Feast needs a greater variety of rewards to encourage participation

[BloodRubyXII]

Doesn't just need a variety of rewards, it needs better in season rewards. Half the time I see someone suggest something it's something for playing after the season has ended, to me personally; it wouldn't be enough to continue queueing once I've "had enough". Even if it's just dumb things like little sparkly boots or an ugly pet; just like fun rewards that change from season to season I'd be happy with; just something I can actually have DURING the season. Even the concept of getting the titles end of season now I just find stupid and getting them when you reach the tier also removes the hole where if you consistently finish plat/dia, you will never see the lower tier titles. I don't even care whether I get to keep it; if it's a reward you can gain during the season, but at the end of the next season it's gone and rotated into something else that's cool with me too.

But one common factor to all of these ideas that'll ensure they don't happen - they require dev resources, and we get so few of those as it is can't imagine them making seasonal fun rewards lol.

[Risvertasashi]

But one common factor to all of these ideas that'll ensure they don't happen - they require dev resources, and we get so few of those as it is can't imagine them making seasonal fun rewards lol.

PVP gets shockingly high investments from the devs, and rather consistently too.

Imagine if like, LoV got as much new content and adjustments as pvp did.

[BloodRubyXII]

PVP gets shockingly high investments from the devs, and rather consistently too.

Imagine if like, LoV got as much new content and adjustments as pvp did.

idk what lov is

we waited 7 months for a season, we had a few balancing patches with barely any feedback from devs on issues that were reported by experienced ranked feast players that carried on into the season, they then decided to tell us that they were planning balancing again on the day they dropped s14 and that's why it took so long, when anyone who did scrims in pre-season could have told them that we'd have probs just waited the extra 2 months if we knew what was coming. don't oversell what resources they give us when we don't even have a pvp CM which in most games, is like the bare minimum and the CMs we do have arent given information to be funnelled down to us, which is a shame because they're extremely active on unofficial channels lol. i think calling it "shockingly high" is especially quite audacious.

[Risvertasashi]

i think calling it "shockingly high" is especially quite audacious.

I don't particularly think it is. Let's run through it:
- New gear every odd patch, for every role and occasionally for every job.
* And crossovers like Garo...
- One off top-100 rewards that will only ever be obtained by a tiny amount of the playerbase - far more exclusive than any raiding reward.
* I wouldn't be surprised if the above has the worst dev timelayer disbursement ratio of anything in the game. There's literally nothing else that's so limited.
- Overhauls of every job every expac, or in the case of shadowbringers, somewhat including 5.1 and, reportedly, soon to be 5.2 too.
- While a touch less predictable, new maps at least once every few patches.
- Overhauls to how medals work, and so forth.
- There's been a number of one-off additions too, such as 1v1 or spectator mode. The latter in particular is not trivial, a number of dedicated pvp games never get to it.
- fanfest tournaments and all the organizational work it entails - not to mention prizes like gaming computers.

Honestly it puzzles me that they pour so much resources into pvp. Though I wouldn't particularly mind if the gameplay was better...

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As for dev feedback, at least the pvp forums actually do get dev posts sometimes. Many other forums haven't had a single dev post in 5+ years. In fact I'm not sure a dev has posted in them since the game's launch. Towards the end of Stormblood, at least, I've never seen the devs post as actively as they did here in the pvp forums.

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And all this for a niche game mode. Yes, I call it "shockingly high." I don't dislike pvp for being pvp so I wouldn't mind if it seemed to pay off, but we certainly can't say the resources aren't there: the pvp team definitely gets a disproportionately high allocation compared to player interest levels, and the pvp community gets a disproportionately high amount of developer communication/attention.

[Nalien]

Imagine if like, LoV got as much new content and adjustments as pvp did.

Lords of Verminion was practically dead on arrival, it was even less popular than PvP by such a huge margin... Hell, the game it was based on isn't even remotely popular anymore... While many wouldn't call PvP in this game popular, it does have a fairly consistent and dedicated playerbase to work with, ranging from casual Frontlines players to "eSports" events, Lords of Verminion has nothing remotely close to that.

PVP gets shockingly high investments from the devs, and rather consistently too.

The problem is how those development resources are spent. Terribly, would be my summary.

5.1 certainly did a lot for PvP. Sadly it did a lot for PvP in the same way swinging a bat at someones knees does a lot for them. They could have built off what we had in 5.0 and actually produced something close to good. Instead they decide to uproot everything and just start again from 0; Adding new buttons in perhaps the worst way possible. Crippling Frontlines for many players. Generally just making an absolute mess of everything.

It's nice that they tried though, I guess.

[FirstnameLastname]

<something something lord of whatever>

Thats kinda like saying "Hall of Novice does not get any resources to be upgraded".

[Myon88]

Thats kinda like saying "Hall of Novice does not get any resources to be upgraded".

