PVP PLD Cheese Problem

[Saraide]

You can argue and type giant paragraphs until you are blue in the face on how to counter paladin cheesing in onsal but that doesn't mean it is a fun mechanic to play against.

When entire teams need to adjust to one specific strategy then something needs to be addressed. Onsal used to be fun, but now it's just a darn mess.

Well parts of those big paragraphs tell us to just murder the enemy team harder while they are focused on capturing. So there exists fun possible counterplay.

[Teeko]

Well parts of those big paragraphs tell us to just murder the enemy team harder while they are focused on capturing. So there exists fun possible counterplay.

Have you even done any onsal recently? Have any of you? How is any of this a compelling argument for this strategy existing lmao

[Saraide]

Have you even done any onsal recently? Have any of you? How is any of this a compelling argument for this strategy existing lmao

What? If your team is better and manages to rake up a lot of kills then the paladin combo stops to matter because you will push them away from points before they can get close enough. Battlehigh tends to snowball pretty hard. You raise an absolutely valid point when you ask "is it fun". Arguably the only valid point. The counterplay to paladin combo is to deal more damage to the enemy team and kill their members. If your team cant do that then you're not in the better team.

[Teeko]

What? If your team is better and manages to rake up a lot of kills then the paladin combo stops to matter because you will push them away from points before they can get close enough. Battlehigh tends to snowball pretty hard. You raise an absolutely valid point when you ask "is it fun". Arguably the only valid point. The counterplay to paladin combo is to deal more damage to the enemy team and kill their members. If your team cant do that then you're not in the better team.

I'll take that as a "no" then

lmao

[AnotherPerson]

Have you even done any onsal recently? Have any of you? How is any of this a compelling argument for this strategy existing lmao

I play Frontlines almost every day at this point... As I said in the very beginning, it all boils down to Skill Issue.

I might have said it in a playful manner, but I'm quite serious.

But am I having fun when I'm kicking everyone's butt while keeping my party alive and getting first place?
... Yeah? What else would I be doing, other than plotting how to destroy the two Grand Companies and make them fight each other?

How else do you play Frontlines for fun? Get a party with 8 SCH? That isn't mutually exclusive with beating the enemy up.

[Kansene]

Skill Issue.

Was restricted to my phone for quite a while, and didn't feel like typing a huge post responding to your huge post back there using my sausage fingers on a tiny phone screen.

Well thought-out post that describes quite respectfully how to deal with the issue. You're clearly coming from a helpful place, and it's genuinely appreciated, I did read through the whole thing. As far as I read, you're not really condoning or condemning the pld cheese existing in the first place (unless I misremember, it's quite late in the evening at this point and my head's not all there) it would be disingenuous to claim any kind of "defense" for the cheese existing. You've identified a problem and offered solutions to solving it, simple as.

So not gonna really refute anything you've stated. Even the quote above, the "skill issue" rings somewhat true.
The bottom line of my own argument remains however, is that this kind of absolute trashy nonsense mechanic has no right to exist. I have no numbers to back up my claim here, but I don't think it's a far stretch to assume that the vast majority of an FL team is not going to go to these lengths to shut down a paladin and their buddy. In fact I dare be so bold as to claim they wouldn't even know how to. They jump in, and either play a bit for fun, or to get their daily roulette done.
And, anecdotally, what they experience when they queue into Onsal, is a non-stop clown show of seemingly invincible pld cheese that chain caps nodes all over the place and leads to devastatingly unfair victories. Anecdotally, it's genuinely driving people away from that whole frontline. Myself, my SO, and several members of my FC among them, as well as quite a few randoms I've seen claiming in the /a chat that they're just done with the place. Whether they stick to their word, who knows, but I do take their statements at face value.

It's a strategy that warps the entire FL. It's so prevalent that the whole experience of Onsal is leaving a genuinely sour taste in peoples' mouths. I've seen again and again comments like "Well gg, we didn't have pld to cheese with", or "this was my fave FL and now it sucks" and many other, less kindly worded messages.
Do these people simply need to "git gud?" I'd argue they could collectively start training to become hugely better at the game and start dominating through superior strategy and leet skills, but is that a realistic scenario at all? More likely than that is that they'll simply avoid the FL because it's gimmicky and feels horrible.
(char limit, second post inc)

[Xylira]

... it all boils down to Skill Issue.

