Light Party Restriction In Frontlines

Please remove the light party restriction for frontlines.

I understand the original intent was to prevent premades from "dominating" games but with the 24 player mode gone its honestly just become a restriction to play with more than 3 friends at a time now. A full party in 72 player mode doesn't have nearly as much influence if any at times.

Majority of players play PvP casually and you've catered the system towards a more casual player base, so why restrict players who enjoy it from playing together?

I know I'm probably going to get a ton of backlash for posting this but please consider removing it for the sake of the PvP community who enjoys playing it beyond just the rewards it has to offer.

hell yeah!

As it stands now just a four player stack can still pretty heavily decide a match. PvP is such that the top four DPS for example can have more effective productivity (damage, total kills, kills on important targets, coordination, disruption, etc.) than all of the rest of that alliance combined, and decide battles pretty fast. I appreciate the notion of trying to have as many people in a larger party able to stick together, but I think letting eight stacks back in is going to ultimately make the game worse for the casual player. I feel four stacks, while they can still be potent, increases the likelihood of separating power (though RNG can still allow pretty stacked teams).

I would have to disagree.

100% please remove the LP restriction for frontlines.

yeah makes no sense to restrict it to 4 players. they already cater enough to casuals. soon theres just gonna be two button pvp. its not fair to hurt the veterans/players who enjoy pvp and wanna get better to make the experience better for people just there to get marks and not contribute.

well a 4 stack cant decide anything if the team is uncoordinated. making the game better for the casual player makes it worse for the veteran/players who want to get better. isnt fair to hurt those who actually enjoy pvp and wanna improve to make it easier for the players who just queue up, press one button and get easy rewards. we already have an extremely gutted pvp. this mindset is gonna lead to 1 button pvp with everyone getting rewards just for queueing in.

Yes! Get rid of the party restriction. In a 72 man match a group of 8 isn't going to cause that team to dominate the others. We just want to play with friends. While i have always hated the change i do understand it when it came to 24 man matches. But those are no more so the LP restriction should also, be no more.

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Originally Posted by Rumari

Yes! Get rid of the party restriction. In a 72 man match a group of 8 isn't going to cause that team to dominate the others. We just want to play with friends. While i have always hated the change i do understand it when it came to 24 man matches. But those are no more so the LP restriction should also, be no more.

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As someone who was there for 100 consecutive freelancing losses during Nadaam's first week... no. Good riddance to it. A mere 4 people can do insane amount of work if they're kept healed enough, a full team coordinating around known map exploits and what-not? No thanks.

A lot of the PvP's quality comes down to the players, and more importantly how they approach the match. Team stacking inevitably just results in some of the most boring matches around, with one team stomping around anything in sight, and then the one team not getting stomped as much coming after the one that's been fighting non-stop with nothing to show for it. While that still exists, it'd be far worse on fully stacked frontlines.

If you're on the receiving end of this kind of behavior a lot, you lose all interest in even fighting. Before they ditched the old system, it was common for some teams to literally just idle waiting for their inevitable ganking. Which is heartbreaking, because everyone that did try ultimately didn't matter at all.

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Originally Posted by Novani

a full team coordinating around known map exploits and what-not? No thanks.

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What exactly are these map exploits you're referring to? I've played PvP since Heavensward and I've never encountered or heard of such things.

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Originally Posted by Novani

As someone who was there for 100 consecutive freelancing losses during Nadaam's first week... no. Good riddance to it. A mere 4 people can do insane amount of work if they're kept healed enough, a full team coordinating around known map exploits and what-not? No thanks.

A lot of the PvP's quality comes down to the players, and more importantly how they approach the match. Team stacking inevitably just results in some of the most boring matches around, with one team stomping around anything in sight, and then the one team not getting stomped as much coming after the one that's been fighting non-stop with nothing to show for it. While that still exists, it'd be far worse on fully stacked frontlines.

If you're on the receiving end of this kind of behavior a lot, you lose all interest in even fighting. Before they ditched the old system, it was common for some teams to literally just idle waiting for their inevitable ganking. Which is heartbreaking, because everyone that did try ultimately didn't matter at all.

