Ban premade parties in Frontline please

How dare people play with their freinds in MY single player game??????

"But Black Dynamite"

You know what? I've come around to the idea. If premades want to be useless and chase kills all match instead of trying to actually win the game, then yes, please remove them from my matches.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

You know what? I've come around to the idea. If premades want to be useless and chase kills all match instead of trying to actually win the game, then yes, please remove them from my matches.

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I think one issue is that there many different types of premade.

1. The 70% win-rate brigade [shining example: Olivia]. As the DRK meta seems to be reestablishing itself, it will be increasingly dull to play with or against these folks. That said, their prime directive is consistent with the objective of the mode, even if their win-rates are presumably not what the devs intended.

2. "Just playing with friends." Fine if they are contributing to the team winning to the best of their ability.

3. Padders. This growing group is becoming an increasing problem. One of the "mentors" at a large PvP Discord actively promotes and teaches this style. Naturally, being efficient and building personal stats sometimes coincides with group goals, but frequently it doesn't. It's even worse when multiple such premades Q-synch and are more interested in personal vendettas than the outcome of the match. A special case of this group are the single-job unfiltered Q-synchs that put 30 or so people on the field. The chat makes it very clear these people regard FL as their personal playground, and anyone caught up in the mess is just a stupid normy and SOL.

4. Trolls. Somewhat rare, but incredibly annoying. They seem to be there for the XP, but so hate the mode they choose to be disruptive by spamming chat with nonsense and either not engaging in combat or actively feeding to get the match over quicker.

I think all we can do is actively report those violating ToS.

We could try an experiment where some days you can only queue in solo, and other days you can queue in with a group. Try to guess which days people will want to queue in and which ones people will avoid.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

1. The 70% win-rate brigade [shining example: Olivia].

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Lol, we're on different data centers, and I still know who you're talking about.

Oddly, even though it was Shatter, her methods weren't very effective because she focused on killing people, and the other teams focused on the Ice Crystals. She regularly lost because she ignored the ice. She made some half-hearted statement about being able to kill ice faster with a jacked up battle high, but by then it was too late, her team was too far behind.

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Originally Posted by Rolks

Lol, we're on different data centers, and I still know who you're talking about.

Oddly, even though it was Shatter, her methods weren't very effective because she focused on killing people, and the other teams focused on the Ice Crystals. She regularly lost because she ignored the ice. She made some half-hearted statement about being able to kill ice faster with a jacked up battle high, but by then it was too late, her team was too far behind.

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She mentioned here that Shatter (which used to be her most successful map, I believe) has become less so since 7.1. Overall I regard her as more effective than any of the other active commanders on Aether. I personally prefer more chaotic encounters. The appeal of PvP for me is that each fight is different. That is less true when the only effective strat is playing follow the leader of the premade.

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Originally Posted by Wilford111

We could try an experiment where some days you can only queue in solo, and other days you can queue in with a group. Try to guess which days people will want to queue in and which ones people will avoid.

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Unpopular opinion but I think the group days would be more popular. I think you are underestimating the amount of people who will only queue pvp (or really any activity in this game) with their friends. This is a social game. Solo rouletters will queue either day anyways. They don’t care, other people queuing together doesn’t affect them, they just want the exp. The rouletters who do it in a group will avoid the solo days.

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Originally Posted by Silaryn

Unpopular opinion but I think the group days would be more popular. I think you are underestimating the amount of people who will only queue pvp (or really any activity in this game) with their friends. This is a social game after all. Solo rouletters will queue either day anyways, they just want the exp.

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Actually not sure how this would break down, but I previously suggested trying a solo-only queue for a limited period, in part to find out. As you imply, the common assumption is the vast majority queue solo. If it's closer to 50/50 or there are slightly more party queuers, on Aether at least we have enough players to split queues into group and solo-only.

