Feedback on Frontline balance – tanks are too oppressive

[Zeovalguar]

After losing several Frontline matches in a row, I'm perhaps letting the frustration speak through me but it is what it is.

It's always the same story. One or two GNB backed up by other tanks can dominate everything. Match starts and not two minutes in and they already have battle high 5 ( the Bh system could also be removed by the way). I try to contribute to the team as much as I can but it's not possible. If I go as MCH, my kit is nearly useless and my lb is wasted most of the time, since melee DPS have innate damage reduction. If I go as WAR, I try to use Blota to pull the dangerous individuals close so the alliance can kill them but they still get away. if I go as healer, I'm squishy and die in few hits. If I go as melee DPS, I can't even scratch them but they do kill me in few hits. And what else do I see?

A GNB with a dozen people attacking and still manages to get away. Worse, the PLD he was with activated their invulnerability and casted Protect on them so the GNB counters. And is not alone, has an Astro healing too. And a DRK. And 2 or 3 DNC using their lb in a row so nobody can defend themselves. And if it's not a GNB is a NIN also running away alive. Or a MNK. Or a VPR with their whooping 60% damage reduction. Or a WAR.

This mode is designed to be as infuriating and frustrating as possible. Rewards good yeah but not worth the suffering.

[Valence]

MCH is great to snipe ranged BH5 players but unfortunately they're rarely part of the premade meta, but good solo players leeching off the kills. Sniping melees require more subtlety and often need to wait for their HP to drop low enough even with BH5. Tanks are usually a little hard to do on your own since they have plenty of defensives and if some use rampart it's a no go. But if you can drop them low enough and threaten them when they're engaged, maybe your team can kill them. But the real issue isn't so much this, it's the ebb and flow of FL: I have tried multiple times for example to use a DNC LB to instantly counter a premade coming at us, but the real issue is that people are skittish and immediately flee when a horde of tanks comes at them and don't engage, so you end up doing something that will essentially account for nothing and just get you killed. Generally you need to wait for moments where they're flanked, or not about to engage your team, in order to kill them.

Else you'll need to play perfectly some of the hard counters like MNK or RPR that can lock out some of the premade members of the fight long enough during that critical moment in their engage to send their effort in the ditch. It won't magically win you the engagement, but it can throw a serious wrench in their playstyle.

[Ankhira]

Another series - Still getting rolled by premades rolling 3 or more tanks. Specifically DRK and GNB premades. Fun times.

Literally how is it okay for these two tanks specifically to dive in 1v20 and STILL live? How can they kill 3 people while barely taking damage. It's just not fun, all reward for no risk.

They just let the DRK pull spam their CC on top of everyone get BH5 at the start and then roll the rest of the game.

You nerfed other jobs because they were too good with too little risk but for these two its somehow okay?

[ChrysOCE]

It is possible because a lot of players just dont know how to pvp. You have a whole bunch of CC that should make 1v20 impossible. yet too many people dont know what their abilities do and/or flee at the first sign of any possible combat. if a tank is diving on you: silence, bind, knockback, miracle of nature.

[tsuchii]

Frontline has been hot garbage for years now and will continue to be so. I'm just so pissed to find they added a new dumb 100 wins mount. I got all the mounts from this mode ages ago and thought I don't have to touch foot on this cesspool ever again.

[Valence]

Another series - Still getting rolled by premades rolling 3 or more tanks. Specifically DRK and GNB premades. Fun times.

Literally how is it okay for these two tanks specifically to dive in 1v20 and STILL live? How can they kill 3 people while barely taking damage. It's just not fun, all reward for no risk.

They just let the DRK pull spam their CC on top of everyone get BH5 at the start and then roll the rest of the game.

You nerfed other jobs because they were too good with too little risk but for these two its somehow okay?

Tanks are a problem but so are melees in the hands of competent players if you stack enough of them due to them literally having twice the innate damage reduction than other classes. It was less of a dramatic issue before they added crazy role actions like Rampart (you can solo a whole enemy alliance as long as it's up) or Rampage (synergy to melt down enemies pulled by DRK even better). You can add Diabrosis to the mix to make damn sure nobody recuperates if they survive.

The discrepancy between melees and ranged has always been a problem in FL since most casual players just die on melee because they don't know how to capitalize on their strength, while melees will shine under the hands of good players especially within organized groups.

Like at some point it is expected to have already a big imbalance when you put together skilled pvp players together in a team and make them face very casual players, but adding those role balance issues and obnoxious role actions on top of it is a surefire way to disaster imo.

I don't think melee DPS are currently a huge issue considering how their own role actions aren't game breaking like tanks, and tanks also tend to have the bigger AoE/crowd control abilities that mesh very well with FL playstyles. The only current melee i'd classify as a pseudo tank is VPR, and you can bet if it had access to Rampart/Rampage it would become out of control as well.

[Esmoire]

SAM is absolutely busted but so little of the playerbase knows how to realize its potential it kind of works out and the people who play it well are like mythical creatures.

[Bonoki]

Battle High should be removed. It exists largely because Square Enix believes matches would drag on without it, treating it as a mercy mechanic to end games faster and keep queues moving. It also feels good to have kill streak rewards.

[Valence]

Battle High also exists to actually encourage pvp over objective capture. The main problem is that it's a system that doesn't seem to be clear enough for the casual playerbase to understand that this pushes FL into capitalizing on kills while minimizing losses in order to achieve supremacy in territory control. Once your team is full of BH5 you'll roll over any opposition and have free reign to achieve anything. This is also where the three sided facet of the game enters into action as a way for losing teams to try and turn the tables by ganging against a runaway team.

[Kaurhz]

Honestly it's all just a wider problem of scaling and balance isn't really done around Frontline.. Which is fine for it not to be the primary thing to scale around... But they are doing some fundamentally ridiculous things, which they could quite as easily address without impeding on what they do balance around, or "bUt mUh cR0wD C0NTr0l"