PVP-CC-Rank

[DallsBeep]

Frontline becoming the new "casual mode"

Frontline should be the casual mode. The stakes are always higher in CC because you as an individual player have much more personal responsibility than you ever will in FL, this is regardless of whether it's a ranked match or not. In fact, removing the distinction between casual and ranked would highly encourage players of all skill levels to take the matches more seriously overall. They should funnel players who are new to PVP into FL so they can learn the basics. They already basically do this by giving players a daily bonus for it, but they could do more. The basis of this thread is the fact that ranked queue dies, that's for a few reasons which are well documented. Higher ranks it's because people get their targeted ranking and then stop and there's no incentive to keep playing. Lower rank it's because most people who are really interested in playing ranked have already surpassed Gold tier and probably a lot due to the anxiety you're talking about.

No, I don't think if you collapsed to casual queue completely that ranked queue would die off, especially with the proposed change of linking ranking to job. It would have the exact opposite effect. I'm sure there are some issues it would cause, that will be the case with any change normally, but killing off the queue? I really don't see that being a problem at all. Casual players till need to get their wonderous tales done, they still want to fill out their challenge log. That's something no one ever really takes into account. All that kind of change would do would directly address the fact that lower tier ranked dies off, and plenty of other changes to reward structure could easily address higher tier ranked matches dying off as well.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Oh, where do I begin... first, my apologies for reformating your post a bit as I will go through specific points at a time and I think it might help readability.

[1] Frontline should be the casual mode. The stakes are always higher in CC because you as an individual player have much more personal responsibility than you ever will in FL, this is regardless of whether it's a ranked match or not. In fact, removing the distinction between casual and ranked would highly encourage players of all skill levels to take the matches more seriously overall.

[2] They should funnel players who are new to PVP into FL so they can learn the basics. They already basically do this by giving players a daily bonus for it, but they could do more.

[3] The basis of this thread is the fact that ranked queue dies, that's for a few reasons which are well documented. Higher ranks it's because people get their targeted ranking and then stop and there's no incentive to keep playing. Lower rank it's because most people who are really interested in playing ranked have already surpassed Gold tier and probably a lot due to the anxiety you're talking about.

[4] No, I don't think if you collapsed to casual queue completely that ranked queue would die off, especially with the proposed change of linking ranking to job. It would have the exact opposite effect. I'm sure there are some issues it would cause, that will be the case with any change normally, but killing off the queue? I really don't see that being a problem at all.

[5] Casual players still need to get their wonderous tales done, they still want to fill out their challenge log. That's something no one ever really takes into account.

[6]All that kind of change would do would directly address the fact that lower tier ranked dies off, and plenty of other changes to reward structure could easily address higher tier ranked matches dying off as well.

1.) You are mistaking "stakes" for "individual impact" here. Stakes are there if a loss matters more than in other environments (i.e. losing Rating in Ranked for instance), individual impact increases in modes with less players in the instance, so 5v5 Crystalline Conflict gives individual players the most impact out of all modes. That is not a bad thing, this means Player XY performing an action leads to a more noticeable outcome than in Frontlines and is a good way to learn your core kit. Frontlines are also much more punishing regarding the positioning aspect as you are potentially being stared down by up to 24/48 players if you are out of position.

The basics are best learned in a smaller environment - 5v5 CC. By removing/merging Casual CC and "only" having Ranked, you remove an essential training environment for a mode where it matters. You cannot learn the nuances of Crystalline Conflict in Frontlines. Between the role action, differences in objectives, reduced damage per individual and more enemy players and their toolkits to account for, it offers a poor learning environment for future Rankers.

We literally "had" this problem with Feast Training due to the forced-role system - due to queue times, newbies were forced to learn Feast immediately in Ranked, which made for a piss-poor learning experience and caused many to avoid the mode because of this.


2.) They do this because its a 72-man mode. It's essentially similar to roulettes, there to encourage at least once a day to help fill the queue (per player). There could be "more" yes, by also making "Daily Challenge: Rival Wings" (large-scale mode) and "Daily Challenge: Crystalline Conflict" (to encourage 5v5 Casual interaction) - one for reach.


