Dear Squeenix: Instead of using FOMO to promote PVP...

[Commander_Justitia]

That kind of content can also be done unsynced once enough time passes with each expansion - with increasing ILVL and Skills. Not sure why they haven't done something similar in the current PvP reward list. No one can then complain about FOMO or lack of time because they can always spend time on another season to get the rewards.

I mean, that is the challenging point with your thinking, you think it a feature, I think it is a wasted potential. Imagine there would be a cooler version of the same mount or cooler weapon if you do it sync min ilvl instead of doing it unsync 2 addons later. That would somewhat keep the difficulty of what it once had. PvE should be fixed to be like that, PvP shouldn't have those same flaws as PvE. Keep the veteranplayers entertained in PvE and PvP. Atm all that minimum ilvl does is give you orchestrion scrolls at a higher droprate and for Bluemage there are some achievements, but it is not integrated in the core-PvE aspect of the game, outside of partyfinder grps just doing it for the challenge.

[anw]

Thing is, people try harder if there is a carrot on the stick, you get people who care to win and care if they lose. If losing doesn't matter in Ranked, well no1cares, then why should they try to play super well? It is wishful thinking. You need consequences if you aren't playing well enough for the tier you are in, every other game does it too, it creates incentives to play well. And because everyone plays well, you won't be able to grind it by spamming matches as u suggested.
Regarding TOS stuff, yeah try to find the guy who plays bad on purpose, try to convince the GM's that somebody is cheating.

Thanks for the reply. I agree that some people try harder if there's a carrot on a stick and that's certainly true when a reward isn't guaranteed unless you tie it to some criteria related to performance. When there's no performance related criteria to obtaining a reward and you can obtain said reward by spamming games that's when the motivation to play well eludes some. The posts were less about just ranked but the PVP system & reward structure they have in place at the moment but your response was certainly appreciated.
Quoting your post was about the concept of ranked rewards & unique ranked rewards being tough to implement because of those players who will play only for the reward and don't quite care so much about winning because they can grind it out (which you certainly can for the standard BP/series rewards under the current structure). It was something that Blizzard had problems with when they introduced the unfortunate golden weapons into Overwatch's ranked mode and you had players only there for the end of season points & to grind out enough for a skin.
I still stand by the hard to swallow pill about ranked, most games can get away with a tiered ranking system to make you feel rewarded & motivate you to perform with end of season rewards but in general a ranked mode's objectives are usually those more balanced games against players of your own skill giving you a challenging environment to learn & grow as a player. -And yes a frame kit isn't a huge incentive to make a push to be in the top 10% of players, I agree with that.

I also feel the TOS thing on performance/throwing. It is almost impossible to find someone who is sandbagging on purpose outside of systems where you are matched based on skill/ranks etc and even then there's various degrees of throwing/soft throwing a game that require more game sense & restraint to pull off.

I do hope the Series rewards become permanently available at some point.
I enjoy PvP, but feeling like I HAVE to do it to get the items before they go away diminishes that enjoyment since I have to play even if I don't feel like it. I also like the idea of making the series tracks permanent and just letting people choose which one they want to progress.

As for whether PvP is good or not, that just comes down to opinion. It would be good if the technical issues were solved (doubtful), but I think it is still fun to play. Most people do not have the mental for PvP, especially not in this game. PvP is a type of gameplay where losing is not only highly likely, but inevitable. If you're the type of person who doesn't have fun unless you win, you will struggle to enjoy PvP. That's fine, it's just a matter of realizing it's your personal preference rather than a problem with the game.

Your concept is a solid one and your views on how playing PVP to get limited time rewards is one that I can relate with too.
I also highly agree on the mental state for PVP. PVP games aren't for everyone, well, everyone can have fun and are welcome to play but that mental strength & attidue are something else. Learning to accept a loss is something a lot of people struggle with and even more struggle with the concept of learning from your mistakes in a PVP game where it's easy to have an out and offload the blame on a variety of things.
I was playing PVP games seriously for a great deal of time and over the years I've grown as a player learning to accept the inevitability of a loss, how to not blame others for my mistakes and learning to reflect on my own performance & decisions, looking back on things I could & should have done instead. When I was young I used to be gutted whenever I lost, there's the times I raged and got angry at losing, being diappointed and letting it impact my play and it took an considerable amount of work to hammer that out.
Again, that's not something everyone can do and if you're the type of person to rage or feel bad at losing then grinding out PVP games can be tough on you mentally.

Really loved the post, solid input.

