Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nubrication

Sounds more like you don't play FL. BH should not be adjusted at all, it rewards people who actually PvP in a PvP map (who knew?!). If you really hate BH that much, get better and learn to prioritize killing people with BH5 > 4 > 3 > 2. If they have premades? Play a ranged job til you get better at noticing their DRKs/RPRs/DRGs/DNCs. Once you're more aware of what's going on in that cluster shizzle called FL, then you can move on to tank or maybe even melee/dnc.

---

While it can reward all people, it specifically rewards people better for those who participate in deathballing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nubrication

I think it IS balanced

---

I guess agree to disagree then. It seems like we've both had vastly different experiences with FL. I'm not overestimating the power of Recuperate because I've seen people barely get out with no MP, all defensives down and less than 5000 HP. If Recuperate wasn't buffed by their BH, they'd be dead. I think those people who overstay do deserve to be a kill, FL should be about ebb and flow, 22500 heal from Recuperate does allow you to stay out that little bit longer, which could net you a kill that you otherwise would have backed off from and couldn't get. 4x7500 is 30000, that's quite a hefty amount of extra HP if you use Recuperate well and get as much effect out of it as possible.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nubrication

Can't relate, I got BF like 95% of my games, with or without the premades I used to run with.

---

I also could get BF in most games where I played a DPS, but I mostly played healers back then, which means very little chance to stack BH.

What is an undeniable fact though, is that it was harder than it is now. The patch they changed BH stacking to include assists, WHMs were getting BH5 by spamming Medica II. I think I'd rather see it reverted to kills only, honestly.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aravell

I also could get BF in most games where I played a DPS, but I mostly played healers back then, which means very little chance to stack BH.

What is an undeniable fact though, is that it was harder than it is now. The patch they changed BH stacking to include assists, WHMs were getting BH5 by spamming Medica II. I think I'd rather see it reverted to kills only, honestly.

---

I'm confused. Are you saying that healers should have a lower chance to stack BH?

well todays frontline had some defeatist attitude
and to noones surprise we got lowscore third
tbh why is this happening

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nubrication

Yeah, you get BH5 playing what, NIN? LOL. BTW, your circus was great, I loved your clown costume. Bub.

---

I get Battle high playing literally any job. It's not that hard, the fact that you're so balls to wall in defense of it just shows that you'd prefer your free ticket to steamroll instead of having an actual challenge.

Circus is that way, glad to see you brought your own outfit.

I'm pretty sure no one ever has their map open in FL ಡ◡ಡ

Talking of clowns: to the buffoons on Aether who managed to get a team of 14 SCH, how about you quit abusing the system?

Edit: and before anyone asks, this wasn't some honey-tongued commander convincing nearly everyone to switch, there was a gaggle of giggling book-carriers sat on the Adamantoise Wolves' Den taking pictures of each other after the match. The selfishness and narcissism of these people is staggering.

PVP sux
pass it on

Really they're never going to do anything to fix Frontlines unless we take all of the absolute trash gameplay we have on North America and ship it all straight to the JP DC's. An organized event perhaps. Ruin all of their front line matches for weeks. Stack every single queue with premades, Scholars, any toxic combos you can think of, you queue with it. Suck the life and fun out of frontlines on their home turf. More than likely even that'll accomplish nothing, and Square will continue to not care, but whats the worst that can happen aside from a lot of wasted time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Archeron

Really they're never going to do anything to fix Frontlines unless we take all of the absolute trash gameplay we have on North America and ship it all straight to the JP DC's. An organized event perhaps. Ruin all of their front line matches for weeks. Stack every single queue with premades, Scholars, any toxic combos you can think of, you queue with it. Suck the life and fun out of frontlines on their home turf. More than likely even that'll accomplish nothing, and Square will continue to not care, but whats the worst that can happen aside from a lot of wasted time.

---

Yeah if people just wanted to try unusual stacks or complete teams with a single job, they would be asking for a separate queue mode, rather than having to jump through hoops to create these things. The fact they don't demonstrates they're simply trolling.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Archeron

Really they're never going to do anything to fix Frontlines unless we take all of the absolute trash gameplay we have on North America and ship it all straight to the JP DC's. An organized event perhaps. Ruin all of their front line matches for weeks. Stack every single queue with premades, Scholars, any toxic combos you can think of, you queue with it. Suck the life and fun out of frontlines on their home turf. More than likely even that'll accomplish nothing, and Square will continue to not care, but whats the worst that can happen aside from a lot of wasted time.

