Moogle Treasure Trove and PVP

[Shenayim]

To all the players I disappointed with my first-ever PVP showing, I can only say, "Sorry." It's not really my fault. At least, I don't feel like it was.

Early on after I'd started XIV, when every blue ! quest appeared to be something vital, I managed to unlock PVP. When I realized that was what I'd done, I sort of let that questline die there. I'm not really a PVP person to begin with, and I figured there was plenty of content to keep me busy without having to get involved in... that. No offense to the folks who like it, it's just not my thing.

Fast-forward to the latest Moogle Treasure Trove. My weekly objective was Rival Wings. I hadn't touched PVP in all that time, but I figured it couldn't be too hard to at least give it a try. I'd probably be lousy, but I'd get a taste of it and that would be the end of it.

I thought wrong.

I got to Wolves' Den and my entire hotbar was ?s with red slashes through them. I concluded it was because I wasn't actually in a match yet, and so I set about reading the tooltips and arranging my hotbar to something that made vague sense for me. After all, I couldn't find any PVP commands in the "normal" commands menu, so I figured it just auto-populated when you showed up in a PVP area. Then I queued up.

I got into the match and... and my entire hotbar was still ?s with red slashes through them. I tried to do anything to make things work. Nothing did. Team members were not all that helpful. "You should have set things up at Wolves' Den." I thought I did. "How come there are a bunch of jerks standing around AFK at base?" Because I literally can't figure out what's going on or how to do anything. "Use the mechs." The...what? How do I do that? I eventually got tired of the abuse and just sort of zoned out.

I talked to a friend who's played PVP afterwards, in a discussion in which the F-bomb came up an awful lot. Their conclusion was that, when I'd showed up in Wolves' Den the first time, it had fixed my hotbar with the abilities that were in PVP at the time and are now obsolete. Now, I figure a sensible interface would detect that, yeah, your entire hotbar is out of date abilities and at least ask if you're sure that's how you want to go in. Nope, it just threw me into the arena and under the bus. It was my first time. How was I supposed to know those were all obsolete abilities? And if my hotbar was the default from 4.X or 5.X, shouldn't it at least have done something to update it or at least notify me how to fix things?

I tried to go in prepared. SE had other ideas.

So, if that's going on in your group, it's probably because SE decided people who had very deliberately chosen not to go into PVP should "try it out," and then give them absolutely no guidance on how to do it. Be gentle to them. They're probably feeling miserable, too. Maybe you can give them better guidance than I got.

[AnotherPerson]

Sorry to hear your experience sucked. Just a heads up as we enter Dawntrail: The same thing with outdated actions staying in your hotbar happens in PvE after each expansion when old actions get replaced or removed. You'd have to reassign new actions on your own if any gets removed or added in a previous level.

Even if you have never touched your PvP action bar menu since you unlocked it, there should still be an action assigned to your hotbar by default (PVP Profile) that allows easy access to the PvP Actions list for that job. Since you said you went about reading your tooltips while arranging your old hotbar, it is also assumed you would've noticed the different button in your default hotbar compared to all the greyed out ones and reading the tooltip would've clued you in that you can assign different actions in this way. At least, it shows up on keyboard + mouse for me. I figure this is why people think you sounded like you were full of hot air -- because it wouldn't make sense that you wouldn't be able to find the actions otherwise if you spent some time adjusting your hotbar in the PvP location.

I'm not aware of how controller works with PvP, so maybe the PvP Profile button doesn't show up on controller? In that case, you'd have to manually access the skills like how you'd manually go find PvE Actions when setting new actions. For PvP side, it's Main menu -> Character -> PvP Profile.

As for instructions on Rival Wings, I think there was an NPC that describes the game mode...? I don't recall. I just play and figure it out as I went. Alternatively, you could go to the Rival Wings Lodestone page for a brief overview of the mode and/or just look up a Rival Wings guide on youtube for a general idea of the game mode. I'd recommend youtube for any guide that needs explaining, really. There's usually a guide to nearly everything battle-content related in FFXIV nowadays.

