Fixing Ranked PvP (It needs an overhaul)

[NarhiFaunlha]

• Remove 'Seasons'. These do nothing except create bloat and an overabundance of glamour plates.
• Make the Glamour Plates you receive for End of Season Rewards something purchasable with Commendation Crystals.
• Allow players to purchase coffers containing previous PvP/Series rewards with Commendation Crystals. (Shadowcleaver, Shadowstalker, Gunro, Koro, Barghest, Moddy Dhoo, Hellhound, Greyhound, Archfiend, False Monarchy, etc).
• Reset Ranked CC weekly (same as Tomes, Raids, etc).
• Remove Bronze III, Bronze II, Silver III, Silver II, etc. Just do Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Crystal.
• Placing in Crystal gives you 3 Commendation Crystals, Platinum 2, and Gold 1. Top 100 players get 2 Crystals. Top 300 players get 1.
• Keep the Seasonal Battlepass as is. Or rather have it be something that lasts for X amount of patches (meaning we get several per expansion). These changes refer to the Ranked system, not standard PvP.

The Why:
Ranked CC is popular for a few days, then wait times tend to be 40-60 minutes for a single match. Commendation Crystals are difficult to get (you need to place Gold or higher to receive them). Allowing players a way to earn their gear by playing well for a week, they can unlock PvP specific armor.

By adjusting it so it resets weekly, players can dedicate time when they can. Players won't feel like its 'too late' and can always jump in next week. Since players have a week, their climb would be shortened considerably.

Augmented Hellhound Weapons currently cost 2 Crystals. Coffers should cost 3. Glamour Portraits should cost 1. You could even have an option where you can buy Jet Black Dye for 3 Commendation Crystals. (If SE really wanted to revive their PvP scene, let them get an upgrade material of their choice for the current tier of gear.) The goal is to entice players to play the game mode regularly, rather than just for a few days en masse once the new season starts and then allow the game mode to die off.

Have each tier you place in grant you gil, wolf marks, & trophy crystals with Commendation Crystals only provided Gold onward.

Regardless of how you feel about my suggestions, we cannot hide the fact that the Ranked NA scene is dead. There needs to be a drastic change to how it works or else it'll continue to deteriorate.

[Lacksz]

bad suggestions.
Also, you need to place Diamond or higher to receive commendation crystals, not gold+ as you said.

Cheers

[Loggos]

The one thing I wish is that they would reset ranks more frequently. Not weekly but also not twice-ish a year. I'm sure there could be a middle ground.

[AvoSturmfaust]

Fine with most of the stuff but no, old feast rewards should never be accesable again, they should stay unique for people which actually did the content in the past

[Chelsee]

I wintraded for old Feast Rewards and I don't want other players to have them.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

• [1] Remove 'Seasons'. These do nothing except create bloat and an overabundance of glamour plates.
• [2] Make the Glamour Plates you receive for End of Season Rewards something purchasable with Commendation Crystals.
• [3] Allow players to purchase coffers containing previous PvP/Series rewards with Commendation Crystals. (Shadowcleaver, Shadowstalker, Gunro, Koro, Barghest, Moddy Dhoo, Hellhound, Greyhound, Archfiend, False Monarchy, etc).
• [4] Reset Ranked CC weekly (same as Tomes, Raids, etc).
• [5] Remove Bronze III, Bronze II, Silver III, Silver II, etc. Just do Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Crystal.
• [6] Placing in Crystal gives you 3 Commendation Crystals, Platinum 2, and Gold 1. Top 100 players get 2 Crystals. Top 300 players get 1.
• [7] Keep the Seasonal Battlepass as is. Or rather have it be something that lasts for X amount of patches (meaning we get several per expansion). These changes refer to the Ranked system, not standard PvP.

Gonna give opinion on the individual ideas first:

• 1.) Disagree with the removal of seasons, agree with the overabundance of glamour plates. Seasons are a good way to set in stone achieved progression for a time period, which is most often linked to specific balance patches; removing such feels unnecessary in a vacuum.
• 2.) Indifferent but inclined to disagree, depends on the quantity requirements - and given what you post next is a bit much.
• 3.) Agree, Feast stuff specifically as "Replica" gearsets. Equal in everything, including dye channels, except name (and maybe item quality). Cost can be discussed, but distinction between original and rerelease sets is important to keep the original as a prestige for those who earned them (wintrading accusations for a few are not a reason to punish or de-value legitimate owners of sets/mounts).
• 4.) Disagree, this just turns ranked into another weekly activity, which makes achieving high ranks in a short amount time just unnecessarily stressful. FFXIV players have a plethora of things to do as is.
• 5.) Agree (sort of), replace the star/riser system with the ELO system we had before. Either a mixture between tier + number system and the ELO system (see Overwatch 2 ranking) or plain ELO system like we had in The Feast.
• 6.) Disagree if paired with the weekly-reset, indifferent without. Top ranks in that quantity make no sense with weekly resets as is.
• 7.) Uuuh... I guess? I mean it lasts 4-4.5 months as is (as in one per major patch, X.1, X.2, X.3, etc.). Removal would be stupid anyhow (if suggested) because then we'd just go all steps backwards to pre 6.1 PvP reward styles.

