Disruptive Frontline Gameplay

[IDontPetLalas]

I don't quite see what this has to do with shot-calling? Yes, if they run at you, many of your team will begin to run, those who don't likely haven't noticed the DRK incoming. But 'run' is not a solution. If you're just going to run every time the premade alliance comes near you, you're handing them the win just the same as if you'd been dragged into the attacks. So, if you mean to just mark the DRK and shot-call to run, you aren't fixing the problem in the slightest. You're still just handing them the win. Knowing their approach and tactics doesn't particularly help when there is currently very little that can be done to counter them.




Naturally, there's often new or inexperienced players in FLs. Some will openly acknowledge it and will ask for advice or clarification, whilst many will not say anything at all: perhaps just not wanting to or maybe a little anxiety about how this will be received by the rest of their team. A guide or tutorial may help these newer players feel more aware of what's happening in FLs without having to openly admit to their team that they are new (I've never seen it taken badly by team members, but with the toxic environment that PvP creates in other games, it wouldn't be surprising if that remains a concern of some new players), but it still doesn't help resolve the imbalance created by premades.

I'm sorry- where did I say that you should run? I'm genuinely puzzled. I never said to run from what is not even what you are now exaggerating as a premade "alliance", and what is factually several pre-made people. You mark people for priority, you need to focus them them down. So, I never said "So, if you mean to just mark the DRK and shot-call to run" - if that's what you concluded, then no wonder that you've concluded that "premades are a problem', and I can understand why we disagree on that point. What I have said , a few times in this thread, is that several jobs with AOE skills should have their potencies adjusted for FL. that could potentially help with this issue, other than that- I wouldn't ask for the dev team to stop people from queuing with a few friends.

However, I'm not going to engage in pages of discussion when once again you conclude that "Knowing their approach and tactics doesn't particularly help when there is currently very little that can be done to counter them", you may view that as being realistic, however I view that as being defeatist - and essentially if you go in with that attitude, you've already lost.

[Scintilla]

I'm sorry- where did I say that you should run? I'm genuinely puzzled.

I was rather confused by your last reply and thought that was what you meant. It seems that's not the case.

you are now exaggerating as a premade "alliance", and what is factually several pre-made people.

I thought my meaning was clear, despite a small grammatical error: "premade's alliance". If you want to be specific, it's very unlikely to have any more than 4 players in a premade as the maximum party you can queue with is a light party.

You mark people for priority, you need to focus them them down

I'm afraid we still disagree. "just focus them down"... now why didn't we think of that?!
You believe people have just been ignoring them and focusing others? Good luck focusing them down when a huge proportion of your alliance are dead following their attacks.

You can stay, stand your ground and try to focus them down, in which case you will be dragged into the vokes, Guard removed, and killed by LBs
You can run to try to avoid their attacks, but then you're surrendering the objective without any kind of fight. Return to try and retake it and you're faced with the same problem again.

"Just focus them down" is no more a realistic solution than "Just use Guard". You don't get time to. The first attack is most likely to be successful given that the vast majority of the alliance won't be looking out for a premade, so all will be unprepared for it (unless you know your premade so well that you can recognize the DRK purely from how their character looks, and even that can be hard to see in the chaos of FL). That first successful attack alone will give them a notable BH advantage. There is not the opportunity to focus them down before getting dragged into the vokes. You either stay and die or run and give them the objective. The only solution I have seen so far is for both random alliances to focus them down together, but my arguments on this are clear in my previous posts.

I view that as being defeatist - and essentially if you go in with that attitude, you've already lost.

Defeatist would be "just die to them and give them the win, it's going to happen anyway. Lets get it over with". Highlighting an issue and the magnitude of it is not defeatist. I am simply contributing to the discussion, recounting the realism of my own experiences -an experience which many here seem to have shared. I'm not sure how much FL you play, but perhaps it would be worth trying FL in these servers which so many have had bad experiences from, rather than attempting to shut down discussion with anyone who argues that such a matter cannot be fixed without changes to the current FL system by labelling their points as 'defeatist'.

[IDontPetLalas]

I was rather confused by your last reply and thought that was what you meant. It seems that's not the case.