---

I'm not sure if you're aware, but JP already does those combos. In fact, when a DRK commander is on field, pug players willingly swap to jobs like RPR/WAR/DRG/AST without being asked, just because everyone wants to win.

You can also see organic SCH stacking happen in some matches, where people just see a bunch of SCHs and they swap to SCH too, some on the team with multiple SCHs also swap to BRD/AST for maximum DoT effect.

Going to JP won't help, they're already aware of these strategies and they're also employing them.

I mean in general, PvP requires at least some kind of coordinator to function regardless of being frontlines or CC. Otherwise it just turns into a slug fest.

Lol, It was a fun event. How could you possibly call them selfish and narcissist though? Everyone in that discord is really nice and do themed events almost every week, and tons of pvp in the community would love a custom match for FL.

I really can't understand how much dissonance and hate people have for teamwork and cooperation in a multi-player game. It's like you hate the very idea of working together.

As for what Archeron said, it is silly to think that planning some sort of troll event would work on JP XD. Everyone in JP ques actually has some tactical understanding, know what the competent jobs are and how to use them, and most importantly want to win.

What you see as outliers of skill and coordination in NA is just the norm in JP

If they're so talented in JP, then you wouldn't object to storming their DC and premading their matches to oblivion, especially since you think of yourself so highly as a frontlines premade commander.

I prefer a challenge, and being in a premade eliminates any challenge. Something NA seems to not enjoy anymore since every other post on the forums is complains about how something being slightly harder, or a reward being locked behind difficulty will bring about the end of the universe.

"But we want a challenge!"

Then do the challenge I gave out, and premade on JP. I doubt any of the premades on NA will, because they're not interested in challenge. They want to steamroll for easy wins. How do I know this? Aether premades often swap DC's the second they know they're queued against another premade team. If they really valued competitiveness, and challenge they wouldn't run away to DC's where they can steamroll randoms away on.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Archeron

Really they're never going to do anything to fix Frontlines unless we take all of the absolute trash gameplay we have on North America and ship it all straight to the JP DC's. An organized event perhaps. Ruin all of their front line matches for weeks. Stack every single queue with premades, Scholars, any toxic combos you can think of, you queue with it. Suck the life and fun out of frontlines on their home turf. More than likely even that'll accomplish nothing, and Square will continue to not care, but whats the worst that can happen aside from a lot of wasted time.

---

This isn't really formatted in the form of a challenge is it? You wanted the "toxic' strats of working together and coordinating to go to JP and ruin their matches. What I and others were saying is that these sorts of comps and strategies are the norm there.

I don't really go to JP often because of the ping and language barrier, but plenty of people do, so consider your "challenge" completed. If you want more challenge as you say, you should probably be the one going to JP to avoid all the casuals who don't know how to burst, guard, hold an objective, etc.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aravell

I'm not sure if you're aware, but JP already does those combos. In fact, when a DRK commander is on field, pug players willingly swap to jobs like RPR/WAR/DRG/AST without being asked, just because everyone wants to win.

You can also see organic SCH stacking happen in some matches, where people just see a bunch of SCHs and they swap to SCH too, some on the team with multiple SCHs also swap to BRD/AST for maximum DoT effect.

Going to JP won't help, they're already aware of these strategies and they're also employing them.

---

If only more NA players did this. In regards to my team: If I see a good DRK, I immediately swap to RPR/DNC/WAR to help them. If I see a bunch of bottom tier tanks, then I play a carry. If we have little to no good tanks, then I play ranged. It just seems like common sense.

Instead we have people running to an S node (on the other side of the map) when another team is about to win. They don't realize that the S node doesn't matter when the other team wins in a few seconds.
We (team A) have people see that team B is 50 pts ahead of everyone early game and they tell the alliance to focus that team even though we have safer nodes closer to base being pushed by team C who is currently last place.
We have people that don't know how to pinch and end up being pinched instead.
We have people hit a guarded target or tank when an enemy ranged with BH is right next to them.
We have people go for BIG ice when SMALL ice has spawned.
And I can go on.

