Uncapped AoE is ruining PvP Frontline/Rival Wings

[Nubrication]

Way to not contribute to discussion… For the record, Guard does solve a lot of things - if you can essentially react to them. Because guess what? DRK Draw-in is mostly unreactable. You have to read it ahead of time. Same with any Instant ability we have. The only downside with Guard is that you move at a snail’s pace, which in Frontline leaves you in a problematic position if you happened to get drawn by a DRK.

In a perfect world, everyone would be Guarding perfectly - but that is not the case when the game runs on a 3s server tick.

You're kidding right? Guard isn't just about reacting, good players will be able to preemptively pop guard before DRK even does anything. It's so obvious too, especially in FL. If you see a DRK plunge into your group and he has his team behind him, 99.9% of the time he is going to succ your alliance. Solution? Pop Guard as soon as he is mid cast of plunge. Can't do that? Git gud. They key is to be situationally aware, which is hard for like 70% of people in FL.

[Mawlzy]

Based on my observations, strangely yes. The teams have a vague generalization that is reminiscent of previous iterations of Frontlines PVP when more PvP focused players picked one GC. Flames are generally more aggressive, followed by Maelstrom and lastly by Adders. It's not always the case but it's what I've observed over the years. As to the reason why that may be I could only theorize. As someone who is in the Flames GC I find myself more involved when I am on Flames, leading me to try harder then when I am on Maelstrom or Adders. Impossible to say if that rings true for everyone or maybe it's entirely false and I am imagining it.

If enough people believe it, it may become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[Mawlzy]

You're kidding right? Guard isn't just about reacting, good players will be able to preemptively pop guard before DRK even does anything. It's so obvious too, especially in FL. If you see a DRK plunge into your group and he has his team behind him, 99.9% of the time he is going to succ your alliance. Solution? Pop Guard as soon as he is mid cast of plunge. Can't do that? Git gud. They key is to be situationally aware, which is hard for like 70% of people in FL.

Awesome, that's an instablock.

[Aubrey_A]

You're kidding right? Guard isn't just about reacting, good players will be able to preemptively pop guard before DRK even does anything. It's so obvious too, especially in FL. If you see a DRK plunge into your group and he has his team behind him, 99.9% of the time he is going to succ your alliance. Solution? Pop Guard as soon as he is mid cast of plunge. Can't do that? Git gud. They key is to be situationally aware, which is hard for like 70% of people in FL.

Not gonna lie I resonate with the git gud attitude, seeing as we should be trying our best in FL. And while you can "git gud", your team may be that "70% of people in FL" who don't have that situational awareness required to perform well in FL. What then?

Guard is a solution for the 5 seconds you can use it across its 30-second cooldown, which leaves 25 seconds for another crowd control attack from potentially 48 other players in FL (I won't comment on class-specific defensives, because of the quality of each class defensives being wildly different. I don't expect MCH's Bishop Auto-turret to save me from a DRK Meta attack, but I would for RPR's Hell's Ingress). Maybe you can avoid those attacks, but not everyone can. When we rely on 23 other teammates to win a round, this can make the DRK meta unfun to play against, and why would we play FL if it was unfun in the first place?

[Mawlzy]

Not gonna lie I resonate with the git gud attitude, seeing as we should be trying our best in FL. And while you can "git gud", your team may be that "70% of people in FL" who don't have that situational awareness required to perform well in FL. What then?

Guard is a solution for the 5 seconds you can use it across its 30-second cooldown, which leaves 25 seconds for another crowd control attack from potentially 48 other players in FL (I won't comment on class-specific defensives, because of the quality of each class defensives being wildly different. I don't expect MCH's Bishop Auto-turret to save me from a DRK Meta attack, but I would for RPR's Hell's Ingress). Maybe you can avoid those attacks, but not everyone can. When we rely on 23 other teammates to win a round, this can make the DRK meta unfun to play against, and why would we play FL if it was unfun in the first place?

Quite so. We'd all like the quality of play to improve, or at least a higher level of active participation, but what is the point in offering "Guard + 'git gud'" as a solution when the author acknowledges it doesn't work for 70% of FL players, while simultaneously ignoring the severe limitations of Guard, including those you mention?

Let's examine the best-case git-gud scenario. Two full teams are slogging it out. A DRK emerges, ready to dive, with some devilish combo in tow. (Better make sure that combo doesn't include jobs that remove guard or pierce it.) The 10 players in the succ zone have all recently gotten gud and pop Guard. Hallelujah! Bubbles abound like some celebratory scene at a West Ham United football match. But what now? The remaining 14 members of the defending team notice they are suddenly outgunned 24-14. They may or may not have gotten gud, but being somewhat rational they realize they are on a hiding to nothing with those kinds of odds and back away. This is unfortunate for the 10 gud players all surrounded by their bubbles, since their only hope was to back into their own lines which are now racing away at 10x the speed permitted by the bubbles! And then suddenly, pop-pop-pop! Beans! No frickin bubble. I haz a dead.

