Remove the Grand Company aspect entirely from Frontline

[Kai_Lee]

I like to win and if it helps then yeah I will switch to a healer but I also can play brd if we have to many healers on our team. I also do call outs and Mark targets. I do know the pain of playing with adders and flames, even with call outs and marking targets they tend to not care and go do their own thing. But you be surprise you might get lucky with a competent flames or adders group.

[Ryphen]

Getting people to listen is like trying to herd cats. Every Flames and Adders team I get put on I see so many comments of "I'm just here for the glamor" in response to people trying to organize them so they aren't running around like headless chickens. I can understand you're only doing this content because you're "forced" to, but you can at least try if someone's taking the time to provide direction.

I'm also convinced SE just likes to troll me. It'll put me on Flames 90% of the time, and the one time they actually manage to win, I'll be on Adders instead that game. Well played, SE. Well played.

[Rhekshi-Ehki]

From Lace Valeria:

I've had my eye on this thread for some time, and I do share some of the frustrations here. I would like to say the answer isn't to simply remove the GC aspect from Frontlines, as that's not really a fix for the bigger issue, but perhaps an enforced Freelancer is. Yes, it sounds bad. It sounds like you're losing even more freedom of choice, but consider that people who already choose to queue with friends or as a full premade already have Freelancer enforced on them.
What's been happening - more so on Primal than Aether, but I'm aware it happens on both, Aether to a lesser degree - is that people have convinced themselves that they have to swap to a GC (in this case, Maelstrom) and turn Freelancer off, effectively creating a "stable" pool of players that will consistently fill the queues for that single GC, which effectively force filters anyone and everyone else (except premades) into the other two, in a way, taking advantage of the premade concept, but bypassing Freelancer entirely. Not really a foul, but it's a tad underhanded when an actual premade is still bound by the Freelancer rule.
Plus, let me say this now, and the next time you hear someone looking at GCs/the general team designation (i.e. Ravens/Falcons for Rival Wings) as the big issue when it comes to overall success: THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR SKILL OR KNOWLEDGE.
Let's rip the bandage off here; if you're not good, switching to a GC that is filled with good players will not simply make you good. You're just being carried at that point. Carried, or dragging down those good players by relying on them to do what's right and make the right moves while you perhaps continue to not do so. And I'll say from firsthand witness, I've seen a LOT of people make a LOT of bad calls, avoidable mistakes, attempt to play passively from a losing position, and generally not make the right choices that could turn a match around. Swapping GCs to bypass the random matching of Freelancer or removing GCs entirely will not fix these fundamental issues. Learning what to do and how to do it, exercising better situational and map awareness, and being proactive rather than reactive in combat is a big step toward solving the bigger issue and closing the skill gap.

[GenericMagus]

From Lace Valeria:

In response to Lace, that's what people want in general. Not to be good, but to win, and victory to them tastes sweeter than being skilled can do. It's like RMT in Feast for wins, win-trading, content selling, etc. People like to go the path of least resistance, regardless of what they have to do for it as long as it's the easiest way to get what they want.

The only times I been able to win consistently in Chaos DC is with a premade, as I am an Adder, Mael has the far greater hand here if there's only randoms in the match, and I am forced either to either queue as Freelancer and potentially be stuck with Flames (who are like the worst GC currently in Chaos) or turn it off and stay in Adders, so I at least have a chance to win. That's what the situation is causing, it has a knock-on effect to those in other GCs, where if you want to bypass the ridiculous win-rate Mael has you either gotta get enough skilled people together to effectively guarantee a win (think Mr Burns All Star Softball team) or just swap to Mael and enjoy the higher win-rate without needing to rely on premades to win. Mael has lost, but it's like every 7-8 games, which is too high of a win-rate and it has to be balanced. You can't argue with statistics and evidence that's been shown to be the case.

There will always be people who won't ever learn PvP and just want it for rewards, and unless you literally have a school to force them to learn, the won't choose too.

[Beckett]

If rival wings is so great, why did the queue die for rival wings?

