Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

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Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

To me, that was just the before. You could steal bases of the opposite teams, you could Monk knock people off of the cliffs and kill them, etc. I only know that version and the current crap version. What was the third iteration?

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I personally liked this version because it actually forced all three teams to fight, not one team running of to go get their large, then getting chased etc etc. I thought the knock off and pull off stuff sucked cause it had people literally camp bridges, but the actual battles were fun and the matches were relatively close

The newest redesign was perfect for me until they destroyed it when they changed the spawn and scoring systems.

There's so few possible game states now, and players still don't understand to go steal enemy small ice before getting your own at base. The map is severely under utilized now with the upper section being almost useless and the opportunity for meaningful small scale fights is completly removed.

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

The newest redesign was perfect for me until they destroyed it when they changed the spawn and scoring systems.

There's so few possible game states now, and players still don't understand to go steal enemy small ice before getting your own at base. The map is severely under utilized now with the upper section being almost useless and the opportunity for meaningful small scale fights is completly removed.

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Interesting. I feel quite the opposite, and not simply to disagree with you. I rarely play more than one, but my match today was fairly typical, with lots of small fights. Do you turn off your "D" when small ice spawns? Maybe people are so used to following you around, it doesn't occur to them to do anything else? Genuinely curious why in the less-organized matches that I play the latest change was a definite upgrade, whereas for your highly-directed style it fails.

I can only say I added the modifier "meaniful" for a reason... maybe you did have a lot of small fights, but should you have been? Unless you're taking out a person every 2-3 gcds you're probably wasting time more than helping your team.

Furthering that thought, small ice is worth so many points in comparison to a kill, that you're better off just licking smalls then trying to take out the enemies next to you.

This is distinctly different from onsal and seal, where small groups from 2nd and 3rd place will fight over a node while the main forces are stalling 1st in their spawn can often be the deciding factor in a match.

As for following... I just split the team in half by having someone else marker up during that time as well. That comment was more directed at enemy teams not seizing obvious opportunities.

It's not like commanding doesn't work, it's just strategically shallow.

The second iteration was the release of the reworked map. It was somewhere between what we have now and what we had before, meaning ice wasn't constantly spawning and we had a bit of smaller downtimes to actually go fight and skirmish with other teams. Small ices were also not always all spawning all at once I think, like on the first map?

Current version is scripted ice licking hell.

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Originally Posted by Valence

The second iteration was the release of the reworked map. It was somewhere between what we have now and what we had before, meaning ice wasn't constantly spawning and we had a bit of smaller downtimes to actually go fight and skirmish with other teams. Small ices were also not always all spawning all at once I think, like on the first map?

Current version is scripted ice licking hell.

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Oh ok, thank you for explaining. I completely missed that version entirely during the time I unsubbed. Because I went from playing on the OG Shatter, to the crap we have today, and never saw the in-between.

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

I can only say I added the modifier "meaniful" for a reason... maybe you did have a lot of small fights, but should you have been? Unless you're taking out a person every 2-3 gcds you're probably wasting time more than helping your team.

Furthering that thought, small ice is worth so many points in comparison to a kill, that you're better off just licking smalls then trying to take out the enemies next to you.

This is distinctly different from onsal and seal, where small groups from 2nd and 3rd place will fight over a node while the main forces are stalling 1st in their spawn can often be the deciding factor in a match.

As for following... I just split the team in half by having someone else marker up during that time as well. That comment was more directed at enemy teams not seizing obvious opportunities.

It's not like commanding doesn't work, it's just strategically shallow.

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I find there's significant fighting over the smalls. The skirmishes occur there in an effort to grab the quick ice points while denying them to the enemy. I've been playing immediately after reset recently to avoid the Aether regs and I suspect there may be EU/JP PvP enthusiasts running alts here. Lot of people I don't recognize, a significant fraction of whom are quite good.

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Originally Posted by Valence

The second iteration was the release of the reworked map. It was somewhere between what we have now and what we had before, meaning ice wasn't constantly spawning and we had a bit of smaller downtimes to actually go fight and skirmish with other teams. Small ices were also not always all spawning all at once I think, like on the first map?

Current version is scripted ice licking hell.

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Mm. Not quite. If we're talking about the initial reworked Shatter, small ices were always constantly spawning and encouraged many players (ie: tomestone farmers) to never leave the two-to-four ices spawning by base. Large ices spawned in seemingly random orders, so it wasn't unheard of that your team only had your ice spawn once while another team had three spawns in the same match. There was plenty of ice-licking, it was just concentrated on the small ices instead.

