Ban premades from frontline, fix all issues

[OliviaLugria]

Emphasis/bolding mine:



I've been in Frontline matches with an obvious pre-made, and instead of making an effort to teach everyone else "some basic competency," all that pre-made did was fill up the chat log with useless macro spam faster than anyone could actually type while still playing the game, and thus taught nothing to anyone who wasn't already in their pre-made or Discord or whatever.

This stands in stark contrast to being the random PF fill or two for some FC or static prog'ing a fight, where someone in the FC/static has the courtesy to summarize what's being said in the Discord that you haven't been invited to.

What? Do they need to spell out and justify every decision that they make? Are people unable to gather information and analyze why a commander made a decision after if not during a game? Is there no learning while experiencing the process?

I mean, I guess that many don’t bother trying to make sense of what’s going on, but there is nothing a pre-made or any teacher for that matter could do about that.

For those that do want to learn. They’ll find a plethora of public discords, guides, and streamers who want to help.

Just a closing thought, aren’t macros and waymarkers in chat “summarizing what’s being said in discord?”

[Mawlzy]

What? Do they need to spell out and justify every decision that they make? Are people unable to gather information and analyze why a commander made a decision after if not during a game? Is there no learning while experiencing the process?

I mean, I guess that many don’t bother trying to make sense of what’s going on, but there is nothing a pre-made or any teacher for that matter could do about that.

For those that do want to learn. They’ll find a plethora of public discords, guides, and streamers who want to help.

Just a closing thought, aren’t macros and waymarkers in chat “summarizing what’s being said in discord?”

I wonder if video guides on YT would help. It's the default for PvE, maybe it'd produce some crossover.

[TofuLove]

Just a closing thought, aren’t macros and waymarkers in chat “summarizing what’s being said in discord?”

Thanks Olivia, couldn't have summarised it better.
I think macros are relatively self explanatory, and are the only communication needed (and sometimes if the players are good enough - not needed at all). Any decision making and explanations are difficult to sum up during the game because of how on the fly some decisions are, and how quickly you must react to things. Also, the match isn't the time for debate on what to do, you can message the shot caller after if you want to debate - but during the game it's only going to have a negative effect.

Anecdotally from my experience to "teach": it took me over half a year spamming every shatter game for people NOT to jump down the enemy cliff, without a huge effect. Roulette players in EU still do it sometimes, and it's been some time since shatter got reworked. Those that want to learn - will find all the resources. There are plenty of videos, written guides etc available on discords and youtube. Feel free to come to Revival discord and ask things in the Frontline section - there are a lot of knowledgeable people who will help if you have questions on mechanics of any job, or detailed mechanics of any map.

Those that do want to learn are already a minority - and probably fall in the top 10% of good players on any server. Hell, if you are here - you probably care more about frontline than 99% of the server population. The problem is that there is no incentive to get better at the mode - why try, when rewards are good no matter your performance?

[Mawlzy]

Thanks Olivia, couldn't have summarised it better.
I think macros are relatively self explanatory, and are the only communication needed (and sometimes if the players are good enough - not needed at all). Any decision making and explanations are difficult to sum up during the game because of how on the fly some decisions are, and how quickly you must react to things. Also, the match isn't the time for debate on what to do, you can message the shot caller after if you want to debate - but during the game it's only going to have a negative effect.

Anecdotally from my experience to "teach": it took me over half a year spamming every shatter game for people NOT to jump down the enemy cliff, without a huge effect. Roulette players in EU still do it sometimes, and it's been some time since shatter got reworked. Those that want to learn - will find all the resources. There are plenty of videos, written guides etc available on discords and youtube. Feel free to come to Revival discord and ask things in the Frontline section - there are a lot of knowledgeable people who will help if you have questions on mechanics of any job, or detailed mechanics of any map.

Those that do want to learn are already a minority - and probably fall in the top 10% of good players on any server. Hell, if you are here - you probably care more about frontline than 99% of the server population. The problem is that there is no incentive to get better at the mode - why try, when rewards are good no matter your performance?

Have you cleaned up that channel yet? Last time I was there it was used for general chat, memes, glam shots, and being rude to players not in the clique.

[TofuLove]

Have you cleaned up that channel yet? Last time I was there it was used for general chat, memes, glam shots, and being rude to players not in the clique.

I am not a mod/staff, but it still has a good dose of memes and general chat - it's a bit of a community, but if there is a genuine question - people usually help.

[Mawlzy]

I am not a mod/staff, but it still has a good dose of memes and general chat - it's a bit of a community, but if there is a genuine question - people usually help.

Having modded a smaller Discord (~6k members) I found the best way to keep people on topic was to have a general-chat channel and delete the fluff from the actual content channels.

The issue is that the extant "community" tends to appear closed to new server members when key channels are used for in-jokes and off-topic conversations.

[WutWut]

Have you cleaned up that channel yet? Last time I was there it was used for general chat, memes, glam shots, and being rude to players not in the clique.

It seems fine when I go in there, no being rude to players. The general chat and memes still exist, but I wouldn't say it floods the channel. There's plenty of talk about maps, scoreboards, strategy with different jobs, and assisting players when they have questions that goes on as well. I could not say if the signal-to-noise ratio meets your standards, that probably varies from person to person; it's not a hyper-focused channel strictly cultivated to be about its topic, like you might see with the AskHistorians subreddit, and probably never will be.

[Mawlzy]

It seems fine when I go in there, no being rude to players. The general chat and memes still exist, but I wouldn't say it floods the channel. There's plenty of talk about maps, scoreboards, strategy with different jobs, and assisting players when they have questions that goes on as well. I could not say if the signal-to-noise ratio meets your standards, that probably varies from person to person; it's not a hyper-focused channel strictly cultivated to be about its topic, like you might see with the AskHistorians subreddit, and probably never will be.

It's possible the signal may have picked up a bit with all the recent changes. I haven't been there for several months, when to me it was borderline useless, hence I left.

[Mawlzy]

Just had a really strange match on Onsal that illustrates many of the current problems with FL.

The match went to time. My team (that included Brian R.) won on around 1320 points.

One of the enemy teams featured a 4-BRD padder premade I'd seen before who decided to play mid for the entire match, racking up gaudy numbers (14/0/95 being the highest).

Had they given any attention to satellite nodes they would have crushed us since we were basically freestyling, and had several non-participants, including one who managed a whopping 3.2k damage (yes, I mean 3200) and a 0/10/0 K/D/A.