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What map exploits exactly? Because for as long as i've been playing pvp i have never seen whatever it is you're talking about. Also, all this fear about full premades just 100% stomping or dominating is so false. There have been times i've gotten on teams with 2-3 other 4 man parties of people i am friends with, and we lose. There was a huge fear before of these large scale parties using voice chat to coordinate and do all these insane team owning tactics that i can tell you, is and never was a thing. Having 8 man parties back is 100% not going to change anything on how things are being played now. It just means the people who enjoy to play this particular thing in game can actually do so with friends. If i can get a party of 8 to do savage or other modes then i should be able to make a party of 8 to que pvp. This is a social game after all. We need to stop taking the social part out of it.

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Originally Posted by Novani

As someone who was there for 100 consecutive freelancing losses during Nadaam's first week... no. Good riddance to it. A mere 4 people can do insane amount of work if they're kept healed enough, a full team coordinating around known map exploits and what-not? No thanks.

A lot of the PvP's quality comes down to the players, and more importantly how they approach the match. Team stacking inevitably just results in some of the most boring matches around, with one team stomping around anything in sight, and then the one team not getting stomped as much coming after the one that's been fighting non-stop with nothing to show for it. While that still exists, it'd be far worse on fully stacked frontlines.

If you're on the receiving end of this kind of behavior a lot, you lose all interest in even fighting. Before they ditched the old system, it was common for some teams to literally just idle waiting for their inevitable ganking. Which is heartbreaking, because everyone that did try ultimately didn't matter at all.

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WHAT THE we ALL were there during the adder bandwagon. that has NOTHING to do with premades. that was a bunch of people who wanted carries and easy wins for the mount so they could stop queueing up. premades dont stomp everything in sight especially if other players idunno... fight back? you give me the impression you just hang back and afk. staying idle waiting to die? nah GET IN THERE. LEARN HOW TO STOP these premades.

and the only "exploit" these bois doing is actually using their maps. crazy i know.

I'm very hesitant on this subject. Obviously, I would want full party premades back for selfish reasons. However, as a solo player I always have to ask myself this: Will I enjoy this sort of revert, or will I have to go back to dealing with a team that gives up at the sight of a premade? It was already difficult enough to try and maintain a positive mindset when this sort of thing happens back when 24 man was a thing. I just don't have the energy to deal with this in 72 man.

Then I have to keep in mind the current state of frontlines. While it seems to me like it's benefitting most people I honestly don't like how things are. With the exception of Shatter I don't play as aggressive as I used to, not after they took away full party premades. With the focus going to all/majority of objectives it took a while to learn not to play aggressive, because I was mainly dying from a lack of commitment in a fight. Playing at my best sometimes felt very useless at the end, because people will give up if they sitting in last place and announce that they didn't care to win from the beginning. I have to avoid parts of the day (sometimes the entire day), simply because frontlines, to me at times, feels more like a pve roulette than an actual pvp mode. I'm a bit disappointed with what the changes reaped thus far.

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Originally Posted by Mistress_Irika

I'm very hesitant on this subject. Obviously, I would want full party premades back for selfish reasons. However, as a solo player I always have to ask myself this: Will I enjoy this sort of revert, or will I have to go back to dealing with a team that gives up at the sight of a premade?

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People tend to give up regardless if there's a premade present or not after falling behind a certain threshold of points. The fact that players are rewarded regardless of placement also kills the will to truly try and win as many just participate for daily rewards. Players complained about losing to "premades" in the past but now presently a vast majority don't care if its a win or loss because of how the system works.

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Originally Posted by Rinku421

What exactly are these map exploits you're referring to? I've played PvP since Heavensward and I've never encountered or heard of such things.

