Frontline balance we'd like to see

Hello, I've noticed that the developers were considering adjusting pvp actions for the new patch specifically in Frontline, because most of the major changes in 6.1 were addressing class balance specifically in relation to Crytaline Conflict.
What I'd like to know is some of your ideas on how you would address balance and improve the experience of Frontline, specifically.

As of now, the mode suffers greatly from being a monoculture of powerful ranged classes, spamming AOEs and Crowd Control to little or no consequence and it makes it mostly just seem like a roving ball of murder without any real way to break up the problem.

My thoughts are thus and only specifically affect actions while in frontline as Crytaline Conflict is still relatively balance:
Disallowing the AoE abilities to stack with identical effects (so overlap does nothing to increase a targets damage taken/healed), a sharp damage fall off of AoE Limit Breaks when hitting more than 4 targets or increasing the time by 90 secs, the guard action loses the 50% slow effect, Purify's duration is increased to 8 secs or maybe a system for diminishing returns so players are eventually immune to Crowd Control if targeted repeatedly in a short window of time.

Gimme your thoughts

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Originally Posted by Spudz

Gimme your thoughts

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My thoughts from a similar thread:

Bring back additionals for FL exclusively or Fetter Ward as "duty action" maybe?
I don't hit the forums often, but long time PvPer and used to be a staple in Crystal DC FL community & have a 64/64 CWLS made up of most of the competitive daily Frontlines players, pre 6.1. Just hoping to further voice the issues with FL and who knows, maybe get some of the community behind a resolution & appeal to any SE liaisons etc.

First, I just want to clarify that I understand to an extent where SE is coming from. Crys Conflict is the new 'product" that we should be focused on & from their POV you don't want older content being more appealing/fun than your new shiny, flashy content that a lot people, that cost a lot of $ worked really hard on. But it does seem like there was little to know testing of new mechs effect on Frontlines.

I also understand that a lot of the noise is coming from show-boaters that are just salty that they can't get BH5 then fetterward > bloodbath into a zerg with a Rescue in their back pocket any more. (I might be/am definitely one of these players.)

But there are a substantial amount of players in addition to the 64 of us that really miss the strategy, challenge & tbh community that FL offered. I also think it's a pretty simple fix: Bring back the "Additional" PvP role-based actions, but only allow them to be used Frontlines. (RW is getting a re-work and I imagine will be designed around new kits.)

I also imagine FL, if it's being kept in game long-term, could get a re-work as well, but until then, having access to those additionals solves a fair amount (not all) of the issues that now makes playing FL as certain jobs very little fun. I realize this would only offer Melee DPS immunity to CC via fetterward, so it might be prudent to give Tanks access to it as well.

A different solution would be to give Fetter ward / resilience to any job via an additional or a "duty action" like the Lost actions of Bozja Southern Front.

Or.. find a way to fix the vulnerability between purify and resilience. But please, for the sake of a much larger group than you probably imagine, consider these changes.

KR

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Originally Posted by Spudz

Disallowing the AoE abilities to stack with identical effects (so overlap does nothing to increase a targets damage taken/healed), a sharp damage fall off of AoE Limit Breaks when hitting more than 4 targets or increasing the time by 90 secs, the guard action loses the 50% slow effect, Purify's duration is increased to 8 secs or maybe a system for diminishing returns so players are eventually immune to Crowd Control if targeted repeatedly in a short window of time.

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These are probably the most feasible adjustments without having to resort to adding/changing the nature of players' PvP CC kit, though I don't know about dropping the movement penalty to Guard. The lodestone message a couple days ago mentioned they would be adjusting damage dealt and taken for all jobs in Frontlines; which leads me to believe they'll likely not be touching individual potencies for each ability and weaponskill and will likely be something more like: "tanks take 20% less damage in Frontlines, Melee take 10% less damage, etc." I don't know if that's the right way to be going about the imbalances, but it sure as heck is a lot cleaner than adding an asterisk on every single PvP ability description and having a different potency and effect for Frontlies.

