Can we talk about the neglect Square Enix shows towards the playerbase?

[Loggos]

Custom matches?

You'll need a full group for that so it only really works in specific circumstances. If you want to queue with one/two/three/etc. friends then you'd have to choose casual matches.

[Commander_Justitia]

I'm not sure I like the idea of forcing ranked and casuals to play together "in one box" because like you said, it would just bring most of the woes of Frontlines to Crystalline Conflict, which already has to contend with some tryhards stomping through on occasion, now imagine that being an all day occurrence, and eventually CC just becomes what ranked is now but with no alternatives for the casual crowd.

Because if you make everything ranked then by definition people aren't queueing into something casual anymore because they'll constantly be ranked, rated and placed into different leagues. I don't think it's exactly rocket science to see how it would completely kill CC participation and push everybody into FL exclusively. Most people don't want to play ranked.

The casual crowd is often happy with ... duels ...lol
And what is cooler than a duel? Right, duels as 2vs2,3vs3 or 4vs4. Will pop fast, doesn't need many people. You guys wont need 10 people in custom matches for CC anymore to test out skills.
Just put them in a new box and let them kill each other with no revives. You have a ~30s-3min match and call it a day. You can do achievements, series etc. rewards are adjusted to the average match length, I guess like 30% of current CC rewards/exp. Maybe healer have a revive role action, tanks a last stand skill like living dead idk - could be fun and quick. Basically "The Fold" with upgrades and new arena map. If nobody after a timelimit dies there will be culling, so increased dmg every few seconds as vulnerability debuff.

Even The Feast 8vs8 sounds more fun right now as casual mode. FFXIV having a bunch of maps that are unused now. Put some potions on it, speed buffs, damage buff, defense buffs, or else. Add the frontline role actions to it. Why not. It is not like a casual fun mode needs to be super balanced. It is for "fun". Can still prevent max healer or tank limit per team, as usual.

If someone desires a bit more, they will go CC.
If CC still goes down in popularity, it means that removing exclusive rewards backfired. And that they maybe need better ones. Or that players preferred The Feast.

I do think rating decay won't work in this game. And it is against the current games philosophy, to make it friendly for anyone to play.

Of course you could do work arounds for nonranked players, like job specific ratings, or being able to cap at a desired rating tier like gold or platinum. Which would give players the option to get comfortable at lower tiers, before they choose to progress. But I am doubtful of SE willingness to consider more complex systems that are not easily understood or visible, simple seems to be best for them, so I wouldn't recommend anything like that.

[Mawlzy]

You're not keen into pvp discords and wide communities, yet you'd tell the CC crowd to have to get painfully through this just to get games running?

Fair. I forget others share my distaste.

[ThreeBeastSmile]

Not that I am against ranking decay per se, but how would this reconcile with the rank one achieves at the end of a season? Currently they changed the model after S1 or S2 to allow people to rank according to their highest reached instead of the current one they ended the season with (which encouraged parking in crystal and not touching queues ever again until the end of the season). How do we keep a highest achieved with decay? How would this work?

Gotta admit I didn't do the most thorough skimming of the terms and conditions regarding CC when it was released. Noted at the very least no more W/L, just the Ws. "Cute, now it's nothing but feelgood from here huh?", and also less casual ways to spot possibly suspicious activity.

As for that part about the standings, at the time I presumed that may have only applied to base rewards, as in if you hit crystal you'd get a crystal frame as a participation award at the end of it. I further presumed that T100 was independent of that and awarded based on final positions. Decided "eh" and didn't pursue any further nuance on the matter, as those conditions would make some sense right? Now just go play. Let chips fall where they may and all that, never really obsessively checked the rankings.

If however it's actually that the rankings are decided by highest position reached historically within the season, well then I didn't know because I couldn't be arsed to get that clarified, as that would be yet another bonkers and careless thing they've done for the ranked arena mode... and surely they wouldn't be that dumb right? Guess they are!~

So the solution to that? THAT also goes the hell away, insert rank decay. That's it. That's all I have to say. Wishful thinking at this stage though. They showed the vainest of interest in preventing "weird stuff" happening in the distant past, but it appears now they're fine with it and nothing matters, and while simultaneously keeping those flash-in-a-pan queuing timelines the status quo. Ranked is more farcical than it's ever been. Nice!

[Valence]

I don't know, I think the standings swing way too wildly to rely on current standings instead of best achieved. Even that top 1 player that's up there with 5k rating probably has lows where they drop 1k below without even rank decay (just loss streaks), so if the season ends right at that time, guess it sucks to be that guy.