Uncapped AoE is ruining PvP Frontline/Rival Wings

This has been discussed many a time - from DRK, to AST, to DRG, to SMN.

It has been talked to death, but I'm bringing it up again because it needs to be highlighted: AOE IS KILLING PvP.

And sure, you can say "Oh, who cares about PvP? It's just bad game mode." Well, the problem with PvP is that majority of people queue into Frontline Roulette only to get flavor of the day but it actually leaves bad tastes in a majority of people's mouths, thus turning them away from the game mode because "it's too hard" or "I can't play".

But back to the matter, AoE needs to be hard capped in PvP. We've had this issue for how long? Since CC became a thing? Let's go over the factors that are causing people more frustration than enjoyment with the game mode.

DRK - Most notorious for group CC and a surprisingly 15y Draw-in and Bind combo that essentially seals your doom the moment you stack 4 DRKs or even just 2. Guarding against this is usually the answer, but when you have at least an AST and a SMN in the back you literally can nuke the entire team just with ONE good draw-in. It's dumb, and I know it's set for CC - but when it's in Frontline? You essentially have a job that's insanely strong when it comes to 24v24v24; heck, even 24v24 winds up the same way!

DRG - How many times are you going to keep buffing this job? Because the only thing I've ever seen from patch notes are BUFFS. NERF IT. Their LB is the strongest in all of PvP because not only does it provide a GIGANTIC shield for no reason, you also deal 80% or more of your target's HP - in an AOE. If that's not enough, let's also add in buffs! When this job is buffed, that damage becomes multiplicative(*insert Battle High and Soaring here*), and when it's under even one of those? You can one-shot and entire team. If the problem is DRG not being able to get out, then maybe they shouldn't force Elusive Jump into a Burst Rotation in the first place and make Wyrmwind Thrust its own button instead of buffing the **** out of the job.

SMN - I like the job. I may not play it, but I like how it's designed. It has CC, it has a burst rotation, and on top of that it has the choice of Damage Reduction Phoenix or big bad Bahamut damage. The only problem is when you stack these jobs in a party. Having 2/3 SMNs is enough to nuke an entire Alliance, flat out - 2 if you have Soaring/Battle High.

AST - While not bad on the surface, the problem with this job is again, uncapped AoE - as is the running theme here. Macrocosmos not only stacks a portion of damage, you also DEAL damage when you use it - and yes, while the dreaded DRK/AST/AST/AST combo is something everyone dreads in Crystal because of its ridiculous nuking potential, but what's more is their LB is really strong - making their Nuking potential even higher while NERFING the entire enemy. What's more, they provide a lot of buffs to the group with their cards, essentially ranging from Damage Reduction, Damage, and Movement Speed+Haste. They're a very versatile healer for what they do since they also can provide shields.

Also, there is Battle High scaling that is causing a lot of issues for people. Melee sometimes take an entire alliance to take down(staring at you NIN), while as SMN or AST you essentially get to nuke an entire party for free if you get the chance. It's not as bad with Soaring, but it's horrible with Battle High. If anything, you reduce Melee's DR and they need to have Tanks to enable engagements(who have high DR), though most of that is relegated to DRK just pulling everyone in. You cap AoE at 5, you don't run into major problems where PvP is essentially an AoE fest - you change it into how many people are getting hit by the same AoE(which is still an advantage, mind, but it doesn't really change anything in the long run due to damage scaling). Edit: OH. There's one more I forgot.

WHM - Ah yes. I forgot about this one. Fast LB that is an AoE Line that causes a whole Stun for 3s. It's very strong, and scales very high with Battle High/Soaring. They nerfed how often it comes up, but it's still a strong tool that is uncapped - at a giant range at that.

So, there you have it: Those are the *five* biggest offenders right now, and we need a way for people to understand how to counter them proper(DRK having nearly 0 Counterplay most of the time due to Draw-in, but it's not impossible to stop one).

CC was always the serious game mode, that will always take balance priority

OP has intertwined multiple issues in one post, although I have said for awhile that AOE skilled should be capped in FL and pointing at specific jobs isn't the issue,

At present, part of the problem is even pointed out in their post "we need a way for people to understand how to counter them"- and before someone speaks up - yes- there is still an advantage that a good premade will have.