Hey hey, lord of verminion is to feast, as ultimate is to savage. If anything, feast is the 'hall of the novice' that prepares you for something more competitive.

At the end of the day, development time will tend to be doled out in proportion to how popular the content is. If you enjoy niche content in a mainstream game you were sadly never the primary audience. So if you can point to LoVM being unpopular as justification for being abandoned, well now you understand why PvP gets the amount of attention it does.

Even saying all that though, them removing wolf collars this season is one of the most mind bogglingly unwise decisions I've ever seen. Are they worried about wolf collar inflation or something? Do they want the queues to die even faster than normal? For every feast lifer that has all the weapons and a stack of 99 collars in their inventory, there are probably 20 casuals who wouldn't have minded playing a little bit, if it meant they'll get to gold and get to buy a weapon after a few seasons or something. There are probably people who have like 7 collars right now and would've aimed to get the remaining 3 this season.

You already have a mode that's populated by nothing but diehard veterans, taking away the only incentive for casual players to participate is baffling. With a lot of PvP decisions you can kinda point to development resources and stuff and handwave it away, but this just makes zero sense.

[BloodRubyXII]

SNIP

They removed collars for this season, but there's something else coming in it's place, which might be better for everyone. We (Vets or w.e you wanna call us) absolutely want more "general" rewards for casuals because we absolutely want more people to not only play, but have a reason to continue playing also to improve to aspire to obtain something better than what they get. Top 100 is perfectly attainable by spamming games even if you're not very good, but that's still not an attractive concept to a new feast player; because the very mention of "top 100" would make it sound difficult and whether we know better or not, that is the impression given, so there needs to be some other reason for them to play, improve and get a sense of progression that makes them want more. I'll always advocate for not only more rewards, but for more of them be accessible during a season, I absolutely don't want more end of season rewards because whilst I love ranked rewards being exclusive and rewarded to top x, like you should have on a ranked ladder in an MMORPG; not getting anything during the season I absolutely hate. But then again I played WoW, and when I started playing PvP in WoW you were rewarded with access to certain gear immediately upon hitting certain rating milestones and a tabard for the season, then later on they also started offering mounts once you got to x amount of wins (vicious saddle), enchants and elite gear (after they removed the rating only gear). Then they changed Elite Gear so in order to get it, you had to play for a chance to get it at the end of a match; which was a concept I liked, because even in Seasons I didn't care it kept me playing long enough to try and finish the set.

[Myon88]

Top 100 is perfectly attainable by spamming games even if you're not very good, but that's still not an attractive concept to a new feast player

Well, people always say this, but that's only true in relation to the current state of feast isn't it. When there are only like ~60 people (and their 10 alts) per datacenter that care about pvp, then yeah anyone that puts in the effort to grind out games can take the remaining spots in the top 100. In some hypothetical future where they stopped making questionable PvP decisions and feast became popular, it's not gonna be so easy. 100 is 100, if 1000 people were seriously aiming for top 100, 900 of them are going home with nothing.

And yeah I remember WoW, I played my fair share of it, unlocking 1800 or 2100 rating gear was a big morale boost. I don't know how they can replicate that here but removing wolf collars with no context certainly doesn't help.

We've had no warning this was going to happen, no official communication regarding what system is replacing it, or why there has to be a gap this season. It's a good thing I already bought all the weapons I want, because it's been so long since the last season that I've lost count of the months, and for all we know it could be another half a year to the next season after this. If I were coming into this patch with 7 collars and expecting to be able to grind out the last 3 I need, and then being told out of nowhere I'm going to have to wait another year for an unknown reward, I know I'd be disappointed as hell.

[BloodRubyXII]

Well, people always say this, but that's only true in relation to the current state of feast isn't it. When there are only like ~60 people (and their 10 alts) per datacenter that care about pvp, then yeah anyone that puts in the effort to grind out games can take the remaining spots in the top 100. In some hypothetical future where they stopped making questionable PvP decisions and feast became popular, it's not gonna be so easy. 100 is 100, if 1000 people were seriously aiming for top 100, 900 of them are going home with nothing.

And yeah I remember WoW, I played my fair share of it, unlocking 1800 or 2100 rating gear was a big morale boost. I don't know how they can replicate that here but removing wolf collars with no context certainly doesn't help.

We've had no warning this was going to happen, no official communication regarding what system is replacing it, or why there has to be a gap this season. It's a good thing I already bought all the weapons I want, because it's been so long since the last season that I've lost count of the months, and for all we know it could be another half a year to the next season after this. If I were coming into this patch with 7 collars and expecting to be able to grind out the last 3 I need, and then being told out of nowhere I'm going to have to wait another year for an unknown reward, I know I'd be disappointed as hell.

Yeah nothing more to add to this, think this post is spot on mate.

But I would suggest calming down a little?

I'm calm, it doesn't change the fact ya talking shite bruv. All I did was counter and address the points that you made.