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.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

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'.

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I wasn't a fan of 8v8v8, since it doesn't feel like FL anymore. I do think yeah the maps were a part of it: Shatter in particular was miserable. That said, it was awful to get dropped into an 8v8v8 when I queued at night, and it would just make me reluctant to queue late... and I am like the core audience for FL, with nearly 1200 matches player in the past few years.

What I really think this means, and what would help with the queue hours things while having a more strategic gameplay experience available, would be more small scale experiences available that aren't 4v4 Feast. For example, maybe bringing back the 8v8 Feast they had and rebranding it, or a new mode or something.

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

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.

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The irony is that the example here doesn't work in the subject matter. Actually, for PvP, where the damage is fixed and only modified by status modifiers (order of operations) and tight RNG variance, thus actually it is easy to calculate damage in PvP. In general they tried to make the numerical nuance of PvP more clear to understand. For example, when a destructible objective is taken down, you do get to see the number of points extracted. Thus, the designers seem to have a mind for making things more tangible and understandable... Just means there is an inconsistently in the UI and a weak UX supporting it.

I'd go so far as to say that I'd like if more of FFXIV revealed more information without overwhelming the base user. It would be cool to have more numbers in general, especially for those who want it. Right now we know a lot of stuff like, say, how fast you move with ninja passive VS Peloton VS Sprint from user testing. The community efforts are commendable and while I can see why a lot of stuff has to be kept a black box, I'd like if the developer was willing to disclose more of how FFXIV worked.

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

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.

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You're missing my point completely. I understand the mechanics and how they work because I've spent time looking at third-party resources. My complaint is that the majority of the people who play PvP don't do this and so you end up playing with a bunch of people who don't know what the objectives are whatsoever or only have a vague sense of how to get points and so they don't know how to prioritize things. There's an entire minute that FFXIV makes you wait once you enter the PvP match - that would be the perfect time to display some information regarding objectives, points, etc.

Also, I think your point about how damage is calculated just raises more issues with this game. Sure, maybe they don't want to let people see how much DPS everyone is doing because of "toxicity" or whatever, but it annoys me to no end that there is literally nothing in this game that tells you what various stats do. What does 1 point of "Physical Damage" on a weapon convert into versus 1 point of your primary stat (STR, DEX, etc.) versus 1 point of a secondary stat (CH, DH, DET, etc.)? Most players basically have to end up going to The Balance or some third-party resource to figure out how to optimize their gear (i.e., mixing and matching current raid gear with tomestone gear and relic weapons - for example, the current BiS for WHM is arguably the ilvl 500 relic weapon (and not the ilvl 505 Edenchoir weapon) with a mix of ilvl 500 Edenchoir and Augmented Chrystarium gear). It baffles me why they seem to go out of their way to obscure point calculation on any front. I stand by my original comment that it would be like playing a sport but not knowing the point system thereof.

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Originally Posted by Ahnthistik

*angry popoto noises*

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https://media.tenor.com/images/28152...aad3/tenor.gif

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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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PvP has a fraction of the player base playing it and it's really not all that great. Dunno what to tell you, it's really not all that popular and it's a huge meme outside the FFXIV bubble you guys have put yourselves in. Most other MMO players laugh at how terrible it is in comparison to other MMO and specifically tell people to avoid FFXIV if they want a decent PvP game. *shrug*

Could it be improved? Sure. Is it likely to be improved to the point where it's enjoyable? Possibly. I dunno it really depends on 6.0 I guess, but it's unlikely considering the trend it's been on for years now.

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Originally Posted by ElazulHP

PvP has a fraction of the player base playing it and it's really not all that great. Dunno what to tell you, it's really not all that popular and it's a huge meme outside the FFXIV bubble you guys have put yourselves in. Most other MMO players laugh at how terrible it is in comparison to other MMO and specifically tell people to avoid FFXIV if they want a decent PvP game. *shrug*

Could it be improved? Sure. Is it likely to be improved to the point where it's enjoyable? Possibly. I dunno it really depends on 6.0 I guess, but it's unlikely considering the trend it's been on for years now.

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It absolutely cannot be improved to the point where it is enjoyable to the herd. The herd has declared a judgment! FFXIV PvP is BAD! ALL MUST COMPLY! You guys eat that and enjoy it. I will queue for pvp and enjoy it.

the npc goblin at the wolves den actual explains rival wings and what each mech does. If you speak to him a second time. Other than that it takes practice, communication and coordination.

Pretty sure when you talk to the front line npc its gives a general idea of the objective of each map.

Biggest problem I see is poor communication in the alliance and members that dont coorperate with their alliance. The alliance that does communicate the best with members that cooperate usually wins. They Make use of tools such as macro call outs and such.

