3.2 PvP: Feast Game Mode Discussion Thread.

[fallenalexiel]

• 4 on 4 - Solo
  

Hi Zhexos,

I would like to offer my feedback on 4v4 solo.


I have been playing pvp since it has come out; I did not stay in the den long because premades and bots made it difficult for me to find it fun. I enjoyed when Secure, Slaughter and Seize came out. PvP is one of the things I enjoy most about this game.

However, if 4v4 solo ranked continues as it does, it will erode a lot of the good players (and avid pvpers) down. As it stands, it is hard for one good person to beat a team if his teammates don't have sufficient skill. I feel I am a decent player, but in the past few days my rating has crashed because of the parties I've gotten into.

I feel that if an unranked 4v4 solo queue were implemented, and a mentoring system, those newbies who would like to try Feast without the pressure of being ranked would feel more welcome and it would provide that venue for veteran players to assist in a situation where their rank will not be affected.

At present, the environment is hostile to new players because we vets are our rank effected by those who are new to pvp.

I feel this mode has a lot of potential, but this mode for solo queue really needs help. I find myself hard pressed to queue because I don't want my ranking to tank more than it has.

[Nalien]

4 on 4 - Solo

I quit.

I enjoy the heck out of Feast, but 4 on 4 - Solo is just a f*cking waste of time and I really don't see any significant changes being ready for the first season...

Jobs

I can only talk for tanks, but Dark Knight is simply a liability and nothing more. Warrior has superior DPS, fairly beastly self heals and some utility to help support their party and/or lock enemies. Paladin has weak DPS, but phenomenal utility and support, even fairly nice self healing with the odd Clemency. Dark Knight offers nothing of value... It's DPS is generally outclassed by Warrior, it has no self healing worth mentioning, and it's support is just pathetic. It is a liability, if you have a Dark Knight in your party, everyone else in the party needs to pick up some slack, especially the healer. Warrior can take care of its self with Second Wind/Equilibrium/Thrill of War, Paladin can take care of the healer with Clemency. Dark Knight can do nothing. So not only do Paladin and Warrior offer more in the way of utility with things like Stun-lock, but they also free up the healer to focus on other things, where as if a Dark Knight gets attacked, they'll require their healers full attention. Was Dark Knight perhaps balanced with Grit in mind for PvP? Even if, Grit Souleater is (completely ruled out in my head until I have enough medal stacks, because losing Blood Weapon is cancer) pathetic when PvP is all about burst; That goes for healing as well, and Grit Souleater will do nothing, by the time I've gone through that combo I've taken more damage that it will ever hope to heal... Worst of all is Tar Pit, is that a joke?

Matchmaking

Why are people able to queue for ranked matches so easily? I've lost count of how many people I've seen in Feast who have no right queuing for ranked matches... They are, by their own admission, not very good... Yet here they are, queuing for a ranked mode where they'll be paired up with people who will lose their rating because their healer is new and doesn't know what PvP skills are... It's absurd... I'll take longer queues please... Lock ranked Feast behind, I don't know, attaining PvP Rank 20? Something... Force people who are new to do anything before letting them loose in ranked where they'll just ruin peoples experience... Please, when 3.25 hits, make us do the quest to unlock Feast again... Have it just unlock 8v8 and make it so you need to win at 8v8 before you're allowed anywhere near ranked... People should not be cutting their teeth in matches where their total lack of experience is going to negatively impact others ratings...

Rewards

First lets get this out the way; "per data center"? Why? I mean, I appreciate making them rare, but you really only want 6 of those furnishings in the world? Wouldn't it make far more sense to have it per server?

Now lets move onto tomestones... This has been a problem for a while, so it applies to more than just Feast (or it would, if Frontlines was at all relevant anymore)... I get why these are here, it's good incentive to try PvP, and it allows people to focus on PvP if they want to, without falling behind on PvE. Were there no tomestone rewards, part of my PvP time would instead be spent on capping Lore. It's good that this is here, but... Do you really need to reward losers with tomestones? This is simply not good. For anyone. It's reasonably bad for PvE (players who "earn" their gear effectively doing nothing) and it's terrible for PvP (players who queue "just for the tomestones"). There is nothing more infuriating than having worthless baggage on your team because PvP is an easy ticket to "earn" some tomestones. Make the tomestone rewards solely for the victor, it would be an extra reason for people to actively push to win and it would completely cut out the worthless individuals that I am sick of dealing with...

