Patch 7.1 Notes: PvP

So they not only kept salted earth, but also gave a ranged version to sages? That's an interesting double take for FL players for sure...

What are they smoking? 16s recast and instant bind?

Overwatch 2 <--

frontline dark knight haters when the bard duo pops lb:

Still disappointed with them leaving samurai LB as it. Interaction is going to continue to be horrible. Congrats on teaching the community on how to avoid Chiten. Now do the same with avoiding other defensive abilities with some of the other classes. Smh....hopefully that bug between the LB and guard is fixed.

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Originally Posted by Mistress_Irika

Still disappointed with them leaving samurai LB as it. Interaction is going to continue to be horrible. Congrats on teaching the community on how to avoid Chiten. Now do the same with avoiding other defensive abilities with some of the other classes. Smh....hopefully that bug between the LB and guard is fixed.

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What bug would this be?

I am incredibly disappointed with the changes to RDM, GNB, and AST specifically. Taking away the cool job fantasy they had is sad. I loved Draw/Junction, Cards, and Red/White shift.

Seems like people are doing more damage for less result (K/A) and the matches are taking longer. Not minding the change though.

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Originally Posted by Naizakane

frontline dark knight haters when the bard duo pops lb:

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Don't worry their guard removal DNC can do it for them when partnered too.

I was hoping getting bounced around like the ball in a pinball machine was a symptom of mid on Onsal, but it seems global in any fight. With Purify down to 3s I'm not sure pre-Purifying is viable anymore. And with skills that need to be chained, it's frustrating to get half way through your burst only to be incapacitated.

Probably just a skill issue on my part though.

How are we feeling about the Red Sands change in CC?

Played a couple of games and feel like there's just too many avenues too close to checkpoints now. You have about 4 different flanks to watch in your own spawn checkpoint and the pre-made callouts aren't really fit-for-purpose in communicating where they're coming from. You also have 2-3 escape options in the spawn checkpoints with an express path that forks into two more express paths, allowing players to back out, hide and get back in where the defensive team can't easily counter.

Maybe it's just because it's all very new but I'm not having fun at all with new Red Sands. The new Cloud Nine is great imo.

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Originally Posted by Guesswhat

https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/22666344.jpg

I mean... it's true.

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Crowd controlled is buffed.
Purify is nerfed.
Animation lock? Buffed!

So, for FL, it's basically CC on top of CC on top of CC... Great...

Targeting... I dunno, something is off now, mebbeh to used to the previous one.

So uhh, Hyosho Ranryu has a noticeable hit delay now...in PvE? Seems like some unintended crossfire.

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Originally Posted by Valence

So they not only kept salted earth, but also gave a ranged version to sages? That's an interesting double take for FL players for sure...

What are they smoking? 16s recast and instant bind?

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The sage version is closer to that of the clap, it's nowhere near the same as drk thankfully. But even if it were, you can much more easily punish a sage diving in.

My meteodrive combo...
My stun into shoving the opponent towards my team...
My excuse to look at six-sided star's animation every 15 secs during gameplay...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GSFIrEdX...jpg&name=small

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Originally Posted by Guesswhat

Crowd controlled is buffed.
Purify is nerfed.
Animation lock? Buffed!

So, for FL, it's basically CC on top of CC on top of CC... Great...

Targeting... I dunno, something is off now, mebbeh to used to the previous one.

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Perhaps the "big changes" planned for 7.2 will deal with this so we spend less time getting yeeted around or completely immobilized.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Perhaps the "big changes" planned for 7.2 will deal with this so we spend less time getting yeeted around or completely immobilized.

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Miracles can happen :)

Also, as if it hasn't been mentioned enough, the lackluster netcode/server ticks makes the animation locks even worse. You basically have to plan attacks/defece everywhere from 0.1–1.5 seconds. And it's not consistent. So SE doubling down on even more anim locks makes me dizzy smh.

