Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

[Elfidan]

I say we should have the ability to vote kick people who complain about commanders, complain about too many sound effects, use flags and post them as chat

Careful kicking people. It only takes one mistake to find yourself in Mordion Goal. You can mute channel people for spamming and if it's truly spam report it because that is in fact detrimental to gameplay. The whole "Commanders" crap in Frontline is so cringe. More than half of them make bad calls anyway. Why exactly do people need call outs for one of if not the easiest content in the game. Be present and play it's that simple.

node lickers

Please define this defamatory term.

people who want to be carried

Report them for non-participation and move on. It's not worth the mental agony to stress over something Team 3 doesn't really care to address. They've already directed you to the report function so why not try it. Why risk your account on kicking someone based on a small sample size observation while your notably upset?

the "Let them fight!"-ers.

Sometimes this is the appropriate course of action.

Riletz 4 players aren't changing the game state you're being a goof.

[AllenThyl]

One aspect of FL that premade commanders and members never appreciate is the mode operates perfectly well without them. Sure you get a few headless chicken matches. (The AFKers aren't going to suddenly stand to attention because you start issuing orders.) More commonly, when no oppressive commander is on the field, the more experienced players will type suggestions. "Focus yellow," "pinch red," "S rank cave." Actual teamwork!

How is that not commanding? This is literally how one would phrase orders. And yet experience shows that even the most obviously advantageous strategic play is usually ignored by 18-20 people whose only contribution in a PvP mode is licking ice, to subsequently get farmed and give the enemy team both points and battle high.

Seriously, commanders. Try it. Command in relative silence.

I do, because on EU the sound spam DRK spearhead is a rather rare occurrence. Which is precisely why I hold this community in such contempt and think you are pretty full of it. The people that make a difference even in games without the typical PvP premades are just a handful, while the overwhelming majority barely knows left from right, their class, enemy kits, or how to read and execute high level strategies to help their own team win. Because many are exactly like you and Aidorouge, who "just want to play however they want", as if Frontline is an expressive dance class. It is frankly quite ridiculous to see you spent so much time and effort denigrating PvP premades, while ignoring the complacent masses who legit think that trying to win in a competitive game mode is "toxic".

This isn't a custom game mode with silly rules for "fun", like "all ak" maps in CounterStrike or "all random all mid" in DotA like games. Frontline is the standard game. Not a training match, not "unranked no one cares". The apathy of the community and constant misdirection of blame to a select few individuals is literally toxic, as the proliferation and acceptance of this behavior is what is directly causing the Frontline experience to be as miserable as it is.

[Mawlzy]

Snip

This is very disturbing! Apparently all my posts where I note that apathy and non-engagement is a serious problem have become completely invisible!

I play WAR not because I want to engage in interpretative dance, but because I've found it's a useful disruptor, and flexible such that I can try and contribute to my team irrespective of whether or not it is led by a DRK. I have never interacted with such a bizarre community, in which I am attacked personally for views I don't hold and behavior I don't exhibit.

[Mawlzy]

We seem to have gone full circle again, so I'll return to my embroidery until someone addresses how we increase the skill level in FL.

I do have one request. These little group visits that we've been getting at my FC house. If you want to stop by and act the fool in front of me, absolutely no problem. But I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't harass other FC members. Particularly the one in charge of the submarines and airships since she's the only one who knows how that works.

gl/hf

[Elfidan]

Yo, you need to report that. That's bull shit.

[Iglol]

You have that ability. Hell, people can and are vote-kicked for no reason whatsoever.

May I suggest you and Olivia reel in the hyperbole on the incompetent 68 other people. I'm genuinely interested in how we get more skilled/committed people involved, and the two of you asserting that only your premade is playing properly is undermining your other points.

Well at a certain point, people just aren't learning or having the attitude of wanting to learn. Eg DRK is on a 30s timer, the enemy DRK has backed off for about 30s after hitting your team and your team is more clumped than the third team, what do you think is going to happen very soon that you should prepare for? Enemy DRK is going to pop out looking to pull of course and if you keep dying to that over and over it really is your own fault since simply spreading out or backing off does wonders for discouraging a pull or preventing yourself from being stuck in one. This isn't rocket science or some big brain thing, its the basic flow of the current combat system being on a 20-30s timer for most jobs to do a full rotation of their actions. The issue boils down to complacency and laziness more than anything, and constantly complaining about and thinking of ways to push out or limit the strongest players won't do anything but make it worse since you're just lowering the bar and removing expectations for everyone else.

[Iglol]

You still haven't provided a solution, just ridiculed those of others.

You identify the current problem in FL as a large proportion of people who don't want to be there. You further note they don't want to learn. How do you propose to have high-quality matches if you understandably do not want to play with the AFKers, but refuse to remove/separate them on the grounds it would make queue times too long? At least with low-tier matches, you have the hope that new players might take to the mode, instead of being completely discouraged due to the current destructive power of premades. One might conclude you're happy with the mode as is; a bold position in a 92-page thread with this title.

One reason I am so disturbed by the current meta and the way it is exploited is that it is completely unwelcoming to new players. MMO churn requires new players to get interested in the mode or it dies.

Olivia is trying to address this through training new commanders. I've explained in this thread why I don't think it will work. You have reinforced my position by astutely noting that these new commanders can't even pull off a...er...wossname... interdimensional counterpoint thingy.

One commander I talked to this week did find a solution that worked for them. They moved their PvP action from NA to JP.

I ask you again: how do you promote better play as a whole?

An obvious start is what many other games with pvp do: Bonus rewards that scale with your performance. Of course the caveat is job balance will need to be better or some backend formula will have to be there to adjust things such as SCH damage credit etc, however a carrot for doing well is the obvious start.

[Sinstrel]

I've said this before but using assists as the metric for calculating bonus for performance would be very simple enough and serve FL quite well.

Everyone gets an assist for either attacking the same target that was killed, or having thier buff active on the player who killed a target (SCH shield, WHM regen, AST card buff, SGE pneuma). As long as you took the time to understand and learn your job actions, and learned to press the right button at the right time, you get an assist and would be rewarded for doing so.

Having a team leader/commander within your party encouraging this throughout the match goes a long way. As seen in FL on JP servers.

[Stasya]

Please for the love of god, to random SE intern that was tasked with Frontlines rework and have a gramm of English knowledge or ability to use Google Translate

Please remove this mode. Just don't waste your time trying to fix unfixable 1 vs 1 vs 1 team match, where people can abuse group q, stacking multiple broken/meta classes with no stuff to reduce aoe/dot damage etc aka wow resilence.

Not only Yoshi P will thank you for your pitch about removing Frontlines but also will probably move you to do other tasks where you can prove your talents!

[Archeron]

Please for the love of god, to random SE intern that was tasked with Frontlines rework and have a gramm of English knowledge or ability to use Google Translate

Please remove this mode. Just don't waste your time trying to fix unfixable 1 vs 1 vs 1 team match, where people can abuse group q, stacking multiple broken/meta classes with no stuff to reduce aoe/dot damage etc aka wow resilence.

Not only Yoshi P will thank you for your pitch about removing Frontlines but also will probably move you to do other tasks where you can prove your talents!

You're assuming the people responsible for the development of Frontlines have talent. We do not want their grubby hands ruining any other content in this game.