What's going on Frontlines?

[Xylira]

With that said, let's just ask then, what is your global ratio, with a good sample amount then? Can you honestly tell me in the eyes that past thousands of games, it's just sheer luck? Yeah i'm sure CC players at the top are all there by sheer luck as well. B-but they have much more weight! Yeah and you wanna bet how much higher their ratio will be if we just take their casual games? Unfortunately harder to track, but I have little doubt about it.

I never said it was all luck, but luck definitely plays a huge part when you're solo queuing. You could be the best PvPer in the game, and it means nothing if you end up matched with a team of people who are terrible at PvP, or otherwise don't care and just want to face roll their way through the roulette bonus, moogle tomes, and/or series XP. Especially so if you're matched against enemy teams who actually care about trying to win and coordinate, which is doubly so when they have one or more premade groups that are queuing together to do exactly that.

As per my own personal win ratio, I have a good bit more more wins than losses. Some weeks I have amazing runs and consistently end up on good teams, other weeks it feels like the matchmaking system is going out of it's way to punish me by dumping me on terrible teams. I don't try-hard in FL and run in premades, I only ever solo queue, and because of that my win ratio trends more toward average than the outlier week I had on my alt. Though ironically, this past week I played AST almost exclusively on my alt, which I'm kind of seeing an argument that AST could probably do with being nerfed a bit.

[Mayhemmer]

See, I'd agree with that statement, because it's the same in CC, and I'm sick of people using the same cookiee cutter, perfect scenario replies. However, the problem I have right now, is that I can't relate at all.

I'm honestly curious how you find shields a problem, how you find tank invulns even a problem either. Tank pops invuln, yeah, so what? Kill another target. Why are they getting away with it could be the better question to ask. Getting caught by salted earth? Just guard. How hard is even just pressing a guard button? What other point does even intersect with this to make this invalid somehow? I'm genuinely trying to think of situations that would compound otherwise, but I can't.

Because the jobs that people are taking the most issue with are the ones that benefit the most from these things? Because they're busted...? You can't punish the DRG when they smash elusive jump to get out of grab range before they even come down from LB client-side for everyone else. You can't rush after them because you're going straight into a blender blob, and even if you did, they're 50%+ hp shield PLUS FL dmg reductions means you're basically doing nothing to them. You can't just guard the salted earth because of the DNC dashing up to punish you when you do. Sure, the DNC may die, but if that doesn't happen in time, that's a good chunk of an alliance dead.

The most you can do is dance just outside another team's range and try to bait them so they waste the burst, which rarely works anyway, because the dives are always deep into your team, not the very edge of it.

[Hik3n]

I cannot agree more, Frontline roulette needs to be solo queue only

And even if it's solo you will get the same experience, this is not happening because someone plays in a party or not, is just the trash balance... and someone already listed almost all the things up there... People really want to transform this game in a single player game... the moment they make Frontline only solo will be the moment i never again enter in PVP, even though i play solo most of the time... If people want to play solo, they can go and play single player games, i don't care, even CC not having an option to makes teams is dumb, now people even want Frontline to be solo... yeah, no, the moment it happens will be probably the moment i give up on this game and delete it after 10 years, this mentality of making everything solo in an MMO destroys this game... and they do just that... you can literally play almost 90% of this game in solo already. If i want an RPG... i go and play an RPG.

[Mawlzy]

I don't understand this argument. The "MMO" part of frontlines is playing with 71 other people, surely? Equally, it's apparent from this and a couple of other threads that there are those that enjoy queuing with friends. But there's simply no getting around the fact that a 4-person premade confers a sizeable advantage on the 4 individuals in it. Consequently, this extra "fun" such premades get is at the expense of making the experience less fun for others, to the point where I fear it will drive away new players and damage FL. So it would appear that to keep everyone happy we need two queue modes. Incidentally, Josh Strife Hayes is one MMO luminary who argues convincingly that solo players are the lifeblood of MMOs.

[Valence]

I've never seen those premades being a real problem on my end, and I do feel people grossly inflate the so called advantage because they die to basics and think the first DRG with LB5 has to automatically be in a premade, else they wouldn't be able to pull that off, amaright?

Because the jobs that people are taking the most issue with are the ones that benefit the most from these things? Because they're busted...? You can't punish the DRG when they smash elusive jump to get out of grab range before they even come down from LB client-side for everyone else. You can't rush after them because you're going straight into a blender blob, and even if you did, they're 50%+ hp shield PLUS FL dmg reductions means you're basically doing nothing to them. You can't just guard the salted earth because of the DNC dashing up to punish you when you do. Sure, the DNC may die, but if that doesn't happen in time, that's a good chunk of an alliance dead.

