Slaughter... What do you think?

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Originally Posted by AntiSocialPanda

Because Square has shown little concern for the cares of pvpers? I dont have a problem with Slaughter, I do have a problem with Square treating us like second class citizens next to pve.

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That's more a false expecation problem. Historically Final Fantasy has been a PvE centric game, even in it's past MMO iteration. I can't agree with the assumption that SE would or should deviate from that level of priority. There are other, better games for those who solely want to focus on PvP, and SE's recognized that from the start. PvP is second fiddle to PvE and always will be. I'm sorry that this upsets you.

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Originally Posted by AntiSocialPanda

Because Square has shown little concern for the cares of pvpers? I dont have a problem with Slaughter, I do have a problem with Square treating us like second class citizens next to pve.

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Okay guy, you directly quote him when he's complaining about Slaughter lol. Whatever though. That aside, don't make such silly overgeneralizing statements when most of the people here with any sort of distaste towards Slaughter are actually damn good players.

I assume the real reason you feel this way is because of your other thread? How they aren't handing you your gear?

EDIT: Hyrist nailed it. ^

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Originally Posted by Atreus

Okay guy, you directly quote him when he's complaining about Slaughter lol. Whatever though. That aside, don't make such silly overgeneralizing statements when most of the people here with any sort of distaste towards Slaughter are actually damn good players.

I assume the real reason you feel this way is because of your other thread? How they aren't handing you your gear?

EDIT: Hyrist nailed it. ^

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I think other people are bad because I dont have gear? How is anything you're saying making sense?

Wherever the premades go the wins roll in. See: Aether Gilgamesh Premade from Flames > Adder.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

That's more a false expecation problem. Historically Final Fantasy has been a PvE centric game, even in it's past MMO iteration. I can't agree with the assumption that SE would or should deviate from that level of priority. There are other, better games for those who solely want to focus on PvP, and SE's recognized that from the start. PvP is second fiddle to PvE and always will be. I'm sorry that this upsets you.

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True. But the first version tanked for a reason. I have no problem with a PvE centric game. If this game had no PvP I would still play but if Square is going to implement PvP they should at least show some level of interest in making it as fluid as possible, or else why even have it? To appease us? Putting in a half-hearted PvP system wont make anyone happy, it'll just make the few of us who do enjoy it frustrated.

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Originally Posted by AntiSocialPanda

I think other people are bad because I dont have gear? How is anything you're saying making sense?

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Are you acting derpy on purpose or...?

You think people who complain about Slaughter are bad. Then you agree with someone complaining about Slaughter, adding input of your own. You then act as if SE is "treating us as second class citizens." Sooo, why? Because SE is making you work for your gear? Y'know... like this whole thread here indicates?: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ons-%28Rank%29

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Originally Posted by Atreus

Are you acting derpy on purpose or...?

You think people who complain about Slaughter are bad. Then you agree with someone complaining about Slaughter, adding input of your own. You then act as if SE is "treating us as second class citizens." Sooo, why? Because SE is making you work for your gear? Y'know... like this whole thread here indicates?: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ons-%28Rank%29

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Can we just agree you misunderstood everything I said and move along?

Nope. You don't want to own up to anything you've said. But sure, move along.

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Originally Posted by ZanzhizExaverion

Wherever the premades go the wins roll in. See: Aether Gilgamesh Premade from Flames > Adder.

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http://40.media.tumblr.com/8de0206f2...uk9no1_500.jpg

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Originally Posted by faq

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20 wins from ADS yes, yes I do. Especially with 60+ minute queues nowadays.

I gave up on that other thread. It was a lost cause. Panda is killing these discussions right now :/. We need more legitimate critique of the system and positive feedback for potential changes.

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Originally Posted by ZanzhizExaverion

20 wins from ADS yes, yes I do. Especially with 60+ minute queues nowadays.

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Don't worry we gotchu Zanzhiz <3

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Originally Posted by Atreus

Nope. You don't want to own up to anything you've said. But sure, move along.

