant cooldown.


5. There should be various tactical play modes automatically activated by the server per round, eg.

a) Basic 4 v 4 or Basic 8 v 8 as currently implemented

b) Alternatively, a mode which locks half of each team in the safe zone, and basically encourages half the team to work on Defence while the other team go out to slaughter.
So:
- half the team battle the other side's half team
- the reserves stay to battle crates or something for a party bonus, say team wide heals, team wide stoneskin, or even summon a primal.

c) A play on the above, an Endurance mode, 1 on 1 battles until one side's team has been culled.

d) Yet another play on the above, but a Tag Team mode. If a player runs back to their safe zone a reserve can run out into the battlefield. The player who has returned to the safe zone will have his HP frozen and become unhealable until he returns to the battlefield. This will play a lot like Street Fighter Vs games.

e) Stamina Gauge and Weapon Prowess Mode, aka: Calm Things Down Mode. Make battles more realistic, by bringing weapon handling into full effect and tie actions into a stamina gauge reminiscent of FF14 Version 1.
- A tank should be able to Perfect Defend so long as his stamina gauge has enough juice.
- A dragoon should have a 100% effective parry, but it drains blocks of his stamina gauge.
- A monk is going to have Perfect Counter so your not going to want to gang up on him/her.
- And for mages it would work similar, the higher your stamina gauge the more instant your skills are, before being reduced to FF11 style casting times!

Healing in the Feast is by far the most stress inducing, frustrating experience in the game. Your skills are canceled with basically anything, your always getting slept, stunned, silenced, pushed back, you have to run around everywhere constantly being chased only to take a break when you have the few skills that allow you to cast without getting auto attack canceled. So not only that but there are the constant LoS issues where it feels like your not only fighting the enemy but your own teammates as well. After all that you end up losing anyway because the enemy healer had more kills then your entire team put together.

This is not including AST, they can go die in a fire.

Thoughts on the Feast reward structure, which hasn't gone online yet:

4v4 group ranked matches should be used as screening for tournaments, which would give the super-exclusive rewards SE has been talking about. Groups would have to register with some minimum 4v4 group rank and participate in the tournament at pre-set times to advance to the next bracket, like other PVP games with Real Rewards for Competitive PVP. If SE is intending the Feast to be a competitive PVP event that people tune in to streams to see, it would be better if the games had real stakes and teams weren't randomly matched against rofflestomp pubbies who wandered into the wrong queue.
Setting up a tournament this way also ensures that if you try to sneak in by win-trading, you'll get ruined by competent premades who actually know what they're doing, and only actual good PVP players can take home the elite prize without being stuck in "grind the feast all day, every day" solo queue hell.
(Historical note: SE has done this style of PVP tournament before, back in the FFXI era. There was a cross-server Ballista competitive event that rewarded exclusive prizes for top placed players.)

I gotta say, for once it feels pretty satisfying to play monk in pvp (to me). I only played very limited Den, but I wasn't a big fan of monks lack of burst at 50 but their kits at 60 feels very well rounded and unlike FL where I will get nuked by a group of ranged classes the second I stray a foot from the group, I feel like I can actually put the moves to use.

For the mode itself, I don't really have any complaints that stray far from what has already been said. The ranking system may grow to annoy me, I've had a couple matches where our healer would die and "quit" out of frustration, and I have seen a few teams I've faced have someone rage quit and idle after the beginning goes badly for them. It's irritating to know that you insta lost and rank down a bit but I can't really think of any viable solutions. I guess you just have to accept what DF throws your way.

Overall, I like the mode itself, I have had fun with it so far.