Rating

Overkill. I think that about sums it up... For solo, this is far too punishing... Isn't the fact that we need to win 3/5 to qualify for the next rank enough? I'd hope you don't even need feedback on this... You have all the player data... For pre-made, I imagine this is perfectly fine, if you lose there you know who to blame, you can deal with that. Solo? I have zero control over my party composition. I have zero control over whether they actually listen to me. I have zero control over their skill. It essentially becomes a coin flip... As such, progression in this means nothing... It isn't a matter of being skilled and reaching Diamond, it's a matter of being persistent and reaching Silver. If you're lucky. I don't even see the point in 4 on 4 - Solo anymore... And this is the mode you're putting rewards on? Rating has nothing to do with personal skill... You can be the best damned PvPer possible, but you're still stuck dealing with 3 random people who'll lock you at 500 for the rest of the month... That's partly a matchmaking issue, but still... Was it really necessary to essentially have +1 for a win and -1 for a loss? People are not going to advance with this system. They'll get frustrated, then they'll quit.

You know what I'd rather see? Solo and pre-made to be two entirely different things... Pre-made is about having your own little group and taking them to the top. Solo? That should be about Jobs... Register as a Job, raise your rating on that Job, and aim to be the best Derp Knight on the data center... The rewards practically write themselves (hint: PvP Relic Weapons)... You'd need to edit it so we register of course (and for pre-mades that could be great, who doesn't want a team name?), but it essentially allows the solo queue rating to be much more personal, rather than a simple win/lose thing. Losing can still be "punishing", but with rating being more personal because it's tied to Jobs now, you can effectively overcome that by just being good. Died lots? Obviously that's going to negatively impact your rating, regardless of whether your team won or not. Scored loads of kills? Same thing, that'll raise your rating, regardless of the overall outcome.

Honestly, for solo queues I'd actually be much more interested in seeing rankings by Job... It allows you to essentially base rating on personal stats (K/D/A), rather than victory rate... Heck, it doesn't even need to be limited to Feast in that regard... Something like a Mentor Roulette, perhaps? "<Job> Ranking Roulette", which could involve all forms of PvP (though Fold/Secure/Slaughter would need updating with LV60 and Assists), but with the same basic mechanic for passing qualifiers and so on.

Dark Knight

Just spit-balling here, I'd say the Job definitely needs some fine tuning, I'm likely to tired/frustrated to be making rational suggestions at this point though;

Make Dark Knights cross-class skills come from Gladiator and Lancer, rather than Marauder... That's even a PvE change I wanted, granted TP management is a lot better on the Job now... As far as PvP goes though, Feint would be a nice counter against healers, and Blood for Blood could help push the Jobs DPS, which given its abysmal utility should be exceptional... It would still be a liability, since Blood for Bloods thing is kinda going to have you needing more heals, but it at least has a solid pay off - more DPS.

Give Blood Weapon and Blood Price Dark Arts effects, which have them drain HP. Again, another change I want to see in general, not really PvP specific, but the Jobs horrendous self healing could do with being addressed...

Rework Tar Pit into an Aura effect; Somewhat similar to Collective Unconscious, except you retain the ability to move around and attack. Rather than a flat 150/180 potency attack, it becomes a DoT that drains HP. This would work nicely with Dark Knights chase ability (which is really the only thing it excels at) while potentially also being a worthwhile self heal... Seriously, Tar Pit is on a fairly long cooldown, who thought it was a good idea to have it return such low numbers, especially when Abyssal Drain can be spammed...

Give Dark Knight a new PvP skill, essentially something similar to Cover/Clemency. You take 20% of your HP and give it to an ally. Again, playing on the idea that Dark Knight requires more attention from their healer, but actually giving us a pay off... Whether that works as "Up to 20%" and if you don't have 20% you lose/heal less, or if it works like a Sole Survivor type heal I'll leave to someone else... It would stack nicely with Living Dead if it were the later...

[Cynric]

snip

One of the best posts on the current situation so far. Agreed on pretty much everything except the quitting part. I'm masochistic and absolutely will keep trying and hoping RNG favors me with competent team mates.(I should probably just stop bothering with solo and do premade only)

Doesn't change how bad this setup is for anyone who'd actually like to be competitive.

