Ban premade parties in Frontline please

[Atreus]

You're saying that people need to make lots of mistakes consistently and play exceptionally poorly in order for the game to be so imbalanced. And yet, remove premades from the equation and the problem goes away. Sounds like premades are the main issue.

More like people are so exceptionally, and willfully awful at this game's PvP that they make premaders look like super soldiers. How 'bout we stop rewarding base-level participation? That'll truly solve the problem.

[Exmo]

More like people are so exceptionally, and willfully awful at this game's PvP that they make premaders look like super soldiers. How 'bout we stop rewarding base-level participation? That'll truly solve the problem.

People don't get suddenly and miraculously better at PvP when the map isn't shatter. And yet, games on those maps are rarely as imbalanced as games against premades in Shatter. The problem isn't player skill level, it's the prevalence of toxic premades.

[ChrysOCE]

People don't get suddenly and miraculously better at PvP when the map isn't shatter. And yet, games on those maps are rarely as imbalanced as games against premades in Shatter. The problem isn't player skill level, it's the prevalence of toxic premades.

It doesn't matter what the map is. You can have matches in Shatter, Onsal and SR with no premades and have the same results, players bunching up and getting mass KO'd, ignoring the score and fighting 2nd/3rd place instead of 1st, self-pinching by inserting themselves into the middle of a fight instead of going to the rear of one of the opponents, staying too long on an engagement instead of disengaging to contest the next one. those aren't premade issues.

[Exmo]

It doesn't matter what the map is. You can have matches in Shatter, Onsal and SR with no premades and have the same results, players bunching up and getting mass KO'd, ignoring the score and fighting 2nd/3rd place instead of 1st, self-pinching by inserting themselves into the middle of a fight instead of going to the rear of one of the opponents, staying too long on an engagement instead of disengaging to contest the next one. those aren't premade issues.

Sorry but this is just incorrect. The vast majority of bulldozing happens against premades, mainly on Shatter. Remove premades from the equation and bulldozing happens only rarely.

We're not talking about players not playing optimally, we're talking about huge differences between team performance.

It couldn't possibly be down to skill issue because when random players are on the same team as toxic premades, the random players prop up the bulldozer and benefit from it. It just doesn't make any sense that the same players are who are low skilled when against a premade are suddenly high skilled when with a premade. The skill level of the player hasn't changed. What's changed is whether they are with or against the toxic premade. Therefore, toxic premades are the main factor for team imbalances.

[ChrysOCE]

Sorry but this is just incorrect. The vast majority of bulldozing happens against premades, mainly on Shatter. Remove premades from the equation and bulldozing happens only rarely.

We're not talking about players not playing optimally, we're talking about huge differences between team performance.

It couldn't possibly be down to skill issue because when random players are on the same team as toxic premades, the random players prop up the bulldozer and benefit from it. It just doesn't make any sense that the same players are who are low skilled when against a premade are suddenly high skilled when with a premade. The skill level of the player hasn't changed. What's changed is whether they are with or against the toxic premade. Therefore, toxic premades are the main factor for team imbalances.

What about what I said is incorrect? All of that happens, regardless of the presence of premades or not. I've seen plenty of matches where there is no premade on the other team, the alliance just plays poorly and is steamrolled. No coordination, feeding other teams, no contribution to any actual attempt to pvp. You look at premades rolling over other teams and say premades are the issue. I look at it and see the players who allow themselves to be rolled over. If you want to stay on Shatter, why do so many players bunch up in middle and seemingly have no awareness when a marked DRK is running towards them? I see it. I move away. I don't get caught in the draw in or use the wall to shield. But you get 10-16 dead. They can't or won't see it. And the opponent (premade or not) has BH now. And it doesn't happen once in a match. It happens over and over.

