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FFXIV - Quirks of the PVP System

Some Quriks of FFXIV's PVP System

Series Level

One of the more recent additions to the game is PVP Series Malmstone. This was added back when the Feast was removed and changed into Crystalline Conflict.

This feature is basically a battlepass that features some exclusive rewards. This in itself isn’t very interesting, but what is interesting is what happens when you surpass Series Level 30.

Let’s call the levels above 30, the “Extra Levels” since they technically surpass the scope of the battlepass. It would be a fair assumption to say that once you surpass level 30, your Series Level should roll over to 31. However, this was not the way the developers had designed this system.

In actuality, Series Level only goes up to 30. Once you surpass it (reaching 20 000 Series EXP), you’ll find that you roll over to Series Level 30 with 0/20000 EXP again. However, this time you have the option to claim the Extra Level, along with a small symbol to denote how many times you can claim it.

Interestingly, even though this data isn’t shown on the in-game UI, reading the number from memory (using FFXIV Client Structs) shows that the game does set your Series Level as 31.

If you don’t claim this reward, this will continue until you reach Extra Level 100, which then the game stop rewarding you any additional Series EXP.

However, if you claim the Extra Level reward at any point. Your internal Series Level will roll back to 30, meaning that the game essentially erases any indiciation that you had reached X Extra Level.

The server may have this information stored somewhere, but its weird that this is how they chose to implement an infinite battlepass feature.

I can’t think of many good reasons for why the UI doesn’t count these Extra Levels as apart of normal Series Levels either, since its practically impossible for any player to reach an unsigned integer overflow during the time of 1 Series Malmstone season.

Frontline Losing Streak Bonus

I’d like to document exactly how the Frontline PVP losing bonus works in Final Fantasy XIV. There’s a vast amount of uncertainity online about how rewards are handed out in Frontline. I believe that a vast majority of players don’t even know such a bonus exists, the remaining people who know about the bonus aren’t exactly able to explain it or chalk it up to seemingly random things (such as how long the PVP match takes).

First, I’ll share with you what is officially posted on the Lodestone:

  • In the event that your affiliated team previously ranked third, PvP EXP, Series EXP, and Wolf Marks earned will be increased by 10% for each subsequent third-place ranking, up to a maximum of 50%. This bonus will carry over to the next match upon ranking second, and be reset entirely upon ranking first.

I’ll use Series EXP as the measured value here, but do note that the same bonus applies to Wolf Marks and PVP EXP.

These are the guaranteed base rewards.

Let’s define an imaginary variable that tracks the number of times you’ve consecutively placed 3rd in Frontline matches. Let’s also imagine that this value starts at 0.

var consecutiveThirds = 0

For the buff to begin, consecutiveThirds must equal 2.

For everytime you place 3rd in a Frontline match, this counter will increase by 1. Placing 2nd DOES NOT reset the counter, but placing 3rd will reset the counter.

This means that when consecutiveThirds = 1, you can place 2nd n-times and not have this counter reset.

On Reward Bonus

Once you lose that 2nd game, your reward bonus becomes 10%. This reward bonus also applies to the game in which you earn it on.

This means if you played a match, place 3rd, and consecutiveThirds = 1, then on that very match your rewards will be increased by 10% (and you get to keep the buff for the next game).

Similarly, if you have a buff already active and place 3rd again, your buff increases again, and this new increased reward bonus also applies to the current match.

If you place 2nd and have a reward bonus active, you DO NOT LOSE IT. You get rewarded according to the bonus percentage you have currently obtained and get to keep it for the next match.

The only case you lose the buff is if you place 1st. Even if you lose your buff, you’ll still get whatever reward bonus you’ve accumulated for that particular match before the buff resets to 0.

This loop keeps repeating until you hit 50%. Then the reward bonus will no longer increase. You’ll still keep the buff until you place 1st though.

Let’s seen an example of everything above in action: