Rival Wings rewards (exp/tomes)

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

I never said no one should have rewards or incentives, but the way people use them as a talking point makes me wonder sometimes if anyone actually plays this because they enjoy it, or if it's all just about grinding out reward after reward and never being satisfied at all?

As for 3.x PvP, you have to remember: we didn't ask for 4.x PvP's changes. Maybe a few of the good things we got, but it was quite a blindside for the PvP community. A "by the way, we're changing everything about PvP and never said anything til now, despite all the feedback and asking for information" on SE's part. And by and large the original community that played it (and NOT the ones that avoided it like the plague) aren't happy with the changes. I pointed out before that you've covered the things that were wrong with 3.x PvP, but often overlook what was actually right all along.

[Istaru]

I never said no one should have rewards or incentives, but the way people use them as a talking point makes me wonder sometimes if anyone actually plays this because they enjoy it, or if it's all just about grinding out reward after reward and never being satisfied at all?

As for 3.x PvP, you have to remember: we didn't ask for 4.x PvP's changes. Maybe a few of the good things we got, but it was quite a blindside for the PvP community. A "by the way, we're changing everything about PvP and never said anything til now, despite all the feedback and asking for information" on SE's part. And by and large the original community that played it (and NOT the ones that avoided it like the plague) aren't happy with the changes. I pointed out before that you've covered the things that were wrong with 3.x PvP, but often overlook what was actually right all along.

All of this!

[RiyahArp]

The pvp community wanted tomes removed from seal rock. It wanted the dueling circle, which pretty much is useless on just about every server. It wanted light party feast to have the same rewards as normal feast, and they didn't even bother playing it, enabling people to easily win trade and forcing SE to remove the mode. The PvP community played Feast so little after a point that they more or less cut the seasons duration immensely. The pvp thinks 3.0 is good when you could barely find healers who wanted to do it due to all those moves you think added so much skill to the game, and forgets everything bad or crappy about the mode. I don't know why I should trust their judgment.

[Mirch]

The pvp community wanted tomes removed from seal rock. It wanted the dueling circle, which pretty much is useless on just about every server. It wanted light party feast to have the same rewards as normal feast, and they didn't even bother playing it, enabling people to easily win trade and forcing SE to remove the mode. The PvP community played Feast so little after a point that they more or less cut the seasons duration immensely. The pvp thinks 3.0 is good when you could barely find healers who wanted to do it due to all those moves you think added so much skill to the game, and forgets everything bad or crappy about the mode. I don't know why I should trust their judgment.

someone is triggered e_e

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

The community wanted the incentive for people to come in, NOT participate, and be rewarded removed. We enjoy getting tomes from our preferred endgame of choice, but disliked others who held it in contempt trying to use it for selfish gain.

We wanted the ability to duel. . . They gave us ONE PLACE to do it. And while you consider it useless, it's drawn the attention of the curious and gotten them to actually try PvP. I personally met and began training my first "student" on day one, and went on to teach others from there, eventually creating Goblin's most successful PvP linkshell and connecting the various PvPers on the server. I still see random people, not even regular PvPers pop up there from time to time to duel each other for fun.

Light Party offering rewards, again, unfortunately drew people who sought to exploit it for selfish gain. SE removed that not because of them, but because they have plans to relaunch a more formal, structured Light Party Feast.

The lack of rating decay and desire to rank up fast to avoid the new, the curious, and admittedly, the lesser skilled is what makes Feast seasons slow down over time. Poor matchmaking poses greater risk to higher ranks when placed with lower ranks that, now, can't be effectively communicated with. That has nothing to do season duration.

There are PLENTY of successful healers from previous seasons under the 3.x PvP system, some even top 10. Your statement is both untrue and heavily based on a personal opinion, and just as said before, you see all that was wrong, and not what was right all along.

As far as judgements are concerned, who would it make more sense to listen to, the active community that formed around and enjoyed that "terrible" 3.x PvP where everyone else hated and avoided it purely from word of mouth or personal bias, or those people who hated and avoided it, yet would turn around and say "the Nadaam is awesome! We want this for PvP!" but wouldn't touch Seal Rock? Should SE listen to casters on how to build a better Bard or Machinist? I mentioned that for a reason; the PvP community was just as unpleasantly surprised as BRDs were in Heavensward when they were suddenly made into half-casters. Bards didn't ask for that change, and they didn't like it. This is no different.