[Nalien]

Agreed on pretty much everything except the quitting part.

Honestly, I'll probably be back... I do enjoy it, but I just had one too many parties that do not listen in a row, and I just had to throw my controller down and vent... I should probably go get that Pa-paya roll...

[Delmontyb]

1. Can we get better notification (visual) that coins are on the ground?
2. Can we get a notification of a teammate who picked up said coins?
3. Can we have some type of icon on the mini map to help point us to coins on the ground?
4. Can a player with a kill streak be highlighted with fire? As a fun visual, but also to tell the other team. (Just a thought)
5. Can DRK get a debuff (Mind perhaps) on it's hate building combo? (Wishlist)
6. Can we get more maps? - Perhaps some set in different areas of the world map.

[Cynric]

Honestly, I'll probably be back... I do enjoy it, but I just had one too many parties that do not listen in a row, and I just had to throw my controller down and vent... I should probably go get that Pa-paya roll...

Yeah I think this is probably the most I've cursed in a long time because of how frustrating it is. My current favorite matches are, Getting a tank that only DPS' and refuses to pick up medals, Getting AFK players, healers especially, and my personal favorite "I'm only here for eso", and having the tank take the offense buff as they go after a DPS the entire match while the other healer freecasts.

Good times.

[Caitlyn]

AST is purely overpowered. You cant get him down, he heals himself so fast while moving.

[Houston009]

AST is purely overpowered. You cant get him down, he heals himself so fast while moving.

In 4v4 (Party) White Mage is already better than Astrologian in every comp that doesn't involve Black Mage, are you trying to make AST useless?

[Synestra]

AST is purely overpowered. You cant get him down, he heals himself so fast while moving.

It depends on AST personal skill, if its your common FotM AST those can still be soloed by WAR/DRG for example. Now if its actually skilled AST then they can be pain in the ass but if you split the DMG their job becomes harder due weakers heals, like straigus said good WHM's are alot more annoying because their awesome raw healing and superior utility(heavy, bind, sleep)amongst all healers, oh and they also have Bene... god i hate that skill :P

[Naoki_Yoshida]

Hello, everyone. Producer and Director Yoshida here.

Allow me to thank you all for your feedback on our newest PvP addition, the Feast! I would like to take a moment to talk a little about some adjustments we’re planning to make, based on your comments and on our own experiences playing on the public servers. These adjustments will be made in two installments, starting with patch 3.22, which is scheduled for 3/17 JST, and patch 3.25 (please note that we may make additional changes if we deem them necessary.)

System Changes

Match Time Limits

We’ve received feedback that many players feel both 4 on 4 and 8 on 8 matches go on for too long. Therefore, we will be reducing all match time limits from 10 minutes to 8 minutes with patch 3.22.

Moreover, we are currently discussing whether or not to adjust the number of medals required for a team to claim victory outright, so any feedback you can provide regarding this topic would be greatly appreciated.

Improving the Flow of Battle

Many players have commented that casual 8 on 8 matches can feel stale and boring. Because inexperienced players are more likely to divide their attacks and each team contains two healers, it can be difficult to KO opponents.

Therefore, in an effort to hasten the flow of battle, we will be making adjustments to Culling Time, as well as the frequency and placement of supply boxes.

Starting in patch 3.2, players in 8 on 8 matches will be afflicted by Culling Time at the following intervals:

• 1st stack: 2:00 → 1:00
• 2nd stack: 2:30 → 1:30
• 3rd stack: 3:00 → 2:00
• 4th stack: 3:30 → 2:30
• 5th stack: 4:30 → 3:00

We believe this will result in increased KOs and discourage teams from playing defensively to protect a lead.

The adjustments we are planning to make to supply box placement, quantity, and frequency in both 4 on 4 and 8 on 8 matches is for a similar purpose—to further encourage the use of supply kits and make matches more exciting.

A number of you have made similar requests in the same vein—that we reduce the number of barriers in the center of the arenas to improve line of sight, that we adjust the rate at which adrenaline builds, and so forth. Rest assured that we are carefully considering these suggestions.

However, to be clear, for patch 3.22, we are only planning to make adjustments to Culling Time for 8 on 8 matches. The aforementioned changes to supply boxes, as well as any potential changes to map barriers, will be made in patch 3.25.

