Mog talk interview(PVP Info)

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

This was important enough to make a second post for, please bear with me:

"From this, we can tell how much harsh language was becoming an impediment to new players and hurting their participation."

To Yoshi-P, the dev team, and the community reps, please hear me on this matter - A far greater impediment to players both new and old was the lack of any real effort on your part to properly teach or explain how most PvP modes worked. Much like you ultimately decided a "Hall of the Novice" was beneficial to players, there was no effort or similar feature to help players learn PvP. I'm of the firm belief that experience is the best teacher, yes, but many players simply need that helpful guide to get started.

Consider as well that PvP in FFXIV for the longest time was avoided and shunned, often with the largely mistaken impression that the community is by-and-large, "toxic" and that far more negative word of mouth spread, often from people who had preformed negative opinions of PvP, or knew little, performed poorly as a result, and walked away from it with a bad impression. Soon enough, it became popular to hate/dismiss PvP in this game, but there was a community that formed around it that had a thicker skin a will to learn, and a true competitive spirit, and THAT is what sustained PvP in this game and continues to do so. We enjoyed PvP in this game, even when we felt ignored, even when we felt neglected, even when decisions were made for us, and the feedback we gave in response seemed to no avail, we still played, we still enjoyed it. Then the huge impacts of 3.5 and 4.0 happened, and like it was said in the interview, many began to feel discouraged.

Still, it must be laid bare for all to see: Harsh language was hardly the impediment to players in PvP that you may think. Harsh language is something we encounter in PvP or outside of it, FFXIV or other games, online or off. It's not right to have to deal with it, no, but it's far less of an issue when you weigh it against the lack of support in helping players learn how PvP works (which then falls to a community now silenced to try to do), as well as the lack of timely, effective moderation of issues. We understand it's tough, but I've stated previously that it is a disservice to both you and the players to arbitrarily deny visual evidence, especially when there are rules in place that cover false reporting. Either the person submitting evidence is a liar and only getting themselves in trouble, or the evidence holds weight and deserves proper review.

Speaking as a long-time member of this game's PvP community, while we're no more or less perfect than players outside the PvP community, you have a better PvP community than you might think or give them credit for, and it's perhaps time you see that. There ARE bad apples, but we are more than willing to help deal with them if we had more confidence that our efforts would not simply be dismissed. Respectfully, please understand that the larger impediment to players is when you attempt to think for us and dismiss or misinterpret data and feedback.

[OskarXCI]

He wanted feedback on chat and I say keep chat restriction when you play with randoms, be it 4v4 or 8v8, and have the chat open when you play custom matches. The negatives outweighs the positives regarding chat with randoms. Good call from SE if the PvP player base has grown and kept playing since 3.5 when GARO rewards and chat restriction were added.

With tournaments, I hope they have official PvP tournaments running every other week like Triple Triad once they get implemented.

I'm hoping that the PvP community organizes their own tournaments through cross-server custom matches once patch 4.1 goes live.

This isn't going to go away simply because of chat ban. People are going to find other ways to defame and spread hate.

I rather take "Nice job" and/or "Good Match" spam than the alternative.

Why then is chat not restricted for PvE content?

Maybe because PvE consists of more than 2 instances?

What I know, is I tried to played Black Mage during season 1 and 2, and I stopped because of the chat.
I didn't even tried season 3.
With the removal of the chat, I came back and did season 4 entirely and finished top 100.

I know, sometimes real talk could help the team, but I have no faith in EU PVP community to hold his tongue and be capable to not injure/discourage/diminish other players.

The old chat don't need to come back, or if it come, add a report system too (like in Paragon).

Pretty much the same for me though not in the top 100.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

You missed the point of my asking that.

If it's a matter of looking at the numbers alone, all PvE content has higher numbers of players than PvP, both good and bad. I said this. Thus, why then would a chat restriction not be considered for what's effectively a larger sampling of negative players?

As far as dealing with chat spam, that's effectively worse purely because it makes a sound each time.
That's a bit harder to ignore than someone simply going on saying negative things. Not only that, I've said this plenty of times and if anyone's not clear on it, please take heed now: Most players want to win more than they want to harass or insult others.

And the playerbase has grown because:
1. Finally lifting GC restrictions improved matchmaking, which made queues faster, thus people weren't as discouraged to not even queue considering 1.5 hr wait times dropped to 5-10 minutes at prime times.
2. The cost and awarding of Wolf Marks was adjusted to make both getting Marks and buying items with them far easier, just in time for the event.
3. The Garo event was designed so that the rewards were only available from PvP FIRST. And in the case of the mounts, ONLY from PvP. If people wanted them enough, they made the effort to at least try for it, and they weren't so difficult to get at that point (See #2)
4. People FINALLY tried PvP and realized it wasn't so bad or as toxic as what they'd previously heard. Some even grew to like it and now play regularly. And even THEY feel the chat restriction is a bad idea.