Most players need to be bribed for everything. They need to be bribed with a huge amount of XP and Tomestones for the daily roulettes to get them into all kind of PVE content. They need to get bribed with rewards for every PVE content in general. Otherwise they would do the content maybe just once to have it seen and then never again. When there are rewards behind PVE content, a lot of players do it as long as it needs to get what they want and after that never again. And PVP is no exception. Without rewards the participation in content would be very low.

The post was less about human nature and more to do with the absurdity of the reward situation. It's a somewhat rhetorical question there to open up looking at PVP, the reward system & looking at other ways to increase engagement with PVP beyond simply dumping a mount behind 12+ hours of grinding. You can kinda see where I was going with it since the posts also then go on to talk about alternative ways to get the rewards that aren't just PVP related, and considering other types of PVP content and I certainly agree without any rewards engagement would be rock bottom. I'd like to say that was mentioned in the posts but I've got a feeling it was in the first draft of post #3 that was lost and I was simply too out to remember it at the time.

I agree that a lot of players are chronically unmotivated to run PVE content again without being bribed too or having a gameplay system for it to tie into. The people out there who want to run a bunch of duty roulettes just to enjoy playing with others is considerably lower than the people who pump & dump their roulettes for tomes and I know that you certainly won't ever see me in LOTA, ST or WOD without that little demon cat girl bribing me to be her very bestest friend weekly.
I don't think it really needed to be said but it's a good reminder that things like wolf marks, tomes & the PVE exp you earn for participating in PVP are just as essential as the new PVP rewards & things to buy with those currencies; again, the posts mostly covered most of this as far as I can recall and the purpose was about players being in content for long periods of time that they dont want to be engaged in, don't care etc except for grinding out the reward.
Still a good post to strike up discussion so thank you.

At most I could see them cycling back through every so often, but then that would probably cut down on the participation a lot.
The Hellhound weapons are neat and all, but I think that more needs to be added to that vendor.

Agree on both points and again would love to see other ways of getting people to engage with PVP beyond the current battlepass/fomo system.
I like that they're putting some time into CC (even if I don't personally play it regularly) doing new maps but it still feels very strange that it's only in the PVP section of the duty finder while there's a frontline roulette. I think I suggested it in my mega posts but I'd love to see new PVP roulettes, maybe a mixed mode type of deal where it fills in for all three (preferably weighted so it doesn't try and fill CC endlessly) and there are more maps on offer. Even maybe more than just one FL map a day to make that a true roulette and allow players to manually queue for the maps they want too so if they hate the idea of getting seal rock they can still queue for the other maps as they wish and the FL roulettes don't take too big a hit to queue times. I know I'm strange and an outlier but something like that is incredibly spammable for me, variety is the spice of life as they say...

Anything. Anything at all. The Garo collab is fab, I like the series rewards they're doing, the other rewards I get from PVP and my time in it but y'know, something a bit more exciting to drive regular engagement of the game modes would be amazing.

Not related to any responses (thanks for your response to my post btw), you can circumvent the 3000 character limit by editing a post, so you can cut and paste what is currently too much somewhere else, edit and then paste it back in.

thank-you ever so much for this info!

[SaltyDaddy]

I mean, something as simple as rank flexing is enough reward for some. Look at those who pay for a carry through ultimate just for the ability to wear the title as an example.

Lol. Who cares? Show me who cares about TOP100. Only time ppl care is when they get some reward. And ppl playing PvP dont care at all, thats why the quee is literally dead.

Did you just accuse me of throwing?

No. I accussed you of playing PvP just cause of series rewards. You dont rly care about PvP alone. Thats why you cant answer my question.

PvP does need less FOMO, since it is pretty heavily luck based as it is as you have to get randomly assigned competent teammates.

4 months to do 100 losing matches that take around 5 minutes. Dunno how simpler to make it. Just a login reward? Yes, I agree past series rewards should be reobtainable how Yoshida promised, but I wouldnt call it a FOMO. Ppl really dont have dedication for anything nowadays, yet they demand everything.

[Vahlnir]

No. I accussed you of playing PvP just cause of series rewards. You dont rly care about PvP alone. Thats why you cant answer my question.

I mean, a lot of people are probably doing CC for the rewards alone. It's quick, it's easy and the penalty for losing is negligible at best. I'm certainly not doing it only for the thrill of battle. People don't have to enjoy something full stop to participate. That doesn't make them any less worthy than those who do. They just have different motivations. I think the mode is fun enough, sure, but if I wasn't suitably rewarded then I probably wouldn't bother. I'm not a huge PvP person.

[Terin]

Personally, I'm of two minds. On one hand, I actually enjoy a bit of VERY CASUAL pvp in the game. The Crystal Conflict matches are a blast, and even the Frontlines are fun for the daily duty.

