First-time PvPer, I have some thoughts...

[Olinara]

I've been playing the game for almost 3 years, and haven't really done pvp except once to unlock it shortly after I started. It lasted about 5 minutes, I spent most of it dead, and I remember my buttons were a bit different.

Lately my FC members were saying how fun it was, that it had gotten some major love.
So I queued up this morning for the first time since then to get a Wondrous Tails sticker. It was a horrible experience.

I had no abilities. None. All slashed out. I was ready for them to be different/changed like they were a couple summers ago. But GONE?

I tried to ask my teammates before the match started. "Unable to use chat."

I tried to ask my FC before the match started. "Unable to use chat."

Well at least the match is short, I thought. I'll run around with my weapon drawn.

I don't pretend to understand or have an opinion on the design decisions that went into the PvP system. But as a long time mostly casual player, I will say that it was NOT a good second first impression.

[Nanne]

The big PvP revamp was mentioned everywhere and had been shown in patch notes/livestreams and it didn't cross your mind to go to the PvP area or to even open PvP menu to just drag all the few abilities from there to your actionbar?

[IckeDerTyp]

Yep, always prep in the pvp area first! ^^

[Caddo]

Player error. The game legit takes you to the PVP area, which instantly swaps your bar the first time you go there (and has for many years now) and even the patch notes asks people to refer to the PVP guide to see all the changes/updates. This is just one of the issues with grab quest, skim it, turn in and "I'll prob never do that again" mindset.

[Lymberey]

I've been playing the game for almost 3 years, and haven't really done pvp except once to unlock it shortly after I started. It lasted about 5 minutes, I spent most of it dead, and I remember my buttons were a bit different.

Lately my FC members were saying how fun it was, that it had gotten some major love.
So I queued up this morning for the first time since then to get a Wondrous Tails sticker. It was a horrible experience.

I had no abilities. None. All slashed out. I was ready for them to be different/changed like they were a couple summers ago. But GONE?

I tried to ask my teammates before the match started. "Unable to use chat."

I tried to ask my FC before the match started. "Unable to use chat."

Well at least the match is short, I thought. I'll run around with my weapon drawn.

I don't pretend to understand or have an opinion on the design decisions that went into the PvP system. But as a long time mostly casual player, I will say that it was NOT a good second first impression.

I'm also a first time PVPer in this game after the revamp, so i kinda understand what you've gone through. Go to Wolfden's Pier and open PVP profile then customize your UI from there. Maybe try out some jobs with training dummies or spend some good time reading your kit.

PVP in FFXIV has a whole new different kit and hotbars, not even the same playstyle for some jobs. Its kinda like how GW2 did their PVP as you get completely new hotbars for every job aside from your usual PVE ones. So don't be worry about screwing up your usual hotbars, go crazy with it if you desire.

When in PVP content, only use skills and quickchats from PVP Profile menu. Anything outside of that will not work.

Good luck!

[Genz]

Yep, they remade all the skills, created a new mode, but they couldn't bother to add a small tutorial.
(and we'll not even think about some UI function to automatically replace the old skills in the hotbars)

Before being able to queue for PvP, players should complete a quest that asks to 1) deal damage to a training dummy in the wolves' den 2) use Recuperate.
And when they do a big revamp of pvp like 6.1 (which won't happen any time soon, if at all), all PvP is locked for all players and we have to re-do this quest to unlock pvp.

It's not much, but still better than nothing.

[AorusCorsair]

I can easily understand why you might assume that it would assign default controls for all of your skills like it would in most other games. This is a UX miss which could have been caught with a little bit of testing. I'm sorry that others on these forums are willfully ignoring that and blaming you for it instead. It's always shocking news in these sorts of insular communities to learn that the vast majority of players in any game don't follow dev blogs or read patch notes (nor should they have to).

[Sindele]

It's not really a "UX miss that could have been caught with testing" because it's a deliberate decision targeting a different cohort, choosing to preserve bar layouts rather than overwriting them when a revamp changes things. It's the same reason that invalid buttons stay on your bar after an expansion changes them, so you remember what was placed where and can adapt to the change easily. 100% the decision was discussed and they decided that the small amount of people who would a) blindly queue in without checking and b) couldn't figure out where their PVP profile was to assign new buttons when they realized their buttons didn't work wasn't worth sacrificing the existing PVP bar layouts of the entire playerbase for.

A tutorial would have been a nice way to avoid it, but sacrifices get made sometimes.

[AorusCorsair]

It's not really a "UX miss that could have been caught with testing" because it's a deliberate decision targeting a different cohort, choosing to preserve bar layouts rather than overwriting them when a revamp changes things. It's the same reason that invalid buttons stay on your bar after an expansion changes them, so you remember what was placed where and can adapt to the change easily. 100% the decision was discussed and they decided that the small amount of people who would a) blindly queue in without checking and b) couldn't figure out where their PVP profile was to assign new buttons when they realized their buttons didn't work wasn't worth sacrificing the existing PVP bar layouts of the entire playerbase for.

A tutorial would have been a nice way to avoid it, but sacrifices get made sometimes.

Here's the thing about UX though: It's not about what the developers intend or the experienced playerbase thinks. When people are new they don't know or care about all of our opinions. They're just trying to sit down and play the game. The fact that this post exists shows that there was, in fact, a UX miss. The fact that you and I "get it" and intuitively knew that we needed to replace our expired hotbar skills doesn't mean that others have failed when they didn't have the same experience to prompt that insight.

You're probably right that most people who care about this content don't really need a tutorial (with the exception of overtime mechanics). You're probably also right that they made a conscious decision not to invest resources into providing one. It's just really unfortunate when this ends up alienating new players like the OP.

[Gserpent]

Here's the thing about UX though: It's not about what the developers intend or the experienced playerbase thinks. When people are new they don't know or care about all of our opinions. They're just trying to sit down and play the game. The fact that this post exists shows that there was, in fact, a UX miss. The fact that you and I "get it" and intuitively knew that we needed to replace our expired hotbar skills doesn't mean that others have failed when they didn't have the same experience to prompt that insight.

You're probably right that most people who care about this content don't really need a tutorial (with the exception of overtime mechanics). You're probably also right that they made a conscious decision not to invest resources into providing one. It's just really unfortunate when this ends up alienating new players like the OP.

I genuinely don't think there's a lot lost, if the people being lost are so oblivious that they don't even notice the multiple pop-up texts telling them their hotbars have changed to PvP ones, they don't notice that their hotbars are different/full of slashed-out icons, etc.

There's a line, somewhere, where you can't do anything but literally point to the player and go "you are the problem, this is not something anyone reasonable would try to design around or for."