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Originally Posted by Rumari

What map exploits exactly? Because for as long as i've been playing pvp i have never seen whatever it is you're talking about. Also, all this fear about full premades just 100% stomping or dominating is so false

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Alright, exploit was an extreme term to use for it, apologies about that; tired brain goes for the first word. As far as it does go, is mainly to do with how weirdly some Z levels interact near some nodes (Seal Rock and Nadaam specifically) that can be difficult for the attacked team to respond to. If it happened once I'd blame server tick, but well, can only go by what was experienced on a few occasions prior to the change. Edit: For clarification, I meant around under the edge of center left node and southeast cliff node in the respective maps). This was experienced under an old unstable ADsL connection though. For all I know, it might've been complete coincidence.

Not ruling out being wrong, but can only go by what was experienced over the course of several matches against the same premade. This isn't the rule for premades sure, nothing in life is ever so clear cut. But I sincerely doubt it'd go anywhere good.
After all PvP, and Frontline in particular is always a mixed bag. And there's still plenty of ways to be social; just in this stuff, the worst comes out first.

Apologies also for the late reply.

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Originally Posted by IllidanFang

WHAT THE we ALL were there during the adder bandwagon. that has NOTHING to do with premades. that was a bunch of people who wanted carries and easy wins for the mount so they could stop queueing up. premades dont stomp everything in sight especially if other players idunno... fight back? you give me the impression you just hang back and afk. staying idle waiting to die? nah GET IN THERE. LEARN HOW TO STOP these premades.

and the only "exploit" these bois doing is actually using their maps. crazy i know.

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Gee, what a novel concept.

I love these knee jerk reactions. It's like having a differing opinion's the equal to saying the most vile thing in existence. Makes things ever so civil.

For the record: I do not sit idle, if anything I'm aggressive in a fight and always moving to and from objectives. A few times I questioned teams that sat passively, you know what the response (when there was one) I got was when I dared to question the wisdom? It wasn't civil let me tell you that.

Far as I see it, there's no point in PvPing if well, you don't go and give it your best shot, and work as a team if you can. If you win, great. If you lose, well there's always next time. Personally, it's more about the quality of the match, which comes largely from the players. I don't see premade dominated matches encouraging anyone to having a go. But that's just my two cents, not like my opinion matters. >.>

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Originally Posted by Novani

Alright, exploit was an extreme term to use for it, apologies about that; tired brain goes for the first word. As far as it does go, is mainly to do with how weirdly some Z levels interact near some nodes (Seal Rock and Nadaam specifically) that can be difficult for the attacked team to respond to. If it happened once I'd blame server tick, but well, can only go by what was experienced on a few occasions prior to the change. Edit: For clarification, I meant around under the edge of center left node and southeast cliff node in the respective maps). This was experienced under an old unstable ADsL connection though. For all I know, it might've been complete coincidence.

Not ruling out being wrong, but can only go by what was experienced over the course of several matches against the same premade. This isn't the rule for premades sure, nothing in life is ever so clear cut.

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Node spawns are completely random and RNG based. As someone who's played Frontlines for almost 3 years I can tell you a premade being present does not factor into the equation at all.

Maybe make a separate 24-man mode just for full premades? Or 16-man even, because 3 factions is the most unfun aspect of Frontlines. Matches with premades will never be balanced when mixed with solo players.

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Originally Posted by SuperZay

3 factions is the most unfun aspect of Frontlines.

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This is sole reason why I prefer Rival Wings over Frontlines. Having to constantly worry about being "flanked" and basically deterring people from actually fighting in matches. If they could somehow revamp Frontlines to just be 2 factions it would be so much better.

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Originally Posted by Rinku421

This is sole reason why I prefer Rival Wings over Frontlines. Having to constantly worry about being "flanked" and basically deterring people from actually fighting in matches. If they could somehow revamp Frontlines to just be 2 factions it would be so much better.

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That is also why Rival Wings is not popular on EU and NA because once the game is one sided you will immediately hearing "Let them win so I can get out of here"
You won't hear this in Frontline because there is always a chance your GC can take over the lead from a successful flank.

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

That is also why Rival Wings is not popular on EU and NA because once the game is one sided you will immediately hearing "Let them win so I can get out of here"
You won't hear this in Frontline because there is always a chance your GC can take over the lead from a successful flank.

