Are you enjoying this?

[Jettinson]

Personally I am enjoying, not in a serious aspect but just fun to see queue times not long for now.
FL could use some small balance at least just because sometimes I get matches that make me want to back pedal and pray for some miracle lol.

They made Bard way more fun for meand I enjoy using Monk in CC.

[Aubrey_A]

Overall I been enjoying CC. I haven't had the time to go through and play any FL matches since the patch. I just made it to diamond on Bard and I'm still getting that "just one more match" feeling. I'm not trying for the top 100 rewards, so I imagine the presence of cheaters, imbalanced classes, and win-traders would detract from the experience if I was trying to place on the leaderboards.

[nighttimebunny]

I don't care about ranked, don't get upset over losses, try my best and play a job I enjoy. say hi and good match.
that's how I have fun.
oh and collect the rewards I like.

[Lustre]

I wouldn't say I'm enjoying it. All of my wins feel cheap, and so do my losses. There isn't really much I can do to influence matches, other than "play my role", and hope to god that others also do the same. 8/10 they dont. Tanks chasing dps players around the map, instaKOs, permanent stunlocks, weirdly heavyhanded matchmaking. Little to no skill expression or choice due to how the job kits have been completely gutted. I win one game (silver 2), it puts me with full gold 1 meta team the next match, and I have a weird comp so obviously I lose. Then the next match puts me with bronze/unranked players, so obviously i win. Then it gets confused and puts me with gold players again etc. Same stuff on a loop 24/7. It feels deliberate. I'd love to know how it weighs its matchmaking cause it just feels bad. I thought the whole point of ranked was equally skilled people competing in a fair environment? With as much RNG removed as possible? Yeah....

I did consider whether IM the reason for not climbing, but I'm not so sure it is. Normally I'm top damage dealt/most kills/pushing crystal as a squashy ranged dude while everybody else runs in circles.

I did consider picking a meta job so I guarantee one lands on my team, but I dont see why I should have to do that. Probably better to "play what I know" anyway. So yeah, not enjoying it. It's a good idea, and I commend them got trying, but it's wrapped in layers of ineptitude. I plan to play ranked long enough to get my 2 mounts, and claim whatever rank I've landed with at the end of the season and forget about it. I was in it for the crystal tier rewards but I really don't think the time is worth the effort at this point. Especially because all of the people who climbed in the first few days had an easier time of it.

I got less mad losing necromancer attempts at 180+ (something that made me see red before) because at least I only have myself or RNG to blame. But with CC, I'm fighting the enemy, my own team, and the matchmaking, and the sluggish netcode all at the same time.

[Vatom]

People say I’m angry but really I just like to fight. Haha

It’s fun but you can get frustrated at times. Made it to diamond and after that quit ranked and just started carrying casual games though sometimes my should can do but so much and that gets old but all in all I have nothing better to do since I thirst for content

[magicookiemeow]

I have not seen a more boring and pathetic attempt at pvp then i have seen in crystal conflict . It is a random queue ,you cant queue with friends and who in its dumb mind thought that putting random flames burning in that mode will somehow makes things spicy ?

[ReiganCross]

Are you actually having fun in pvp? -snip-

Overall yeah, a lot.

Keep in mind, yeah, I've been complaining about a lot of things about this game. I've malded about Bioblaster, Overheat, Purify, Guard, all of Gunbreaker, monkey flips, samurai kills and more but honestly? I find this mode more enjoyable than regular PvE mode now. I don't have to gear up in it, which is a bonus. I hate FFXIV gear stats.

Why do I enjoy it? Because it's ready to be played at full-skill right out of the box. I can express my skill infinitely more than I can with just doing a rotation over and over again and just see how tight I can make it. Every button feels more of a snap decision that needs to be considered at every turn, and I have to keep a constant look at the map and the position of my friends and my enemies. The game is still jank, connectivity is trash despite Yoshi-P saying the netcoding is fine, but in this your enemy is also dealing with the same garbage netcode.

On CC I need to consider more closely what every move I make is, while positioning is slightly less important than wall-blocking someone. But on Frontlines I need to consider the map and over-all war tactics when moving along with this heard of angry cats that is your team. And picking people off in the middle of this messy storm of AoEs is a threat to me, either chain-deleting people on Ninja, poison-softening groups with Biolysis, deleting a target way off in the backline with Marksman's Spite, or just smashing entire teams on SMN/DRG/WHM. It makes me feel more powerful than whatever PvE can pretend to throw at me. How many "gods" have we defeated so far? Nothing compared to killing 20 Warriors of Light per Frontline match on a good Machinist match.

