Pvp frontlines is a miserable experience

[Hestzhyen]

Been playing it quite a bit lately to try to get a late start on all the Garo stuff (RIP me), and I gotta say, Frontlines and PvP in general is kind of... resoundingly "eh". It feels like SE hasn't looked at big PvP games in the west like LoL, CounterStrike, DOOM, or even WoW's offerings. Some of their mistakes were made by other devs and changed years and years ago but SE is making them all over again.

- Healing is OP as all heck. You can hold your own against 3-4 people whacking on someone for a few seconds, usually more than long enough for them to escape and the attackers to either over-commit and die or simply switch targets. Rinse and repeat as much as you want if you don't over-extend yourself. But hey even if you do that you can still spam heals on yourself and it'll take an army to bring you down. It's too much, way too much. I've actually ignored a PLD and a DPS doing their best to hassle me but they had to give up because it just wasn't worth the effort. I've had the same experience as a DPS too- all or most of us pile on the healer, they stand around or run right at us and don't die (mostly SCH of course, but WHMs and ASTs have done it too).

Healers should heal less and support more or be far, far easier to interrupt and kill. Even if FL is a clown fiesta there should be limits on how godly healing and saving ass can be.

- 1v1v1 means your W/L ratio will be about 33/66- you will lose more than you win, by a lot. I'm neutral about this set up but it feels bad knowing that, no matter what you do, you're probably going to lose more often than not. Trying to direct 24 people to do objectives and not be stupid (or bots) is a challenge that some like to impose on themselves, but many just go in with the objective of "kill dudes and get some roulette EXP". There's no stakes in it unless you're still farming for mounts, and even then, you may as well tilt or quit FL after a loss or two since you're statistically going to lose more than win anyway. Feast is where people who want to win go, or at least trade wins.

- This is more of a complaint towards Feast, but it applies to FL too. Specialised UI and SFX look shiny but the gameplay behind them is shallow. You bumrush people, do objectives if you care enough, and if you want to win you will have some teams doing different things simultaneously. Breaking ice and ignoring the swarms of enemy factions around to shatter it before making a speedy escape to safe ground isn't thrilling. Neither is poking at each other and waiting for someone to over-extend so you can gimp and kill him. So many matches are simply pockets of players waging sustain wars- better/more healers = you win- and the only thing that breaks them up is a third party staging an ambush (FL only, been in plenty of Feast matches where 2 or more "culling time" stacks were gained because of endless poke/skirmish/heal) or if there's a break in ranks due to objectives spawning and players rushing to them at inopportune times. It was a good idea to limit the complexity of jobs in PvP so players could focus on strategy, but now the ideal strategy is "have better healers and don't be a Leeroy Jenkins". It's BORING. So safe, so easy, unless you get caught on your own away from friends and get obliterated. Would not spectate that stuff unless you paid me to do it.

- If you're losing, you're going to take a long time to do it. There are no mercy ends to matches where one team steamrolls the other two. We've all been on the teams that have only the points generated by their base and few kills to their names while the other groups have to wait for ice to spawn before earning enough to win for sure. Meanwhile those loser teams are getting decimated over and over again, or are perpetually locked in a 1v1 fight against each other while the third team goes off and steals bases, breaks ice, and has to wait a while before the end of the match. Close games are a rare thing, usually it's one team taking the winnings and leaving the other two to squabble over rotten seconds. I'm not sure what they can do about this but FL feels like a chore because even if I'm winning for once, there's little joy in breaking ice that's getting ignored by the other two combatants. Wow I broke the ice instead of getting trapped in the personal conflict quagmire below me, I'm so good... I guess... And if I'm losing, well... Great I'm trying to break ice but there's no back-up/we're getting steamrolled so hard we don't even have a base any more/everyone is ignoring the objectives to kill the guys who aren't winning despite pleas to not do that... I have to wait a while for this to finish but I guess I'll keep trying since I'm at least going to be better than those bots rushing to their deaths over and over again. Hope that big ice spawns faster, I might get to poke it before I die or have to run away.

- Bots are a thing and are apparently fine to use, as long as you don't tell anyone you're doing it. While that questionable approach is mostly harmless in PvE stuff, it is NOT okay in PvP. SE please please please look into doing something about it, getting rid of botters would help give the mode some legitimacy and make matches more fair and interesting.

I want to like PvP. But it's so aimless, so under-developed that I can't take it seriously at all. I hope SE makes it worth caring about since it has great rewards and they want to make it into the next big thing, if all the shiny stuff for Feast is anything to go by. It needs a ton of work before it's ready to be promoted as a selling-point though. Thank you for reading my opinion essay about PvP in a PvE MMO.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Hide was countered before by all 3 Dexterity jobs (BRD, MCH, and NIN) having the "Detect" ability. Many times I saw a NIN player try to use it while I could see them. . . I'd simply sprint out to their last known location and use Detect, revealing them instantly.

We actually DON'T have a way to reveal a hiding NIN anymore.

And Hestzhyen, not to devalue your opinion, but a LOT of what you said is pretty off the mark. However, you may have actually enjoyed what PvP used to be like if you'd tried it then. There was far more depth, far more competition, FAR fewer bots, fewer afks/exploiters, and Shatter wasn't always the be-all, end-all of Frontlines PvP.

[Filiffo]

Frontline is a miserable experience beacuse of bots. Since the expac (and the consequent increase in exp, etc.) i'm only playing pvp because of the roulette. Today, I almost ragequitted cause of bots. There were like 10 of them, moving like a pack of wolves, ahead or behind at the exact same moment, mostly ignoring ices, etc. It was terrible. Dunno the reason, but on my server this problem is hitting the IF harder than the other 2 GCs. I'd gladly change GC, if I hadn't the First Marshal rank.

Please, do something. Even rule out the exp from the equation, but do something.