Ranked Rewards

[Commander_Justitia]

Not my pic, but that is how they could separate top100 from series rewards. Similar concept to the tank achievement mounts.

Same mount reward, but different skin. The base version would come back at some point in the future, the ranked one wouldn't come back.

But I figure collectionists will still be mad at this solution.

[Araxes]

I don't understand why ranked doesn't have any meaningful/interesting rewards other than a portrait frame and some crystals that even people who don't play ranked have more than they know what to do with.

In another game I played, you earned glam with each higher tier of rank you hit, with a full set being awarded at one of the later brackets. I could see FFXIV ranked players enjoying a similar such system, but with full sets of glam (perhaps getting more elaborate with the higher tier stuff as you go) rewarded instead at each tier. Every tier would also reward everything from the tiers below it.

I've read and heard that the top ranked players in the past would be rewarded with unique mounts, they could return to doing that or add a different 'reward shop' with something like 'bloodied trophy crystals' (red ones) that are awarded to the top players and allow purchase of items from the new shop, including mounts, minions, and glamour. The currency would ideally only be given in a small amount, or even just a singular one so that players would continue to participate in ranked the following season as I imagine items would only get added to the shop with major patches and those last two seasons.

In conclusion, I firmly believe that ranked crystalline conflict, the players who engage in it, and the potential players who would do so with suitable encouragement; would stand to benefit from a new and better reward system. As it stands now, there is little more motivation to play ranked than to chase spots on the leaderboard, which is not anymore rewarding than the other lodestone leaderboards such as Grand Company, Frontline, or Free Company leaderboards.

Cause then someone will take the opportunity to act as if they are offended by something around timed exclusives and FOMO for the sake of complaining and appearing like writing it in the interest of everybody.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Cause then someone will take the opportunity to act as if they are offended by something around timed exclusives and FOMO for the sake of complaining and appearing like writing it in the interest of everybody.

Based take, I kneel.

[4clubbedace]

they could return to doing that or add a different 'reward shop' with something like 'bloodied trophy crystals' (red ones) that are awarded to the top players and allow purchase of items from the new shop,.

if they make things pseudo exclusive id prefer this, having things disappear was heart wretching, knowing itll "always be there" is better

[YouWereIndicted]

First actual post here. So, I'm still a relatively new player (started in 6.2) The Feast was long gone by the time I got into this game. So, I'm not on any kind of copium and I think those players deserve to have their rewards and they should not re-release Feast stuff. As much as I love that Shadowcleaver set, that is a big no no.

But I agree completely in terms of more rewards in general. As of recently I finished getting every PvP reward on my main (Ranked stuff, Field Commander Set, every PvP mount) and so on...and I felt especially that ranked was just super lacking for any incentive of a reward. Who cares about titles and reused portraits.
The Hellhound Weapons are a step in the right direction, but more is definitely welcomed. Some people like to bag on others who get into content for said reward which is hilarious to me. The aforementioned rewards are what got me into PvP and to improve as much as I could and learn the mode. Sure, I had some fun, but going for the rewards is what drove me and to perform my best and even deal with the frustrating coinflip matches. From what I heard in regards to The Feast, is that Season 18 & 19 were very active because lo and behold, good rewards to grind for in those seasons. I am unsure what drives SE to be so afraid of rewarding us players who sink our time into ranked. But this ain't it. FOMO kind of sucks but hey, you snooze you lose. And I say that as a newer player who is playing catch-up.

In my opinion though, more rewards all around for PvP is welcome. Why not a custom relic + frame for getting 1k wins on a role and maybe commendation crystals or a personal attire? Or what someone mentioned above, a custom mount. Titles just do not cut it for me. But they only recently started giving Criterion Savage actual rewards which is high-end content. So, I would not hold my breath for PvP to get any special treatment as it is kind of always treated as the black sheep from what I have seen.

[snipski]

Feast allready had them it's mostly bragging rights by now, pissing of others in hunt trains and such.
Not really a big dealbreaker.

