Okay, It's Two-Way Communication Time

[Gravton]

We are not going to get a response to these issues. If E-sports is the goal, then these issues are trivial. Yeah they are annoying, but ultimately do not affect tournament play. Most tournaments are held at a location controlled by the host company. They control the LAN and hardware used in the tournament. Hacks, bots, and 3rd party programs won't be an issue. Win trading is rare and heavily punished. We already know what the priority is.

However, an E-sport goal is an attempt to raise brand awareness to generate new customers. The new customers would be from a pvp mindset. FFXIV does not have an acceptable infrastructure to support the new pvp crowd they are targeting. FFXIV is a pve game that dabbles in pvp. They need to support customers looking for pvp and to dabble in pve.

Imagine a person, watching a FFXIV tournament and saying "That's for me." Then that player buys the game. They then find out that in order to play pvp, they have to complete a chunk of the story to unlock the quest for wolves den. Then they find out, in order to play a job in pvp they have to lvl it to 30. Unless they want to play drk, ast, mch, rdm, or sam. Now they have to complete a large chunk of the story, or drop a large investment in story jump, level jump, and both expansion on top of the subscription they have to pay. So it wil take a player (who wanted to check out pvp) months or a large investment just to see if it's for them. Then after all of that, they run into the issues we are now facing.

If this is going to be recognized as an e-sport outside of SE then it has to win Asia. E-sport is seen as a profession there. LoL is largely popular because it is free to play, and that is a bonus to many customers that pay for internet by the hour. Just sit back and think about the cost to start playing LoL vs. FFXIV. SE isn't going to drop the sub., so they need to find a way to allow brand new customers to jump straight into pvp on any job.

Just food for thought.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Here's the thing, and I've been wanting to speak on this for a while:

It's been 4 years.

4 long years of sparse support, shunning and neglect from the community, and when they finally began to turn things around, they not only failed to even TRY to teach new players anything about it, they ultimately flipped it on its head and turned it into something entirely different from what the community that formed around it - despite all the poor support and neglect - came to know and love. Some have adapted and continue to play, others have simply walked away, worst of all the small community that was there is barely there anymore as, again, everything was changed and with seemingly NO acknowledgement of input from the actual PvP community of FFXIV. Seriously, a guy who NEVER touched the Feast and wouldn't otherwise complained about not being able to get a Feast reward that happened to be a minion, and they jumped to answer him within 10 days. . .

The almost year old "The New Chat Restriction in the Feast" thread, started the day they announced that controversial change, and well before it took place, went 3 months and 40 pages before any kind of official response was given. And the response given was to ask for suggestions and feedback. . . Let me now remind you, this is 3 months and 40 pages later. What do you think those first 39 pages were?

As a more recent example, complaints have come flooding in about botting in Frontlines, and continue to come flooding in about wintrading players in the Feast - the same perpetrators from the previous 4 seasons of the Feast STILL, even after being reported multiple times - as well as issues with harrassment and negative attitudes via the Quick Chat system that was meant to solve said issues. And at best, all we've gotten is a "please be patient". No, it's been over a year and 5 seasons. DO SOMETHING. Players have been trying to help, but getting stonewalled in their attempts to do so, and despite all the new activity - brought in entirely for XP or rewards and NOT because they actually like/are interested in PvP - these issues remain unhandled, or poorly handled at best.

The PvP community - and let me step outside my own bounds and speak for them just a bit - the Original PvP community of XIV is practically lifelining now. You have a tired community with "beaten-dog" syndrome at this point. They've gotten so little, they expect so little, and that's a damn awful way to feel for something you pay for. It's bad enough things we wanted were barely addressed, we literally had everything changed overnight. And while it perhaps brought in new customers if you will, shoving the old ones out the back door and expecting them to want to return is foolish. Not handling long-time issues is bad for business, and though I feel it's dirty to say this, it needs to be said:

For all of you who are new to PvP now and think things are fine as is, how long will it be before you're pushed aside and neglected like the original community? How long will YOUR concerns go unanswered?

SE: You can't build up ANYTHING when your foundation is cracked and unstable. E-Sports will not happen unless you address these issues now instead of later. Community reps, we get there's only so much you can actually say or do, but long silences set a bad precedent and only further lowers the community's (what's left of it) confidence in both you and the devs that what we want, what we have issues with, will even be heard, let alone addressed or dealt with.