Because the Frontline Daily Challenge came out and revitalized Frontlines. Why would anyone bother queuing for Astragalos and get half the rewards? If they introduce a new Rival Wings map and Rival Wings Daily Challenge, people will flock to that mode again. Heck, even putting in a Rival Wings Daily Challenge without adding a new map would probably get lots of people queuing for it again, since a lot of people never got achievements for Astragalos.

[Beckett]

Why is everyone hating on pre-mades when that is clearly not the problem! Pre-mades are forced into freelance status, which arguably means any pre-mades should be placed into a random GC.

That's not how pre-mades work in this context. Frontline pre-mades consist of 24 people of the same GC (Adders) queuing individually for Frontline at the same time (with Freelancer turned off) and hoping to get into the same match. The majority of the time this works, and allows a full alliance to queue together, instead of being limited to parties of 8.

I would just like to add to the myth of the pre-made, the only reason why those pre-mades are successful are because they're skilled and communicative. The average PvP player is unskilled, and that's a fact

A pre-made using voice chat (and especially a pre-made of 24 people) is going to have a large advantage over pugs using text to communicate.

Are there ever people making call-outs on Adders and Flames (especially Flames) on objectives?

On Aether, Flames often have callouts, but they play much more conservatively. They know they'll get slaughtered in an outright confrontation with either of the other GCs, so they'll get the objective and then run away as fast as possible. Very occasionally they can be talked into trying to pince the pre-made Adder Battle Highs/Fevers, but they'll usually break the assault as soon as a couple of people on their team die.

For Adders, I've only been in the non-pre-made groups, and those do have callouts, but play nothing like the deathsquads of the pre-mades.

Nimue, its been this way on primal for at least a year. Since the tail end of HW, when they nerfed exp, if I remember. There's been zero migration, and mael has been having 80% win rates for that long.

The exact same thing happened with IF, back in the day (on Aether). Flames won the vast majority of matches for ages, but eventually they got inundated by bad players who switched to IF for easy victories and IF became the worse GC in Frontlines. It may take awhile, but Maelstrom won't stay on top forever.

[Zalestra]

That's not how pre-mades work in this context. Frontline pre-mades consist of 24 people of the same GC (Adders) queuing individually for Frontline at the same time (with Freelancer turned off) and hoping to get into the same match. The majority of the time this works, and allows a full alliance to queue together, instead of being limited to parties of 8.

If that is the definition of pre-made you are using, then there is nothing SE can even do about it. ASIDE FROM removing being allowed to queue for your GC. Which is what I am already for. So that just supports my argument further.

There is literally no reason to keep GC PVP queuing anymore. It is only being used for trickery at this point.

[Zsolen]

I still prefer removing freelance. You can't get any consistency from Adders or Flames otherwise. It still tipped Mael, but both were much better off before people were freelancing. In time, that could ahve changed. Now I see Adders and Flames not even try to win half the matches they are in. They just fight for second. However, removing grand companies removes the whole point of frontlines. It supposed to be a friendly competition... a bragging right thing. But there are no bragging rights for Mael here. Some of the people they are beating were Mael from the start.

[Balmung_Griffin]

I still prefer removing freelance. You can't get any consistency from Adders or Flames otherwise. It still tipped Mael, but both were much better off before people were freelancing. In time, that could ahve changed. Now I see Adders and Flames not even try to win half the matches they are in. They just fight for second. However, removing grand companies removes the whole point of frontlines. It supposed to be a friendly competition... a bragging right thing. But there are no bragging rights for Mael here. Some of the people they are beating were Mael from the start.

No, then we get back to those obscene wait times and broken teams.
How removing GC queue will remove the point of FL? It's just novelty.

If everyone is freelancing, the game would queue up much faster, it could even balance roles much better between teams as it would draw players from the same pool.

Not removing FC queue means people will keep changing to the FC with higher win rate.

[Zsolen]

If queues are longer, those with the ability to actually win will move to GCs with faster queue times, because they don't need 'the best GC' to win.