Suggestion: No more GC to dominate Frontline

As anyone having done any Frontlining on Crystal as of late knows... the map is dominated during most matches by Maelstrom.

I know a good chunk of serious, good PvPers who are Mael and who... lo and behold, NEVER go freelancer, thus guaranteeing Mael as their team... and it is apparently so many that it has become VERY rare for a non-Mael to end up in a Mael party as a freelancer (I got it 2 times over several hundred matches the last 2 months).

So yes, good PvPers are Mael more often than not, and if you look at rankings you see almost all Red there on the first page.

Which means by now Frontline has turned into an atrocious slaughterfest more often than not for all of us who for one reason or the other do not wish to switch GC to Mael -- and honestly, that is not how it should work anyway. Once everyone has gone Mael, following that logic -- who is left to fight as an opponent?

Essentially right now an easy way to "manipulate" a high chance of winning is becoming Maelstrom which has attracted a ridiculously disproportional amount of serious PvPers (and premades, which is another can of worms), who then simply dominate the matches -- everyone else is Mael fodder more often than not, regardless of how much some of us non-Mael freelancers try to use (and get our team to use) sound strategies, push good damage etc.

As an example of how bad it is by now? Lately I have done about 100 matches on an Alt who is an Adder but gone freelancing. Wins: 16%. Got Mael as my team once during those matches (yes, one whooping time).

I have done the same on a Maelstrom alt, always entering as a Red rather than as a freelancer. Wins: over 50%.

Another example, tonight I queued with a friend as a 2-man-party. He is Maelstrom usually (not freelancer, surprise surprise), and has an excellent win rate, and closing in on getting the Hand of Mercy title -- he's a real killer in PvP, but a tactical one. We had over a dozen matches... not a single victory. Then for ONCE in the early early morning hours we got into a Mael team (as mentioned, first time for me in a long time) -- lo and behold, victory.

After that experience even this Maelstrom friend admitted the system is broken. He had been aware that Mael had become the dominating force, but not HOW bad it really had become for non-Mael freelancers. And he agreed that this needs to change to make Frontline healthy again. Yes, Mael still needs to work for their victories, and sometimes loses... but things have gotten too unbalanced, and an exercise in frustration for non-Maels/freelancers.

So bottom line of this a bit lengthy preface: No, it is not "Git Gud" anymore, it's "Git Mael."
(At least on Crystal, but from what I read here similar issues exist on other datacenters.)

Long term that kind of situation is not healthy for Frontline, even if right now some Maels out there enjoy the comparatively easy victories and thus might love to see it continue (just as not having to deal with getting more often bad teams or bad team members due to matchmaking RNG).

Thus my suggestion, to make Frontline healthy and fair again, and prevent one GC to become the utterly dominating force, plus at the same time making your actual contribution as a PvPer a bit more relevant, even if your lesser skilled (or motivated) PUG team mates end up costing you the victory:

- You enter Frontline as one of 3 teams which you can't pick beforehand, lets call them Wolves, Ravens and Bears (similar to Feast). You are essentially always a freelancer that way. For the background story of why, lets imagine Frontline is now not anymore the 3 GCs fighting each other (Which honestly never made much sense to begin with, we are an ALLIANCE. You know, allies, fighting together, not each other), and rather now it is a joint training exercise with swapping personnel to enhance cooperation and coordination between the different GCs.

- If you win that victory counts toward your current GC, thus people can still work toward achievements linking PvP and GCs.

- Additional idea to make personal contribution a bit more meaningful and reduce the results of bad luck with matchmaking: Future achievement rewards, and maybe even some older ones are available not just via victories but also a point system, like kills, assists, occupations, heals. This is mainly to ensure that even if you have HORRIBLE matchmaking luck, ending up very often with very low-skilled/-motivated (and thus losing) teams your individual contribution and skill is still worth SOMETHING even if your matchmaking has a horrible streak.

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- You enter Frontline as one of 3 teams which you can't pick beforehand, lets call them Wolves, Ravens and Bears (similar to Feast).

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I believe this is already the case if you enter as a party. Sure people in groups who want to ensure they get into their GC and with friends all queue at the same time, but it's never a certainty that they will be grouped together.

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- If you win that victory counts toward your current GC, thus people can still work toward achievements linking PvP and GCs.

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I believe your win does already count for your registered GC regardless of who you get put with during Frontlines.

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- Additional idea to make personal contribution a bit more meaningful and reduce the results of bad luck with matchmaking: Future achievement rewards, and maybe even some older ones are available not just via victories but also a point system, like kills, assists, occupations, heals. This is mainly to ensure that even if you have HORRIBLE matchmaking luck, ending up very often with very low-skilled/-motivated (and thus losing) teams your individual contribution and skill is still worth SOMETHING even if your matchmaking has a horrible streak.

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There are already achievements for kills, assists, occupations/mid-node kills.

