Patch 7.5 Discussion Thread

[TofuLove]

Lolwut? This change absolutely benefits premades more than ever, making them even more cancerous because there's no longer anything to even remotely stop them once they get rolling (which can happen as early as the first 2 minutes and then its GG for the remaining 6-8 minutes).

In defence of Divinemights, I don't think what they are saying necessary disagrees that your point. But I don't think "premades are being benefitted" is a good enough reason to make changes to the mode. Everyone is working within the same rules and winning/losing is the core mechanic. People who want to play well will always win. However, the question of premades has been talked about to death on this forum...like literally every frontline thread devolves into it.

Yesterday I was put in a game with at least 5 BH0 in my party at the end of the game. Some of which had sub 100k damage dealt. Are the premades the problem, or is it just bad gamers? It's the contrast between those who care and those who really really don't.

I hate BH change with passion, I think it's the worst thing they've done to the mode. It just makes it incredibly boring. Cost/reward of engagements is now more skewed than before to a simple "why wouldn't I fight all the time?".

As a solo DRK, i found it benefits my solo playstyle more than before as I just go in and pull and get rewards without the downsides of going in. I am sitting on BH5 every game... is it fun? yeah it can be alright, and it's way easier for me to make an impact. Are some classes worse off because of it? Yes, and that's bad - every class should be fun and impactful in some way. Is it less fun than it was? absolutely, there is way less depth.

If they want to keep some form of battle high, I'd make it more like a rage mode.
You could build it for fighting, and build it even faster for assisting or killing, until eventually you get to go super-saiyan mode, doing like 1.5x damage, it would only last a minute or two. But if you disengaged from battle, it would fall off in half that time. If you were building it and stopped, those gains would quickly decay as well.

I would hate BH to be removed entirely, it's the additional depth that it brings to the table that sets it apart - it was *fun* when you had to consider engagements.
I tried to think of alternatives - temporary debuffs on death, rage/combo streak...
I don't however see them waking up and figuring it out...

p.s.
nerf viper in FL

[Valence]

If the change actually brought something tangible and beneficial to the mode I'd be inclined to discuss whether or not it's worth it to have it actually help premades as well, but as I see it, it's not really beneficial for the mode whatsoever, or at least questionably so, and it definitely helps premades. Like, don't get me wrong, premades don't need BH5 to ruin your alliance of casuals, but having it certainly make it even more swift and decisive and I also feel a lot less inclined to even try and deal with them because I know they'll keep their BH anyway.

[Scintilla]

it doesn't matter if you care if there's no crawling up once the placements are on-lock, and they lock-in REALLY damn fast now

The game has not long begun. Your team has had a bit of a slow start compared to the other two, with everyone still on BH0 while your enemy teams are around BH2 or 3 already. If they kill you, they're only getting 6 points for doing so. They'd have to kill you 4 times to move up a BH rank. If you manage to kill them, you'd only have to do so twice before you're up to BH1.
You'd be getting twice as many points than they would and progressing twice as fast.

The change has not made it easier for good players to gain BH. The only part of this change which has helped them is that they no longer lose it - exactly the same privilege you also have.

What I do agree with, though, is that games do seem to have become a bit more fast-paced and chaotic than they were, particularly in certain maps and as the evening wares on (in EU, at least) as a greater proportion of regulars start to queue and a more aggressive and brash approach is taken now that loss of BH is no longer a threat. While I can understand that not everyone would like this change of pace, personally, I prefer it - more of a challenge and more rewarding should we win. If we lose, did we fight a good game and hold our own? Is there anything I could do differently to maybe help swing it a bit more in our favour next time? If it wasn't close, there's very clearly a strong ability difference between the teams, but why is this blindly labelled as a 'cancerous premade' fault, rather than considering your own teams performance?

Completely unrelated scenario:
I'm entering a race/match/competition. I've practiced really hard for months and worked to improve my ability ready for this event. Many of the people I'm vs haven't really bothered to practice at all, they just want to get it over with. Event day comes: I try my best, I win. My competitors then begin to complain that it's unfair and I only won because I'm a 'try-hard' who's dominating. They claim that the whole process was a fix in my favour.

