Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

[Mawlzy]

Not on pre-mades are sweaty try hard groups. I am willing to bet a lot of money many just queue together for fun and some memes.

You're between a Seal Rock and a hard place. If SE does follow it's usual trend, premades will be banned and it won't be your fault. Meanwhile, if you're queueing together for fun and some memes, you'll probably get roasted on here for lethargic play.

[Xylira]

I mean it is an MMO. Playing with others is an aspect to that. CC is a thing for those that want to a more "balanced" game mode or was supposed to be that. It does have a solo queue option.

CC is only solo queue, ranked and casual, likely because SE recognizes entirely just how unfair it would be for a premade team to face off against a group of random solo queuers. And I dislike CC for a variety of reasons, one of them being you're stuck as whichever job you queue as and I like to at least try to be flexible to support my team.

FL is supposed to be the more casual game mode why limit those that want to queue with 3 others?

The casual mode of CC is still solo queue only. Very likely because SE still recognizes just how unbalanced pitting premade groups against solo queuers is.

Not on pre-mades are sweaty try hard groups. I am willing to bet a lot of money many just queue together for fun and some memes.

Yes I know, 'not all', but enough of them are sweaty try hards that skew matches in unenjoyable ways. Facing up against them isn't fun, and neither is playing on the same team as them. The most boring matches are ones where I just mindlessly follow along a meta comp premade group that just demolishes everyone in their path. I had one of those matches earlier today.

As for meta comps, and meta will always be present. So as you said if people are not willing pick the comp that has a higher chance at victory maybe that just goes to show people don't care that much as many seem to think no?

It's supposed to be the responsibility of the Devs to keep making balancing changes and tweaks to keep the meta shifting, so that the same meta comps don't stay on top forever, especially not by such a wide margin. FF's dev's have been incredibly inattentive to downright lazy when it comes to PvP, particularly for FL. All of their balance changes seem centered around balancing for 5v5 CC, with an afterthought of incoming/outgoing damage tweaks tacked on for FL. Instead we've had two years of mostly the same old nonsense.

As I said earlier, I would prefer the SE actually do a better job of balancing Front Lines PvP, but I would settle for it being changed to solo queue only.

[Mawlzy]

Now that I think about it actually, I've seen more WARs working *with* DRKs than against, as it completely nulls the "just use Guard" suggestion to deal with Salted Earth when WARs can just rip off the Guard.

So even when a job *could* be used as a counter-pick, people still went straight to thinking "how I can use this for daddy DRK"?

Outside of premades, I think solo WAR players will default to this for a very simple reason. When the match starts, you know who is on your team, but not the enemy teams. If there's a DRK on my team I recognize, or one drops a Dorito on their head, I know trailing around after them and pressing 5 buttons in the correct order will help my team win.

Incidentally, this is one reason many of the DRK+ counter-strategies that are brought up here are so unrealistic, particularly the ones that advocate job switching before kick-off. You have no idea of the composition that you're up against; to expect randos to do it is naive anyway; and when it's attempted in a more organized manner, those involved get accused of queue sniping.

[Bobby66]

CC is only solo queue, ranked and casual, likely because SE recognizes entirely just how unfair it would be for a premade team to face off against a group of random solo queuers. And I dislike CC for a variety of reasons, one of them being you're stuck as whichever job you queue as and I like to at least try to be flexible to support my team.



The casual mode of CC is still solo queue only. Very likely because SE still recognizes just how unbalanced pitting premade groups against solo queuers is.



Yes I know, 'not all', but enough of them are sweaty try hards that skew matches in unenjoyable ways. Facing up against them isn't fun, and neither is playing on the same team as them. The most boring matches are ones where I just mindlessly follow along a meta comp premade group that just demolishes everyone in their path. I had one of those matches earlier today.



It's supposed to be the responsibility of the Devs to keep making balancing changes and tweaks to keep the meta shifting, so that the same meta comps don't stay on top forever, especially not by such a wide margin. FF's dev's have been incredibly inattentive to downright lazy when it comes to PvP, particularly for FL. All of their balance changes seem centered around balancing for 5v5 CC, with an afterthought of incoming/outgoing damage tweaks tacked on for FL. Instead we've had two years of mostly the same old nonsense.

As I said earlier, I would prefer the SE actually do a better job of balancing Front Lines PvP, but I would settle for it being changed to solo queue only.

