How do I get better at Crystal Conflict?

[IndyPendant]

...Beyond git gud scrub? This is a sincere question.

I'm a casual but long-time PvP player, mostly Frontline and Hidden Gorge. When I first started Frontline, I had -no idea- what was going on, but I read my tool tips, figured out the powers, saw what worked, and followed the crowd. When zerg-rushing wasn't giving me the info I needed, I wandered the map for a while looking for smaller fights so I could see how my abilities worked. Eventually figured out that I loved WAR in PvP for their survivability and ability to yank a foe to me (often a healer), hold them there, kick-stun them, and hopefully my allies are helping me burn them down before all that wears off. Was fun! And I'm actually pretty good at calling out tactics for my team nowadays, when I want to.

Hidden Gorge, went in blind my first time: had a blast, but wtf was even going on here? Eventually figured out the mechanics the trains and mercs and mechs and turrets and towers and all of it, slowly but steadily got better. Still a bit salty I can only play it nowadays during the first week or two of Moogle Treasure Trove events.

Crystalline Conflict: played my first match, ran in with my group, flashies! Damage everywhere! I'm dead! Repeat a couple times! Match over! Oooookay. Read my tooltips more carefully, get a vague idea how they interact, rearrange them a bit, try a few more matches.

Basically, I've lost every match, and I just feel rather lost and overwhelmed. What was even happening? Senses overloaded with bright flashies, sometimes my HP bar would go down and up depending (presumably) on my self-heals, sometimes I would just...get deleted. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, not sure how to improve...because I can't filter out what's happening. In Frontline I could seek out smaller packs to fight, in Hidden Gorge I could just sort of watch what people were doing, follow that, and eventually start figuring things out. For both, I was enjoying myself right from the start, even as I bumbled around, I think in part because I could at least vaguely see a path to understanding and improvement.

In Crystalline Conflict, my only option seems to be to keep throwing myself into the middle of things, hoping I'll eventually start magically figuring stuff out. I don't know, through osmosis or something. There's no hook, no path I see to clarity and improvement.

Am I missing something? Am I the only one feeling this way? Honestly curious.

[Qeilos]

I have played over 12 hours the past 2 days and im still bronze 3. I refuse to believe everyone is having this experience so I can improve on some things but I do think being on Crystal is making it an extra special layer of hell. Im not saying we dont have good players, but historically and you can see the data for this, Crystal is not tryhards by any stretch of the imagination, nor do they aspire to be so the struggle is immense.

[Rhyneth]

Some matches are pure RNG if you win or lose due to the nature of there being no role restrictions, you are also stuck as the class you queued as, ontop of how fast games can swing back and forth. I've had a game where we had 3 Tanks and 2 DPS and somehow won against a more balanced composition. I don't think the game mode has had too much thought put into it in the grand scheme of things past being a quick casual muck about, so it works well as a casual PvP experience but I don't think it should have a Ranked gamemode in it's current state until they've balanced it out properly and got more player feedback first to adjust the systems and matchmaking to account for any shortcomings the gamemode may have, so it can provide a better experience for competitive play (at least for ranked).

I've reached Plat 4, almost hit Plat 3 before going back and forth on stars struggling to climb up.

Generally most of the time, the team which wins is the one that focuses on which target to burst and doesn't waste all their oGCDs on a target that is guarded and try to snowball whilst maintaining kills so the enemy team is unable to push them off the objective whilst gaining as much ground as possible.

I think right now, there is not really any measure of "getting good" since there's too many variables within CC that are out of your control as a solo player due to how it currently is, I mean after you've gotten to grips with how your stuff works, that's kind of it, in MMO PvP, the "getting good" part would be the teamplay aspects and the problem is, that's hardly a thing right now since roles are unlocked and the system is just matching whoever with whatever together, so it's a complete and utter chaotic mess just like how Frontlines can be but at least in Frontlines however your communication isn't limited to just callouts and games last a bit longer so there is some strategy involved to some degree! CC is just far too fast-paced in my opinion.

As for which classes are pretty strong right now, I'd say it'd be Warrior, Dragoon, Red Mage, Summoner, Samurai and Ninja.

Warrior has an AoE engage stun and lots of AoE in general, it's LB also disables Guard so if you have a damage heavy team, that basically wins fights if your team is prepped to take advantage of it.
Dragoon currently does the most melee damage in burst if left unattended, it's LB is also very strong for both killing and warding people away from the objective depending on how you use it.
I've seen a lot of successful RDMs and SMNs, though I haven't played them myself.
Samurai has a very strong kit for both 1v1s and teamfights. It's LB can insta-kill people.
Ninja can chain executions with it's LB and is generally a big nuisance if left unattended and is the only melee DPS class with a ranged attack currently.

Though all of this information is truly subjective and until they make adjustments to both the systems and the classes, take it all with a grain of salt.

[Khalithar]

Not a whole lot, you can mark a target and your randos will ignore it. There's no quick command that says "kill the healer" or "wait for everyone to respawn completely before you charge in." Just saying "regroup" isn't enough. A button that says "let's give up and get this match over with" would be useful to now that I think about it.

[Glenfiddich]

Wait for SQ to fix it.

[MilkieTea]

honestly make use of the quick chat stuff. ive noticed that when i use it to say im attacking the healer, people will follow.

[SweetPete]

New PVP mode is good, don’t get me wrong. Wins are up and down because allot of players zone in and play as individuals and not as a team. I’ve seen entire teams die and then 1 person will run back in by themselves to fight 5 full health people. That’s not smart at all. I’m not sure if they are throwing the match at that point or if they are very serious and think they can win. I made it to silver and honestly I’m just over people who refuse to play as a team. I’m just over it.

They say keep trying but when you honestly keep getting the same type of people then it just kills the enjoyment. I can take a L if i see everyone really tried. If we lose I can say “hey we tried our best, just the other team was better or had a better comp”

These games are just downright bad. Some people just refuse to work as a team.

[Infindox]

I have played over 12 hours the past 2 days and im still bronze 3. I refuse to believe everyone is having this experience so I can improve on some things but I do think being on Crystal is making it an extra special layer of hell. Im not saying we dont have good players, but historically and you can see the data for this, Crystal is not tryhards by any stretch of the imagination, nor do they aspire to be so the struggle is immense.

Think that's everywhere. First day I ran into a loop that I'd get a good team that worked together and I won a match, then next one I got some team that acted like they didn't want to be there and almost afk and lost. Then this rinsed and repeated. You're simply running an rng of how good your team is, no matter how good you are or not.

[IckeDerTyp]

Losing is a natural part of progression!

Just keep it up :3

[Anhra]

The best way of getting gud, is trough Trial and Error.

If one thing doesn't work out for you, maybe you need to change your overall approach on the Situation as a whole. Keep in mind that most FFXIV Players are rather fond of a "rush metagame" for which we can blame Frontline Roulette, Feast and even Savage Raiding to a degree.

Depending on what you play, you can use this to your advantage. Get creative and dont fear losing, if one thing doesnt work out, another will. The current Job design in PvP is alot more flexible than one might think.

I also recomment recording some matches you play (or watch Streamers play), that way you can also gain great insight on how People play during a match.