Hey Devs! How about a damage check? :D

[Vandi]

I get it. Casual Crystal Conflict is supposed to serve as a training ground for new people. A nice place to refine their skill without judgement, unlike ranked where it makes skilled people pull their hair out. Fair.

Unfortunately, since casual is the main cc que when ranked is down or non existent, it forces vets, or even just average players who decently care about the game and their job consistently have to deal with casuals just there for the tomes and beginners too lazy to properly learn their jobs.

Marking is illegal.
Talking during matches is prohibited.
Sending tells after matches is prohibited.
Saying ‘Nice job’ and ‘good match’ is listed as a no no.

So when you break 500k, and you get that person who doesn’t even break 50 3 times in a row on your team an (since we no longer have carry power) you keep getting steamrolled, it. . .gets vexing. Because there’s no legal way to communicate to said person to get a clue, go to the wolves den, and learn SOMETHING about their job. Devs, looking at you. Since you decide to deny and penalize for all the above, how about at least have the decency to make *drum roll* a damage check. What is this?

Before someone brings a job into pvp for the first time, have them clear a certain amount of damage with a training dummy. Nothing epic, but juuuuuust enough to show that they’re competent with the job’s mechanics, have a fundamental understanding of how things work. No, a training dummy is no where near as good a teacher as actual engagement, but it at least makes sure the beginner or casual understands the essential basics.

Not trying to be rude, but since you ‘literally’ deny us every other form of communication, at least take some responsibility against people who put next to no effort in their play.

[NegativeS]

Sorry bronado, Square has long decided that shaming people for their damage output is bad, even if it means being stuck with a "111111111" bot for an entire duty or CC. Don't expect any changes on that front.

[Vandi]

What you’re saying is 100% true. I know. But…it’s…..THAT..mentality..that quite frankly is disgusting. Completely counterproductive to pvp with any kind of depth. The devs have stripped e v e r y t h i n g of value from pvp. No crits. No auto attack. No gear bonuses. No pvp heros. (1-man army wars, super mch, smns,…heck, just about any 3.0 job) We no longer have carry power, even at the absolute best of out put. Yoshi drives the ‘team’ aspect in cc soooo hard it’s suffocating. We’re five sailors shackled to a ghost ship circling the maelstrom to hell. And when 1-2 sailors, One eyed- casual, and Skipper Noobie decide they’re not gonna paddle (for w/e reason) it’s ME who gets dragged down too. The utilities to really PUSH dps just aren’t there anymore. So what’s the alternative? Pray that guy will just stop queing? Switch to the job he’s playing, just to have another pop up?

It’s Casual, so it’s gonna happen. And I know the devs are catering to the masses just to keep numbers high. But…for heavens sake, shouldn’t there be at least a bare minimum amount of effort required?

[NegativeS]

Oh yeah, I know it's a horrible philosophy to have in a game like this, especially in its more competitive aspects. But, it's the path they've decided to pursue.

We've seen plenty of times in the past how a game grows more and more competitive the less players are in a team. To use an off-genre example, Overwatch (2) and TF2 are very similar games on a fundamental level, but while OW2 is only a 5v5 experience, TF2 can be anywhere from 8v8, to 16v16, to even 50v50 recently. Probably as a direct result of this (and the development of maps/gamemodes around it), OW2 is a much more competitive experience, while TF2 is a much more casual 'pick up and play' one. The less players a team has, the more of an impact any one team member has, requiring more of a competitive mindset for any one game to be a victory.

This can be seen in WoW as well, where Arenas (2v2 or 3v3) are considered one of the game's endgames, being engaging with a very high skill ceiling, while battlegrounds (10v10 or 15v15) are much more casual, and thus see much more players.

It's different in WoW, though, because in that game you're almost encouraged to scrutinize your team for under-performing (to a certain degree, can't be overly toxic or slur at them, which is understandable), which has allowed the game to even develop an esport around their arena scene (whether or not this was good for the game is a different discussion). Entire guilds and communities exist for the sole purpose of picking apart other people's PvP performance, and the skill floor and ceiling have risen significantly because of it. Dare I say, WoW's arenas are engaging, skill based endeavors.

This cannot exist in FFXIV with their current philosophy on intraplayer interaction. One person can destroy a 5v5 game wholly, but you just kind of have to suck it up. You can't kick someone for being bad and expect a replacement like you would in a WoW Battleground, you have to suffer with the 1-bot until the end.

I don't know what kool-aid the people at SE are drinking, but maybe they should ask Blizzard for their recipe some time...

[Post]

It's a major chore, but you can reach out to these players afterwards.

I have a set of macros I've used that gives 'the basics' to players that are clearly new between matches, such as 'go to Wolves' Den Pier to set up your bars and practice against dummies/duels', use your LBs, use general actions like recuperate, falling back and regrouping is better than dying and staggering your team rezzes. Sometimes, I go into more depth for certain jobs like PLD that require a bit more effort since its gotta do stuff like Guardian/Guard, and how its LB factors into that.

Usually, players are receptive and grateful. Some don't care and I try to express to them that it ruins everyone's fun (even their opponents) if they don't even try. Very few are outwardly hostile to me reaching out. If someone routinely does nothing at all in multiple games or just starts cussing me out or whatever, well, I have a template for reporting that, too.

