Frontline - Lets Address The Elephant In The Room

[IvoryBadge]

there's just too many Antiheals for Frontline in a mostly ranged meta

its getting tiring as a Tank/Melee getting knocked around by 10 bards at the start or during your burst, and if you commit to it you get so much CC and Antiheal you're dead instantly, IF you managed to live there are Ninjas around (ranged in disguise as Melee).

and the game is punishing Melee by its design choices too
-Plunge's Sole Survivor got nerfed for a class that deals damage with its HP
-Earth's Reply takes 3 business days to execute
-Bloodwhetting heals get outpaced by damage taken because for whatever reason the heals are ticks
-Horrid Roar's snapshot is just too weird especially if you have more than 110ms, let alone DRG burst requires you taking more damage
-Zanshin suffers range, aside from snapshot

why are we getting punished for engaging, diving into the enemy, actually fighting as Frontliners? even most melee nowadays run with the ranged group using whatever ranged attack they got and just hope for low HP targets to gab close to.

[Avarence]

Square says ok, does nothing and continues to collect your money.

Everyone knows Square's balance changes for both PvE and PvP are months too slow.

[MayuAmakura]

I'm not sure I can agree though. There's always a higher winning chance for the team that has tanks than a team that has pure dps. Tanks alone are what makes frontlines a worse experience. The rampant ability is insanely broken. On some maps, certain classes such as GNB can amass dps to 3 million and be top of everyone's team. It's just that bad. No amount of anti heals and CC can stop this.

A single GNB can activate heart, nebula, rampant, LB and it will have around 90%+ damage reduction which means even if entire enemy team focuses you, you won't die at all for the next 10-15 seconds + do massive damage due to nebula and LB / stun. So how is that fair I ask you? You enter in entire enemy team and just yolo and woops they are all dead! Congratulations, you won the game. I had plenty of games where I had to pick GNB so I could finally win frontlines you know because this class is just tad good.

Whenever there is a team of 2-5 GNB + premades ,you know you will not win that one. There's absolutely zero chance for it. Frontlines are a mess and I agree with that, but saying that there's too much antiheal is a straight up lie. Healers alone keep tanks alive by a large margin which creates yet even more damage.

I'd say that antiheal actually got nerfed pretty hard by removing Scholar ability to reduce healing and many others.

[YumieYumiki]

there's just too many Antiheals for Frontline in a mostly ranged meta

its getting tiring as a Tank/Melee getting knocked around by 10 bards at the start or during your burst, and if you commit to it you get so much CC and Antiheal you're dead instantly, IF you managed to live there are Ninjas around (ranged in disguise as Melee).

and the game is punishing Melee by its design choices too
-Plunge's Sole Survivor got nerfed for a class that deals damage with its HP
-Earth's Reply takes 3 business days to execute
-Bloodwhetting heals get outpaced by damage taken because for whatever reason the heals are ticks
-Horrid Roar's snapshot is just too weird especially if you have more than 110ms, let alone DRG burst requires you taking more damage
-Zanshin suffers range, aside from snapshot

why are we getting punished for engaging, diving into the enemy, actually fighting as Frontliners? even most melee nowadays run with the ranged group using whatever ranged attack they got and just hope for low HP targets to gab close to.

The problem is too many AoEs, and too many AoE CC (there should be zero AoE CC to be honest, WoW made the same mistake). This encourages a brainless and spammy playstyle, furthered by the lack of options to disengage which mean you can only survive by zerging. There's a difference between fostering teamplay and being overtly hostile to players ever having independent thoughts and initiative.

On top of that you have this ridiculous slippery slope battle high feature that all but prevent comebacks when one team starts getting behind, turning the game into a team full of battle high V players roflstomping the rest (which is uninteresting no matter which side of the roflstomping you're on).

Sorry, got sidetracked. Where we pretending that frontlines can be fixed?

[Lacksz]

we should first address the dinosaur in the room: premades/achievement hunters spamming dnc+pld+drk+X, turning FL into a brainless copy-paste game

but i guess the 6 mchs and brds in the lobby are what make FL so tiring according to pvpforum

[CNitsah]

You can fix all the thing you want, the real problem is the player base. So many people can't read frontline, don't know when to disengage, and refuse to admit both kills AND nodes are important. So many people claim only kills matter, when keeping up while getting no nodes is only doable if you have a very good team, which doesn't happen often. An average team is not able too do that. Disengaging fight when a node is taken and prepare for the next one is often the right thing to do in early and mid game. So many people push until they reach narnia, and then got no nodes for several spawn round, and then complain on people that we're not fighting enough.