This is not directed to your comment but to the people crying about RNG. Yes: RNG can give you a win every so often BUT ultimately it's up to people playing as a team and using their brains that secures victories. And clearly in NA, that's usually really hard to do without a premade (because of the things listed above +).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nubrication

If only more NA players did this. In regards to my team: If I see a good DRK, I immediately swap to RPR/DNC/WAR to help them. If I see a bunch of bottom tier tanks, then I play a carry. If we have little to no good tanks, then I play ranged. It just seems like common sense.

Instead we have people running to an S node (on the other side of the map) when another team is about to win. They don't realize that the S node doesn't matter when the other team wins in a few seconds.
We (team A) have people see that team B is 50 pts ahead of everyone early game and they tell the alliance to focus that team even though we have safer nodes closer to base being pushed by team C who is currently last place.
We have people that don't know how to pinch and end up being pinched instead.
We have people hit a guarded target or tank when an enemy ranged with BH is right next to them.
We have people go for BIG ice when SMALL ice has spawned.
And I can go on.

This is not directed to your comment but to the people crying about RNG. Yes: RNG can give you a win every so often BUT ultimately it's up to people playing as a team and using their brains that secures victories. And clearly in NA, that's usually really hard to do without a premade (because of the things listed above +).

---

Map awareness and situational awareness are hard to learn. even people who play moba games lack it. Let alone a story game like ff14. People are usually there for the roulette bonus most likely.

As I said not too long ago in another thread, the only issue with these game modes is the player base. Yes, balance wise it is a meme and is all over the place but even so there are moments where it can be chaotic and fun. I mention the player base because these modes are full of lazy leechers who have no intention of playing to win or coordinating as a team. Then complaining when another team is. Which makes the experience frustrating for people who are going for achievements or are playing to win and try their best. I swear this is the only game and the only PvP mode I know of where people are against winning or playing optimally. It boggles my mind. Nowadays I default to selfish jobs like NIN or DRG that can get Battle High and survive well even on a team that cannot burst or maintain a fight to save its life because if I play a job like SAM or WAR the experience is way too frustrating on a passive team. I only play certain jobs (WAR, GNB, RPR) if I recognize good regulars on my team or a coordinated group. Which everyone should do, in my opinion.

Yeah, until they do something about bad players who don't care to improve or work as a unit this mode is screwed. A friend of mine is quite new and decided they wanted the Field Commander Coat. They had an optimistic view until they caught onto how Frontlines truly is. Despite being new they were always right up there with me in top 5 damage dealt on my team (which shows how easy doing the bare minimum is) and they also realized how many leechers are in the mode and refuse to fight which was frustrating to them. Nothing like seeing your team wipe to the same obvious burst countless of times without guarding, healing or repositioning then complaining about premades, lol. Yeah, they're the problem, surely. But this same team will ignore the first place team that is 20 points from winning and run to a useless node that will do nothing for us and leave all the players who are fighting with the other alliance(s) to die.

Premades are just people like me who got tired of dealing with anchor teammates and want to reliably fight without flipping a coin if your team is going to back you up or not. They aren't the problem...can we please stop talking about them already, lol.

The fact that you have to resort to using the lodestone is proof enough that you have nothing worthwhile to say, and no points to argue against me with.

You haven't completed my challenge. You've just given me a list of excuses, and then told me that NA is full of casuals "who don't know how to burst, guard, hold an objective, etc." Sounds to me like someone just prefers playing easy mode.[/QUOTE]

Showing a contradiction in your statements is a valid point to make. The ad hominem attack after... not so much. It's hard to say you can grasp a gamemode when you haven't done enough pvp to unlock any of the mounts or have more than 2 jobs unlocked. Your statements about alts is basically empty words and "excuses" as you say since you can't demonstrate they exist.

I question if you bothered to take the time to read my post. The first sentence was wanting clarification on your "challenge" I assumed you wanted some premades to go to JP, which they have, so I considered it completed. You then blame me for using excuses when those rather valid (and demonstrable) reasons in my opinion were prefaced with "I don't go to JP often" as in, I go to JP to play.

As for the state of NA, it is still pretty subpar in terms of skill level, but there's an increasing number of people who want to improve and work together. I want to continue to raise that floor of Aether by spreading and demonstrating my guide.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

It's hard to say you can grasp a gamemode when you haven't done enough pvp to unlock any of the mounts or have more than 2 jobs unlocked. Your statements about alts is basically empty words and "excuses" as you say since you can't demonstrate they exist.