Frontlines and rival wings is probably the one place you can ask what is up if you and usually get some sort if response.

I hate PvP in FF14. My solution would be to rip it all out and make all rewards available elsewhere. Don't even replace it. Only reluctantly do it for the glamour rewards. Other MMOs, I played PvP because it was fun and enjoyable. The way SE handles these 3 way matches is really stupid and I have no idea how it can be fixed. Maybe start off with removing battle high completely.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

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.

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24 player pvp forces you to pull weight or get gibbed. The only reason I think they took it out regardless of what was said was so people didn't feel bad for not being able to blame someone else for not being a more capable or adaptive pvper. And I am not a great pvper I did feel like I learned more and became a better player after just a couple rounds of 24 player matches. It is absolutely ridiculous they took this mode out imo.

Irks me that i have to keep the large map up all the time to get a clear view of the objectives (same issue when farming fates) while continuously closing it accidental because I'm playing with a controller.

Other then that, 24x3 is fun when people know what to do.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

It absolutely cannot be improved to the point where it is enjoyable to the herd. The herd has declared a judgment! FFXIV PvP is BAD! ALL MUST COMPLY! You guys eat that and enjoy it. I will queue for pvp and enjoy it.

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Attitudes like this are why the devs get away with leaving it the way it is. I guess enjoy mediocrity. *shrug*

I liked 24 man PvP for the reasons outlined earlier, though it also meant it was easier to find a group for PvP outside of prime time hours.

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Originally Posted by Sauteed

24 player pvp forces you to pull weight or get gibbed. The only reason I think they took it out regardless of what was said was so people didn't feel bad for not being able to blame someone else for not being a more capable or adaptive pvper. And I am not a great pvper I did feel like I learned more and became a better player after just a couple rounds of 24 player matches. It is absolutely ridiculous they took this mode out imo.

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I think the 8v8v8 and 16v16v16 versions of the maps were removed due to how the instance system worked. It seems that the 24, 48 and 72 player Frontline instances each needed dedicated instance slots and each with their own spawn timeline. They likely removed those modes to free up "dead" space on the instance server and dedicate that space to new PvP maps and modes.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

I think the 8v8v8 and 16v16v16 versions of the maps were removed due to how the instance system worked. It seems that the 24, 48 and 72 player Frontline instances each needed dedicated instance slots and each with their own spawn timeline. They likely removed those modes to free up "dead" space on the instance server and dedicate that space to new PvP maps and modes.

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That is unfortunate.

PVP as a whole needs a big changes add PVP gear to the game that does something besides glamour, make it intressting maybe add chests or something that contains random stuff.
Frontline is the only thing that pop frequently because it's tied to the Daily roulette.
I heard Rivalwings pop at certain days because theres a discord for that.
and lastly Feast player base is so small it's basicly the same 10-15 ppl that play the mode at gold,platinum,diamond rank.

Datacenter splits pretty much ruined PVP and made it less active all across the board.

Fixing the servers, etc. would all require a lot of work on SE's end, and I'm doubtful that they'll spend the resources to implement any such changes. However, providing players with the rules of the game would be a simple fix to a big problem in the Frontlines scene (i.e., a majority of the players having no idea which objectives to prioritize). As I mentioned previously, SE makes you sit around in the PvP arena for like a whole minute after you join up - that would be the perfect time to display some (specific) information about how points are earned / lost in that specific Frontlines mode.

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Originally Posted by snipski

PVP as a whole needs a big changes add PVP gear to the game that does something besides glamour, make it intressting maybe add chests or something that contains random stuff.
Datacenter splits pretty much ruined PVP and made it less active all across the board.

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They had exactly that until the rework in Stormblood. You had not only pvp specific gear and materia but also access to your complete pve kit and extra pvp skills you unlocked by raising your pvp rank, the thing that now only exists to unlock titles.
Don't ask me why they removed all of it, I have no idea, but I consider it a step backwards, especially with how limited the new pvp actions are.
As for the Datacenter split, it was probably necessary for NA but all it did on EU was make the party finder emptier and of course pvp as well.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

They had exactly that until the rework in Stormblood. You had not only pvp specific gear and materia but also access to your complete pve kit and extra pvp skills you unlocked by raising your pvp rank, the thing that now only exists to unlock titles.
Don't ask me why they removed all of it, I have no idea, but I consider it a step backwards, especially with how limited the new pvp actions are.

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That original system pretty much left PvP dead shortly after launch. High ilevel Morale gear made PvPers vastly more powerful than those without the gear (the higher the Morale you had the less damage you took and the more damage you dealt) even with equivalent ilevels, jobs were widely imbalanced due to reliance on PvE kits, status effect materia were close to meaningless, and "must have" rank locked PvP actions just made the gap between high ranked and low ranked PvPers worse.