That said, I'm also not a big fan of FOMO. I'm probably a bit salty, because I was literally *minutes* from getting the PvP set last season (I'd literally taken the day off work to farm for it, not realizing how early the game was going offline for maintenance), so I would definitely appreciate an opportunity to re-obtain that.

Generally speaking, I think FFXIV has had a pretty good balance of "try to get items as soon as you can, but if you miss out, you'll have a chance later on as well". Obviously, most Holiday items end up on the Mog Station, which is a bit of a double-edged sword sometimes (if nothing else, I'd like to see some of the old quests come back around, even if the rewards were missing, just for completionists' sake).

[SaltyDaddy]

I mean, a lot of people are probably doing CC for the rewards alone. It's quick, it's easy and the penalty for losing is negligible at best. I'm certainly not doing it only for the thrill of battle. People don't have to enjoy something full stop to participate. That doesn't make them any less worthy than those who do. They just have different motivations. I think the mode is fun enough, sure, but if I wasn't suitably rewarded then I probably wouldn't bother. I'm not a huge PvP person.

Well, I didnt said playing PvP just for the reward is wrong. But I dont understand, that if you doing content that is not your cup of tea just because you want the reward, and then complain that the content is not for you. People should stop going after every single reward the game offers. If you dont enjoy the thing, dont do it. Is few pixels worth hours of your bad time?

[Vahlnir]

Well, I didnt said playing PvP just for the reward is wrong. But I dont understand, that if you doing content that is not your cup of tea just because you want the reward, and then complain that the content is not for you. People should stop going after every single reward the game offers. If you dont enjoy the thing, dont do it. Is few pixels worth hours of your bad time?

Nah, but you did imply it with that comment. I'm not complaining about having to do it either. I may need to vent my frustrations every now and then because playing with other people can be grating sometimes, but the ends justify the means in my book. Sure, it's not exactly my cup of tea, but it's still drinkable. An MMO has plenty of grinds that aren't always fun but give nice rewards at the end. For me, this is no different, though as I said, I do think CC is fun enough. Seriously, I love the casual aspect of it. As someone who typically loathes PvP, it's not a bad time at all. I'll take CC over doing BGs in WoW any day. The best approach is to never expect to win. After going at it for over a hundred matches though, that starts to wear me down, but the grind is nearly done at that point. Again, CC can be fun but overall it's a means to an end for me.

[Oizen]

PVP is a waste of development time and I'm tired of seeing it being used primarily as patchnote filler for otherwise dry updates.

[ThaCa]

PVP is a waste of development time and I'm tired of seeing it being used primarily as patchnote filler for otherwise dry updates.

Still better content than Island Sanctuary and alike that are basically one and done. Considering it's potential longevity to most other content it should get much more dev time and resources to not end up as half baked attempt.

Casual queue keeps firing throughout the day even during the more quiet parts of patch cycle, so there's definately people just playing it for fun.

There's still a lot of work to be done to make it even half as good as it could be though.
For example, I have friends who would love to play it but don't want to queue solo, yet people are really torn on party queues even with the current lack of balance in Casual queue which shouldn't be an issue if the matchmaker system actually put any proper weight on things.
Quick chat is incredibly insufficient and spammy compared to ping systems of most other games and lacks proper visual cues and recycles sound effects on multiple commands instead of having clear ones for all of the important calls.
Reward structure is still complete jank, meaning Ranked is pointless outside of your first ever Season. At least they added something to Crystal Trophy store this time despite being just reworks of old gear, Wolf Collars / Trophy Crystals / Wolf Marks need to be expanded upon even if it steps on stuff like Allied Seals or old Tome mats to offer real alternatives.

Both CC and Rival Wings would benefit from Roulette.

PvP could also have their own "Relic" grind including all the game modes if they were properly supported among other things.

Yet as things are, PvP is vastly under utilized and under supported. Which is a shame because the potential is there.

[JamieRose]

Unfotunately that is the way of Frontlines and my best advice would be to toggle off alliance chat before you enter. Some may balk at the suggestion but if you don't like obnoxious sound effect macro spam, seeing people argue or giving out wrong commands then there's really no better solution.
I personally toggle it before I play FL and I miss out on some of the fun but I also gain a +10 in sanity by not hearing macro spam constantly.


It's hard to toggle that mental state but if losing a game makes you feel bad and you're only there for the rewards then I'd suggest you don't force yourself to play for the piece of FOMO gear. You love mahjong and that's okay. Mahjong takes far, far more skill than FL or CC even with CC's focus on macro. You can rest comfortable knowing you're having fun with tiles (:

What can I say, I'm a mutant that love board games.
Thank you for the advice, much appreciated.