Thoughts for Shadowbringers PvP (Possible Story Spoiler Warning)

[Mistress_Irika]

(1/4)
I didn't think I would be making another main topic, but here we are. This is not worth reading if you don't like extremely long post. Also, I'm not sure how sure how well receive this will be since I'm probably going to rant or put known and obvious things already. I'm certain that I'm going to have trouble trying to past all of this nonsense all at once and will have to resort to double posting and possibly more post after that. I'm just posting to get this off my chest, and it's a ton I've been holding onto for a long time.



First of all, Yoshi has done a well job with ending the main scenario for the expansion in my opinion. It was fun revisiting some of the old primals, both original and recreated. It was fun having to play with multiple Scions. The ending left me with being impatient and wanting more. I can't wait for Endwalker to come out.

This is where my mind went left and got lost. Based on where the final mission took place I was laughing. At first I jokingly asked myself why not just have all the skills added to pvp, but as I progress through the final mission I shook my head. While I saw the mission as revisiting the past I also saw it as a slap in the face to those who've mainly played pvp way before I even started the game. So rethinking the question I asked myself it became obvious why we have less buttons as I was thinking of the White Mages current pve set for one of the few reasons. While this seems logical I can't help but feel sorry for the pvp players that quit because of certain changes that took place on certain patches, whatever they may be.

If you're having fun with pvp this expansion I'm happy for you. If you like how pvp has turned out I'm happy for you. You can write this off as me being another OP that's complaining and move on. I'm fine with that. I'm not going to up and join the train stating how pvp is bad and unplayable. You can get that type of opinion anywhere by asking and looking on the forums. However, I will say that the past changes has affected everyone: those that played back then, and those that played now. While some of the changes are positive the changes that I've seen makes it as though I have teleported to a different time frame, and I'm not liking majority of them, and I'm pretty certain that I'm not the only one that can say that. I feel as though players had a lot more then than they do currently. To shorten this, pvp Shadowbringers overall is fine to me, but things could have been better implemented.

[Mistress_Irika]

(2/4)

I can't really call myself a veteran. I've never played pvp with all of my skills acquired from pvp. I've never even heard of the fold until recently. I did experience a lot regardless. If you've started pvp this expansion you definitely have missed out on some things and possibly more depending on what patch you started playing for the first time. Feast had an 8v8 option before it was removed entirely. I didn't get into pvp until Astragalos came out. Yet when Hidden Gorge came out the map was locked to funnel everyone there. Since then, the map has stayed locked, and Astragalos is fast approaching its 4 year anniversary. You had the option between freelancing and representing the grand company you chose during the ARR MSQ in frontlines. You had a smaller frontline mode you could play although there was no options for choosing the smaller and bigger mode then. This is all I can think of right now, but I'm pretty sure that more will come up as I'm jotting my thoughts down.

You've also have missed the bad and challenging things that the past players have to gone through. So be grateful. Frontlines was unplayable if you were dead, because the respawn times got longer the more death you and your alliance accumulated. Culling was not in your team's favor if you or your teammate died, because that meant surviving a handicap while culling took an additional 10 seconds to end. Your party could get weaker in Rival Wings in terms of the Soaring buff simply by you or a party member dying. That's to name a few. I won't ever get mad about the fixes and changes that were made because I've went through a ton more and had to play a different game than what I'm playing now, and I'm very happy that you don't have to deal with them. Today's general system looks a lot better than what it was then. However, I will question them when needed like I'm doing now.

