Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

[OliviaLugria]

Solo players have consistently been able to deny those meta stacks by playing around them or to counter them, especially on WAR. If you want an algorithm that factors in win rate and splits teams better, sure thats fine and something I think most people would get on board with. However if you want to improve the FL experience overall with differing reward scaling, giving 0.25x rewards to the bottom performing players in each alliance that don't pass a baseline would do far more good for improving FL than giving 0.25x rewards for people who queued as 4 since lazy and entitled players not pushing buttons are much more of an issue than meta stacks.

Crazy how COD had this figured out in 2007... get kill? Here's exp. Get assist? here's exp. Capture objective? Get exp. Do nothing all game? Get nothing.

Mawlzy's analogy fails to mention that the people playing football are watching shows on their phone, several are just wondering about the field taking pictures, some don't even know the rules, and most don't even want to be there.

Enjoy that while I designate myself as leader, people are free to mute the calls and chat, blacklist me, and not follow. Also apparently forces my guide down people's throats. "Hey if you like my calls, ask about my guide!" I'm really force feeding it aren't I?

[Archeron]

I don't disagree that the rewards should be performance based, but where do you draw the line of what constitutes a performance deserving of reward, and what does not? I can be a useless player who does nothing but capture objectives and AFK watching youtube while on "Defense". I can charge into battle and die repeatedly just to bump my damage done, or assists up to a suitable level. I can also just roll scholar, put my buffs out 3 times, and hit an arbitrary damage threshold and AFK for the rest of the match. The metrics for these systems rarely ever work in practice, and are just ripe for further abuse.

My stance has always been wanting to see people to improve, to understand meta and strategy, party up and coordinate in chat. There is a lot going on in this mode, and I will beat it into people until they understand it or give up. Either way benefits me. Better games or continue to grind exp faster.

Your own words. You will Beat it into their heads. That sounds like you don't want to give them a choice, and displays your true character rather well. I don't buy your false altruistic persona. If you truly cared for the education of NA PvP players, and bringing a competitive environment to Frontlines such as what is seen on JP, you'd offer suggestions to combat that, aside from an out of touch guide, and the idea that being crushed repeatedly in a match is somehow going to motivate people to want to learn. I don't see you supporting PvP hall of the novice, and I think your comments about your winrate show where your interests truly lie. Embrace it, and stop pretending otherwise.

[Gaiinahat]

The premade players are out of touch with the wider community at large. That is their problem.

They do not understand that by curb stomping people repeatedly, it sucks the fun out of the game mode, and deters people from getting into the content. Thats less people who want to learn how to PvP. Thats less people to try out the other modes like CC and Rival Wings. Thats less people asking for more PvP related content to be added into the game. The average player doesn't enjoy PvP. Thats a serious problem for replenishing, and maintaining our numbers betwen patches and mogtome events. It does not help the community grow.

Finally, somebody who gets it.

I was a casual PvP player until today. Watching Salamander on YouTube was what got me interested in PvP. The reason I play PvP is because of the PvP rewards and tome collecting.
After exhausting all the tomes I could get from the daily roulette, I would jump on Frontline and get a constant stream of 50 tomes per match.
I'm on my 3rd season of PvP, already hit level 25 this season and got the cool Oppressor mount. The PvP outfits and weapons are pretty awesome as well.

I wasn't very good at first, but I read resources, watched videos on how to play the various classes, and I had a great time learning.
I even created an alt character for the sole purpose of learning how to become a better PvP player.
While I'm not best of the best, I hold myself pretty good. I usually get between 2 and 5 kills per match with lots of assists and somewhere between 0-3 deaths in a good match 5-10 in a bad one.
I'm not afraid to jump in and get my hands dirty. I've taken the commander role at times when it was obviously needed, and won a few matches, but not always.
At the end of a match if we don't win, I always tell everyone it was a good try, and that we'll get the win next time.

Continues...

[Gaiinahat]

Then along comes the premades destroying everything in their path. Then along comes those "commanders" who are friends with the premade teams and starts feeding our alliance to the premades, or directing us away from the objectives in order to help the premades win, or attacking the other team when the premade team is within a few points of winning. They make completely nonsensical calls and then it becomes obvious they are setting us up to lose. When I call them out, I get shut down. I get called toxic, a defeatist, told I should just quit, that I'm just mad because we're losing, or that I'm going to be reported for griefing. So I have learned to just bite my tounge, just "follow the D", and accept the loss.

