Frontline pvp maps are absolutely terrible

Old design, that just didn't age well.

The only map that is good, and I mean, far away in a class of its own, is Ovoo map. Ovoo map is the right mix of jumping around, getting into engagements, interesting terrain, etc.

The absolute worst map in this category is Catenaeu flats.

It's awful, downright, obnoxious. Running from point to point, then up to a hill, then down the hill, then up the hill again. It's practically aimless, the mechanic of blasting pve nodes isn't fun, it needs to go. It's an exercise in tedium.

What I dont understand is that while the game has seen improvement in different areas (though arguably, there's no real progression in this treadmill fest), pvp frontline maps have continued to be terrible, and will probably continue to be terrible because square isn't known for accepting change very well. They'll sit on a terrible mechanic for half a decade in sheer stubbornness and disdain for its fans.

I'm done ranting now.

It's because most players don't seriously care about PvP because it's a mode they can lose in.

I don't usually think it's a good idea to remove content, but taking borderland ruins out of the map rotation would be an improvement to me. Agreed that it's easily the worst map, it might only still be there because the drone sniper titles. They could make it more fun by bringing back the jump pads from the now-defunct slaughter mode, which drastically cut down travel time to the center and bases. Make it better or remove/replace it.

Borderlines can't be saved, it's just always gonna be aweful.

Shatter is fine though, just need to learn to react to the ice spawns and not go into the funnels to get pinched, seriously people, you NEVER go into the tunnel leading to the enemy team, it leads to you losing points, amounts of time I see my raid do that a dozen times in a match, only to get ganked by the other raid and end up losing, it's like touching an exposed wire 8 times in a row and yet you keep touching it.

Seal rock just needs to adjust western part of the map to be less safe for western team or have the northern bridge point be more north and only ramp up from north and southern point near the cliff poin be more south and the entry slope rotated towards the south so the other 2 teams have an easy to defend point like the western one has too, outside of that it's better than onsai since you can steal or retake a point and not just cap once and have it for it's entire duration.

Havn't they always been pretty aweful? I still do them, but i've thought they were a hellscape years ago.

I think a lot of people have very rose tinted glasses if they think that FLs used to be any better in ShB before the 6.1 rework. It's always been a mess of old maps with systems not making a lot of sense anymore, except in Onsal that was specifically added for ShB with the changes ShB went through in mind. It's always been a huge back and forth, pretty brainless, and oscillating between too flimsy melees for the average joe and too sturdy melees for the good players as well.

One of the main changes that drove the final nail in the coffin of those older designs imo is the ShB pvp changes that introduced much higher individual survivability with medkits (don't get me wrong, it was a good choice to get away from the who has the correct amount of healers wins meta), on top of greatly increased mount speed. This may sound strange at first but the main point of secure and seal rock was that there was a strategic inherent value of not bleeding your numbers needlessly and a heightened emphasis on holding a good position, because it took way more time to travel. Did it make it more punishing to die, and have to travel back? Yes. Was it less fun when it happened to you? Probably, and that's probably why they changed it in shb. Did it feel awful not to have a healer in your smaller squad of troops trying to hold a secondary objective? Totally.

But in the process imo it completely turned upside down the design of those older maps where back then you COULDNT just run back and forth in time. You had to divide and dedicate forces.

I'm still overall having a fun time in FL, and play it a lot, but Borderlands is indeed always an auto skip, and all the maps have issues. However, I'm not sure if fixing some of those issues would overall help.
Case in point, I've been in matches in Seal Rock/Onsal where my team literally hasn't had a single node spawn on our side of the map whatsoever, resulting in us always having to push into other teams' territory with zero charity, and usually getting wrecked as a result because after the initial clash, both the other teams decided to hog one side of the map each, and sandwich ours whenever we decided to make a move against one of them.
"Fixing" that RNG would probably just lead to a recognizable pattern that people would then incessantly decipher and post on Icyveins, then everything becomes a game of "If you haven't memorized the spawn order you're griefing your team."
The RNG can also serve as a comeback mechanic for a losing team, turning an almost surefire loss into a surprise win, and I'm personally a fan of victory being possible even if things go wrong in the first half of a match.
If there's one thing I absolutely hated in other popular MMO of unspecified nature it was the attitude that permeated nearly every PvP match where if your team didn't immediately come out on top, half the team would AFK in spawn and lose on purpose.

acting like carteneau is worst than shatter.. lmao

At least PvP and fighting occurs in Shatter, Carteneau is predominantly "stick with the zerg, pick off one or two stragglers, go back n forth, every 4 mins after last node dies go up top and drag people off as DRK, barely do any actual PvP" - you barely ever see actual team vs team because people just run to the next node. Absolutely braindead design with a predictable spawn timer.

the only good map is Onsal and they should take the others off the rotation and stick their achievements on it

I personally think that Secure as a mode is probably my favorite in terms of being balanced due to the lack of RNG and more potential team coordination. It's too bad because Borderland Ruins is the worst map out of the four in the game lol.