That's also why I kind of don't see some things as balance issues - such as- why would you see that there's a need for change when you see comments like " as AST you essentially get to nuke an entire party for free if you get the chance" - well that's quite logical, isn't it? Whereas a smart party simply doesn't allow that to happen - and as a job that is squishy, when focussed they're down. Also, I disagree with the doom-saying, saying seeing 2 DRKs "seals your doom" is pure hyperbole. No, it doesn't, at all. Doesn't mean that the AOE adjustment shouldn't apply- although DRK should get some compensation.

I would find it more plausible that the people who are saying that "it's too hard" have little or no PVP experience and/or motivation to PvP and don't expect that they'll actually have to develop some coordination and effort to win. That doesn't mean, at all, that I wouldn't want some changes to FL- nor does it mean that I'm criticizing them in any way.

I also have been complaining about this for awhile now... I am starting to think their spaghetti code can't handle it. That's Why they use damage modifier instead of cap targets to 5.
The only thing l can say is that at least l don't have to win to get that fat roulette xp which only gaius can beat.

I know that's not the core of the OP, but since you mentioned DRG's Skyshatter shield, this thing is just stupid, and I can't believe they even buffed it once.

Meanwhile on DNC I live with my choices, if I commit to a LB, I'm squishier, I'm locked in place for eons, I'm not high untargetable in the sky, and I certainly don't have a gigantic shield to save my ass. Oh and yeah, I also have to make sure my allies actually do the job else my LB is wasted.

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Originally Posted by Eastwall

I also have been complaining about this for awhile now... I am starting to think their spaghetti code can't handle it. That's Why they use damage modifier instead of cap targets to 5.
The only thing l can say is that at least l don't have to win to get that fat roulette xp which only gaius can beat.

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Hadn't thought about that, but it's likely a major factor. DR is a preset constant, thus simple. Capping targets to 5 would likely need to snapshot, calculate the distance of all enemies, then select the nearest 5, then mark all others immune. In principle that's trivial, of course, but in the context of everything else that is going on it might be too much.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I know that's not the core of the OP, but since you mentioned DRG's Skyshatter shield, this thing is just stupid, and I can't believe they even buffed it once.

Meanwhile on DNC I live with my choices, if I commit to a LB, I'm squishier, I'm locked in place for eons, I'm not high untargetable in the sky, and I certainly don't have a gigantic shield to save my ass. Oh and yeah, I also have to make sure my allies actually do the job else my LB is wasted.

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This was always an eyebrow-raiser for me. If I had to hazard a guess, it's because higher-level CC players actually know how to pay attention to enemy status bars and their LB levels and are actually aware of what's going on at a given time. Taking those aspects into consideration, DRG's LB is almost as predictable and obvious as SAM's LB and its "overpowered-ness" falls off at higher play (in CC, which is the only PvP the PvP intern person team cares about). They said about as much in their buff to DRG in 6.38:

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Counterplay to the limit break Sky Shatter has become more widespread, making it difficult to capitalize on the damage potential of this ability. To ensure it has the effectiveness one would expect of a limit break, the barrier effect granted after executing Sky Shatter has been improved significantly. Furthermore, the additional damage dealt to targets within 5 yalms has also been increased, while the damage dealt to targets further away has been slightly decreased, rewarding dragoons for more precise strikes in the thick of battle.

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Otherwise, yeah, I agree. DRG's LB on average everywhere else is low risk; high reward while DNC's is high risk; situationally low to middling reward (only 'high' if used synced with another job's LB- where, surprise, DRG is the most impactful- ever coordinate a DRG+DNC LB combo in CC? *chef's kiss*). A DNC is unlikely to even get the full effect of their LB on every target they manage to nail with it. Additionally, a DNC's seduced effect takes an eternity to activate thanks to it's ungodly long start-up telegraph, which often can result in people putting significant distance away from outside it's initial area of effect before seduced even shows up.

It's arguably the jankiest LB outside of niche teamwork. Even DRK premades in FL tend to gravitate to RPR's for LB due to its speedy charge.

...I'm reminded of AST's Gravity used to be able to put debuffs on all affected targets, but they nerfed it to only be your targeted enemy... Clearly they are capable of distinctions for things.

