Thread: 3.2 PvP: Feast Game Mode Discussion Thread.

Originally Posted by Zhexos

[...]we would like to hear your comments and suggestions regarding morale so the dev. team can use them as reference.

Originally Posted by PotatoTree

Just remove it entirely. Players shouldn't be stronger just because they farmed for a bunch of moral PvP gear.

While I don't agree with PotatoTree's reason since the removal of PvP Level restriction on gear, I'm also not keen on having Morale as a PvP stat.

My reason is beyond the scope of PvP only.
It's quite simple: If I need a separate set of equipment for each job I want to play in PvP, my inventory will explode.

So, while having a PvP stat is, in itself, acceptable if made accessible quickly enough (which it is currently), more equipment doesn't fit the current situation of storage overload well acknowledged by the dev' team.
In short terms: Morale should only be a concern when the inventory capacity issue is resolved. If you can't solve it, then Morale should just be removed entirely.

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With that being said, if Morale was to make a comeback on the PvP scene, it should only give indirect benefits to the players, which won't help him defeat an opponent without Morale directly.
There are multiple ways to achieve that:
- Reduce the death timer (which wouldn't be applicable since 5 sec is already super short. It'd only be viable in Seal Rock).
- Give back more MP/TP when raising from the spawn area after a death.
- Increase the amount of Adrenaline given to the player, without making him able to use more personnal Limit Breaks. The player would only get his Adrenaline gauge filled a bit more quickly than the opponent, opening for more timing strategies.
- Increase damage to the supply boxes.

Pretty much anything which doesn't affect the damage done by or to the player with Morale. Having a CC reduction is also a big no since CC is a core mechanic in PvP, everyone should be equal on that matter.
Worded differently, a losing player shouldn't be able to blame his lack of Morale or the high Morale of his opponent for losing.

Originally Posted by Zhexos

Also, we would like to gather any feedback you may have after trying out the changes made in Patch 3.25, so please be sure to send them in as well!

- Morale.
Since stats get synced, morale should not be needed. There is no advantage using end game gear over iLvl 150.

- PvP Actions & Traits.
At the moment the traits are kinda bad, using 12 points to get 12 of a stat is not really worth it.

- PvP gear.
Make it easier to customize the secondary attributes, so there is a reason to use the PvP gear (other than for glamour purposes ).
One way to do this could be having PvP gear that has only main stat + vit (not the accessories) with 2 materia slots. Adding PvP only materias that cap that stat (purchased for free on the materias NPC?).

I'll say this outright: Morale should not give an advantage in combat without a trade-off, no matter if it's to respawns or PvP skill effects or whatnot. No matter how indirect the advantage, it'll still be a net gain and thus be a requirement and another hurdle for new players to overcome. Also it'll limit using Wolf Marks for glamour and make gearing alts a requirement for PvP instead of freely using whatever class you would like without a disadvantage.

I have two possibilities for Morale, but both aren't exactly optimal. Really it'd just be safer to remove it. Anyway:

1.) Make Morale take the place of a secondary stat, and let it increase damage mitigation. Right now there are plenty of potency increasing options, but there are no damage mitigation options for classes that aren't tanks. Having a defensive option would add interesting approaches to strategy. The effect of the mitigation doesn't have to be as strong as Morale used to be for Wolves' Den since that was ridiculous, maybe just as effective on average as Parry or around that. The downside is that this would be very strong on healers, since losing secondary stats isn't a very big downside but damage mitigation would be amazing.

2.) Make Morale take the place of a secondary stat, and let it increase the rate Limit Break increases. This would add very interesting strategical variation. For example, on one hand DPS classes would have less burst from less crit/det/speed, but they would get LB more often for huge advantages in select fights. The downsides would be that the effects of this would be hard to balance without Morale being either the dominant strategy with how game changing it is or completely useless with how infrequent it'd have to be. Also, healers and especially tanks do not have many downsides to losing secondaries but have very much to gain from their LBs.

Well in some pvp systems they do have a stat like moral and it works well. However if the majority believe this to be unfair, then I'd suggest moral only working for ranked matches.

Rank should be for serious contenders. Those who put in time and effort into pvp should be rewarded in some fashion. Give a small progression to pvp like pve. I don't understand why it's ok to have to be geared strictly for new pve content but not pvp?

New to pvp (at 60 of all things)? After a small time doing unranked, get seals and buy pvp to contend with the big leagues. I do want to see pvp gear play a part visually in pvp. I want to see people with gear visuals and be like "woah, this guys been around".

But maybe we just don't have the player base to suggest progression, which means pvp has even worse problems

Morale could do this.

The more you have, the more likely you are to dodge an incoming attack or spell or resist a spell(enhanced by materia). Cap it at a low % and add diminishing returns for the more you have. This would promote people to experiment and adjust their gearsets to their playstyle and or available gears.

Allow counter balance from other players morale to lessen this effect. As in if two people are stacking morale, they counter each others effects of dodging attacks and or potency of incoming attacks or duration of debuffs.

The difference and balance in this theoretical combat would then be, maybe one uses less morale so he misses more on the player stacking morale. In this example the less morale wearing player could instead have gear that promotes crit. So when they do land attacks, they hit harder.

Effectively what a setup like this would do with proper adjustment for effect of morale for EACH job is tip the scales in the favor of one class over the imperfect balance that is job hierarchy.

Imperfect balance

A class beats B class, but B class beats C class, and C class beats A class. By adjusting morale on a individual class basis for its effect, you can effectively cause moments where this scale tips back in the other direction.

A > B > C > A
Lets say C is now stacking Morale. Abilities, potency, and evasion are now enhanced, and the traditional B class can no longer beat C hands down. However as a counter balance, C can no longer defeat A, but instead is brought to a level of steep difficultly to still accomplish.

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Its a given for example, that no matter what a healer caught alone by a ninja or monk is gonna have a bad time.

Lets have an example,

the many stuns from a monk stopping a healer.

With morale, the healer could evade a few stuns or resist with materia enhancing the resist to last longer against the monk, to get a few more heals out and survive longer for teammates to assist.

Or a Summoner stacks morale and now takes so little damage, but their damage in return is now less. Traditional players will want to take out the glass cannon, but when they find out the glass cannon is now made of iron and shoots 9mm instead of cannonballs, they will have to on the fly rethink their direction of attack.

In a nutshell, make Morale help players to break the meta. To be creative, to be a tanky ninja that can't kill but confuse other dps long enough for ones team to exploit!