Depending on what happens in 7.2, I think this is attractive. The experience for solo players is being incrementally degraded by the convergence of the meta. Like 6 weeks ago it was rare to see even an efficient premade with members getting more than 60 assists. That number has now crept up into the 80s. I'm guessing by the summer we'll be seeing the same 8/0/105 garbage we had prior to 7.1.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Actually not sure how this would break down, but I previously suggested trying a solo-only queue for a limited period, in part to find out. As you imply, the common assumption is the vast majority queue solo. If it's closer to 50/50 or there are slightly more party queuers, on Aether at least we have enough players to split queues into group and solo-only.

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You’re suggesting splitting the queues, which is different to what the person I was responding to is suggesting; the results might be different: solo queue might be more popular than group queue but solo only day might be less popular than group day. I don’t like the split queue idea because of how it would affect queue times and for how long a queue might pop for. Right now in Crystal I can queue into a Frontlines match at 2am my time solo or with friends. With a split queue i don’t believe Frontlines would pop on either queue at that time. You could call me selfish but I prefer the ability to play Frontline—both alone and with others—llater in the night/morning than any theoretical benefit of splitting the queue.

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Originally Posted by Silaryn

You’re suggesting splitting the queues, which is different to what the person I was responding to is suggesting; the results might be different: solo queue might be more popular than group queue but solo only day might be less popular than group day. I don’t like the split queue idea because of how it would affect queue times and for how long a queue might pop for. Right now in Crystal I can queue into a Frontlines match at 2am my time solo or with friends. With a split queue i don’t believe Frontlines would pop on either queue at that time. You could call me selfish but I prefer the ability to play Frontline—both alone and with others—llater in the night/morning than any theoretical benefit of splitting the queue.

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On Light after 12am you can queue for 30+ mins before the queue pops, and that's solos and premades together.

A simple solution would aggregate players queuing over the past 15 minutes and either spawn a second instance for premades if the numbers warrant it or retire the instance for premades if too few are queuing. This way, quiet times of the day are mixed, busier times have exclusive instances. If a premade wants to stomp solo players and nothing more, they need to queue out of hours, but the majority of solo players won't suffer that experience anymore.

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Originally Posted by Silaryn

You’re suggesting splitting the queues, which is different to what the person I was responding to is suggesting; the results might be different: solo queue might be more popular than group queue but solo only day might be less popular than group day. I don’t like the split queue idea because of how it would affect queue times and for how long a queue might pop for. Right now in Crystal I can queue into a Frontlines match at 2am my time solo or with friends. With a split queue i don’t believe Frontlines would pop on either queue at that time. You could call me selfish but I prefer the ability to play Frontline—both alone and with others—llater in the night/morning than any theoretical benefit of splitting the queue.

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Understood, and I don't consider that selfish at all. There's a lot of moving parts to consider.

I swear multiple problems would be solved if team size was reduced, or when queue times crept up the queue would pop with smaller teams. Putting the maps on a 6-hour rather than 24-hour cadence would also help, since many of us skip one day in three currently.

The proposed changes would make it less fun for people who play FL more than once a day, IMO. There are plenty of other things they could do to help with meta-teams crushing rouletters. But I don't think this is it.

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Originally Posted by CamuiKushi

The proposed changes would make it less fun for people who play FL more than once a day, IMO. There are plenty of other things they could do to help with meta-teams crushing rouletters. But I don't think this is it.

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Switching from burst to sustained damage would help, which is apparently what the devs thought the 7.1 patch would do. I'm still troubled by that. Was that the case in CC?

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Switching from burst to sustained damage would help, which is apparently what the devs thought the 7.1 patch would do. I'm still troubled by that. Was that the case in CC?

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CC is still very much heavily burst focused in the sense that if you don't instantly delete someone, then you wouldn't be killing them slowly anyway.

Also all the MP removal abilities and crowd control just increases the potential to burst someone down, especially since they also reduced the duration of Purify.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

She mentioned here that Shatter (which used to be her most successful map, I believe) has become less so since 7.1. Overall I regard her as more effective than any of the other active commanders on Aether. I personally prefer more chaotic encounters. The appeal of PvP for me is that each fight is different. That is less true when the only effective strat is playing follow the leader of the premade.