"Clearly they are capable of distinctions for things." Yes, skill changes that make sense for CC- for FL? not so much.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Hadn't thought about that, but it's likely a major factor. DR is a preset constant, thus simple. Capping targets to 5 would likely need to snapshot, calculate the distance of all enemies, then select the nearest 5, then mark all others immune. In principle that's trivial, of course, but in the context of everything else that is going on it might be too much.

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AoE falloff already exists and has for ages since ARR when AoE went out of hand in dungeons.

If a falloff past X targets can be calculated, then a falloff of 100% past 5 targets can be added easily without any problem that I can see.

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Originally Posted by 4clubbedace

CC was always the serious game mode, that will always take balance priority

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Yeah, honestly after playing so much FL, going back to CC ruined my perception with the wacky and awful stat changes... especially melee

(Too bad I am not fan of the mode itself because otherwise I would have kept playing there)

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Originally Posted by Valence

AoE falloff already exists and has for ages since ARR when AoE went out of hand in dungeons.

If a falloff past X targets can be calculated, then a falloff of 100% past 5 targets can be added easily without any problem that I can see.

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Essentially you could simply you know, have a 75% fall off for any target past 5? Yet they would still need to do something about DRK’s Draw-in. Limiting it to 5 is janky anyhow since it’s the closest 5 on snapshot as someone mentioned above. It’s rough, but I can’t really think of any other way than the limitation of 5. Any other way of trying to draw Salted Earth in different ways simply would gimp DRK’s engagement that isn’t Plunge.

Been destroying opponent forces premades multiple times with some very few things you can do and is super effective.

They rely much on the DRK and DRGs etc etc... have a huge spread and you will ruin their game CC the DRKs..... and hit some of their key players, you may lose one or two members that way, but you can litterally after that pick them off one by one fast annd if you get them to waste their CDs as well, even better... as long as you brake them down enough you can cause havoc to them... also if they want them to follow them... just stand your ground or move away.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

Been destroying opponent forces premades multiple times with some very few things you can do and is super effective.

They rely much on the DRK and DRGs etc etc... have a huge spread and you will ruin their game CC the DRKs..... and hit some of their key players, you may lose one or two members that way, but you can litterally after that pick them off one by one fast annd if you get them to waste their CDs as well, even better... as long as you brake them down enough you can cause havoc to them... also if they want them to follow them... just stand your ground or move away.

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This is ingenious insight. Simply don't stand anywhere near your teammates and have all your melee DPS be mindful to never attack the same target unless they can neatly space apart. Then after that, all you have to do is give-up every conceivable chokepoint fight or ice node to them so that you aren't close together, even though they are littered throughout every map. Then just CC the DRKs- don't worry about Purify, they won't use it. After that, kill them by reducing their HP to 0. When you kill them, they'll be dead. So simple even casual players can do it. We cracked the DRK premade.

:rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Cidel

This is ingenious insight. Simply don't stand anywhere near your teammates and have all your melee DPS be mindful to never attack the same target unless they can neatly space apart. Then after that, all you have to do is give-up every conceivable chokepoint fight or ice node to them so that you aren't close together, even though they are littered throughout every map. Then just CC the DRKs- don't worry about Purify, they won't use it. After that, kill them by reducing their HP to 0. When you kill them, they'll be dead. So simple even casual players can do it. We cracked the DRK premade.

:rolleyes:

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Bards can really mess up DRKs, alot of range can, the current pre-made setup got to many flaws to be good, especially if the opponents know how it works, it is very very easy to ruin the chain of command in it.

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Originally Posted by Cidel

This is ingenious insight. Simply don't stand anywhere near your teammates and have all your melee DPS be mindful to never attack the same target unless they can neatly space apart. Then after that, all you have to do is give-up every conceivable chokepoint fight or ice node to them so that you aren't close together, even though they are littered throughout every map. Then just CC the DRKs- don't worry about Purify, they won't use it. After that, kill them by reducing their HP to 0. When you kill them, they'll be dead. So simple even casual players can do it. We cracked the DRK premade.

:rolleyes:

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This sounds like pretty heavy sarcasm.... spreading out during the enemy burst is actually extremely sound as a strategy. Salted is happening every 30 seconds, and unless you're otherwise engaged, the enemies are pretty easy to spot.