Yep, I agree that it's a skill issue, but not for the reason you think it is.

Paladin Guardian+Guard capping is braindead simple to pull off compared to the amount of coordination, effort, and most importantly responsiveness that it takes to counter it.

A pair of mediocre paladins working together, particularly if they queue together and are on voicechat, can easily make attempt after attempt at abusing guardian capping. There are methods of disrupting them, but they're not nearly as reliable and often require coordination from more than just two people.

Guardian capping ideally needs to be removed, but at the very least it either needs to be made much harder to pull off or much easier to disrupt.

In the meantime, I stopped bothering to queue for Onsal explicitly because of this nonsense.

[Saraide]

Yep, I agree that it's a skill issue, but not for the reason you think it is.

Paladin Guardian+Guard capping is braindead simple to pull off compared to the amount of coordination, effort, and most importantly responsiveness that it takes to counter it.

A pair of mediocre paladins working together, particularly if they queue together and are on voicechat, can easily make attempt after attempt at abusing guardian capping. There are methods of disrupting them, but they're not nearly as reliable and often require coordination from more than just two people.

Guardian capping ideally needs to be removed, but at the very least it either needs to be made much harder to pull off or much easier to disrupt.

In the meantime, I stopped bothering to queue for Onsal explicitly because of this nonsense.

The real way to counter the paladin combo is not through any action breaking the cover itself but by not letting it come that far in the first place and snowballing battlehigh into so much pressure on the enemy team that cover capping becomes impossible.

[Xylira]

The real way to counter the paladin combo is not through any action breaking the cover itself but by not letting it come that far in the first place and snowballing battlehigh into so much pressure on the enemy team that cover capping becomes impossible.

Okay, but saying 'just outplay them' changes absolutely nothing about the fact that the amount of skill and effort a team needs to put in the counter the tactic is orders of magnitude higher than the amount of skill and effort it takes a pair of players to repeatedly try and abuse the tactic.

That's the problem and why so many people have an issue with guardian capping. It's so stupidly simple and easy to try and abuse compared to the amount of effort opposing teams need to put in to shut the tactic down whether it's before or during. I can't speak for everyone, but for me it's incredibly irritating to play against, so I just don't bother anymore. If you have fun with it, fine, good for you, but there are a lot of people that feel it ruins the spirit of Onsal and subsequently their enjoyment of the map.

[Kansene]

Okay, but saying 'just outplay them' changes absolutely nothing about the fact that the amount of skill and effort a team needs to put in the counter the tactic is magnitudes of order higher than the amount of skill and effort it takes a pair of players to repeatedly try and abuse the tactic.

That's the problem and why so many people have an issue with guardian capping. It's so stupidly simple and easy to try and abuse compared to the amount of effort opposing teams need to put in to shut the tactic it down. I can't speak for everyone, but for me it's incredibly irritating to play against, so I just don't bother anymore. If you have fun with it, fine, good for you, but there are a lot of people that feel it ruins the spirit of Onsal and subsequently their enjoyment of the map.

This, pretty much.

"Just be the superior team", while not untrue advice, isn't helpful advice. Pld cheese aside, all teams generally want to be the better team at killing. And it happens just as often as not that the teams that do a good job at killing also happen to cheese, because they're not really correlated. If between 2-5 people focus on the cheesing and the rest of the team just play normally and do a good job of killing, you have a team that goes full ham on cheese, and also dominates BH.
So "simply focus on kills" isn't something that's going to cut it in many cases.

The stereotypical cheese scenario also isn't a paladin and partner openly running all alone up to the ovoo with nobody else around for miles, suicidally declaring their intent to abuse.
In the majority of cases there's a huge, vibrating ball of squirming limbs and fireworks thrashing its way towards the ovoo from 2 or 3 directions, and then from the chaos, the cheese emerges, already in full motion.
And no. I'm not going to hang back, and scan the entire crowd looking specifically for paladins, and then attempt to wade through the entire enemy front line in order to cut them off.
Which is why I don't go to Onsal anymore. It may be the way things are supposed to be done nowadays, but I think it's an idiotic idea that such is the case.