Another frontline

[Geryth]

snip

This is such a black and white way to view things, and you're really ignoring facts and the gray area that exists. I mean I totally understand the spirit of what you're saying - playing the game well is what wins, not the GC you play for. That's just a long and friendly way of saying "git gud", and it's advice the OP needs to hear.

But let's not ignore what's really happening here. Players that have a solid understanding of the game generally move to Maelstrom and they turn off freelance status, and they win most of the games. That's exactly what I did, and I enjoyed a fast track ride to The Knight of Glory title I attained just last night. But it's a cycle - eventually others will want to follow suit, because they want to get carried for easy wins, and they bring the team down. More GC swapping occurs and some other GC will be the head honcho for a while, and the cycle moves forward.

In a perfect world everyone queues freelance and we all share a 33% chance to win, and if you bring skill and carry potential you'll enjoy a bit better than that. But I know you know that's not the way it goes down. I'm sure you saw my thread last month:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...something-else

I put two and two together, changed GC, turned off freelance, and wins started rolling in. I know I'm a skilled player and I carried a lot of those wins, but I can't deny that queuing for a different GC was a major factor in my win rate. And it's for all the reasons you put forth. And the players who understand what you wrote - for now - generally* congregate on Maelstrom.

*Generally is fluid and it determines what time you queue and what time premade freelance groups queue (my only loss streaks happen when 6-8 man premades freelance into Adders or Flames for a string of matches), and what state GC swapping is in. For all I know we're about to transition - Adders have been playing solid lately.

[Zojha]

[...] but I can't deny that queuing for a different GC was a major factor in my win rate.

Case in point... one of my alts, which I leveled largely via PvP:

About 70% of those games were done post Stormblood with freelancer turned off, my winrate increased by almost 10% total over those games. And I'm not even making call-outs when I play, I just simply try to do what makes sense, get fever and not die, maybe throw a pun or two into chat.

I would be curious on statistics on how common freelancer usage even is at this point. I very often get the same faces on my team when I queue and I doubt that's mere coincidence. Either way, I find it hard to deny that GCs impact your winrate. How they impact your winrate is situationally dependent. I rode the winrate train on Flames some other time on some other alt:

Who knows where it'll next jump to?

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Players that have a solid understanding of the game, ideally, are going to form parties together, where it STILL won't matter what GC they're on.

What you said, Geryth, is exactly what used to happen, and what used to impact queues the most. Everyone wanted to be on the "winning" GC, and numbers became imbalanced for queues. People began to drag down that winning GC and the skilled players would switch, and the cycle just repeats from there.

The bigger issue I've been trying to point out is too many people are convinced they HAVE to turn off Freelancer and HAVE to be in one GC over another to win, and that's just not true. It was never true. And in a time where lots of new people are PvPing - for whatever reasons they may be doing it for - allowing that bad idea to stand is going to do more harm than good.

When the time comes, how long will it be before people are saying you HAVE to be on the Ravens instead of the Falcons to win in Rival Wings?

[Geryth]

Players that have a solid understanding of the game, ideally, are going to form parties together, where it STILL won't matter what GC they're on.

Oh man how I wish Mateus had a PvP community I could roll with. Unfortunately solo is my only option, and probably the only option for many other players.

What you said, Geryth, is exactly what used to happen, and what used to impact queues the most. Everyone wanted to be on the "winning" GC, and numbers became imbalanced for queues. People began to drag down that winning GC and the skilled players would switch, and the cycle just repeats from there.

This is absolutely alive and well. I sat and watched it happen over 800 Frontlines games playing for Flames, Adders, and Maelstrom, and the win rates proportionately went upward like clockwark. It's not coincidence - the sample size is enough here to draw some conclusions. You can look at the Frontlines standings too to see the numbers - it's not anecdotal or secret background data we can't see.

The bigger issue I've been trying to point out is too many people are convinced they HAVE to turn off Freelancer and HAVE to be in one GC over another to win, and that's just not true. It was never true. And in a time where lots of new people are PvPing - for whatever reasons they may be doing it for - allowing that bad idea to stand is going to do more harm than good.