The only thing I could now say is this: Look to the Rising. Think about why you hold that event, and the lessons behind that. You need to approach PvP in this game seriously and with THAT mindset if you ever want it to be successful, let alone an E-Sport. My words might sound harsh, but it needs to be said, and I'm not afraid to say it. All previous questions and sentiments still stand. We want answers. It's time to talk.

[Geryth]

And now you're set to add tells cross server. TELLS - one of the biggest methods players and RMTs use/used to use to harrass players?

This is 100% a reason to just ditch the chat restrictions. Names are public so there's nothing stopping anyone from just bringing the trash talk outside of the game.

Online games have toxicity. Always have, always will. Administer appropriate and timely punishments, and that largely gets resolved. So many other games have done this well already. Not even restricted chat removes all toxicity, when so many players sarcastically use Good Game and Nice Job.

And overall - yes, SE has a huge lack of communication and involvement with the PvP community. We don't know what they want or have planned for the long term and they just will not verify that they like or will use our feedback - occasional cryptic statements saying they are reading our posts doesn't mean our feedback is coming through their design decisions or are being considered for either short term or long term solutions.

We want answers and action against bots
We want answers and action against win traders
We want answers and action on balance issues
We want answers and action on chat restrictions

Day after day after day....nothing.

[Stormfur]

I saw a video last night of someone blatantly cheating in a pvp match - he won match after match as a healer and didn't even use his hands.

When you know that PVP matches can be compromised to such an extreme - and that no matter how much you try to personally better yourself and help your team, that you will never match what some number-crunching algorithm can do in seconds. It's more than disheartening. It's absolutely crushing.

Cross-world tells are going to be a PVP salt mine nightmare. I shudder to think about it. It will become some kind of witch hunt if proactive measures aren't taken.

[Stormfur]

I'm halfway tempted to write up another post and have it professionally translated, because I feel like we're not heard at all. Or we're swept under the rug.

[Theodric]

It's a real kick in the teeth to be told that the reports about win trading and botting are 'exaggerated'. Anyone who is seriously engaged in PvP and objective about it can come to see that both are dire issues that have been left largely unaddressed.

Then again, it's likely that both are bigger issues over on the EU and NA servers rather than on the Japanese servers due to cultural differences and gaming habits. I'm not saying it's impossible there's issues there, too, but if they're only really concerning themselves with the Japanese servers then it explains why PvP has been handled so awkwardly in some ways.

As for Rival Wings, I think it'll be pretty fun - I don't mind that it isn't entirely based around direct PvP combat since there's a lot of balance issues that are unlikely to ever be ironed out properly. Healers, for instance, are incredibly strong to the point where even a great player can struggle to take them down.

[Gravton]

I'm looking forward to wings, but I can already tell it's going to be a cluster....ppl are going to just stand by the mech spawn to grab it. A lot of vote kicks are going to pop up for those waiting for it, by other players waiting for it. If they don't get it, then afk till the next pops. And just letting the mech die so you can get it / playing it safe in the mech to use it the entire fight. On top of that, you know mech achievements will be a thing and more than likely reward mounts/minions. All of that plus bots....I just threw up a little.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

After reading the translation from the Live Letter, my biggest concern for Rival Wings is the part where it says "The objective is not to defeat as many opponents as possible, but to destroy the opposing team's core." This makes me think that - once again - a large amount of focus will be taken away from actual player vs player gameplay, and more of a race to attack non-player objectives.

Shatter, with 2 teams, SE's own bots, and machines to do the real work.

The last thing I want to deal with is being a gopher for machina fuel, or being discouraged from actively attacking the other team in a PLAYER vs PLAYER game mode.

[Gravton]

Crap! I didn't even think about that but your right. I thought they were getting away from pve in pvp. What's with all the mechanics? Why do they feel they need to "innovate" when they don't even have simple game modes like capture the flag? I'm still going to play the thing but...com'on.

[Hestzhyen]

Crap! I didn't even think about that but your right. I thought they were getting away from pve in pvp. What's with all the mechanics? Why do they feel they need to "innovate" when they don't even have simple game modes like capture the flag? I'm still going to play the thing but...com'on.

Honestly the sell for Rival Wings sounds like a generic description of a MOBA. I could easily be wrong, and I really hope I am, because if I wanted the MOBA experience I'd dust off my LoL account instead of playing a half-baked version in XIV. I want to fight people, not kill their structures between farming resources and the occasional skirmish.