Hell, the rewards from Wolf Marks and Crystals is adorable, but utterly unnecessary for me. I'd keep playing this mess of a mode if it actually cost me gil to do. Instead the game ens up showering me with Tomestones and Marks that I constantly need to find a way to get rid of. X_X Getting cool horses, a cool Archfiend outfit and some other assorted stuff is nice, though.

Oh yeah, and I used to enjoy PvP decently enough on pre-6.1 Frontlines. Making a team immortal on WHM is a feeling I'll never get to have again, I'll miss it but it's a good thing it is gone. Fully bursting someone with a Wildfire that still compiled damage like Stormblood was also amazing in Frontlines to see a guy melt. And I'm actually kind of angry that they made us Cast-walk on Bard and Machinist, but remembering what it was before I can respect the new bold decision... Hell, the Cast-walk system is entirely new to FFXIV, I can appreciate the effort on it. (PvP was always kind of a testing ground for the actual game, huh?) I will NOT miss the mass of Tanks golfing people off of cliffs. I still remember some names of people that did that and ONLY that through the entirety of the match, Dash, Stun, Knockback off a cliff, run away with impunity... Or the way that a Warrior could lock you up on Holmgang, which always came perfectly in range of a Weapon Throw...

So yes, I'm enjoying PvP immensely, despite all the flaws I keep malding about.

[Tobias_Azuryon]

I'm having a metric ton of fun in pvp.

I'd have more fun if the following were addressed:

1. Class disparity in kits
2. CC and purify
3. Guard
4. Server ping in 5v5
5. Team Matchups/Matchmaking
6. Literally any kind of group option to queue up with at least ONE friend.

Right now I normally log in do my pve stuff and to kill time sometimes I'll do pvp or I'll just hit hard when most the fc is offline. It normally starts to get worse as I keep fighting to only lose my rank because of three back to back fights where the opposing party has a PLD WAR WHM and two dps while I'm a single SGE and 4 dps lol.

I am having fun with the mode, and hope further pvp changes are made and more modes added for this rather than trying to "fix" frontlines. A capture the point like frontlines but 5v5 where you have to dps and aoe and stuff at the same time would be interesting and I like the matches that don't feel like I have to dedicate a whole day to running between points.

[Katsuu]

It feels super lack luster. Too many fun class abilities taken away imo... I don't see myself engaged as much as before all of the new changes.

[Alaray]

I've been enjoying the new PvP system a fair bit, personally. Games aren't all that long, the classes feel like they always have something available to use and aren't sitting on long CD's, the actual flow of a game feels good to me. The thematic limit breaks are pretty fun to use, and of the classes I've messed around with (DRG/MCH/DNC) they, at least, have a lot of little things in their kits to think about when engaging players. (I do want to try some more classes out, but it takes a bit for me to get used to how they play)

Won't say it's like... the cream of the crop of PvP games, but it's fun enough for me to willingly queue up for it more than a few times when I want to do something in XIV but don't feel like raiding or w/e. But, then again, their other modes/discontinued modes were also an extremely (further) cry away from a decent PvP game.

There's some issues here and there -- the inherent delay the game has makes some actions you want to come out much faster feel sluggish, the same delay also affecting things like an incoming attack's damage already checking before you apply guard, making it feel wonky when you put the guard up but still take a bunch of damage (it's like... work around-able, but at the same time it doesn't feel crisp and snappy at all -- same with purify, though at least in some cases you can pre-hit it when you see a skill animation start and you'll basically instant break the cc). Some classes feel a bit on the strong side, and others a bit too far on the weaker side of the spectrum -- granted, I do think some people were a bit quick to judge some jobs in the game since a lot of jobs I was a bit curious about do seem to be seeing more play/more success (which, I figured it'd just take time for people to learn them a bit better in some cases).

However, I have yet to have a game where a GNB (Enemy or Ally) felt like they existed. (Reapers after their buff seem... very feast or famine-y? I haven't played this job since day 1 so I honestly have no idea how it's been feeling. I'll just see the same player excel in one game, then flounder the next and so on).

As for the ranking system... I don't... really care? I got to Crystal in... I think 64/87 games? Then I just tried out MCH/DNC for a while and tanked my Crystal Credit (I mean, I felt like I did get to a competent spot on MCH, but not... able to clutch out situations as often as I'd like, though fighting melee on it for the most part was kind of a fun thing to learn how to do, since it felt so... micro-manage-y compared to DRG at least).