Let them hit a small number of your force than converge on them with you own burst is pretty standard mid level tactics.

Furthmore... giving up a point is exactly what you need to do if it means you live. If you take 10 deaths from an enemy burst that's more than the node was worth, and the enemy is probably also getting the point.

Suggesting bard is a little sus though... don't play bard. If your soul purpose is to delay/stop enemy burst then Monk, Warrior, Ninja, Dark Knight, Reaper, and Dancer are your best options.

issue in frontline is more like certain classes having access to stuns and premades dumping them and lb stacks all on the same player
if this damage was nerfed sure people wont exploit rprs hysteria and machinist lb(hits 30k+ damage through guard for real) and rprs lb straight up"dispells" guard

Capping AoE is a neat idea. How does SE go about capping AoEs?

The BLU approach to AoE damage reductions is probably the easiest way to go. The in-game description for the BLU spell bomb toss and flame thrower below:

Deals fire damage at a designated location with a potency of 200 for the first enemy, and 50% less for all remaining enemies.

Deals fire damage to all enemies in a cone before you with a potency of 220 for the first enemy, and 50% less for all remaining enemies.

Reducing the damage of the AoE after hitting so many players sounds easy enough for SE to implement. Even if the reduction of damage is beyond 50% (I'd wager even 75% is fine in a group setting with battle high intertwined).

I'm not sure how well capping the amount of players an AoE can hit will do. How would SE choose who gets hit with an AoE? Not to mention the wonderful net code letting dead players get hit regularly, you could see a portion of an AoE having a null effect.

They already have a system for it in pvp kinda... it's actually reversed. Sam and dancer have moves that become stronger if they only hit 1 target target.

They're not actually gonna change the damage drop off when it's balanced around only having 5 enemies to hit at a time.

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

This sounds like pretty heavy sarcasm....

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Guilty. If someone's going to try and flex about how they "destroy" premades and how "super effective" it is, while not bringing anything new or insightful with the vaguest of vague details about a generic strategy that only works on paper or on newb premades that only just heard about how DRK is good in FL... I'm not going to take it seriously.

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

spreading out during the enemy burst is actually extremely sound as a strategy. Salted is happening every 30 seconds, and unless you're otherwise engaged, the enemies are pretty easy to spot.

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The problem is that strategy only works in a vacuum and is not feasible in at least 50% of every engagement on every map. Even ignoring the general fighting behavior of the average FL playerbase, each map has deliberate chokepoints located next to half or more of the tomelith, ovoos, or large ices. In Onsal and Seal Rock, if you are not fighting on the objective, you are standing on or near a ramp or bridge in many of the node areas. Your legions of ranged dps aren't going to be social-distancing from each other if they are trying to hit any remotely exposed targets while keeping their distance.

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Let them hit a small number of your force than converge on them with you own burst is pretty standard mid level tactics.

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Any premade running DRKs worth their salt are not aiming for a small number of enemy forces. And anyone saving their burst for a fresh DRK jumping in might as well have done nothing at all once Eventide goes off and Undead Redemption pops up on their status bar.

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Furthmore... giving up a point is exactly what you need to do if it means you live. If you take 10 deaths from an enemy burst that's more than the node was worth, and the enemy is probably also getting the point.

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Again, not feasible in game modes that require objectives to win (unless you are running your own deathball, in which case the other team's comp isn't even an issue). Giving up a point every time you see the premade DRKs running towards you nothing short of surrendering and letting them have their way without even a fight. You take 10 deaths away from your team without increasing your score while letting them increase theirs without losing a single point either. The only point they're getting would be that your team is cowardly and they can bully you off objectives with just their presence.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

Bards can really mess up DRKs, alot of range can, the current pre-made setup got to many flaws to be good, especially if the opponents know how it works, it is very very easy to ruin the chain of command in it.

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

Suggesting bard is a little sus though... don't play bard. If your soul purpose is to delay/stop enemy burst then Monk, Warrior, Ninja, Dark Knight, Reaper, and Dancer are your best options.