But, ye, why stay negative? Let's hope 7.2 gets better :) (not sarcastic, I swear xD)

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Originally Posted by Guesswhat

Miracles can happen :)

Also, as if it hasn't been mentioned enough, the lackluster netcode/server ticks makes the animation locks even worse. You basically have to plan attacks/defece everywhere from 0.1–1.5 seconds. And it's not consistent. So SE doubling down on even more anim locks makes me dizzy smh.

But, ye, why stay negative? Let's hope 7.2 gets better :) (not sarcastic, I swear xD)

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Yeah I think this is what I was trying to describe when I called the response "mushy." Sure we'll get used to it and find workarounds as we did before. But WAR's LB, which requires being in the thick of things, basically roots you to the spot doing nothing right as you go to non-Guard phase as stuns rain down on you. Maybe I can still pre-Purify but I was having trouble making it work.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Yeah I think this is what I was trying to describe when I called the response "mushy." Sure we'll get used to it and find workarounds as we did before. But WAR's LB, which requires being in the thick of things, basically roots you to the spot doing nothing right as you go to non-Guard phase as stuns rain down on you. Maybe I can still pre-Purify but I was having trouble making it work.

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So like astro LB. I hate astro LB in frontlines, it screams come kill me.

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Originally Posted by SomeGuy22

My meteodrive combo...
My stun into shoving the opponent towards my team...
My excuse to look at six-sided star's animation every 15 secs during gameplay...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GSFIrEdX...jpg&name=small

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Yup, feels terrible to be honest, not mentioning how phantom rush damage appears ages after the skill animation concludes, much like so many spells now.... The days of fun yoinking are over it seems. I expected hit detection to feel more responsive too, not more unresponsive...

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Originally Posted by Teno

Yup, feels terrible to be honest, not mentioning how phantom rush damage appears ages after the skill animation concludes, much like so many spells now.... The days of fun yoinking are over it seems. I expected hit detection to feel more responsive too, not more unresponsive...

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Exactly this. It's really frustrating.

I am honestly curious if the PvP team even plays pvp. It is fascinating that they consistently get this stuff incorrect or done in the worst manner possible. What is the recruitment criteria? "Know what PvP means and you can be hired."
Just once I'd like to see a video of the team giving their thought process on changes they are doing. I am legit curious where their mind is at when making changes. Not even just for frontline since it's whatever it'll always be hard to balance but for CC mainly. I get pvp is an afterthought but are people in the studio just drawing straws and whoever gets the short straw has to balance pvp for the xpac?

Most importantly... Hire me SE... if I screwed up this much at my job I'd be fired... I'd love a job like this where I can mess up for years on end and still know my job is secured!

Also love how the "improved" hit detection somehow made the game feel more unresponsive.

I'm glad others are talking about the responsiveness and targeting because I was wondering if I'm just imagining things.
I've had several instances of skills just not going off (even when they were clearly not on CD) and at least on controller I feel like auto targeting is worse than before?
This is just a feeling (I have no "hard data") but "target in the direction the character is facing" doesn't work reliably anymore I think?

Not sure how to feel about the HP buffs (from GNB getting only 1500 to SMN getting 7500) or how everyone has to travel to a certain DC for ranked CC which was already struggling from low activity. And Borderland Ruins/Astragalos still haven't been readded or replaced. They even acknowledge Rival Wings exists but seem content with it having only one map for 7 years and counting.

It's surprising the CC overtime limit went all the way to 25 minutes. Even though the vast majority of matches go to overtime (which is another grievance) virtually none of them take more than another 5 minutes.

It feels like a lot of skill expression was removed for many jobs, with dumbing down akin to pve, and with their hit detection being so sluggish now. You hit a stun only for it to go off like what feels a second later, it's very off putting.

Also no more RDM shift, no more GNB junction, no more BLM stun/dot fiesta, no MNK stun into knockback and such. More forgiving adjustments like SGE's phlegma follow-up or RDM's sequence as a whole.

Not all good or bad but some of it has lost its spice at first glance and after a few hours of trying it out.