But, again; for the ranking system... it's just any other old ranking system, to be honest. Sure, you can't demote tiers, but I don't entirely see how that matters all that much when demoting down a riser is, kind of, basically the same overall effect (I mean, theoretically, they could just add more risers to a tier to simulate the effect anyway). To a degree... I almost think people who enjoy the game mode and want to play might actually play more after hitting a new tier (no risk in losing it/the rewards, and only an incentive to possibly climb higher)... which I kind of see as a good thing for a game mode you want people to populate?

And, onto that, I've been reading the discussions around about the ranked system and while some people claim it's incredibly easy to climb (I mean, it definitely can be -- was for me) there's still a lot of people complaining about being stuck in tiers and, from time to time I'd check the ranked standings and see people in bronze with 200+ wins. So, I feel like there's some dissonance there. (Granted yes, other games it's more difficult to climb rank in -- but, also, not really? It's just more games played, that's the metric and playing 1000 30~ minute League games just sounds... eugh, compared to like... 200~ or so 5m CC matches. Or OW games -- I got to diamond in one season and just... never touched ranked again, games took too long and when it was clear you were in the losing match-up it just felt like a bunch of time down the drain. Stopped being fun, basically especially when I felt like casual games had about the same feel).

Generally, all I tend to care about for a high-end competitive scene when it comes to ranked PvP games is... not the ranks, at all. It's usually just people who're playing in tournaments (community tournaments, sponsored tournaments, official tournaments etc...) while climbing feels Good for the scoreboard -- absolutely -- it's never... in any game I've ever played... been much more than just a scoreboard number. Something to point at and go "cool/grats".

I will say, though, Crystal does feel a bit weird to me. I do have some really good games in the tier, where everyone feels like they're putting in the work on both teams and there's some interesting interactions/events/ability usage/I-Have-to-Be-More-Clever... and then there's some games when... somehow, and this did happen once, a single, lone red mage at the start of the game managed to kill four of my teammates while I engaged with the enemy DRG (and now, in Guard and fending off the rest of their team, see that my teammates have backpedaled with just... a RDM, 1v4ing and... winning?). And... moments like those feel... odd, but I guess there's a part of it that can be people playing New Classes because they don't really care at this point about going higher and just want to learn something new, or people who maybe were a little less than stellar in their prior games rising up and were just genuinely lucky the whole way through [I'm more of a benefit of the doubt person, but I suppose it's not impossible]).

The bad games are infrequent enough for me to not really care too much, especially as I tend to skip the queues when there's players I just do not want to be on the same team with again. But the good games -- which, the good games can also be a little rare, with most kinda being in-between-y; those good games feel really solid to play in and I don't think I've ever been salty when I felt like I was genuinely just bested/outplayed/outsmarted by someone else. Might loose the 85 ~ 100 credit score, but I had a good time, y'know?

I guess, a part of me figures that the Matchmaking in Crystal could be improved to be based more on Crystal Credit (searching for players in similar ranges, expanding out as a certain amount of time elapses etc... as some games do), which might help with match consistency? But matchmaking's always been a problem in all ranked PvP games since, after a point, there just simply aren't enough players of a particular play level to actually pull from to populate a single game (at all) and the alternative is either having wider skill variance, or... 1hr+ queue times.

As for Cheating/Trolls:

- I've encountered like... maybe 1 or 2 suspicious things, and even then it's like "probably just in my head with all the cheater's gone rampant talk"

- I've encountered... two genuine trolls (throwing the game on purpose), one in Crystal and one in like... Plat or something.

So... these things haven't had a particularly big impact on me, to be honest.

Kinda said a lot, which... it's all kind of observations/thoughts that've been in my head the more I've played/experienced the new mode. I don't really see it as a High-End Competitive game, to be honest, though it is a fun game and the ranking system felt... satisfying, to me, to go through at least.

But, I mean, if there were community tournaments or something along the lines hosted for it -- I'd prolly give it a watch.




tl;dr: I like the game mode and just tossed out some thoughts that were in my head with regards to it, and some of the discussions surrounding it. I think it's fun, has a solid foundation and feels good to play. Inherent delay sucks, I don't think the ranking system SE went with is that big of a deal, and I feel like a lot of people are kind of saying "this thing is the truth" while contradictory anecdotes are being said the other post over, independently.

Kinda think the cheater thing is blown out of proportion (that, or I'm just the luckiest person to ever queue up for PvP at whatever hour). Don't deny there are cheaters, but I don't think they're literally pouring from the walls and so on.