Okay I will grant you SE made CC the way it is because they saw how unfair pre-mades are. So begs the question why have they not done the same for FL? Couldn't one argue FL's are kind of just meant to be chaotic cluster fuck that is not inherently meant to overly balanced? The community is just as capable at altering meta's, it is not like you have to join DRK bandwagon you can play classes to counter it.

My point is you have CC as a game mode that can only be played in Solo queue, don't try and advocate taking friends playing with friends because of some sweaty try hard pre-made groups. PvPing with friends while shooting the shit is discord is a lot of fun. Now if they did premade verse premade groups by switching it to 8v8v8 fine that would be awesome. As it stands only options they have to get rid of pre-mades from stomping is making pre-made only queues which would probably never pop if you still need 72 people or remove pre-mades.

FFXIV really needs to stop asking for stuff to be removed when has SE ever delivered on removing something and actually fixing it?

You're between a Seal Rock and a hard place. If SE does follow it's usual trend, premades will be banned and it won't be your fault. Meanwhile, if you're queueing together for fun and some memes, you'll probably get roasted on here for lethargic play.

Yeah we run into that at times, when we do our 4 stack of a random class at night. One of our friends just sets up a wheel with every class and we spin it to see what class we end up stacking as. Sometimes it works out wonderfully, other's not so much. 4 stack pld is kind of funny at times.

[Xylira]

Okay I will grant you SE made CC the way it is because they saw how unfair pre-mades are. So begs the question why have they not done the same for FL? Couldn't one argue FL's are kind of just meant to be chaotic cluster fuck that is not inherently meant to overly balanced? The community is just as capable at altering meta's, it is not like you have to join DRK bandwagon you can play classes to counter it.

My point is you have CC as a game mode that can only be played in Solo queue, don't try and advocate taking friends playing with friends because of some sweaty try hard pre-made groups. PvPing with friends while shooting the shit is discord is a lot of fun. Now if they did premade verse premade groups by switching it to 8v8v8 fine that would be awesome. As it stands only options they have to get rid of pre-mades from stomping is making pre-made only queues which would probably never pop if you still need 72 people or remove pre-mades.

FFXIV really needs to stop asking for stuff to be removed when has SE ever delivered on removing something and actually fixing it?

No, the community cannot simply alter metas. Metas develop based on the most effective comps within the balancing as defined by the decisions of the Dev team setting the stage when it comes to ability design and potency. I mean sure, theoretically the community could collectively decide not to premade with DRK+ compositions, but how much do you want to bet that there would still be a bunch of sweaty tryhard premades that would ignore that and continue to group queue DRK+ because it's the most effective way to win matches? Again, that's why it's the responsibility of the Dev team to constantly be reviewing the state of PvP and making changes and tweaks to balance to try to make things as reasonably fair as possible.

I'm only asking for them to remove group queue, or at least separate it into it's own queue if SE is unable or unwilling to make a proper effort to better balance PvP for Front lines. The sweaty premades cause enough disruption to the game mode to warrant something being done about it. They already reduced premades from 8 to 4 in FL for that very reason, they were too disruptive.

And honestly I'd be fine with them adding a group queue option for CC, so long as it matches full parties against full parties. I'm actually baffled that ranked CC wasn't specifically set up as a ranked team activity like WoW Arenas. It would make a lot more sense than throwing players into random parties and having their wins/losses so heavily dictated by RNG of what team they end up on.

[OliviaLugria]

No, the community cannot simply alter metas.

I don't understand your statement. Meta is of course affected by the dev team, but it is driven by the community. Strong options become weaker has people choose other options that counter them. When new strategies or tactics are discovered it will also change the meta.

The best possible comps aren't even being played right now because it requires more than 4 people to coordinate. Relying on some random who ques once a day just isn't possible.

3 parties of 6smn,1 ast, and1 brd can wipe an enemy alliance in a wide area, well outside their engage range, and be completely untelegraphe every 30 seconds by rotating which party is using lbs. This comp has the funny affect of making the current worst job (bard) crucial to keeping up the offense while making drk relatively useless in comparison.

24 scholars can bypass melee mitigation, bypass guard, and be a touch of death combo every 15 seconds while only being exposed for 1gcd. Once they max BH they can split into 2 groups and fight 2 fronts easily.

Waymarker commanding has yet to be split into 3 party commanding. Any team running 3 parties of meta roles would run circles around the large deathball style, but we don't do it.