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Originally Posted by Aexnidaral

I am incredibly disappointed with the changes to RDM, GNB, and AST specifically. Taking away the cool job fantasy they had is sad. I loved Draw/Junction, Cards, and Red/White shift.

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All the job flavor is gone. Abandon all hope for job identity in 8.x

Casual CC is still also 100% unplayable (thanks to wintraders) so that's all for CC indefinitely. No way anyone soloing can be arsed to sit through 15 minutes of an inevitable loss.

new BLM :(

The hit detection is much worse now than before because there's always a 1 second delay on every single hit.

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Originally Posted by OnyxBlackheart

I am honestly curious if the PvP team even plays pvp. It is fascinating that they consistently get this stuff incorrect or done in the worst manner possible.

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I'm going to say they do play PvP, because imagining the hit detection change was made without a detailed comparison of before and after via playtesting is too mind-bending to contemplate.

So how could they get this so wrong? Either they're completely incompetent, or this feels different when played with zero ping maybe?

Like others have said, despite the failure to address DRK, I was really excited to see how the changes had shaken things up. There are some kits that I find more interesting including my WAR main.

But after a few hours I was honestly distraught. There's an overall lack of responsiveness, along with the feeling that every time you press a button (skill or targeting), there's a little sadistic cyber-gnome rolling dice to modify the outcome.

Is Crystalline Conflict this bad, or does the smaller team size ameliorate the problem? Because I don't think I can suffer this iteration of FL.

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Originally Posted by Loggos

I'm glad others are talking about the responsiveness and targeting because I was wondering if I'm just imagining things.
I've had several instances of skills just not going off (even when they were clearly not on CD) and at least on controller I feel like auto targeting is worse than before?
This is just a feeling (I have no "hard data") but "target in the direction the character is facing" doesn't work reliably anymore I think?

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I'm not sure if auto-targeting is worse, since it was always borderline unusable. But something about targeting after the update is completely borked.

I keybind to target nearest and have a bunch of targeting macros. Today, target nearest was so unpredictable that, along with all the other issues, I was firmly in DGAF mode. So I spent part of one match simply trying to make target nearest work consistently. This included running next to enemies and hitting target nearest, and half the time it very obviously didn't.

I imagine this may again boil down to the hit detection change. Essentially where you see an enemy and where the server claims that enemy is when targeting is resolved are two very different things.

Ironically, the main job that is mostly immune to such targeting problems is DRK lol. Awesome.

I was expecting them to make guard and purify more responsive, not make everything else slower.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Is Crystalline Conflict this bad, or does the smaller team size ameliorate the problem? Because I don't think I can suffer this iteration of FL.

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It is horrible :/ you have skills coming out extremely delayed because the dmg/heals/effects don't come through til the end of the animation(s). I haven't even done FL yet but I'd imagine with such a smaller group and coordination needing to be on point it is much more noticeable in CC how bad it is. For example I can't even use MNK burst because the dmg of phantom rush comes out at the end of the long ass animation. They made everything only function at the end of the animation. Need a heal that's on a skill from Harvest moon on RPR? Wait til the skill reaches the target, animation to finish then your heal comes through. Same for chaotic cyclone and impalement, once I'm done being a ballerina then I get my heal. Purify doesn't even remove the cc until the animation is done. Coupled with already bad server ticks it just feels horrible to play.

Maybe after getting used to it, it'll be meh at best, but I doubt even getting used to it will make it feel less clunky.

EDIT: Playing melee feels horrible because of the hit detection, you can legit start your animation in one spot and drag it with you, for example I used impalement out of range of my target, then walked onto them and because the hit detection isn't til the end, it considered me hitting them. Playing ranged feels a bit more fine, if not a bit better imo.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

snip

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Thank you for your feedback! That puts a lot of things into perspective...

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Essentially where you see an enemy and where the server claims that enemy is when targeting is resolved are two very different things.

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This right here makes so much sense, I hadn't even considered it.

Regarding CC, yeah I'd say it's the same (I've only played CC yesterday, no FL, so I can't compare but my CC experience was rather miserable).

