Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

[Archeron]

I had a similar score in Onsal today, playing on Maelstrom. Flames had a DRK premade, Adders was just a random team. The entire match Adders was constantly hounding us, and attacking us for literally no reason - We didn't throw the game. The other teams threw it for us by forcing us into spending the first 5 minutes of the match brawling on our spawn point. We weren't able to capture anything until the premade finally decided to kill adders.

This is just a massive reason why 1v1v1 on large scale combat is sometimes a Very bad idea. The other two teams dictate whether or not you can win, and they can sabotage you as they please. The real throwing isn't going to come from people on your team, its from the other two teams deciding to single you out sometimes.

[Mawlzy]

It's gotten to a point where even if I somehow win in Frontlines, I just assume it's because my team had the higher number of premades and plugin users, and in general I now doubt every single win or kill I've ever gotten over the last year and a half because I can't tell which ones I earned legitimately, and which ones were "rigged" for me by others, my own achievements and victories feel tainted because I can't even say they were *mine* and not just handed to me.

100% agree. It's massively demotivational.

[Mawlzy]

This is just a massive reason why 1v1v1 on large scale combat is sometimes a Very bad idea. The other two teams dictate whether or not you can win, and they can sabotage you as they please. The real throwing isn't going to come from people on your team, its from the other two teams deciding to single you out sometimes.

I enjoy the 3-way format, but would definitely like to see team size reduced. It also seems SQEX is living in a pre-Discord fantasy world and fail to appreciate how cross-team voice can completely destroy the integrity of the mode. This has even been a problem on JP servers where, by folklore at least, people are supposedly playing for competition rather than wins.

[Inosaska]

The only way to fix frontlines is to reduce the player count to 8 players per team as of right now you can't balance these matches with 72 players in it.

[Xael_Jehuty]

It's gotten to a point where even if I somehow win in Frontlines, I just assume it's because my team had the higher number of premades and plugin users, and in general I now doubt every single win or kill I've ever gotten over the last year and a half because I can't tell which ones I earned legitimately, and which ones were "rigged" for me by others, my own achievements and victories feel tainted because I can't even say they were *mine* and not just handed to me.

I speak on the side of people that daily play frontline as a premade: One of the biggest misconceptions about premades is that it's even needed at all to win a game. The cooperation and teamwork of a team, as well as rng, own this game mode. If i solo queued into a game and decided to command, and I had people who want to move as a team and attack as a team, then it'd virtually be no difference. I won't deny the 4-man comp of drk/ast/drg/etc. metas are abused, but team work can actually make the dream work *sometimes.* A group of 4 people can come in and do a lot of damage and knockouts, yes, but they won't always win the game. To say that the presence of a premade in your team is rigged towards your success is ridiculous. My premade can go and do 1 million damage on a team and still lose because the rest of our team could be hitting the team in 3rd place, the nodes are in our spawn and both teams are on us, or even something like our premade itself isn't even doing so well.

To even mention plugin use to win games is even more ridiculous. I don't know anyone personally who uses plugins or cheats or whatever you think they use but if you can show me who is using and what they use, I'd definitely like to know them and report them. I do want to point out too that the in-game macro function is a tool that helps A LOT!!! LIKE A LOT A LOT!!!!
Did you know that if you make a macro that goes:
/wmarkb <bind3>
It'll place a waymarker directly on the the person that is marked with the bind 3 marker. It works really well considering that it still places the marker as long as that person is in render distance. So if you have a pesky dark knight commander on the enemy team you can put a bind 3 marker on them and if they're close, the map will tell you where they are. I know I use it.

