PvP in this game is an afterthought and it shows

[iAxX23]

It really feels like whoever designed the PVP in this game doesn't even play this game or any other game with a PVP system.

The entire PVP system is based around predicting rather than reacting and adjusting because of the horrible tick rate. Silence going off on the wrong tick means you're down a combo for another 45 seconds so you poke eachother from a distance before trying it again. You can't have a 2.5s GCD and a 1s silence. You can't have a healer spamming heals the entire fight without dipping below half mana.

Making healers so incredibly strong is mind boggling to me, look at any succesful MMO right now that has a functioning PVP system, the healers are generally the weakest, they take more damage, they are more suscetible to CC but they have A LOT of utility and heals. In this game a single DPS will not kill a healer without an LB. They're built like tanks.

There is no fixing this system. I can understand balancing PVE and PVP spells together is a huge challenge, I can accept removing some spells that are available in PVE from PVP or changing them for PVP but absolutely gimping a job and boiling it down to 10 spells is a joke.

There is no fixing this system. Need to be culled just like 1.0 and built from the ground up.

I know there's gonna be a ton of you replying to this with "I've been playing since Season 1 of FEAST, PVP has some small issues but you're overreacting, the PVP system is fine".

No, you have something called Stockholm Syndrome, or you simply don't know any better, you haven't played a different game.

The PVP system is objectively bad. Players have to advertise in PF to queue for PVP, Wolves' Den being more dead than levelling zones on all servers, 10 minute queues to get into Feast and when you do get in there you'll play with/against the same 7 people. Frontlines being pretty much dead outside of a very specific 3 hour window every day.

For the second biggest MMO available right now the PVP community is tiny. I would wager less than 5% of the active player base plays PVP and it's with good reason. It's bad.

[Kuroka]

I know ppl will eat me for that, but id love if theyd ban tanks and healers from pvp. They should level in normal duties anyways and it would make balance a lot easier...

[Rufalus]

I know ppl will eat me for that, but id love if theyd ban tanks and healers from pvp. They should level in normal duties anyways and it would make balance a lot easier...

Trying to imagine how this might work. Ok no healing, but to prevent us having to respawn all the time you basically just go Down for the Count status when your HP runs out instead of being KOed, so you are winded and on your knees for 5 seconds, effectively out of the match for a moment. Full recovery and temp invuln when you're back in control so you get a chance to reposition back with your team. In lore pvp is supposed to be a training exercise anyways, not killing. Probably want new map design and rules to go with it. Knockdowns could make sense in an objective-based mode because you prevent the opponent reaching a flag or golden popoto or something.

[Canadane]

I know ppl will eat me for that, but id love if theyd ban tanks and healers from pvp. They should level in normal duties anyways and it would make balance a lot easier...

People probably shouldn't be using ranked feast seasons to level classes...

[Divinemights]

It really feels like whoever designed the PVP in this game doesn't even play this game or any other game with a PVP system.
For the second biggest MMO available right now the PVP community is tiny. I would wager less than 5% of the active player base plays PVP and it's with good reason. It's bad.

I read the same type of topic in WoW forum periodically and it already bored the heck out of me.
FF14 was never design with PvP in mind and it is true this is something developed after PvE.
The only known MMORPG deisgn with PvP in mind is the Guild War 2, but do you play that?
No you probably don't because it is lacking content in the PvE side and some other aspects that FF14 rich of
There is no perfect MMORPG that can balance between PvP and PvE, such game doesn't exist this life, or next.
YOu can only choose one that more suitable for you

PS. By the way no healer is stronger than WoW's healer

[iAxX23]

The only known MMORPG deisgn with PvP in mind is the Guild War 2, but do you play that?

Blade and Soul was build with PVP in mind and centered around Esports PVP. There's even tournaments for it.
Black Desert has PVP at it's core. Open world PVP, once you're level 50 you're free game for anyone to murder you. And there are faction wars and you can declare wars on other guilds and have free reign to kill them on sight with very little repercussions in the open world.

