Shatter

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Well you made a very good point there: It's NOT about what one person wants. So if I only want to go for kills but my team wants to play objectives, the team has to come to an agreement. Perhaps I can focus on player kills AT objectives? Assuming it's possible and the team cooperates to fulfill both aims, everyone wins.

Yes, I'm aware PUGs don't work that way. But I'm also aware that many times, if someone takes charge in a collected manner (not demanding or berating the team), most are willing to follow. I led a Maelstrom team of randoms to victory against a group of my friends who I know were strong enough to play both objectives and PKs, by simply calling for sound tactics. Things like, "if they push our rally point, lure them into the choke for a possible pincer. Ranged get to high ground and target the healers in the back." Most listened; a rarity, but that's how we secured victory. If they instead decided "Shatter sucks! I just wanna get kills!" we'd have lost.

Similarly, lately I see teams trying to play it TOO safe. Wait at the rally point until there's ice to attack, go in, attack it, then get out and back to waiting. Based on our score, I advise organized attacks if we're not leading, focusing on single targets to overpower them and push forward. Or if another team is trying to encroach on our position, I tell them to focus and cc/kill any targets that rush in. If that team isn't smart enough to pull back, then it's free points for us. No one HAS to listen to me, but I've been through enough matches now to have a good sense of what to do and how to capitalize on things like player/team behaviors, movements, the map/environment itself, and to a lesser degree, manipulation of both other teams. Hence my statement; Shatter is chess, but most want to play checkers.

[Moonlite]

Well you made a very good point there: It's NOT about what one person wants. So if I only want to go for kills but my team wants to play objectives, the team has to come to an agreement. Perhaps I can focus on player kills AT objectives? Assuming it's possible and the team cooperates to fulfill both aims, everyone wins.

Completely reasonable. Wasn't the start of this because someone could not come to an agreement and play with the other 23 people? If everyone agrees to kill which can happen specially if a Hand of mercy and their pocket healer are calling and marking. But if everyone is saying ice do not engage you have to respect that choice as well. The new free lance allows you to grab 7 other people to play with that like a certain play style.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

So the other day I got slept on my round laner bird mount in shatter by an twin adders blackmage, while I was asleep the whole twin adders alliance ran by me LITERALLY and not one of them attacked me. Why? because they went straight towards the ice!!! That's soooo retarded!! Its PvP dude not lemme hit the ice and run away from a real fight!!

I laughed and I shouldn't have, but it really seems that many don't know that getting hit on a mount applies a heavy debuff to that target, and effectively makes them a free kill. There's also the fact that IF you engage someone (as I've personally proven many times) there is the possibility of starting a fight you can't finish. I wish I earned gil for every overconfident WAR/MNK I've sent running from me, lol.

My other personal bit of facepalm-worthy entertainment is placing a turret and watching someone go full ham on it, then as it's nearly destroyed, replacing it in the same spot. All the while explaining to my team not to bother attacking turrets/pets unless you're building/keeping stacks, knocking it out of range, or if it's low enough to just be rid of already. In the time it takes to kill one, they can be resummoned.

[Chocolys]

I've just started PvP today. I did not want to, not even for the Garo event. But being a returning player and playing all classes, easily equipping my alts with iLvl 235 gears made me decide to finally go for it.

I use the Frontlines Roulette and each and every time I end up in a Shatter game (19/19 times at the time of this post). So I assume it must be popular.

I kind of like the Shatter mode. And I guess if you don't like you can always queue for the other modes. Unless nobody play them anymore?

[Enlial]

Shatter in and of itself allows PuGs to play it the way it's played more often than not, thus the mode definitely is at fault, or rather SE for designing it that way. How it can be played doesn't matter in the slightest.

That's only somewhat true. SE designed seal rock and shatter so that playing tactically matters alongside brute force. What ends up happening, though, is players new to pvp want to be able to do well right off the bat and convince themselves that winning/losing is 100% tactics and only focusing on the pve side of objectives is a good path to winning. Its not. Brute force matters. But they win sometimes, because of RNG and the other two teams being stupid, and when they lose just write it up to bad RNG or people not listening. Its not a good strategy and its almost certainly not what was intended, but you're right. It's ultimately the maps themselves at fault for being conductive to that sort of mindset. Borderlands did a good job of deterring that, with the LB bar diminishing out of combat, needed for the big node.

