How could we increase the attractiveness/interest of/in PvP?

[Shurrikhan]

See title.

How can we increase the attractiveness of and interest in PvP?

[xJimmehx]

Better rewards. Materia is useless. If the materia worked i would probably be farming some to be honest. I like the idea of being able to customize my character a little. Especially if they added more type of materia.

New maps and game modes. For example a toy map with lots of item/floor plates with effects. If you pick up and item you turn into a creature(like in PotD). Sometimes you would be a cool creature and sometimes a toad or goblin...? xD Some items/floor plates could boost your movement speed or give you slow..

[Zojha]

I'd start with an elaborate player survey (with a quick link ingame in the daily messages upon log-in or the launcher).

Get people's opinions, see if they tried PvP yet or not, how often and why, when and how they learned about PvP being a thing, which modes they prefer and why, what they dis/like about the modes and PvP in general, their greatest joys and frustrations, what they would like to see added or removed, maybe ask for opinions on specific gameplay elements (trinity roles, limit break, vuln stacks, wolf's heart etc), ask about group sizes etc etc. If you want to make an educated decision, you need information, as much as you can get - and not just from people who already are interested and invested in it.

Then, evaluate and go from there. Your goal is to grow the playerbase with players that don't currently play without alienating the players that do.

Alternately, slap more rewards on it and watch as bots and Garoboy Z dive headlong into enemies without regards to team score.

[Shurrikhan]

Alternately, slap more rewards on it and watch as bots and Garoboy Z dive headlong into enemies without regards to team score.

I'm really hoping there's some conceptual improvement possible that would be a bit more long-lasting and intrinsically attractively than extra rewards, but I honestly don't know the first thing about PvP, except as to why, roughly, it fails to attract me in this MMO as much as most others—hence my asking here.

If I may ask, do you think knowing as much as we can about our current game modes and adjusting them accordingly would be enough to bring more players into the fray, and/or PvP into the spotlight, or do you think it might take larger, overarching changes than that?

[Zojha]

If I may ask, do you think knowing as much as we can about our current game modes and adjusting them accordingly would be enough to bring more players into the fray, and/or PvP into the spotlight, or do you think it might take larger, overarching changes than that?

I do think that without knowing why people don't currently PvP, you can't really make them PvP and without knowing why people do currently PvP, you might end up alienating the existing playerbase too much in your attempt to cater to new blood. Getting info on the game-modes is part of the larger picture, because you can deduce player preferences from that, but it alone probably won't suffice.

How many and how severe changes are needed, I don't know, because I don't know why other people do or don't PvP, I only know about my personal gripes with it and catering to those exclusively would likely peeve a lot of people that already happily play it off to no ends.

[Alien_Gamer]

My problem with pvp has always been the people. Too much tea bagging and "go kill yourself for sucking" and not enough respect and "good game, well played". If people actually treated it like a sport instead of a hormone fueled rage fest then I'd be more inclined to pvp. As it is, there's not enough rewards or new maps or much of anything that could get me into pvp.

[loreleidiangelo]

My problem with pvp has always been the people. Too much tea bagging and "go kill yourself for sucking" and not enough respect and "good game, well played". If people actually treated it like a sport instead of a hormone fueled rage fest then I'd be more inclined to pvp. As it is, there's not enough rewards or new maps or much of anything that could get me into pvp.

That hasn't really been my experience in games, though admittedly I won't touch ranked Feast even post chat ban. Frontlines has the occasional rager but most of my matches are either silent or have a few people macroing tactics or joking around.

I do think your perspective is key, though. Anecdotally, most people I know who won't try PVP on principle feel that way because they don't want to be "attacked" - whether that's physically by the enemy team or verbally by their teammates, who can say. Probably a mix of both, tbh. Repeatedly dying can be super demoralizing and and lead to the feeling of being "picked on", even in the type-F cluster that is Frontlines with 10 people zergbutting the same target, and suggestions/critique is ALSO viewed as being picked on too, so they get frustrated and quit (or never try PVP to begin with). How do you get a person who feels like things are always a personal attack to enjoy a game mode where the entire GOAL is to attack other players?

It's a hard concept to reconcile, and I'm not sure much can be done about it. People don't think it's personal when the Thordan Extreme AI mutilates them over and over, but put a person behind that character model and suddenly there's a huge increase in anxiety. MOBAs let you practice against bot characters (it's not GREAT practice, but still), but that's a LOT of work and development time to put in just to make a niche activity in a broader general game type more appealing.

[Stormfur]

Make it meaningful (but optional) to the story. Right now, Wolves Den is just this "sudden island that some pirates found and now it's a training ground". There's no reason for players to care.

[SuperZay]

GARO event is insanely popular, despite that many participants hate pvp. So just good, time-limited rewards work for general, casual public.
For true pvpers there are many issues which make pvp worse, like slow server ticks, jobs imbalance, no chat and almost absence of any matches policing and punishment for afkers/cheaters/trolls/wintraders, and these issues are not fixed so easily and in one day.

[silverlunarfox]

My problem with pvp has always been the people. Too much tea bagging and "go kill yourself for sucking" and not enough respect and "good game, well played". If people actually treated it like a sport instead of a hormone fueled rage fest then I'd be more inclined to pvp.

You have described the mood of every multiplayer game ever made. I enjoy when people rage personally, its a form of entertainment, and its honestly not as bad in FFXIV as it is in say, Overwatch...

I think to renew interest is to find a better way to ease new players into it. I recently got some FC mates into playing with me after giving up in feast since the matches were the fastest losses theyve ever seen. I introduced them into Frontlines, and while it was a better experience, it was almost too much. They need something inbetween. I don't know what that would be but polling interest in ideas would be a start.