A Letter of Frustration: 5 Years of PvP and the "Not Eligible" Mystery

[Milkjds]

Let me start by saying how disappointed I am. I’m a veteran player who has played almost every ranked season since the middle of The Feast. I’ve been streaming a lot and have countless clips and memories of PvP. I love the gamemode and I always try to be nice to people.
Yet, I don’t get to play in the CCRC. Why? We don’t know. We were simply told we were “Not eligible.”
We were first qualified in 2023. With our alt accounts. Why? Because 2 of my team members were mass reported to be wintraders. I still have not believed it. But ever since then, we received countless amount of harassment and targetted throws that made the game impossible to enjoy.

The Lack of Transparency
When we try to appeal this decision—stating that we have always been humble players who don't cheat or "wintrade"—we don’t get an answer from the officials. All we get is laughter from others. For the EU pvp community: People are genuinely happy to NOT play against us. They are happy to see us banned. And will never scrim us. But they continue to cheat, throwing games, and bad-mouthing us over Discord.They will continue to do it. Over and over. For as long as we play the game.

When we participated in the CCCC, it was great. Our team finally had the chance to show our skills, our practice, and put up some real good games. Our team cherished so much when we have won the final. But for both CCRCs, we never understood why we were banned.
I sent the GMs a message saying how frustrated I am and how much my team has practiced, prepared for it. But.
The GM refers me to the forums.
The Community Team refers us back to the CMs, saying they can’t disclose details.
It felt like the message never reached someone that “cared”.
For more than 5 years, I have been let down countless times without knowing the “details.” It is unfair. We have tried everything but we can’t even get a chance to participate. And the anger have only got worse because we never get an explanation.

[Milkjds]

Our Dedication to Fair Play, and The State of the Community
We put in 3 days a week and many hours reviewing VODs and thinking about strats.
We scrim against many different teams. From both NA and EU regions. But most teams in EU wont scrim us so we resort to NA mostly, with 250 pings.
We stay humble in solo queue and avoid flaming. We stayed out of PVP discords where people flame and being sarcastic. Like calling me a pedo.
While the PvP community isn't big, but it has been active. I have always tried to encourage new players and be inclusive so they can have fun. We have nothing but a good heart to improve the game and honor other players. But the problem is, the “regulars” seem to be more toxic and always strating drama or saying things. Our team have pretty bad reputation and happen to be the “focus” back in 2023 even in the official CCRC discord. People wanted us out. And so CMs revoked our eligibility. It wasn’t fair but we have sucked it up.

The community lacks a basic understanding of the game, the enthusiasm to play, and the ability to call out real cheaters. When you watch a stream and see a guy survive two bombs on the Volcano map because they shoved a pot-heal in there, that is an obvious cheat—and yet no one notices. I can pretty much tell the difference from tiny details. But it did not matter for all these years. I still get 10 instant monk lbs in my face and 1000 games a season dying to cheat isn’t fun. Since EU only has 1-2 high rank lobby, there is no way out. So the result is, we see more and more cheats and now the lobbies are, i would say, 6/10 cheats in Every single game. I’ll let you guess how many cheaters are in the top ranks.

A nice example of harassment is when I complained about being disqualified again, the first discord message was a “lmao” emoji. And when they hear me talk about how much we have practiced in scrims just to prepared, they DMed us asking for scrim. Our team have been the victim for all this time because we don’t attmpt to fight back and cause drama. We believe that just because other people cheat and grief, does not mean we have to do the same. But hell it was alot of ragebaiting.

[Milkjds]

The Reality of Cheating and Plugins
It is discouraging to see blatant cheating go unpunished while we are sidelined. I have not played any other PvP game that has more than 5 cheaters in a 10-man lobby almost every single game. The cheats include: alexander, noclippy, noanimation lock, and other cheats such as wall hack, auto silence/purify, instant leave and mouseover macros (not sure about this one).
While the speed hack is the most used and effective, heres what it can do:
Monk: Instant dashes, sprint, KB, and taking potions before you even when you were running And stood on pot; Riddle instant LB; Uses fireball but dashes half a second BEFORE the fireball hit the target..Early seasons: LB that chain with weapon skill combos that completely deny pot.
MCH: Instant drill LBs.
DNC: Instant LB and the ability to move across 3 walls to charm people. No casting animation.
WAR: Pressing Primal Rend + Guard at the same frame. The guard is effective even before primal rend’s animation.
DRG: Hitting the cannon and jumping before you finish a backflip. LB casts taking less than 1 second.
General: People using "instant leave" plugins and "instant guards." Always getting the feather/potions even when others are faster.
On a side note. I’ve seen players DC more than 20 times because they are on an alt and want to throw on purpose. I’ve reported it, and it does nothing. Meanwhile, our team faces false accusations of cheating and wintrading that make no sense and managed to get us banned in both CCRC.

