Small(er) scale Frontlines

Sup, I had an idea and i think it would be really cool to have 10v10 on Frontlines. Probably something like CTF. One of the recurring issues is the fact it needs to find 72 players queuing, and as such on my server it's a nightmare trying to find anything off-peak times (although slightly better recently due to fomo/season pass). This would rectify that issue completely by just having the queue default to "smaller scale" maps whenever it can't find 72 for the big maps.

One of the main issues with 72 players aside from queues, is the fact on a team of 24, it can feel like very little you do matters. This is why you see people doing... very little and just kinda running around. It's easy to blend into the crowd and not get called out for it. In a smaller scale match, your contributions matter more and carry potential increases. (And yes, I know someone's gonna suggest CC for 5v5 but i dont like it and i find it hard to "chill" in cc.)

Thinking of CTF just by itself (which isnt the only small scale mode you could implement), some jobs would be better at defending, some jobs would be better at flag carrying. Some jobs would be annoyances, camping mid field trying to stop people crossing over to the other side. There's a sense of fluidity in that, allowing for actual strategies and tactics. Maybe the ninja can sneak into the flag room and use mobility to get away from the defenders? But what do we see in frontlines now? Zerg rushes, everyone moving as a crowd, a million and one bahamuts on every capture point etc. One brain cell shared between 72 players. I feel like there's a nice "inbetween", between (small) CC and (beeg) Frontlines that isnt really being served at the moment. I know rival wings is 42 players, but I've never been able to find a match and now it's gone so /shrug (42 players is still big to me also)

I played wow years back in wrath era and I loved arathi basin and wsg, and I was disappointed to find that pvp has no real equivalent to that here. Yes, I know fundamentally there's some real differences between the two (GCD speed, server ticks etc) but I dont see why XIV can't have a CTF mode or equivalent.

What does everyone think? Am I asking for too much? Probably. But thought I'd air my idea anyway

Cheers

24 player 8v8v8 Frontlines existed for a long time but they were too disabled in favor of 72 players sadly

I definitely would like to see more smaller scale objective style pvp modes like warzones in swtor. Frontlines...and honestly any large scale pvp ranged aoe zerg fest are just absolutely terrible. With the new pvp system designed around CC they really should just give up on frontlines as a whole and create more focused and smaller scale pvp modes.

24 was always more fun imo.

so, bring 24 man frontline back, pls?

A 24v24v24 crystal conflict. lol.
Kidding.

I will agree Frontline need fixing.

8v8v8 was honestly perfect, but it got canned because too many people were -rightfully- complaining about pre-made domination, but rather than adjust how many people can queue together, they decided to just ruin it by making it a mosh-pit of AoE spam. I said the exact same thing on the subreddit when the patch hit to turn it into 72-man, but many people were happy there, I assume because it allows them to blend into the crowd.

I didnt even know 24man frontline was a thing! I started playing around 5.3. So yeah, if that was a thing I'd prefer that. 72 players feels chaotic but not in a good way. I think the match is decided by whichever team has the most people with map open on the ui lol

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Originally Posted by Lustre

I didnt even know 24man frontline was a thing! I started playing around 5.3. So yeah, if that was a thing I'd prefer that. 72 players feels chaotic but not in a good way. I think the match is decided by whichever team has the most people with map open on the ui lol

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The 24 man frontlines only occurred when there wasn't enough players to fill the 72 player frontlines....which back then was extremely common because no one really liked frontlines and then the queue times were made even longer by faction restrictions. Unlike today where you are just thrown onto any random factions team, back then when you queued it was locked to the grand company you were a part of.

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Originally Posted by Naphtha

8v8v8 was honestly perfect, but it got canned because too many people were -rightfully- complaining about pre-made domination, but rather than adjust how many people can queue together, they decided to just ruin it by making it a mosh-pit of AoE spam. I said the exact same thing on the subreddit when the patch hit to turn it into 72-man, but many people were happy there, I assume because it allows them to blend into the crowd.

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I never understand the whining about premades. Like, dude... if they can use PF, friends list, discord server, etc to make a premade... then so can you. Stop whining and use the solutions in front of you to fix the problem.

It's an MMO, and a highly social one at that. *ANY* change that would make it harder to play with your friends is one that should be very carefully examined and considered before implementation. But I guess SE would rather not have to listen to whining.

I'd take a smaller scale anyday but not with the current maps, which work well with 72, but would feel completely empty at 24.

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Originally Posted by Gserpent

I never understand the whining about premades. Like, dude... if they can use PF, friends list, discord server, etc to make a premade... then so can you. Stop whining and use the solutions in front of you to fix the problem.

It's an MMO, and a highly social one at that. *ANY* change that would make it harder to play with your friends is one that should be very carefully examined and considered before implementation. But I guess SE would rather not have to listen to whining.

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It's understandable in this game though, and that's why there is solo queue in the competitive smaller scale mode, and also why there should be duo queue and more if that happens to work out.

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Originally Posted by Teno

I'd take a smaller scale anyday but not with the current maps, which work well with 72, but would feel completely empty at 24.



It's understandable in this game though, and that's why there is solo queue in the competitive smaller scale mode, and also why there should be duo queue and more if that happens to work out.