As for class reworks, I agree with those who criticise the loss of flavor.
I can kind of see what they did with BLM because ironically it's now closer to the fire(damage)/ice(utility) dichotomy but tbh in terms of fun I prefer the old version.
Superflare bind/freeze gameplay was just good.

Disappointed in RDM and GNB. Not much to add to that. :/
If they insist on ignoring guard with the new melee combo then they could have replaced the dot with the guard-breaking effect in black shift.

AST has me torn. I'm glad we finally got a movement tool, which AST direly needed and at least there is still a semblance of RNG with the cards but it definitely lost part of its identity for the sake of simplicity. Once again.
Double gravity is kind of hmm now. Extending heavy and removing bind for a stun that you can only use when you LB doesn't feel good as a tradeoff. (I get the stun is useful in the context of the LB and makes the latter a bit more reliable. But still. I don't know. Maybe I'm just salty right now.)

Personally I also don't really like how PLD plays now.
It may very well be because I'm not particularly good at this class and better players might appreciate the new damage and debuff but I miss the mobility of the two dash charges.

In the past PLD kind of needed them because of sacred claim. Ppl would run away and you'd lose part of your healing but having a second dash charge was a good way to stop them from escaping.
The new model with Holy Spirit's and Confiteor's big burst heals probably makes up for it (all in all it might even be better in terms of health regeneration?) but they also change the playstyle.
I know the other tanks only have one dash charge too (though DRK has a dash reset condition iirc) but I felt like this was a nice perk/tradeoff of PLD as a class: making sustainability a bit more "challenging" but giving you more mobility (which can also translate into utility beyond just self-healing).
So whereas DRK and War could pull ppl back in, PLD was better at chasing and was kind of "the fast" tank.
I guess that's gone now.

Perhaps if I get used to the new playstyle I'll end up liking it but right now it feels a bit meh.

I kinda predicted it. The only reason they changed hit resolution is because of people complaining about it while not understanding what a snapshot is and how it works (which is the same in pve btw), and thinking guard doesn't work as a result when it actually does. I need to play more pvp to get a better feel for it but it looks terrible at first glance. Haven't had the time to try out Spite either, but if the LB doesn't snapshot at activation like it used to, then rip MCH, that's all I'm gonna say.

Ok played some more and it's just the combination of bad changes adding up for me:


1. Input ignored - the amount of times I though "I swear I pressed this button" only for nothing to happen is just too high at this point. It's particularly depressing when it comes to defensive skills. Holy Sheltron? I swear I pressed that one. Tempera Coat? Didn't I press-...Etc.
Worst, since it worked before it's so ingrained into my muscle memory that I sometimes don't notice right away. Because in the past I didn't need to check. Now I get stun-locked into oblivion only for me to realise that Purify didn't activate. :)

2. Delay - Everything's been said on that one. It's just sad.

3. Targeting - not sure if it has become worse (though Mawlzy's explanation sounds very plausible) but auto-target sometimes even selects someone behind a wall much further away from me while ignoring the person standing closer and in my line of sight.

Now the next one is a skill issue I guess, but personally I'm just not enjoying the new meta. I know change is change but this one's not for me.

4. Massive shift in "ranged - melee" balance:
Since damage has increased and more classes got stun/silence/draw ins/screw guard (I think? - though BLM and MNK lost theirs)* while Purify has been decreased to 3 seconds playing melee feels a lot more punishing now.
It doesn't really make much sense to add more means to disable other players while decreasing their protective abilities to meaningfully play around that.
Now getting chain-stunned happens even more often and there's just nothing you can do. You can't even guard properly because now many classes can lower or ignore your guard.
Healing has increased a bit but I think it's vastly outpaced by the increase in damage (if you have one extra 8k heal but everyone else gets one extra 8k damage skill, well...)
Healers got more AoE and single-target healing but you don't always have a healer on your team while you'll always have increased damage because everyone's damage has gone up.

