The general player base needs to improve

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

PVP in FFXIV has always been terrible though. Neither the servers, the game engine or the gameplay is suited for it. And it's not a matter of being good or bad at it.

You know, I've covered this one a lot in the PvP forums.

A lot of people that said it was bad largely never even tried it, rather they just accepted word of mouth about it. Sometimes that word of mouth came from someone who stepped in, performed poorly or was uncooperative with their team (the ol' "first strike", get-them-before-they-get-you defensive attitude) and had a bad experience for it. Some actually did try it and didn't like it, and that's fine. Fact is however, before 4.0, a LOT of people not only enjoyed it, they were good at it. It's popular thought that PvP was "dead" before Stormblood, but there was in fact, an active and competitive community; one that's been all but destroyed by SE's questionable attempts to "fix" and foolproof PvP.

It's also popular thought that the game engine/gameplay isn't suited for it, and that's just not true. It could be better, yes. Hell, it WAS better before Stormblood, but if it wasn't suited for it, they wouldn't have added it. It might come as a surprise, but some of the PvE skills considered useless in PvE were strong abilities in PvP. It doesn't help however, the general avoidance and misunderstanding, combined with overall lack of knowledge of PvP that makes the idea that "PvP in FFXIV was always bad" so popular.

Remember when Yoshi said that he wanted PvP to be an esport? I mean, I think they did a good job with revamping the PvP for stormblood, but even then this games PvP can't really compare to pure PvP games.

You might want to look again. I think it speaks in volumes when the players who were once dedicated to PvP when it was supposedly "bad" largely hate it enough to quit FFXIV entirely. SE ignoring issues with botting/exploiting for XP for half a year, kneejerk changes to a new mode that didn't fix the big problems and made things that worked NOT work, and the repeated, questionably poor changes made to the Feast in an attempt to "foolproof" it and make it an e-sport (while still not addressing the bigger issues like all the cheating and such) really paint a whole different picture.

[Ilyrian]

You know, I've covered this one a lot in the PvP forums.

I know. And you really do need to stop taking it so personally.
But I support you - if playing PVP in this game - with this system - rocks your world then more power to you. Genuinely - I hope it improves to your liking.
Personally I hate it - it is infuriatingly bad from the ground up. Don't get me wrong I love dressing up my kittyboi WHM and playing in Eorzea as much as the next dude in his mid-thirties BUT (and it's a big but) this cannot distract from the fact that playing any sort of PVP with that GCD is screen-punchingly infuriating to me.
I actually logged into WoW last night (first time in 7 months) to do a bit of housekeeping and played a couple of WSG matches and believe me it's like night and day. This isn't just personal preference talking - it's not about aesthetics, it's a genuine system that works as intended and a system that doesn't.
I would love PVP to work in this game - I really would as I miss being able to hop into it here and there - but freewheeling christ - that GCD is broken and not fit for purpose and the combat is not in any way suitable for it.

[Stanelis]

A lot of people that said it was bad largely never even tried it, rather they just accepted word of mouth about it.

It's also popular thought that the game engine/gameplay isn't suited for it, and that's just not true. It could be better, yes. Hell, it WAS better before Stormblood, but if it wasn't suited for it, they wouldn't have added it.

1) most people have tried FFXIV PVP, see that it is awfully bad and never put a foot in such activities again.
2) The game engine and gameplay isn't suited for it (the holy trinity doesn't work in PVP and FFXIV is all about it, and the frequency at witch the server tally the player's movement isn't high enough to provide for smooth gameplay).
3) They added PVP because the most popular games currently are all PVP games that have pro leagues (just take a look at twitch and the most popular games), not because the gameplay is suited for it. It is a (poor) marketing choice (somebody at SE seemingly didn't get the memo that if you're going to have pvp in your game you also need to have a relevant gameplay tied to it).

I mean, FFXIV have some strong selling points (mostly that it is very pretty, the CS are decent and the immersion in the areas is quite good), but PVP isn't one of those.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

1) most people have tried FFXIV PVP, see that it is awfully bad and never put a foot in such activities again.
2) The game engine and gameplay isn't suited for it (the holy trinity doesn't work in PVP and FFXIV is all about it, and the frequency at witch the server tally the player's movement isn't high enough to provide for smooth gameplay).
3) They added PVP because the most popular games currently are all PVP games that have pro leagues (just take a look at twitch and the most popular games), not because the gameplay is suited for it. It is a (poor) marketing choice (somebody at SE seemingly didn't get the memo that if you're going to have pvp in your game you also need to have a relevant gameplay tied to it).