The first and most helpful step is related to the adjustments you proposed which seem more like system balances rather than direct ones. Things like adding "buffs/debuffs" to people nuked by Bahamut or WHM's death laser (or LBs in general) that decreases all subsequent damage by the same attack by 75% for 10 seconds... That would dissuade teams full of SMNs, WHMs and DRGs. The inability to have more than 1 type of each DoT active would effectively neuter the elusive but deadly SCH stacked DoT plagues... And of course we can't forget the obvious (what I assume is a) oversight where a PLD can make 1 person untouchable while they capture an Ovoo uninterrupted without 1 specific counterplay... Adjustment like these don't inherently "nerf" individual jobs, but rather the strategies that exploit stacking multiples of the same job (which can't happen in Crystaline Conflict, and thus were not designed with in mind).

Other changes I think we need to see is the LB gauge, which I think they are looking at in Frontlines. I don't know what they are planning to do; could be nerfing the rate at which it fills... Maybe they should nerf it so where it only fills when you're in battle...

And then there's Dancer... I swear, Dancer needs its range increased to be comparable to MCH and BRD, because having to get closer than any other ranged DPS in a largescale murderball mode is suicide with the amount of CC being thrown around. You have to be a masochist to try to be an effective DNC in Frontlines. I think they must have thought DNC's role should be a "mid-ranged support DPS" in Crystaline Conflict, but in Frontlines its role is "piñata;" and I have not seen a single DNC with BH5, let alone 3 or 4 in any Frontlines match, because they are rightfully dogpiled when they try to get into effective range.

I think just reducing the amount of players would make it way more enjoyable. If the amount of dps has doubled shrink teams by half. If tripled down to 8. We move fast enough to cover almost the whole map before spawns.

-Reduce player count (Will speed up queues on off-peak hours as well)
-Diminishing Returns on CC
-Limit Break only fills up during combat and at a slower pace than what it currently fills at
-DoTs cannot be stacked
-Subsequent limit breaks do 30% less damage for the second one, and 50% less for the third and after
-If player count is reduced, change map size to accommodate for it, currently too big
That's all I got at the moment, not really gonna rack my brain trying to think of more, but honestly just nerf the limit break spam to kill this garbage meta of stacking summoners to win every group engagement.

On the Borderland Ruins (Secure) map specifically, please reduce the amount of Tactical Rating you need to win a match from 1600 to 1400. Too many matches end with a timeout. The reason for this is that people aren't bothering trying to get more than 3 bases. You and everyone else gets invincibility when you respawn, making it not worth the risk of dying. The amount of rating you get over time from owning bases increases exponentially for each one you control but that doesn't do much when people aren't going for more than 3.

Make it 1400 or increase the amount of rating you get from securing bases and landing K.Os on enemies. Matches on the Secure map take way longer than on the other maps in its current state.

There is no need to touch jobs
The only PvP balance we need right now is CC diminish return and fetter ward to be installed back to the game.
You will find game is much more feasible once we had that

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

There is no need to touch jobs
The only PvP balance we need right now is CC diminish return and fetter ward to be installed back to the game.
You will find game is much more feasible once we had that

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Objectively wrong, some adjustments towards consecutive LBs or general AoE damage is required.

Even if you control the CC coming in from all sides, you end up indirectly making AoE stacking more appealing, aka summoners just wiping out alliances with the press of a button, or scholars stacking a DoT that has 0 counterplay.

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Originally Posted by Naphtha

Objectively wrong, some adjustments towards consecutive LBs or general AoE damage is required.

Even if you control the CC coming in from all sides, you end up indirectly making AoE stacking more appealing, aka summoners just wiping out alliances with the press of a button, or scholars stacking a DoT that has 0 counterplay.

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I wouldn't worry too much about one specific job, especially it is range.
They will just give it same 4.5 treatment.
Increase damage and damage resistance on non range job at frontline

I actually want more people to play this brainless job so SE can install this back faster

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

I actually want more people to play this brainless job so SE can install this back faster

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Words of a scholar.