---

Sorry, you're not going to see my characters. I don't need to prove anything to the likes of you, or your friends. My privacy, is my choice. I have listed a character that I don't particularily care about, or play on very much on crystal, and I genuinely laugh whenever someone brings this up as a "GOTCHA". No thank you, I don't want harassment directed towards my FC members, or my friends. I prefer to keep the hostilities on the forums, to the forums. If you can't respect that, I don't know what to tell you. Go take a hike.

You deflect, and say that "other" premades have gone to JP. How about yours? I know you have *personally* gone to JP, but you have avoided confirming whether or not you have premaded there with your team, so yes I safely assume my challenge has not been completed by you. I personally have a character in the works which I plan to play on the JP DC when time allows.

I disagree with the way you wish to improve the skill of people, and cooperation in PvP. I will not rehash arguements which span multiple threads at this point. I firmly believe nothing can be done to fix it without a major overhaul to Frontlines.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nubrication

Instead we have people running to an S node (on the other side of the map) when another team is about to win. They don't realize that the S node doesn't matter when the other team wins in a few seconds.
We (team A) have people see that team B is 50 pts ahead of everyone early game and they tell the alliance to focus that team even though we have safer nodes closer to base being pushed by team C who is currently last place.

---

I've seen all these, I play on NA FL too. It's annoying to see everyone running to an A/S node that spawned on the other side of the map when the team you're hitting has a claimed B rank and is 20 points off winning. Also my personal favourite, games where everyone attacks the team at the very start of the match that's 10 points ahead and just keeps on hitting the same team for the entire match even though they're now last place by 500 points and the other team is 50 points from winning.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nubrication

This is not directed to your comment but to the people crying about RNG. Yes: RNG can give you a win every so often BUT ultimately it's up to people playing as a team and using their brains that secures victories. And clearly in NA, that's usually really hard to do without a premade (because of the things listed above +).

---

Spawn RNG can honestly be a major factor in those really rare matches where all teams are equally skilled and can never gain much ground over the other. But yes, the RNG of who the 3rd team will hit can be a far larger factor in games than spawn RNG.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nubrication

Instead we have people running to an S node (on the other side of the map) when another team is about to win. They don't realize that the S node doesn't matter when the other team wins in a few seconds.
We (team A) have people see that team B is 50 pts ahead of everyone early game and they tell the alliance to focus that team even though we have safer nodes closer to base being pushed by team C who is currently last place.
We have people that don't know how to pinch and end up being pinched instead.
We have people hit a guarded target or tank when an enemy ranged with BH is right next to them.
We have people go for BIG ice when SMALL ice has spawned.
And I can go on.

---

https://media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2...axuE/giphy.gif

So much this.

It's not so much that Frontlines flat-out sucks, than it is that much of the NA people playing it flat-out sucks.

-Enemy DRK or PLD jumped in first? Better hyper-focus on it for 20 seconds through their CDs, LB then Guard than the legions of easier-to-kill ranged DPS standing 5 feet to the side.
-Enemy is less than 50 points from winning and third team trying to push them? Nuts to that. We're 200 points behind and an S just spawned by our base. Everyone turtle on it.
-Pushed a chunk of a team back near their base? Keep pushing! The points we got off of kills was just a buffer to the massive points we're about to lose from their invincible respawners and rest of their team.
-Team 2 has a minor lead 1st 3 minutes in and Team 3 is pushing to our respawn and farming our people? FOCUS TEAM 2! THEY'RE WINNING! THROW BODIES AT THEIR NODE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MAP! IGNORE TEAM 3!

I could go on too. The ugly truth is a marginal majority of people queuing FL on our side of the puddle seem to be incapable of simple logic, utilizing resources or adapting to dynamic and changing situations. I can't entirely blame them though; the rest of the game is "press 1-2-buckle my shoe-then 3" under the monotonous choreographed dance that is team jump rope. FL is "casual," yes, but it's often the equivalent of people joining EX/Savage clear parties without having seen a single mechanic in the fight, let alone knowing their job's rotation, or even using their oGCDs. The only real meaningful RNG in 90% of FL matches is which team has the least amount of those kind of players.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

As for the state of NA, it is still pretty subpar in terms of skill level, but there's an increasing number of people who want to improve and work together. I want to continue to raise that floor of Aether by spreading and demonstrating my guide.

