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As An Ex-MOBA Addict, FFXIV's Crystalline Conflict Is Great | MMORPG.com
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As An Ex-MOBA Addict, FFXIV's Crystalline Conflict Is Great | MMORPG.com
Finally, after warding off PvP addiction, columnist Victoria is hooked on Crystalline Conflict. But why now, and why is it actually good?
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You could have BR like arenas, MOBA RvR zones and more small and large group content. That last bit is the Co-op, which works so well in co-op games but when you put it in a MMORPG is somehow a problem for many players.
MMORPG's started by trying to take some of the best gameplay of that early era and combine it into one game, so why not take some of the best that there is now and do the same?
MMOs should instead strive to offer the kind of PvP that no other gaming genre does - a large scale open world, with 1000's of players per battle, with buildable structures which can be fully destroyed, with ground, air and sea combat and vehicles, on a capturable territory that is large enough that no single group of people can capture. Something that can endlessly generate excitement even from people who don't enjoy PvP but enjoy reading tales about epic PvP battles involving unique strategies and unique circumstances. And FF14 is a complete failure in this regard, and will always stay this way, and not something that is even worth discussing (when it comes to PvP gameplay).
Honestly, Crystalline Conflict is WAY too short, in my opinion, to compete as a standalone MOBA - because of its length, it doesn't hook players on, ergo it wouldn't exist in a market against hits like LoL or Smite.
FFXIV does have large-scale 72-person content, actually, it lasts about 20 minutes though and it's isolated from the rest of gameplay.
My worry with any large-scale PvP mode or game is that balance can become a major issue, very fast once populations start dwindling. I have always wanted that kind of thing, but nothing's really caught my eye. Maybe the rest of the site knows stuff like that?
If you do want the most balanced modern hardcore long-scale epic PvP out there, there's always EVE Online
At least it's somewhat "decent" now with CT, but the fact is that if there were no cosmetic rewards (without the need to actually end up among the best in the ladder, which is something that they learned to do right this time) it would die down just like the previous iterations. Because, regardless if some of us can get a couple of hours of fun from the mode, the vast majority of the community is in the game for the story, the PvE, and the rest of the goodies, and actual full-time PvPers play other games that focus more on that one aspect (I do, at least, when I'm on one of those periods where I'm hungry for PvP).
It is what it is, and I think that it's better that it stays this way. Instead of spreading themselves thin, it's better to focus their resources on the game's strenghts, and leave PvP as another one of the minor side activities, as it always was. Doing otherwise would just damage the game. Even now, all those efforts to revive the PvP game modes could had been spent in improving and adding more content to actual FF minigames, like the chocobo races.
PvP was introduced in the first major patch of ARR, please don't make stuff up
As for the post in question, the PvP mode is indeed better than what came before (not that outdoing the lazy, poorly designed crap that was the barrage of 3 way frontline modes is much of a feat but still) the separation of abilities between PvP and pve was also a good idea.
Unfortunately PvP was is and seemingly will always be plagued by a fundamental core issue : built in latency in the netcode. It is a problem in pve too but it's more tolerable ofc. It makes CC and aoe abilities in particular a clunky, janky mess and is the reason the PvP can't be taken seriously.
It is mind boggling how reviewers and players just completely ignore this massive flaw, this atrocious netcode would stand out like a sore thumb 20 years ago ( compare the responsiveness of vanilla wow to modern FFXIV and it's not even close ) among other AAA MMOs and is frankly just an embarrassment for anyone involved in developing the game
Any other game coming out like this would generate massive criticism but FFXIV has fallen in the graces of the circlejerk so here we are
Where did I talk about *major* patches? Don't put words in my mouth and say that I make stuff up. And before you say that only major patches introduce new content, I will gladly remind you that that's just a general rule and not always the case, as it often happens with minor content such as what Wolves' Den was. Moreover, 2.1 only introduced the original and barebones Wolves' Den, which was vastly ignored and heavily criticized by the PvP community. It was not until Frontlines in 2.3 that PvP had some sort of acceptance.
About the rest of the post, yeah, I agree that the built-in delay doesn't help in PvP. However, it works perfectly fine in PvE (at least now, as it was atrocious at first, and anyone that did Titan HM back then will remember why) which, as I said, is what the game was designed around, and what it still is primarily about. Moreover, the japanese in general DON'T like PvP games, aside from some FPS, so you can guess the rest. PvP was added to try and make some people a little bit happier and stop complaining. It's another minigame, and it should be taken as such.