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It's not popular but for another reason entirely: it's not part of a daily map rotation and doesn't have roulette bonus. When there are incentives to que for it directly, like moogle tomestone events, there are 2, and sometimes 3 matches going on at the same time. Regardless, you have a 50% chance to win in a faster RW match than 33% chance in slower Frontline matches so it's much less annoying and doesn't leave a sense of a time wasted.

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Originally Posted by Esmoire

As it stands now just a four player stack can still pretty heavily decide a match. PvP is such that the top four DPS for example can have more effective productivity (damage, total kills, kills on important targets, coordination, disruption, etc.) than all of the rest of that alliance combined, and decide battles pretty fast. I appreciate the notion of trying to have as many people in a larger party able to stick together, but I think letting eight stacks back in is going to ultimately make the game worse for the casual player. I feel four stacks, while they can still be potent, increases the likelihood of separating power (though RNG can still allow pretty stacked teams).

I would have to disagree.

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^ This 100%

Whoever says that an 8 man team premade out of 24 ppl is not heavy enough to smashroll everything from the other alliances is just bad at pvp or a liar.
As someone elses said i was on the both sides of the stick in the past (on a premade with 5/6/7 other ppls i knew, or alone against one or more full premade) and it was "almost" always a massacre.

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

That is also why Rival Wings is not popular on EU and NA because once the game is one sided you will immediately hearing "Let them win so I can get out of here"
You won't hear this in Frontline because there is always a chance your GC can take over the lead from a successful flank.

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I don't know what kind of Frontline matches you've played but majority of teams give up once they fall behind like 700 points and beyond. "Letting them win" isn't exclusive to Rival Wings at all, if anything its less prevalent because there isn't a third faction to interfere with the possibility of making a come back.

8-man groups were only ever an issue in 24-player games and they were removed in the same update. There used to be several 8-man groups queued up for 72-man with the hopes of going against each other. Now that freelancer is forced even on the solo player, every person has the same chance of being with an 8-stack as well as being against.

The light party restriction is stupid and needs to go.

There's a point that's being missed for 72 man. Any sort of premade, whether it's with 8, 4, or even 2 people, can determine how matches goes. However, a premade is only as powerful as the support it gets. Premades can be beaten by numbers or by sandwiches.

Sure, you can have a premade have the highest performance for a game, but they can simply place last at the end of the game due to the lack of support they may receive. Premades can carry. They just can't do all the work.

I'm just putting that out there. It's not changing my thoughts with bringing back 8 man groups.

For me, the short answer is removing full/near full-party premades was necessary. The longer answer is that it was a bit of a 'scorched earth' solution that highlighted some of the inherent flaws of their matchmaking system and Frontlines modes.

Premades absolutely could and did ruin the 24-man modes for the other 16 players. Whether it was just a party with a plan of attack/balanced party comp created beforehand (some roulette parties struggle to even get 1 healer or more), a group communicating through VC or discord, or just a group of vets looking to stack their party to steamroll everyone to farm battle highs; it was an advantage over everybody else who solo queued. There's a reason why solo queue Feast and light party Feast are separate and have 2 different rankings. A premade's influence arguably is diluted in 72 man modes, but people underestimate and downplay the benefit of having even one party full of battle highs/fevers marking/mowing down targets and leading the charge into contested areas or objectives. In my opinion, the devs should have had a separate queue just for premade parties, where they would have to be matched against other premade parties for the match to pop. I've seen the argument against that method being along the lines of "then they wouldn't get matches for long periods of time, if ever-" then that's on them to disband and queue up normally like everybody else. The other, extreme option was to prevent premades from queuing up at all- but instead they just decided to cut them in half, somewhat effectively limiting their influence.

What made this decision less-palatable was that it came at the same time of them removing 24-man matches- the one place larger premades absolutely dominated. I'm not quite sure what their reasoning was (they never told us), but it might have had to do with the maps being basically largely unchanged in terms of size and objectives (aside from only 3 flags in Secure, sometimes no big ice (or only big ice) in Shatter, and like 1 less tomelith in Seize). Maybe it was because more people disliked the small matches than those who liked them? I know I avoided Secure 24-man modes like the plague at all costs.