Honestly a lot of the old maps really deserve a revamp. Like the ramps in Borderlands are just silly design for what is essentially meant to be a battlefield, knock out the supports, suddenly no big tower ramp. To say nothing that outside of a few wrecks it doesn't feel very warzone'd. There's also very little variables that make each map stand out from each other except either how the RNG spawns nodes, or how the nodes themselves are handled.

They've shown in Rival Wings, and more predominantly in PvE zones like Bozja that they're willing to involve more environmental elements to alter the flow of gameplay loops to keep things fresh. If they apply such a coat of paint to Frontline, maybe like some kind of team limit break support function to call in an airstrike or something, it'd increase the chaos and divide the zerg rush mentality a bit.

There's honestly a lot more ideas that come to mind. It just feels like something's missing to keep Frontline maps truly interesting outside of countering certain classes. They can do more with the ideas they've already presented, and the more fast paced they make the system, the more dated these old concepts are going to become.

Rival Wings is actually pretty fun, but SE seems hellbent on it being a dead game mode by never adding it to a roulette.

I think at this point, it's kinda obvious they just don't know what they're doing with PvP or really understand their playerbase all that well in regards to it.

Shatter is still the worst map as of the revamp. Played 9 matches today and didn't win any of them. Another team always has better crystal RNG and/or is fed like crazy. Borderland Ruins may be boring, but at least it doesn't have any win achievements.

The matchmaking algorithm just needs to be tweaked. I noticed at least a few of the same people appearing in several matches, which is kind of an issue when you're not getting wins. At some point it should be pairing me up with the premades, so either I win or they lose.

Shatter is fine, everytime I lose I notice my team always funnels towards the enemy team base tunnel and get pinched by the other team like 15 times in a match and never reacts to ice spawns.

The map isn't the problem it's actually well made, it's the average ff14 player not utilizing common sense and not having map open that's the problem.

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Originally Posted by Llynethil

Shatter is fine, everytime I lose I notice my team always funnels towards the enemy team base tunnel and get pinched by the other team like 15 times in a match and never reacts to ice spawns.

The map isn't the problem it's actually well made, it's the average ff14 player not utilizing common sense and not having map open that's the problem.

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That didn't really happen yesterday. Even though the ice plays a bigger role than getting kills, pretty much all of those games were lost via sheer BH. A few times towards the end another team would zerg their way straight to 1600, ignoring the ice outright. Back when the damage resistance was lower and kills were easier to get, the map seemed a lot more winnable.

Unfortunately, people not having their maps open is a universal issue.

As much a I hate battlehigh and wish it would be removed, if they have a lot of battle high they prob are winning engagements a lot, which means they deserve the pvp match honestly.

It's not a pve hit the ice match, it's a pvp match, and the better team should win.

i don't like any of the modes and would rather have a mode thats more like CTF instead of a KOTH, territories, search and destroy mode because it would rely on teamwork more instead of "Hey lets go kill this NPC/node in the center of the map to get more points!" and it would not have ANY rng

If they want to keep BH I think they could dramatically lower tactical points from kills on the losing team (3rd place, maybe even on the 2nd place), and greatly increase them on the winning team (1st place). I think there is already something like that although I can be wrong, but it's clearly not enough or worth it for people to actually care or serve as comeback mechanics.

Wish they revamped Rival Wings somehow, I want the mounts, I want the achievements, but the game mode is completely and utterly dead, you won't find a game no matter how long you wait. Just do something similar like CC, trash Feast, redo Rival Wings. Also Frontline maps are awful. Too many people, nerf on damage done, so it takes forever to kill anyone.

Well, they're reworking Shatter, so we'll see if it becomes winnable again.

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Originally Posted by VictorSpoils

Well, they're reworking Shatter, so we'll see if it becomes winnable again.

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finally something to no longer complain about again, thank god.