Tanks and Heavy Medal

As previously explained, one of our main objectives with these changes is to make matches faster and more dynamic, and so we would like to address the problem that tanks, even when afflicted with Heavy Medal, are more difficult to KO than intended.

To that end, with patch 3.22, a stack of Heavy Medal will increase damage received by 15% (currently 10%) Furthermore, we will be reducing the medal counts at which players incur another stack of Heavy Medal.

• 1st stack: 150 → 150 10% → 15%
• 2nd stack: 200 → 170 20% → 30%
• 3rd stack: 225 → 190 30% → 45%
• 4th stack: 250 → 200 40% → 60%
• 5th stack: 260 → 210 50% → 75%
• 6th stack: 270 → 220 60% → 90%
• 7th stack: 280 → 230 70% → 105%
• 8th stack: 290 → 240 80% → 120%
• 9th stack: 300 → 250 90% → 135%

We believe these changes will help to prevent matches from becoming stale by forcing players to change tactics, as tanks carrying multiple stacks of Heavy Medal will be easier to KO, and teams will be encouraged to distribute their medals among players more equally.

Casting Interruptions and Ranged Physical DPS Penalties

A great many players had the following to say about PvPing as casters:

• It’s too difficult to play as a healer.
• It’s too hard to cast spells in PvP

To be fair, healers who join a PvP match for the first time are likely to struggle, as they are frequently targeted and have much greater difficulty casting spells than they would in PvE situations. This situation is further exacerbated by the fact that Sprint does not consume TP in PvP (which beginners may not even be aware of, much less accustomed to), allowing opponents to quickly close the gap and interrupt their casting.

As previously stated, our aim is to make battles faster and more dynamic. And so, in addition to making supply boxes more useful, we want to reduce the burden currently placed on healers and shift strategies away from, “KO the healer to stop healing” and more towards, “Focus on dealing damage through heals and KO opponents.”

We have decided to make significant changes to spell casting functionality in order to achieve this goal.

• Damage received is less than 15% of max HP → Casting succeeds.
• Damage received is 15% or more of max HP → Casting is interrupted.
• Sleep/Stun/Silence → Casting is interrupted (no change).

While these changes will make it easier to interrupt a caster with a series of combo actions or critical hit, it will also prevent casters from being interrupted by anything less than a committed attack. If players want to consistently interrupt a player’s casting, they will need to adapt their playstyle and rely more heavily on Stun, Sleep, and Silence.

That being said, it was a very difficult decision for us to settle on 15%, so we would greatly appreciate it if you could let us know whether or not you feel this threshold is appropriate.

Many players also voiced concerns regarding ranged physical DPS classes, like bard and machinist, which currently suffer damage penalties when attacking opponents at significant range.

To address this issue, from patch 3.22, players under the effect of Wanderer’s Minuet or Gauss Barrel will not suffer damage penalties due to distance. However, please note that these penalties will still apply when these abilities are not in use.

Job-specific Changes

Arcanist/Summoner

Following the release of Seal Rock, we received a great deal of feedback from players worrying that summoner burst damage might be overpowered. However, we could not evaluate the situation based on data from Seal Rock alone, and so we were not ready to make adjustments until after many players participated in the Feast’s 4 on 4 rated matches. We have since concluded that summoner burst damage is indeed exceedingly high, as well as the total damage dealt over the course of a match via dots.

To rectify the situation, we will be making significant adjustments to summoner PvP abilities with patch 3.22.

I won’t go into the details here, but if you wish to review the specific changes, please refer to the patch notes.

I should also mention that we have received a great deal of feedback regarding dark knight and ninja, and at the moment we are testing adjustments intended to improve their performance in PvP. These changes are currently planned for patch 3.25, and we ask that you please wait a little longer.

We will continue to gather your feedback and make adjustments to player matching and other systems in preparation for season one of the Feast, which begins with patch 3.25. While many of these adjustments are prioritized for this patch, if we determine that there are significant balancing issues that must first be addressed, then as previously stated, we may have to delay the official start of season one for one to two weeks.

We know that PvP is a demanding pastime that not everyone enjoys, and we cannot tell you enough how much we value the feedback you all provide, which helps us to fine tune this content. We hope that you will keep on playing and keep on telling us what you think!