[Colt47]

Frontlines should probably not even be on the DF roulette list due to the issues. They put a lot of effort into CC and if I was in their shoes, I would have swapped the two until they got a chance to get a big pvp mode to work. They really need a completely different move set for most of the super big battles and they also need to go to a 2 side format, since 3 sides actually makes it easier to instigate a scenario where one side flatlines the other. I've been through 2 side conflicts where one side does stomp the other, but usually thats by design because they are objective based and once someone takes enough objectives, the battle is intentionally designed to come to a close.

[IDontPetLalas]

Frontlines should probably not even be on the DF roulette list due to the issues. They put a lot of effort into CC and if I was in their shoes, I would have swapped the two until they got a chance to get a big pvp mode to work. They really need a completely different move set for most of the super big battles and they also need to go to a 2 side format, since 3 sides actually makes it easier to instigate a scenario where one side flatlines the other. I've been through 2 side conflicts where one side does stomp the other, but usually thats by design because they are objective based and once someone takes enough objectives, the battle is intentionally designed to come to a close.

You make a good point about putting CC into a roulette, I don't think that's been brought up before.

Once again, I'll state that no- we already have a 2 side large scale conflict, it's called RW. If you don't like 3 sides in principle and want it abolished completely - I fundamentally disagree. If you then say that RW isn't accessible- well either join via DC travel (currently available) or why not ask for it to be added to a roulette.

On the other hand- if you're open to discussing QOL changes, whether BH, specific job design that apply to FL, fine by me.

[Colt47]

You make a good point about putting CC into a roulette, I don't think that's been brought up before.

Once again, I'll state that no- we already have a 2 side large scale conflict, it's called RW. If you don't like 3 sides in principle and want it abolished completely - I fundamentally disagree. If you then say that RW isn't accessible- well either join via DC travel (currently available) or why not ask for it to be added to a roulette.

On the other hand- if you're open to discussing QOL changes, whether BH, specific job design that apply to FL, fine by me.

The reason that Frontlines is awful is that there is no such thing as a 3 sided battle. Even in actual matches, conflicts are largely fought between two different factions and the third is just kind of winging it because ultimately each side has to choose which side they are fighting. If one side just splits to fight both sides equally, they risk taking the heat of both other factions and getting annihilated.

I can understand the idea that people want to keep a weird goofy mode around for the point of it supposedly being idealistically more random than a two sided fight and therefore more beginner friendly, but that isn't how it plays out. They even shuffle teams around to try and randomize things and it still turns into a two sided conflict where one faction is going to get beaten down to the floor each time. Actually, I did some digging and the closest thing I could find in real life of a three way fight was the invasion of England in 1066 where it was Norway, Normandy, and the Anglo-Saxons. The Anglo-Saxons and Norwegians clashed at Stamford Bridge which the Anglo-Saxons won. The Normans then wiped up the weakened Anglo-Saxons, leading to modern England.

This entire process plays out in Frontlines just like the war of 1066. Two sides fight, one side wins, the third side that wasn't involved wipes out the side that won, and then it just comes down to how well the two sides that were wiped out can organize. And that is the best case scenario because what also happens in Frontlines is that two sides are basically unspoken allies and simply work together as one big team. This seems to happen on aether a lot and they just beat down the other side until they are practically on the spawn point until they cap enough points where they don't need to suppress the other side. The two sides that are allied then just decide who gets first and second.

There is no actual way to improve frontlines. They already tried to fix it with randomizing teams and which faction someone gets on but it doesn't work and the problems go beyond the design of pvp actions. By the way, it is universally easier to identify someone trying to fix a match in a two way fight than in Frontlines. Just have to look at what people are doing... and not doing.

[Mawlzy]

Actually, I did some digging and the closest thing I could find in real life of a three way fight was the invasion of England in 1066 where it was Norway, Normandy, and the Anglo-Saxons. The Anglo-Saxons and Norwegians clashed at Stamford Bridge which the Anglo-Saxons won. The Normans then wiped up the weakened Anglo-Saxons, leading to modern England.

This analogy doesn't work at all.

If the battles of Stamford Bridge and Hastings had been held in Frontlines, it would have gone like this:

Harold Godwinson and his premade rush north and blap the living snot out of Harald Hardrada and his rando Vikings, who sulk behind some rocks and maybe cap the odd point before returning to Scandinavia. Harold then sweeps south with both the premade and half the team sat at BH5. They meet William and the Norman randos at Hastings who have got a few points from objectives but have zero BH. A grinning Harold confirms with his premade over voice that all have LBs available, then uses a 3..2..1.. chat macro and plunges into William. The LB coordination and 50% damage-up obliterates the hapless Normans, to the point alliance chat is reduced to: "Oof!" "Mon Dieu!" "Ce qui s'est passé?" and "Où sont mes cigarettes?" With the crown of England thus denied him, William returns to Normandy where he quietly levels all DoH/DoL jobs to 90.

As a side effect of interest to both historians and Netflix, the fact England fails to fall under Norman rule also means the Wars of the Roses never occur and thus Game of Thrones is never produced, because frankly most screenwriters simply plagiarize history.

[Nubrication]

Awesome, that's an instablock.

Clearly if you got offended by a comment that wasn’t even directed to you, you’re one of those 70% that needs to git gud.