Olivia's Frontline Guide 2.21

Hi everyone! This is the 2.21 version of my Frontline guide. It's been very well received by the PVP community, and I'm finally comfortable posting it. There is a lot of information here, but I hope anyone interested in Frontlines gives it a read. I really want to see the community improve because I love this game mode! If you have any questions feel free to ask!

Also... I'm not the most amazing editor in the world, so if you see an egregious error please let me know.

Links:

Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...nF85iTzMQ/edit

PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HlA...ew?usp=sharing

From an editorial point of view, I think there's one major omission. You note, correctly, that forming a premade with certain comps will greatly increase your personal win %. However, you fail to mention this leads to far less enjoyable matches for the 68 people not in your premade.

That issue aside, one of the most important points you make is the one that is most misunderstood by the bulk of the player base:

"Just forget the middle node. Fighting middle is pretty nice to build BH if you’re effective, but if you can’t your feeding and losing Battle High. Once a similarly ranked node appears in your reach it’s time to bail. If they’re lower grade still send a sizable number to ensure its capture. If the higher rank node appears out of your reach it’s time to heavily push mid for the capture."

(referring to Onsal). Emboldened "your" above = "you're"

I wish this flashed on the screen at the start of the match.

Very lacking solo section. I do not agree with one main point in it, and it generally doesn't provide a winning strategy. (Yes one player can influence the outcome of your team. I have a 40% winrate having participated in zero premading account wide.)

"Stay with the team"
This is often a terrible idea, especially if your team is chasing third place, throwing themselves at a meat grinder, or has completely divided itself along multiple fronts. Sure if you're a PvE player who doesn't really have any experience this isn't the worst thing to do, but it doesn't help you win in these instances. It makes you a sheep. You need to understand what you're doing, and why to do it if you want to contribute more than the average player.

My main points for solo players:

1. OPEN AND USE YOUR MAP
-Don't get caught in a pinch.
-Pay attention if your team is backing out, maybe its time for you to back out too if you're not a sacrificial lamb.
-Watch for the enemy team movements, and plan accordingly.
-Watch for new nodes, and pre-position yourself.
2. SURVIVAL
-Dying loses points, and wipes Battle high.
-Requires a balanced approach that requires time to learn when to make your aggressive pushes, and when to fall back.
-Losing battle high limits your individual contribution.
-Playing a support role on a team with little coordination or cooperation is just suicide. Change jobs. Unless your play is distracting and being a nuissance.
-If you're a Healer, Ranged DPS or magical DPS, you're a vulnerable squishy target. Do not push as aggressively. You will be a priority target to the enemy teams.
3. Damage over Kills
-Sometimes its better to make enemies run away than to just outright kill them if it means you can capture an objective, or change to focus the 2nd/3rd team coming in to attack.
-Even when outnumbered, putting out some big AoE bursts or stuns is enough to rout an enemy team into a retreat.
4. Basic Call outs
- Doesn't require that you know what you're doing. Just call out an incoming pinch, and announce the new node spawn(s) Thats usually enough to make the two braincells in some players minds click and get at least some coordination going.
5. Mark key players on the enemy team for CC/DPS
Especially the premade commanders.
Dark Knights, Ast, Drg, and anyone else who appears to be a key part of a premade should be marked and made the priority.
6. Attack worthwhile targets
-Tanks other than Dark knight, and Monks are often just distractions.
-Attack squishy ranged and Magical DPS when it is safe to do so without diving into a meat grinder.

Counter Premade gameplay (Solo):
Requires following the solo play points above.

