Suggestions and ideas for increasing interest in previous PvP content

[Eorzean_username]

As a newer player, I'm curious about, and want to see more of, previous Frontlines. Many other players seem frustrated that the abandonment of previous PvP content causes certain Achievements to become very difficult to work toward.

If we have any suggestions or ideas for how SE could add motivation and interest to keep older PvP content alive, discuss them here. The discussion might provide some inspiration to SE.

Here are some rough ideas to start off with:

Improve incentive for using Frontline Roulette.

• Boost the Daily Reward for Frontline Roulette significantly.
• Add a small reward for using Frontline Roulette every time (beyond the Daily reward).
• Add a 'Grand Company In Need' reward to Frontline Roulette, tempting minority GCs to queue more.

Add a Weekly Quest to complete all Frontlines.

• Similar to the i90 EX Primal Weekly, or the Crystal Tower weekly.
• Reward could be anything sufficiently motivating (Large amount of currencies, Relic item, etc).

Make participation in older Frontlines more fun and appealing:

• Remove down-sync'ing to L50.
• Up-sync to L60 and i150 (similar to Deep Dungeons).
• Open up PvP queues to players of all levels.
• Allow players to gain PvE XP through PvP (similar to Deep Dungeons), and level alt Jobs with PvP.
• Unlock each Frontline at staggered levels (for example: Secure at L20, Slaughter at L40, Seal Rock at L50, Shatter at L60).

Add drops specific to each Frontline:

• Similar to the Feast Fenrir Pup.
• Finishing a match in a specific Frontline has a small chance to reward the drop.

Add a Currency specific to each Frontline (and possibly Unranked Feast):

• This currency would be exchanged for unique items themed after that specific PvP mode.
• Frontlines that unlock earlier could have leveling gear available for exchange (similar to preexisting Grand Company Seal gear, or even identical, just from an alternate source).
• Other items could be glamour gear, minions, mounts.

Allow certain Relic items to be obtained in PvP.

• Specific items would be related to specific Frontlines (as drops, as Currency exchange, or even just from Wolf Marks).

[PotatoTree]

They would have to remove the ability to choose the map played. For example, in shooters like CoD, players vote on what map to play next. If the same map is played a few times it gets greyed out. So they'd need some sort of lobby system like this.

[Tracewood]

They should just stop putting so much emphasis on Grand Companies, I'm willing to be there is a dev who's struggling with this right now because this is his project. Since because what happens is that when one of them wins the most games, everyone flocks to said company and up goes the queue times. People are flocking to Adders now, mainly for lower queue times (say goodbye to that) and the

Alliances should be split up by random, like Red, Blue, and Yellow regardless of Grand Company affiliation.

[Koltik]

This all sounds good and makes perfect sense, which just means that SE won't do it.

[Nakanishi]

This all sounds good and makes perfect sense, which just means that SE won't do it.

Yea, the more a proposal makes sense, the less of a chance it'll actually come into fruition.

Case and point. Abolishing GC Restrictions...

[Zojha]

They would have to remove the ability to choose the map played.

I dunno. WoW managed to keep multiple battlegrounds over several levels populated, even when they were still only server internal (and faction restricted to boot).

In the end, it's all about population. If you could pick any frontline and expect a match within reasonable time, people would just pick the one they prefer to play. But since the population is way too small for that to work, everyone flocks to the one people expect to have the best chances of a pop, typically the newest.

[Tussin]

i think to alleviate the problem with Grand Company choices... they need to include Ishgard as a new GC, and in regards to PvP they can also queue up... keep every battle ground into 3 participants... when any three GC's fill up a queue it starts, so even if some are neglected they get priority for the next match queue.

it would give the flexibility needed to make queue times better without changing much...

and possibly incentives as well to help any GC that is underpopulated or underutilized

[Eorzean_username]

In the end, it's all about population. If you could pick any frontline and expect a match within reasonable time, people would just pick the one they prefer to play. But since the population is way too small for that to work, everyone flocks to the one people expect to have the best chances of a pop, typically the newest.

The other issue I see is that the rewards are either consistent and generic (PvPXP and Wolf Marks) or Achievement-Grind based.

Once everyone grinds out the Achievement they wanted, they toss that Frontline away and never look back, because the next one will have a new Grind and offer the exact same generic rewards.

Tying something unique but sustainable in to each Frontline map would help keep motivation going long-term. Very rough example (not a great one): Secure offers Unidentifiable Seeds, Slaughter offers Bones, Seize offers Shells, Shatter offers Ore. Or you can get a unique Interceptor Node minion or Melted Magitek Armor from Secure, a Tomelith housing object from Seize, ... and so on. The devs have shown good initiative with dredging up older PvE content (Beast Tribes and Tier IV Materia, etc) and I know they could do the same for Frontlines.

Roulette offering zero reason to do it beyond the Daily defeats so much of its potential, as well. It doesn't even have to be much, just having any reasonable incentive at all tied to Roulette would make it more tempting than specific-queue for a lot of players.

Likewise, allowing leveling players to do the maps, but staggering the release throughout the leveling process would provide a semi-sustainable captive population for each map (You will Secure and you will like it! Until level 30, anyway) and also create nostalgia / affinity for each mode by forcing players to learn it and get used to it.

I'm not very concerned with the specific solution chosen (there are so many reasonable options), but I would like to see previous Frontlines maps get a status beyond 'Dead', because they're all fun and the variety helps a lot keeping PvP interesting (same as having more than 1 dungeon in PvE).

[Zojha]

Tying something unique but sustainable in to each Frontline map would help keep motivation going long-term. Very rough example (not a great one):[...]

Well...the main issue with the examples you list is that they largely function similar to achievement based rewards. If you take unidentified items for example, those become unattractive once these people finish that phase of the relic (unless they're crazy enough to do another one). Minions can be sold, sure, but if you look at the feast, it has just that - without GC restriction even. Granted, with role restriction, which is arguably far, far worse, but egh. The fact that they can be sold in fact makes many people disinclined to bother with PvP, as they can just buy it instead. But if it can't be sold...it's just like an achievement reward, unsustainable, you claim it once then you're done.

You can of course try to regularly create new grinds for the old content, but the issue in that lies in the fact that you might spread the willing community too thin for "anyone" to get what they want. The current community can often barely keep one FL going, even if you double it, you might have a hard time if you spread it over 4.

It really isn't easy to set the incentives right.

[Eorzean_username]

discussion

The 'spread' issue is a good point. It may be better to focus on making the Roulette more rewarding, so that everyone is still getting funneled together (just with more variety).

One thing about more flexible objectives than Achievements (which are hard binary Have | Don't Have) is that options like grinding up several different things in a more casual way, or selling the items for profit, can motivate more participants beyond the "I'm done" Achievement breakpoint. That said, a concern will always be that players are just queuing to farm and not really trying, decreasing match quality (but I guess Achievements and Wolf Mark rewards are just as risky for that, and my queues seem mostly populated by motivated players).

I agree the incentives are a difficult thing to adjust. I definitely view my ideas as just discussion topics rather than sacred solutions. However, I also observe that FFXIV's devs have an admirable talent for creating Gysahl greens that the majority of players are willing to chase and keep chasing — I think SE could revive or invoke a lot more interest in the PvP system if they put more weight into it.