Impossible to play as a new player

[Anzyx]

It is actually impossible to play as a new player. As an unranked player, it's a miracle if I can even find a match. If I do hit the jackpot after a few hours+ wait and find a match I end up with an afk player or if one person dies one of my teammates decides to afk/leave. People say the queues get better after you leave silver... how am I even supposed to get to bronze let alone silver with these queue times??? I now understand why the community will never grow past the small percentage of players that currently play. I really do love the few matches that I can play, sad I just can't play more.

[Charlotte_Wells]

I unfortunately have to begin with: I'm from another world (which won't help you at all) but have you at least tried to queue at your servers primetimes?
I read a lot of complaints from people who tried to queue in the early morning or way too late at night in the wrong timezones. This can have a massive impact as well as your desired class or rank.

[Saber44]

This literally makes no sense

[BloodRubyXII]

1) We have a small population which you were aware of, stands to reason the longer the season goes on, the smaller the low elo range activity becomes?

2) This is our third consecutive season with no break. It's EXTREMELY inactive across most DCs in all tiers, bad timing to get into it. For some reason this company in all their gigabrain Japanese genius thinks we want to play ranked every day for a year, thus proving what happens when you try to host a ranked PvP mode in a game without any devs that know how to manage it.

3) I've probably had one person leave my game across 130 matches on 3 characters this season, all of which started low elo because I skipped last season after being safe; so I didn't have a high placement. No AFKs. Only a few last min throws cos they were 1 death away from a 600 sweep.

4) You play early season if you want to climb.

5) Yeah no kidding it doesn't grow when players "try it" and then complain to everyone else how inactive it is without actually researching or asking questions about the mode which no-one here is going to begrudge answering you honestly if they have the slightest bit of feast experience; because we aren't going to lie and tell you it's the best thing since sliced bread; but you wouldn't have found out the hard way mid-late season is a ghost town in low ranks. Being the doomsayer is actually why you don't get matches, because if the most common bit of info circulating is that the mode is dead and it's 30 mins to get into a game as someone starting brand new; why would anyone new to the mode queue it?

6) As a final note, this reward is expected to be a reskinned Magma Roader mount this season, similar to the reward from Season 11 (and one of the seasons either side, I think 12? Idk cos I quit for a bit but did S11). It is one of the ugliest PvP mounts in the game and is not popular and is an absolute mystery why they brought this back. Feast was more active in Stormblood than it is now and yet the cutoff was very low in S11, when typically mount seasons have very good activity, because people like mounts. Just because the Roader had already been datamined and people knew it was ugly long before it's release. Goes without explaining this is another reason (on top of this being a back to back to back season and a lot of people want a break, are burned out or are playing Genshin because FF is in content drought mode) why queues died very early. The current top 100 floor is silver across many dcs and even bronze I think on Aether. Several weeks into a season this isn't normally, it would usually be high gold or even platinum by now.

7) Yeah right now Aether is probably the quietest PvP DC with the lowest ranked floor in the world lol.

[HeulGDarian]

pvp senpai

Youre right buuuuuut. Honestly i wish there was a bigger population :c . I also tried to get in like mid season and ofc i got like 30 min queues , i persisted for a bit then the inevitable happened of me going to the bathroom for a bit only to see the queue had popped and i missed it , in which case i quit. I really want to get into pvp , but it seems impossible to get into cause i want to do other stuff as well, idk how true that rings but it feels impossible to get into without committing completely into it in which case the only time ill be able to commit is when i finish everything else. I dont know what can be done about it im not going to be one of those guys who start complaining that they shouldnt focus a bit more cause non cares about pvp, but i really think they need to do something in order for it to become an actual side activity instead of like a different game.

[Newmanxeno]

You really do have to catch it in the beginning of the season...I don't really remember if the last roader season was this dead though. Week three and people are out. Burnout has a lot to do with it and with the mount being that ugly, I can see a lot of people not even trying.

[Charlotte_Wells]

I totally agree with Blood Ruby. Right now we have seasons back to back. It can be a massive grind and there is no pause.

Unfortunately the last seasons also started parallel with other new content so people had to decide
either on doing the new content or playing low elo games as long as they pop.

[BloodRubyXII]

Snip

We all wish there was a bigger population. The SE ethos is if you don't wanna play this game don't - you don't have to. The issue is a lot of the rewards are limited, and playing a season completely defines how many games you will need to play to be safe for rewards the following season, as the placement is judged on previous season's rank. Ergo, most vets prefer to finish in Diamond or Plat, because starting from 0 with brand new players is a nightmare, there's a lack of carry power in the game, it doesn't matter if I've played PvP for a long time, if I get a brand new healer who doesn't press buttons or a melee that does 50k in 6 minutes, I'm looking at way more games to be played, and it's not an enjoyable experience. So I am all for this ethos, but when it comes to ranked, if you don't play the season early especially if you're starting in like silver or below. Guess what - you're not playing at all because after a few weeks that MMR range dies. So to me it's just amateur decision making from SE to compound an already significant issue in the mode.

And yeah, I think just about every player can relate to waiting in a long queue, going to the bathroom or kitchen very quickly, and then as you come back you see the window for the queue pop close. I totally understand you wanna get into it, but don't wanna prioritise it, yet it's also standard Square Enix behaviour to think dropping major content patches with each season whether it's a raid, ultimate or artifact weapon questlines etc is a good idea. You can afford to this with a significantly large dedicated ranked PvP population, we have everything the large - without it you can't, you need to use the seasons to fill the content droughts so players who do everything don't have to give up one for the other or have to rush Platinum/Diamond (another reason low ranks are dead btw) just to get it out the way so they can do other stuff the game, it's not healthy for the mode. This also gives the few full-time PvPers there are, to go and take a break and play or do something else during pre-seasons, or try other parts of the game, which is more in line with how SE encourage us to enjoy this game.

[Stormfur]

And yeah, I think just about every player can relate to waiting in a long queue, going to the bathroom or kitchen very quickly, and then as you come back you see the window for the queue pop close. I totally understand you wanna get into it, but don't wanna prioritise it, yet it's also standard Square Enix behaviour to think dropping major content patches with each season whether it's a raid, ultimate or artifact weapon questlines etc is a good idea.

So much this. It's like.. new savage released? You've got a month or so to chew on it.
New crafting/gathering material released? You've got a couple weeks or so to really grind for that title if you want it, otherwise, keep leveling in Diadem/turning in crafts.
New dungeon/raid? You've got a couple months or so until next patch to get your armor and such
New Feast season? Heh, have fun climbing if you want to do any and all of these other things too.

[Arkevorkhat]

I feel like part of the issue is low population for PvP,
Part of it is that PvP actions just mangle your job to the point that it's got basically nothing to do with what you've been doing in PvE,
another part is that there's only one mode where you're gonna be matched up with people who are anywhere near your skill level, so 9 times out of 10, unless you're queuing for the Feast, you're going to just get roflstomped.