The problem with The Feast chat, let's solve the problem from the roots.

[ChocoFeru]

Hello! I've been playing The Feast since Season 1, and I know the problem with it's community.

All you have to do is check the Duty Finder options to understand what's wrong:


Yes, there's no "(Unrated) 4 on 4 - Solo", therefore new players are unable to train in order to understand the simple basics.

I've found people undergeared queuing in rated.
People who was level 1 in their Grand Company queuing in rated.
People who didn't even know that there were pvp skills and, of course, queuing in rated.

And that's not their fault, it's game's fault to not provide an 4 on 4 solo queue unrated in order to train.

On Season 1 we had a pre-season, wich served to teach us how The Feast works, and it was really helpful for me because I played just for fun, without rankings and everything, so I had a lot of time to train and understand the basics.

After Season 1 there wasn't a single pre-season day, so new players or people that wanted to try The Feast for the first time didn't have a chance to train because there's not a single option for them, except 8v8 wich has different rules, and Frontline wich is uncomparable.

That's why some players were mean to new ones, because unexperienced players queued on a ranked mode to train a bit, and that affected directly the rank of veteran players.
There's no excuse to be mean to somebody, and it should be punished, but I can understand their frustration.


Erasing the chat in The Feast is one of the worst solutions here, because The Feast is already stressful, so disabling the communication makes it even more stressful and players will NEVER be able to understand their mistakes.

So I think the best solution is:

- Reactivate The Feact chat.
- Make a pre-season, like a week before engaging the new one.
- Make a new "4 on 4 - Solo Unrated" so new players and veterans can play freely and learning the basics, so they can go later to ranked mode and compete.

If you have any better ideas, please share them.
Sorry for my english!

[Urthdigger]

This would likely be helpful. I imagine I'm fairly good when I heal for frontlines and 8v8, my team stays mostly alive unless they scatter to the winds, and I win more than I lose. When I stepped into 4v4 though (at least when there was chat), I'd constantly get people demanding WTF I was doing, telling me to unsubscribe, to go kill myself, etc... clearly I had a lot of learning to do. But I can't really do that without ruining someone's perfect win record with my clearly abysmal skills that show I only picked up a staff yesterday, as 8v8 and especially Frontlines are entirely different beasts.

There is one problem though: What would encourage people to do this unrated 4v4 mode over 8v8 or Frontlines? If queues stay the way they are, it likely wouldn't be that big of a problem, but if folks trickle away after getting the snazzy new garo gear and mounts, we'll have an even bigger problem if we split up the PvP arenas even further.

[Zojha]

This isn't even touching the issue - In LoL, DotA and any other MOBA or team based PvP game with a solo queue, you can find toxicity up into the highest spheres of Diamond/High Elo and down in the lowest pits of bronze/Low Elo, despite having a multiple times tighter matchmaking than here, because it's entirely unrelated to skill, skill differentials and anything of the kind. You can be a top 2% player among other top 2% players, miss only a single skillshot in the entire game at the 30 minute mark and then get flamed because the enemy capitalizes in this and you lose.

The root of the issue are three simple things:
1) People don't care about their teammates and their feelings, since they're just randoms
2) People care too much about their precious ego and rating/themselves and get stressed
3) Many aggravated people do not have the ability to deal with their anger responsibly

It's that simple. You can't change point 1, you can't change point 3.
So if you want to solve it by the roots, you have two options:
Either you need to make people care as little as possible about the outcome of a match and having a ranked mode at all is counterproductive, because it makes people care more.
Or you need to prevent people playing with randoms and only allow Light Party queue.
(Though requiring a positive psychological expert opinion on anger management from players as prerequisite for ranked would also a theoretical option)

Neither of them are desired by the PvP community nor SE. And that's why SE is struggling for solutions. And it will keep struggling until people acknowledge ranked as a mistake and approve of the appropriate steps. That's small scale politics for you.