[Exmo]

What about what I said is incorrect? All of that happens, regardless of the presence of premades or not. I've seen plenty of matches where there is no premade on the other team, the alliance just plays poorly and is steamrolled. No coordination, feeding other teams, no contribution to any actual attempt to pvp. You look at premades rolling over other teams and say premades are the issue. I look at it and see the players who allow themselves to be rolled over. If you want to stay on Shatter, why do so many players bunch up in middle and seemingly have no awareness when a marked DRK is running towards them? I see it. I move away. I don't get caught in the draw in or use the wall to shield. But you get 10-16 dead. They can't or won't see it. And the opponent (premade or not) has BH now. And it doesn't happen once in a match. It happens over and over.

You only really see that happen when there's a premade on the field, seldom otherwise.

[Mawlzy]

You only really see that happen when there's a premade on the field, seldom otherwise.

Shatter is so different to the other maps, it almost feels like it should be left out of the discussion. I agree that mass slaughter around mid (and elsewhere) typically indicates an effective premade/shotcaller is on an enemy team. Equally, in the absence of an effective premade, the result of the match is frequently decided by the initial spawn pattern. It's a rubbish concept in which a premade can swing the result, largely because of the ineptitude of many of the players.

My two arguments against the presence of premades have been:

1. The presence of four coordinated people on one team should not have the ability to swing a win-rate from 33% to 70%+.
2. Playing with or against a premade creates dull matches, that develop the same characteristics as the awful DDR PvE in the game, and I'm playing PvP precisely to avoid such monothematic combat.

Banning premades is a solution to both problems, but discussions here have convinced me it need not be the best solution.

Unfortunately, alternative solutions (mostly involving crude matchmaking and fundamental changes in job design) are probably too much work for SQEX to implement.

And then we have the promised role actions coming in 7.2.

I'd like to be optimistic, but I'm pretty sure these will make the current situation even worse. Any increase in skill expression while maintaining a burst-heavy meta is likely to increase the efficacy of premades.

[Mawlzy]

More like people are so exceptionally, and willfully awful at this game's PvP that they make premaders look like super soldiers. How 'bout we stop rewarding base-level participation? That'll truly solve the problem.

Yeah I think attributing this purely to a skill issue runs the risk of excusing/misdiagnosing lethargic play.

In a low-skill mode, it's hard for skill to make much of a difference. What does make a difference is people not engaging at all.

Somewhat surprisingly, I've found the worst of the lethargic offenders frequently queue in with friends (clear by their discussions in party chat). This is irritating since it makes them basically immune to vote-kicking. Maybe that's the idea?

[ChrysOCE]

Yeah I think attributing this purely to a skill issue runs the risk of excusing/misdiagnosing lethargic play.

In a low-skill mode, it's hard for skill to make much of a difference. What does make a difference is people not engaging at all.

Somewhat surprisingly, I've found the worst of the lethargic offenders frequently queue in with friends (clear by their discussions in party chat). This is irritating since it makes them basically immune to vote-kicking. Maybe that's the idea?

I dont know about that, you can definitely see the skill difference between a veteran pvp player and someone who is new to FL. but you at least hope there is a willingness to learn and improve.
But yea, the lethargic or (imo worse) deliberately detrimental players are worse and there is no excuse for Square to not deal with them. people who consistantly get 0-0-0 or 0-10+-0

[Mawlzy]

I dont know about that, you can definitely see the skill difference between a veteran pvp player and someone who is new to FL. but you at least hope there is a willingness to learn and improve.
But yea, the lethargic or (imo worse) deliberately detrimental players are worse and there is no excuse for Square to not deal with them. people who consistantly get 0-0-0 or 0-10+-0

Yeah that's fair. Experience for those paying attention means they position better and anticipate enemy attacks. It's quite a beautiful thing when you get a team with map sense, and the team moves with common purpose.

I would argue that there is no actual skill issue in FL, because there's only so much skill you can show with such a limited amount of buttons. What people lack in FL are all the related knowledge to function properly in large-scale PvP, such as spatial awareness, map awareness, positioning, the ebb and flow of combat, etc.

Right this is exactly what I was getting at.