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Just to be clear, we still manage to stay above 50% on shatter. It’s just harder to overcome rng and targeting now.

Thanks for the compliment though. New guide is officially out, you should take a look.

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

Just to be clear, we still manage to stay above 50% on shatter. It’s just harder to overcome rng and targeting now.

Thanks for the compliment though. New guide is officially out, you should take a look.

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Ah nice it's out of preview. I have dipped into it on multiple occasions. Good gravy, honey, if they actually add role actions in 7.2 you're gonna be busy again.

What is driving the RNG on Shatter, though? You mean primarily the initial spawn pattern?

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Ah nice it's out of preview. I have dipped into it on multiple occasions. Good gravy, honey, if they actually add role actions in 7.2 you're gonna be busy again.

What is driving the RNG on Shatter, though? You mean primarily the initial spawn pattern?

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IMO the biggest RNG on shatter is who you get queue'd in with. How many of them are good players that can press buttons and aren't sidetracked by "objectives".


On the subject of the original thread, i haven't read all 14 pages:
My opinion about premades is that there is too much crowd control that can effectively do the following mechanic: drk for suck in - dnc/warrior/reaper do the stun/remove guard/paralyse - big aoes follow up.
Purify change has been good, however good players were rarely getting caught by drk meta stack anyway. It only still really exists in shatter in a similar way [as pre 7.1], because a lot of casual players get sidetracked by ice and don't see the meta stack coming towards them in a very obvious way.

In general people should be able to q in with friends. That's why mmos are fun.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Ah nice it's out of preview. I have dipped into it on multiple occasions. Good gravy, honey, if they actually add role actions in 7.2 you're gonna be busy again.

What is driving the RNG on Shatter, though? You mean primarily the initial spawn pattern?

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The ice spawn rng always being 50/50. It doesn’t matter how fast you break your own ice if the enemies then proceed to take so long that your ice can be skipped. Getting skipped once is recoverable, but if it happens twice you’re basically out of the game (unless the enemies are just bad)

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Originally Posted by Exmo

As certain as the day is long, premades are the absolute bane of Frontline.

By far worse than players who idle at nodes, players who don't know their class yet, players who are just there for the XP, players who are allergic to healing.

By far more impactful than tiny potency changes or adjustments to job balance.

Premades completely suffocate any chance of fairness. They make a team dominate. It takes active effort and cooperation between the other two teams to deny them a sure victory.

The only people who like premades are people who regularly play in premades.

To combat this, any number of the following changes could be made:

1. Prevent premade parties from queueing to FL or only match premades with other premades.
2. Prevent players from placing markers on themselves or teammates.
3. Prevent waymarks from being placed within 10 seconds of the most recent waymark placement.
4. Prevent chat sound effects.

Thank you, and remember - premades are the worst!

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Agree 1000%.
I'm in a losing streak in Frontline due to being unfortunate enough not to have a premade in my alliance.
It just sucks that THAT is the determining factor whether you win or not. It's not fun.

EDIT: whoooops I just read the entire thing and I do disagree with point #2 and #4. Sound effects are essential for your team to pay attention to where they should be going. Targetting someone is also good for some sort of group cohesion. Premades are bad, leadership and cohesion is good.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

• Snapshot changes
• Reaper doesn't have a quick way to regain LB now so as to break guards.
• Dark Knight for FL has 40% damage reduction (from 50%), also their damage dealt is now -20% (from 15%), and their LB has an added +45 seconds charge time (was +15)
• Bard, Machinist, Astrologian, White Mage, Scholar, Black Mage, Red Mage, Sage, Summoner, and Pictomancer for FL now have 30% damage reduction (was 25%)

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It doesn't matter if they nerf DRK to 0%. With Salted Earth, they will always be a meta job.