I'm sorry to tell you but it's a sad truth that simply changing GC can drastically change your Frontlines experience. Is it necessary? No, Flames will win a few, but 25% is way different than 60%. I mean, eventually the cycle will come into Flames favor, but who knows how long that'll be? It's been Maelstrom for a solid 2 months or more, that's long enough to defeat a PvP aspiring new player who doesn't know better.

Let me point you back to my thread:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...something-else

Freelancing was putting me on Flames, literally, with no exaggeration, 75% or more of the time. This is because Adders and Maelstrom are turning off freelancing in droves. My win rate on Flames was frustratingly low, and combined with how often I landed on Flames when freelancing, made for a miserable experience. Had I not already had headway into the achievement I wanted from when I used to play this game back in Slaughter days, I would probably would have given up and quit.

Putting my best self forward and really trying to get wins (because only wins count for some mounts/titles), and stretching nights way too far when I really should have stopped to sleep - trying to get at least one more win, and having crap like 6 wins out of 33 games over, is awfully defeating. This is the experience for a lot of new players and this was my freelancing experience. Except, perhaps, for new players that happen to play for Maelstrom over the last couple months and can figure out how to turn off freelance status (it's not intuitive).

If you're not a good player then swapping GC may help some, but all you really do is perpetuate the cycle and eventually you'll be losing again. So getting better at the game is the right answer. I don't want to tell new players they have to pick the right GC and turn off freelancing to land a respectable win rate to earn whatever they are after, but it's an unfortunate truth that picking the right GC helps a lot.

[Cidel]

I see where you're coming from ThirdChild, I really do, and I agree with your list of reasons why people die/fail to score/throw matches/what-have-you. But like Geryth says, there are some reasons why the Maelstrom on primal dominates Shatter matches so far and they both correlate to different points people have brought up previously. I've never swapped GCs at any point in time and have the Amethyst Keel achievement so I have a pretty good understanding of the GC behaviors but...-

-Prior to actually posting this, I asked off-handedly in alliance chat on Mael why they thought we had a better success rate than the other teams. The immediate replies from several people were "bots" and apathetic freelancers. And I would agree on both counts. Bots are actually a large factor, especially on Flames. It is so bad for that particular GC on our datacenter that I daresay that it's pretty much a joke among everyone who has seen it (and I have during a handful of Freelance queues). There's no denying that Flame's abysmal winrate is attributed to their (justified) stigma of containing the most bots (even in 72-man).

The bigger issue I've been trying to point out is too many people are convinced they HAVE to turn off Freelancer and HAVE to be in one GC over another to win

The other reason I got was "freelancers who don't care." Apparently there's also the belief that if you're a freelancer on our datacenter, you're not there to win (or care if you don't). Someone guessed that at least 90% of people on Mael are probably native to the Maelstrom GC. One other person even chimed-in with "if you're Mael, why would you freelance?" Even though I agree that this is a flawed stigma, it's obviously a factor.

This is related to how the players on the other 2 GCs lose due to frequent questionable strategic moves, poor judgement and playstyles that cause them to lose leads (or even create bigger score gaps). Third, you pointed out many factors in the last page that are detriments to helping a team win, but your last point:

People lose because they think the problem lies with bots, GC affiliations, and premades, and fail to see all the things they're doing wrong, even in the absence of bots/premades.

-are actually the exact causes as to why people on a certain successful GC will not queue Freelancer when they know their best chances are on their own GC. That and they want to avoid the prevalent stigmas on one or both of the other teams that obviously have truth to them.

These ideas and presumptions back-up what Geryth said earlier, really-

Players that have a solid understanding of the game generally move to Maelstrom and they turn off freelance status, and they win most of the games.

As for people queuing as a group in premades; that is a whole different bag of worms and not a good indicator of any GC performance in most cases (unless of course, they lose). Premades are only relevant to the discussion if every team is running premades at once (which they aren't).

[Geryth]

As for people queuing as a group in premades; that is a whole different bag of worms and not a good indicator of any GC performance in most cases (unless of course, they lose). Premades are only relevant to the discussion if every team is running premades at once (which they aren't).

Premades are a great way to win games, regardless of GC if you can get one. On Mateus it seems impossible - no one seems interested in PvP on that server at all. Maybe cross server party finder will remove barriers like that and the system will improve.