Frontlines: There should not be ANY rewards for 2nd or 3rd place

[TofuLove]

I think in this thread we discussed a lot of potential solutions to the problem, and various effects/counter effects on how to improve the game quality. I actually think we arrived at a number of good ideas, that shouldn't affect queue times and could elevate the quality of matches. There has been a lot of thought in a lot of people's messages, and it actually made me think about game aspects I haven't thought about before, which is illuminating. I didn't think there would be 17 pages of people responding (some agreeing, some disagreeing (that's fine)), and on occasions I re-read it from the start.

Forum is not an easy format to use to sort of maintain a mental map of the thinking around this topic as there a lot of ideas and some of them need to be weighed against each other and balanced in order to arrive at a "perfect solution". Does perfect solution exist? Maybe not, but I think if SE wanted to solve this "problem" they could try some suggestions in this thread, and weigh them up internally to see what could work.

[Divinemights]

Since the general consensus especially among lower skilled and more casual players seems to be that individual performance doesn't matter and you'll get an even 33/33/33 ratio (I've read it on those very forums too), even if thinking this is completely unhinged or uninformed, I do wonder if it would just make your "leechers" not bother and continue afk-ing in FL all the same by justifying their decision with this kind of rationale.
Furthermore, they could also be very aware of their lack of skills and could very much think that whether or not they do actually participate changes nothing in the final result, and that they'll be happy to let the competent players carry them.

You can call me jaded I guess but I don't think your solutions are actual solutions. Just live with them, and report if they bother you. The real solution is GMs that actually do their jobs.

When there is a condition applied to Series reward, I can ensure you people's tolerance on AFKs will drastically lower.
Afker/leecher will quickly get votekick because everyone want to win.

[Misutoraru]

At the point of proposing a requirement of victories for series rewards, I personally wouldn't really go beyond 50, if it is tied exclusively to, say, "Emerge Victorious in x number of matches in PvP" to obtain a certain series rank, but then all you really accomplish is making pre-made more normalized, which in and of itself is not a problem, but this will in turn only exacerbate issues on losing teams..

People in Frontline get so upset, so easily, when all games are practically inconsequential as is... You still get tomes, you still get EXP, you still get Series rewards, you still get Wolf marks... When you strip all these away, simply because the other team was better, then it's a lot more consequential, which will just make the game-mode a lot more toxic.. When it's a 24v24v24 mode, the amount of weight any single individual has is minimal in the grand scheme of things, especially if the alliance collectively just isn't coordinating, or playing well at all.

Edit: and to be honest, most people that don't care / do nothing, will continue to do so, and a lot of those players probably don't care about the series reward mount in the first place, versus easy source of exp/tomes.

Speaking for Chaos, we have very little number of AFK and idling players.

Most of the time AFK/idling contribute little to nothing to out come of the FL.

Most of the time we win because we have good players who lead and other players to follow. And we lose because other team play more cooperative than us.

Setting a minimum thrust hold for getting rewards are setting rule for non-existing issue and punishing people for bad luck, at least for EU.

In my current session I have about 27% win. That’s just purely luck my team just don’t play well enough against other 2 in more than 2/3 of the time. Even if my team have top contribution among the alliance, there are only so much we could do.

I do enjoy FL, like I love WvW in GW2, but if my ability to take the rewards depends on luck. Then I can certainly tell many of us who causally join FL would just drop the gamemode. I am quite sure we are already receiving less session exp and wolf mark being last team.

Addressing AFK issue needed to be focusing on the AFK player alone, collective punishment never end well

[Valence]

My ratio is currently at 38% with over 1600 games, and peaked at some point last expansion at 41%. I play exclusively solo (or partied with a friend doing their daily which is like playing solo).
Anyway, my point was actually that I do think removing rewards for 3rd and 2nd place is only going to compound the problem and prove to be a total disaster.

[Burmecia]

I vote for chocobo racing bonus like thing into PVP!!
Every alliance gets the flat same exp reward or no reward at all. Then RNG pics one for the fat bonus exp!

[Mawlzy]

My ratio is currently at 38% with over 1600 games, and peaked at some point last expansion at 41%. I play exclusively solo (or partied with a friend doing their daily which is like playing solo).
Anyway, my point was actually that I do think removing rewards for 3rd and 2nd place is only going to compound the problem and prove to be a total disaster.

Agreed, although for slightly different reasons to some of the previous comments. I just don't think team rewards influence how people play, nor people's willingness to report and/or vote kick. Making it winner-take-all is more likely IMO to see increasingly lopsided, premade-dominated matches, and the freeloaders will simply hope they hit the lucky 1 in 3 at team assignment.

You see this in the mogtome event. If you're prepared to spend 15+ minutes to get either 3 or 5 tomes, then it presumably matters to you to try and get the 5. And yet matches during the event see even more lethargy.

[Mawlzy]

Yeah I wasn't considering the possibility of throwing, motivated by the min-maxer rational that getting 3 tomes in ten minutes is preferable to getting 5 in 18.

[TofuLove]

Making it winner-take-all is more likely IMO to see increasingly lopsided, premade-dominated matches, and the freeloaders will simply hope they hit the lucky 1 in 3 at team assignment.

I think we can all agree that participation rewards should only be given to those participating. If people are afk at spawn for majority of the game - they should not get a free pass.

Prior to starting this thread my thinking on the subject escalated because I also see players who are not AFK, but those who are actively throwing, hence the premise of this thread.
What do they do? Suicide into enemy team, push wrong team on purpose to lose faster. Should they be rewarded?

I think overall in this thread we agreed that it would be damaging to remove the rewards to 2nd or 3rd completely, and hence i agree that it would be too hardcore/toxic/cruel/unfun to remove the rewards completely. What have we discussed as alternatives?

We discussed offering additional rewards for 1st place, readjusting rewards to make 2nd and 3rd less worth it (analogy of lowering mogtomes from 3 to 2 if you lose, or increasing 1st place to 6). Can't remember if there were other suggestions.

I think it's a balance that SE needs to strike, having enough people to take Frontline more seriously, and still appeal to the casual roulette queuer. At the moment the mode is super casual. Which can lead to completely garbage games. How much you adjust that scale towards hardcore and still keep it fun is tricky, but would be rewarding to the state of pvp in a long run.

I just don't think team rewards influence how people play, nor people's willingness to report and/or vote kick.

I completely disagree. This is why there are meta premades - because there are team rewards for winning (achievements). A premade is just a roulette player who wants to win enough to get a team together.

[Mawlzy]

I completely disagree. This is why there are premades - because there are team rewards for winning. A premade is just a roulette player who wants to win enough to get a team together.

You think? Okay, we have a very different take on that then.

I've broken down the different types of premades before. Currently, I'd suggest premades with the primary objective of winning are in a minority. It's why young Ms. Lugria stands out in a mottled field of padders and mediocrity.

The primary reward is the roulette XP. People aren't forming premades to get the small boost from winning. They play once a day riding the 33%.

The rest of the rewards are crap.

[TofuLove]

You think? Okay, we have a very different take on that then.

I've broken down the different types of premades before. Currently, I'd suggest premades with the primary objective of winning are in a minority. It's why young Ms. Lugria stands out in a mottled field of padders and mediocrity.

The primary reward is the roulette XP. People aren't forming premades to get the small boost from winning. They play once a day riding the 33%.

The rest of the rewards are crap.

There might be some regional differences. There are padder premades on EU (more on Chaos than Light interestingly), but not nearly as many as there are in NA from my experience.

I rarely play to pad and most padders are just bored because they already have achievements, and once you have those there is no reason to try to win.