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BRDs can offer a momentary annoyance to a DRK, who will probably not be killed from that second of Silence; unless they already have their Resilience buff activated, in which case the BRD's CC is useless and now they are probably close enough to get drawn-in. Furthermore, any CC in general will be largely useless as it will not give your average team enough time to shut-down/kill a DRK unless used in conjunction with jobs with unpurifiable CC like WHM or RPR. MNK seems like the real answer as their LB basically keeps the DRK from doing anything for several seconds- though it probably means they are sacrificing themselves every time to use it.

BRD's silence is a part of their burst, and is extremely effective at finishing off people who are getting focused on by several of your teammates. Saving it for DRKs is an incredible waste outside of niche situations or clutch moments to give your team a second to react. Not to "mess them up." MNK or another draw-in job is way more effective at that and WHM does it better with their CC bypassing Resilience. Hell, a sound macro calling-out a DRK running-up would mess them up more.

...And and if your sole purpose on a DNC is to delay/stop an enemy burst, I can almost guarantee you that you'll probably be dead from a Skyshatter or several Macrocosmos to the face before you finish twirling in your LB animation lock.

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Originally Posted by AriannaStormwake

...and machinist lb(hits 30k+ damage through guard for real)

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No, no it doesn't. You're conflating their LB with their buffed Drill ability. Or thinking you can put guard up after you see the crosshairs on you to prevent the damage when by that point the damage has been snapshotted and is just waiting for the animation to finish.

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

They're not actually gonna change the damage drop off when it's balanced around only having 5 enemies to hit at a time.

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They would need to make it an FL-only change for the damage reduction method. The odds of that happening though? I'd sooner bet on CC being scrapped as a mode.

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

Salted is happening every 30 seconds...

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This is true... per DRK. In FL and RW it is very common to see multiple DRKs per alliance.

its marksmans spite what i have a problem with actually

Spite is totally useless without BH in FLs, damage is too low and even squishies have a base innate DR (of what, 15-20%?). With BH5 on the other hand, it murders anything that's not melee in one shot or two (same could be said of meteodrive too tbh).

But if you want to truly make kills without thinking much, just play ninja, you'll get the additional innate DR that melees have, and all of your options are ranged anyway.

To be honest the FL discrepancies of DR between ranged and melees are way too big. It's already a problem in CC, but in FLs it just takes the cake.

yes you are correct didnt notice which BH the machinist had that did the 38kish damage with spite(probably 5 he was part of the team who got easy first place due to premade)
but that damage did happen to me

I remember, prior to the rework, when DPS jobs had their own standalone AoE combos, and how they hardly ever actually got used, if at all. You had the occasional AoE ability with some nice additional effect, but they weren't mindblowing. Those AoE combos felt woefully ineffective and inefficient. Single-target melting was always the play. It's so weird seeing how ST and AoE have swapped in priority since the rework.

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Originally Posted by Mayhemmer

I remember, prior to the rework, when DPS jobs had their own standalone AoE combos, and how they hardly ever actually got used, if at all. You had the occasional AoE ability with some nice additional effect, but they weren't mindblowing. Those AoE combos felt woefully ineffective and inefficient. Single-target melting was always the play. It's so weird seeing how ST and AoE have swapped in priority since the rework.

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Also LBs were PvE LB1s so they had a cast time which you could avoid/react and that also is a big difference.

Fights took longer too

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Originally Posted by Jettinson

Also LBs were PvE LB1s so they had a cast time which you could avoid/react and that also is a big difference.

Fights took longer too

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Yeah. I remember old shatter 3-way fights that were always two teams pushing the third's bottleneck and would last until one of them broke off for an ice. It was never the absolute team-wipes that happen every few minutes now. The majority of job skills were even designed with single-target use in mind, and there wasn't anywhere near the quantity of CC we have now. That mentality in design has completely flipped, and any job with consistent non-burst ST damage or excessive CC just feels like dead weight now.

Frontlines is and always has been a growing tree of issues where every branch is a problem that eventually grows it's own new problems. It's not an easy fix, and if they toned down all of the problematic changes to be more in line with pre-rework, those changes would end up effecting nearly every defining aspect of the rework, which almost defeats the point of the rework in the first place. Where do they even go from here? Or better question: what parts of the current design-philosophy are they willing to sacrifice in order to make improvements? That's what I want to know, because something has to give at some point.

Well, wishful thinking on my part. People seem to be ok with putting up with how things are now, so maybe nothing will change at all.

