Guests: Brian Ricardo, John is Dead, & Masaru
Discussion: We bring on prominent members in the FFXIV PvP community to discuss the current state of PvP after a year of Crystalline Conflict. We talk about the past, present, and likely future of the competitive mode.
Rating: 10/10
ENJOYYYYYYYYYYY
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with the starting comments..,
we need more entertaining modes..,
not so much rewards..,
if rewards were the only thing, then the game mode dies always.
if it's fun, people will always join, even if the rewards aren't there.
As someone who has been engaging in Frontlines that past couple months for Achievements, here are my observations on FFXIV pvp:
The elephant in the room is the server communication. FFXIV uses a client/server validation method that is 2-factor. For every action that you take the server has to confirm that said action was viable and correct, and then relay that back to you. In PVE, where enemies are 100% server confirmed, you will sometimes have a slight delay in boss's casts/visuals and the player actions. A 'snap-shot', if you will where you are absolutely certain you got out of an AOE but the game penalized you anyway because you didn't act with enough time for the server to confirm that you did indeed avoid it. That's all well and good, its consistent enough that you can get used to the slight delay and act before you should.
But in PvP where both your actions and the actions of others have to be server validated, you get this deranged shit show of delays, cancels, and just an overall feeling of "What even happened right there?" Seeing an animation of a Dragoon Limit Break play, hear the audio queue that it happened, and then hitting a heal on yourself… only for the damage to affect you after you applied the heal? The pvp system is supposed to be snappy, fast paced, and reactionary. But when your 'reactions' aren't being recognized, or the server disagrees that you applied an affect in time when you clearly did? That feels awful.
And Frontlines its even more pronounced. The developers are focusing right now on the small Crystal Conflict game mode, as its the new baby in the pvp sphere. But the meta in Frontlines has been chiseled out. Its not about individual performance anymore, its about manipulating the delay people experience as a result of server nonsense. Usually revolving around DRK and Salted Earth. In addition to regular crowd control effects: Stuns, Sleeps, Binds, and Heavys – the game also deals in both 'Pull in' and 'Push out' effects. As well as Hysteria effects, but I'll get back to that.
The problem with 'Pull in' and 'Push out' effects is that for them to be properly validated by the server, the game will 'Animation Lock' your character, rather than try to deal with where your character is currently located at the resolution of the effect. So you run into this situation where if the server has confirmed you were affected by a 'Pull in' (Like Salted Earth) – it will halt your character's actions while it relocates you to where it thinks you should have been at the onset. The result: Instead of getting drawn in 10 yards immediately, you are instead drawn in any number of yards (I've seen a pull that took me 40+y) – and it takes the game 1-2 seconds to relocate you. In that time, you are still subject to damage and other crowd control effects, only you can't perform any actions.
You are animation locked.
Well what happens when you have two DRKs who use two salted earths in sequence? Well you just spent 3+ seconds of taking damage and cannot heal or clear the effect. Couple that with something like – a Dragoon Limit Break on any number of targets at a single point and you've got a recipe for deleting entire groups of enemy teams in Frontlines. (That feeling when you are pulled 7 times in a row because the enemy team just had that many DRKs) The counter is just: Don't get pulled, or pop guard immediately and hope that the server recognized that you did so before damage went out. You won't know right away of course, because of all that server validation – Unmitigated Damage will still be going out 5+ seconds into guard, so its a dice roll on whether you live. Because with enough AOE's on a single point after a draw in, you can delete anything. Casters, Melee, Tanks. Doesn't matter. 60% Damage Reduction in Frontlines? Doesn't matter, you're taking enough damage to kill you 5 times over.
And then you've got more advanced coordination efforts on top of that with the Hysteria effects from Reapers or Dancers – which will take a player out of Guard, or WAR LB which applies an effect that prevents a player from Guarding – and there just simply isn't any counter to the 'Plunge'.
The Servers are the biggest issue in this scenario, but Japanese players don't encounter the level of delay on server validation as we do here in the states or in the EU. Ping is not as big an issue in a country that's smaller than the length of Texas. So its doubtful that they'd ever try to resolve that aspect of the problem.
But its beyond repugnant that there isn't currently any system in place to apply diminishing returns on crowd control effects. That just seems like basic common sense for pvp in general at this point – every other MMO has this and it makes very little sense not to have it after the 6.1 revamp.
And the animation locking doesn't need to be a thing at all. The pull in/push out effects should move you a select distance, but not limiting your ability to move or act while you are transitioning. This is how Death Grip works in World of Warcraft and its how its worked since 2007. While disorienting to suddenly find your character in a new location/orientation, its much less debilitating than having control stripped from your character for several seconds with no 'counter'. That feels bad. Sure it applies to everyone, so its not a fairness thing, it just feels horrible to play.
More PvP Mog Talks please! This was a great watch.
It's very simple, no time exclusive fomo generating rewards for PvP period. All rewards should be available to all players for all time.
To reach level 25, you need 168x CC if you lose all matches. 1 series is 17 weeks. you're forced to do 10 crystalline every week for the whole series. It was good for exp, but once you get all 90, kind of hate it to be forced to do something I don't feel fun, especially after you lose like 8 matches straight.
Just no fomo, just let people level their pvp level and get the crystal currency and let people buy the glam in the series with that. like 15-20k crystal, which is almost most of the series crystals, but you can save it for later if you don't like the reward.