As for GC domination, on the EU data center my world is part of (can't remember right now), prior to December 2018, Mael were indeed the dominant force. Ever since the turn of 2019, we've had a very even split. The biggest problem (as well as the best part) of Frontlines is the 1v1v1 battle. Too many players are caught unaware nowadays and no amount of direction in /a chat seems to help. My partner actually had someone get snotty at her last night for daring to flag a location to go to, words such as "Who are you to tell me where to go, RANDOM"

PvP needs some serious TLC, but it's at a point where we just accept it for what it is, it's never going to be a top game for PvP elements due to the restrictions of the actual gameplay. Even games like ESO which are built to suit PvP can't do a good job at balancing the 1v1v1 element of it.

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Originally Posted by JowyAtreides

I believe this is already the case if you enter as a party. Sure people in groups who want to ensure they get into their GC and with friends all queue at the same time, but it's never a certainty that they will be grouped together.

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Sadly this isn't helping. Yes, if you enter as a party you are automatically a freelancer, and as mentioned as of late it has become near impossible to get Mael as your team as a freelancer. As long as Mael is the main GC for the serious, skilled PvPers the imbalance will persist thanks to those people NOT going freelancer and simply queuing solo for Mael, thus increasing their chances to have a good team of skilled, motivated players.

The only way how I can see this changing without making some changes to FL would be if more and more people, realizing Mael = high chance of winning switch GCs, including so many lesser-skilled folks (or even those who want to be carried) that it will eventually break this domination... probably only to have the skilled folks switch GC again to some other, repeating the cycle (long term PvPers told me Flames dominated Frontline in the past, for example)

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I believe your win does already count for your registered GC regardless of who you get put with during Frontlines.

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Correct, but if you don't have GC-based teams anymore then GC-associated achievements would become impossible to attain, unless those victories still count toward your GC. Thus mentioning it as part of the changed structure I am suggesting.

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There are already achievements for kills, assists, occupations/mid-node kills.

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Also correct, but as others in this forum have also mentioned already it can be an exercise in frustration to see your personal contribution to amount very little, and bad matchmaking streaks leading to bad win rates regardless of your own efforts. So this additional suggestion to make achievements like mounts and glamour available through not -only- victories would simply encourage more effort, less "get carried or hope for dumb luck to win".

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As for GC domination, on the EU data center my world is part of (can't remember right now), prior to December 2018, Mael were indeed the dominant force. Ever since the turn of 2019, we've had a very even split. The biggest problem (as well as the best part) of Frontlines is the 1v1v1 battle. Too many players are caught unaware nowadays and no amount of direction in /a chat seems to help. My partner actually had someone get snotty at her last night for daring to flag a location to go to, words such as "Who are you to tell me where to go, RANDOM"

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Very much agreed, the 3 teams structure, together with some people being VERY adverse to anyone trying to get a real team cooperation going can have pretty adverse effects to Frontline matches.

Sadly I see no way how to change the latter, questionable attitudes among some players -- heck, once I was even threatened to be reported for "harassment" when I did the same as your partner, or a few days ago got kicked from a party because "how dare you to tell me how to play" after flagging a location and politely asking people to please not run off on their own = feeding kill points... >.> ...

... while for the first, the 1v1v1 mode... that is the difference between Feast and Frontline, I guess. Not overly fond of 3 teams fighting each other (with sometimes ridiculous outcomes), personally I would prefer 2 teams in Frontline, but oh well, others like 3 teams, and for matches 1:1 there is Feast I guess...

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PvP needs some serious TLC, but it's at a point where we just accept it for what it is, it's never going to be a top game for PvP elements due to the restrictions of the actual gameplay. Even games like ESO which are built to suit PvP can't do a good job at balancing the 1v1v1 element of it.

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So much yes regarding seriously TLC needed -- and I think removing the ability / tendency to have so many the "good ones" congregating in one GC to manipulate matchmaking is one aspect of that much-needed TLC -- Feast is already an excellent example of avoiding this issue.

I think 1v1v1 is indeed inherently a questionable mode for PvP from the perspective of balancing -- if two teams decide to double-team you the chance of winning goes down the drain fast and easily (there is a reason why everyone avoids fighting 2 enemies at once throughout history, except one notable, slightly nutty flavored, brown-shirted German 80 years ago ;p)... but at the same time I know people who LOVE this kind of mode, so I guess that is to stay. What would be great maybe would be the ability to chose -- Frontline 1v1 and Frontline 1v1v1, but remaining the same otherwise?

I don't expect XIV to have amazing PvP, just... reasonable? And as of late it has gotten really ridiculous out of hand for anyone who is not Mael -- something that needs to change.

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Originally Posted by Chiami

I think 1v1v1 is indeed inherently a questionable mode for PvP from the perspective of balancing -- if two teams decide to double-team you the chance of winning goes down the drain fast and easily

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its where positional awareness and map comprehension come in handy, but its a skill you rarely find even among premade.

bb

if there's a bandwagon (Mael) people are going to jump on it. not much else you can do to mitigate that.

Rival Wings isn't dominated by premades and is 1 team v 1 team. Most people shy away from it due to the original map being poorly designed. The new map is way more fun, but has a lot of objectives which scares people since they now have to do some basic research in order to play effectively.

Basically...RW is better than FL.