On the other side of the board, you have team that go all to take node that is not in any danger of being taken by another team, because the other 2 team are fighting each other, and a small team of 4/5 was enough to secure the node, and the other should go to fight. The average player is really bad at reading what's happening and doing situational decision.

You can fix all the thing you want, Frontline will always be a mess because of that. Frontline are lost because of players more often than because of the advantages of some classes. I'd argue that's a different story when it comes to CC, where a team with many crowd controls can destroy another team in a way that feels very undeserved.

[MayuAmakura]

You can fix all the thing you want, the real problem is the player base. So many people can't read frontline, don't know when to disengage, and refuse to admit both kills AND nodes are important. So many people claim only kills matter, when keeping up while getting no nodes is only doable if you have a very good team, which doesn't happen often. An average team is not able too do that. Disengaging fight when a node is taken and prepare for the next one is often the right thing to do in early and mid game. So many people push until narnia, and then got no nodes for several spawn round, and then complain on people that we're not fighting enough.

On the other side of the board, you have team that go all to take node that is not in any danger of being taken by another team, because the other 2 team are fighting each other, and a small team of 4/5 was enough to secure the node, and the other should go to fight. The average player is really bad at reading what's happening and doing situational decision.

You can fix all the thing you want, Frontline will always be a mess because of that. Frontline are lost because of players more often than because of the advantages of some classes. I'd argue that's a different story when it comes to CC, where a team with many crowd controls can destroy another team in a way that feels very undeserved.

"Frontline are lost because of players more often than because of the advantages of some classes", that's partially true yes. A lot of the times you'll see afk people, people who have 0/10, people with 0 heals or 0 dps and just afk to win / lose for XP. Yes I agree on that.

But as Lacksz said, certain classes like DRK, GNB, DNC and other combos are creating a mess. Specially with new FL role actions that nobody asked for. If those said classes are premades, then gg wp go next.

[Scintilla]

But as Lacksz said, certain classes like DRK, GNB, DNC and other combos are creating a mess. Specially with new FL role actions that nobody asked for. If those said classes are premades, then gg wp go next.

A casual solo DRK/GNB/DNC isn't usually much of an issue. No more so than a casual RPR, PLD, SAM, SGE etc. So, while there may be some class adjustments here and there, the general impact of the class alone isn't the biggest decider. The deciding factor is mostly the difference across players and how they're played.

Regulars and premades are just combining classes to their strengths, coordinating their attacks. They could choose various class combinations (not restricted to those 3), the outcome will still largely be the same. Adjust DRK/GNB/DNC all you want, the meta will just change and the complaints will continue about a different set of classes. The main issue is playerbase:
Regulars who enjoy PvP will work together to try to win, whether they're playing in a premade or queuing separately and just happened to find themselves in the same team. They might change their class to better support teammates or to counter enemies, they'll play aggressively and will coordinate to backup melees/tanks, they've played enough to know when to take advantage of flank opportunities and to know when to expect an incoming attack.
The casual playerbase are less likely to do any of these things. Mark a troublesome enemy DRK and call warnings of an incoming attack? It largely goes ignored, leading to a wipe shortly after. Try to DRK for your team and command? Often met with toxic comments. Try to play as tank/melee to support your largely ranged team? They stand and watch as you break ahead, before deciding to retreat to sit on an uncontested node, leaving you to die.

Unfortunately, many casual players are too quick to run away, too hesitant to attack, and too unaware of their surroundings. All things that give premades the advantage.

[Goldolds1972]

One thing Ive been noticing in FL is when a player is seeing they have enemies running towards them they immediately just use return to base so they dont die.... SE needs to take that away. That and the running back into your home base. Once you're on the battlefield, you're on till you die. Sad when you're coward like that. I enjoy FL, but being I always sign up solo and dont have a professional premade group to annihalate enemies for easy wins, I wish if signing up solo, you'd get randomly put in with 71 other solos. Not these premade ranked teams that play FL for 20 hours a day 7 days a week. Its just my take on FL as a very casual solo. Plus bring in more actual pvp and not this objectives to earn points. You gain a point by killing someone and lose a point when a member on your team dies. Easy as that. And take away CC from a couple classes. Theres just wayyyy too much CC. 450 tug jobs before getting stunned then the good ol 1 hit kill everyone LB. I know everyone will be against my opinion, but thats my take on it.

[Burmecia]

Once you're on the battlefield, you're on till you die.

hmm, i queue solo too and i refuse to be turned into splatter on pavement just because no one knows when to disengage.
monkeys together strong but if its clear that my team is just spoonfeeding bh to enemy... i dunno, i think i choose to read the situation with nuance, thats all im saying.