Frontlines has a skill ceiling in the stratosphere and we barely manage to make it out of the mud as a community.

[Xylira]

I don't understand your statement. Meta is of course affected by the dev team, but it is driven by the community. Strong options become weaker has people choose other options that counter them. When new strategies or tactics are discovered it will also change the meta.

The best possible comps aren't even being played right now because it requires more than 4 people to coordinate. Relying on some random who ques once a day just isn't possible.

3 parties of 6smn,1 ast, and1 brd can wipe an enemy alliance in a wide area, well outside their engage range, and be completely untelegraphe every 30 seconds by rotating which party is using lbs. This comp has the funny affect of making the current worst job (bard) crucial to keeping up the offense while making drk relatively useless in comparison.

24 scholars can bypass melee mitigation, bypass guard, and be a touch of death combo every 15 seconds while only being exposed for 1gcd. Once they max BH they can split into 2 groups and fight 2 fronts easily.

Waymarker commanding has yet to be split into 3 party commanding. Any team running 3 parties of meta roles would run circles around the large deathball style, but we don't do it.

Frontlines has a skill ceiling in the stratosphere and we barely manage to make it out of the mud as a community.

The community will over time gravitate toward the most consistently effective meta comps per what is capable within game design.

That's why DRK+ settled as the current meta and has remained that way for as long as it has, as it's the most easily abusable within the 4 player premade limitation and SE has done very little to balance it. It's also why I keep harping on the fact that SE is supposed to be more active about making balance tweaks and changes to disrupt one or a few specific metas from solidifying as the defacto way for premades to significantly disrupt matches.

[OliviaLugria]

The community will over time gravitate toward the most consistently effective meta comps per what is capable within game design.

That's why DRK+ settled as the current meta and has remained that way for as long as it has, as it's the most easily abusable within the 4 player premade limitation and SE has done very little to balance it. It's also why I keep harping on the fact that SE is supposed to be more active about making balance tweaks and changes to disrupt one or a few specific metas from solidifying as the defacto way for premades to significantly disrupt matches.

What "community" are you referring to I wonder... it certainly isn't the xiv one. The community seems pretty content with complaining while doing nothing about their own gameplay.

It's just sad that the "meta" is 4 people playing high damage jobs and pressing buttons at the same time.

Why bother "balancing" something when the player base hasn't bothered to engage with the systems at any level?

[Xylira]

What "community" are you referring to I wonder... it certainly isn't the xiv one. The community seems pretty content with complaining while doing nothing about their own gameplay.

It's just sad that the "meta" is 4 people playing high damage jobs and pressing buttons at the same time.

Why bother "balancing" something when the player base hasn't bothered to engage with the systems at any level?

The community in general. It's rather obvious from the tryhard premades that tend to run DRK+ groups that it works.

And yes, it is rather sad that 4 players are able to wipe entire alliance raids simply by coordinating their LBs.

Why are you so insistent on defending poor game balance? PvP is clearly unbalanced for FL, yet your response to anyone raising concern with it is just to dismissively tell them to play better.

[OliviaLugria]

The community in general. It's rather obvious from the tryhard premades that tend to run DRK+ groups that it works.

And yes, it is rather sad that 4 players are able to wipe entire alliance raids simply by coordinating their LBs.

Why are you so insistent on defending poor game balance? PvP is clearly unbalanced for FL, yet your response to anyone raising concern with it is just to dismissively tell them to play better.

It works because few if any people try to stop it from happening.

It is easy to mark an enemy Dark.
It is easy to run away from their engage.
It is easy to play a stronger job.
It is easy to play a job that stops the stronger jobs.
It seems impossible for any common player to give a damn.

I'm trying to look at it from a developer's perspective. There's 6ish strong jobs that work extremely well with Dark Knight. How many players in a game actually switch and utilize said jobs? Not very many. I'm lucky to get a single good Dancer, Dark Knight, or Dragoon outside the people I bring with me.

As far as balance is concerned, the mode IS BALANCED. Everyone who ques has the choice to select whatever job they want, use the chat how they wish, party up with 3 other people, and have an equal chance to get f'd by rng.

Are the jobs balanced? Not really, but each one still has their niche. As I previously mentioned, a more organized team can use jobs that I consider quite bad to much more devastating effect than anything a single premade could do if a team actually committed to it.

You seem to support beating down the skill ceiling as a form of balance when I'd much rather people rise up and try to compete at a higher level.