We get it: you didn't like 3.x PvP, nor healing in that system. Many loved it and had no issue with it, and to have it suddenly torn away and replaced with an unfinished "foundation" of a system is a huge disappointment. The part of the community that actually liked PvP - and played it - now does not like it, and the ones that disliked it without trying it now suddenly like it. And not even for the actual gameplay, but just another means to an end. Tomes and exp, both of which they can still obtain in greater amounts from other content. . . Do you see where the issue is there?

[Istaru]

-SNIP-

But Lace, I want to be able to join into PVP and be rewarded immediately and without effort!

Whether that effort be time, difficulty or any sort of dedication. Just give me what I want when I want it, right away.

Is that really so bad?

[RiyahArp]

TAs far as judgements are concerned, who would it make more sense to listen to, the active community that formed around and enjoyed that "terrible" 3.x PvP where everyone else hated and avoided it purely from word of mouth or personal bias, or those people who hated and avoided it, yet would turn around and say "the Nadaam is awesome! We want this for PvP!" but wouldn't touch Seal Rock? Should SE listen to casters on how to build a better Bard or Machinist? I mentioned that for a reason; the PvP community was just as unpleasantly surprised as BRDs were in Heavensward when they were suddenly made into half-casters. Bards didn't ask for that change, and they didn't like it. This is no different.

They listened to the raiding community at the end of coil, and got the consensus they wanted everything to be more difficult. So they designed Gordias and Midas, and they made the 3.0 system at launch really tough, requiring skillful play. Even with Bard's changes, it still wound up being the easiest out of the HW jobs to play and do average at, compared to BLM, which had such tight timers that it was ridiculous. All the DPS jobs were markedly more complex to play well and play in general.

And what happened next was SE discovering that people really struggled with that, despite the community asking for it. They tried to slowly adjust the game's balance through minor means, like cutting the timers down, or adding things like Thordan EX to bridge the gear gap for raiders. All the while people kept saying it was fine, or it was easy, etc. Eventually they just had to give up and reduce difficulty of the main raids overall just to rebuild the raiding community (which had massively splintered) and then literally toss out many of the HW mechanics that served to make the game so much more difficult, like applying multiple DOTs to a target for max DPS, or having large amount of moves in a rotation overall.

If you had asked the established communities then, they would have just said "git gud" and we'd still be seeing Ultimate levels of NA raid clears.

That's because over time, the communities ostracize their negative people, and just end up comprised of people who more or less like the system. If you were good at 3.0 rotations, you didn't see any need for them to be changed. But if you struggled with them, even if you joined the community, you just wind up not getting listened to, or leave because they aren't seeing how it is affecting things. Everything is fine, so it has to be the players.

And it's honestly just dumb. There's always a trend for expert players to try to make things harder over time, because the skill gap between an expert and average can be incredibly large. If you want 3.0 back, you essentially want to increase that gap. We've had a long history of people assuming that players will rise to the challenge when they do that. They don't, really.

[Wintersandman]

If you want 3.0 back, you essentially want to increase that gap.

Which is why the skill gap between an average player and expert player is about the same in today's 4.0 system. Healers honestly have a greater skill gap than what was required in 3.0. Also maybe the reason why feast is meh in attendance is it is a poorly implemented arena style pvp mode. The 3.0 system for PvP wasn't that complex, it really wasn't. But now we have a game that functions completely differently. In 3.0 you knew how the moves worked because not much changed between PvE and PvP, the biggest skill gap was people not knowing they had PvP abilities and be willing to compromise their hotbars (because hotbars were assigned to the job and not the gearset). I PvP'd on specific jobs and PvE'd on others for that exact reason. But now we have a mode where blizzard isn't blizzard and acts completely differently. So it is harder to go between modes and know how the abilities are going to work.

So if anything it was education that was lacking because players wouldn't look up the resources that were available to them. In 3.0 only experienced players knew how amazing/deadly push back was and it took education which the dueling arena allowed for.

To say the dueling arena is dead is a fallacy. I constantly saw duels going on in the Wolves Den when I was on Ultros and also now that I am on Hyperion.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

I know you were being sarcastic, but #feelssobadman

[NorthernLadMSP]

I'll be totally honest. If it weren't for Frontlines and Rival Wings, I'd never log in anymore. PVE content has become so stale and boring to me, and I'm no longer participating in the B.S. drama fest that this game calls raiding.