An argument and plea for more actions in PVP

[joep]

I also think it’s important to be realistic. Do you really see SE going from 9 to 25 abilities for each job? Especially if the expansion is around the corner and they add 3 more jobs, which would also have 25 abilities of their own? It would be a massive undertaking, let alone balancing it all. We already saw SE having balancing issues through out stormblood with jobs having only 9 abilities.

However, giving each job 2 new abilities seems way more plausible and easier to balance/test. I’d rather have them do this and have a somewhat balanced game than have an insanely imbalanced 5.X.

[BloodRubyXII]

It should be a gradual process, not overwhelm players with 25 abilities in PvP again. Even with 9 buttons right now, a very small percentage of players have managed to completely master a single job in PvP.

I mean, I’ve seen it on your stream as well. You get frustrated with your teammates at times when they don’t use their safeguard or TBN. Now imagine introducing 15 more abilities all of a sudden. It would be overwhelming to most players.

As a WoW PvP player, I love having lots of abilities, trust me. There is room for higher individual skill and you can carry more. But this game and their community isn’t quite there yet. And I think things should be implemented one step at a time and not in giant leaps.

Yeah I mean it's not like some of us want PvE level of abilities in PvP, just some versatility/options. Like it'd be nice to have some proper CC and other utility again, rather than it being restricted to a single role or few classes.

[Aviars]

It should be a gradual process, not overwhelm players with 25 abilities in PvP again. Even with 9 buttons right now, a very small percentage of players have managed to completely master a single job in PvP.

Lol. People come from PVE with 30+ buttons plus several role specific additionals. It does not matter if a low amount of people have "mastered" a job in your subjective opinion. The game/pvp deserves to have a higher skill ceiling than it does now. when I watch a samurai complete a "high level" burst by just pressing midari at the correct time it's a complete sham.

I mean, I’ve seen it on your stream as well. You get frustrated with your teammates at times when they don’t use their safeguard or TBN. Now imagine introducing 15 more abilities all of a sudden. It would be overwhelming to most players.

So what? A lot of the time people can still climb and win even making mistakes like that because what matters most in this game is landing burst in the first place and completing that burst is extremely easy for basically all jobs.

As a WoW PvP player, I love having lots of abilities, trust me. There is room for higher individual skill and you can carry more. But this game and their community isn’t quite there yet. And I think things should be implemented one step at a time and not in giant leaps.

I don't coddle and baby people. In heavensward there were a lot of high level players doing amazing things with what they were given. With the changes a lot of them have decided to either quit the game or not bother with pvp because it is low skill. Should we nerf PVE to the ground to 9 buttons because people are as bad as you say? with the way you want to implement change it would be a decade before it was acceptable and by then SE might as well have made a brand new MMO.

I also think it’s important to be realistic. Do you really see SE going from 9 to 25 abilities for each job? Especially if the expansion is around the corner and they add 3 more jobs, which would also have 25 abilities of their own? It would be a massive undertaking, let alone balancing it all. We already saw SE having balancing issues through out stormblood with jobs having only 9 abilities.

SE manages to "balance" PVE and add more to it every expansion. Do you honestly believe they are not capable of huge changes? They REDUCED pvp down to 9 buttons in the first place. I think the fact that they have trouble balancing 9 button pvp shows the flaw in your argument. They would have trouble balancing the game whether it had 9 buttons or 25, it does not matter, and that is true for almost any game you play.

However, giving each job 2 new abilities seems way more plausible and easier to balance/test. I’d rather have them do this and have a somewhat balanced game than have an insanely imbalanced 5.X.

"Seems" isn't the same as truth. And let me tell you this, the fact that there have been balance issues the entire time with 9 button pvp on the first try same with 25 button pvp. Stop this notion that more buttons means it's harder on SE. They already have a base skeleton off of PVE and they can add in PVP abilities and strip away unnecessary PVE abilities all the same.

[Karinhatsumi]

It would also be nice to have some of the stuff implemented in stormblood with all of our buttons back, like the timer for the dr so it can be easier to see but having it as 1 minute like back in 3.x and the enemy party list as well. I also have to agree that the skill ceiling literally died and I hate how short these seasons are getting. It also didn't make any sense to have season highest rankings being your actual rank and starting in a higher tier based on your tier from last season. I liked working up the ladder from scratch because it made getting diamond more rewarding. Now all these matches are just see how has a inexperienced player who doesn't know how to coordinate with a team of high level players and abuse that to win cause of starting in a higher tier.

TLDR what i wish is for more buttons to separate skill levels but also keep some of the changes to make newer players learn faster to become better like, the enemy list and the dr timer but having it the same as it was in HW in your enhancement bar. Get rid of highest ranking being your actual ranking and get rid of starting in a higher tier based off of your ranking in the previous season that way matches won't be skewed anymore.

[AmyRae]

I like simpler moveset that's PvP specific, rather than awkwardly trying the old piecemeal shoehorning of PvE moves into something resembling PvP balance.

For one thing, a more simple moveset makes it easy for casual PvP play, and PvP needs new people if it's to survive at all.

