Feedback: Fan Feast 2016 PVP Exhibition

[FreeKingStefan]

Hello! My name is Stefan and let me start by saying that the very first PVP "tournament" ever to be held in NA for FFXIV was really awesome. I'll get into my criticisms in a moment, but overall I am very appreciative that the PVP scene was given an opportunity to get into the spotlight.

However, there are a few areas I hope to see improved when the next exhibition, tournament, etc. comes around.

1) Better peripherals. I think it is unacceptable to expect players to play an MMO with 30-40+ hotkeys on a 2 button logitech mouse or controller, and no alternatives. Giving players the option to play what they are accustomed to is key to creating a competitive environment. I personally practiced hotkeys and such when I first heard the news, but I know many people did not and it really effected their performance.

2) Working peripherals. The team who had to sit on the right side of the stage (from the viewer perspective) were at a severe disadvantage because....They did not have working headsets. Two of the four headsets did not work, and we were told by staff that there was simply no time to fix the issue. This lead to those teams being unable to communicate effectively with each other mid-match, while the team on the left side had headsets which worked fine.

3) More personable. I think it would have been great to introduce the teams better. Introduce each player, their server, maybe do a quick interview about the teams experience or something. They did a great job at announcing the team names (and the jokes were actually really funny when poking fun at the team names), but I feel like the players themselves needed more personal recognition.

4) Better post/pre match interviews. They were running short on time, so much of the process felt rushed, and so I think the interviews suffered. Some of the post-game interview questions were good, but others were very lack luster. I would hope that this was just because of the shortness on time, and should be improved upon in the future.

5) It felt rushed. There were some technical difficulties for sure, but overall the end of the event felt rushed. The final was cut down to a best of 1, as opposed to best of 3, and made it feel a bit less special. There was also no post-match interview with the winning team. I am understanding of this because of the time constraint, but I hope in the future that there is more time allotted to make up for unforeseen draw backs (such as the technical difficulties in the first match).

6) Announcing/Spectator Control. I gotta give it to Joe Never, he did an amazing job calling out certain things and in general was a very good announcer. However, I would change this only slightly, in giving him more control over the camera and shoutcasting than Bayonne. Bayonne is a great guy and everything, but he doesn't know as much about PVP as Joe, so I think it may be wise to give more mic time to Joe in the future. Also, when controlling the spectator camera, it should be zoomed out an appropriate amount so that the audience can see the grand scheme of what is going on in the match. Having it zoomed in on certain players created several situations where the less-aware audience members would definitely miss certain things happening (a specific example is when a healer got Melee LB'd off camera).

7) LAN/Better machines. This ties in somewhat with #2...The ping on the machines we were playing on in the tournament was upwards of 800, and would spike at times to 2000. I think this is pretty unacceptable if they want to get more serious about these tournaments in the future. Also, some of the machines (not all) had issues of low FPS (around 15 FPS during combat) and was only alleviated slightly when reducing spell effects (boosted to about 25 FPS, still low). I was unable to see what machines exactly were used for this exhibition, but I hope that they will be better suited for future events.