Frontlines: Leechers and Feeders

Well, at least SE clearly will action on reports against the leechers:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...stomer-support

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

I mean, I'm struggling here to think of any game with PVP that punishes players for losing, because that's exactly what people here are advocating for, giving anyone who came in 2nd and 3rd place a 12+ minute lashing for the crime of not being 1st. With that degree of hostility, and the very real waste of time it objectively creates for 48 people, yeah... Frontline queues would likely slow down pretty hard as the lowest rung stops bothering to show up because there's literally no incentive to do so, and where a lot of people in the highest rung, ironically, would also stop queuing because they can't do their own brand of blood-sucking anymore.

...Or maybe the premades *do* stay, but then that raises a very concerning question; Who are they staying to feed on now? Oh but I'm sure the ones wanting zero rewards being implemented have a peerless 90%+ winrate and that's why they're confident that they'll rarely, if ever, be subjected to any sort of loser penalty and absolutely would not be the new littlest fish in the pond. Nah, we got complete badasses over here.

Sarcasm aside, shaking up the current Frontline "eco-system" in this particular way *will* have consequences, and not necessarily positive ones for those who stuck around as a new pecking order gets quickly established, but now the ones at the bottom don't even get the courtesy of a consolation prize while they get bodied for hours on end.

There should be more incentive to make people stay and do better, not leave and never come back, but even dynamic rewards based on performance has issues, especially when we have premades forcing matches to end early before most people have a chance to contribute in any meaningful way.

Ugh, I hate not having a solution to poormade and premade antics, as it seems like you can't fix either without causing new problems.

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I haven't really played any PvP that hasn't "punished' people for losing, generally winners got "more"- it could have been rank, it could have been items - such as chests to open, it could have been points that allowed the winners to get items. Key difference there, the first being the most important- (1) people wanted to PvP (2) there were typically a variety of types of matches.

I don't advocate for giving whomever places 2nd or 3rd nothing, however I don't see why just showing up means that someone should get rewards. This isn't an exact equivalent, but I've been in a games where it was possible for people to get no rewards an hour in a PvP siege (large scale battle) - basically due to the large number of people participating, the max number of rewards, and their kills and/or damage. Well, after that happens once or twice, motivated people learn quickly so that it doesn't happen again.

All of this to say, I would expect performance could be used here. You're also referring to " they get bodied for hours on end" - I wouldn't know. I don't queue for hours on end.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

That sort of system wouldn't motivate the losers to keep trying, it'd encourage them to stop queuing because they literally wasted 15+ of their time that could have been spent doing anything else

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I'm failing to see how that's a bad thing. SE would see that there's barely any motivation to play Frontlines, they'd add back 8v8v8, and there's considerably more incentive to co-ordinate with your team when there's only 7 other party members, there's only 16 enemies, your PS4 isn't lagging from trying to load in over 40 "graphically updated" players at once, and you don't get any tomestones when you lose.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

we likely don't have the numbers to sustain variant modes of Frontlines

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If Daily Challenge: Frontline was kept as 72man and hard queuing into Frontline gave you 24man, there would be over 3 times the number of 24man runs going on than 72man ones. The only people who actually prefer 72man to 24man are leechers and the premades that eat them up.

Unpopular opinion: Bring back GC teams (please don't take me serious on this one. I already know why it needed to go xD).

Between then and now I don't think much has changed. Back then people did play for the win. However, when it came to those that only care about the reward they more than likely took the easy route and joined the most dominating team for 'easy' wins. Just a thought.

If I end up in a match that feels horribly skewed (it happens quickly, when it is), I just blame my bad luck and hope in a better match tomorrow. :)

It seems to me that the simple answer is just to remove normal XP from PvP and completely separate the game modes, you can't really complain about people joining PvP and half-assing it when the developers have enticed people in with a conflicting interest.

By tying such a huge chunk of our daily bonus XP to a PvP roulette activity, they aren't enticing PvP players in, they're enticing levelling players in, their goal was never to play PvP rank up and earn PvP rewards in the first place, it was always to level their characters.

The developers do it to pad the queue because realistically they know the game mode sucks and would have horrendous queue times otherwise.

Sure, they could offer XP rewards based on how well players did, but you aren't just penalizing lazy players with that move, you're also disincentivizing new players who need time to actually learn, and christ do they need time given how awful the new player pvp experience is.

Changing rewards based on winning is all well and good if PVP in this game actually had balance amd skill instead of DRK/DRG gang bang. CC is decent but frontlines is a mess and always will be.

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Originally Posted by Grumblecakes

Changing rewards based on winning is all well and good if PVP in this game actually had balance amd skill instead of DRK/DRG gang bang. CC is decent but frontlines is a mess and always will be.

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That may be true in practice, but I'd suggest that would reflect lack of effort on the part of the devs rather than something intrinsic to the concept.

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Originally Posted by Mistress_Irika

Unpopular opinion: Bring back GC teams (please don't take me serious on this one. I already know why it needed to go xD).

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Not unpopular. Bring it back.

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Originally Posted by Ramiren

The developers do it to pad the queue because realistically they know the game mode sucks and would have horrendous queue times otherwise.

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I know it won't solve the issue but I wonder if reducing the three factions to 8v8v8 versus 24v24v24 could help to make the whole scope of the mode more realistic so that it doesn't need (as much) padding.
I understand the appeal of the mode's "big battle" feeling but at the same time sometimes (esp. if there is no good lead) it feels really chaotic and random. It's basically just "focus the nearest player down" without much thinking/tactical calculating and coordination going on, when big clouds of players smash into each other. 8v8v8 does not have the same level of epicness but in addition to shorter/easier queues it might allow for coordination and team work to more strategic.

Either way, I just really miss some more content for smaller teams. "Push the crystal" is a nice game mode but you could do so much more. I'd love to play "seize the flag"/"win the check point" or even "protect the payload" with smaller groups and perhaps more than two factions.