[Aishaa]

First and foremost, I want to start off by saying that I read through a good portion of the complaints, and some of them are somewhat valid complaints. It is definitely a problem with the community abusing power and queue. As a premade player myself, I only play with my friends, I do not do large scale syncs it is what undoubtedly ruined aether. As for 4-man premades, a lot of the criticism that is being shared isn't even 50% of the matches I play with my premade. The vast majority of the games we play is our team running it down most of the game and losing us 400-900 points. When we do have great matches, it's when people listen to calls, the premade is mainly for support of the commander. A lot of premades, I would say around 70-80% does not have a commander, just a dark knight and pad group. I do think however the unwillingness of the community to push teamwork concepts is the biggest issue. Additionally, we had 8v8v8 with full-party premades, we also had non-aoe meta where every job could do enough damage to get picks. All of this was removed to make PvP more casual, what you are currently experiencing is the Developers choice of making the game too easy. Where there is competition, you will always find people abusing the best strats and comps regardless of what game. Also, I have not seen any cheaters aside from a player that used to play on primal, premades throwing is common because of the fragile egos, and the unwillingness to take viable criticism, bming and griefing KO'd bodies happens often as well. As far as plugins, I do not currently know any frontline plugins that is being used by premades or players that gives a significant advantage. I do know of a lot of macros that are quality of life. I feel like anyone cheating would be easy to detect especially by the everyday players.

[Mawlzy]

I speak on the side of people that daily play frontline as a premade: One of the biggest misconceptions about premades is that it's even needed at all to win a game. The cooperation and teamwork of a team, as well as rng, own this game mode. If i solo queued into a game and decided to command, and I had people who want to move as a team and attack as a team, then it'd virtually be no difference. I won't deny the 4-man comp of drk/ast/drg/etc. metas are abused, but team work can actually make the dream work *sometimes.* A group of 4 people can come in and do a lot of damage and knockouts, yes, but they won't always win the game. To say that the presence of a premade in your team is rigged towards your success is ridiculous. My premade can go and do 1 million damage on a team and still lose because the rest of our team could be hitting the team in 3rd place, the nodes are in our spawn and both teams are on us, or even something like our premade itself isn't even doing so well.

To even mention plugin use to win games is even more ridiculous. I don't know anyone personally who uses plugins or cheats or whatever you think they use but if you can show me who is using and what they use, I'd definitely like to know them and report them. I do want to point out too that the in-game macro function is a tool that helps A LOT!!! LIKE A LOT A LOT!!!!
Did you know that if you make a macro that goes:
/wmarkb <bind3>
It'll place a waymarker directly on the the person that is marked with the bind 3 marker. It works really well considering that it still places the marker as long as that person is in render distance. So if you have a pesky dark knight commander on the enemy team you can put a bind 3 marker on them and if they're close, the map will tell you where they are. I know I use it.

The number of conditional statements in the first part of your post illustrate why it is disingenuous. See also: premade win-rates. We need to live in the real world, friend.

[LibitIncarne]

The only way to fix frontlines is to reduce the player count to 8 players per team as of right now you can't balance these matches with 72 players in it.

Removing 8v8v8 Frontline is the worst thing that has ever happened to PVP.

[Mawlzy]

Let me add, since the Aether premades invaded Dynamis, matches on Aether have simply been more competitive and enjoyable. People have actually hung out in chat afterwards discussing a great comeback. Sometimes even key strategic events are discussed!!! And this to me is the fundamental problem with well-organized premades. They invariably create dull matches where most players simply want them to be over as quickly as possible.

I understand, although disagree with, the observation that "the point of the game is to win, thus using the tools available is what people *should* be doing." The devs have created yet another situation where Discord cliques can gain a massive advantage simply using the rules of the game. The question is whether this is desirable, particularly in a "fun, casual" mode?

To me, the answer is an unambiguous "no," although I am agnostic on whether this is addressed through banning premades, queue separation, or a matchmaking algorithm so that premades can test their wits against other FL geniuses, and the rest of us can be left in peace to actually enjoy ourselves.

[Xael_Jehuty]

The number of conditional statements in the first part of your post illustrate why it is disingenuous. See also: premade win-rates. We need to live in the real world, friend.

Of course premades happen to win more often. When you have a team already working together you're more likely to win the team based gamemode. Regardless, they are not THE deciding factor of a victory. Every win from a premade isn't an absolute blow out of a game. Although it happens, we can't say that every game a premade has played isn't hard fought or close in score.