Why is the advice always: Attack leader?

Even when you don't have nearly enough people with battle high to actually take out anybody of note on the leading team?

Isn't it a good sign that the team in first is possibly better at combat, and you should farm some off the last place team before making a move?

What am I missing?

High Bh =/= Skilled player.

Most of people get BH by luck , stealing kills , being to passive but getting assists , or farm bots around the map.

Attacking the winning team means they will have to fight 1vs2 if the other alliance isn't throwing.

So, IF the other team also focuses leader, you think you'll out number leader?

So, you have to guess the behavior of a third team, in order to outthink one team?

That, don't sound logical.

Why NOT farm off third, get some BH, and then push leader, once your actually ready?

And where will leader be during this time ? At their base spawn telling campfire stories ?

Doing whatever it was they did that got them in first probably.

Just not being FED by everybody else who they are able to out damage because of battle feaver.

BH5 is considerably less meaningful when you have 4+ people attacking you and no escape route.

BH5 is simultaneously more attainable *and* more useful when you're pinching an already-weaker team.

Do the math.

You won't win Frontlines if your team is feeding, but you also won't win it by feeding the other weak team to the leader.

So if I understand correctly, to you, trying to team up with the other team to fight the 1st place team on both sides (48 players vs 24 players) does not sound logical.

But what sounds logical to you is that you want to leave 1st place team alone so they can...

1) Attack you while you attack 3rd place team, making you the 24 in that 48 vs 24 situation.
2) Attack the 3rd place team while you attack that team too, making them even stronger and suffering barely any losses.
3) Get a bunch of nodes while probably doing some of 1 or 2.

And while they are all doing stuff to increase their lead even more, you hope you get enough kills on the other team (far from guaranteed) so you get a few stronger people that can fight the leading team on their own (even less guaranteed) and hope the game doesn't end by then.

Is that your "logic" ? That's how you expect to catch up to the first place team ?

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Originally Posted by ICountFrom0

What am I missing?

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The obvious? The idea is to keep the leading team if it's not you from winning uncontested. Ideally, the other losing team should understand this basic fact and the concentrated effort of 48 vs 24 is enough to knock them down a peg to the point where they either lose the lead or it becomes anyone's game. However the execution often falls flat with the game of herding cats that Frontlines often becomes, but when done properly, I've seen teams with large leads start to sweat or ultimately lose.

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Originally Posted by ICountFrom0

So, you have to guess the behavior of a third team, in order to outthink one team?

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Essentially. Frontlines is a nuanced game of Prisoner's Dilemma and/or Stag Hunt. Do you cooperate with the losing team so the both of you have a chance to take the lead from 3rd team? Or do you "betray" the other losing team while they go after the winning team to get easy kills from the distracted teams, also risking them turning on you as well, which would ensure the winning team can stand around with a guaranteed victory. I have a difficult time understanding people who "play for second" when the difference in rewards between last and 2nd are relatively miniscule, and there are no achievement mounts or gear for getting 100 second places.

Predicting how the other 2 teams will react to objectives and circumstances and identifying what is their most likely course of action based on the map is the difference between getting double-teamed or being part of the double-team.

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Originally Posted by AnnRam

High Bh =/= Skilled player.

Most of people get BH by luck , stealing kills , being to passive but getting assists , or farm bots around the map.

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Sounds like sour grapes. I disagree. High BH at a minimum means you have one of the most valuable skills in Frontlines; the ability to stay alive, and basic competence in a fight and not being a score liability by extension (which isn't exactly common, if teams full of people with no or only BH1-2 by the end indicate). Racking up assists and not dying and holding a high BH makes you more valuable than the Leeroy Jenkins who chase kills only to get erased seconds later and can't maintain a BH streak. I find "kill-stealing" to be perfectly legit, because sometimes people tend to escape by a millimeter left on their HP gauge that could have been ended if just 1 more person was attentive and going after them. In fact, I don't often think of it as "kill-stealing," I call it insurance. If you don't want your kills being "stolen," I suggest you plan your bursts on targets when you'll be the one finishing them off.

Nobody ever really achieves and maintains BH4-5 through "luck," you need to have some degree of awareness to your surroundings and knowing what targets you realistically can pick off and when you need to gtfo so you don't allow yourself to get swarmed and ganked by a whole team. Though I'd totally concede that a lot of people tend to get BH1-2 through "luck."

