Please prevent pre-made parties from queueing into Frontline

[Kathleen_]

So do I, but it's still a whole lot easier to get and maintain battle high when you're moving together in a pack with a dedicated premade group communicating over voice chat. I really don't understand how it's so difficult for people to just admit that premades have an inherent advantage over those who aren't. I'm not saying they're guaranteed to win, they're still beholden to skill, but the whole is more effective than the sum of its parts.

But that still wasn't my point. It's that battle high compounds the other issues of premades, and of the DRK+DRG combo. It's easier for a DRK+DRG premade to get to BH5, and once they do they start crushing enemies even easier because of the damage multiplier. Mid to late game they will basically be effectively instantly killing any low battle high players due to sheer amount of burst damage the combo can achieve.

Each of those small advantages stacked together end up making things extremely unbalanced, is my point.



Yes, but it's still not as effective as a premade team coordinating over voice chat. A good DRK+DRG premade can reliably time Salted Earth with Skyshatter perfectly to the point where you don't even have time to react with guard, let alone do anything else because of the pull effect. And then realize you can also have one or two more DRG to double or triple up on Sky Shatters, or add an AST in for damage buffs that all stack together with salted earth.



Yeah, probably. The pull on salted earth should probably just be removed. There's other effective combos that premades can and have abused, it used to be SMN stacking at the beginning of the PvP revamp. But DRK+DRG is the most blatantly unbalanced right now.

You're assuming that every premade is playing on VC (or that you need VC to combo Skyshatter in Salted (or a premade to combo at all)).

[Xylira]

You're assuming that every premade is playing on VC (or that you need VC to combo Skyshatter in Salted (or a premade to combo at all)).

That's not what I said. I know you don't need a premade to pull it off, I said as much. But I did say that premades have an advantage for playing with people they know and can they can coordinate better than if they didn't. Even more of an advantage if they're on voice chat together. Even just knowing before hand that they're going to set up that combination and queuing with a DRK+DRG+DRG+RPR is an advantage over getting dumped in a team where you may or may not even have people playing those jobs, let alone working together.

[AnotherPerson]

That's not what I said. I know you don't need a premade to pull it off, I said as much. But I did say that premades have an advantage for playing with people they know and can they can coordinate better than if they didn't. Even more of an advantage if they're on voice chat together. Even just knowing before hand that they're going to set up that combination and queuing with a DRK+DRG+DRG+RPR is an advantage over getting dumped in a team where you may or may not even have people playing those jobs, let alone working together.

Yes, results do show that if people made the effort to communicate, they tend to play better.

If you play in a premade and don't communicate together at all, the result will be no different with joining a group of players who don't communicate at all either.

I don't honestly do not understand what you're trying to point out. Communication with random people isn't barred from FL either, unlike in CC.

[Xylira]

Yes, results do show that if people made the effort to communicate, they tend to play better.

If you play in a premade and don't communicate together at all, the result will be no different with joining a group of players who don't communicate at all either.

I don't honestly do not understand what you're trying to point out. Communication with random people isn't barred from FL either, unlike in CC.

Communication over voice chat is easier and more effective than macros or typing. Premades can setup voice chat for a match, solo players can't. Or at least I have never once in all of my years of FF PVP ever seen random players setting up voice chat mid-match, so this is an edge premade teams have.

And I'm also not only talking about communication. It's also preparation and familiarity that they can have an advantage with. If a group of friends plans ahead what jobs each are going to play, what strategies they're going to use, are familiar with how each other play, and they all hop onto voice chat together to communicate during matches, they are going to have a massive advantage playing together over equivalently skilled individual solo queued players who are randomly dumped together on the same team.

My point is, and always has been, that premades have several advantages available to them over the average solo queued player. It's these advantages, particularly when coupled with a lot of very poorly balanced job design decisions, that can and do lead to extremely unbalanced matches when these advantages are leveraged together.

I'm not necessarily saying that premades should be banned from FL, though there is a valid argument for it. They're not allowed in ranked CC for a reason, after all. But there are certain jobs that really need a proper balance pass with FL in mind.

[Astralrisk]

My point is, and always has been, that premades have several advantages available to them over the average solo queued player. It's these advantages, particularly when coupled with a lot of very poorly balanced job design decisions, that can and do lead to extremely unbalanced matches when these advantages are leveraged together.

I'm not necessarily saying that premades should be banned from FL, though there is a valid argument for it. They're not allowed in ranked CC for a reason, after all. But there are certain jobs that really need a proper balance pass with FL in mind.

Pre-mades to have an advantage but a majority of people aren't using them to sweat in FL. Not saying people like that don't exist, it's just in a minority that you perceive as a bigger problem than it actually is. FL is balanced around having everyone in the entire alliance having to push on objectives together, ever since they made the damage reduction passives for the mode much larger. Even if there is a group of four people who manage to set up a good LB combo of DRK + DRG, that singular group is not going to make that team win the game if no one else in the alliance capitalizes on it to push the enemy team, or do objectives.

I also think job balancing has nothing to do with making the issue worse either. Yes the jobs are balanced for CC and not FLs, however I feel like there can be things done to make it better for FL specifically. Them doubling the damage reduction for everyone, while incredibly horrible change and a bit lazy, does help fix the issue of people getting owned by mass LB spam from classes like SMN or DRG. They could do more, like adding diminishing returns like they used to, could also just adjust some LBs to accumulate differently in FLs, but that's the most I can see them doing for any FL specific balancing. I personally think the way jobs balanced now is fine for every PvP mode, and the only bad form of balancing specifically for FL itself.

[Valence]

They're not allowed in ranked CC for a reason, after all.

Comparing CC balance with FLs is somewhat hilarious, ngl.

The only thing banning premades is going to achieve is:

1) Pushing away 95% of the actual premades, the ones that are harmless, not full premades, and not using the unholy combo but just having fun with their non meta jobs with their friends.
2) Either pushing away the actual tryhards that use the combo at the cost of bullet point 1, or actually transfer them into solo queue with actual party coordination. Not rocket science to do, so they could do it. "Anybody going DRK? I can go DRG" -> Watch 3 people suddenly changing jobs, and back to copium complaints on the forums

Once more, just address the unholy combo or give FLs their own job balance and what have you, and the problem will disappear on its own. Your solution is literally using a nuke to kill a fly, and to hell with all the collateral damage.

[Xylira]

Once more, just address the unholy combo or give FLs their own job balance and what have you, and the problem will disappear on its own. Your solution is literally using a nuke to kill a fly, and to hell with all the collateral damage.

Did you not actually read my last post? I specifically said that I don't necessarily think that premades should actually be banned, but that in the very least that SE needs to do better when it comes to job balancing for FL in large part because of premades.

It's like no one is actually reading what I post and just assuming that I want premades banned because I dared to point out that premades do in fact have advantages.