3.) Kind of, close. Correct on the upper ranks, there is no incentive to keep playing for them (no Top XY rewards like back in feast, no Ranked Currency to spend on a lot MORE things than Hellhound upgrades). Lower ranks its actually a bit more than that - there is many that might forever be Bronze, Silver or Gold - which is fine, these players are the foundation for anyone to keep playing. But because there is no incentive for the lower tiers (think Ranked Currency, not Commend. Crystals), there is a pool of players saying "whats the point, I can't climb to Diamond anyways and I get nothing for being here".

This lengthens queue times, which affects a different pool of players that doesn't want to wait in a queue to have "balanced matches" forever and instead goes for 5v5 Casual or Frontlines (if at all) - which is a death spiral, as you can tell. We had this exact phenomenon happen multiple times in PvP, even Frontlines - and it essentially all boils down to "incentives not found".


4.) I'm gonna address this one more time, under the assumption that if a merge of both queues happen, it would retain Ranked Mode's matchmaking for skill tiers (i.e. a Platinum player can be matched with Diamond or Gold, but not Crystal+ or Silver-Bronze).

Casual Mode's distinct property is that it forms matches regardless of skill tiers in Ranked, which allows for matches to be created much more quickly. It also does not affect ranked so you can learn and experiment with your job rather than just stay with cookie-cutter "do only this" strats - or you could play FOR FUN. (reminder that Frontline is NOT a good environment to learn 5v5 job impact and strategies)

Ranked Mode's distinct property is that player queues are separated by skill tiers, so a Diamond wont be stomping on Golds and Silvers. Ideally matches are much closer to its respective skill tier and offers a general challenge, it will make you use what you learned and practiced, either in previous Ranked matches or in Casual.

If you full-merge Casual + Ranked into one mode, you will sacrifice either:

• A) match quality & Ranked integrity by making matchmaking ignore individual ranks and skill tiers (i.e. why is it even Ranked)
• B) fast queues by matchmaking with a skill-tier based system (i.e. nothing casual about it)

These are mutually exclusive. Without a stable onboarding and churn of players (which we DO NOT HAVE thanks to a lack of meaningful incentives), pulling on one side will affect the other. Furthermore, by going for Option B, everyone's Rank and therefore ability to play the mode is now at stake if they don't climb at equal paces with everyone else. You are forcing two or more fundamentally different player groups into one and tell them to deal with it, regardless what their goal in 5v5 is.

On the matter of linking Ranking to job (or role), I think you are not seeing the issue at all with it here. Currently queue times are affected by onboarding (new players), retention (players who stay for longer) and churn (players who quit) in short human resources. They are also affected by skill tiers, naturally as players progress (or don't which is a reality we must face).

If you add job-based Rank, you add a third layer of things that will affect queue times, which can either be "it added absolutely nothing" because players don't switch their jobs anymore because onetricking for higher ranks is now encouraged since only your highest job now counts, or creates a scenario where Crystal player "John FFXIV, the Warrior" can't get his match because "Brave Lee, the Paladin" and others decided they wanted more access to jobs in higher ranks for some odd reason. It will also lead to Brave Lee curbstomping half the players he moves across if he is any good, something many do not like happening in Casual in the first place.


5.) Wondrous Tails, Challenge log - former can be done without 5v5 with up to 15 duties that you can also repeat, latter is just wolfmarks. They are in the grand scheme of things negligible


6.) Your "solution/fix" is forcing everyone into one pool, disregarding what the individual modes' purpose and their players' interest is supposed to be in a ham-fisted attempt to solve the "queue crisis of Ranked" like Thanos snapping his fingers. It does not organically address that the incentive structure for Ranked is awful across the entire board since Season 1 and in fact will only excarcebate things with your job-rank link.

I'm gonna say this not as someone looking critically at design, but as a player - I want my limited time I can spent on FFXIV to be rewarded with something I can put on display on my character. If the activity that I intend to put time into to learn its nuances, get good at and excel in doesn't respect my time with adequate rewards or benefits, then I will not do the activity.


Mind you Dalls, this is nothing against you, no hard feelings - I am just annoyed at the concept/idea and criticize that instead, because it has been thrown in the ring (also dissected and refuted) multiple times. In the end, you believe in that and I believe in something else.