[Andriel]

This isn't even touching the issue - In LoL, DotA and any other MOBA or team based PvP game with a solo queue, you can find toxicity up into the highest spheres of Diamond/High Elo and down in the lowest pits of bronze/Low Elo, despite having a multiple times tighter matchmaking than here, because it's entirely unrelated to skill, skill differentials and anything of the kind. You can be a top 2% player among other top 2% players, miss only a single skillshot in the entire game at the 30 minute mark and then get flamed because the enemy capitalizes in this and you lose.

The root of the issue are three simple things:
1) People don't care about their teammates and their feelings, since they're just randoms
2) People care too much about their precious ego and rating/themselves and get stressed
3) Many aggravated people do not have the ability to deal with their anger responsibly

It's that simple. You can't change point 1, you can't change point 3.
So if you want to solve it by the roots, you have two options:
Either you need to make people care as little as possible about the outcome of a match and having a ranked mode at all is counterproductive, because it makes people care more.
Or you need to prevent people playing with randoms and only allow Light Party queue.
(Though requiring a positive psychological expert opinion on anger management from players as prerequisite for ranked would also a theoretical option)

Neither of them are desired by the PvP community nor SE. And that's why SE is struggling for solutions. And it will keep struggling until people acknowledge ranked as a mistake and approve of the appropriate steps. That's small scale politics for you.

Answer: Blacklist.
Might also want to look into mandatory intelligence tests before people are allowed to Queue for PvP, although I reckon that'll remove 99% of the players queuing for it.

[ChocoFeru]

This isn't even touching the issue - In LoL, DotA and any other MOBA or team based PvP game with a solo queue, you can find toxicity up into the highest spheres of Diamond/High Elo and down in the lowest pits of bronze/Low Elo, despite having a multiple times tighter matchmaking than here, because it's entirely unrelated to skill, skill differentials and anything of the kind. You can be a top 2% player among other top 2% players, miss only a single skillshot in the entire game at the 30 minute mark and then get flamed because the enemy capitalizes in this and you lose.

The root of the issue are three simple things:
1) People don't care about their teammates and their feelings, since they're just randoms
2) People care too much about their precious ego and rating/themselves and get stressed
3) Many aggravated people do not have the ability to deal with their anger responsibly

It's that simple. You can't change point 1, you can't change point 3.
So if you want to solve it by the roots, you have two options:
Either you need to make people care as little as possible about the outcome of a match and having a ranked mode at all is counterproductive, because it makes people care more.
Or you need to prevent people playing with randoms and only allow Light Party queue.
(Though requiring a positive psychological expert opinion on anger management from players as prerequisite for ranked would also a theoretical option)

Neither of them are desired by the PvP community nor SE. And that's why SE is struggling for solutions. And it will keep struggling until people acknowledge ranked as a mistake and approve of the appropriate steps. That's small scale politics for you.

You can't compare DotA and LoL because you get important points on every match, even if it's not ranked, and it's a F2P based game, and there's no penalty for losing a normal match. Same goes with DotA. So "kids" and bad attitude is always on point.

Still that's not reason enough to mute the channel on a PVP based content. The problem is that there aren't training places for new members.

The Feast ranked shouldn't be a training ground. We need an unranked solo 4v4 mode.

[Enlial]

The root of the issue are three simple things:
1) People don't care about their teammates and their feelings, since they're just randoms
2) People care too much about their precious ego and rating/themselves and get stressed
3) Many aggravated people do not have the ability to deal with their anger responsibly

It's that simple. You can't change point 1, you can't change point 3.

Those are all valid points, but I dont see how #2 can really be changed either. Being a pvp'er, in a competitive sense, means taking on the mindset that you haven't really "won" as long as there's someone out there that's better than you. Being obsessed with our own egos is just sort of the nature of the beast xP I mean, seriously, show me a single competitive game that doesn't ooze with toxicity, by our communities standards.