---

I accept that's your goal. I don't think your approach will achieve it. The skill level is low on average because of the significant fraction of the player base there for XP and rewards. Every time they get stomped by your premade, their view that the mode is worthless increases. Meanwhile, solo queuers like me who do try and are in the top 25% of skill actively avoid you because the enjoyment of the game drops.

If you want a high-skill version of FL, lobby for a separation of party and solo queueing. The fact that you have inspired more players to play in premades is extremely double-edged for the health of the mode. Mostly I see negatives.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

Lol, It was a fun event. How could you possibly call them selfish and narcissist though? Everyone in that discord is really nice and do themed events almost every week, and tons of pvp in the community would love a custom match for FL.

I really can't understand how much dissonance and hate people have for teamwork and cooperation in a multi-player game. It's like you hate the very idea of working together.

---

Most WoLs dislike being cast as an extra in a play in which someone else is the hero. I'm sure they're all wonderful people. But most of us didn't sign up for an "event." We were simply victims of it. I guess it produced a "fun" stream for those in the clique.

There is no hate for teamwork. What people want is to work together on a level playing field. The irony is that in a premade you can potentially carry a match working exclusively with 3 other people, whereas those who solo queue are attempting to work with 23.

It doesn't take much to go from daily rouletter to effective player. Literally follow the commander, burst with your team, leave with your team. Harder without one though, but then again I've seen more and more commanders popping up and they're all not bad and I've seen more and more people following them.

I can really only see more premades as a good thing. That's more people wanting to win and makes it harder to dodge competent players, so the cycle continues.

Adapt, die, or quit I guess :/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

Adapt, die, or quit I guess :/

---

I'll stick with "avoid."

"Avoid" is defintely what people are doing when premades are in queue. It's baffling how they can't see this, but I guess the walls around the premade clique are opaque.

eventually, you won't be able to. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

eventually, you won't be able to. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

---

We'll see about that. You reek of arrogance. Your premades will accomplish zero meaningful change in the months before 7.0, and premades aren't going to change how often I queue. Infact, I'll probably queue more because I love nothing more than to guide my 23 randoms to victory against a literal circus act. I love a challenge.

I'll have to travel with my characters to Aether with the expressed goal of facing off against your premades. When does your group queue?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

eventually, you won't be able to. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

---

Olivia, I'm sure nobody has accused you of lacking self-confidence, but the entire evolution of FL has been to further restrict parties/premades. If these bloody "events" and Discord-based shenanigans get worse, as you seem to hope, that evolution may well get pushed to its logical conclusion.

Apparently yall took that to mean I'd hunt you down or something, sorry about that! I mean to say that if what Mawlzy says is true and there are more premades and what Archeron says is true that they skip each other. Then you won't be able to have a match without a premade in it. Premades continue to encourage more premades until you can't actually dodge them in que. Further past that point, everyone knows how to play against and with a premade thus everything becomes a premade. I'm currently helping train up more commanders to, so hopefully that will follow a similar route.

I'm glad you decided to que more Archeron! If you are good at leading your team then that'd be great for the community! (seems I'm making a change already aren't I?) If you need any discord invites feel free to ping me, and you have the link to my guide, feel free to use the macros in there. As for when "My" premade ques... I guess never since I don't have some static group? It feels a little disingenuous to ask what times I play when you hide behind an alt to "avoid getting harassed." You seem a little incapable of making any points or arguments without insulting people, and that might be leading you into a cycle of toxicity.

Regardless, If it was a wager between SE making changes that fixed FL and the community becoming better players; I'd put my money on the community being better first.

I understood what you meant. Clearly if you're training more premade commanders there will be more premades. You know how I feel about that so I won't dip into my bag of adjectives. But I do dispute the idea that more premades mean better players. Just means more of you playing FL on easy mode. More to the point, the XP/rewards crowd aren't going anywhere. The people you drive off are the higher-skilled solo players. At best I figure it'll be a wash. This is why I keep banging on about the topic.

If you do get a lot of premades, it'll make it that much easier for SE to give you your own queue! Wouldn't that be funner!? For all of us??? Right now, 5% of the FL playerbase is dictating how the other 95% has to play. Tail<-->Dog


And finally... PvP Discord servers. I came, I saw, I left. Forming light parties, frequently with "voice required" tagged, and these "events." >Shudder<

But thx.