[Mistress_Irika]

(3/4)

This current crowd that I'm playing with has me very worried. While you have a lot of people having fun there are also a lot more that only play for the experience points and can care less about the results and/or improving in pvp. Very few players are choosing to afk for the experience points, and that number is slowly rising. In feast's case there is a major healer shortage when players are doing rank. So it's easier to get left behind in the middle of the season. Alts and win trading have also gone up. Majority of this stems from no incentives being placed, hence part of the reason why the negative chants for pvp exist. In my opinion, some of this could have been prevented in frontlines had SE not reduced the maximum about of people you can bring in before queueing up and enforcing the freelancer rule. I will say the same thing for feast as far as the mode being monitored during ranked seasons are concerned. Still, it was only a matter of time before these types of problems manifested due to absent incentives being there. While these problems have existed before they weren't as bad at they are now.

So now we've come to today where people are finally echoing one thing. While majority are saying pvp sucks you have another majority that saying to not care about the results and to go in with the mindset of having fun. I have been struggling with the fun part since the release of Onsal. It's fun having a team battle trying to see how your alliance is going to win certain fights. It's not fun backing of out majority of fights just to split off for as many objectives as possible. All of this fun expectations are mines, and I'm pretty sure that it varies. It's being echoed not to care for pvp, but I'm don't see why. Based off of what I saw on the forums peeking for who-knows-when many people complained about how the need function was no longer for the alliance raids before that certain change being reverted weeks later. It was the same thing when it came to the issue with the 2B bottoms apparently making people's butts smaller. To this day, I'm still laughing that people actually cared about that. Still, those were valid points. Are concerns for pvp not suppose to be valid because of what's there? It's confusing to me. After all, my main issue with pvp is too many things inside that are either getting removed, restricted, or replace. Sharing my past experience with new players when asked is scary. I know there are few people that would like to hear the war stories, but after 10 minutes of sharing my experiences with part of my own fc some of the enthusiastic players that wanted to continue playing sudden changed their minds about investing time into pvp not understanding why the current system is the way it is now. It's a red flag to me, and I'll rather not have to discuss my past with the upcoming new players.

[Mistress_Irika]

(4/4)

Majority are hoping for the new mode to change a lot of things, but my faith is shaky right now. I was promised something different when they took a certain part of the story in the main scenario Stormblood and turned it into what we all now know as Onsal Hakair. SE delivered the promise and more, as it continues to be the most popular mode for frontlines. However, the changes that followed before and after the release sucked a lot of fun out of me. I've dreamed of grinding the game mode under part of the old system. Now, I'd rather avoid Onsal entirely along with Seize. I could have saved myself the time of writing all of this by quitting pvp altogether. However, I'll rather deal with what's there in pvp every day than having to deal with part of the daily roulettes where with everyone speedrunning with certain extra expectations from the tanks and healers. I have stop using roulettes after seeing this being created towards the end of the last expansion. We'll see what the new mode has in store for us, but as of right now I'm not sure how well the new mode can deliver. Unranked feast and Rival Wings are dead modes to me that require assistance from discord groups. Will the new mode flourish way after its release, or is it going to be dead after a certain time?

I am going to leave a few words here before just letting this sit. Many people have done this already, but if you have any ideas or suggestions just write it down, and if it's important at that time maybe it might get discussed here despite the memes that pop up here and there. I do have my own suggestions written down, but it's way longer than these 4 post combined which is why I've never posted them. If you haven't tried pvp before, and you're saying it's bad because everyone else is saying it, try it and make your own judgement, and I would suggest trying it with a friend or two for better results and at least a second opinion. PvP wasn't perfect then. It's certainly not perfect now. However, pvp is not as bad as you think it is. While I'm more into organization some people like the chaos that's there, and it may fit your personality. Just try it. As for SE I would like to see implemented the option of having custom matches not for the new mode, but everything else. I would like the option of setting up 24 man games in these custom games. I would like for feast customs to be expanded and be able to create your own 8v8 games. Most importantly, I would like the option for these custom games to be able to be played with an undersized party. I don't see the old game modes being added back any time soon. I don't see this sort of option being the solution to solve all problems. What I'm looking for with these options is to have people feel included instead of left out. I'm not looking for a yes or no answer, but I would like some thought to be put in that as we head over to the next expansion.