Edit: I looked around and remembered there's an Active Help button for basic inquiries on gameplay. There's no active help tab for Rival Wings (at least not when I typed in PvP). The Active Help section in PvP is abysmally small on results, but there is a section in PvP Rewards that states you can access the PvP Actions through the PvP Profile. I figure you could've avoided all that that hassle if you read it (or at least, have it point you in the right direction), but I'd be more surprised if anyone remembers to ever consult with the Active Help tab after unlocking a new feature in the first place...

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

On one hand I'm sorry your initial experience wasn't great and admittedly the way the game handles the PvP menu User Interface as well as replacing old actions is a bit janky.

On another you essentially did a blind dive into PvP Rival Wings without having asked questions to people you know or people in Wolves Den. Or searching it on Google / Youtube (PvP starter guide Endwalker). I can hardly blame people to be annoyed when among leechers there are also people jumping into a match not having found the PvP skill menu yet and asking when the game's starting or ongoing.

You knew you haven't interacted with it in years so honestly you should've dug up first what changed. Sorry for what happened to you but I highly advise asking / searching before assuming when having issues like these.

That said post above me descibes most things fairly well.

[Eastwall]

Sorry to hear that. Sometime l would notice someone that does 0 damage And 0 heal in a 5v5 match. If that person is on my server, l would pm them and Try to help them find their skills. The UI is really bad... You would think a pop-up would show up to tell you where you click to find your pvp profile and drag out skills.

[JokoCGN]

Sounds like U didnt care about preparing at all tbh.
There's a PvP section in Ur main menue, which U had have found by scrolling. Like all other menues U should scroll thru when starting any newish games.
As well there are many NPCs at Wolf's Den who introduce U to each PvP mode with some overall information.

Be ware that anything in FF14 has any NPC or some pop ups for information.


Sounds awful but it's kinda hard learning ^^

[Yuella]

The OP did nothing wrong. The game does a terrible job preparing players for pvp. They should at least have a "pvp" Novice Hall where new pvpers can realize that their hotbar is a mess and give them a chance to arrange it.

[Valence]

I don't think this is acceptable UI or game design at all. As an ex dev myself, I'll say that the devs should know better.

[IDontPetLalas]

I don't think this is acceptable UI or game design at all. As an ex dev myself, I'll say that the devs should know better.

I would agree, and it's been dragging on for a while. There's a number of ways of going about it, but is poorly implemented right now.

Until then, I agree (and commiserate with OP) no one should receive abuse, however the sensible thing to do would have been to leave as OP wasn't ready to queue, likely couldn't contribute and as such (it could be argued) was a detriment to his/her team. Would have been less painful too.

[Mistress_Irika]

Leaving would lead to a 30 min penalty for duty finder though?

Let's be honest here though. PvP is not the main focus. They could do a better job with guiding folks through pvp just like they do with classes and going into your first dungeons, but as it stands they're not going to be focus on pvp as much as they are with story, dungeons, and raids.

It would be nice if that can get get an update via class notification or outright replacing the skill on player's hotbars, because this is not the first time I've heard of new players queuing in a pvp mode and not being able to do anything. It's been going on for years.

[IDontPetLalas]

Leaving would lead to a 30 min penalty for duty finder though?

Let's be honest here though. PvP is not the main focus. They could do a better job with guiding folks through pvp just like they do with classes and going into your first dungeons, but as it stands they're not going to be focus on pvp as much as they are with story, dungeons, and raids.

It would be nice if that can get get an update via class notification or outright replacing the skill on player's hotbars, because this is not the first time I've heard of new players queuing in a pvp mode and not being able to do anything. It's been going on for years.

I would prefer that if someone has outdated actions- they're simply removed. If someone has no actions- don't let the person queue, and tell them - you have no actions equipped.

I would agree that this is likely not the highest priority on the dev team, as a number of us have said, it's been ongoing for a while, and perhaps with more people mentioning it, he priority may change.

In the meantime, in this specific case, yes they'd get a penalty, but I don't consider that so unfair- they can use the time to fix the issue or do something else in or out of game, 30 minutes isn't long. That would likely have been more productive/pleasant for them, and hopefully their team would have gotten a replacement - win-win.