You're attempting to back up his statement based on feedback, but have you not seen the nearly year old, over-90 pages long thread of mostly negative feedback about chat? Claiming the increase in activity was attributed to the chat restriction is simply skewing the facts to support a narrative that is entirely wrong and ignorant of several other important factors. It's like saying a job is perfect or perfectly balanced because of the number of people playing it (i.e. SCH and DRK in the Feast currently). With no disrespect intended, you may want to read into things a bit more before trying to support skewed facts.

add a report system too (like in Paragon).

Why is this a perfectly acceptable system to implement for RMTs and the like, but not for a competitive gaming mode? Especially when the RMT reporting system also warns you about false reporting, so no one can claim ignorance on that. As far as people abusing chat in PvP, first, I need to say this:

1. There's nothing wrong with being new. But if you ARE going to try it, try to learn what you can to prepare before you actually step in. Ignorance or lack of understanding is largely what leads to losing.
2. Don't become defiant or nasty when given advice. Consider that - IF the player isn't already being mean about it - they ARE trying to help. A lot of these cases of "toxicity" are often a matter of the "victim" shooting first. And no, I don't say this without having seen it happen myself.
3. As far as dealing with actual cases of toxic players who just dump on or harass others: Pull the weeds, don't ruin the whole garden.

[Cynric]

snip

I was more so thinking of how people make youtube videos just to defame people these days. But yeah Nice job! is the limit of what people on the internet can do.

There's also purposefully losing every time they see you specifically. Stalking you, sending you messages after the game(big one).

All these things are harassment, but there's nothing stopping them from doing it. Definitely not banning chat inside the mode.

And if you think Square is going to stop them, Square won't even ban people who break the rules everyday.

[Theodric]

The 'toxic' argument falls flat when you consider that whilst there's certainly problematic players in PvP you get just as many in PvE. Since the latter is a bigger part of the game, though, they wouldn't dare remove the chat from instanced duties. Imagine how horrible an experience it would be trying to get a group casual players through something like 3.0's final fight if you couldn't explain to those failing mechanics what the tactics involve? Imagine if, instead, you had the quick chat function as your only tool and every time someone died the only words in the chat were 'Nice job!'

It'd make more sense to just punish those who are caught out repeatedly engaging in toxic rants. If need be, they could hire more employees to deal with the reports. It costs money, certainly, though surely it could be funded through the Mog Station - or simply through getting more funding directly from Square Enix.

[Khalithar]

So... Removing chat brought a whole bunch of people into PvP.

Yeah I'm a little surprised Yoshida said that, besides that comment I thought it was a pretty good review overall. But seriously I think someone needs to tell him that correlation =/= causation.

[Krolja]

Yeah I'm a little surprised Yoshida said that, besides that comment I thought it was a pretty good review overall. But seriously I think someone needs to tell him that correlation =/= causation.

Agreed. There's no way that "removing chat brought people to PvP." Whomever gave him his data failed to mention the Garo event, the addition of Frontline Freelancer, and EXP being added to all the PvP modes and while the servers were crapping themselves on Early Access, PvP was the most efficient way to get EXP.

But yeah, chat restriction was the big selling point. /facepalm

[LalaRu]

Removing chat was a godsend feature. Before that, the main reason to go pvp feeled like just yelling unpronounceable words at the newbs at every little thing they mess up.

It was thanks to you yellers that chat got removed. Remember that.

If you serious about PvP, as said, the chat will return with teamed pvp so no reason to yelling here about it back in random teams.

Not to mention, if you really serious about pvp, you already have your communication system and don't even use a keyboard for that.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Removing chat was a godsend feature. Before that, the main reason to go pvp feeled like just yelling unpronounceable words at the newbs at every little thing they mess up.

It was thanks to you yellers that chat got removed. Remember that.

Unless you can somehow back up this statement, that is a VERY gross assumption, and a terrible stereotyping of the PvP community, and you need to stop that right now. I said before - BASED ON FACTS - that most players want to win more than they want to insult others. And yet, you so far are the only one who's come along insulting others here. Why do you think that's okay?

[LalaRu]

Unless you can somehow back up this statement

Devs got to the extent to remove chat because of that. Fact.

And not bashing the whole community. Just the special snowflakes that thinks that being good gives them rights of bashing who isn't good as them.