The Feast

[Februs]

tbh Primal's gold/plats were more active at the end of S1 than mid S1, so not sure what was going on at other DC's.

At the very end of the first season, yes. I remember this posting did a lot to draw players back into Feast at the end of Season 1, because Shatter was so utterly boring that no one wanted to play it. It was fantastic, because queue times went from a hour + to 5 or 10 minutes.

Before that, though, queues were nearly dead. I waited in hour long queues just to get into one or two matches a night. A lot of players were practically locked into whatever rank they had before Shatter came out, because there just wasn't enough activity. There were quite a few posts about it right here in the forums.

It will be interesting to see if this problem is mitigated somewhat due to the participation of some players from the top 100 of last year.

I've been curious about this as well, because I wasn't sure how the lack of new incentives would effect the community. I've been happy to see, so far, that people are still playing regardless of their position last season. It would seem that they still give a damn, especially with all the salt over new players costing vets their matches. There have been a few absent faces, but by in large it's been a half decent turn out. It's good to see people playing for enjoyment of the game mode, rather than just purely for rewards ... though it does kind of suck that there isn't additional incentives for repeat performances... Maybe they should put in a hall of fame or something?

[Noutaja]

snip

Its hard to believe Im the only one who wants to play the game for the fun of it (maybe get some gil/fenrir pups too). Not to chase a carrot aka do it for some sort of super special reward or ranking. I would already feel rewarded by having fun. The incredible amount of toxicity that exists within the pvp community is because we have exactly these super special rewards. Glamour, titles and ranking. So what we get is a certain group of people that just do things to get things, greed. These people try so hard to get these things, that they act like animals and do not enjoy the game for what it is for one bit. These people are pretty much the current top 100 (tryhard) players, with some exceptions ofcourse, gladly. The thing is, the way these people act, is forcing out the other types of people who just want to enjoy the content, and may not even have much experience of the feast yet.

[Noutaja]

In simple words, the rest of the people are unable to enjoy the content because of the current top tier players way of behaving and thinking. They forcefully push the others out by personally attacking them. That is not right.
So, how about letting all people enjoy 4v4 the way we want to enjoy it? Let us pick, wether we want serious gaming with the risk of insults, or fun gaming with no risk of insults. We need both options so that everyone can enjoy it for what we are after.

[Noutaja]

From what I have experienced SE wants to make the game as accessible as possible, feast pvp at its current state is not capable of being accessible in any way. The very opposite.

Requesting a moderator reply. How are you Square Enix experiencing this issue and how are you willing to address it? Do you have any ideas on how to make the the feast more enjoyable and the ranked system more accessible to new players? Or do you have any plans or issues with this. I think its a weighty matter. Its ok if I get no response. Ill still love you Square Enix.

[Kaiyoko]

Hold on, how is ranked PvP not easily accessible? If anything it's too accessible. There are minimal requirements, be level 60 and unlock it via quest in the Wolves' Den.

Other games with competitive PvP actually have some a barrier to entry for people to learn the game before actually queuing for ranked. LoL's ranked requires you to be level 30 which takes quiet a bit of games to reach and you learn the basics of the game. In Overwatch you have to reach level 25, which I remember taking close to 15~20 hours of gameplay to reach.

The comparative barrier to entry isn't even close considering you can just hop right into ranked in FFXIV. The problem is people need to get practice in ranked 4v4 before stepping into it. Many new players have no idea the even have PvP abilities when stepping into ranked. Those players are potentially getting mixed with players who have spent 100+ hrs, which is not a healthy and productive environment for anyone to learn in.

Another problem people are going to have is missing PvP points to spend. Most of the high ranked players are going to have the ability to allocate PvP points and buff their PvP abilities. This is going to give higher ranked players a huge advantage if you're a PvP level 1 player vs a PvP level 50 player. There really should be a requirement of getting a minimum PvP level for learning the flow of battle and having more abilities to make sure new players aren't just being trashed on.

[Zojha]

LoL's ranked requires you to be level 30 which takes quiet a bit of games to reach and you learn the basics of the game.

Which you can achieve by playing bot and ARAM matches. That's...not far off leveling to 60, really.

There also is no requirement for runes and masteries IIRC, which provide substantial advantages. The biggest barrier of entry in LoL is gaining 16 champions for ranked and that's a technical limitation because 6 champions are banned and 10 picked every game, so if you had less, there'd be a chance you can't pick anything.

[Februs]

Its hard to believe Im the only one who wants to play the game for the fun of it (maybe get some gil/fenrir pups too). Not to chase a carrot aka do it for some sort of super special reward or ranking. I would already feel rewarded by having fun.

Firstly, you can bypass the character limit by using the edit function, just in case you didn't know. Secondly, you're correct. You're not the only person who plays the game for the fun of it ... however, you are dead wrong if you think that's enough.

Again, this is an MMO, and it is not based solely on PvP. Players have to divide their time to keep up with the constantly evolving environment. Gear upgrades, loot drops, and tome bonuses from roulettes are all things that players are already sacrificing just by playing PvP. Rankings allow them to feel some kind of compensation for that sacrifice, and it is the only compensation we have because SE has not put in any meaningful use for the Wolf Mark currency.

That's also not even considering the value of those rewards. We have more than enough historical evidence with PvP to know that people queue for incentives. Consider the original Wolves Den. That game mode had a lot of problems as it was, but it was utterly nailed into it's coffin by Secure. Secure is still widely considered to be the best FL game mode made to date, yet it was still killed by Seize. Seize itself is still VASTLY superior to Shatter, but Shatter put Seize six feet under as well. Shatter sucked ass, so people staked it to the ground and went back to Feast where matches are both shorter and funner. It's pretty clear that people go to where the rewards are. It's just more obvious in PvP, because there's already a smaller number of players and very, VERY, few PvE'ers are encouraged to join up due to a lack of incentive over PvE content.

That said, this isn't a trend that is exclusive to PvP content. To give you an example, when's the last time you queued for Bahamut over Alexander? I don't know about you, but it's been a damn long time for me. I know I'm not the only one, either, because queues for that raid are dead, regardless of if people liked it more. Same thing went for the Crystal Tower Raids. Until SE offered a more relevant weekly reward (oils), there were endless complaints on the forums about how it was dead as a door nail. The same thing can be said for practically any dungeon. If roulettes didn't exist, no one at lvl 60 would ever spend time running dungeons at level 50, regardless of which dungeons they liked more. SE only keeps that content alive by offering adequate incentives for end-game players to go back to it.

People still play for fun (I would hope), but there's no doubt that they weigh all their options. That's just the nature of the game, especially in a game like this.