I've had some pretty good stompings from premades before and yes it sucks, and it becomes discouraging, but I've always went back to see how I could get better.
However, there comes a point in which no matter how hard you try, no matter how much better you try to become, you come to accept that you will never be able to outskill an organized premade who's only purpose is to win at all costs, no matter how much damage they are doing to the PvP community.

Today in Shatter was the final straw. There was a premade of 5 DRKs chain-spamming Salted Earth and followed up with RPRs and whatever else I couldn't tell was there because it was all over in a flash.
No amount of shielding, purify, heal spamming, or trying to run away could stop them. There was just no mitigating it. There was just no escape.
THREE TIMES IN A ROW this group wiped OUR ENTIRE ALLIANCE in less that 10 minutes. We maybe had 1 or 2 people survive each time - out of an entire alliance.

That wasn't just a curb stomping. That was complete and utter OBLITERATION, and there was NOTHING anyone could do about it.
That wasn't just defeat. That was total humiliation. I have never seen anything like it. It completely sucked the soul out of every single one of us.

What happened after that? We all farmed ice for the rest of the match. We didn't care anymore. We were DONE.
Let the premade have their win. Let them have the whole thing. They can keep it.

The PvP in this game isn't worth being dehumanized for the sole purpose of being farmed for numbers, or rankings, or rewards, or prestige, or none that crap.

You know what else I found out? For the same amount of time, and for twice as many tomes, I can do alliance raids. 20 minutes, 100 tomes, and lots more exp.
I don't need PvP anymore except for the once-a-day experience boost. If I decide I want to do it or not.

All because of premades.

Those of you who defend premades and say, "Oh, it's not premades, it's lack of skill, or lack of trying, or it's the map, or blah blah blah." Stop. Just stop.
I don't want to hear, "I'm sorry this happened to you" or "It's not all premades." I was there. I saw what I saw with my own eyes. You will not convince me otherwise.

You need to clean up your community. I'm out.

[Mawlzy]

Solo players have consistently been able to deny those meta stacks by playing around them or to counter them, especially on WAR. If you want an algorithm that factors in win rate and splits teams better, sure thats fine and something I think most people would get on board with. However if you want to improve the FL experience overall with differing reward scaling, giving 0.25x rewards to the bottom performing players in each alliance that don't pass a baseline would do far more good for improving FL than giving 0.25x rewards for people who queued as 4 since lazy and entitled players not pushing buttons are much more of an issue than meta stacks.

If there's a matchmaking algorithm the problem solves itself, since the premade win-rate returns to non-pathological levels and people with similar playstyles and commitment levels are placed in the same matches. I don't like playing with AFKers any more than you do. I also don't give a monkey's about rewards.

I suspect our end goal is quite similar, but Olivia's determination to get there by hitting us all with a baseball bat is demonstrably not working, nor will it. The only practical alternative I see to matchmaking/queue separation is getting rid of rewards. I'm fine with either option.

[Mawlzy]

You need to clean up your community. I'm out.

And sadly, you are not alone. Players with an interest and skill in PvP are tired of playing pointless cameo roles in a play directed and performed by premades. And who remains? Those with no interest beyond XP and rewards. The AFKers.

[Apowowo]

The PvP in this game isn't worth being dehumanized for the sole purpose of being farmed for numbers, or rankings, or rewards, or prestige, or none that crap.

You are actually insane for wording it like that and you are definitely taking it way too far. "Dehumanized" is a strong word for that, it's pvp in a video game... Maybe stepping out is the right call for you because you definitely need to reset your mind after saying that and really need to calm down and not take that this so seriously;


You'd be very surprised by the amount of solo I do, both in NA and EU and even more by the amount of people who, despite not being so much into pvp, will gladly give it a try and actually enjoy it if someone is commanding. Doesn't have to be perfect, nor it doesn't have to a 100% roll stomps, but I guarantee you there are more people who are trying than people who are giving up;
Of course there are still a huge group of people who are just for the exp and all, or immediately give up at the slightest resistance, and that's fine... happens;

However, it is very easy to not die off their engagements... just open your eyes and use guard as soon as you see the drk. And well, if you get DNC and RPR... that's what these classes are, guardbreaks. How do you stop a drk? You polymorph him, monk him or pull him with war, there are a lot of ways to stop a DRK's engagement... but it's much easier to complain than looking into it, yea?
It doesn't take that much more to remind people Guard and Purify exist along with Sprint and Recuperate, you can even turn it into a macro

