Is it just me: Frontline

[Elephantality]

It bites when i start a match and right away my teammates are saying "i have no idea what is going on"

Yet that was my immediate reaction as a new player to Frontlines, so I'm not ever really that upset over those comments. I just tell them to just try to stay with the pack and keep their map open, and hope for the best.

[Vatom]

I'd argue

Casual doesn’t mean lazy. You can still queue Frontline, play the objectives, and contribute without treating it like high-end competitive content. My point is the mode was designed to be approachable and chaotic, not structured like ranked CC — so expecting raid-level seriousness from everyone isn’t realistic.

Moving on this analogy isn't going anywhere.


At this point I don’t think this is a serious discussion. You’ve sidestepped the points to nitpick context, so I’ll leave it here.

[Vatom]

I understand the frustration jesse- but as much as it cause by other people it's also self inflicted. We can't force people not expect them to play like you. That's all I'm saying. If people wanna be mad at truth go ahead(not you specifically)

[Scintilla]

...

Technically, you can 'contribute' to ranked CC as long as you hit someone. You're dealing damage, assisting the team in defeating the opponent. Does it mean you are ultimately playing at benefit to the team? No - other factors matter. Who you focus, your approach to play, your own deaths etc.

Are they attempting to coordinate their attacks with their team, or are they just throwing damage wildly and randomly, allowing enemies to escape and heal rather than finish the job? Are they instantly running to 1v5 an enemy team following a wipe, without falling back to regroup, dying again just seconds later? Are they attempting to heal and use elixirs or are they just using death as a reset, forgetting the slowly increasing respawn timer?


It's the same for Frontline. You can't apply this rule to one and not the other.

Sure, someone can spend their whole time playing objectives, which gains points. Does it mean they are ultimately playing at benefit to the team? No - other factors matter.

Are they attempting to coordinate their attacks with their alliance or are they just throwing damage wildly and randomly, allowing enemies to escape and heal rather than finish the job? Are they blindly running into an enemy alliance, totally solo and outnumbered, just to interact with a node in the false hope that this enemy alliance will ignore them and let them take it, dying just seconds later? Are they attempting to heal and use elixirs or are they just using death as a reset, forgetting the loss of team points and BH with each death?


Example:

Shatter

All of their focus on ice, they are unlikely to be contributing much to PvP. When an enemy team comes to take those objectives they contribute little/nothing towards defence. The objective is more likely to be lost, those players who did attempt to defend are more likely to die due to being undersupported, and those casuals who focused the objectives also die because they now have no team to protect them. Not only does the more aggressive PvP team gain huge point boosts from their kills, but they also farm considerable BH, giving them a strong advantage next time. Casuals dealt good damage to the ice, but lost all of the point gain, and their BH, in deaths.


Seal Rock

You're second place. The Flames are in first and aren't far from winning. Maelstrom, third place, is far behind you both on points, though more due to the unfortunate luck of being the North spawn than any kind of poor play. An S rank spawns between you and Maelstrom. Seconds later an A rank spawns between you and Flames. You would not believe the number of objective-focused casuals who will go for the S-rank 'because that's worth more'. You're still fighting Maelstrom for the S-rank while Flames take the A-rank with ease, they then travel up the map to flank you while the casuals are blindly focused on Maelstrom for the S. You wipe, Flames wins.

Would you say either of these contributed?

[Vatom]

You’re applying ranked CC logic to a mode that was never built to function that way. Frontline is intentionally designed with respawns, multiple objectives, and alliance-scale chaos — it’s not a 5v5 elimination match where every single decision makes or breaks the game.

Objectives do contribute directly, otherwise they wouldn’t award points or Battle High. Yes, a bad push can backfire — but that’s true of any PvP mode. The difference is that in FL, those swings are part of the design. That’s why the mode has unique PvP actions and less punishing mechanics compared to CC: to keep it from being “serious competitive.”

Highlighting worst-case examples (like people tunneling ice or misjudging node spawns) doesn’t erase the fact that casual play and objective play are valid, intended contributions. FL has always been a casual-friendly entry point into PvP, and its systems reflect that. Treating it like CC just ignores the purpose of the mode entirely.

[Scintilla]

You’re applying ranked CC logic to a mode that was never built to function that way

This isn't just "ranked CC logic'" this is standard PvP logic. The very fact that you seem to consider Ranked CC to be the only 'true' PvP while referring to anything else as being just "chaos", suggests a very narrow view.

FL is large-scale PvP. The same basic rules which apply to CC also apply to FL: coordinate to focus down opponents, be aware of your job strengths and utilise them to support your team, keep together where possible, deaths are costly - a few seconds away to use an elixir beats a respawn countdown.

