Premades Don’t Break Frontline — They Broke the Illusion of the Horde Stampede

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Originally Posted by Exmo

You see afkers rarely in FL and most times they get kicked if you do a vtk.

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Not true. Getting a vote kick to pass because someone is sandbagging is a coin flip.

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I also don't see where how you get the impression the vast majority of players don't want to learn.

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OP: "These are often excuses that mask the cracks in how most NA players approach Frontline:

“I’m used to a low-effort playstyle where I feel successful. Premades threaten that illusion.”

Premades aren’t toxic just because they win because they’re a mirror showing how little effort the average player puts into actual map mechanics. "

You: "Only way to combat premades is by fighting tooth and nail to be a better horde. They turn the game into a repetitive, static slog. Ban premades."

Why bother learning when you can just advocate for bans and go back to low effort?

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Originally Posted by Trevski

OP: "These are often excuses that mask the cracks in how most NA players approach Frontline:

“I’m used to a low-effort playstyle where I feel successful. Premades threaten that illusion.”

Premades aren’t toxic just because they win because they’re a mirror showing how little effort the average player puts into actual map mechanics. "

You: "Only way to combat premades is by fighting tooth and nail to be a better horde. They turn the game into a repetitive, static slog. Ban premades."

Why bother learning when you can just advocate for bans and go back to low effort?

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So very very true....

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Originally Posted by Trevski

Given that the OP specified NA, I have to disagree. I know several folks, myself included, who solo queue and shotcall.

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There are obviously many different levels to leading: ranging from something as simple as calling a location or target to focus, through to placing a marker over your head, a waymark for all to follow you, and macros to countdown bursts. But, as much as you make them, all of these will require a proportion of the team to follow those calls. In premades using their coordinated meta classes, less casual team support is needed. For a solo player, damage is less likely to come so swiftly and coordinated; There won't be the simultaneous DNC LB to hold them in place while a group of GNBs come in to farm them, damage will be a little more spaced as casuals wake up to the call to attack, giving enemies a little more time to Guard, run, and heal.

In NA it sounds like players may be a little more cooperative (based upon your post and other discussions I hear amongst my own PvP communities), but in EU that isn't remotely the case. As said, I've seen many regulars attempt to command, only to be met with a chat of rude comments and a couple of individuals who actively seek to sabotage their every attempt to lead us to a win.

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Originally Posted by Trevski

The thing to keep in mind is that premades lose. They aren't, like some low effort players posting in this thread seem to think, guaranteed a win. The point I'm making is that the idea of coordinating/organizing the team can be done by anyone. It isn't a skillset unique to premades. The issue is with the other 20-23 players and whether or not they want to drag ass/lick ice or actually participate. As an aside, it sounds like EU is a gongshow and I'm sorry for that.

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Oh, they definitely do. Though it does take a lot more effort to counter them than it does to play as part of them. If I'm playing in a premade, I know chances are good - not guaranteed, but still good. Playing against a premade, especially if solo, I know chances are going to be low. It's not remotely impossible, but the odds are against you. You can mark the premade, you can call warnings, you can use counter classes to make the premades job as hard as possible, but if the team ignore all of this, you alone aren't going to be able to change anything. And, in EU, very quickly upon spotting a premade, teams quickly default to the approach of "just feed them. End it quickly, get our exp and get out". Trying to fight to win while the rest of your alliance are actively trying to lose, makes it almost impossible.

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Originally Posted by Exmo

You see afkers rarely in FL and most times they get kicked if you do a vtk.

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This isn't true. Only the other day we had someone AFK for probably 3/4 of the game. 2 votes later, they were still there. Obviously, this is just one example and there will be cases in which the player is kicked, but it doesn't remotely have the same success rate as it would for any other duty.

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Originally Posted by Exmo

I also don't see where how you get the impression the vast majority of players don't want to learn. That's simply incorrect. Remember how many stacked comets there were when role actions were introduced? How players tend to stick together, or hyperfocus on pressing their buttons on an enemy team to the point they don't realize the node they were defending despawned, or listen to and abide by callouts when provided. Vast majority of players want to play and have fun and have a good enough grasp of their toolkit to do so.

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I get the impression that players don't want to learn from these players themselves. If I was paid for every time I heard the phrases "lets get this over with", "we're only here for the exp", "feed them, then it ends faster and we can do something better" etc., I'd never have to work again. Not to mention the number of players spent just AFKing at respawn, dancing in base, or off in a corner of the map sitting with a friend on the enemy team, both contributing nothing to their respective teams.

Then look to those who contribute, but only by doing the bare minimum - Shatter, being a notable example. How many will solely lick ice, actively seeking to avoid PvP at all costs, totally ignoring that the enemy is currently within (or incoming) to your area and being totally unchallenged?

Obviously, not everything can be attributed to lack of effort. I agree that a huge problem is how many players become overly-fixated on what they're doing, have absolutely zero situational awareness and pay no attention to chat until it's too late. This isn't necessarily a lack of effort, but also inexperience. Though how many of these inexperienced players will actually try to improve their PvP and how many will just do it once a day for the daily, no real need to improve/try to learn more because 'it's only PvP'.