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IIRC they reduced the number of active nodes in smaller scale so that players would still be concentrated in only a couple places. As for ranked, it really should be team ranked only. The entire concept of ranked is to play to win and to have as close to proper skill-based matching as possible - and you can only really achieve that in proper team versus team gameplay. Casual, Casual (Team), and Ranked (Team) should be the only options. Ranked should require a discrete PvP Team, while casual just means you can queue with your friends and doesn't require or utilize PvP Teams.

I hated 8v8v8 FL. Mostly because it would just use that when queues were low. Which sounds good in theory, but when I zoned in, I zoned into something that wasn't Frontline. It was a big, sparse, desolate expanse, with a lot of objectives that didn't scale (mainly the ice in Shatter, which had too much HP). So I would stop trying to queue if I thought it could risk putting me in that position. If it was a manual thing you could queue into, it wouldn't be as bad. On the other hand, I still think the maps are not really good for this. Fixing objective scaling is easy enough, but the maps suck for 24 players (and honestly Borderland Ruins just suck, period, but that's besides the point). They would need to be way smaller and simpler. Rather than put the resources into making another mid-size experience, a "mini FL", I rather they put the resources into making Rival Wings good, and add more maps That's a good mid-size PvP experience. Problem is Hidden Gorge is 5 maps wearing a trench coat, and addressing that is a good start.

The absence of RW from regular PvP activity is definitely a big hole. I'm assuming they will be addressing that, as last we heard they were saying something about bringing Astragalos back. Doing that will give players a nice array of PvP content to choose from.

I'm still amazed we don't have any Capture the Flag modes. CTF is one of the stand-bys of competitive games for good reason. Murderball is another really popular mode that is strangely absent.

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Originally Posted by Gserpent

The absence of RW from regular PvP activity is definitely a big hole. I'm assuming they will be addressing that, as last we heard they were saying something about bringing Astragalos back. Doing that will give players a nice array of PvP content to choose from.

I'm still amazed we don't have any Capture the Flag modes. CTF is one of the stand-bys of competitive games for good reason. Murderball is another really popular mode that is strangely absent.

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Yeah. They specifically said Rival Wings (I assume Hidden Gorge) is coming back with 6.2, since it requires rebalancing. I didn't think changing some HP values could be so hard back when they said that, but now that we have been playing the 6.1 PvP for a while... yeah, it will require a lot more tuning for it to make sense with the way jobs play now.

The absence of something like CTF is poignant. Historically, before 6.1 my main criticism with FFXIV PvP-- besides functional issues like just how the game plays on a fundamental level-- was that the developer always over-complicated it, overthink it, over-design it, or on the far side over-refine it. It's enough people are interacting with an almost alien kit or systems... They have maps like Hidden Gorge with way, way, way too much on it, or want a 3 team massive bloodbath with random objectives... None of these are bad on a baseline, but then they had on the opposite side... Feast. TOO rigid, too focused. A middleground is nicer. The diehards will often favourite ultra-competitive modes, but on a baseline people like simple things like 12v12 CTF where you don't have to think too much, but you still have a sense there is fundamental competitive integrity. Game modes older than multiplayer videogames. Now here we are, with 6.1, they did a mode that is less stiff than Feast, and way less over-designed than RW. And it's a good shift in philosophy, and I kind of wish they had better control of themselves earlier on.

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Originally Posted by Gserpent

I never understand the whining about premades. Like, dude... if they can use PF, friends list, discord server, etc to make a premade... then so can you. Stop whining and use the solutions in front of you to fix the problem.

It's an MMO, and a highly social one at that. *ANY* change that would make it harder to play with your friends is one that should be very carefully examined and considered before implementation. But I guess SE would rather not have to listen to whining.

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Playing against a full premade was about as fun as beating yourself with a whip, randoms always got decimated, and being forced to find a group of tryhards to queue with just because everyone else is doing it doesn't exactly strike me as fun, personally, but I guess that's whining, kek.

Between 72-man and 24-man with 8-man premades, I think I'd rather skip pvp entirely, both options are just competing for who can be less fun.

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Originally Posted by Naphtha

Playing against a full premade was about as fun as beating yourself with a whip, randoms always got decimated, and being forced to find a group of tryhards to queue with just because everyone else is doing it doesn't exactly strike me as fun, personally, but I guess that's whining, kek.

Between 72-man and 24-man with 8-man premades, I think I'd rather skip pvp entirely, both options are just competing for who can be less fun.

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The point of PvP is to have balanced, engaging games where both teams are playing to win. Playing to win tends to mean coordination and cooperation, and you get that reliably through premaking parties and teams ahead of time, and you guarantee good games by playing against others that have done so.

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Originally Posted by Gserpent

The point of PvP is to have balanced, engaging games where both teams are playing to win. Playing to win tends to mean coordination and cooperation, and you get that reliably through premaking parties and teams ahead of time, and you guarantee good games by playing against others that have done so.

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By that logic, shouldn't we get rid of casual CC? Since the teams aren't premade, therefore they aren't going to be necessarily trying to win, so it's not real PvP.

If people want to get in comms to unironically pull off 'strats' in Frontlines of all modes then that's their problem, being forced to play as a premade or lose has never been the norm in any sensible PvP game outside of the competitive ranked modes.