Overall playing ranged seems considerably more rewarding and just safer/more comfortable to me? The "ranged but more fragile" trade-off doesn't hit as hard anymore I think.

* I haven't counted the number of disabling skills. Too lazy rn. But PCT alone got two and Sage got two (draw-in + bind) as well.

5. Bonus (more of a question): I've noticed a (stark) mismatch between KO displays during the game and kill numbers in the final table. Though tbf I don't know if it was like that pre-patch or if I'm just paying more attention now.
I recall several matches today and yesterday where I've been shown as the one KO-ing someone 4-5 times over the course of a match but the post-match kill count says 1-2 kills (and seems to move the others into the Assist column).
That's not game-breaking obviously. But I think it's just a weird discrepancy. I wonder if this could also be caused by some latency/hit detection issues. Perhaps K.Os in the match are processed/counted differently than the actual kill count for the table?

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Originally Posted by Valence

Haven't had the time to try out Spite either, but if the LB doesn't snapshot at activation like it used to, then rip MCH, that's all I'm gonna say.

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It doesn't snapshot. You better be sure your target's guard is on CD or you just shot your bullet straight into the trash

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Originally Posted by Loggos

5. Bonus (more of a question): I've noticed a (stark) mismatch between KO displays during the game and kill numbers in the final table. Though tbf I don't know if it was like that pre-patch or if I'm just paying more attention now.
I recall several matches today and yesterday where I've been shown as the one KO-ing someone 4-5 times over the course of a match but the post-match kill count says 1-2 kills (and seems to move the others into the Assist column).
That's not game-breaking obviously. But I think it's just a weird discrepancy. I wonder if this could also be caused by some latency/hit detection issues. Perhaps K.Os in the match are processed/counted differently than the actual kill count for the table?

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Who gets credited with the KO has always appeared somewhat random, likely because of snapshotting. I haven't noticed the Ks that pop up in game differing from the end-of-game table, but I'll look out for that when I'm running my roulettes. I'd put more research into it, but that would involve playing multiple matches.

I have had far more cases of bursting into someone, them dying, and not getting credit even for an assist. I guess they were dead already. Or I was attacking someone else? Who tf knows at this point, it's a clownfest.

FL feels incredibly floaty and disconnected, even more so now, as if I had constant high ping. It's accentuated in this mode because of the amount of spells being thrown around, and seeing them affect their target in a very delayed fashion is weird and not engaging.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Who gets credited with the KO has always appeared somewhat random, likely because of snapshotting. I haven't noticed the Ks that pop up in game differing from the end-of-game table, but I'll look out for that when I'm running my roulettes. I'd put more research into it, but that would involve playing multiple matches.

I have had far more cases of bursting into someone, them dying, and not getting credit even for an assist. I guess they were dead already. Or I was attacking someone else? Who tf knows at this point, it's a clownfest.

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Oh well, at least they died. My typical experience is someone getting bursted down to 20% and they waltz away while everyone switches targets or refuses to focus fire at all.

Took me a while to notice the KO popups were killstreaks, not total KOs, but now they've changed it to the latter anyway.

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Originally Posted by Teno

FL feels incredibly floaty and disconnected, even more so now, as if I had constant high ping. It's accentuated in this mode because of the amount of spells being thrown around, and seeing them affect their target in a very delayed fashion is weird and not engaging.

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Great way of expressing it. The too-many-gummies mode.

It's doubly frustrating because some of the changes sort of make sense. Like it was always a little weird to Primal Rend someone, see the stun stars go off above their head, and do damage before the animation had you landing on them. So I get why that sort of thing was changed.

The problem is the implementation. Now when you initiate the attack, it seems multiple unpredictable outcomes are possible. The target is typically in motion. So not only does the whole process start with the attacker standing stationary like a lemon, the attack resolution can involve landing where someone no longer is (which makes the new Rend follow-up awkward), occasionally getting yeeted by their motion, or getting stunned/bound before the attack goes off at all.

WAR's burst actually feels quite reasonable when you're licking ice though. Maybe that's how they tested it.