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Fine ... it's quite troubling dealing with the mentally impaired but I'll indulge you.
Do I think people that complain about Slaughter are bad? Yes. Maybe not all but enough.
And no I didn't agree with someone complaining about Slaughter, I agreed with someone complaining about Squares handling of PvP. Two entirely different things.
And yes, Square is treating us like second class citizens, not because we have to grind for gear, but because they refuse to fix or even address PvP problems. See Hyrist post above. This is a fact. My post has nothing to do with this discussion, but you brought it up because you're incapable of following a simple flow of logic or read a sentence correctly. Am I clear now?

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

I think people aren't grasping the full scope of 72 Slaughter, honestly.

The Alpha (a) bots on the 3 exterior Bases are worth 15 Points Each Plus a Team Wide damage buff. Technically, you could abandon mid entirely after the first add (y) and rack up 45 kills worth of points by taking all 3 of the side objectives. iirc the center one is worth about 30 plus a hp/mp buff, so you actually make out better overall prioritizing the side objectives and attempting to take 2.

The problem is co-coordinating your team to do this and the center winds up being a clustered mess of feeding kills to CC/Cometeror combos.

It's actually that lack of cohesive teamwork that makes 24 man slaughter feel so much better as it's there is a lot easier time working with 7 others, than 23 others to work together. Slaughter is objective based. It's just that players do not value the objectives as much as they should. It's a new mode though so it might catch after people become more accustomed to it.

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You're right. It's just the "objectives" themselves aren't valuable enough to put value on them, if that makes sense. Yes you can win matches with them, yes they can help, but so does dominion of the top and waiting for the other teams to come back up their pads and crushing them. Death = you lose the buffs they give you anyway. I've seen plenty of matches we won where we didn't get a single one of those alpha nodes. Should the alpha nodes be worth more? Maybe. Should those alpha nodes be up from the beginning of the match to get teams splitting initially? Absolutely.



EDIT:

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Originally Posted by AntiSocialPanda

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Go ahead and name-call. You're the one backpedaling out of your own bloody statements lol. Why use Hyrist as a resource? It's second-priority because it IS second priority, doesn't mean they aren't making adjustments based on feedback. Didn't you say we're moving along?

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Originally Posted by AntiSocialPanda

True. But the first version tanked for a reason. I have no problem with a PvE centric game. If this game had no PvP I would still play but if Square is going to implement PvP they should at least show some level of interest in making it as fluid as possible, or else why even have it? To appease us? Putting in a half-hearted PvP system wont make anyone happy, it'll just make the few of us who do enjoy it frustrated.

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I'm not entirely sure I understand the details of your criticisms at this point, however.

Slaughter holds depth to it. It needs refinement, yes. However that Refinement is reliant just as much on the aspect on how players are playing the mode as it is on balance adjustments to the content. In my experience thus far PvP's lack of depth has more to do with players herding into crowd mentalities rather than work on the strategies that are in place. Cometeor spam is useful because players all hurtle together - when the mechanics of Frontline benefit most when the players spread to other objectives and function as three separate units.

Can we blame SE for the poor utility use of its players and those who capitalize on it? Malestrom in the morning is so dynamically different than Malestrom in the evening because of how much easier it is to focus objectives and get the appropriate roles. I think both need to be addressed.

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Originally Posted by Atreus

You're right. It's just the "objectives" themselves aren't valuable enough to put value on them, if that makes sense. Yes you can win matches with them, yes they can help, but so does dominion of the top and waiting for the other teams to come back up their pads and crushing them. Death = you lose the buffs they give you anyway. I've seen plenty of matches we won where we didn't get a single one of those alpha nodes. Should the alpha nodes be worth more? Maybe. Should those alpha nodes be up from the beginning of the match to get teams splitting initially? Absolutely.

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30 points is nothing to snuff at. You'd have to suffer an entire wipe of the alliance and more to lose that amount in kills. But as far as camping someone else's incoming pads. That's just a matter of having your tanks lead up the jump and baiting out cometeors and sleeps. Also, having one party defending that section and engaging the enemy directly when it comes time for your team to return also prevents the camping. Target attack the Magic DPS with your tank and other DPS and have your healers spread apart from one another while the front group engages. To better facilitate this you can have your tank-heavy party stay on the center or swap a tank for more DPS on the exterior objections as it should take only one tank each to secure the objective.

What I see happening most is that only one party is running off to the objective and gaining 15 points, instead of contesting two.