Just to chime in as a mostly solo FL player when I play FL, I have actually commanded actively which essentially amounts to give directions on the map and who to attack when really, there is limits to what a commander can do. Giving more than those direction is just bound to confuse players and the simpler the orders (spammed a couple of times to make sure people's attention is caught) is the better.

Expecting normal players, both casuals and just normal solo players, to contend with full premades is pure folly, else you'll just watch your team get decimated within less than 10s and rout like headless chickens after. The only way to do that is to manage and get a flank, sometimes you can get great results and mow down the (often solo) good ranged players that managed to grab a BH5 in the wake of the premade in their alliance. Sometimes if your team is competent and lucky you'll catch some of the actual BH5 premade members and kill some, but that's a lot harder especially since most of the time they play tank or melee anyway, and as a coordinated group they also do have a lot more situational awareness.

If there is one thing I'm grateful for it's that EU seems to have a lot less AFKers and slackers than NA (they do exist though), and that most of the time people seem to have an idea which team is winning and which team to go for. Sometimes they don't always have the situational awareness to go for it early enough but that's something that can be easily fixed by pings. People are used to it.

Asking solo players to just "take command" and thinking that this will beat organized groups is just a fantasy. But I also do agree though that it's the best that one can do and sometimes you may get surprising results, rarely enough to sway a game (I've seen it happen), but enough to kill some of them and that's good schadenfreude.

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Originally Posted by Scintilla

This isn't true. Only the other day we had someone AFK for probably 3/4 of the game. 2 votes later, they were still there. Obviously, this is just one example and there will be cases in which the player is kicked, but it doesn't remotely have the same success rate as it would for any other duty.

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That's one player out of how many for that game? Out of how many games you played that day? How many games since then?

I'm not saying it doesn't happen but in context it's fairly rare. Like when you get someone screaming in chat, it sticks in the memory but it's a bit of an exception.

Vtks don't have the same success rate as PvE, true. In PvE it's much easier to see when someone is afk and people tend to be stricter about pulling one's weight, no argument there. But I've had vtks go through on first attempt in FL and sometimes on third attempt... Not saying they always go through, but often all you need is to trigger it at a moment when your party isn't immediately engaged with the enemy and therefore too preoccupied.

Regarding your experience with players vocally wanting to throw, I'll be honest it just sounds like we have different experiences. I don't see it nearly so often, and typically it happens after an age of being steamrolled, it's one or two loudmouths in chat, not the team's consensus. But we don't have anything to really go on other than anecdote, so I don't think we'll be able to agree on this.

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Originally Posted by Exmo

That's one player out of how many for that game? Out of how many games you played that day? How many games since then? I'm not saying it doesn't happen but in context it's fairly rare.

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Vtks don't have the same success rate as PvE, true. In PvE it's much easier to see when someone is afk and people tend to be stricter about pulling one's weight, no argument there. But I've had vtks go through on first attempt in FL and sometimes on third attempt

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That is one game, as an example. It is not 'fairly rare', it is a total lottery as to whether someone is actually kicked for such behaviours. Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't. But, for someone who isn't contributing anything and is just sitting AFK at base from start to finish, for a kick to even be questioned is ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Exmo

Like when you get someone screaming in chat, it sticks in the memory but it's a bit of an exception.

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Clearly, our experiences are vastly different. This occurs on a daily basis. My own approaches to leading FLs are on the very casual side. I don't go full commander with a marker over my head, waymarks, and countdowns - partially because I'm fully aware of the toxic responses such players can receive. Making casual calls is often met with "relax, it's not that deep", followed by them wiping just 30-sec later because they ignored the call. Those who do try a more coordinated approach to leading, can be met with far worse, bordering on abusive.

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Originally Posted by Exmo

Regarding your experience with players vocally wanting to throw, I'll be honest it just sounds like we have different experiences. I don't see it nearly so often, and typically it happens after an age of being steamrolled, it's one or two loudmouths in chat, not the team's consensus.

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It may not be the full team consensus, but it doesn't need to be. While one player can't solo win a game, it only takes one player to ruin a game. No denying it's most frequent within games where it's obvious there is a huge skill gap between teams, but this still isn't an excuse for a 'lets give up and feed' approach.


Even if we were to completely discount the vocal protesters, the AFKers, the feeders, and the objective-blind 'watching youtube' players as outliers (not that they remotely are, but for the sake of discussion), there still remains the issue that a considerable majority of players within FLs have little/no care or interest in improving their play within PvP. They do it once a day for the roulette and no more. So, while premades are a huge annoyance to me when I'm stuck vs them solo and in a casual team, and I do feel that such games are ruined by the considerable imbalance, there is no way that the blame can be placed on premades alone. The average playerbase carries just as much fault over the situation as they do.

While neither party is willing to change their approach, things will not improve.

You’re not going to convince Exmo.
He’s dead set on killing any form of cooperative play in Frontline.
The “premade” argument is just a scapegoat.
If you look at his post history, you’ll see the pattern.
He’s even floated the idea of banning people from using symbols or making calls to coordinate.
It’s not about balance to him; it’s about shutting down teamwork altogether.

Things that didn't happen^

Coordination is strong, this is true. Yet it should be encouraged more, would make the scene healthier in my opinion. Also, we need good players to make videos on good play habits.