What we have now is a more subtle system where through battle highs/fevers the stronger team becomes stronger, if left unchecked, and able to steamroll during the late game. Ive given up arguing the point, though xD "yep you're rank 10 and you read the art of war in middle school. what do I know?" lol.

But yeah, its a new player thing. And its become much more prevalent since garo dropped.

[aeoncs]

I understand the point you and ThirdChild are trying to make but since you yourself mentioned it, it's done with the pre-Garo crowd in mind. Prior to the event most PvPers were part of a niche group that really loves to PvP for the sake of PvPing alone; if you give advice to or make calls in the presence of players like this, there's a good chance they'll listen or even follow your lead. The same doesn't apply to the casual PvPer who just wants to have some harmless fun, not that there's anything wrong with that. Fast and easy games instead of wasting time and patience on a game that you might still lose.

That's part of why Shatter isn't a good frontline/battleground aside from the RNG and PvE aspects - random battlegrounds are meant to be casual and thus work for and with the average casual player. Things like advanced tactics, actually having to think ahead on how you can make use of your surroundings and team composition etc. is something that should be limited to ranked and competitive content. As I already said, when joining a battleground most players just want to have fun, zerg a little between objectives while not having to constantly think about what they could be doing better.

That's why I said that casual PvP modes need a plain and simple concept with an objective that's easy to understand even for first-timers. How do you win Capture The Flag? Well, you capture the flag. How do you win a conquer and hold type of game mode? You conquer and hold/defend. Taking WoW as an example (yeah yeah, I know), one of the most "recent" battlegrounds is the Deepwind Gorge, where you have to race for ressources/points by either conquering and holding nodes or capturing the enemy flag, which is a mining cart in this particular case, and do you know why this BG is not nearly as popular as most others and way harder to carry for an individual? Because, according to the forums, having to pay attention to two distinctly different objectives is too bothersome for many players.

And I guess that's my main argument: if you really want FFXIVs PvP to flourish in terms of lasting activity, you need frontlines with a simple concept that are easy to understand and play and only frustrating when being severely outclassed by the enemy team/s.

[kensatsu]

shatter is a bad frontline, the annoying thing is the players want to pvp and others want to do big crystal, where we need to do boths.
I mean.
When this is the time of big crystal, we need them, we also need to kill extra small crystal and when we wait for them to spawn we have to kill the first GC. It's simple
But it still bad PVP is PVP, i can understand players wanting to queue to pvp and not doing a pve race.
Also when somes players say : BIG : win, it's not true, if you get killed you can't go to the big crystals, if one GC get big crystal and kill so many : it's a true win.
Feeding still the way to loose

[Maero]

I have to agree, myself the teams i always go in with more often then not we end up loosing as everyone focuses on killing and hardly bothers with ice which is frustrating as i want wins
But in a sense i can understand that PVP should be fighting, perhaps ice should not be something that should matter as much and they could make adjustments?
I sure hope so as none listen to suggestions in chat, especially when another GC team sneaks in 2 or 3X to take over your base.....

Feast is sort of meh, i much prefer the other PVP

[FreyaKrescent]

the ice dies way too quick and people retreat too fast. maybe Like someone said to make the ice do Aoe damage raid wide and give less points? make healers do somrthing for once.

[SainCheese]

I still think it's pure garbage.

It's a mode that caters not to casuals, but to people who want their hands held.
It's a mode created to be easy for this new generation of players that don't even know what a hard game is. It's disgusting seeing 98% of the dps not break 60k dps and 99% of the healers not break 100k heals.

In seal people would pad these stats to brag, make themselves look good but in shatter its a total mindless zombie fest where winning is completely random until you get a premade that knows how to zerg.. and then people cry about that single alliance pt winning the game for them!


The mode promotes laziness and takes away competitiveness. Competition is that one thing that is suppose to stand out far beyond that of PvE. Shatter is only a step up from auto attacking a dummy only because you have to move around some.

Do me a favor, the next time you go in count how many players break triple digit in damage taken, damage dealt and damage received. You can use your fingers, you wont run out of them. (On Primal Data Center)

Now go into a ranked feast match, There are literally matches that last less than three minutes and all those stats break triple digits.. with MOVING targets.

To further add insult to this, look back to when the first frontlines was released, when the level cap was 50 and the ilvl sync'd to 80 or something silly low.. Players did more damage what, 2-3 years ago then they do now.