SE: Frontlines is bad - really bad - and for a dumb reason. Please fix it.

PvP in FFXIV is horrible for all the wrong reasons. Throwing 3 teams of 24 players against each other is bound to lead to incoordination, but that isn't the issue. The problem is that FFXIV doesn't give players enough information to know how to play any of the various modes.

The Borderland Ruins (Secure)
You're told to go capture bases or blow up nodes, but you have no idea how many points anything is worth. Is it just the team that lands the killing blow on a node that gets the points from it? How many points is a small node versus a big node versus capturing a base even worth? Does dying cause your team to lose points or does killing enemy players grant your team points? If so, how many? Unlike Rival Wings, which has a timer until the next train, Gobbie, etc., there's no timer on the node spawns, so you have to look to third-party sources to know that they spawn at 19:00 minutes, then every 4 minutes after the last one was killed, and then at 10:00 for the big node. It's hard for players to make educated decisions as to which tasks to prioritize because they have no idea how many points things are worth. Also, many players don't know about player deaths/kills reducing/awarding points in Frontlines, or the buffs of Battle High.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...e/frontline/1/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...breakdown_and/

The Fields of Glory (Shatter)
This mode suffers from the same issues as Secure: It's not clear how points are awarded for destroying ice crystals (both in terms of whether your team gets points that are proportionate to the damage it did to a block of ice and how much a small/large block of ice is worth in the first place) versus occupying Allagan tomeliths versus player kills/deaths.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...e/frontline/4/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...nd_how_to_fix/

Seal Rock (Seize)
Once again, it isn't clear how many points the various tomeliths give you versus player kills, and it isn't obvious that blue tomeliths are B rank, red tomeliths are A rank, and yellow tomeliths are S rank.

https://pvpaissa.com/article/seal-rock-seize
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...e/frontline/3/

Onsal Hakair (Danshig Naadam)
Same issues as the other modes. Shapes (triangles, diamonds, and pentagons) with random colors (blue, red, yellow - I guess these correspond to the same colors as Seize) show up on the map and you're expected to know that triangles are B ranks, diamonds are A ranks, and pentagons are S ranks. Lots of people don't know that two B ranks are worth just as many points as one A rank, or that two A ranks are worth just as many points as an S rank, and so they often give up easy points elsewhere to go after a heavily contested S rank in the middle.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...e/frontline/5/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...eonsal_hakair/

I've posted links above to the official SE guides on these various modes as well as more helpful third-party information from Reddit, etc. As you can see, the SE guides provide a vague overview of the modes, but nothing about points. In any event, I still do not understand why basic rules about these modes are not explained in the game. It often seems like the equivalent of joining a random team to go play basketball in North Korea without knowing anything about their point system.

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Originally Posted by DoH

Throwing 3 teams of 24 players against each other is bound to lead to incoordination, but that isn't the issue.

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I actually think it's a rather big issue. Why do you normally not see 3 different factions in the same battleground in a pvp focused game? Because it's an absolute balance nightmare. If two of the teams decide to gang up on yours for whatever reason it is almost impossible to recover. With how limited the skill system is nowadays you don't exactly have options to make up for the significant numerical disadvantage.

Oh and since everyone is now flagged as a freelancer in pvp anyway, is there really even a reason to keep the 3 factions? Your Grand Company does not matter a single bit anymore.

I feel like some basic fundamentals of a good multiplayer game are in order. Other multiplayer games do a really good job of telling players when something really important is happening both audibly and visually in a way that can't be drowned out by the game. Some examples:

Compass waymarks. When something important happens on the map, have icons on the edge of the screen telling you what they are and where they are relative to your position. When you get close enough to it and it's in your field of view, the waymarks disappear.

Weenies. Basically like a HUGE pillar of light or something on the map on the position of a key strategic point of interest. Like with waymarks, when you get close, they disappear so they are not disruptive.

Audible callouts you can hear at any time and any place. This is done by having the sound of them spawning be global and not relative to your position. Right now in FFXIV you either have to be close (if it makes a sound at all), looking at the map, or pray you see the little notification that is always being drowned out all the time. This is also a good place to say if the battlefield situation has changed, and a team has taken the lead (obviously with some cooldown so it won't repeat when two or three teams are close in score).


Just a few examples. Also, they could make way better use of the space they have with zero disruption to the game. For example, the tooltips for objectives suck. They should tell you how much they are worth when you hover them. Also, why not take advantage of the load screens? Put a tl;dr of the map on there. Maybe loading screen tips. Also, score board could be way better, like showing you where you are getting all your points from (number of points controlled, ovoo held, etc.)

Also, if we are not getting traits like we had, maybe put some of the hidden stuff in a trait window, like the damage reduction melee and tanks get. Right now the only place this is said isn't in the game mode, its in-game guides of Wolves' Den... you have to check the website or patch notes.

Just in general a lot of opportunities to do simple tried and trued things from multiplayer games made decades ago not being done here.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

I actually think it's a rather big issue. Why do you normally not see 3 different factions in the same battleground in a pvp focused game? Because it's an absolute balance nightmare. If two of the teams decide to gang up on yours for whatever reason it is almost impossible to recover. With how limited the skill system is nowadays you don't exactly have options to make up for the significant numerical disadvantage.

Oh and since everyone is now flagged as a freelancer in pvp anyway, is there really even a reason to keep the 3 factions? Your Grand Company does not matter a single bit anymore.

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I disagree. I like the three team idea of Frontline. I think there are times when your team is last and second place is going after you for no reason, it can be like WHAT? Other times, it creates a lot of fun drama or makes for cool stories. Holding off your home turf against two teams feels really awesome. I feel three teams makes it harder to call the winner in more matches than if there was just two teams.

I don't think anything about FL has to change on a fundamental level; the UX and UI have huge room for improvement. That said, I do think FFXIV needs more standard and basic multiplayer experiences not to replace it, but compliment it. Right now IMO the competitive atmosphere of Feast and the almost excessively over-designed RW has a massive gulf that is just begging for like... 16v16 CTF or payload or something way easier to jump into and play. There should be something like this supported with a Daily Challenge like FL has.

wait there are people that play pvp? ;P

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Originally Posted by ElazulHP

wait there are people that play pvp? ;P

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Haha stop it! You're so funny!

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Originally Posted by ElazulHP

wait there are people that play pvp? ;P

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PvP in FFXIV is fine. It is side content as was intended. Why don't you try it and form your own opinion? I know people love to allow other people to dictate how they should think/feel about anything. Think for yourself. Stop being a puppet.

+1 to this thread. It's honestly the most frustrating part of any Frontline... Not knowing clearly the objectives and not knowing what each thing does. That holds truth especially for Rival Wings.

People don't have to resource to google just to understand the basics of ingame objectives.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

PvP in FFXIV is fine. It is side content as was intended. Why don't you try it and form your own opinion? I know people love to allow other people to dictate how they should think/feel about anything. Think for yourself. Stop being a puppet.

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Judging by the several PvP mounts they have, I would say they did lmao

At the very least, I want to see 24 man matches make a return. Maybe the size of the maps should be tweaked to accommodate the lesser number of players but I've had much more fun in frontlines when the battles are strategic and less about the 'zerg'.

Additional rewards and incentives to queue up would work as well. There should be more things to spend wolf marks on.

Pvp is no different to any other content in this respect. You either do your research before you go in or you go in blind and figure it out.

As for the points. It’s the same as saying you don’t understand how damage is calculated. Does it matter? Do the things that makes the number go up. It’s not difficult.