1. Most people really have no idea what they're doing in there, and that's even after the 4.0 overhaul.
2. Why then was there a dedicated community formed around it for 4 years until now? I mean if it were so ill suited, SE must be some kind of idiot savant for pulling it off in a workable fashion before.
3. They added it because fans wanted it bad enough. . . You know, like housing, glamours, Eternal Bond, trading primal tokens for mounts (THAT idea was even born on the forums), and many other features the game didn't start with.

In the interest of time and not inciting anyone by daring to talk about XIV's red-headed stepchild, please go read the PvP forums. Our exchange just now, and wherever it might go from there has been discussed plenty of times. Let's not upset anyone here in General Discussion.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

It's not personal, but imagine hearing the same misinformed stances on it for 4 years. It gets old.

There's also the bit where people consider the "new" PvP to be better, either without having experienced the "old", or buying into the same misconceptions about the old and using that as reason why the "new" is better. I mean, I never did Ultimate Coil; as such, I wouldn't consider myself qualified to speak in absolutes about it. That's not what you said or intended, and I see that, but I've seen far too many others do so, and again, it gets old.

Doesn't help that most of the experienced players either are forum banned, don't want to speak on the forums (generally for having been ignored for so long), or have literally just quit the game.

[rachcouture]

Where do you draw the line on improving, though? The definition of 'bad' is extremely subjective. I know I struggle hard with Rabanastre, but that's because it has some of the absolute worst, most deceiving visual queues in the game on top of stupid amounts of massive AoE spam leaving no room for mistakes. It's one of the few examples that I can think of where FFXIV tries way too hard to be difficult, missing the mark on a fair challenge completely. The player can't be blamed for that.

My concern is much more to do with other players being inconsiderate, i.e. DPS that refuse to stand next to their healers (SCH and AST have no AoE healing range whatsoever) or tanks that immediately go for stupid pull sizes without any regard to the rest of the party's gear or capability.

[Minako_Nightsong]

Where do you draw the line on improving, though? The definition of 'bad' is extremely subjective. I know I struggle hard with Rabanastre, but that's because it has some of the absolute worst, most deceiving visual queues in the game on top of stupid amounts of massive AoE spam leaving no room for mistakes. It's one of the few examples that I can think of where FFXIV tries way too hard to be difficult, missing the mark on a fair challenge completely. The player can't be blamed for that.
.

I still die on Hashbrowns sometimes when the earthquake patches start piling up, usually right as he does his flaming hand thing! I also seem to die to sudden aoe ground effects if I am in the middle of them such as Susano circles or very wide cone effects. I start to run as soon as I see them but, bam....dead.

I only had ARR and played for about a month before Stormblood so I spent the first week of access playing Red Mage through Heavensward. My second week was in Stormblood so I reached Shinyru when it was still very new. It took a play session to finally pass him to continue the story. All of his recycled mechanics were new to most of us and we were also in our spiffy 290 class gear. He was a leap in difficulty from what we had experienced up till then. I had a lot of fun learning and beating him.

The most fun I had in a long time was a few weeks ago when 4.2 dropped. I decided to go in totally blind and as a tank (I don't tank much) to Hell's Lid and Continuum. My parties did well and it was a blast having to reason the best approach to each mechanic on the fly. I also played the Sigmascape and Byakko as dps the same way with the same results.

[AxlStream]

Okay let's cut it with the PvP talks. Anyone that played PvP on other games will easely tell you XIV's PvP might be the worst on the market right now. No amount of time or playing it well makes it a good PvP experience.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Okay let's cut it with the PvP talks. Anyone that played PvP on other games will easely tell you XIV's PvP might be the worst on the market right now. No amount of time or playing it well makes it a good PvP experience.

Yeah, it's terrible now, but. . .

[AxlStream]

Yeah, it's terrible now, but. . .

I get that it was better before. I played it before. But even if it was better, it's still was nowhere close to be considered good. Serviceable at best and even then, I am being generous.