FL has an RNG element to it's objectives, but to write it off as nothing more than 'chaos' suggests a very limited knowledge of FL. To a good team, those RNG objectives are secondary. Aggressive, tactical, and coordinated team play farms early BH and kills, which allows the easy capture of objectives to naturally follow.
Heavy objective-focus isn't necessary and the greater the proportion of casual players who take on the 'focus ice, let them fight' approach, the lower the chances of winning.

Consider it similar to a CC tank, throwing themselves in and spamming AoEs randomly until they die, respawn, repeat. Is it contributing? They're dealing damage and taking damage which their team would've otherwise taken. So by your FL logic, yes, they're directly contributing. Except their total lack of focus and self heal means they're spending more time dead than assisting. So their minimal contributions are completely outweighed by the negative effects their constant deaths/absence are having on their team. These FL examples are no different.
And these are not 'worst case examples'. They are highly common scenarios, occurring at some point in a large proportion of games, especially around reset times where the greatest proportion of players are casuals just playing for roulette experience.

[Vatom]

You’re making the mistake of treating all PvP modes as if they share the same weight. Yes, some fundamentals overlap — coordination and awareness are useful everywhere — but the design intent of FL is not the same as CC.
That’s not ignorance — it’s acknowledging what the developers designed it to be. If SE wanted FL to function like CC, it wouldn’t have roulette incentives, respawns, and RNG objectives. It exists as an accessible, large-scale PvP mode.

Calling common, intended playstyles “wrong” just because they don’t match your preferred meta is where we disagree. FL doesn’t require the same structure or seriousness as CC, and pretending otherwise ignores why so many players queue for it in the first place.

Also please do not refer to my knowledge. Just like told someone else, you don't know how I play and I don't know how you play. Let keep this within the realm of the original post.

[A-Omega]

Technically, you can 'contribute' to ranked CC as long as you hit someone. You're dealing damage, assisting the team in defeating the opponent. Does it mean you are ultimately playing at benefit to the team? No - other factors matters

The opening statement here is complete rubbish. You can win at ranked CC by just “hitting people” is the most ridiculous take I’ve ever heard. There’s no participation bonus in CC (battle high off assists or on kills for that matter). You have no idea what you’re talking anbout. After that statement, you need to take a screenshot of your rank and victories. Nothing you say can be slightly considered creditable until then. If a single person dcs in a match, you’re all but guaranteed a loss. I’ve had team mates completely not play in frontline and still won along with most having no idea what they’re doing.

Your other post claims frontline game play is comparable to CC…that’s complete nonsense as well. The number of combatants and objectives completely ruins that stance. Your example of tank play is horribly flawed as well. Just diving in, in CC is a death sentence and since CC is all about the numerical advantage…you just cost your team the match. Misinformation is beyond toxic. Misinformation for the sake of validating your point is even worse.

No matter how you feel about frontline, the facts are stacked against you. It’s a daily, dailies are casual content. Casual content is a bridge into mid-core content. Trying to force your skewed viewpoint on other people with misinformation is toxic. Questioning other people’s intelligence or skill based on your obvious misunderstandings is the real problem here.

Lastly…no one is saying frontline is bad or pointless or discrediting it in any way. The topic was meant to get people thinking about what purpose and place frontline has in PvP. You don’t need to defend yourself here Vatom. This person is taking this post as a personal attack because they are the person that makes a casual mode meant for fun, miserable to play. We’ve all experienced their kind. Constantly spamming the chat insulting people because they are there to have fun…like the game mode was intended. If you intend to play frontline like ranked CC…feel free. It’s extremely bad for your mental health, but hey…I don’t pay your sub. The rest of us looking for that kind of experience are going to play CC or ranked, like SE intended. Save the insults, misinformation, and skill questioning for yourself.

[A-Omega]

If people are determined to make frontline mid-core/high end, maybe they should be asking Yoshi P for similar version to be added to CC. Chaos mode…8 vs 8 would be a reasonable request.

[pathetica]

I play Frontlines semi-seriously, like going on AST to heal the entire alliance or the melees/DNCs putting in work in the frontlines that need a way out. Stuff like that makes it fun for me, we may not always win but I like to think I helped which is enough! On the other hand, when I first started Frontlines it was solely for EXP and for some reason my stupid noob brain always wanted to get away from the crowd and try to sneak on nodes and such stuff. Then I learned to stay with the group as it is the best chance of survival and wins EVEN if you all die together.

Then I learned to not get frustrated when people don't follow Commanders because I used to have a stupid noob brain, and when I apply that stupid noob brain to other players... I kind of understand their perspective. You can't completely control the stupid noob brain, they are just chilling and see Frontlines as a strange but maybe less boring way to get EXP.

The 'chaos' they experience is because they are used to solo/PVE content, the buttons are strange and somehow they get one shot by a sea of Red, Blue or Yellow. This is totally normal at first.

What people need to understand is that many players just go down the list of dailies and Frontlines is one of them, yes they have stupid noob brain in the match [many Frontliners started off like that] but I promise you they are just confused :<