1.Spread out.
-Dark knight suck is completely ineffective against a team with a wide spread, as well as DRG AoE.
-Don't engage the premade team in choke points.
-Spreading out doesn't mean running to an entirely different region of the map. It's more like covid isolating while attacking the enemy team.
2. Crowd Control is a PRIORITY
-Stacking stuns on, and killing Dark Knights is a priority.
-Dead, stunned, silenced, and rooted dark knights are a beautiful thing. It cuts the head off the dragon and allows you to mop up the rest of their team.
-Monk/Warr/WHM especially are valuable at making their lives miserable.
-Dark knights are not completely invulnerable. They will still die to fall damage. Take advantage of this on Seal Rock, and Onsal Hakair.
3. Play for Nodes, do not engage the premade team.
-They can, and will turn around and wipe your team if you move in for a pinch when the Dark Knights aren't otherwise engaged.
-They probably already knew that your team was coming.
-Only push them when the Dark Knights are taken out of the picture. Either when they're stunned, Dead, or attacking the other team.
-A direct attack on a premade team rarely ever goes to your teams plan. Double the emphasis on those Dark Knights being out of the equation.
4. Use CAUTION when engaging the "other" team.
-Premades that are coordinated and strong enough will require that third teams assistance to put down.
-Keep a very careful eye on the map when engaging the third team.
-If the premade comes rolling behind the third team, push through them, and start applying CC to the Dark knights on the premade team. This is beneficial in two ways. First, the "other" team will likely be retreating into the premade. Their focus will have shifted to escaping/attacking the premade team. Thats extra damage going out to the premade team to take advantage of.

Premades are not indestructible. Randoms can be coordinated enough to kill them, though it takes MUCH more effort than the premade employs. It's far more rewarding though when you trash a premade into losing a match.

Despite my differences with Olivia, I believe we're both interested in improving FL play, thus I'm grateful for this guide. Due to Olivia's playstyle, I agree with Archeron that it is, almost definitionally, less useful for solo players/commanders, and thank him for his thoughtful contribution above.

I wanted to throw out something else, though, that has occurred to me over the last few days. It concerns the importance and role of commanders.

I've played on Olivia's team a lot. Largely because I have poor vision (so *that's* why you suck, I know, I know), I rely on audio to bolster my efficiency. This is the main reason I blacklist Olivia and other commanders who use a lot of macros with <se.X> in them. I need to hear the battle and can't with someone yelling.

The interesting thing is that I don't think I'm missing out on anything by blocking Olivia's calls. Couple of possible reasons. 1. She uses a waymarker and actually keeps it updated unlike some. 2. As noted, I've played with her a lot and likely have some intuition of what she's ordering anyway. Plus when she's playing DRK rather than SCH, I usually stick a focus target on her so I can see her behind rocks and follow her dive (as WAR).

The point is, where "D" is moving really explains everything if you're looking at the map and have an idea of basic strategy. It's obvious if we're heading to an objective, or flanking a team. So for general motion, call-outs are unnecessary.

What about the infamous 3...2...1... DRK dive countdown? Isn't this essential to get the team to burst? Absolutely not. First, I can count from 3 to zero. Second, while it's trivial for a premade to burst together, it's far more difficult for the solo players trailing around after a premade. It's still useful to know that the lead DRK is going in, but all the damn noise with the macros doesn't magically align my LB with those of the premade.

Finally, retreats. Is noise here helpful? This is the one area I think it may be, at least for some. Equally, having got used to Olivia's attack/retreat cadence, I'm more likely to get out in a timely manner from understanding the engagement, not from call-outs.

I guess the counter-argument to all this might be "You are semi-competent, Mawlzy..." (tysm) "...the riff-raff need detailed instructions with loud bangs and bells." Do they? I guess there may be some subset of players who are actually trying and for whom the "D" is insufficient. But my guess is the annoyance used by excessive call-outs negates any such advantage.

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Originally Posted by AnneWand

Da ich in diesem Forum keine einfache Möglichkeit finden kann einen Thread zu posten (geschweige denn Antworten zu meinen Threads zu sehen), werde ich zukünftig meine Meinung als Kommentar unter eure Threads setzen und hoffen, dass sie jemand liest...sorry!!!

