We don't need them anymore.

[Kelg]

I think it would be fair if they kept the feast replicas locked behind commendation crystals that way you have to actually earn them through reaching a high rank in ranked crystalline conflict instead of just giving them to anyone for basic pvp currency that they got from afking in frontline. That way they still have some worth and value to them without being completely erased from obtainability.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I think it would be fair if they kept the feast replicas locked behind commendation crystals that way you have to actually earn them through reaching a high rank in ranked crystalline conflict instead of just giving them to anyone for basic pvp currency that they got from afking in frontline. That way they still have some worth and value to them without being completely erased from obtainability.

Definitely "a" way to go about it. Though we gotta be careful with the approach - if we want it to be generally encouraged to get into ranked pvp, the... entire system needs overhaul with rewards. If players get no reward-based feedback that they are growing as a PvP Ranker (think, Wolfmarks but ranked, with its own shop), then players can get incredibly frustrated until they even reach the range of Diamond+ to begin with.

But if someone still gets things even while not being close to Diamond+ yet, it keeps encouragement going, because failing to reach Diamond+ will not result in effectively wasted time, like how the Tier rewards are right now (they're awful - X000 Trophy Crystals based on the level of your tier + copypaste adventureplate parts arent a good reward).

[Kelg]

Definitely "a" way to go about it. Though we gotta be careful with the approach - if we want it to be generally encouraged to get into ranked pvp, the... entire system needs overhaul with rewards. If players get no reward-based feedback that they are growing as a PvP Ranker (think, Wolfmarks but ranked, with its own shop), then players can get incredibly frustrated until they even reach the range of Diamond+ to begin with.

But if someone still gets things even while not being close to Diamond+ yet, it keeps encouragement going, because failing to reach Diamond+ will not result in effectively wasted time, like how the Tier rewards are right now (they're awful - X000 Trophy Crystals based on the level of your tier + copypaste adventureplate parts arent a good reward).

I would like a new shop with a currency from ranked and maybe some PVP "ultimate" weapons/gear to build that take a bit of ranked grinding to get so that people have something to work towards, but they have never really tried to make pvp appealing to do, so they always do the bare minimum effort and then ranked CC dies in like 2 weeks every new season because there's little reason for people to justify grinding. I get they don't want people to have to put in a huge time investment to get things, but in the case of modes like PVP(ranked especially) a long term grind is needed to keep the queues alive. They really need to rethink their reward structures in these modes.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

[...] but they have never really tried to make pvp appealing to do, so they always do the bare minimum effort and then ranked CC dies in like 2 weeks every new season [...]

My thoughts exactly - and it also tends to result in a catch 22 with "justifying cost to add more to PvP".

• Not enough people "care about pvp", so it might not be worth adding more rewards due to development cost
• People don't have a lot of chances to try and care for pvp, because the rewards are generally not worth their time (which also leads into queue hell after 2-3 weeks, which FURTHER reduces the quality of ranked experience)

It truly is hell, sometimes.

[Cynric]

My thoughts exactly - and it also tends to result in a catch 22 with "justifying cost to add more to PvP".

• Not enough people "care about pvp", so it might not be worth adding more rewards due to development cost
• People don't have a lot of chances to try and care for pvp, because the rewards are generally not worth their time (which also leads into queue hell after 2-3 weeks, which FURTHER reduces the quality of ranked experience)

It truly is hell, sometimes.

Adding more rewards won't make more people care about pvp.

It will make them tolerate it for longer to obtain the reward, then once they obtain it, they will stop pvping. If the reward is seen as too difficult to obtain, they will not attempt to obtain it.

You simply can not convert people who don't wish to rank currently into future rankers at a ratio that would be meaningful.

In the best case scenario you would increase the amount of people willing to play in casual queue once they've obtained their rewards.

That's not to say I don't support more rewards mind you.

But it won't translate into more players, or any meaningful amount of players who want to suddenly get better.

They will get to whatever minimum they need and the seasons will still be dead a few weeks in.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Adding more rewards won't make more people care about pvp. It will make them tolerate it for longer to obtain the reward, then once they obtain it, they will stop pvping. If the reward is seen as too difficult to obtain, they will not attempt to obtain it.

You simply can not convert people who don't wish to rank currently into future rankers at a ratio that would be meaningful. In the best case scenario you would increase the amount of people willing to play in casual queue once they've obtained their rewards.

That's not to say I don't support more rewards mind you. But it won't translate into more players, or any meaningful amount of players who want to suddenly get better. They will get to whatever minimum they need and the seasons will still be dead a few weeks in.

I want to kindly ask you to widen your scope a little bit here. You are currently addressing "people" as a homogenous blob with essentially the same mindset rather than a collective of wildly differing ones.