There are other things I see that are poorly thought out on return. Remaining on mounts when you're using the jump pad. There are a lot of things that are preventable with just a little bit of forethought. But the combat is new and it's very loose. However, teamwork will win out if you're playing intelligently - which is my main point.

On the feedback: I can see this working, as well as simply having more alpha nodes spawn or perhaps the Beta ones spawn outside. Obviously the system can be improved upon. I just feel it may be prudent to wait a bit for the players to improve first so we can narrow out more concise adjustments. New mode-new meta. Let the meta sort out a bit.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

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You're pointing out tactics that help prevent this and that, and yeah in a perfect world everyone is on the perfect job for the task.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

What I see happening most is that only one party is running off to the objective and gaining 15 points, instead of contesting two.

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And on our end, our other two teams are just cleaning up the top and preparing to wipe the returning teams.

You can argue that multiple ways to win is a good thing, but there's still far too much emphasis on the middle, even with those side alpha nodes.

Its a sack of shit. 72 man is literally no skill, 100% caster LB. Cometeor brings all the wins the yard. Honestly when both GC team up to take down the other its kinda shit.

Okay I might be a bit annoyed at that point but to be honest 24man Slaughter is pretty good but 72man is just a cluster fuck.

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Originally Posted by ZanzhizExaverion

Especially with 60+ minute queues nowadays.

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Agreed. Queues are bad.

When you brake it down into brass taxes. This is a matter of opinions.

You're arguing a preference against emphasis into the center area - where that very well be the design intent. I'm pointing out tactics that display how deviating from the baseline mental stragity actually is helpful for success in spite of the center-focus.

What makes your tactic or my tactic work all boils down to execution. Even if you succeed in securing kills on the returning camp, you risk overextending yourself to the third team and getting wiped by them. My team's done this before and it wound up handing the win to the team who went and got the outside mobs.

Tactical arguments aside my debate is that the reason why the mode feels too one-dimensional is that people are just figuring out tactics to win as I said before, the Meta is fresh. I agree on the point that more emphasis on the exterior will help flush out more tactics than the ones that are available. What I am asking for is time to figure out where exactly those adjustments should go as we've just gotten this new thing.

For example, one way to add more value to the exterior mobs is to prevent that buff from wearing off on death. Therefore, even if you do get killed on the return, you still have to worry about the long term consequences of a team grabbing two stacks of the offensive buff. It all depends on how the gameplay settles, and it hasn't yet.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

Slaughter holds depth to it. It needs refinement, yes. However that Refinement is reliant just as much on the aspect on how players are playing the mode as it is on balance adjustments to the content. In my experience thus far PvP's lack of depth has more to do with players herding into crowd mentalities rather than work on the strategies that are in place. Cometeor spam is useful because players all hurtle together - when the mechanics of Frontline benefit most when the players spread to other objectives and function as three separate units.

Can we blame SE for the poor utility use of its players and those who capitalize on it? Malestrom in the morning is so dynamically different than Malestrom in the evening because of how much easier it is to focus objectives and get the appropriate roles. I think both need to be addressed.

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Right again. I'm not faulting SE for Slaughter though. It's like you said, it has a deeper level to it but most people are incapable of seeing it. My general problems with PvP is outside of Slaughter, the typical: casters being interrupted all the time, blah blah blah, etc. It's been said a dozen times. But I will say those LBs need a nerf lol.

Slaughter 24 man is ok, but the 72 is just a massive cluster fart.

You're using these tactics to argue that Slaughter has depth. I'm not going to keep posting rock, paper, scissors here. Just saying there isn't much to Slaughter.

I do recall seeing a couple of your threads recently that you were just getting into this, so I assume you weren't really playing PvP much or at all before Slaughter came out? Secure promoted varied party setups, assigned a specific opponent and objective to each team (barring any swaps or changes via communication), made the middle only "important" for a tiny timeframe, and still made the killing of opponent's extremely important. That was depth. Perfection? Hell no. I'm not attempting to attack credibility, but when you have something to compare Slaughter to:

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Originally Posted by Atreus

Sure it's fun, but it has about as much depth as a puddle.

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Standing by this.

Not even gonna bring up Adrenaline yet. That's another essay.