I'm not saying PVP should be at the core of FF design, it's not that type of game. But with such a HUGE playerbase it can't feel like it's designe by an intern that just got hired at Square.

[Divinemights]

Blade and Soul was build with PVP in mind and centered around Esports PVP. There's even tournaments for it.
Black Desert has PVP at it's core. Open world PVP, once you're level 50 you're free game for anyone to murder you. And there are faction wars and you can declare wars on other guilds and have free reign to kill them on sight with very little repercussions in the open world.

Having a tournament doesn't mean it is a successful PvP mmo; for example, FF11 had Ballista Royale and FF14 had NA region Feast.
All these none tag target MMO all looks impressive at PvP perspective of view but they all failed on PvE side to make it successful.
You simply can't not create PvE mechanic with none tag target system beside slash and dodge.
Just imagine Destiny 2 with blade, it is not impressive.
PvP and MMO simply will never blend in well together and PvP will always be the side-dish.
If you really want a fair PvP, I really think it is either FPS or DOTA, you shouldn't expect too much from MMORPG

I personally think the biggest mistake they made with PVP is not splitting it up enough. For PVE we have several levels of difficulty. We start with Expert Dungeons -> Normal Raiding-> EX Trials -> Savage Raiding -> Ultimate raiding. For PVP we have Frontlines -> Feast.

Imagine if the proposed change for getting more people into EX Trials was to gimp down all the classes to like 10 functionally very similar spells from job to job but aesthetically different. The entire community would be outraged.

I'm surprised they haven't fired the current PVP team.

EDIT: I made an assumption thinking this game has a PVP team, I actually meant the interns that get assigned to work on the PVP of XIV every 8 months during their break from University

You simply can't further splitting up because PvP community in this FF14 is very small.
It is not big enough to even support team vs team Feast after Frontline is introduced as FF14 version of battleground
They have to corner back to by using WoW's training arena and label it as "competitive" PvP when in truth we all know such system is heavily impact by RNG and is not true competitive.

They do have a PvP team that periodically hosting Adrenaline TV to communicate with their PvP community but as you can see, they are Japanese devs and will communicate with Japanese player base instead.
Their PvP balance slowly shifting away from smaller scale 4 v 4 trinity into team scale mass PvP.
This is an approach they are taking and yes it is much different than WoW.
You then will need to pick and choose, WoW for smaller scale PvP or FF14 for larger scale PvP.

[Stormfur]

One thing that I've thought about, a looong time ago in 3.x when PVP was abysmally bad... is, why not have an area where users aren't any particular class.. like healer or dancer or whatever, and rather just have them all go at it as freelancers? Same core abilities BUT with traits that you can select and build upon according to your PVP rank.

[Kaiche]

I've been playing since season 1 and I actually agree with you, the biggest problem is the ticks for sure, it harms the game, makes it sluggish and also messes up your bursts, skill usage. I cant tell you the amount of times ive pressed something for it to not activate because of ticks, potions "sticking" in use and skills cancelling due to enemy positioning for the smallest thing; its hella annoying.

Unfortunately they wont / cant fix this without a whole revamp on the gameplay system itself and ofc they aren't going to do that.
It's basically slapped on which is sad because it has potential but only through big steps and changes, doesnt matter how many times you revamp and make it simple enough for toddlers, the core of it is bad and thats just how it is. I'm surprised FRC was a success due to how ticks work.

Lack of updates and care kill pvp too, lack of long-term rewards for all, new maps and balancing being extremely slow to implement / make. It's been like 8 seasons or more of this same boring crystal map with old maps still available, not being used in rotation with no thought or care to add them in for a change of pace, no real experimenting is being done just no love for it and it shows big time.

It's like theres one dude in the office for pvp, who is asigned to do something for pvp every so and so unless its a bigger project like FL.

[Adeacia]

I have no interest in pvp regardless of the game. I don't pay any attention to anything involving it in this game and even I can agree with you.

My belief is that pvp is here for the sole purpose of saying the game has pvp. It's an mmo so people expect it to be there, but the devs were never really interested in adding it to begin with.