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Originally Posted by SalamanderIX

It can be a problem, but I just don't consider it a serious enough problem to give up playing with friends in Frontline.
Too casual of a mode to take serious measures, I'd rather do things in the future like:

Reduce strong crowd control effects like Salted Earth, rather than nerfing the jobs damage...
Reduce AOE damage, or give them more falloff, rather than nerfing jobs damage...

FL balancing is very lazy, and why it continues to feel really bad at times.

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Who said you won't be able to queue with friends? You can always queue up at the same time and either fight with them or fight against them depending on where you are placed. At least the skill is divied out between alliances. I don't see the problem here.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

This is very much my experience on Aether. The main problem I see is tank/melee feel crap to play and are mostly ineffective (other than SAM). So we've gone from a premade problem to the problem that half the jobs are really not worth playing.

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Well guess what, if jobs weren't used and abused so much by premades, maybe they wouldn't be nerfed so hard they aren't worth using solo anymore.

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Originally Posted by Wilford111

Who said you won't be able to queue with friends? You can always queue up at the same time and either fight with them or fight against them depending on where you are placed. At least the skill is divied out between alliances. I don't see the problem here.

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You might not be aware of this but when people want to play together they want to play together. They don’t want to play alone with 23 randos while their friend is alone with another 23 randos. They want to play with their friends.

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Originally Posted by Silaryn

You might not be aware of this but when people want to play together they want to play together. They don’t want to play alone with 23 randos while their friend is alone with another 23 randos. They want to play with their friends.

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Uhm. They're all on the field together.

Kind of wish SE would remove battle high, might fix a few things in FL, and I want a better system instead of random nodes and ice. Have a feeling new boarder land going to be just claiming again and no more tower to knock people off for easy win.

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Originally Posted by Silaryn

You might not be aware of this but when people want to play together they want to play together. They don’t want to play alone with 23 randos while their friend is alone with another 23 randos. They want to play with their friends.

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You and your "friends" but it's premade nolifers, should play together. In a fixed mm system facing groups against groups. (in before you cry about q times and that you have to face and win trade against your "friends")

Happy Shatter Day everyone

I don't remember where it was said, but I think a separate 8v8v8 mode when you can only queue up as a group would do Frontline some good. Let the experts play together in their own separate instances, let us scrubs flop around in peace.

Agreed. Just got done running a FL roulette against a premade. Got bulldozed. Also not only are the premades frustrating, but when you get a team that must be another premade that helps a certain team win. We were red. Blue was helping yellow tag team us. Ended with us having 300 points, blue had 500 points and yellow won with the 1700 points. It wasnt the worst FL I had been in. Had one where the FL roulette run only lasted 2 mins. Each player on the ranked premade team had 50-60+ kills. Im lucky if i get 4-5 per run. Not fun when you just run to the center of battlefield just to get one shotted by lbs. When its even skilled teams, FL really isnt that bad to play. But for the reason of the chance of having to fight against ranked pvp players I only do FL roulette for the exp leveling up alt classes. I would also suggest that not only have it be all you mentioned with no premades and stuff, but also there is to be no standing idle doing nothing for more than 30 seconds. Too many times I see people standing doing nothing and then after a couple mins, they just move to a different spot and stand idle again, then just keep repeating till end of match.

We used to have this is the CRAZY thing. It only happened if the queue didn't have enough players for 72 version.

massive skill issue all around here

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Originally Posted by FatCatEnjoyer

massive skill issue all around here

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^this person will instanly drop playing pvp once frontlines will face premades vs premades, unless they will match with friends group to win trade.

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Originally Posted by Stasya

^this person will instanly drop playing pvp once frontlines will face premades vs premades, unless they will match with friends group to win trade.