[Valence]

On the merging of casual into ranked, I'm opposed to it. It would just kill the mode (and the potentially coming dual queue as well).

[*]1.) Ranking up with specific jobs that rely more heavily on team synergy (PLD, SCH, maybe DNC) so you can use them in the higher ranks will be a painful experience as a lot of the viability of said jobs hinges on one's teammates knowledge/ability to capitalize on the support they bring. The common recommendation has been to use self-sufficient or solo carry jobs over supportive jobs in the early skill tiers to climb for this reason, so job-based rank progression gives supportive jobs a huge handicap at the bottom end of the ladder, even if you might be a Crystal player usually.
-[*]2.) This hard-enforces onetricking, which can become an issue if you play one of the more common jobs on ladder (depending on meta balance at the time) to get queues as only two of a specific job can be present per match. Making it per-role (tank, healer, melee, ranged, caster) would at least allow for "some" alternatives in your job pool to help with job diversity.
-[*]3.) Speaking of making it per role/job, for anyone on the high-end of the ladder it would essentially discourage them to switch jobs/roles (which is something you should consider depending on maps and specific high-profile players in the queue) as it would not benefit them for Top 300 progression in the slightest. This punishes someone who may be both an excellent Astrologian and Dragoon for instance as they have nothing to gain to switch jobs.[/list]

While you might hold the opinion that it may be a good idea, this is what most likely will be the side effect if that opinion would be implemented - based on logical conclusions and/or precedence cases from other games that tried this.

Having been a big defender of the per job ranking option (I don't know who came up first with it):

1) It may be incredibly easier to carry with melee jobs and specific ones (DRG, GNB, etc) especially at lower ranks, doesn't mean it's a painful experience to rank up with team oriented ones. If you're good enough you'll climb. Anybody knows it takes more effort to climb with team focused jobs, until you reach a point where your skill with even more individualistic jobs averages over 50%, and then it becomes identical. I fail to see how this is a problem. We have many people way past gold that do main support or team focused jobs (ranged, buffers, etc). Maybe there is less of them even in high crystal, but that's a problem of meta there if anything, because some melee jobs like VPR don't fare much better.

2) I do understand it may be frustrating to have longer queues when a job is saturated in the games you play, but that's like queuing as a DPS in pve: you can choose to keep doing it (it pops eventually, it's not like you're getting 1/10th of the game pops anyway), or you can choose to try and rank up another job. I understand your argument there, but I don't think that's a problem at all.

3) That could be a problem for very high ratings (with the coming Ultima and Omega ranks). On the other hand, they're also no lifing this so...

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I can see the benefits of per-job ranking "if done correctly" (keywords) but a variety of factors would need to be done before that is put in, such as making maps either random on a per-match basis or making each job generally be good on all maps (i.e. no massive advantages due to specific CCs or job interactions present). Also "how" the reward structure would look like is also important.

Last factor is "do we have the playerbase to sustain this", which at least in my opinion I have strong doubts.

But yeah, hard no on merged queues.

3) That could be a problem for very high ratings (with the coming Ultima and Omega ranks). On the other hand, they're also no lifing this so...

Let's not design around people no-lifing things...

[Valence]

I think the playerbase requirement to sustain it would actually be easier, because there is also a gain in flexibility, namely that if your ranked diamond crystal games don't pop, then you can instead go and play on a job you have at a lower rank to try the queues there instead, which is something you can't currently do unless you have an alt precisely placed in different ranks. This would also offer incentives for people to play more once they just reach their rank goal with their main job for the season.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I think the playerbase requirement to sustain it would actually be easier, because there is also a gain in flexibility, namely that if your ranked diamond crystal games don't pop, then you can instead go and play on a job you have at a lower rank to try the queues there instead, which is something you can't currently do unless you have an alt precisely placed in different ranks. This would also offer incentives for people to play more once they just reach their rank goal with their main job for the season.

Point noted, I can see that benefit for the lower ranks, but it's also hinging on higher rank players willing to do that (and also may not exactly last for long). I'd prefer a more organic approach of making sure lower ranks are picked up from adequate incentivization, as that would lead to a longer lasting solution over purely choice driven queue boosts. (not that they are mutually exclusive, but if I had to pick I'd prefer that)

[DallsBeep]

In the end, you believe in that and I believe in something else.