Hier mein heutiger Vorschlag: Wie wäre es (vielleicht in der nächsten Erweiterung) mit einem „Begleiter-Sammler“...also ein NPC der sich vorgenommen hat ALLE Begleiter zu bekommen. Ähnlich wie Khloe könnte er uns wöchentliche Aufgaben geben, bestimmte Begleiter bei ihm abzugeben. Hierfür bekommen wir dann (nicht handelbares) Zeug...eventuell Notenrollen, Kostüme oder andere einzigartige Begleiter, oder auch irgendwelche Ticket, die wir sammeln müssen, um eben Kostüme, Notenrollen...zu bekommen. Aktuell sind die Preise sowas von inflationär, dass es eigentlich gar keinen Sinn mehr macht, die zu farmen! Was soll ich sonst in FFIV machen?

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Das deutsche Forum wäre möglicherweise ein besserer Ort, um dies zu posten.

The good thing about guides is when people get used to the system as it is, then it is so easy to exploit with premades to counter it for good.

You can't make an efficient guide for PvP other then telling the purpose of things, it is like the guy that always screams goto the lanes, because read it somewher in Rival wings, when if you got the groups for it definetely should bash directly onto middle.

***EDIT: Yes I know I made an example from Rival wings, but sort of the same kind of scenario in a figure of speech***

Guides is only working for PvE due to it is pre-set scripts that you need to follow like a slave, in PvP.. there is the PvP effect as well that require you much more to handle after what happens... pre-made groups can be countered in most front lines, by simply dodging them entirely or for most of the match from the two other teams and they can't be two places at the same time as it is. as they need to lure everyone with with them to be successfull at all.

One suggested addition.

Commanders do occasionally get push-back, either fairly or unfairly. When this happens, I'd suggest advising the members of your premade to avoid responding with a kick vote or the response "Shut up and drink the Kool-Aid."

Your guide is useful for a newbie and standard FL player to get a general sense of how to do well with a group.

However, there's too many holes and flaws for an indepth understanding on how to improve further though (which I'd argue is probably important as players start to stagnate and think they can't win because they 'tried' all possibilities listed in the guide). Lots of points you mentioned aren't as set in stone or as good as you think they are because there's various ways people can tackle and take advantage of them. Lots of the cons you mentioned are standard cons that only apply to people who haven't developed a particular sense of gameplay style to overcome those weaknesses. In FL, where it's constantly chaotic and fast-paced with many different levels of skirmishes, there's many ways to mitigate and turn them into an advantage. This feedback is more targeted to solo play, as I've developed this understanding during my time as a solo player and can still win matches with this as a solo player when facing premades.

For example: SCH and SGE. You listed both of them as no CC and Squishy. That couldn't be farther from the truth in the way I play both of those jobs in PvP. Indeed, there's no hard Crowd Control effect listed in their skills, but there's more than one way to force "Crowd Control" without depending on solely the skill itself. That's where the differences in gameplay and mindsets between players start to separate the players who are developed their own sense of understanding of their job in FL -- grasping this point opens a whole new set of strategies when mastered, especially for each job. Is the innate job squishy? The answer - yes! It is. However, they're only as squishy as the way you play them. By that regard, every job can be non-squishy and very much lethal. That's how the top players in FL can have low or 0 death counts even when playing with a squishy job when they're a solo player.

For example ... there are times where an entire alliance would focus fire me when I'm playing SGE, and I'd survive after taking the hits of over 10-20 players because I make sure to utilize all my advantages of the job's toolkit to its peak. It isn't because I happened to guard and focused fired during that period. No, I forced that situation where I purposely place myself in a spot where I will take damage for everyone else. Is SGE still squishy? Absolutely. If anyone messed up in that spot, they'd pop. However, that doesn't change the situation where I have established to the enemy 'this sage is hard to kill, either needs a nerf or player is good'. At the same time... it's "Crowd Control", but not in the same sense as the crowd control from the game. It's crowd control via understanding your opponents to dictate their actions given what you can do with a toolkit. However, the implementation of these tactics are derived from the core concepts of the game mode itself -- baiting, diversion, aggro, line of sight. SGE might not have hard CC to lock someone in place, but it might as well be hard CC for me if I can divert their attention so they end up staying in place. Like every other hard CC, this kind of control can be easily 'cleansed' if people are aware what the SGE is doing, but knowing and grasping that opportunity is also a strength inherent to the player itself, and much less to the job. Again, this is a very high-end example, but it's something you might want to mention. These concepts can apply to Crystalline Conflict, but because the scope, players, and terrain is different, there's much more versatility for each job in Frontlines to take advantage of. If this sounds surreal, that's because you have to re-examine every job fantasy in the lens of PvE BLM and then take that dynamic gameplay a step further to find your own unique playstyle in Frontlines. Remember: DPS is important in PvE, but it's only one of the many factors to winning. Frontline's Player vs. Player's importance on DPS isn't so much on a static rotation. Damage is not the endgame, it's just a way to expedite the usual winning formula. If you can develop your own way to cripple this winning formula, it's no longer a winning formula. :) This advice applies to every kind of strategy, premade or not.