[HermitUK]

Cause then someone will take the opportunity to act as if they are offended by something around timed exclusives and FOMO for the sake of complaining and appearing like writing it in the interest of everybody.

I said this in another thread a while ago here but the solution is to not retire rewards at the end of a season. Top 100 shpuld earn you a unique currency to spend on present or past rewards as you see fit. Keeps the skill requirement, and obviously if you want them all you need to play a lot of PvP and do well, but fixes some of the FOMO element.

[Commander_Justitia]

I said this in another thread a while ago here but the solution is to not retire rewards at the end of a season. Top 100 shpuld earn you a unique currency to spend on present or past rewards as you see fit. Keeps the skill requirement, and obviously if you want them all you need to play a lot of PvP and do well, but fixes some of the FOMO element.

People would still complain that they can't get every item. Because they simply don't like PvP to have their own ranked rewards. It is often just that.

You can look at many forum threads, it is usually "this is too easy, simple, trivial to play - I need something more to stay entertained" - if PvE or PvP.
Talking about "keeping the skill requirement the same" when skill doesn't get you too far to begin with, feels odd. Your impact on a win/loss is less than in Feast, you can barely carry teammates anymore, and there is 1 more of them now. So I have to rely more on luck than skill compared to The Feast to climb the ranks.
Healing and tanking in PvP felt in the past more like PvE was supposed to be, actually having to heal, actually having to mitigate and kite and support your teammates. They could remove healers/tanks now and I don't think it would be really noticeable or matter. You could go 90-100% winrate from unranked to diamond as healer in The Feast and now you are happy if you can stay between 50-70% in CC.

I think they were afraid of matching a bad healer into a group of 5, which means instant loss. So they gave people a way to heal themselves completely. While it should be a mix of healing + selfheal. It wouldn't hurt to buff healing and reduce selfheals to some degree. Adding support skills to allow that, like Mana Shift or Clemency or Ver-Cure. Giving tanks more mitigation and damage dealers more damage buffs or group buffs - maybe on a higher cooldown. Then we can talk about "skill" again.

[Eastwall]

I think that helps narrow down the issue then. I'm almost to 3000 CC/feast/fold matches via casual queues, working towards Alpha Wolf slowly. To me, the difference between Ranked and Casual is the ranking system itself, and the stakes of the players playing each mode. Those two don't make the mode fun for me, so I don't choose to do it. The carrot gets me to jump into ranked though.

This pertains to my experiences only, but I think the game mode is a ton of fun. Can the rank mode be made to be more fun? I hope it can, but I won't hold my breath for it.

Yeah,l am the same. I can sense people taking ranked much more seriously because they spams quick chat a lot more often. I don't want to deal with it., So l just play casual too. And the other thing is that there is a real chance that l can't make it to diamond to get these weapon skin. If l want a cool weapon, Might as well grind relic weapons. When l put effort to it,l make definitive progress. So, the reward is definitely not there to justify the stress l have to deal with.

[HermitUK]

People would still complain that they can't get every item. Because they simply don't like PvP to have their own ranked rewards. It is often just that.

This is true, but you can always over-reward. So if a season's ranked reward costs 10 ranked coins, you could dish out 15-30 of them to top 100 players (increasing as you place higher). For players who have nearly everything already you can always add some more generic items or let people convert excess into Wolf Collars or something.

I have a lot of sympathy for people saying they want stuff that was time-gated. It's silly to have missed a mount you might love because you weren't playing the game four years ago. Also, limiting in this way discourages the devs from investing proper time and effort into rewards. There is a reason most Feast mount rewards were just enemy models with player models plonked on top.

I have less sympathy for people saying they want a reward that's locked behind grinding out a top 100 spot. If you take put the time-based FOMO, then it's a skill issue. You get good, you get your mount.

Will people still moan? Sure. But it's no different than somebody complaining about shiny weapons being locked behind ultimates.