But with the removal of the ability to make anything over a 4-person premade, what cemented my belief that most people who did so were just looking for any advantage by stacking parties beforehand came with Onsal Hakair a week or two later. This was the other problem with frontlines: Grand Company allegiance. People looking to stack their parties with experienced players got around the new restriction by all swapping to one Grand Company (Adders on primal) and proceed to win what I would say nearly 75% or more of the matches. The devs tried to hold on to their flawed little GC lore and keep it relevant for as long as they could, but how it blew-up in Onsal Hakair was all the confirmation they needed that anything that could let players choose who they played with in any significant number versus those who solo queue needed to go. And hence why we have forced freelancer and GC is little more than what color team you're on now.

Why do people who play an MMO want to play it alone so much?

Nah, 4mans are enough, I'd like to play with as many friends as I want, but from a non selfish standpoint 4-mans are enough. Because teams wind up with multiple of them anyway atm and it's a nightmare.

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a full team coordinating around known map exploits and what-not?

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This is utter shite.

Premades DID have an effect in 72. A well organized premade could absolutely create a snowball effect to steamroll the other teams.

Of course, in 24 they were more dominant for sure.

I'm fine with light party restrictions, but still miss 24 mode.

Whats funny is people are bring up onsal, but forget that the reason that one group was steamrolling so hard was BECAUSE they made the 4 people pre-made max. People were using an actual exploit (you know instead of that reading a map and being able to push the buttons to do the things exploit lol) of joining the same gc and que-syncing in order to end up in the same alliance and other people who would be able to make a premade to combat them either had to do the same or were out of luck.

I have to disagree.

A premade full of Feast veterans or good players in general can still have a huge impact in 72 Frontline and it would only get worse if they allowed 8 man parties. Them forcing Freelancer means they don't want one team to completely dominate, to the point where the outcome of the match have already been decided less than 5 min into the match.

If people want to dominate in a premade, go and participate in the next LP Feast season or join a tournament hosted by the PvPaissa discord.

Wouldn't they have to rebalance BH? Or maybe a simpler solution would be to add a stacking debuff for BH for every player over four. This would also have to be balanced and watched. I just don't think they want that much work.

I agree, it’s a bit overkill.
I feel like Frontlines as a whole is in a pretty bad spot at the moment however. The modes were made When pre-sb pvp existed and i think it really shined then.

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Originally Posted by Rinku421

I don't know what kind of Frontline matches you've played but majority of teams give up once they fall behind like 700 points and beyond. "Letting them win" isn't exclusive to Rival Wings at all, if anything its less prevalent because there isn't a third faction to interfere with the possibility of making a come back.

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Did you ever heard or participated in so called Flame-Adder war.
I am sure you have.
Although post free lancer Flamr-Adder war is no longer a thing but idea of retaliation persists
It is because of this retaliation mentality, you rarely seeing people throw out “Let them win”
Rival Wing on other hand is unable to offer that because it nevertheless is still a 2 side combat system; once you are on the losing side, there is no comeback or ability to retaliate.

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

Rival Wing on other hand is unable to offer that because it nevertheless is still a 2 side combat system; once you are on the losing side, there is no comeback or ability to retaliate.

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The Brute Justice machina and Gobcrate train are literally MADE as comeback mechanics. Machina in general are used to turn the tides of battle especially with the buffs the Cruise Chaser and Brute Justice received recently. I've seen games turn around within the last 30 seconds because of those mechanics. You clearly haven't played Rival Wings enough if you don't think there's any possibility for comebacks.

Bring 24 mode back or make it even a 48 mode, not just 72.
PvP Ranks could be used as tool to create a matchmaking algorithm, Frontline could start at set intervals similar to ocean fishing, creating the best balanced matches possible within that timeframe with those players who are queueing. This would allow 8man premades. You could pop 1x72 and 1x24 if there are 100 players in queue every 30min. The queue could show how many people are in it.