Yeah I have to say FL has become much less fun as a solo player, even when I'm on the team with the DRK and 5 Astros it's just not fun being so one sided.

But I suppose nothing will change until SE starts giving a shit about FL and not balancing everything around CC

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Archeron

"Avoid" is defintely what people are doing when premades are in queue. It's baffling how they can't see this, but I guess the walls around the premade clique are opaque.

---

You know, I would agree that if a pre-made ( a competent one) in not in your alliance, it is more difficult to win, however some people seem to basically throw in the towel as soon as they encounter one.

The term "avoid", seems inaccurate to me, since some of them remain in the match but basically give up - "avoiding" would meaning leaving or avoiding FL, which they don't seem to do - but, they don't seem to want to improve, either. So I wonder why they queue, since how much fun can that be for them- and that definitely doesn't make things fun for some other people in their alliance.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

You know, I would agree that if a pre-made ( a competent one) in not in your alliance, it is more difficult to win, however some people seem to basically throw in the towel as soon as they encounter one.

The term "avoid", seems inaccurate to me, since some of them remain in the match but basically give up - "avoiding" would meaning leaving or avoiding FL, which they don't seem to do - but, they don't seem to want to improve, either. So I wonder why they queue, since how much fun can that be for them- and that definitely doesn't make things fun for some other people in their alliance.

---

Perhaps they have concluded that, even if they improved, they'd never reach the point where they could overcome the baked-in advantage enjoyed by premades?

Do you think when you find one of 'em tucked behind a rock or camped at the spawn point that repeated use of "/slap" on them would violate ToS?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Olivia, I'm sure nobody has accused you of lacking self-confidence, but the entire evolution of FL has been to further restrict parties/premades. If these bloody "events" and Discord-based shenanigans get worse, as you seem to hope, that evolution may well get pushed to its logical conclusion.

---

While I'm not certain how NA will react to an increase in commanders and premades (probably negatively, if current sentiment continues). JP actually reacted positively to the very same thing. They have, I think, 8-10 famous commanders running around, dodging a premade is basically impossible, the players adapted by filing in behind the premade on their team and doing everything they can to support them.

As a purely solo player myself, I personally view the increase of commander types and premades as a good thing. If people are sick of dying all the time, it forces them to learn map awareness and positioning. It's also fun to get matches where everyone on the scoreboard has died at least once, I'd prefer that over one-sided stomps.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aravell

While I'm not certain how NA will react to an increase in commanders and premades (probably negatively, if current sentiment continues). JP actually reacted positively to the very same thing. They have, I think, 8-10 famous commanders running around, dodging a premade is basically impossible, the players adapted by filing in behind the premade on their team and doing everything they can to support them.

As a purely solo player myself, I personally view the increase of commander types and premades as a good thing. If people are sick of dying all the time, it forces them to learn map awareness and positioning. It's also fun to get matches where everyone on the scoreboard has died at least once, I'd prefer that over one-sided stomps.

---

One-sided stomps are definitely a possible negative outcome of premades that make the match dull for nearly everyone. But I think it's inaccurate to conflate the positives of a commander with a commander of a premade. Some direction helps, and the weaker the team, the more useful a forceful commander becomes. But a solo commander produces a very different match from a premade leader who is also shot-calling.

Some of the most enjoyable matches I've had feature very little chat at all. I guess there's some selection bias in there, in the sense that if the match is competitive without commands, the players are more competent than usual.

I do worry that, with a new generation of mini-Olivias taking the helm, the times they end up on the same team will just magnify the current problems. I guess I can hope they'll self-destruct through infighting.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Perhaps they have concluded that, even if they improved, they'd never reach the point where they could overcome the baked-in advantage enjoyed by premades?

Do you think when you find one of 'em tucked behind a rock or camped at the spawn point that repeated use of "/slap" on them would violate ToS?

---

They could join up with some friend themselves, or other people. By the way pre-mades don't necessarily have some enormous "bake-in" advantage, it depends upon a number of factors. However if they are so discouraged, it goes to the "are you going fun?" question- if someone isn't, then why are they there, and even worse why would you potentially make other people's experience worse? I don't understand that.