The most you can do is dance just outside another team's range and try to bait them so they waste the burst, which rarely works anyway, because the dives are always deep into your team, not the very edge of it.

See, I can't relate because I punish DRGs regularly and I don't have server issues with them being away before I can do it (I totally agree that servers regularly shit the bed with that many players though, it's bad). If you want to punish DRGs coming out of LB reliably, just stun them there. They're literally in the middle of your team and will get nuked by everybody provided they don't leap away. If you want to secure this because people are slow, use a WAR or a MNK, or even a DRK. MNK has the best results, but they all hard counter it very well. Granted, you'll calm the DRG and get points for their BH5, but they'll still have turned the game by killing 5 people.

I don't disagree that this job is absolutely disgusting in how it can turn games in FLs though. But I still do feel a lot of people just don't know how to defend it.

DNC is a specific cases I have yet to see used well even by premades, but yeah, if it happens, that's bad. Imo it's the only thing that totally negates the defensive options people have against DRGs, and the reason we dont see it more is because people just don't need it, their victims don't even defend themselves.

[lennit]

when i play bard, it all about luck , you don't have a LB that can blow way your opponent . you need a team to carry you , so you can do silent nocturne on them and slowly burn them down, but having a one on one fight your better off running. it only luck that has gone me a win on that. And it's good sometime i can find some friend that can help me while i play bard, because most time i find myself shooting at the back of the pack and in a second later, i am standing in the middle of a pack of death knights and dragoons, ready to eat me alive. but if i am with my friend, they can tell me to run.

i love playing bard for pvp but i do hate the LB, because of the other classes LB , they get kills for using there LB , i get nothing but a buff to help the party, so the party can get more dps, so when you see a bard with a glowy light around them , dont feed them to the wolves ..please

but in pvp i would love to have a score board in game so i can see i got a kill blow , instead of waiting to the end of the match

[Xylira]

I've never seen those premades being a real problem on my end, and I do feel people grossly inflate the so called advantage because they die to basics and think the first DRG with LB5 has to automatically be in a premade, else they wouldn't be able to pull that off, amaright?

Have you considered that maybe you've never seen those premades as being a problem is because the datacenter you play on and the times you PvP?

Because I can tell you with certainty that on the Crystal Datacenter it's not uncommon to end up matched against try-hard premade groups consisting of two or more DRK, DRG, and/or AST, especially if you queue during evenings and weekends.

[Mawlzy]

I've never seen those premades being a real problem on my end, and I do feel people grossly inflate the so called advantage because they die to basics and think the first DRG with LB5 has to automatically be in a premade, else they wouldn't be able to pull that off, amaright?

I definitely think it's fair that a more experienced player will have far less trouble with premades. But that highlights the issue I'm worried about. Mogtome events are an ideal time to introduce new players to FL. Such players are pretty easy to spot: they move less and react slower. During the last event, my experience on Aether was many battles being incredibly one-sided. A look at the K/D/A tended to reveal why. So sure, if you like, "it's a skill issue." Many things are. But in order to grow the game, the last thing we need is rookies getting placed on an uneven playing field, particularly when the current balance makes certain 4-person compositions execution squads for learning players.

[NekoMataMata]

Lots of baddies out again post patch but I can actually carry right now. Without their plugins so many people are getting SAM LB'd. Hit a record of 15 people in one LB and that's almost 2/3s of an alliance. Going to be a shame in a few days when I have to go back to mainly spamming Chiten defensively.

[Valence]

I definitely think it's fair that a more experienced player will have far less trouble with premades. But that highlights the issue I'm worried about. Mogtome events are an ideal time to introduce new players to FL. Such players are pretty easy to spot: they move less and react slower. During the last event, my experience on Aether was many battles being incredibly one-sided. A look at the K/D/A tended to reveal why. So sure, if you like, "it's a skill issue." Many things are. But in order to grow the game, the last thing we need is rookies getting placed on an uneven playing field, particularly when the current balance makes certain 4-person compositions execution squads for learning players.

That's been more or less my point, it's not about premades that much (I have seen the premades on my DC don't worry, the day i'll freak out about them is when they start fielding a coordinated dancer with the stack), it's about skill differences, and how certain combos and things behave extremely differently depending on the skill level of who is on the receiving end.