As for commanding, each job has their own set of unique ways they excel and can contribute. Jobs with specialized effects and jobs with wide-area effects have different focuses when shotcalling due to this. If you want to follow the general premade set of strategies, you can use a tank like DRK as they are a strong 'CC initiator/disruptor'. If you want to create pincer strategies, hard ST debilitating jobs like MNK or WAR pull do well here too, and even counters DRK itself. Some players tend to be a better shotcaller due to playstyle, but ultimately shotcalling requires understanding more about how the map works and being able to take key information to grasp how the changes in the battle happen and to implement the next best strategy based on your job and your team's capability. Being able to understand how to effectively parse that information in a moments notice also drastically improves your ability in a fight even when you are no longer shotcalling. So even when I'm not putting as much attention or trying as much when playing casually, I've built up a certain level of foundation to be able to affect fights far more than other players can due to taking advantage in the difference of knowledge gaps, at both a map-level and fight-level standpoint.

In another and broader analogy, commanding is akin to playing a chess game. You are the chess master looking at how the pieces move and the strength of each relative position, but at the same time you are the chess piece who can directly create a new strategy yourself. A good chess piece who understands the chess master's perspective can perform to their fullest potential and also free a chess master's cognitive load by creating opportunities. A guide is ultimately a guide - static and dead. However, people are alive. Things can change as long as you know about it and act on it. Of course, the more chess masters there are, the spicier the game can get - and then it becomes a battle of wits. Very fun stuff at a high level understanding when you do notice all the unique strategies these players do. It's why premades -- while powerful, are still limited because they can only be chess pieces, and a chess master has many strategies to break them apart.

By that note -- For stuff like openings for risks as a commander, forgive my vulgar language - but it's a complete load of shit. Openings aren't really reliable at all because you can't expect to know what jobs and how skilled your opponents are upon starting the match -- which can have a bigger impact on whether the openings are feasible are not. It's more better to call those paths 'lanes' than 'openers' because you can use the terrain to give yourself an advantage and narrow/determine specific points of conflict even after the opener is over -- especially when defending nodes or fighting over nodes. At the very least, this is my experience from playing and winning games as a solo player. Hope this perspective helps people reading and struggling with FL by taking a new approach and makes the game mode more enjoyable to you. Or idk, gives you a new perspective on how high-level Frontlines work if you really want to win as a solo player.

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

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Thank you for putting this together Olivia! While XIV does not do a great job of explaining the nuance that goes into an FL match (from bursting to health management), a guide to familiarize players with what they might read in the chat is going to be a world of help to someone starting FL for the first time. There are numerous guides in the various discords explaining the nuances of Frontlines, but nothing on the English official forums.

My personal experience comes from solo queuing for the most part, and choosing to command when no one else chooses to. My honest opinion is that most players (yes, including the rouletters) are receptive to guidance in FL if you lay it out in an understandable manner.

To make a clear distinction, the ability to listen to high-quality orders does not necessarily lead to wins. Sometimes there are engagements created that you say "oh we can't win against this, we don't have the skill/bh/team composition/manpower/map footing/time/third team's support/etc..", even if the correct call was made.

