Why Feast is Unfun, Toxic and Frustrating, A Case for The Return of The Fold

[Aviars]

This really isn't news to anyone as everyone who has ever done PVP in any game can share horror stories of 'bad' players on their team or unfair/broken mechanics that just make you go bonkers. However Square Enix has done some really special work to make the Feast probably the most unpleasant PVP experience I have had to date.

The biggest, and perhaps less obvious, reason why Feast is particularly cancerous and toxic is just how SE decided to design the interaction between Damage and Healing. It is news to no one that you can be simply erased from the surface of Eorzea by the burst and damage in this game, but consequently they also made healing and mana regeneration extremely high in this game as well. The fact that you can legitimately die in just a fraction of a second makes the game extremely unforgiving and causes a majority of the toxicity in this game as healers will obviously be blamed 100% of the time. It also doesn't give healers a favorable outlook on the game either as they wonder why their dps/tanks cannot do the same.

My second point directly ties into what I said above and it is completely based on how the Feast as a game mode is designed. The fact that the point of the Feast is to basically die over and over again can cause unimaginable frustration. Coupled with how high damage output is in this game, you've created a game mode that makes people die multiple times in a single game and makes players increasingly toxic towards each other, especially the healer. The fact that you can die over and over again to what is basically unhealable damage does not increase the healer fun factor as well and neither for the dps/tanks who feel like they have little to no room to do their jobs.

The third point has to do with limit breaks, more specifically melee limit breaks. SE has already nerfed melee limit break once but the ability still nets undeserved kills and still makes melee roles the sole user of adrenaline boxes.The fact you can basically kill someone with just one button click is absolutely absurd. It is also basically impossible to counter, by the time you see the cast bar for melee limit break appear and react, the damage has basically already been done, all that is left is for the animation to complete and you just end up dead. The only way to stop melee lb is to counter it basically right as they cast it, which, the only way to do that is predict they are going to do it or just be lucky. I myself can never ever say gg to a melee limit break, that would imply that I or anyone else had a decent shot and being able to mitigate or counter the damage in the first place. It is just straight up eat the damage and hope you somehow survive.

The fourth least important factor is medals. It's no secret that people can just take medals and totally screw over their team by taking them. However the biggest issue with the medal mechanic in this mode is the fact that it makes the team with the first kills suddenly at a disadvantage. Why should a team be punished for getting kills? I do realize that this system is necessary for the Feast due to the way it is but what is also necessary also generally makes the first 6 minutes of the game largely irrelevant and puts extreme focus on the closing minutes of the game. It ultimately makes the game stressful and unfun.

Those four points are the major reasons why The Feast as a game mode is so incredibly toxic. Square Enix made it that way! The fact that you as a team can learn over the course of an 8 minute game that you had no chance of winning after dying over and over to over powered mechanics and damage rotations sure does increase the venom and bitterness people can generate.

My solution would be to rework the damage and healing/mana regen values to not totally destroy or fully heal people and put the focus of ranked PVP on the Fold. The Fold is ultimately very simple, everyone gets the goal of the Fold at max level. There isn't any special strategy people would have to learn to play fold and it would eliminate people who take medals when they shouldn't. There isn't any stupid MOBA esq objectives in the form of adrenaline or wolfs heart that drastically give another team a huge advantage. When someone ends up dying, they'll only die once, you won't get to build up frustration dying over and over again. I would also recommend the removal of rez in the Fold all together to promote this. Introduce Culling in the Fold to prevent excessively long games. Also remove limit break all together from pvp.

Simplicity of strategy and not promoting multiple deaths in a single game will do a lot to curb toxicity. It won't be eliminated, but SE should remind themselves that they didn't feel the need to mute the Fold during it's time as the main pvp mode.

I really do hope SE considers this, because as it is now, The Feast is just a cesspool of gimmicks, and frustrating gameplay. The Fold with the right changes is simple and easily understood aka they wouldn't need to ask other players or consult the Feast page to understand what is happening.

Edit: Need to clarify I want fold to be updated to max level.