I thought my meaning was clear, despite a small grammatical error: "premade's alliance". If you want to be specific, it's very unlikely to have any more than 4 players in a premade as the maximum party you can queue with is a light party.



I'm afraid we still disagree. "just focus them down"... now why didn't we think of that?!
snip

Considering that some of the comments come from the same data center that I'm from, and I enter daily on that data center- I don't see that as an issue, and I may well have encountered that premade BUT I typically queue a couple of times, at most, a day. In addition- as I've been making a number of suggestions , I'm hardly shutting down any discussion - if you don't agree with me or don't want to hear what I've proposed as possible changes that's completely different, which is also why what you see as a "small grammatical error" - isn't small, it is key to the issue. We are talking about a light party and not a full pre-made alliance queuing against 2 random alliances.

However ditto

[Mawlzy]

I think we've passed the point of diminishing returns on this discussion, although overall I've found it extremely useful. Thanks to all who shared their views. I did want to make one last contribution, however.

I just queued in to FL and immediately one of the premade leaders/shot callers popped up in chat. We won easily, with 2nd on about 1200 and 3rd sub-1000 (Shatter).

IMO the assists stat is the one that best reflects how overpowered a team led by a coordinated premade can be. So I ordered the K/D/A by A. The first 21 players in assists were all from our team. I apologize I didn't get a screenshot; I was still gawping at the data when I timed out of the instance.

For me the "fight" (a.k.a. shooting fish in a barrel) was completely uninteresting. I doubt the other two teams liked it at all. And so I quit FL and came here to whine about it.

Good luck, everyone. Hope to see you on a (level) battlefield.

Jessa The Pink Paladin

[Scintilla]

I think we've passed the point of diminishing returns on this discussion, although overall I've found it extremely useful. Thanks to all who shared their views. I did want to make one last contribution, however.

I just queued in to FL and immediately one of the premade leaders/shot callers popped up in chat. We won easily, with 2nd on about 1200 and 3rd sub-1000 (Shatter).

IMO the assists stat is the one that best reflects how overpowered a team led by a coordinated premade can be. So I ordered the K/D/A by A. The first 21 players in assists were all from our team. I apologize I didn't get a screenshot; I was still gawping at the data when I timed out of the instance.

For me the "fight" (a.k.a. shooting fish in a barrel) was completely uninteresting. I doubt the other two teams liked it at all. And so I quit FL and came here to whine about it.

Good luck, everyone. Hope to see you on a (level) battlefield.

Jessa The Pink Paladin

I have an old screenshot of one premade's scores on our DC. I have omitted all of the names to avoid causing any problems.

Not this team's best game as they have had higher scores in the past, but it's probably not a too bad average of the typical scores/match outcome.

[Scintilla]

I may well have encountered that premade BUT I typically queue a couple of times, at most, a day.

If you encounter a premade, you'll know you encountered a premade. If it's a 'maybe', it's likely just a strong, well-coordinated random team. Though playing a couple of times a day at the very most may go some way to explain why you've been fortunate with your experiences so far.

Such groups were far more prevalent a while ago, since then I have seen them less. Still very regularly, but not remotely to the same frequency as I did back then. It was particularly frustrating for me at the time as I was finishing the Seal Rock achievement on my alt to use the Field Commander's coat for a glamour, and there was the same premade team in every single match, every day. This was quite a long while ago, so whether there was some kind of event on at that time which rewarded FL matches, such as the Moogle Treasure Trove, I can't remember.

I enjoy PvP and don't want to see people stop playing it because of the issues caused by premades. We don't seem to be at that stage quite yet (at least, not on my own DC), but if left to continue we could well reach that point eventually. As I tend to play FLs with friends, I would be a little sad if the ability to queue as a party was removed and I hope that there would be some other solution. But, if it comes to that being the only solution to this issue, I would accept it.

[IDontPetLalas]

If you encounter a premade, you'll know you encountered a premade. If it's a 'maybe', it's likely just a strong, well-coordinated random team. Though playing a couple of times a day at the very most may go some way to explain why you've been fortunate with your experiences so far.

