Content patch 4.2 for Final Fantasy XIV is approaching quickly. Will this make PvP tournament-ready?
The community representative Clement “Kaposhipi” Rugeri published an update on the upcoming PvP content in the official forums, which is set to arrive with patch 4.2 at the end of January for Final Fantasy XIV.
New Icons for Better Overview
The FEAST is the competitive 4vs4 PvP mode of Final Fantasy XIV, which is continually being developed by Square Enix.
The new FEAST battleground “The Crystal Tower” comes with a special feature that distinguishes it from previous maps: It will be the only map present in both solo and team ranking. The positioning of obstacles and walls in the arena will be randomly selected from four different options.
Visually, FEAST is also getting a bit of a refresh. Primarily, the new icons for jobs and status effects are meant to help players maintain a better overview of the action on the battlefield.
From patch 4.2 onwards, the jobs of individual players will be displayed directly next to their names and thanks to the new animations, important status effects like “Sleep” or “Mute” will now be visibly attached to the characters.
With the adjustment of the medal system comes an update to the icons as well. The new icons are intended to make it clearer how many medals are dropped by a defeated opponent. The icons change in increments of 25: 1-25 medals, 26-50 medals, and so on. Additionally, an appropriate icon has been added for cases where a player can no longer pick up additional medals.
More FEAST Tournaments in the Future?
To have a good overview of what is going on in a FEAST match, one must keep an eye on the player status bars. Because from there, one can see whether someone is in a dangerous situation or whether a group is about to go on the offensive.
The purpose of the larger icons is not only to make life easier for PvP friends. The much more important function is to draw players’ and spectators’ attention away from the rather boring group list with status effects and focus it on the battlefield. Because that’s where the action is.
This appears to be another step by Square Enix to make the PvP of Final Fantasy XIV tournament-ready. The first smaller FEAST tournaments were already held during the fan festival in Frankfurt and at Gamescom 2017. Director and producer Naoki Yoshida has mentioned several times that more events of this kind are awaiting us in 2018.
Cheaters Make Life Difficult for PvP Players
A new ranking system for groups, which will be released with patch 4.2, is intended to further promote the formation of FEAST teams. The teams with the highest rankings will then receive special rewards and may even be invited to official tournaments.
This is a significant undertaking considering the problems currently plaguing the PvP system of FFXIV. Especially in FEAST, “win trading” and speed hackers distort the ranks at the top.
Win-Trading: A Problem in Final Fantasy XIV “FEAST”
Player Rinrin Heartilly, who has worked in the eSports sector at Riot Games, addressed the developers in the official forums, asking them to take a strong stand against cheaters, and received support from the community. Prominent PvP player Suhr Zarek from the US data center Aether illustrated the exact process of such a “win trader” in a graphic.
It is therefore difficult to predict how well the new team ranking system will work, as little is known about it so far. If it cannot demonstrate any internal measures that could help GMs to curb such behavior, then developers may have to make further adjustments to their PvP system.
But we know: good things take time. And the gentlemen and ladies in Japan have proven multiple times that they address the issues in FFXIV when given enough time.
What FFXIV players can expect in the future can be read in our 2018 forecast:
After player count record in 2017: What will Final Fantasy XIV achieve in 2018?