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or... premades isn't the main issue and it's the lack of player skill?
Shatter alone - people focusing on ice and ignoring another team running towards them and getting wiped out, ignoring warnings of a team above and behind and getting wiped out, focusing on ice and ignoring actually pvping and wondering why teams with higher BH roll teams later in the match, players not realising that pvp = bh = easier fights/ice melting, ignoring middle ice to focus on own ice, focusing on own ice and not attempting to pinch enemy team until it is done meaning far too late to engage. like it IS a skill issue. premades are not easy to play against but the general player base dont make it any easier. and its the same every match

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Originally Posted by ChrysOCE

or... premades isn't the main issue and it's the lack of player skill?
Shatter alone - people focusing on ice and ignoring another team running towards them and getting wiped out, ignoring warnings of a team above and behind and getting wiped out, focusing on ice and ignoring actually pvping and wondering why teams with higher BH roll teams later in the match, players not realising that pvp = bh = easier fights/ice melting, ignoring middle ice to focus on own ice, focusing on own ice and not attempting to pinch enemy team until it is done meaning far too late to engage. like it IS a skill issue. premades are not easy to play against but the general player base dont make it any easier. and its the same every match

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You're saying that people need to make lots of mistakes consistently and play exceptionally poorly in order for the game to be so imbalanced. And yet, remove premades from the equation and the problem goes away. Sounds like premades are the main issue.

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Originally Posted by Exmo

You're saying that people need to make lots of mistakes consistently and play exceptionally poorly in order for the game to be so imbalanced. And yet, remove premades from the equation and the problem goes away. Sounds like premades are the main issue.

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More like people are so exceptionally, and willfully awful at this game's PvP that they make premaders look like super soldiers. How 'bout we stop rewarding base-level participation? That'll truly solve the problem.

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Originally Posted by Atreus

More like people are so exceptionally, and willfully awful at this game's PvP that they make premaders look like super soldiers. How 'bout we stop rewarding base-level participation? That'll truly solve the problem.

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People don't get suddenly and miraculously better at PvP when the map isn't shatter. And yet, games on those maps are rarely as imbalanced as games against premades in Shatter. The problem isn't player skill level, it's the prevalence of toxic premades.

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Originally Posted by Atreus

More like people are so exceptionally, and willfully awful at this game's PvP that they make premaders look like super soldiers. How 'bout we stop rewarding base-level participation? That'll truly solve the problem.

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Yeah I think attributing this purely to a skill issue runs the risk of excusing/misdiagnosing lethargic play.

In a low-skill mode, it's hard for skill to make much of a difference. What does make a difference is people not engaging at all.

Somewhat surprisingly, I've found the worst of the lethargic offenders frequently queue in with friends (clear by their discussions in party chat). This is irritating since it makes them basically immune to vote-kicking. Maybe that's the idea?

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Originally Posted by Exmo

People don't get suddenly and miraculously better at PvP when the map isn't shatter. And yet, games on those maps are rarely as imbalanced as games against premades in Shatter. The problem isn't player skill level, it's the prevalence of toxic premades.

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It doesn't matter what the map is. You can have matches in Shatter, Onsal and SR with no premades and have the same results, players bunching up and getting mass KO'd, ignoring the score and fighting 2nd/3rd place instead of 1st, self-pinching by inserting themselves into the middle of a fight instead of going to the rear of one of the opponents, staying too long on an engagement instead of disengaging to contest the next one. those aren't premade issues.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Yeah I think attributing this purely to a skill issue runs the risk of excusing/misdiagnosing lethargic play.

In a low-skill mode, it's hard for skill to make much of a difference. What does make a difference is people not engaging at all.

Somewhat surprisingly, I've found the worst of the lethargic offenders frequently queue in with friends (clear by their discussions in party chat). This is irritating since it makes them basically immune to vote-kicking. Maybe that's the idea?

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I dont know about that, you can definitely see the skill difference between a veteran pvp player and someone who is new to FL. but you at least hope there is a willingness to learn and improve.
But yea, the lethargic or (imo worse) deliberately detrimental players are worse and there is no excuse for Square to not deal with them. people who consistantly get 0-0-0 or 0-10+-0