Thread: 2.3 Frontline What do we know?

Originally Posted by Nalien

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Ever since it was first announced I was under the impression that it would be open world...
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Sorry for potentially breaking your open world pvp bubble but I am 90% sure frontlines won't be open world(unless it'll have various game types and they decide to add open world too, even then..).

Here's why:

1. If it was to be open world free pvp, it would be very hard to impose class restrictions and in case you haven't noticed pvp balance in this game(the frail balance that has at the moment) is based on party play with set roles, they even said during the E3 live letter that there was no balance for dueling(they said it would be no fun or something, basically the same thing) and that they'd add it only as a way for people to test their abilities(damage rather) on their friends.
2. The game would go berserk, especially on PS3 with no limits on player numbers(aka open world) PvP, lag and specially invisible players within the mobs of pvpers would screw it all up.
3. And probably most important here is something you might've missed within the last patch note(2.28):
"Players can no longer change Grand Company allegiance while queuing for a duty.* This adjustment is in preparation for the new Frontline system scheduled to be implemented in patch 2.3."
- Now why would they add restrictions to being able to change GC while in queuing for duty in preparation for frontline system, if the frontline themselves weren't to be instanced?
PS: This is not a "you're wrong" post, just pointing out the unlikeliness of it being open world, and i could always be wrong. We'll probably know more today with part 2 of 2.3 live letter.

Originally Posted by Pibz

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I picture it working almost exactly the same as Cyrodiil in ESO (which was the only good thing in ESO).

You still queue up to enter (ESO had several "Campaigns" you could create to enter Cyrodiil), but it has none of the restrictions instances have. You queue solo, it doesn't put you in a party, you just end up at your Grand Companies camp, once you're there you can stay for however long you like and form parties with other players in your Grand Company. If the "instance" gets full, you can just enter another campaign.

So our Frontlines page would be where we queue to enter by selecting various campaign types, and we'd be able to see exactly how well our Grand Company is doing in those campaigns as well.

I guess that is still technically an instance, but it's a persistent one, rather than; enter, fight, win/lose, leave. It would work well with what we know of Carteneau, too. That place is huge, and it could certainly fit several campaigns, what we've seen already points to a persistent instance.

Originally Posted by Nalien

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Might be, but it won't have nearly the amount of players in one single instance(or campaign like you called it) as ESO, that i can assure you of, if for nothing else just think of the unchangeable limit of players on screen and PS3 limitations.
Also, unless they're changing something quite drastically in how pvp works(wouldn't be bad at all if they did though) expect forced group setups because, as it stands now, if there aren't restrictions in place it'll be a gigantic mess.


Furthermore it isn't really open world if it is a non persistent kind of zone and i really hope it won't be, otherwise it'll be a mess where one faction can just outnumber the other which would mean gc restrictions among other crap.. god please no...
I really really hope that's not what they're doing, sounds fun and all but i just see crap in that path.
*Edit*
Anyway we'll probably know a lot more in a few hours so just got to wait and see.

Originally Posted by Nalien

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If it's an ongoing match there would be a need to normalize the way wolf marks are handed out, as there wouldn't be a set amount for a win or loss

Easiest way for this i can see (and to make it so the healers get something) is if its an objective game mode, much like the base nodes in gw2.

If it's based on kills there is a fair chance the healers are left out, currently our time is spent stoneskin spamming or kiting (although maybe just an assist bonus for being within a certain range of your team when the kill happens might work)