We're confused. Could we have some developer explanations on the 4.25 PvP changes?

[Volene]

Hi all!

I have to say I'm puzzled by the 4.25 changes, I didn't think that's the direction they would go in at all, and I don't think I'm the only one.

Recently, we posted a lot of feedback on these forums which we think was well-received. The dev team let us know that they were listening, but warned us that any change involving the map would take more time to deploy and wouldn't be live in time for 4.25.

Fair enough.

But then, the patch notes show that the changes that were actually made not only ignore the remainder of the feedback we've given, but go directly against it. I think that considering the context, at least an explanation for those changes would go a long way in maintaining confidence from the PvP community.

• Why were Lichenweed and the Feasting Grounds not added back to the map rotation? You didn't remove the Feasting Grounds when you added Lichenweed in the game a few months back. I know that the wall patterns aren't always the same on Crystal Tower, but the same map over and over will quickly get boring. Why remove maps? What's to gain from it?

• Why was WHM buffed? A good healer is already the most powerful class in the right hands since you need coordination between 2 DPS bursts and a tank's cc to reliably get a kill against a single healer, who on his end only needs occasional support from the tank (when **** hits the fan, if you will). Of those, WHM was widely regarded as the best healer, and the most oppressive to play against. Why were they buffed instead of SCH? Do you have some sort of internal data about WHM winrates or something, anything that suggested they weren't up to par and needed this?

• Why was damage nerfed across the board? The most recent batch of changes (which saw match time reduced to 6 minutes) increased everyone's survivability by quite a bit and made it harder to get any kills, for many reasons (reduction of the Heavy Medal damage increase, addition of the Light Medal damage reduction for dying, limit on the amount of medals each job can pick up, HP pools buffed, damage reduction trait buffed, Safeguard/Purify/Concentrate/Muse cooldowns reduced, healer spells MP costs not adjusted for the shorter match times). Our feedback regarding this was clear. What made you think these changes were needed?

So yeah, as a member of a few different PvP communities, I can say that all of them were confused upon reading the patch notes. Strong jobs were buffed (WHM), weak jobs were nerfed (MNK, SMN of all things????), it simply makes no sense to us, and it goes against the feedback that we left and thought you heard in the preseason. I don't want to sound entitled to an explanation, but I think it would be a very good thing so we can at least understand why you went against our feedback.

Thank you for your time.

[Razzii]

10000000% confused.

[Enlial]

Well the people asking for mch nerfs a few threads down got their wish.

I think healers in general are pretty stupid now, compared to before. And that it has less to do with feedback, or even with balance, so much as it does with queues and the fact that not enough people want to play them. Like, they're just going to keep getting buffed until that balances out. Obviously Im not a dev, but thats my guess.

What really seems odd to me is how they're making all these changes immediately before a season begins. Couldn't they "monitor" during and make changes before preseason? x_x

[PotatoTree]

I'm not sure why they ask for PvP feedback when they clearly did not listen to the feedback at all.

I'm not being sarcastic when I say it's gown downhill pretty much every patch. And this PvP patch they managed to piss off both the PvE and PvP population.

[Crit]

yeah feast is actually busted now

[Risvertasashi]

Damage wasn't nerfed across the board. WAR was flat buffed, MNK they simply moved some power to different actions.

What really seems odd to me is how they're making all these changes immediately before a season begins. Couldn't they "monitor" during and make changes before preseason? x_x

They probably have been monitoring, and I'd bet that's the basis for these changes.

[Sunako]

Well feedback is based other forums as well, not only English forums. You dont know what ppl speak in JP forum.

[joep]

That awkward moment when they completely forgot PvP teams exist

[Astrophysx]

I'm going to climb solo queue as WHM. For Light Party, I recommend using a MNK/SMN composition when you face against my team! ^_^

[Nedkel]

This is a stupid joke.

White mage buffed, astrologian nerf is a joke, schoolar not touched at all...
Paladin nerfed FOR NO REASON, Bard untouched, ninja nerfed for no reason as well, wth with that dragon nerf.

Seriously do they play their pvp, because its seems ridiculous.
The only good thing is machinist nerf but that does not make any sense since with the healers remaining the most important part of pvp it will make even harder to kill healers instead, thats all rest of it seems weird or taken out from space.