Going on a personal rant, I've had so much crap thrown at me, but I take it in stride, try to sort out whats valid and what isn't and improve. And, even though I have improved quite a bit, so far I've had exactly one person give me a direct compliment. And I still get s*** talk thrown at me. And that's fine. It's still feedback. Even being told that I "suck" can be a performance indicator based on how frequently I hear it. I'm aware that I'm hardly amazing and still got a ways to go.

That mindset isn't really compatible with the greater community, though. PvP isn't the feelgood land of butterflies and rainbows where everyone's a winner and content has virtually zero chance of failure (really, even with the most difficult raids, success is still guaranteed. Even the worst players will eventualy clear through out-gearing and echo nerfs). On that note, I think its interesting that PvP is in and of itself a contradiction of the terms of service. You win a match by making other people lose, thus "disrupting their enjoyment of the game" or whatever the phrasing is. This is especially true if it gets diluted to the point of being a loot grab.

Honestly, the chat mute might be, to a degree, SE admitting ranked pvp was a mistake. My hope is that its intended to be a temporary thing timed with the garo event aimed at enticing enough players to give us a sustainable community once the bulk of players have gotten their swag and move onto the next mindless grind. My fear is that its being salvaged into another said mindless grind, to be brought back from time to time, for the pve drones to consume.

Lol, I say (well... type out) "pve drones" so disdainfully but that sort of content is the bulk of what the game is about, and I certainly moonlight as one from time to time (had 6 relics by the end of ARR, kirin when pony drops were still like 1:20 etc xP). Nothing wrong with enjoying that sort of thing. Personally Ive been burnt out on the pve side of things for awhile, though. Haven't even had expert roulette unlocked for the last few sets of dungeons lol. PvP is the only part of the game I still truly enjoy and the chat mute in feast is really killing it. I've been told Im crazy and should go play a game thats actually designed to cater to pvp but /shrug I like XIV's pvp. Maybe because Im crazy? I know Im not the only one but we're admittedly a small minority.

[Zojha]

Those are all valid points, but I dont see how #2 can really be changed either.

Oh, it cannot be eliminated and please don't mistake my notion for such. Some people "will" always be negative and they are in PvE as well - in that regard, the argument people commonly bring is right. Yes, some people are negative in PvE as well, sometimes even over the tiniest things. This can't be changed.
And indeed, PvP innately is a more stressful environment as you say yourself - you "will" die and lose, ideally around 50% of the time if matchmaking is good, because that's the matchmaking ideal. That can't be changed, that's just going to happen and in that regard, yes, that's the nature of the beast.

What you can do is to avoid fanning the flames further, by not putting more on the line than there innately is. And this is what I accuse Ranked of doing - fanning the flames, with flames being a gloriously ambiguous word in this context. I'm going as far as to put more blame for the chat restriction on Ranked as a system than any of the people who raged or felt offended. I'm probably fairly lonely in that view, seeing as most people like to either blame the "D-bags" or the "soft skins", but that's just my fate I guess.

That said, and I bet many people are not even understanding this: I, too, want the chat restriction to be lifted - at least in unranked modes and Light Party. It's annoying and hinders community building, which PvP sorely needs. Frontline is the only outlet in that regard right now. But I'm not disguising the fact that I think ranked does PvP in this game more harm than good.

[Instrumentality]

They could also offer a local mute per game option. They even have a scoreboard interface already tied into the game mode where they could provide a per-game blacklist option.

If they wanted to be fancy they could even read your main-game blacklist and mute anyone that was already on there as soon as you loaded into the game.

[Pence]

The root of the issue is SE. They've fostered a bad community. Everyone should have everything with little to no effort. No one should be told they're bad, even if they are.

[Andriel]

The root of the issue is SE. They've fostered a bad community. Everyone should have everything with little to no effort. No one should be told they're bad, even if they are.

That's common game culture these days, isn't it? The only MMO I know of that doesn't give you a cookie for *everything* and nurtures you like a baby is EVE Online.

- Proud EVE player since 2003