Is the "One Steppe at a Time V" achievement reward a bit cruel to put up?

[Silaryn]

For you, your cart (fun) is drawn by your horse (winning). If your horse fails, the cart doesn't reach its destination.

Meanwhile my horse (fun) pulls my cart (winning). It may seem innocuous at first, but I value my journey over my destination.

And since its frontlines, there is going to be a longer journey than compared to rival wings or crystalline conflict. Which means there will be lots of detours in 3rd and 2nd place by comparison.

Does that register for you?

Your response has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. Where did I say that you need to win to have fun? How does having fun and not worrying about whether you win or lose have anything to do with the point of the game mode? Literally all I did was describe how a competitive game mode works. I have said nothing about motivations, reasonings, rewards, or mentalities. The point of an Extreme Trial is to beat the boss; the point of Frontline is to come in 1st place (win). There is nothing more to read into that statement.

Just so you don't have the wrong view of me, I play Frontline (and Crystalline Conflict and Rival Wings) because I find them fun. Of course winning is fun, but I find most matches I play whether I win or lose are fun. Just like you, having fun is my priority. Having fun and trying to win are not mutually exclusive. They should both be the baseline. We should be trying to win because that is the point of the mode and we should be having fun while doing so. If we aren't having fun then why did we queue? I don't know why people (in general, not saying you are one of them) keep acting like these are polar opposites.

[Mawlzy]

Your response has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. Where did I say that you need to win to have fun? How does having fun and not worrying about whether you win or lose have anything to do with the point of the game mode? Literally all I did was describe how a competitive game mode works. I have said nothing about motivations, reasonings, rewards, or mentalities. The point of an Extreme Trial is to beat the boss; the point of Frontline is to come in 1st place (win). There is nothing more to read into that statement.

Just so you don't have the wrong view of me, I play Frontline (and Crystalline Conflict and Rival Wings) because I find them fun. Of course winning is fun, but I find most matches I play whether I win or lose are fun. Just like you, having fun is my priority. Having fun and trying to win are not mutually exclusive. They should both be the baseline. We should be trying to win because that is the point of the mode and we should be having fun while doing so. If we aren't having fun then why did we queue? I don't know why people (in general, not saying you are one of them) keep acting like these are polar opposites.

I agree with you completely. I get a similar reaction whenever I suggest the DRK+ meta stack invariably produces not-fun matches. In response, we are told that this is the only "correct" way to play FL, because it maximizes win-rate. Thus, the argument continues, anyone criticizing the DRK+ meta is not trying to win because they're only interested in "fun."

It's obviously complete nonsense.

This also leads us to the current situation where anyone criticizing the current meta gets accused of incompetence. We are told that, if only the 68 people not in the premade were playing properly, everything would be fine.

Thought experiment: These boards indicate a deep dissatisfaction with the current state of FL. Meta-stack advocates claim everything would be peachy if only the 68 other players in a match were not such rubes.

Once the PvP dev(s?) pick themselves up off the floor from their ROFL outbreak from reading this, who are they going to accommodate? The 68 or the 4?

[Novani]

Still can't figure out how BLM nukes so many people without being killed for it constantly.

Any BLM worth their salt in FL is keeping a safe distance or surrounding themselves by other teammates. What works in their favor is that your average FL player is unable to look (or tab) beyond the DRK or DRG in their face to the healers or ranged DPS standing 3 feet behind them with a significantly smaller defense bonus modifier. People often don't realize that a BLM will take a fraction of the effort/damage required to kill than any melee job. I've seen people ignore ranged DPS in situations of a choice between them and a melee/tank just because the latter wasn't quite at full HP...

Speaking as a BLM main for FL, can concur with Cidel's points, this is particularly true I feel on NA as people will cluster up a lot. Some maps, like Onsal, unfortunately force this situation, but it's also where BLM is at its strongest as every single point of BH they receive is more often that not linked to their AoE abilities, including sleep! Yes, that debuff even if it ultimately does nothing can count as an assist. Every assist snowballs their BH rating to turn em into true glass terrors on the field.

Half the problem with playing Black Mage in the post 6.1 environment however is micromanagement. Swiftcast being linked to your gap closer means that even the slightest tickle will often times fool the game into thinking you meant teleport into the enemy pack rather than buff yourself in place (which is what most BLM will prefer to do unless pursuing).