There was someone that used obvious wall hack in ranked and we couldn't get him banned for 3 weeks straight. It was both hilarious and sad. There is a youtube video talking about it that I wish I could link.


Final Thoughts
This is both a letter of frustration and regret. I just want to see an environment that gets better in the future:
Actual management regarding cheats and wintrade/throwing.
Actual support from the CM/GMs that will communicate with us and also hear feedbacks.
A welcoming community with no sarcasm to flame people and “death threats”. And an actual positive environment to help the player base grow.
I had many moments where I wished things would happen in different ways. We could go to fanfest. I could meet my friends and someone that was important to me. We could put our 5 years of practice and suffering to an end. We could have a community that is about being nice to people. We could win. We could show people that we don’t need cheats or wintrade to win. But it just ended up being “us” harassing the GMs and crying over a ban. I don’t think we deserved any of that. I don’t think there is any hope left. I don’t think I ever had to write this letter that meant nothing to most people. But I did this for myself. I’ll stay positive. But leave the game. I also hope no one will have this experience like mine. It wasn’t worth it.

[Expedition33]

Because 2 of my team members were mass reported to be wintraders. I still have not believed it.

Come on Milk, you know this isn't true. The two people you are talking about openly admitted to wintrading in whatever season it was and showed absolutely no remorse whatsoever when given the chance to explain themselves. It's a bit ironic demanding respect for your team when none was shown to the rest of the community at the time of the incident.

In addition to this, providing the person I am thinking of was also on your team, you also have someone playing on a new account because their old account was banned for harassment back in the days of the feast. They also used the same speedhacks you are condemning in this post.

So while I agree with you that cheating is out of control in PvP and there's very little being done about it, lets not try and play innocent here. You as an individual are probably eligible for CCRC but are choosing to associate with people who are clearly not.

[Toukichiful]

Come on Milk, you know this isn't true. The two people you are talking about openly admitted to wintrading in whatever season it was and showed absolutely no remorse whatsoever when given the chance to explain themselves. It's a bit ironic demanding respect for your team when none was shown to the rest of the community at the time of the incident.

In addition to this, providing the person I am thinking of was also on your team, you also have someone playing on a new account because their old account was banned for harassment back in the days of the feast. They also used the same speedhacks you are condemning in this post.

So while I agree with you that cheating is out of control in PvP and there's very little being done about it, lets not try and play innocent here. You as an individual are probably eligible for CCRC but are choosing to associate with people who are clearly not.

At least say this on your main lmao. good one.

[Expedition33]

At least say this on your main lmao. good one.

As if the identity of this character is a closely guarded secret, or has any bearing on what I just said.

Good one.

[Zuhlie]

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

[Lybal]

Rules : Do not come if you cheated / wintraded, that tends to be bad for tournament and competitive integrity
Milkjds : "Add some of the players with the most tainted reputation in the pvp scene in his team"
Organizers : "Alright then, bye"
Milkjds : "Why so unfair ?"

Are you aware of how you sound ? Do you think you have a legitimate chance to sway anything in your favor when half of the playerbase trying to compete for CCRC have documented proof of your teammates wrongdoings ?
These players have such bad reputation they cause organization issues whenever a community tournament is organized, because the organizer gets threats from tons of people that they would rather not participate if they're in it
This was such a problem members of the community trying to organize stuff for others outright stopped these initiatives
Why would official tournaments be any different ? I'm sure SE organizers had tons of evidence and demands sent to them the moment you registered

[Araxes]

The increased Cheating, Win-Trading and badmouthing i got simply for being in the Top 100 Years back alone was enough to quit ranked PVP for me.

I got messages form people i never shared a single word with and found out that a FFXIV Facebook group was sheet-talking me by mear chance. A Friend brought my attention to it or i would never have known.
Others tried to ruin my in game Friendships or Relations by talking trash about me straight into their DM's.

I faded completely into the Background and have my peace since.

That said: Out with anyone who participated in that kind of BS.

[Sottiri]

who wont me