Players that interact with PvP are the following:

• Type A - wouldn't mind trying out ranked, but only "tolerate it" for the sake of rewards (we still care about those)
• Type B - wouldn't mind trying out ranked, actually doesn't hate or "just tolerate" pvp, but would still like rewards
• Type C - would like to try out ranked for other reasons (skill divisions, similar matching of players, simply trying it out etc.)
• Type D - would like to play more ranked, regardless of rewards
• Type E - would like to play more ranked, but want their time to be worth their investment (hi, I'm one of them)
• Type F - will play ranked religiously at any cost (veteran pool usually)

Some of these groups care about rewards, some of these don't. In FFXIV, engagement is generally driven by rewards existing, paired with accessibility and quality of said rewards. But I have personally met a lot of players and taught them how to PvP, that genuinely enjoyed Ranked PvP and would like to do more of it.

But you know what not a single player type likes? Long queue times. Only the most die-hard ranked veterans can tolerate being in a 30min+ queue, where every other player is just utterly discouraged by it and goes somewhere doing something else - which means queue times REMAIN long.

Boosting engagement by having an accessible reward structure will encourage players to go and try it out. If queues are short, it will encourage players to do it even without the rewards. And then it keeps cycling. Some players will drop out (player churn), more can come in (player onboarding), some will realize they like it and stay (player retention) and become a core audience.

But here are the important parts that need to be in place for this to work:

• It needs to be accessible, i.e. a reward structure accessible from Bronze to Ultima rank. Not Diamond+ like Commendation Crystals, these discourage players.
• It needs to be giving immediate feedback by giving you the currency after every won match, not just at the end of a season - just like Wolfmarks, but Ranked only.
• It should have a challengelog that will encourage you to do say, 10 matches & 5 Wins per week for a bonus of said currency. Could even make it a daily, or maybe have 10 wins grant you a small bonus too - lots of options
• The rewards need to be desirable - a parasol, a title and some niche earrings will absolutely not do here. Replica gear from the past Feast is one good way, but it could also allow for NEW stuff to come since it wont be FOMO locked anymore.

I'm sorry for being so passionate about this topic, but hearing "nobody will care" when there is so much nuance to it kind of grinds my gears.

[Cynric]

snip

No need to apologize for your passion.

If anything I do feel bad saying these things because over the years I've seen how passionate you are about this.

Normally, what I would do at this point is type a long wall of text with lots of evidence to try to show you my point of view, or why you are incorrect.

But that would honestly be very depressing, and I think you already know well enough what I would say anyway more or less.

So I'll just leave you with this.

I'm sorry that you feel like your passion for pvp needs to be apologized for, and I'm sorry if I made you feel upset over what I've said. I actually quite respect your tenacity for pvp. Which is why I hope you'll accept that for me I've seen this song and dance occur multiple times over the past 10 + years, and since my aim is not to depress you or stifle your passion.

I will abstain from arguing my point.

I wish you well Reinhardt. Happy Holidays.

[SalamanderIX]

There's a lot of people who don't want to play ranked at all. Even some people who consider themselves competitive.

There's matters like, ranked anxiety, or not wanting to get caught up in the frustrations of a ladder system.
I think there's a larger issue with any ranked fomo, since a lot of people *do not want to interact* with ranked. It's not like Savage. Savage isn't for everybody but you can get the rewards with less effort next expansion, but rather even if ranked rewards were recursive, some PVPers will never want to play ranked, ever, for any reason.

I'd know from my time in other online games, most people don't really play ranked for the rewards anyway. They play it for wanting that rank. I rarely hear XIV players care about it, which might be partially because the PVP just isn't very engaging or competitive anyway, and I don't think rewards will help. Those Augmented Hellhound weapons looked sick, but it didn't make me want to bother trying to grind ranked CC to the top 100. I got other things to do and not sure I'm in the top 100 of the server anyway.

[Heroman3003]

Players that interact with PvP are the following:

• Type A - wouldn't mind trying out ranked, but only "tolerate it" for the sake of rewards (we still care about those)
• Type B - wouldn't mind trying out ranked, actually doesn't hate or "just tolerate" pvp, but would still like rewards
• Type C - would like to try out ranked for other reasons (skill divisions, similar matching of players, simply trying it out etc.)
• Type D - would like to play more ranked, regardless of rewards
• Type E - would like to play more ranked, but want their time to be worth their investment (hi, I'm one of them)
• Type F - will play ranked religiously at any cost (veteran pool usually)

I don't see "players who actively hate playing PvP but feel obliged to do so anyway because of timegated cosmetic rewards" in that list.