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Originally Posted by AntiSocialPanda

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If we're going to make cast interruption more difficult, then we're going to have to make casting weaker across the board. Range is the safety measure of all mages and one you remove the immediate threat of being interrupted once that distance is closed, you're going to invalidate a lot of Melee further than they already feel. In circumstances in which melee feel a if they can't over-extend, mages already stand to have a most significant advantage. The only times in which cast interruption becomes a major issue is when a Mage is caught alone with their cooldowns down - which shouldn't ever happen in a team-based game and, in my humble opinion, that's the fault of the players, not the system.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

When you brake it down into brass taxes.
into brass taxes.
brass taxes
BRASS TAXES

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WHY DO PEOPLE DO THIS

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Originally Posted by Atreus

You're using these tactics to argue that Slaughter has depth. I'm not going to keep posting rock, paper, scissors here. Just saying there isn't much to Slaughter.

I do recall seeing a couple of your threads recently that you were just getting into this, so I assume you weren't really playing PvP much or at all before Slaughter came out? Secure promoted varied party setups, assigned a specific opponent and objective to each team (barring any swaps or changes via communication), made the middle only "important" for a tiny timeframe, and still made the killing of opponent's extremely important. That was depth. Perfection? Hell no. I'm not attempting to attack credibility, but when you have something to compare Slaughter to:


Standing by this.

Not even gonna bring up Adrenaline yet. That's another essay.

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I did do a little bit of Frontlines on my Lancer and Scholar classes before the removal of Cleric Stance and the improvements to Lancer, so I do have points of comparison. But I never dove into PvP in earnest until recently.

That said, comparative logic, I feel, is a touch flawed in this circumstance. Capture and Hold will always be more strategic than deathmatch. You're arguing apples and oranges at that point. Within the context of it being deathmatch, there's arguably more strategy involved with this version than other MMO death-matches as the neutral objectives and buffs are contestable via combat.

As far as Adrenaline - it dosen't need as much change as people are saying. If anything, severely diminishing returns on stacking Cometeor. (7 second stacking resistance buff. First hit, full damage, second hit, 30% damage, third hit, 10% damage, fourth on - immunity.)

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Originally Posted by TheWaywardWind

WHY DO PEOPLE DO THIS

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Because the responding rage is eternally entertaining. (Tis a trait of the character to mess up the saying and spelling of things. You're looking for 'Break it down to Brass Tacks.' Next time I'll put an (sic) by it.)

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

The only times in which cast interruption becomes a major issue is when a Mage is caught alone with their cooldowns down - which shouldn't ever happen in a team-based game and, in my humble opinion, that's the fault of the players, not the system.

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So anytime a caster is caught alone against a melee it should be a free kill? No bias there.

BTW, in order for cast interruptions to become "more" difficult they have to be difficult to begin with. You auto-attacking does not qualify.

I think Slaughter as a game type has some potential.

My core concern for the game mode revolves around the Adrenaline System and how it interacts with Battle High and Battle Fever. Adrenaline should not be generated from damage (and kills) done by Limit Breaks as it makes it too easy to overwhelm your opponents with back-to-back Cometeor (72-man) or Raw Destruction (24-man). A coordinated group should be able to push an advantage with these abilities but they should not be able to snowball the game into a one-sided slaughter within a 30-second time frame.

Overall, I feel that the 24-man Slaughter plays out pretty well. I think the that 72-man version could use a bit of a tweak in terms of objectives as there is very little incentive to leave the middle platform. It feels like the intention is that once the first node (+Haste) dies, the teams are supposed to split up to take out the outer objectives (+Damage). The problem is that the second center node (+HP) spawns shortly after, rewarding just as many points as an outer node and giving a large HP boost to counter-act enemy Limit Breaks. As long as you secure this node you are not really disadvantaged in terms of points even if another Grand Company is able to secure two of the outer nodes. In fact, you will largely find yourself at an overwhelming advantage due to the stray kills you are likely to pick up while sitting in the middle, especially if you manage to stack Battle High or Battle Fever on a few members.

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Originally Posted by Red_Wolf

So anytime a caster is caught alone against a melee it should be a free kill? No bias there.

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If it's a free kill the caster is doing something wrong. Every one has a bind and/or a sleep available to them, most of them instant or have a cooldown to become instant, some of them are on insane duration. An isolated melee vs an Isolated caster should mean either a free kill for the Caster's team due to chain CC or a free escape on behalf of the caster.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

If it's a free kill the caster is doing something wrong. Every one has a bind and a sleep available to them, most of them instant or have a cooldown to become instant, some of them are on insane duration.