One thing I would like to add. Commanding can be as detailed or undetailed as you want it to be, as long as you are conveying information to your team in an understandable way. I keep macros for the following:

• Rank of a node that has spawned
• Cardinal/ Inter-cardinal direction of node spawn
• Fall back or pincer/sandwich notifications
• What team should be attacked
• Miscalls

The less information provided to your team leaves opportunities for things to go wrong, but if someone wants to start calling objectives, taking small steps by calling new nodes, directions to go, etc is already a huge contribution to obtaining a win.

And as for my last note, you don't need to be in a premade party to make calls. I find there is a distinction between calls made to alert your team of new nodes or beneficial/not beneficial scenarios, and making calls to direct your team's firepower in a quick, concentrated manner. The latter example works well in a premade situation, whereas the former example works regardless if you are playing in a group or solo. My point is, that anyone can step up to make calls, regardless of the team situation.

In regards to you comments about commanding:

You can call the best moves and do everything right and still lose. That's the nature of a 3 way game with rng elements after all. You can't win every match, but you can up your chances significantly with calls.

If the general player base had macros for their limit break and incoming pinches we'd be much better off for certain. The more buy in we have with communicating with our team the better.

I don't lay out a good groundwork for how to start commanding and progressing down that path. I think a general road map would be a good addition. Start simple and work your way up.

Finally... I don't outright state you should be in a premade to call. I do highly suggest it.Playing with your friends and putting a comp together, having peeps already following you, and winning the first engagement is going to make your team much more interested in listening to you. This is doubly so if you're unknown.

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

You can call the best moves and do everything right and still lose. That's the nature of a 3 way game with rng elements after all.

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Isn't that ever a reality.

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

If the general player base had macros for their limit break and incoming pinches we'd be much better off for certain. The more buy in we have with communicating with our team the better.

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While I do agree more communication is always better, I would stray from the LB macros given the nature of 24 teammates and potential chat/ sounds effect spam. If SE put in a LB bar above each person's section in the alliance/party tab, that would give much better insight to the LB power of the team, and no one would need to let their team know of the status of their LBs.

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

I don't lay out a good groundwork for how to start commanding and progressing down that path. I think a general road map would be a good addition. Start simple and work your way up.

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I think it was a great groundwork roadmap! Each person is free to develop their own macros/ leading guidelines, but laying out potential macros, and showing a commanding point of view gives newer players a decent starting location, even if all they do is receive commands and never issue any.

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

Finally... I don't outright state you should be in a premade to call. I do highly suggest it.Playing with your friends and putting a comp together, having peeps already following you, and winning the first engagement is going to make your team much more interested in listening to you. This is doubly so if you're unknown.

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I do agree buy-in is a lot easier if you have a team composition that can get that first decisive win. I do agree that premades make for better commanding, that shouldn't discourage anyone from trying their hand at leading, regardless if they are in good company or by themselves. I like to think if the orders make some sense and you get buy-in from your team, people will listen regardless if you're new or a veteran. Moreso if no one else will step up to the plate.

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Originally Posted by Aubrey_A

While I do agree more communication is always better, I would stray from the LB macros given the nature of 24 teammates and potential chat/ sounds effect spam. If SE put in a LB bar above each person's section in the alliance/party tab, that would give much better insight to the LB power of the team, and no one would need to let their team know of the status of their LBs.

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Oh, let me clarify. You shouldn't put sounds on lb notifications!!! Just put it in yellow/yell. If a slew of yellow text comes up in chat you know it's about to be clobbering time. Just having lb bars above your party mates would be perfect as well, they already do that in CC. Should be in every pvp mode.

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

Oh, let me clarify. You shouldn't put sounds on lb notifications!!! Just put it in yellow/yell. If a slew of yellow text comes up in chat you know it's about to be clobbering time. Just having lb bars above your party mates would be perfect as well, they already do that in CC. Should be in every pvp mode.

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Oh, you detailed that in your guide, my bad! But I do stand by the fact SE should put teammates LBs into the UI somehow.

Those UI suggestion would be extremely helpful. Unfortunately I find even one person spamming multiple commands with sounds to be really distracting, just the thought of one person taking multiple lbs with sound seriously added was :eek: !