*(snip, apologies, length)*

I enjoy PvP and don't want to see people stop playing it because of the issues caused by premades. We don't seem to be at that stage quite yet (at least, not on my own DC), but if left to continue we could well reach that point eventually. As I tend to play FLs with friends, I would be a little sad if the ability to queue as a party was removed and I hope that there would be some other solution. But, if it comes to that being the only solution to this issue, I would accept it.

FYI, I stopped counting when I hit 1000 FL, which was quite a while ago, I queue just a few times a day at most unless there's an event. I don't think we have the same experience or definition of premades - a premade aka a "light party" is not a " a strong, well-coordinated random team" by definition, it's not random, it may or may not be strong, although the longer a group stays together the stronger it tends to be as they know each other, they may or may not use voice comms- but not being a random group, having PvPed together and being on voice will all give them an advantage over 4 random people slapped together, and I doubt that anywhere here disputes that.

I fully agree that my experience as someone who queues a few times a day could be quite different from someone who may queue repeatedly for several hours at a time, especially if that happens to coincide with the exact time that an especially strong premade is entering, and RNG happens to match them up repeatedly against them. In my case, I would potentially meet up with that premade once or twice a day.

I would definitely not want to remove the light party option from FL, there are people in my FC who enjoy using it, and those who like to help sprouts with that option. I can see alternative options that could be helpful, so I see that as the last resort.

One thing that I don't thing anyone has considered- let's say that the option of removing light party was accepted by Square. I doubt it would be done quickly, it would likely take at least several months, if not more. So for that reason alone, if someone feels that it affects them, and thy have identified a specific premade - then why not consider varying their queue times with the goal of avoiding that premade?

[Scintilla]

la premade aka a "light party" is not a " a strong, well-coordinated random team" by definition, it's not random

I don't believe I've ever suggested a premade was random, so you seem to have misunderstood my previous post somewhat. I am fully aware of what a premade is - hence my discussion here. If they were random teams, there would be no such discussion.

I said that premades are obvious. If you aren't sure whether a team was a premade team or not, I would lean more towards the 'not'. If anyone is unsure if they've ever come across a premade team, I would guess that those occasions they weren't sure about were actually well-coordinated random teams, not premades. I'm not sure whether I explained myself any better there?

if someone feels that it affects them, and thy have identified a specific premade - then why not consider varying their queue times with the goal of avoiding that premade?

Avoidance is something of an option and a method that one of my friends prefers to use whenever we're playing FLs together and come across a premade in the previous game. But that is just avoiding the problem, not fixing it. I don't know how much of an effect player feedback here has on future adjustments (maybe JP forums have greater leverage in that sense), but if discussions here on forum has even the slightest chance of being read, then it's worth contributing.

[IDontPetLalas]

I don't believe I've ever suggested a premade was random, so you seem to have misunderstood my previous post somewhat. I am fully aware of what a premade is - hence my discussion here. If they were random teams, there would be no such discussion.

I said that premades are obvious. If you aren't sure whether a team was a premade team or not, I would lean more towards the 'not'. If anyone is unsure if they've ever come across a premade team, I would guess that those occasions they weren't sure about were actually well-coordinated random teams, not premades. I'm not sure whether I explained myself any better there?



Avoidance is something of an option and a method that one of my friends prefers to use whenever we're playing FLs together and come across a premade in the previous game. But that is just avoiding the problem, not fixing it. I don't know how much of an effect player feedback here has on future adjustments (maybe JP forums have greater leverage in that sense), but if discussions here on forum has even the slightest chance of being read, then it's worth contributing.

I'll repeat what I said before, but I'll reword it, because I didn't say that this was necessarily a "fix" for what you see as an issue. Nor for that matter do any of us know whether Square reads this, or any of the community forums (in any language), it's rather amusing, each forum always thinks the other forums get more attention.

Let's say that the solution that you want is to have separate pre-made and solo queues, it would fix several issues that you see know.

Let's say that Square agrees with you. Fine, it will take 9 months (this is just something I guesstimated).

So, we agree, what you see is an issue (or more than 1 issue) isn't fixed - your friend has a "workaround" (maybe you don't), until Square comes back in 9 months, and you look at what they deliver.