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Originally Posted by Burmecia

Before or before-before? I kinda liked the og variant the best, warts and all.

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Same. OG Shatter was much better than what they turned it into now; even if the map was rather asymmetrical. The south team was routinely harassed up into their ramp because the distance between the east and west teams appeared far wider. Didn't care much for having capturable bases, minor distractions at best. People complained about cliffs and MNKs, but that probably just meant you were bad and had a poor sense of spatial awareness and were salty that you were knocked-back to your death.

All ices only spawned once, so there were strategic importance to being a presence at large ices and actually sending a reasonable amount of people to attack small ices and hovering around remaining ice. But most importantly, there was a lot of downtime to actually have PvP. Two adjacent teams actually both had some sort of ramp access to large ices between them, none of these 95% suicidal drops without a safe escape route.

I think OG Shatter was better than Secure. Secure was a sterile, boring back-and-forth slog where most teams travelled in a giant murderball to an adjacent flag only to find the other team had just left and nothing but maybe one or two stragglers to erase, only to find out your flag on the opposite side had just been claimed. Rise and repeat. Even if you did have small-scale skirmishes between people trying to hold/stealth-steal flags, not much happened, as with FL's insane defense bonuses + self-healing just makes everything that doesn't involve half a dozen people attacking one person a half-minute ordeal (and even then, melee DPS and tanks can oftentimes survive that much).

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

The newest redesign was perfect for me until they destroyed it when they changed the spawn and scoring systems.

There's so few possible game states now, and players still don't understand to go steal enemy small ice before getting your own at base. The map is severely under utilized now with the upper section being almost useless and the opportunity for meaningful small scale fights is completly removed.

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I'm not expecting for them to honestly. I tried ice resetting a long time ago, and everyone would rather race to kill ice before touching players. Just let them have fun. It's just a game after all. :)

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Ooh! That sounds like it might have the potential to produce interesting play.

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I've meant to reply days ago. If you're a fan of fighting I'm not sure if the previous map would have suited you. Everyone basically camped mid until big ice spawned. Very rarely did games start out where all the small ice would spawned first. I would take my opinion with a grain of salt, because it shouldn't be taken with much value. Majority played for ice. I played for base. It was fun, and that was where the thrill was for me despite the bases not having any meaning. It was my personal training playground, and despite me caring for wins I could care less about hitting ice unless I was killing a small group and taking the full value of the small ice for myself.

Base stealing was a thing back then with a small group of people in my data center. I didn't get a reaction when I invaded Crystal. They were chill. Aether, on the other hand, did not play games with me. Casuals actually fought back. Half of the time I go to invade the data center if they sense that I was here to steal bases my team would be farmed to last all game every single game until I stopped queuing. My team was usually confused as to why they were being farmed. Hiding behind a premade did not work for me. Games would usually be decided within a 200 point difference if they managed to punish the premade team. It was fun invading there. However, it was a brutal experience in Aether. I'm not sure if I would like another similar experience despite thinking of going back to visit.

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Originally Posted by Mistress_Irika

I'm not expecting for them to honestly. I tried ice resetting a long time ago, and everyone would rather race to kill ice before touching players. Just let them have fun. It's just a game after all. :)



I've meant to reply days ago. If you're a fan of fighting I'm not sure if the previous map would have suited you. Everyone basically camped mid until big ice spawned. Very rarely did games start out where all the small ice would spawned first. I would take my opinion with a grain of salt, because it shouldn't be taken with much value. Majority played for ice. I played for base. It was fun, and that was where the thrill was for me despite the bases not having any meaning. It was my personal training playground, and despite me caring for wins I could care less about hitting ice unless I was killing a small group and taking the full value of the small ice for myself.

Base stealing was a thing back then with a small group of people in my data center. I didn't get a reaction when I invaded Crystal. They were chill. Aether, on the other hand, did not play games with me. Casuals actually fought back. Half of the time I go to invade the data center if they sense that I was here to steal bases my team would be farmed to last all game every single game until I stopped queuing. My team was usually confused as to why they were being farmed. Hiding behind a premade did not work for me. Games would usually be decided within a 200 point difference if they managed to punish the premade team. It was fun invading there. However, it was a brutal experience in Aether. I'm not sure if I would like another similar experience despite thinking of going back to visit.

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I'd be happy if Shatter was removed and the two other maps had a second version in which the objectives were swapped. I'd be interested to see how recapture on Onsal might work out. Mid might be an issue.