Likewise, Superflare, the cornerstone for most of your DPS output, is utterly useless if someone is on a slightly different Z level to you. You could both be on the same hill, but the slightest height difference might be too much for the code to understand, making you waste your ability for no gain. These weaknesses in mind, it becomes easier to counter BLM players as they are forced to fight more aggressively in a disadvantageous position, or just suffer suboptimal output, the LB generation at least offsets this by being one of the fastest in the game.

Also worth noting, BLM absolutely hates MCH, MNK LBs, and virtually anyone who can chain silence or stun them with an absolute passion, as even the bubble Burst provides is rarely good enough to shrug off anything that follows, let's not even discuss how useless Guard tends to be. So if you pick on one, be sure to finish the job.

[VictorSpoils]

then what are u gonna say about mentor and hunt mounts?

This just reminds me of how much easier Astrope was to get than any of the PVP mounts.

[maximesan514]

I have all wins mount on like 5 character, tbh I wish there was something more... the frontline achievement should be way more or at least something else, they havent added achievement since like 1994

[Mawlzy]

I have all wins mount on like 5 character, tbh I wish there was something more... the frontline achievement should be way more or at least something else, they havent added achievement since like 1994

Maybe they quit adding achievements because of all the people complaining they're too hard to get? But agreed, anyone who actually likes PvP and thus plays it regularly gets these achievements rapidly.

[Eno_R]

One last update for my now 5 year journey for this single mount.

I got it! I am finally free of frontlines.

It was a bit of a hectic experience at the very end there since I was tired of dreading the game mode every 3 days just to get 1 or with luck 3 wins in a single day.
so Yesterday as of typeing this I was down to my last 16.

I got all 16 wins in a single day, it took 16 hours. I had to play 43 games of Onsal Hakair mostly back to back. I took breaks, when the deaths/stun locking/3rd place loss streaks became too much.

Word of advice that I learned from this (other than don't do it, dear god its not worth it)
-Play earlier in the day, not later: I don't know why Starting at 11am and playing throughout the day I had better luck at getting so many wins, I got most of my wins before 8pm (by then 12 wins 4 losses)
But those last 4 points took me 8 hours on their own and were the most grueling cause something seems to happen to the queues in the evening, every game becomes a bad one, every single game I ended up on the side that was either pushing 3rd place or being focused by both teams in spite of logic that they should be competing.
I'm sure its not everyone's experience, there were at least 24 people on those winning teams just DRK spamming or doing some other optimal meta and having a good time.

Either way, I am free \o/ I don't have to Onsal Hakair anymore. 5 Years, 3 Hiatus', 2in game moves, 1 IRL move, 4 FCs, 6 IRL jobs, later and I finally got this particular imp off my back.

To those that saw me on crystal, I hope I was okay, I tried my best, but unless I need wolf marks I won't be back that way, I hope you have fun. o/

[Sheldinn]

Having earned most the frontline achievements myself (I've earned all 3 gc horses, 2 of the 3 orbs and the robo suit) I think the most frustrating part is the fact that FL has 3 teams. While I have a lot of issues in general with that as a pvp format, as far as the achievements are concerned i think there's a decent fix that could makes things feel better without trivializing the achievements.

So first make the required wins for each achievement doubled (be patient I promise I'm not trolling) so instead of the horse needing 100 it takes 200.

Now change what counts as a "victory" so that winning 1st place gives you 2 "wins" as far as achievement progress goes, 2nd gives you 1 "win, and 3rd still gives 0.

This way the fastest potential number of matches to get the achievement is still the same. (2/200 = 1/100)
BUT now there's also a level on consolation for getting 2nd. If you're not getting first it will take at least twice as long but you won't suffer as much on those rough days where you have 10 2nd places games but no 1st place matches.

And since 3rd place still gives 0 it will discourage players from "speed losing" to try and farm achieve progress cause you'll still have to actually play and try to get at least 2nd.

[Titor]

I think we should just get access to a console command that lets you spawn whatever you like into your inventory

[Atreus]

I think we should just get access to a console command that lets you spawn whatever you like into your inventory

So true bestie