Do folks actually believe spamming macros is useful in Frontlines?

[Knot_D]

Linking with maps are not good callouts. They're not even helpful and people on console cannot take the time to look at the coordinates.

Good callouts are successfully guiding the entire alliance in a safe route to avoid them getting pincered or ambushed, while being able to do good timing on full assault burst on enemies, while knowing when to retreat.

Yeah I know, and you're right. That's why I tried to question these people what even is a good callout for them

[Curisu]

2 and 3 days ago I had some in my frontline team who made calls and lead the group. Most player followed it and we won both matches.

Yesterday no one did that for half the time. We were last with 0 points.
The 2nd half someone started to make calls and we fought back into 2nd place, 20 point's away from first.

Soo, calls and macros are better then silence.

[Gserpent]

Linking with maps are not good callouts. They're not even helpful and people on console cannot take the time to look at the coordinates.

Good callouts are successfully guiding the entire alliance in a safe route to avoid them getting pincered or ambushed, while being able to do good timing on full assault burst on enemies, while knowing when to retreat.

edit: Gserpent's case is he ignores any callouts and gets himself killed, losing more points for the team and never ever helping full assault burst, thus doing nothing for his team to secure kills. Commanders who have no one following their order are useless, but commanders are great to have when people choose to listen.

I don't need callouts, because I keep the map open the entire match and... the map tells me literally everything I could possibly need to know. Any enemy player in combat is visible on the map. Objectives are visible on the map, and in many cases the icons even give you additional information about the objective if you hover over them (Seal Rock will tell you how much data is left, for example, so you can determine whether or not it's worth trying to fight over it.) Anyone with the sense god gave a squirrel can figure out how to pinch and avoid being pinched by just looking at the map, and anyone with a dozen games of a given mode under their belt will be able to intuit the most practical things to do based on the state of the map (which nodes to pursue, whether or not you should back off to wait for new nodes, etc.)

Linking map locations is vaguely more useful than saying nothing at all, but it isn't very useful. But then, neither is a macro telling people to go north or south or east or west or AVOID PINCH or PINCH NOW, etc - literally all you need to do is just tell people to open their maps and look at them.

The only macros I've considered using, and which I think are actually useful, are "babby's first frontlines" stuff like how the mode works, reminders to check the map frequently, how to resize/reposition the map and adjust opacity so you can keep it open all the time, etc. Since people can still somehow, inexplicably, manage to enter and queue for PvP without understanding that they have different tools, etc. I actually recently unlocked PvP on my Dynamis alt, and I have no idea how people can get into games in that state other than dedicating themselves to not reading literally anything put in front of them, because getting access to Frontlines is now a multi-step process and the first time you enter Wolves' Den for the initial PvP quest it slaps a gigantic primer on PvP in your face before it does anything else.

2 and 3 days ago I had some in my frontline team who made calls and lead the group. Most player followed it and we won both matches.

Yesterday no one did that for half the time. We were last with 0 points.
The 2nd half someone started to make calls and we fought back into 2nd place, 20 point's away from first.

Soo, calls and macros are better then silence.

I can come up with just as many examples of someone spamming macros the entire match and us ending up dead last by a considerable margin. Or games where we started ahead and lost by the end of the game.

I don't think callouts has anything at all to do with performance of the group. It's like trying to take credit for the rain.

[Edelgarde]

Sweetheart, all I see from you is pure confirmation bias. They're coming dead last because of players like you. Did I not mention that?

It's not all about you, champ. It's about the entire team. In Frontlines, the alliance has to move as one with the exception of light parties taking objectives in Shatter. You are a muppet if you think otherwise. A team that does not move together and is constantly spread are just going to get picked off one by one from being outnumbered, and thus losing points for the team. Also, you seem so insecure about yourself and you don't want to give commanders any bit of credit for any sort of success, and anyone who commends a commander's effort gives you less validation in your participation in pvp. I'm so sorry that you feel that way that you feel the need to make an ignorant complaint thread about them. Do you need hug, honey?

[Gserpent]

Man, do you actually talk like that in real life, or do you only pull off this hilariously condescending tone when you know you won't get slapped for it? Good lord, man. I can't even read that without wincing in embarrassment for you...

You can feel however you like, but at the end of the day I strongly doubt that people who are incapable or unwilling to check the map are going to be any more likely to read chat, sound effects or no.

[Curisu]

Most player who do PvP are lemmings.
They don't think and just follow someone.

So they don't look on the map, don't think about strat and don't know why they are winning/losing.
They jdon't try hard and want to be over with it to get the daily exp.

So you have to give these player's a direction. Tell them to go A and you will have 20% that see and follow the call. Then 70% of the lemmings will see that people run to A and they just follow and fight there.

The remaining 10% is you, who ignores everything and dies alone against 5 others.

[Llynethil]

You'd be surprised how few people know what the m button does in frontline, doing callouts at least gets a few of those people to react to objectives.

Try it out, go do a frontline and do no callouts, watch how many of the dots aren't moving towards where the new point spawn is, then docallouts and you get a big difference, especially in borderlands, so many people don't know the approx timers for mid.

[Kathleen_]

There's a reason this rarely if ever happens on JP when someone is commanding and it's because EVERYONE actually follows macro play.

[Elfidan]

I really appreciate how there's all this talk about Japanese players being so amazing at frontline because they follow macros, meanwhile the real problem on NA is that our frontliner 'Commanders' come in two flavors. Those would be Information shared for the support of intelligent play, and 'Look at me I'm important listen to me <se.11>!!!'. The post is really about the second person here. The ego monster is a big issue in our side of the community. There was a CC post a while back about the desire for txt chat, but the reasoning was "So I can command my teammates." and that is why we can't have nice things. Not only is it unhelpful to spam the exact same text macro 20 times as quick as you can but it causes large amounts of people to ignore or blacklist you which then divides the group even more. Imagine trying to talk over people IRL and punctuating this with an air horn. enough said.

[Edelgarde]

There's a reason this rarely if ever happens on JP when someone is commanding and it's because EVERYONE actually follows macro play.

Mhm. This is a good example what happens when you don't have a commander because they actually get you into proper position. With a commander, it will be
'Gather together on way mark' They'll be almost right behind Maelstorm while Maelstorm has their attention on Adders still.
'Burst shot, get ready!'
'Focus Maelstorm'
'Countdown 3,2,1'
'Full assault!'

Half of Maelstorm would be dead since they cannot retreat, and then that's when they immediately retreat after stealing points and ramping up more battle high.