The Why:
Ranked CC is popular for a few days, then wait times tend to be 40-60 minutes for a single match. Commendation Crystals are difficult to get (you need to place Gold or higher to receive them). Allowing players a way to earn their gear by playing well for a week, they can unlock PvP specific armor.

By adjusting it so it resets weekly, players can dedicate time when they can. Players won't feel like its 'too late' and can always jump in next week. Since players have a week, their climb would be shortened considerably.

Augmented Hellhound Weapons currently cost 2 Crystals. Coffers should cost 3. Glamour Portraits should cost 1. You could even have an option where you can buy Jet Black Dye for 3 Commendation Crystals. (If SE really wanted to revive their PvP scene, let them get an upgrade material of their choice for the current tier of gear.) The goal is to entice players to play the game mode regularly, rather than just for a few days en masse once the new season starts and then allow the game mode to die off.

Have each tier you place in grant you gil, wolf marks, & trophy crystals with Commendation Crystals only provided Gold onward.

Regardless of how you feel about my suggestions, we cannot hide the fact that the Ranked NA scene is dead. There needs to be a drastic change to how it works or else it'll continue to deteriorate.

Ok, I see where your problem with the system is and your ideas come from the right place and I agree with you, but the details aren't quite a hit. Allow me to elaborate...

For a start, correct, Ranked CC participation falls off sharply after a short amount of time (anywhere from 5-14 days usually), due to a multitude of factors.

• No reason to keep playing after hitting a specific ranking of desire, because you do not get rewarded for ranked participation PER MATCH, only per season (which is why I understand you want to shorten it to weekly resets)
• Sharp drop-off in any particular rank creates a catch 22 scenario where low participation stifles the amount of matches played and cranks up average queue times, which in turn makes queueing for it unappealing, in a deadly spiral. It starts in one skill division and will create a queue wall prevent players to queue more actively when they want to do so.
• The rewards, one way or another, are absolutely too little for forcing yourself into the ranked player eco system right now - which is why I agree with your reward suggestions, to a large degree.

The reason I disagree with weekly resets is the reason listed in the points above and I believe it will make skill tier progression incredibly arbitrary and temporary - "hey I hit Top 100", "which week?" "week 157" - */shrug*.

However, the key reason why you suggest it (from how I understand it) is to drive more frequent player participation by receiving rewards sooner - good take, better alternatives are necessary. Suggestion - a ranked-specific currency that is obtained in small quantities winning matches at any rank, a slightly bigger batch for winning multiple times in a given time (see challenge log) and in larger quantities based on your final/highest ranking achieved this season. I'm specifically citing the Competitive Points system from Overwatch 2 here and the way it works.

The importance is giving those points "per match" ONLY for wins to incentivize players improving in PvP. And in general this system would slowly but surely promote participation because you can actively see a reward trickling down into your currency tab as you play, similar to Tomestones. This also prevents the "I'm too late for this" factor, because even if you start late, you can still grind - my prediction is that this would greatly extend the activity per season.

Rewards could be a new series of weapons for one (seraphic/angelic weapons as an idea, to off-set themselves from the Hellhound series), Ranked-specific gearsets (not the Feast replica sets above, those could still go well for commendation crystals) and mounts. The idea is that you can absolutely grind for them and they don't go away, but you can't overfarm them like Trophy Crystals, which we can get in abundance as is - make the grind not painstakingly slow, but also an accomplishment for having done it.

That said, NOT GIL. Gil is infinitely generateable as is and we do NOT need bots hop on PvP to farm gil.

So yeah, I appreciate your post, it comes from good places and has good ideas, but some ideas are not as good, that's why I gave my input.

[Commander_Justitia]

Damn, we really needed another thread about it.

So the suggestion is...play 1-2 months PvP ranked for a week per season, then you have all your old rewards. Congratulations!
.....
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What happens after? Are you still gonna stick and play ranked after you "looted" everything? You want the devs to give you a new reward every week?