Hi Everyone,
I've been meaning to write my thoughts about Crystalline Conflict, the new PvP mode introduced to FFXIV in Patch 6.1 (I think?) and PvP in general since Endwalker launched. However, I wanted to give it a fair chance before doing so but also admittingly forgot.
Like many Feast/PvP Players, I was both looking forward to it's release, but at the same time, also somewhat sad to see the end of Feast. Although I did not play a lot of Feast in Shadowbringers, I've made so many friends and had so many nice opportunities, such as attending fanfest, and being a part of several successful community tournaments. I will not miss 5.0 Feast but will look back on 4.0 Feast with great memories.
I will be basing my thoughts on Crystalline Conflict, which I will refer to as CC for the remainder of this post on that it's a mode designed to get more/new people into PvP. This was supposedly the main reason behind the decision to replace Feast, which was a competitive mode. Which is a little strange is my opinion. As Feast was very active during a season, and they could have kept it going easily.
It was really nice to see Wolves Den so populated when it was implemented, and this was a thing for a while, however it seems that it did not last long...
So let's start off with some positives. Here are some things I like about the nchanges to both CC, and PvP in general:
1: The mode is fun.
In season one, I had a great time trying out all the jobs and playing it in general. I even got 3 characters to Crystal and I think it's the most fun I've had playing PvP since Stormblood. in ranked at the moment there isn't as much pressure to perform as there's no real top 100 reward. So It was nice to just relax and play without stressing out over a leaderboard.
2: Jobs have their own identities again.
One of my main criticisms of 5.0 Feast was that all of the roles pretty much felt the same. All the LB's were the same, tanks were all pretty much the same, each having a stun and a shield, It got pretty boring after a while especially since 4.0 had a bit more identity in it's jobs. Each job has it's own thing it can bring to the table in CC and I think this was a great change.
3: The objective is a lot better than medals and each player has their responsibility for it.
There was nothing worse in feast than practically winning a game for 80% of the game then having someone die at the last minute, resulting in a loss when you had more kills. Getting a kill in CC now puts you at an advantage, as it increases your chance of getting follow ups and being able to push the payload further. It feels like more of a team effort than praying that one person on you team is able to stay alive with their medals
4: There is no set role requirements anymore. Healers have less responsibility and can contribute to damage a lot more
You can queue into a game and have 5 dps, 3 healers a tank and a DPS, or anything as long as there's not two of the same jobs on the same team (at least to my knowledge).I also like that each player has their own defensives and healing to manage rather than most of the pressure being on a healer, which there was a severe lack of in The Feast. It makes it so the burden is shared equally on the team which is a great change in my opinion.
5: Casual matches actually happen.
The training mode for The Feast was dead. However for CC, it's popping every day to my knowledge without the need for this to be arranged by the community. This is great not only for new players to try their hand at the mode, but for more experienced players who want to try out a new job without the pressures of ranked, or who just want to chill and play for a bit without the risk of an impact on their rating.
6: The PvP seasons, or battle pass, was a great idea.
I was an advocate for this during feast and it's great that SE thought the same and implemeted it. I like how you can work towards something regardless if you win or lose, and it's something nice like a armor set or a mount.This also eliminates the FOMO of feast and it's top 100 rewards, which in my opinion, is a good and a bad thing (more on this later). progress for this can also be earned through any PvP mode, so it's got people trying out frontlines as well.
That's about everything i can think of positive wise. Now let's move on to things I'm not so fond of:
1: There's very little reason to continue playing after one season if you hit crystal, as the rewards are severely lacking for the ranked playlist.
This somewhat contradicts what I just said, but hear me out. Most people reading this will already know, but if you achieve crystal rank in a season, you obtain all of the rewards for the tier below. This include titles, adventurer plates etc. Once you have those, the only things left to compete for are the same things but with a different number to what you just received. Sure you can grind out some titles or challenge for a higher rank, but a lot of people are satisfied with just making the top 100 and receiving the rewards that come with it. This has shown over seasons, as activity has dwindled to the point where ranked doesn't pop on some days, and the leaderboard floor is so low that it's really easy to get T100. As the T100 reward has seemingly been moved to the battlepass, it leaves you with very little reason to continue playing. Even some of the most hardcore people I know from both 4.0 and 5.0 feast have stopped playing because of this. The ranked mode needs more of an incentive to play after your first crystal season, or the mode is simply going to die. SE have said they are looking at this, but what they will decide to change, who knows, as they have been very vague about it.
2: For a mode designed to be new player friendly, it's not actually that easy to learn.
With jobs getting their identities back, the amount of unique skills and effects in CC and PvP in general has gone through the roof compared to Feast. Knowing what a skill does and how to react to it is crucial in PvP, which in my opinion, makes it harder for new players to learn the ropes. Hell I even got to crystal on 3 characters and still didn't learn what everything did. I think this sort of defeats the point in replacing feast, something that SE deemed to difficult to new players to be able to get into.
3: It replaced the wrong mode.
In my personal opinion, CC should have replaced rival wings instead of feast. The mode is dead, and only pops when community discords arrange dates and tiems for it to pop. I think they could have easily have continued feast, which always had potential but was seemingly abandoned in 5.0 by SE and replaced a mode that has very little interest from the community (sorry to hose who love rival wings!)
4: Team based gameplay is still dead, when it's really fun.
This is a tricky thing to be critical of, as there have been many problems and accusations with teams wintrading or cheating in the past with team seasons, however when it works, playing in a team is some of the best times I've had with PvP. Being able to work on your own strategies and communicate for efficiently is such a game changer. I hope SE finds a way to bring it back, which Ithink could be done easily if
Honestly, that's about all I have the say about it in a critical way. CC has huge potential. It just needs more of an incentive to play, similar to the old T100 rewards. I think it's a lot better than 5.0 Feast, and is close to 4.0 feast in terms of my personal enjoyment, and if they bought back a similar system to the Feast T100 rewards I would actively play it.
Overall, I'm pretty pleased with what they have done with PvP this expansion, and I hope they continue. but until then, I am just raid logging and playing single player games for now.
Until next time,
Aud/Dom.
