Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

[AnotherPerson]

I was thinking about the two games I had in Shatter today. One game was full of sandbaggers and I hoped that wasn't the case the moment I noticed the signs from the start of the match, but it became apparent with the responses they made in the match that it was intentional. People just wanted to farm only big ice and nothing but big ice. No fights or anything after getting run down. Even then, I'd argue that could've still somehow worked out ... if it wasn't for the fact that the entire 24 man was more or less dedicated to farming ice even after one alliance was pulling super hard ahead. Welp.

The other game was with 2 or 3 conflicting groups. One group wanted to unga bunga don't read (they got pinched because they didn't back away but were fearless otherwise and doesn't mind a fight, even though it was against 2nd place), one group decided to give rational commands, one group wanted to give up halfway in the match. That one was salvageable. It worked out, someone shotcalled and led the groups and we had some finally synergy going with at least half the alliance. Even though one alliance had lots BH4 & BH5 and a 400 point lead over us, we still managed to turn it around, winning us first place with roughly a 100 point lead in 2nd place and ~200 point lead against 3rd place.

After reviewing the gameplay, I concluded that Frontlines suck due to a map design issue like Shatter and people mentality issue (immediately giving up or not even trying at all once they fall behind). New shatter map just sucks since it's hard to play around a bad mentality when the game tries to segregate opposing groups to wait for big ice. Other than that, the map does fine, but the timing for ice spawns is not ideal to encourage some consistent chaos and fights. Due to the nature of Ice having HP pools, BH usually takes a higher priority to do more damage, so you're bound to fall off late game without fighting at all in this map. Lots less wiggle room to play around strategically. Definitely my least favorite map by far.

As far as premades go, there was an enemy team on the second match that used the DRK combo were the same group with BH4 & BH5 with the 400 point lead. They got deleted from our mismatch group (with little to no BH at the time and without running any meta compositions) after my alliance finally decided to work together to jump them during a good pinch.. so premades didn't feel like an issue at all. Or rather, I didn't feel the pressure from premades at all that game. The biggest and most notable issue I've seen is just the lack of trying in these Frontline matches. It's definitely not the premade matches that's making the most polarizing solo gameplay experience I have, it's just quitters and sandbaggers actively sabotaging the game long before the match reached a point where an alliance has enough points to win.

[Tj_Azzam]

After reviewing the gameplay, I concluded that Frontlines suck due to a map design issue like Shatter and people mentality issue (immediately giving up or not even trying at all once they fall behind). New shatter map just sucks since it's hard to play around a bad mentality when the game tries to segregate opposing groups to wait for big ice. Other than that, the map does fine, but the timing for ice spawns is not ideal to encourage some consistent chaos and fights. Due to the nature of Ice having HP pools, BH usually takes a higher priority to do more damage, so you're bound to fall off late game without fighting at all in this map. Lots less wiggle room to play around strategically. Definitely my least favorite map by far.

As far as premades go, there was an enemy team on the second match that used the DRK combo were the same group with BH4 & BH5 with the 400 point lead. They got deleted from our mismatch group (with little to no BH at the time and without running any meta compositions) after my alliance finally decided to work together to jump them during a good pinch.. so premades didn't feel like an issue at all. Or rather, I didn't feel the pressure from premades at all that game. The biggest and most notable issue I've seen is just the lack of trying in these Frontline matches. It's definitely not the premade matches that's making the most polarizing solo gameplay experience I have, it's just quitters and sandbaggers actively sabotaging the game long before the match reached a point where an alliance has enough points to win.

considering current shatter, i think blaming player mentality is firing at a sympton and not the cause, the map doesnt have the rng to give a leg up in case your team falls behind in the third place, because of that trying to cooperate with the second place still gives a very unlikely chance at a win, and like you said, map design is an issue, the layout makes a lot harder to make a joint offensive on the leading team, its a tall uphill battle to take on and i dont blame an unskilled team for not trying it, not only youre very likely to be rewarded in the winning chance nor in the gameplay side, because lets be real, the gameplay shatter offers is just bad.

such player mentality issue wouldn't be so apparent if the map was better, like onsal and seal rock, i dont see people giving up on these near as often, actually, i dont remember the last time i saw a team give up on those.