Oh look, another thread complaining about a problem Guard solves.

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Originally Posted by Naizakane

Oh look, another thread complaining about a problem Guard solves.

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"Solves"? That'd be clever.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

"Solves"? That'd be clever.

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Yes. It solves the problem.

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Originally Posted by Naizakane

Oh look, another thread complaining about a problem Guard solves.

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Way to not contribute to discussion… For the record, Guard does solve a lot of things - if you can essentially react to them. Because guess what? DRK Draw-in is mostly unreactable. You have to read it ahead of time. Same with any Instant ability we have. The only downside with Guard is that you move at a snail’s pace, which in Frontline leaves you in a problematic position if you happened to get drawn by a DRK.

In a perfect world, everyone would be Guarding perfectly - but that is not the case when the game runs on a 3s server tick.

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

Way to not contribute to discussion… For the record, Guard does solve a lot of things - if you can essentially react to them. Because guess what? DRK Draw-in is mostly unreactable. You have to read it ahead of time. Same with any Instant ability we have. The only downside with Guard is that you move at a snail’s pace, which in Frontline leaves you in a problematic position if you happened to get drawn by a DRK.

In a perfect world, everyone would be Guarding perfectly - but that is not the case when the game runs on a 3s server tick.

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Works on my machine.

Enough bards can do quite the amount of harm... seen groups full of BRDs in Rival wings and still be winning without having too many Tanks and Spears.... and winning big time.

So it goes a bit like this and that... middle is not everything in Rival Wings, and if they are all close range on the other team then it is not always a bonus often far from.

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Originally Posted by Naizakane

Works on my machine.

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Assuming these are serious posts, clearly you haven't seen any decent premade.

You suggest Guard? Great. Now meet their RPR/DNC/WAR.

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Originally Posted by Scintilla

Assuming these are serious posts, clearly you haven't seen any decent premade.

You suggest Guard? Great. Now meet their RPR/DNC/WAR.

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Here's a fun fact for you: I rarely see premades that run RPR/DNC/WAR, because there just isn't enough people hitting Guard for them to be needed yet. They can probably be dealt with the same way, or you can try the following: when you think they're about to go for it, find your job's defensive cooldown and use that. Next step is to hit Purify for the Resilience buff. Next, sprint and do a running jump away. Timed right, it'll create more distance between you and the DRK. Then do a second one to create more distance between you and whatever the problem is. Especially if the problem is a DNC - you have a couple of seconds between seeing the visual effect for Contradance and getting slapped with Seduced, so create more distance if possible. Does it suck to blow your job's defensive and Purify like this? Sure. Wanna know what sucks more? Dying without at least trying to do anything about it.

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Originally Posted by Naizakane

Here's a fun fact for you: I rarely see premades that run RPR/DNC/WAR,

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Purely because you haven't seen them, doesn't mean they aren't there. It's a 'fact' that they exist.
At a minimum, I run 3 FLs a day just for my alts dailies, but almost always run several more purely for my own interest. Such teams do exist and when you see them, you know it's going to be a heavy uphill struggle the whole way, with chances of either of the random teams winning being very low.

Over time, regular players can begin to recognise such teams purely from their appearance, can mark the DRK early in the game as an early warning, and try to keep themselves alive solely by keeping a good distance from the rest of their party when they see the DRK coming from the distance. But that keeps just you alive - the rest of your team die, and just one or two players alone vs a full alliance of BH5 is of no use whatsoever. Next suggestion: get your entire team to split/run when they see the DRK coming but, again, that is no use at all. First, maps have multiple bottlenecks preventing such a vast team split. Secondly, I shouldn't have to point out that having everyone run away everytime the DRK runs in your direction isn't the way to win FLs: you're just giving every node to them with no fight at all, either by full team death or evacuation.

https://i.imgur.com/vz72KRL.png

This is basically what it looks like when the other teams are stacked. While the team I was on had issues with staying together, the flames literally just camped the spawn for the team and yes they were mostly DRK, BLM, SMN, SAM, oddly no dragoons, but warrior was there. The big thing was that the DRKs were always fishing out anyone with a lot of single target burst automatically and then just running off to do other things because everyone else will do the work for them. I can't do anything if I'm pulled into a mob and then cut up while the rest of the team is mindlessly running around getting mass CCed / AOE'ed while being constantly pushed into a corner. In fact, I think both the other teams basically just decided to troll adders.

