Mahjong is the most depressing mini game you've added to XIV

[Magictrix]

Ok look the song you get for this, is the bgm which is playing while you are playing mahjong. It has this really kinda constant nasty buzz to it, which loops every 2 mins or so. It's like the one area in the game that I kick myself every time I go into a match without having done a /bgm to turn it of so I can use other music sources -- At which point it's 45 mins or so of this constant buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzszszszszszszszszszszszszszszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Play mahjong enough times with that bgm on and you'll regret you can even use the roll.

Which brings me to two actual points:
• why is /bgm and other setting controls disabled during mahjong, it's really annoying not being able to do something about that damn buzz.
• why can't I see my own characters face like I can the other players?
○ Either have to make the game board super-tiny to see my character and/or lose information from the edge by dragging the board over.

[VeganPete]

Don't get discouraged OP. I started out playing just trying to learn from the NPC's and thought I knew the basics but got into the ranked games and was getting worked over and rating fell into the 1300's. I just got to 1600 tonight. The information they give is just not enough. There should be a tutorial where you play an actual game and have tool tips pop up for different situations. The thing that helped me the most was a simple sheet that showed different types of winning hands. This is the one I used, https://i.redd.it/6no9e5x3dl921.jpg The most important thing I learned from that was that certain hands could only be won with a closed hand and I was calling Chi and Pon way too often and with the wrong tiles and screwing myself. Just realizing what hands were even capable of winning turned things around for me where I won more than I lost. And once you start doing that your rating starts to recover fairly quickly. Another tip after you start figuring out how to play your own tiles is how to play a bit defensively. If someone calls Riichi and my hand isn't looking good and isn't even close to winning I'll start discarding tiles that I think the person with Riichi won't need even if it hurts my hand a bit. So not playing to win but playing not to lose. Hope some of that helps, good luck.

[Nari-Tia]

THIS MADNESS NEEDS TO STOP!

Not everyone is lucky! I have so bad luck in this game that i am at 1320 rating...
I learned the rules, and still i lose and lose and lose. And why do i get -rating if i am the 3th place?

Whover tought its funny to put an orchestrion roll behind a luck based game IS A MONSTER! THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE NOW! Put it behind x played games or x number of wins!!!!

I gave up, there is no chance for me to get this... /shrug

Seriously, in one game i had 23k points, on the 4th tiledrop someon did a ron on me with -24k points... how am i supposed to defend against that? Others get richi on the 3-4th tiledrop (multiple games in a row), when i see my hand still need 5-6 tiles.

[Aeliott]

This is the frustrating thing for me...I consider myself pretty competent. Hardly some grandmaster, but I like to think I know how to go about shaping my hands, and folding when necessary. But by the twelve, the amount of 2nd-5th turn Riichi calls is infuriating... whenever I have a decent starting hand that happens. The rest of the time I just...still can't form anything either useable and/or valuable enough before somebody else snags it. The best players don't have giant win rates, but 4th place over, and over, and over...it's not like I'm even dealing into Rons all that often but I just can't break out of this rut. I'm either forced on the defensive all game and just don't gain anything, or see an opening to break it and never get rewarded by risk or safe hand. It's turning me into a bad sport, but it's thoroughly irritating.

If you couldn't farm off newbies with no idea in the first week then I'd give up, personally. It's a fun game when it's close, but there's only so much rng crap one can take. Skill is a factor in this game but if I see it come into play more often I'll let you know... I should quit, but the annoyance just makes me want to queue again

[Darte]

I'm tired of this mini-game. I've spent the past 2 weeks playing ranked games and the highest I've gotten is 1542 thanks to a few lucky streaks. But I always end up in games with 2nd/1st Dans with 17-1900 ratings in the Novice leagues, which forces me back into the 1500/sub 1500 rating. Why am I being ranked against people who obviously should be in the intermediate or expert leagues? At the very least, if your rating hits a certain level, you should automatically not be matched with those who have a lower rating, even if it means longer queue times.

[Beckett]

To get the Birds of Prey orchestrion roll you need 10,000 Wolf Marks. Even if you're terrible at PVP, as long as you participate in it you will eventually get 10,000 Wolf Marks.

To get the Four-Sided Circle orchestrion roll you need 10,000 MGP. There are tons of different types of minigames you can play to earn MGP, but even if you hate all of them you can literally get free MGP from Cactpots and Fashion Check, and you will get 10,000 MGP.

More importantly, neither of these punish you for losing, you just don't get as many rewards. Even for the achievements, if you lose it just means that you don't get another win added to your tally, it doesn't mean you get one of your wins taken away.

Mahjong is the only content of this type that hurts you if you lose. That's terrible design and it needs to be fixed.

[Sida]

I agree collectable content should not be gated behind ranked content, it's not a new thing. I seem to recall at least couple minions have been in the same position for years now.

[Rufalus]

You start at 1500 points, and you slowly gain them if you win, or you lose them pretty damn quickly when you have a loss. The one time I came in second place I gained 9 points. The first time I get 4th place, I lose 29 points. This is beyond depressing if this is just an inkling of what kind of BS I'm gonna have to see just to try to get one damned item.

Oof. This saves me time even trying for this one. Unless they make the gains bigger and losses smaller when you're below 1600 rating to help you reach that first achievement then this will be the first in-game orchestrion roll I don't get. Until mahjong my collection was complete aside from songs that come from premium S-E store merchandise with codes.

[Krokov]

Oof. This saves me time even trying for this one. Unless they make the gains bigger and losses smaller when you're below 1600 rating to help you reach that first achievement then this will be the first in-game orchestrion roll I don't get. Until mahjong my collection was complete aside from songs that come from premium S-E store merchandise with codes.

Same here I also collect orchestrion rolls and right now unless something is changed this is probably one roll I may never get.

[Spammer]

Harsh ranking penalties and locked collectibles aside, it's been incredibly depressing for me trying to play the game by itself. "Novice matchmaking" hardly feels novice at all, more than half the time I'm going into the negative and It just feels like the only people playing are experts or world champions.

I wanted to think at first it was just because I was bad/unlucky at setting up a winning hand but it's been consistent for quite awhile now and I'm even further away from unlocking that Orchestration Roll than when I started...I guess I'll just wait for a hotfix to how ranking works among other fixes until I try Mahjong again.