Thread: Regarding Full Party Premades in Frontline and Patch 3.5

Here is a topic that has caused a lot of controversy in FFXIV PvP; The allowance of full party premades/preformed parties in PvP.

Summer 2015, when seal rock first came out, is when I first started pvp'ing. I was a solo queuing player who didn't have many friends, similar to many other new players. At the beginning, I noticed I was put up against a lot of the same names from the same servers on the same grand company, over and over, and eventually realized that some of these people were forming full parties and queuing together. Doing this lets them have a great advantage over players that solo queue, especially when those full parties consist of some top pvp veterans with a much higher level of experience. In addition, some of these players get together on voice chat to add to their coordination, putting a huge damper on the morale of solo players.

Being exposed to full premades for so long, losing over and over, led me to frustration and into the mentality; "If you can't beat em', join em". Therefore, I took it into my own hands to start a party finder on my old server, and recruited like-minded players that wanted to premade, to try and somehow counter this. Keep in mind, this wasn't the right choice, but it was the best I could do to counter this situation - at least this way, I would get to enjoy frontlines a little, and finish the achievements, as it was nearly impossible to do either of those things while solo queuing against premades. Over the course of a year and a half, though, this arms race has led to the downfall of frontlines and has started some rivalry between premades in other grand companies. Why? Because the advantages of having a premade have slowly become insurmountable for newcomers and players that solo queue and because other premades saw it as a threat, which has added to the toxicity that greatly impacts the experience of a solo queuing player.

Even though it's fun to form up a full party and go on a killing spree in frontlines (guilty as charged!), it completely ruins balance and gives up any impression of fairness. Thinking back to where I was at square one, I can now fully sympathize with the players that get the short end of the stick. When they're put up against a full premade, a group that ignores objectives and just goes on a killing fest, they have no idea what's going on. All of a sudden, this full party has pushed them to their base, into their spawn, and now they're simply farming them until they win. When you can't even get out of your base to compete for objectives, it seems hopeless.

This, specifically, has led to the downfall of frontlines. Who in their right mind would queue for this? Even when queues are fast, it feels pointless; you're queuing simply for the privilege to be another group's cannon fodder. At a 30+ minute wait time? You'd have to be masochistic! That's why many players have simply stopped queuing for Frontline: you can get so much done in the hour a single match can take, that it's hard to justify spending your time losing like that. Premade fatigue is probably the single largest factor in why Frontline, while still enjoying success, hasn't been as nearly as active as it could be.

A few of us that premade together want to help revitalize Frontlines, and we want to encourage newcomers to join in without having to worry about being put up against a full premade. We want premades to be limited and the rivalry between GC's to come to an end. No bad blood, either; We heard your complaints, and at this point we're not only sympathetic, but actually want something done about it. Believe it or not, we hate queuing up against premades just as much as you do, but as long as SE allows it, we feel as though we have no choice if we want to compete and try to win.

Simply limiting premades to a light party (4 players) would be a step in the right direction, and could easily be the change that Frontline needs to remain alive after the 3.5 boost. Any gains that Frontline makes due to the GARO collab wil be short-lived unless the new players feel as though they have an honest chance to win. Hopefully the success of the 8v8 Feast queue's limitations make something like this more reasonable to ask.. As the queue for this mode is limited to a party of two and as of recent, queue times for 8v8 have been fairly active.

Another type of mode that could be possible, is a full party 8v8 mode for frontline, similar to 4v4/light party feast. Though, I am not entirely sure how this can be organized, but that's why this post is being made; To get suggestions from the community.

Right now, what I expect from 3.5's GC restrictions being removed, is that, if there are no limitations to how premades are formed, There will, without a doubt, be premades with top pvp players forming up and taking advantage of pugs/solo players in frontlines. It'll be even worse than it is now, because the only way "around" a full 8-man premade in a 24-man queue is to get farmed by them on one of the other two teams. That's not healthy in the short or the long term, and I sincerely hope it gets addressed at 3.5's launch.

Please keep it clean and provide your mature opinion. Any opinion will be taken with serious consideration and can help bring awareness into the matter. The only way to improve the game further is for the community to pitch in.

TL;DR
Full party premades are a major problem and should be given limitations in frontline.
GC restriction removal in 3.5 will make the presence of full party premades even worse.

I agree that the prevention of premades could build the community and allow for people to have access to more "fair" gameplay.

I've been a solo FL player the whole time I've been PvPing and there are times where a full premade will just stomp over the other two teams, to the point where the counterplay becomes "kill ice only, don't fight them, hope that they beat up the other team for a long time so we don't get hit as much". This sort of play is obviously terrible for even keeping average PvPers in the mode.

If they do decide to keep allowing 8 player premades, I hope that they play only against other 8 player premades and allow the rest of us to play with each other in games where it's fun because it's not a stomp.

That being said, the 8 player premade stomp event only really happens on NA data centres and doesn't really occur at all on my primary character's data centre at least, JP Elemental.

(I actually enjoy playing Frontlines on my alt on Aether more... when it's not a stomp of course.)

Originally Posted by Rilasha

That being said, the 8 player premade stomp event only really happens on NA data centres and doesn't really occur at all on my primary character's data centre at least, JP Elemental.

Premades also run on JP Mana, but the PvP community is large and average Frontline PUGs have good skills, teamwork, coordination and tactic awareness to counter premades and make the contest close and enjoyable. Premades get more kills yes, but they don't necessarily win the match and scores are mostly close. When majority of your 24 random PUG players follow commands and advance/retreat together and focus on the same enemy target, fighting premades becomes a less struggle. There are still stomps sometimes of course especially if it's a 24 man match.

For NA/EU where PvP community at least for now seem smaller and PUGs are relatively inexperienced, full premades from established veterans and PvP FCs would be more of an issue, and the experience of being farmed for giggles by premades can be very discouraging for newcomers and unhealthy for the future growth of the community. I can understand some might prefer the community to stay tight-knit among skilled players, but I think for the PvP content to thrive it also needs to accommodate and encourage newcomers and help them learn and enjoy. After all Frontline is supposed to be the more "casual" part of PvP.

I agree that limiting premade party size to 4 is probably the easiest workaround to level the playing ground a little bit while still allowing playing with friends. Dividing the queue into solo/premade might not work unfortunately if the community is too small.