Thus far, this post has presented a lot of issues, but very little by way of solutions. I believe that all of these issues can be overcome without compromising FFXIV’s PvE experiences for the sake of better PvP systems. Firstly is the barrier to entry to PvP in general, which I could be overcome by re-imagining the “Hall of the Novice” for PvP as a new system, perhaps something like “Hall of the Young Wolf” which prepares players for the various challenges they’ll face in the Wolves Den and other PvP areas. Secondly is the imbalance in player base towards Frontlines due to the daily ExP bonus. This is more difficult to address, but I would suspect that a combination of a few tactics could be used to overcome this such as adding Rival Wings to the Frontlines Daily Roulette challenge as a rebranded ‘Daily PvP Roulette’ and providing a once daily EXP buff for The Feast could at least increase the volume of players engaging with The Feast at some level during PvP seasons. Finally, rewards (especially for The Feast) simply aren’t at a place where they’re encouraging many players to engage with the content repeatedly. In this case, the gap between receiving ‘effectively nothing’ and ‘unique, one of a kind Mount’ is simply too large for players to bother engaging with the content, so finding ways to make more/better rewards available to more players will draw players in. As an example, moving the mount rewards to ‘All players Gold or Better’, with Top 100 receiving either a special version of the mount or a special weapon similar to the Ultimate Raid weapons would encourage far more players to engage with PvP by making significant, worthwhile rewards accessible to more players while still providing specialized rewards for the very best players, and introducing something like short term Frontlines ‘Seasons’ which give rewards based more on participation (perhaps with a bonus for placement) could create more hype and engagement around Frontlines in these timeframes.

Overall, I really feel like PvP can be quite fun but currently needs some updates or improvements to encourage players to engage with it as more than an EXP fountain for their PvE classes. I hope that I’ve been able to clearly explain my mindset without boring people too much with this 1000+ word post about a system players some players seem to simply not care about. Thank you all for reading and considering, and I look forward to any feedback you might have to provide.

TL;DR: PvP is currently not as accessible or rewarding as it could be, and there’s a lot of ways to improve on that which I feel are worth discussing.

P.S: I know that PvP discussions can get a bit heated at times, but I ask that everyone keep an open mind with regards to the general ideas I’ve presented here. I won’t be engaging with anyone that can’t at least be cordial, and I ask that everyone else take a similar stance.

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