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Or... not. Are you not going to use Purify? If so thanks I guess. I get to run away instead of trying to kill you. Wow, I showed you!

Why do I have to run away as a caster? That is your bias. Melee already have enough advantages. You can attack on the move. You can interrupt while simply using your best burst DPS rotation. A skilled caster should be able to kite and kill you.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

Because the responding rage is eternally entertaining. (Tis a trait of the character to mess up the saying and spelling of things. You're looking for 'Break it down to Brass Tacks.' Next time I'll put an (sic) by it.)

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Intentional or not, you confuse rage with disappointment, which only makes me even more disappointed.

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Originally Posted by Red_Wolf

Or... not. Are you not going to use Purify? If so thanks I guess. I get to run away instead of trying to kill you. Wow, I showed you!

Why do I have to run away as a caster? That is your bias. Melee already have enough advantages. You can attack on the move. You can interrupt while simply using your best burst DPS rotation. A skilled caster should be able to kite and kill you.

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I'm not going to get into a one on one skill opinion debate on you on a team game.

It is a team game, not much difference than a Moba, and you're arguing that a support should be able to kill the AD carry flat out. No, just no. Play to the game's mechanics or don't play.

And skilled Caster class (read Summoner or Black Mage), in fact, can kill a Melee one on one. It depends who gets the drop on who first. (obviously it's a lot more complicated than that but you do Catster DPS a discredit to think it's an automatic free kill melee.)

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Originally Posted by TheWaywardWind

Intentional or not, you confuse rage with disappointment, which only makes me even more disappointed.

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All caps does not infer disappointment, but rage. The disappointment, sir, is mine.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

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Team deathmatch is forward and to the point, yes, but depth aside, there still isn't a whole lot of reason to bring certain jobs in 72-man.

Adrenaline's SE's way of speeding the game up. Alright, that's great. Nothing really needs a nerf and everyone has access to their own adrenaline, except they aren't made equal, and here's why:

Aegis Boon (tank): your party only, not alliance
Healer adrenaline: your party only, not alliance
Cometeor: doesn't care what party you're in

Does it seem like something's a bit favored there? You can read the signs, make the plays, and pop Testudo and Aegis Boon at the perfect time, but your pro play only saves 8. The other 16 are on their own. That's just one reason 24-man Slaughter plays out better. I don't particularly like Adrenaline and think party-based LB was better, but it does have potential to be more balanced.

Synnovus explained it very well, especially about the lack of incentive to leave the middle.

I can respect the perspective (although I don't agree with all of Synnovus's points) and I've already agreed that more incentive can be made. But the commentary about defensive and offensive cooldowns doesn't really make sense - as it takes multiple Cometeors to outright kill a player - As opposed to Raw Destruction which can outright kill a non-vit geared or non-buffed squishy.

And you can't use those skills to prevent Raw Destruction on an alliance member either (Stun works equally on both types.)

Again, I did mention that I was more of a problem with people stacking, Cometeor than it is the skill itself. Attacking Cometeor on the basis of the fact that it's an AoE skill is attacking AoE Damage vs AoE healing in its entirety. You can make the exact same argument for Flare, Fire II, Sleep, etc. The problem only becomes profound once you start talking that second and third Cometeor coming down without any ability to evade it due to being CCed for the first. I think the ease of that discouraged class diversity.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

sofullofsnip

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I mean... you don't have to agree with him, but I'm pretty sure he is part of a premade that's run Slaughter more frequently and successfully than anyone lol. He'd know more than any of us where the incentive is and what works.

What exactly doesn't make sense? It taking more than one to kill someone isn't the point. CC'ing a crowd (which there are many of) and using them all isn't exactly rocket science. Just saying Cometeors don't care what party the targets are in, so why does Aegis Boon have to?

Warrior Lb should be AoE Holmgang/invincibility for 10 seconds ... because it would be insanely fun and epic.

Paladin LB Should Be AoE Knock Back that has the same area range as caster LB to counter any melees trying to LB your team or to really mess with the other team.

Healer LB should be invincibility for 5 seconds to all allies to counter casters LB.