I am literally on a freaking machinist with an LB and drill combo, and I can't even kill the BLM. He just double tanks two attacks meant to assassinate a single target because there is so much healing and so much cover from running around in the school of fish, that others can't even join in to finish the job. The only jobs that have any impact are ones that either fish or can do mass CC / Damage to a huge number of targets.

I'm sorry. A 3 man game where one team is basically at 70 points? Out of 700? With every team being literal 24 man raids it is not as simple as a player skill issue unless everyone just happens to be bad on that 24 man team and can't attack.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

https://i.imgur.com/vz72KRL.png

This is basically what it looks like when the other teams are stacked. While the team I was on had issues with staying together, the flames literally just camped the spawn for the team and yes they were mostly DRK, BLM, SMN, SAM, oddly no dragoons, but warrior was there. The big thing was that the DRKs were always fishing out anyone with a lot of single target burst automatically and then just running off to do other things because everyone else will do the work for them. I can't do anything if I'm pulled into a mob and then cut up while the rest of the team is mindlessly running around getting mass CCed / AOE'ed while being constantly pushed into a corner. In fact, I think both the other teams basically just decided to troll adders.

I am literally on a freaking machinist with an LB and drill combo, and I can't even kill the BLM. He just double tanks two attacks meant to assassinate a single target because there is so much healing and so much cover from running around in the school of fish, that others can't even join in to finish the job. The only jobs that have any impact are ones that either fish or can do mass CC / Damage to a huge number of targets.

I'm sorry. A 3 man game where one team is basically at 70 points? Out of 700? With every team being literal 24 man raids it is not as simple as a player skill issue unless everyone just happens to be bad on that 24 man team and can't attack.

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Usually when I find these scenarios it's one team (usually flames) that is hyper aggressive from the start, pick a team that is the weakest of the two and uses that team as fodder for BH cheese. The other team (in this case Maelstrom) will continue objective hunting while killing the last team (Adders) in order to keep up with the BH advantage Flames got from feeding off of Adders. Maelstrom may attack Flames first depending on the situation but if they do, Adders usually attacks Maelstrom because Flames is stronger from BH farming so the option would be to attack the weaker team out of the two. After this, Maelstrom will focus on Adders to avoid getting teamed by both Adders and Flames (as Adders is the weakest so the biggest threat is Maelstrom to Flames).

Eventually Maelstrom will have to attack Flames and both teams will backhand Adders if they try to benefit from the two teams on the fighting. Since both of the top teams at this point have a substantial BH advantage, Adders is pretty much done.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Niroken

Usually when I find these scenarios it's one team (usually flames) that is hyper aggressive from the start, pick a team that is the weakest of the two and uses that team as fodder for BH cheese. The other team (in this case Maelstrom) will continue objective hunting while killing the last team (Adders) in order to keep up with the BH advantage Flames got from feeding off of Adders. Maelstrom may attack Flames first depending on the situation but if they do, Adders usually attacks Maelstrom because Flames is stronger from BH farming so the option would be to attack the weaker team out of the two. After this, Maelstrom will focus on Adders to avoid getting teamed by both Adders and Flames (as Adders is the weakest so the biggest threat is Maelstrom to Flames).

Eventually Maelstrom will have to attack Flames and both teams will backhand Adders if they try to benefit from the two teams on the fighting. Since both of the top teams at this point have a substantial BH advantage, Adders is pretty much done.

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You're suggesting that, in a mode in which team assignment is random, the Flames have a tendency to behave in a certain way?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

You're suggesting that, in a mode in which team assignment is random, the Flames have a tendency to behave in a certain way?

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Based on my observations, strangely yes. The teams have a vague generalization that is reminiscent of previous iterations of Frontlines PVP when more PvP focused players picked one GC. Flames are generally more aggressive, followed by Maelstrom and lastly by Adders. It's not always the case but it's what I've observed over the years. As to the reason why that may be I could only theorize. As someone who is in the Flames GC I find myself more involved when I am on Flames, leading me to try harder then when I am on Maelstrom or Adders. Impossible to say if that rings true for everyone or maybe it's entirely false and I am imagining it.