What sucks is how difficult it is to do this. We have to stop queues, travel to their realm (if they're even queuing from there; outta luck if they're somewhere else or DC visiting), search their name and catch them with a tell between matches.

Arguably players shouldn't have to do this, but it's an MMO and I'd rather see more people try and enjoy the PvP and make em feel welcome. I just wish they made it more convenient to reach out (send cross realm tells without friends using recent contacts menu? Enable party chat after a game at the scoreboard? Enable tells in duties?) and report damaging behavior (filling out a report is very tedious. Maybe this isn't entirely bad as it might limit folks abusing the system somewhat, but often the things players get reported for are routine enough that it should be easier to correct the behavior if it actively detracts from a mode that depends on players as much as CC does).

[Vandi]

^ THIS! Perfectly said!

The infuriating part is, many people take this counsel like a personal attack. “You don’t pay my subscription! Get throat cancer!” And then immediately que again. As well, I can’t remember where I red it, but it specifically lists sending tells after the match as harassment. Even if this is done with respectable intentions, it’d be up to a gm’s interpretation.

It’s just frustrating when you see the same person on your team, say, as blm or rpr, verses another of the same job on the other who knows what they’re doing, and running a scenario, you’re almost sure you’re gonna lose due to the deficiency. Yes, that’s the fickle nature of pvp, but it’d just be nice to see the devs set some kind of initial test to make sure the most basic knowledge is known.

[ThaCa]

Unfortunately the bar for Casual is on the ground. The easiest way to fix it is to offer good enough rewards to make Ranked worthwhile through the Season. Even just doubling or tripling the tomes and exp from participation would help a bit.

Trying to enforce anything for Casual is sadly a lost cause and waste of resources. It straight up pits top 100 with new players and seems to favor putting them in same team, so playing off Job when there's a decent player or two in opposing team makes it more frustrating than chill experience.

I just try to queue as the same Job as the worst player in my team if I get them few matches in row, but that's always a bit gamble if they swap or you get someone else like them. Safer bet if the queue is fast is to just wait a bit before requeue to get in another match with hopefully fresh player pool.

[Araxes]

The easiest way to fix it is to offer good enough rewards to make Ranked worthwhile through the Season.

Impossible. Certain people, no one ever said NO to, will jump on you and rip you to shreds for DARING to suggest Mounts or even worse.. GLAMS (the audacity) locked behind a ranked PvP mode. AND DON'T YOU DARE MAKE THEM TIME LIMITED! You Evil FOMO tyrant you!

[Vizi]

There MUST be some form of a tutorial for new players that forces them to learn the fundamental basics of PvP. I am all up for players occasionally making mistakes. Shit happens.

What I am not fine with is when some absolute amoeba is on my team for 3-4 times in a row throwing the entire match due to them not doing even the absolute barebones minimum hardware input. No LBs, no cures, no guard, hell, even something as moving, YES, MOVING their character via WASD or analog sticks is a challenge. USING SPRINT? LOL - I am going to have a fucking rp stroll to the crystal while my team dies. Asking for proper knowledge of their job in PVP would be too far of a stretch.

I used to be nice and ask people to use their skills according to the situation but it always resulted in snowflakes dropping a tantrum and straight up afk'ing if they appear on the same team the next match, so I now simply reserve to putting an ignore sign at the end of the match, in rare instances telling them they are a bimbo and should go straight back to whatever farm simulator they came out of. When I see some people coming up to 1mil+ damage while some degenerates barely do 100k - feel free to disagree - but they need to get good or fk off. Even if you play as a bard, at max distance spamming powerful shot you can easily come up to 150-200k+ by the end of the match. There is no way for you to be this low on dps unless you are not pressing any buttons.

P.S. I would not be surprised to see Square nuke the scoreboard/damage meters at some point. In PVE the same design solutions are considered a cardinal sin, so why PVP got a pass on this - I have no clue.

[Mistress_Irika]

Well, pvp is NOT supposed to be taken seriously, especially with the casual modes. So with that said this is what we have to deal with. Everyone wins except those that takes the game serious.

All jokes aside, I would like for the pvp kits need to be updated when having to deal with these types of players. Last expansion depending on who's in the room with me I could somewhat take care of myself when it came to feast whether folks were bad or not. I didn't have to worry about the game immediately being over if one person was bad with surviving. Here, the fights snowballs out of control the moment you lose someone on the team. In a 4v5 situation unless someone on the team has a limit break ready to try and turn the fight around everyone is either forced to back away or use majority of their MP as a way to hold the line while that person respawns. Having to deal with those that willingly doesn't use Guard or Recuperate only make that type of disadvantage greater and much more annoying to deal with more than likely forcing you to run away from losing team fights.

I can accept dealing with PLDs not using Guardian despite it being an annoyance. I can accept SGEs buffing themselves despite it being an annoyance. I can accept DNCs not using dance partner despite it not being an annoyance. I cannot accept those that refuse to protect themselves with Guard and Recuperate, the basic 2 defensive abilities that everyone has. That's more of a hinderance than anything else. This is something I'm pretty certain that no on can force themselves to push past with the very small kits we currently have.