Sound familiar?

I've had games where ALL 24 PEOPLE INCLUDING MYSELF HAD BH0

If a whole team is stuck at zero BH, it usually points to huge flaws within the teams approach to engagements. It may be they're spread out all over the place rather than focusing their damage on a single target/push, hence they're killing no-one. It may be that they're heavily avoiding PvP, running from objective to objective and retreating the moment an enemy comes close, again, they're killing nothing. It may be that they're not using initiative and taking advantage of opportunities to flank their enemies while they're preoccupied fighting another team - again, no kills.

No kills = No BH.

The excuse used to be that these 'premades' would continuously wipe less good teams, making BH very hard for those teams to get and keep, making it harder to counter. That excuse no longer exists.

I completely get the frustration when you're stuck in a team who seems to be getting nowhere, but the blame for that does not lie on regular players, as is the usual default excuse. There is only one way that the system will change from what it is now and that's if more casual players began to push themselves in PvP, not just in ability but in keeping a competitive, improvement-driven attitude.

Defaulting to 'premade's fault', 'why bother?', 'who cares' after losses is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[unjourneyed]

I'm ... mixed on the BH changes. After clearing the patch content tour, It feels worse now to catch-up late-game if your team cannot or does not want to engage (close matches when a company hits around 80% score are nigh-impossible to turn around now if you're last place below that unless you get lucky on nodes or second hard-focuses first alongside your own company). Maybe it's too early, but it's also not fully understood yet that you NEED to be fighting to get BH VERY early on to not only /keep up/ with the other companies with BH's damage increases but to also be able to /survive/ other companies' damage with BH's healing potency increases. The changes do absolutely nothing to make players want to engage if they weren't already; they'll still be too afraid to push because either they don't understand what their (or other's) role/job can do to get kills/where to sponge assists or they simply don't want to play the mode itself.

Personally, it feels like there's just too many stat modifiers in Frontline synergizing with certain jobs for the damage and healing potencies increases to remain on BH as well. You have varying incoming and outgoing damage base modifiers on every job, you have role PvP actions that also synergize too well (or not enough) with certain job combinations, and depending on when or where the wind blows for PvP balance patches, some compositions become too heavy to deal with once they snowball (I don't have an issue with very efficient comps; the issue lies with inexperienced players who have no idea how to defang oppressive comps because they lack understanding which jobs need more attention when playing against and what their own job can do to help survive, there's not much time you can explain during an ongoing match either).

My own thought is to probably move the damage and healing potencies from BH to be based on companies' scores instead being granted to individual players, as if it were like a second wind. Of course, first place shouldn't benefit and second might benefit a little (or not at all either), but perhaps third place can be given --for an example, the equivalent of a BH3 to keep them in the game if they're behind.
I do realize that if this were to happen though, BH really wouldn't be useful outside of last place and would possibly border on removing it entirely in the future if there's no good incentive to even fight for high BH. That said, while increasing rewards by a percentage like wolf marks and series exp based on tracking a player's BH at the end of a match could be an incentive, it becomes an entirely different discussion on pvp rewards not being inticing enough to keep playing FL beyond series completion.

Forgive me if I'm wrong though on any of this, I'm just a soloist who just likes FL chaos; I just want changes to make sense.

[Scintilla]

Except in your "scenario" you had anywhere from 3 to 7 other people hobbling other racers to make sure they took the placements right behind you. It's indeed fixed in your favor when they're collaborating to make sure nobody places above 5th or 9th outside of your friend group.

Firstly, my scenario was actually based more on solo play as that is what I do most. Secondly, the maximum party size that can queue together for FL is 4 players.

However, if you want to apply it to premades: "Hobbling" would be win-trading. It would be me intentionally placing team members in enemy teams to actively sabotage them.
Which is, obviously, not what a premade does. They're simply a group of regular players who join together to coordinate their attacks using complementary classes.

It's simple: skill difference.