See, the moment I'm starting to think that BH matters less then people tend to make it sound, somebody comes along and makes it seem like it really IS that important.

The key to the prisoners dilemma is that you DO betray the weaker side to gain advantage as often as they let you. In all NON ITERATED VERSIONS, the optimal starting move is betray. So from that, it tells me that the best thing to do is publicly SAY that you want 2nd and 3rd to work together to take out first, but what you REALLY want is to be able to eat third when your second, and then hope they still pinch first when your ready to make your move.

You attack the leading team to subtract points from them. Every death they have loses them point. If your alliance can't kill a BH then they need more morale, encouragement and aggression to actually go in for that kill instead of being too cowardly and running away the second they take damage. Killing a BH is worth more than 1 person that isn't a BH dying. Focus and kill them.

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Originally Posted by ICountFrom0

So, IF the other team also focuses leader, you think you'll out number leader?

So, you have to guess the behavior of a third team, in order to outthink one team?

That, don't sound logical.

Why NOT farm off third, get some BH, and then push leader, once your actually ready?

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If there's one thing everyone is bad it (including me) it's dealing with sandwiches. Battle high doesn't matter if you're outnumbered in a ratio of 2 to 1. Plus, everyone panics in a sandwich situation. Even premades panic.

Sure, you could farm the non-winning team to get your strength up. After all, it is a strategy to shut the 3rd team out early. However, it can easily backfire. If the 3rd party deems the game unwinnable on their end they will come back and hit whoever is 2nd just to end the game and their suffering more quickly. If you haven't past the leading team by then pray that they don't decide to join in with the last place team and sandwich you.

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Originally Posted by BubblyBoar

You attack the leading team to subtract points from them. Every death they have loses them point. If your alliance can't kill a BH then they need more morale, encouragement and aggression to actually go in for that kill instead of being too cowardly and running away the second they take damage. Killing a BH is worth more than 1 person that isn't a BH dying. Focus and kill them.

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I was wondering if someone was going to point this out, and I think it's one of the key rules to FL that people miss or misunderstand. This is one of the main reasons you want to be trying to kill the other teams while avoiding getting killed yourself. It is, interestingly enough, possible to win an FL match on kills, but you have to do a lot of killing and not dying. I was in an Onsal Hakair in which my alliance actually successfully did just that. We got far fewer of the oovoos compared to any other alliances, but we did so much massive killing and not dying (mainly cause the other teams just kept running away, leaving a lot of their trailing ranks to just be focus-killed, mercilessly) that we were able to out-score the other alliances even while only having capped a handful of oovoos.

This was an extremely rare event and generally very difficult to accomplish as it requires getting a really aggressive, yet, highly skilled alliance; so I wouldn't be counting on repeating such a feat as the winning strategy. That being said, getting lots of kills while not dying can result in rapidly out-scoring your opponents, if you are also successfully capping and holding objectives.

Contrary to most replies here, I will say it depends on which stage the fight is at.

In Seal Rock, you may afford to leave the leading team to their devices until around 650+ points. Once you cross that point, it is recommended to focus on the leading team because they are just a few lucky Tomeliths from victory.

Even then, it depends. Sometimes, your only chance is to win by kills; by all means, go for the weakest team.

Shatter, Onsal and Borderlands are more tricky; and you certainly can provide the leading party with more leeway until the 900 or 1,000 points mark.

But if there is no leader leading your team, attacking the leading team is the most simple strategy to communicate.

Farming off the weaker team is certainly a viable option, but I would suggest peppering it with harassing the leading team from time to time. After all, the best time to attack a team with strong players is at the start of the game.

Ideally the 2 teams that are behind try to hammer and anvil the leading team couple times to get rid of their bh's and make them lose points, going full murderhobo mode actually is a good idea for this.

However, many times in FL what happens is:
team a has 1000/1600 points
team b has 600/1600 points
team c has 300/1600 points

For random reasons, team c will keep going for team b or vice versa, and team a is free to do whatever.
Like seriously, learn to back off from the other losing team and focus on the winning one, why is this such a hard concept to get people? -_-'