Personally, I don't "/slap" I have been known however to resort to "/facepalm", though not repeatedly.;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

Apparently yall took that to mean I'd hunt you down or something, sorry about that! I mean to say that if what Mawlzy says is true and there are more premades and what Archeron says is true that they skip each other. Then you won't be able to have a match without a premade in it. Premades continue to encourage more premades until you can't actually dodge them in que. Further past that point, everyone knows how to play against and with a premade thus everything becomes a premade. I'm currently helping train up more commanders to, so hopefully that will follow a similar route.

I'm glad you decided to que more Archeron! If you are good at leading your team then that'd be great for the community! (seems I'm making a change already aren't I?) If you need any discord invites feel free to ping me, and you have the link to my guide, feel free to use the macros in there. As for when "My" premade ques... I guess never since I don't have some static group? It feels a little disingenuous to ask what times I play when you hide behind an alt to "avoid getting harassed." You seem a little incapable of making any points or arguments without insulting people, and that might be leading you into a cycle of toxicity.

Regardless, If it was a wager between SE making changes that fixed FL and the community becoming better players; I'd put my money on the community being better first.

---

I show as much respect as is given to me. If you're going to throw insults, and get passive aggressive with me, expect me to return the heat. I find that rather ironic comment coming from you, as you continue to admonish me for "hiding behind an alt" in the same breath, despite my legitimate concerns and reasons behind using an alt I don't really play on anymore. I don't want my FC members being harassed by unhinged forum members. Unless you have a legitimate reason behind wanting such information about my characters (Which I wouldn't entrust to you, as I see us on less than cordial terms.) its none of your business.

Your approach of "Lets make more premades so people will have to learn to fight them, or play with them." is not the solution. Like I have said in many threads, with the risk of sound like a broken record the core of frontlines PvP is flawed, and broken. There is nothing that can fix it beyond MAJOR overhaul to the game mode. The limiting of premade parties to two players, addition of vulnerability to Battle high, PvP hall of the novice, addition of more maps with a larger variety of objectives to score points, and rebalancing of jobs for large scale combat is just a few examples of what would have to happen to make the game mode more appealing to those people.

You may reach maybe 5% of the pvp frontline community if we're being generous. That 5% typically already knows what they're doing, and they don't need much, if any help in being more effective players. It's the PvE players that need to be given encouragement to give PvP a shot, and they won't when they get curb stomped repeatedly by premades who exist to farm kills off of them for easy wins. It frustrates them, and leaves a negative impression in their mind. Don't take my word for it. Go join novice network, and ask the players there for their general opinion of PvP. It is rarely positive. Without addressing what makes the mode bad for the majority of players, nothing will change.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

You know, I would agree that if a pre-made ( a competent one) in not in your alliance, it is more difficult to win, however some people seem to basically throw in the towel as soon as they encounter one.

The term "avoid", seems inaccurate to me, since some of them remain in the match but basically give up - "avoiding" would meaning leaving or avoiding FL, which they don't seem to do - but, they don't seem to want to improve, either. So I wonder why they queue, since how much fun can that be for them- and that definitely doesn't make things fun for some other people in their alliance.

---

I call it avoid, because premades are a major reason why people won't requeue for PvP. Especially if you're trying to farm wins, your odds of winning crater off into nothing, and most people don't find being farmed for someone elses easy wins enjoyable.

Its the people who throw in the towel, who I find have the most potential to coordinate, and score wins against the premades. A little coordination, or a plan as simple as "Lets make the premade lose by all means neccessary" is often enough to get some coordination going, and ensure the premade team gets pinched, and punished for every move they make, for the entire duration of the match. Most of my wins against premades happen on teams with people openly whining in Alliance chat about their presence.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Archeron

Its the people who throw in the towel, who I find have the most potential to coordinate, and score wins against the premades. A little coordination, or a plan as simple as "Lets make the premade lose by all means neccessary" is often enough to get some coordination going, and ensure the premade team gets pinched, and punished for every move they make, for the entire duration of the match. Most of my wins against premades happen on teams with people openly whining in Alliance chat about their presence.

---

I don't contribute much to chat unless nobody else is providing input, in which case I'll bung in a compass direction when the new S-rank has apparently been overlooked. But I will make the exception pre-match when people are complaining about premades. I agree it can be successful. Why? Because most solo players regard premades as a legal cheat, and are primed to do something about it.

One particularly encouraging approach, once the premade has been identified, is to suggest we lay off the opposing team without the premade. On a good day, that team notices and understands the plan. Smush the premade team to limit their points, then duke it out with each other for the win.

Ah... small pleasures.