Bard LB should be HUGE frontal cone AoE that does 1/3 damage to all enemies and knocks them back.

Caster LBs can stay the same.

Melee LBs should instantly one shot if not interupted.

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Originally Posted by Exsequens

Okay I might be a bit annoyed at that point but to be honest 24man Slaughter is pretty good but 72man is just a cluster fuck.

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Slaughter should only have 48 and 24 man modes, 72 just like you said ends in massive zerg/lagfest that comes close to S rank hunts. So 72/48 for secure and 48/24 for slaughter would be a good start imo.

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Originally Posted by Synestra

Slaughter should only have 48 and 24 man modes, 72 just like you said ends in massive zerg/lagfest that comes close to S rank hunts. So 72/48 for secure and 48/24 for slaughter would be a good start imo.

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thisthisthis

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

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As Atreus said, I run a Gilgamesh Frontlines premade that has been queuing exclusively Slaughter these past two weeks (though there are a few other teams aside from my own) and these are just the impressions we got playing the game.

Before I launch into my analysis of the current Slaughter dynamic I want to preface this with what I said earlier: the current interaction between Adrenaline and Battle High / Battle Fever is imbalanced. I think removing the Adrenaline generation from Limit Breaks would go a long way towards reducing the amount of meteor showers currently seen in Slaughter. I also believe that the objective timing and/or buffs should be tweaked in some fashion (current opinion as to exactly what is still pending). Having said that...

Cometeor and Raw Destruction really aren't that bad to deal with. If you spend 12 points into bonus Vitality (PvP Traits), equip a tanking accessory (more than one if you're feeling frisky), and use some 2-star food you can easily survive 2 Cometeors or a single Raw Destruction. A lot of the active PvPers on the Aether data center have caught onto this and it's rare for 2 coordinated Cometeors to wipe out a party. This brings the total to 3 Cometeors in order to successfully guarantee a kill on your targets. That is quite a lot of resources to dedicate to a single instance of damage. Currently there is zero repercussions to dropping this combo on 2 players are you're likely to get the majority of your Adrenaline bar back.

In the hypothetical situation where you don't get it back, a 3-Cometeor trade for 2 people starts to look a bit wasteful. Teams that spread apart pose a lot of difficult decision making because there are no obvious targets to pick. It makes landing multi-target crowd control more difficult and has less returns if it does succeed. An errant tank with a stun-happy trigger finger, a keen eyed melee with a well timed Shoulder Tackle / Overwhelm / Spineshatter Dive, a Bard with a well placed Blast Shot, or even a well timed counter-sleep from a BLM goes a long way to preventing a team wipe. You only have to interrupt 1 of 3 Cometeors to be successful. All of this is before you start to consider additional shielding, AoE heals, or defensive Limit Breaks from tanks and healers.

As you sort of touched on, defensive Limit Breaks brings me back to my initial problem with Alliances in general: you are not playing as a single 24-man team but rather 3 individual 8-man teams, this is true for both PvE and PvP. So for tweaking purposes it is easier to approach the 72-man version as either 3 sets of 8v8v8 or 2 sets of 12v12v12, the latter of which I think should be disregarded because of how sloppy Alliance interaction is. If you were to blanket Alliance-wide effects through the Limit Breaks you would probably be looking at a full system redesign.

In the end, I attribute a lot of the complaints about these abilities to be a result of a developing meta game. People are new to the game mode and they don't know what to look for. In times of panic the default reaction is to huddle together for safety making for crippling Cometeor play. Yes, this is Team Deathmatch but that does not mean your should be tunnel visioning on a single target because you want that kill. I spend a lot of my time calling and marking targets, setting up combos, or throwing out defensive crowd control when a dangerous situation arises.

Having said that, this all comes from the perspective of a person who is leading a group. I'll be the first to admit I don't know how solo queue games play out as I've never entered Slaughter with less than 2 other teammates and we usually have a very large impact on the games when we are present. If you have any additional insight, especially from a solo queue perspective, I'd love to hear it as it's not something I'm very familiar with. I mean, as an idea I don't think I've ever made a trek down to the Manor/Market/Temple to see the +Damage nodes more than once or twice.