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

I wouldn't worry too much about one specific job, especially it is range.
They will just give it same 4.5 treatment.
Increase damage and damage resistance on non range job at frontline

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I feel like that's a bandaid that ultimately punishes casters too much or makes melee too powerful. Really all the AOE skills just need damage drop off or they need to share an ID so they can't stack. Ultimately I don't want to rob people of their tools or target individual classes, I think that the changes need to be universal but still directly benefit the health of the game as a whole.

"Just make Melee take less damage or hit harder" doesn't resolve the issue.

-shorten the timer to about 10 mins per match and decrease the points to 500-600
-increase LB gain timers (without char/LB buffs) by 1 min across the board
-remove battle highs (to promote more focus on objectives rather than chasing)

Those are really all I am hoping. The shorter timers will force more focus on objectives to win and the removal of battle highs will also give less incentive to constantly chase and throw matches, even though your team was already in lead but failed to secure a node. I'm sure most ppl have experienced this, you were in the lead and only needed a node to win but the rest of the alliance decided to chase then eventually lose and get 2nd place or worse 3rd place. They should also reduce the RNG in some maps. Seal rock is notorious for this with caves spawn having a slightly higher win rate due to the node placement.

For FL in the future:

-design maps with alliance vs alliance similar to rival wings to keep things simple
-bring back the "castle siege" concept

Just separated Frontline Damage and CC Damage skills differently in each modes to fix both problem like the did with first pvp/pve skill set.
Would fix a lot of the problem atm.

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

There is no need to touch jobs
The only PvP balance we need right now is CC diminish return and fetter ward to be installed back to the game.
You will find game is much more feasible once we had that

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I'm also alright with potency on smn remaining unchanged. If bahamut's damage is nerfed substantially, it's already mediocre kit becomes more so in Crys Conflict; unless Phoenix or atleast FoF is buffed to compensate.

What I'd like to see vis a vis Bahamut, for the sake of FL primarily, is either a significant radial reduction and/or it's execution changed point blank AoE so that there is at least some opportunity cost. Especially if we see CC diminishing returns/FW return.

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Originally Posted by Spudz

I feel like that's a bandaid that ultimately punishes casters too much or makes melee too powerful. Really all the AOE skills just need damage drop off or they need to share an ID so they can't stack. Ultimately I don't want to rob people of their tools or target individual classes, I think that the changes need to be universal but still directly benefit the health of the game as a whole.

"Just make Melee take less damage or hit harder" doesn't resolve the issue.

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I wouldn't say it is a punishment but it is a necessary adjustment
Ranges always have advantage at PvP in any mmorpg and most of games tune them down by giving them a "cast"
The cast time is near to non-existence in this game then the output of range need to be tune down.

The only reason Summoners get to trigger happy right now is majorly because of CC stacking and lack of fetterward where tank or meele can't even touch ranges.
I assume you just start pvp after 6.1, this adjustment was in effect between 4.5 and 6.0 and proven working without create issue to Feast (now Crystal Conflict) or severely nerf the Range

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Originally Posted by KickRox

What I'd like to see vis a vis Bahamut, for the sake of FL primarily, is either a significant radial reduction and/or it's execution changed point blank AoE so that there is at least some opportunity cost. Especially if we see CC diminishing returns/FW return.

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I've been saying since about day 2 of this patch, diminishing returns on Bahamut. If you nerf the damage, like you said, they become useless solo and can only travel in packs.....just have the first one cause a debuff to the player that Diminishing returns 80% of the damage from all additional bahamuts for the next 5 seconds.......thus you can still stack for big damage, but it's not auto death to the entire team when you drop 4 or 5 of them.

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Originally Posted by Nytes

If you nerf the damage, like you said, they become useless solo and can only travel in packs.....just have the first one cause a debuff to the player that Diminishing returns 80% of the damage from all additional bahamuts for the next 5 seconds.......thus you can still stack for big damage, but it's not auto death to the entire team when you drop 4 or 5 of them.

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I like this suggestion!