Has PVP Gone to the Dogs?!?!?

[Saefinn]

I have found it to be variable, some groups better coordinated, some less so. Though yesterday was the first time in a long time since I've done PvP, I found Adders were just as you described and consistently lost on Adders because of it. But Maelstrom were the most coordinated.

But I've generally found as long as there's somebody in alliance chat giving orders or direction to manage the team most in most matches will follow them. Even if the person yelling isn't the best PvPer in the world, the direction helps. So I figure if in a situation of free for all, it's an option to increase the chances of people not doing that. Not a guaranteed win, but boosts chances. I used to find the same principle in WoW, so hopefully out refugee friends still get on boardm

[Nalien]

The issue is SE only really tries to encourage people to queue into PvP, they make very little effort (actually none, IMHO) to get people to actually play PvP.

Just look at the latest Treasure Trove event. Win or lose, you get 5 tomestones from it. Where is the incentive to actually play to win and improve? That should be at the center of any PvP mode in any game, but it just isn't in XIV. Ranked Feast is the only thing that comes remotely close, but even that suffers from such low attendance (data center split only made that worse) that people can just brute force their way into the top 100 without much effort, top 10 and rank 1 rewards are so abysmal that there is essentially no point aiming for that so there is really no competitive edge. Even where wins are required in this games PvP (like the Garo event), people can just roll the dice multiple times and eventually get carried... That's how almost all the events and achievements have played out, to my knowledge, and as such that's all the majority of players are encouraged to do. When the majority are doing the bare minimum to participate, of course the game modes aren't going to be fun.

SE can rework PvP combat as much as they like, it isn't really the issue. The issue is with the reward structure of PvP. It rewards grinding rather than putting any effort in. That's the issue they need to address IMO. Doesn't matter how many buttons you add, how engaging you make the combat, when 90% of the playerbase is just rolling their face on their keyboard for easy rewards, the mode will suck.

Rework the results at the end of matches to have a top 3 for each category (add more categories where needed, like Rival Wings should have a mecha section for mecha kills, kills as mecha, etc.), tie more rewards to that. Done. You get achievements based off being in that top 3, suddenly there is incentive to get more kills, do more damage, take more damage, heal more HP, etc. You get more tomestones/exp/wolf marks/etc. based off that, same thing. Tie PvP specific events to that. It encourages playing and engaging with PvP mechanics, rather than just queuing up and flipping a coin on whether you win or not.