Yes, it can be annoying. Yes, there can be some very challenging class combinations which a few class adjustments would maybe help. Yes, there's countless times I've been playing solo vs a premade team and lost because me and my team's coordination and awareness just wasn't up to it. But the point remains that the core issue is skill difference. No changes to FL that you make will alter that:
Adjust classes, the meta will change - they'll adapt, they'll still take the lead.
Even ban premade queues - there will still be steam-rolling teams, it'll just be a matter of which team had the most regulars by rng.

Even now, players will automatically label a team as 'premade' purely because the team are doing extremely well and dominating a game? When, in reality, it's just a bunch of regulars playing solo that rng decided to put together.

It's not self-fulfilling prophecy, it's playing the mode as intended now. Either be in a premade, or accept being a useless solo-queuer.

Defeatism and, yes, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You believe there's no hope, so you give up.
The outcome? You lose. That attitude just snowballs - because you didn't try, the players on your team who are determined are having to work harder to make the difference for your lack of effort, hindering their chances of success.

So, in effect, you'd be the one doing the hobbling...

Giving up is the only choice for someone in my position, and I'm "just here for the Series XP" from now on because I'm not going to be gaslit into thinking I can contribute anymore, and the only "improvement" to be found here is if I party up with others and hop into voice chat.

Continue to try and there's always that chance. Stop trying and you're only guaranteed to fail.

[Sunhwapark]

Overall, I'm not feeling as interested with this latest patch for FL, no clue what direction they are going with it either, so I will probably just take a break from that for now.

[ChrysOCE]

Thing i don't get, is that there hasn't been any explanation or discussion from them, either prior or after, as to why they made this change? I don't recall hearing anything before the patch notes. There's nothing in the specific pvp changes, where it discusses why they make changes to jobs or role actions. Like, what were they hoping to actually achieve? Not what we are interpreting or guessing at. What actually is their logic, for this change?

[Divinemights]

Lolwut? This change absolutely benefits premades more than ever, making them even more cancerous because there's no longer anything to even remotely stop them once they get rolling (which can happen as early as the first 2 minutes and then its GG for the remaining 6-8 minutes).

To simply put, I am one of those players people that "Knock" because of experience, adaptability, and strong fundamentals (positioning, timing, map awareness)
Do I like the change?
Not really. It’s a nuisance at best, an inconvenience.
An obstacle?
Hardly.
There are two types of players this change really punishes.

First, the PvE roulette crowd.
And no, I’m not going to pretend I feel bad for them.
This is the natural consequence of treating Frontline as nothing more than a tomestone farm.
I won’t go too deep into this as they often lack of respect of PvP
If they still choose not to improve then they are the prey for the PvPer.
Brutal truth: they will always be prey to actual PvPers, with or without Battle High.

Second, the mediocre players sitting on ranged jobs, spamming AoE and padding damage while fishing for kills.
They understand PvP at a surface level, but they’re obsessed with inflated numbers and K/D on the scoreboard rather than actual impact.

With Battle High no longer dropping on death, melee jobs now have more room to scale and stay relevant.
On NA/EU especially, melee roles tend to be played by more experienced players, the dynamic has shifted.
They no longer hold the range superiority
Hunters and prey have effectively swapped roles.

A level 5 Battle High melee will consistently outperform a level 5 Battle High mediocre ranged player.
That’s just the reality of the current meta.
To restate my position: this change is a nuisance.
I don’t particularly like it, but it doesn’t meaningfully affect me.

On the positive side (at least for NA/EU), players are now forced to coordinate more whether they like it or not.
And the previously unhealthy melee:ranged imbalance is finally being addressed.

As for your fear of premades, honestly, that’s overblown.
It’s just coordinated play.
You’re not the only one solo queuing, and not everyone is afraid of going up against organized groups.

[CidHeiral]

I've played a number of matches with the changes now and personally I'm not a fan. Feels like a lot of the strategy has been removed from the mode.

[ChrysOCE]

snip

You keep saying there is nothing you can do. BS. You can make a difference. Premades are not insurmountable. You can counter them, but it takes effort. If you queue in with a defeatist attitude, you make things harder for yourself right from the start.

I hate these BH changes, but you sitting there and going "well, i'm just not even going to make an effort. i'm going to just have it on the second monitor" is why premades have as much success as they do.