Can't help with the pug perspective, but I can give one from the perspective of my team's tank. It's not the worst thing trying to gauge roughly when the Cometeors are about to start. With a little bit of timing and sometimes luck, you can pop off Aegis Boon and/or Testudo in time for damage control. The disappointing part is that awareness and response won't save the rest of the alliance as I touched on earlier. As you said, alliances are together yet separate. We can't replenish our adrenaline nearly as fast as casters can either.

We have gone after the Market and Sun Temple nodes a few times. It's... a tough call on whether they are worth it, but we're believing that they are most worthy if the whole alliance commits to it, including B team. Leaving B team at the top alone is just kill-feeding, and they just end up losing the buffs we got for them. So yeah... seems like either you all go for them or you don't.

EDIT: I do remember a match we were in with your guys. We went to Temple, cleared it out, and noticed you guys and party B were cleaning up everyone at the top. I guess that right there is testament to how worthwhile the side ones really are.

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Originally Posted by Synnovus

In the end, I attribute a lot of the complaints about these abilities to be a result of a developing meta game. People are new to the game mode and they don't know what to look for. In times of panic the default reaction is to huddle together for safety making for crippling Cometeor play. Yes, this is Team Deathmatch but that does not mean your should be tunnel visioning on a single target because you want that kill. I spend a lot of my time calling and marking targets, setting up combos, or throwing out defensive crowd control when a dangerous situation arises.

Having said that, this all comes from the perspective of a person who is leading a group. I'll be the first to admit I don't know how solo queue games play out as I've never entered Slaughter with less than 2 other teammates and we usually have a very large impact on the games when we are present. If you have any additional insight, especially from a solo queue perspective, I'd love to hear it as it's not something I'm very familiar with. I mean, as an idea I don't think I've ever made a trek down to the Manor/Market/Temple to see the +Damage nodes more than once or twice.

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Actually you and I are in complete agreement, especially in the bolded part. Cometeor only becomes a problem when it is stacked, as seperate entities ,theyre managable.

Solo queue has its benefits and its problems right now. In terms of queue times, those who are complaining about long queues, I can't duplicate it. A solo queue time for me hasn't exceeded 35 minutes as a solo tank in Frontlines. Most often much shorter than that.

More than anything, what is lax in solo-que is co-ordination. This may simply be a Maelstrom trait, but even bringing one friend from my FC into PvP I noticed a significant difference in performance of my full party. Helps that I also raid with this individual.Willing healers for Maelstrom is a premium and we often suffer third place finished due to not having any healer in one of our parties.

Limit Break wise, I was unaware that using LB contributed to Aderenline generation, then again I don't play a DPS of any sort so I wouldn't notice. If this is true, the removal of it should greatly balance its use across the board.

On objectives, each of the Alphas and I believe the Beta in the center are all worth 15 points a piece, and can sway that phase of the fight. It can easily sway back once the Interceptor comes out, but the team that capture the most of these objectives clinches the game. In games in which these objectives, including the side nodes are successfully controlled (with at least one side node captured) clinch the game before the timer expires. Games in which these nodes are more distributed wind up exhausting the timer or being close.

So it's not so much the buff but the point value that matters in these side nodes. However, to clinch two of them, you'd need 16 people to successfully co-ordinate and control a neutral objective on two fronts - while at the same time not sacrificing your presence in the middle. That requires thee at least semi-organized teams - not something you're going to accomplish in such a wide open mode. In trade, an organized group holding middle is going to be more sucessful over all because the teamwork is more succinct. Middle holds more point value overall than the sides, and if you can keep the other two teams on tilt, then you can mitigate the effect of the sides.

What would counter this and provide better incentives to divide the forces into their intended 3 8 man teams would be to have a second wave of side objectives of the same point value a bit before Interceptor spawns.

The reason for this is the Interceptor is powerful, and teams that are left isolated on the center trying to take it down will be weaker compared to the teams who leave to take the sides. What happens is the side fights, depending on how successful they are will overflow into the center fight. Fresh troops in large groups will pour into a weary battlefield and try to capitalize on the situation. Likewise, the team with more buffs or more points out of the two situation have already mitigated the effects of the additional points this center objective provides.

But that's just one idea. Right now I'm considering trying to start a Maelstrom LS on Balmung in an effort to organize their grouping effort together. However, from the sound of things it seems like premades are suffering from a longer queue time.