There are a lot of solo commanders who aren't doing too bad, and if the whole team is following, they definitely are not 24 in voice chats; it takes just one click to tell the group where to go or what's the plan. The biggest problem I see is people who immediately give up (funny, coming from a french) after seeing 4 people partied up together. The second one being people treat it as a pve instead of a pvp mode; Kills are much more rewarding than objectives in a lot of cases, battle high is a point snowball point, but not always the deciding factor (in some maps at least, like seal rock)

If 4 people manage to win against 48, the problem isn't the premade... (Famous quote I've seen in a discord server) and I think it's true.

If people are interested, there are always a bunch of FL players in wolve's dens either in Seraph or in Adamantoise, it's always fun to have more people to play with and if you really are wanting to get into it, there are good communities for that and very helpful (Pvp in general, but also for frontline)

[danndeline]

First of all, I know you just did not bring up feeling like you're "dehumanized" in a Final Fantasy PvP game mode. There are so many other better words to choose from, and dehumanize is just not it. Not to belittle your "problems", but there are people in the real world that actually have to suffer with being dehumanized on the daily. Trans people, for example, are people who deal with that everyday in NA. It's super disappointing that this word was poorly chosen and I can't but focus on it because you really do feel this way, otherwise you would have chosen another word. I'm not assuming anything about you, maybe you are a person who has to deal with being dehumanized in other ways, but this is not it.

Next, I can absolutely assure you that no premade teams are win trading. I am a part of these communities, and assuming two full premades will work together to help one of them win is actually hilarious. Now, I'm assuming you know how difficult commanding to be, since you proclaim to have done it yourself a few times, and how it can be like herding cats, as one of my good friends likes to put it. Imagine trying to get 40 people to do that at once. It just doesn't work. The fact people actually believe premades are coordinating win trading is straight delusional. Sometimes teams get stacked with experienced players and know what they're doing. Sometimes there's a more even distribution amongst the three teams. Sometimes teams are all people who are just doing their roulette. The fact of the matter is if two premades are going against each other, they're fighting the other to win.

Premade parties can only do so much. If there are as many dark knights and reapers as you say in that match, then that amount of people not in a premade outnumbers how many a premade can hold. Maybe there were multiple premades, or maybe it was people who just know what they're doing. It's always mostly the people who want to play ranged jobs who complain the most because they can't be bothered to learn anything else and bring "justice" to these premades. Not even an hour ago, I went against a premade party and a few people who were not in the premade that I know and who are good. They worked together and chose jobs that would allow them to defeat other teams more easily. I went in as a black mage. Died at the beginning, changed to warrior. Did big group stuns, stalled them, pulled their dark knights off Onsal mid. RNG was good to my team and we won, but we wouldn't have if I didn't contribute to switching to a job that would make curb stomping and node capping more difficult for them. They still steamrolled us, yes, but if you know what you're doing and are tactical about your moves, you can make the slightest increase of odds of being able to win. There are times to know when to engage and when to not if you're going against a strong premade team.

[danndeline]

The community does need some cleaning, sure, but "premade curb stomping" is not on the bingo card. I'm a mostly solo player, barre more recently with a few of my friends because I enjoy playing with them and have fun with them, but if I play solo, I do okay by myself. I'm not sorry, it really is a lack of something when it comes to people thinking that this is an issue. But if you don't want to listen to the advice people who do like to play with other people and continue to willingly deafen your ears, that's on you. The only place I see the circle jerking of complaining about premades is here. Don't like it? Do something about it, even if it's giving up, like you chose.

[Teno]

snip

Many of your problems are not specific to this game (it's the same for most large scale competitive environments), and they boil down to caring too much, and quite frankly, a skill issue (who hits the ice really). Game sense will carry you far as a solo player, and you'll learn a lot more solo. Also I see 5 drks, I consider it easy bh. They'll still stomp the game but you can curb it on your own and enjoy it. Heck, sometimes even turn it around with some luck and people following your markers.

Also sometimes you get a premade and a bunch of good solo players bundled up so it becomes an insane stomp. That's rng, at least the game is over quick. Sometimes people also agree to play weak jobs so as to even the odds a little bit because even they know it's not fun.