That it's a PvP specific moveset means that it can be balanced precisely for PvP without regard to the needs of PvE. Because it's a shorter list of moves, balance is easier to strike between existing jobs and any new ones that get added later.

Skillful play doesn't require a larger list of buttons to push. Good players have stayed on top regardless of the moveset. Coordination and teamwork are more instrumental to winning at PvP than a bloated list of abilities. But a shorter list means it's easier to keep things fair and for new players to be at ease when trying out PvP for the first time.

[Aviars]

For one thing, a more simple moveset makes it easy for casual PvP play, and PvP needs new people if it's to survive at all.

People actually paying attention to Feast PVP or PVP as a whole realize that lowering the number of buttons does not actually encourage new players to try out or stick with PVP. All it does is alienate players that actually enjoyed engaging gameplay rather than monotonous repeats of spamming the combo button over and over again.

The true mechanism that drives all content in this game is the rewards. And If you have been paying attention prior to the most recent patch Frontlines and especially Rival Wings have just been crawling along or just straight up dead content. Now with the release of a new mount, hairstyle, and other rewards people are actually taking a look at PVP. So stop the false talking point that a low amount of buttons encourages new players to try pvp. It is just wrong.

That it's a PvP specific moveset means that it can be balanced precisely for PvP without regard to the needs of PvE. Because it's a shorter list of moves, balance is easier to strike between existing jobs and any new ones that get added later.

Within the PVP community even now balance isn't the first word that comes to people's mind when thinking of the current content. If anything the lower amount of buttons restricts SE's flexibility in actually making change without drastically changes jobs. A good example is Summoner which has been straight up bad for a long time and the way they made it "better" was by removing tri-bind and adding whither. So the only way to balance a job is by removing skills and adding others? Pretty sad to me. What is also sad is that summoner is still by far the worst job.

It also stands to reason that with fewer buttons that you basically make the jobs more "samey." How did they make White Mage better? they made it more like Astrologian by giving them a ability VERY similar to essential dignity while removing what made White Mage unique, benediction.

So nah, balance is still as broken as it was before, but you still have a gamestate where the only way to make jobs better is by making them similar to others. Wow, how interesting does that sound!!!

Skillful play doesn't require a larger list of buttons to push. Good players have stayed on top regardless of the moveset. Coordination and teamwork are more instrumental to winning at PvP than a bloated list of abilities. But a shorter list means it's easier to keep things fair and for new players to be at ease when trying out PvP for the first time.

What I said in my OP is that we can have both skill and coordination. Reducing the amount of buttons required to be good for one does not solve the problem of new players not playing pvp and the only purpose it really serves is to make the game play less interesting and boring. All of the problems you say reducing buttons somehow fixes are outright wrong while creating the issue of people being unable to reach a higher level of play due to straight up restriction of actions.

In the end, if SE actually had better frontline modes and a better reward system for the casuals then the teamwork and coordination that you covet would actually become more common even in a game that is really complex with a lot of actions. If you had 100 times more people engaged in PVP teams would be more balanced, matchmaking would be more fair. In that way you would be creating the situation of more coordination and teamplay by virtue of the number of people playing PVP, not ARTIFICIALLY FORCING IT by making everyone capable of doing the same simple burst/healing/tanking or whatever.

And your little comment about fairness. Is it unfair to be a better player? PVP is not about being fair and making everyone the same. If what you actually mean by fair is by players not getting crushed to to bad matchmaking then that issue is fixed by a healthier PVP population. At that point you would have bronze vs bronze,low gold vs low gold, high diamond vs high diamond etc.

You don't make a game great by severely simplifying it, I am sorry, but that is the truth.

[NessaWyvern]

People actually paying attention to Feast PVP or PVP as a whole realize that lowering the number of buttons does not actually encourage new players to try out or stick with PVP. All it does is alienate players that actually enjoyed engaging gameplay.

Yup, this is very true, based on my own experience. I am in a PvP fc that completely died with storm blood PvP. The PvP veterans hated the new PvP, and I have seen new people try PvP saying "Where did my abilities go? Why are my bars all messed up?" and being turned off by it.

[Mirch]

please bring back chat, my thumb hurts by pressing nice job quick chat non stop

[AmyRae]

Yup, this is very true, based on my own experience. I am in a PvP fc that completely died with storm blood PvP. The PvP veterans hated the new PvP, and I have seen new people try PvP saying "Where did my abilities go? Why are my bars all messed up?" and being turned off by it.

That hasn't been my experience at all. Sorry you feel that way.

I still think it's a smart, inviting design that makes it easy to play. Some of the ideas would work well in PvE for that matter, like using one button for a 1-2-3 combo, or transforming abilities based on your stance or previous actions.

[Connor]

I would also love to see this.
So often in PvP I spend the whole thinking ‘I wish I had X ability’, ‘X would have been so useful here’.
Having more abilities (theoretically) means more strategic consideration of what you’re doing. I’m not saying there should be an XI-like amount of skills, but at least a bit closer to what we have in PvE would be amazing.