Are you enjoying this?

[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.