1. The whole "stakes" thing. CC rewards suck. There's nothing to play for. Pretty much everyone universally agrees on this. First timers wanna get a weapon glam but after that? Not much point unless you want more weapons glams. Thus the stakes are just your competitiveness as a player and wanting to perform well so your team can get a win. Once you get past the frivolous baubles you'll get from ranking up the only point is pride. So if you're that kind of player who's playing the mode for fun and to compete, which is the vast majority of players, the stakes are entirely self imposed. This is the reality of this community and the mode, if there was something actually worth competing for then I would be willing to accept the traditional definition of "stakes" but it doesn't exist at present, so no, it doesn't really have a place in the discussion unless something changes.

2. I've ranked up multiple characters just in the last year I've gotten at least 5 characters to diamond, three to crystal. Starting from the very bottom. The queue is already full of players who have no idea what they're doing. There's very little difference in quality of opponents below gold and your standard casual match. So no, learning the intricacies of CC at that tier presents no real issue. Anchors are there just as they are in casual, a good player won't suffer that long for it. What I'm talking about as the "basics" players should learn how to do in FL: sprint, recuperate, how to hit buttons. If you don't know these things then CC isn't the place for you, play FL until you figure it out.

3. "What's the point if I can't climb to Crystal anyways" There really isn't much point, that's the point. The difference between casual and ranked queue is entirely superficial, it makes no difference, I think I've illustrated how that is the case. If a player has no shot to rank up to Crystal, they remain at gold and below most likely. And there are lots of players like that, and for some reason you think that queue's going to die when that makes up the vast majority of players. It's pretty weird to type long posts about this issue when the main fundamental point of your argument is something this illogical and flawed.

I don't even really need to go to point 4 and beyond, there's really no reason to. But I will say that getting an easy box ticked on WT is pretty enticing for people who do that every week. It takes 5 minutes which is shorter than a lot of your options week to week. Also, there are plenty of casual players that could use wolf marks, and don't discount the fact there are plenty of completionists who just want to fill out their challenge log every week because it's there. These kinds of players are basically why your casual queue pops fast as it is now to begin with, so it's just weird to act like they don't exist lol

[DallsBeep]

Also, another thing we need to keep in mind here is that they've consolidated ranked to one server per data center now, and have mentioned they'll look into allowing players to queue for ranked from their home server while still being placed in that composite queue. If casual queue were to go away, and every player from the same data center was put into one ranked queue. Queue times are gonna be the least of your problems. The main problem is getting Diamond and above players to play continuously under those conditions. That can be done very easily, it's not hard to think of ways to give incentive to players to play a game mode that they clearly have mastered and like to play.

[Valence]

I'm staunchly convinced that removing casual will just turn CC into a mode where only the same few culprits would play, with the need to constantly queue sync else nothing would pop. Whether there is a difference between casual and ranked or not at a materialistic level, that's still not taking into account how players think and react. Even I, as a ranked player, sometimes I just want to chill without the pressure.

Trying to shoehorn casuals into ranked is doomed from the start, and even if you did, it would only help queues up to gold (unless you want them to be paired with plat/diam+).

[DallsBeep]

I misspoke in my last post. Obviously the way ranked works now is you have to travel data centers to play ranked if the season isn't on your data center so I worded that wrong. As it stands now, casual queue is from your entire data center, and ranked is from one particular data center per season. If they do change it so you can queue up for ranked regardless of which DC you're presently on as they've said they would like to do, and casual queue was removed, that would mean that every player queuing for CC in all of NA would be put into the same queue, at all times. As it stands now you have to consciously make the effort to move data centers to even participate in ranked if it's not being held on your home data center, and we have casual queues being ran for each individual data center, obviously. Now imagine we throw em all together. Not getting an instant queue pop would be basically unheard of.

If consolidating what is presently 5 queues with each data center's casual queue and 1 NA ranked into one queue is going to kill queue times because of hypothetical mumbo jumbo then nobody is actually playing the mode anyways so may as well remove both queues. Casual matches are "ok" sometimes, but you'll always get better matches in ranked, at any tier because the matchmaking is just flat out better. That's why I create new characters to manipulate their stupid system.