Quote Originally Posted by Aidorouge View Post
To be fair, a lot of these before-mentioned 5v5 games already have "bot matches" where its you with 4 AI against 5 AI, or you and 2-4 humans against 5 AI. Play 'em on easy, and it's so scripted you can play with your eyes closed, play 'em on hard and the AI literally cheats, lol. Said modes still see activity though, with the only caveat being that the human players (regardless of how many) receive reduced rewards, usually half, compared to playing a "real" match and most if not all achievements aren't counted. Given how many players only queue PVP in FF14 for marks/crystals/tomes/XP, it *could* be an avenue to funnel low/zero skill players out of the normal version. (Though what affect that would have on queue times of the normal mode when the majority moves out of it...)

That said, HELL NO to premades in Crystaline Conflict. They're already a goddamn blight in Frontlines and Rival Wings, and that's still taking into account the RNG of the rest of the team. Only 5 people with that level of coordination? Absolute clown show where solo queue folks would just give up and not try (thereby bringing the same lethargy that premades brought to Frontlines/Rival Wings). The only way it could work is if premades got splintered off into their own separate queue, but I don't know if we have the numbers to sustain that either.

The problem with PVP in general in FF14 is that there's one group that wants to turn it into sweaty all-day competition, another group that just wants to faff about and get their goodies, and there's the third group stuck in the middle who just wants non-obnoxious PVP but keeps getting forced to deal with the first two groups. Suggestions have been made before to divide them into different tiers & queues (ranked/premade for the hardcore, bots for the zipcore, and what we have now for everyone else), but it always comes back to one issue: Would there be enough people to populate each mode and the answer is always a big fat "EH... I DON'T KNOW".
I swear to god people don't even read the 'other side' of the argument. Nobody wants a 5 stack premade stomping 5 solo players. That is so obviously a terrible idea it amazes me people think this is what is requested. Literally no game with PVP would do this, can we stop already.

If a duo is in the match, the matchmaker puts a duo on the other team. Literally perfectly balanced and duo q is implemented. Job done. How is this so hard to comprehend?