Another frontline

[enthauptet]

Fixed that for you.

There may be some truth to what they say, every single player sorted by win rate is maelstrom in the top 100 on primal: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...hly/?sort=rate

(I looked again, there was 1 adder, so 99% maelstrom lol)

[Geryth]

When I freelanced, before I was carrying games, I was winning on Flames 25% of the time, and winning while on Adders or Mael 75% of the time, and getting on Flames 75% of the time. Meaning I was losing a lot, and on Flames a lot.

I was in adders and queued only adders instead of freelanced when I learned how to turn off freelance status. I then was winning 35-40% of the time. I made alliance call-out macros, learned the maps, started using MCH, and on adders my win rate went up to 45-50% so I demonstrated a solid jump in win rate by playing better - a single player can make a big difference. Had a bad week where maels were still winning most of the time and switched my GC to Maelstrom.

My win rate is now 60-70%. A couple nights ago over 14 games I had an 86% win rate.

So while a single player can have an effect and carry games and pull your own personal win rate up, I strongly believe the GC you're on has a huge impact on win rate. Maelstrom has been dominating the win rates for the past couple months.

I mean, I have continued to improve and swapped to BLM in my push for The Hand of Mercy, but I don't think I'm carrying every game hard enough to go back to freelancing on flames and retain a 70% win rate.

[Wintersandman]

I run with a 6-8 man group on Primal and we always get stuck on Flames or Adders. One team that knows what they are doing can change an entire match. I generally run a 33%+ win rate on Primal.

[Newmanxeno]

Fixed that for you.

Wouldn’t say they are skilled. Just not bots probably, I imagine those things have freelancer on for faster queues.

I run with a 6-8 man group on Primal and we always get stuck on Flames or Adders. One team that knows what they are doing can change an entire match. I generally run a 33%+ win rate on Primal.

Do you guys play late? That’s the only time I see Badders or Flames seem awake.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

I run with a 6-8 man group on Primal and we always get stuck on Flames or Adders. One team that knows what they are doing can change an entire match. I generally run a 33%+ win rate on Primal.

This. Players that know what they're doing aren't going to play worse just because they're not on the "winningest" GC. This is why I say skill and coordination matter so much more than what color team you're on.

[Garten]

3 days ago i made a premade of 6-8 ppls, we won 5 match in a row (we were trowhn in adders and flames, never in mael), so i can say that is true that a good team can carry a match..

The problem is, in my humble opinion and experience, that psicological attitude of people count maybe more than their skills LOL ..
A lot of time when the match starts and someone try to give an early advice, many players reply saying stuff like "if you want to win go mael.. " and stuff like that..
Me too i have to be honest, when i play alone i'm not motivated anymore after LOSING like 10 matches in a row to Mael. It's just impossible to stay calm and try to win anymore.

ALSO, as someone explained in the past better than me, "i think" that is as the trend goes: people who play to win or are better skilled tend to go to the faction that is winning more in a specific periof AND DON'T GO FREELANCE. In exchange people who doesn't care win or go to pvp only for exp (and bots) go FREELANCE and went trown in the others two faction becoming cannon fodder. And that goes on and on.

I think that is just true.. don't know what proof i can tell. Want me to do 100 match in mael (with an alt) and 100 matches in adders and show the results?? (then you'll have to trust my honesty.. but i'll do if you want xD)

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Freelancer is not an issue at all.

Frontline Freelancer is the GC restriction removal we begged for for 3 years because it sucked being in a different GC from your friends all the time, and it was even worse when queues could take up to 2 hours (and no, I'm not exaggerating) because there's 40 Maelstrom players in queue, 28 Adders, but only 4 Flames. Sure, that's 72, but to the matching algorithm, that's not 24/24/24. Freelancer fixed this issue, as we knew it would, and that's ALL it does.

That said, people who are skilled can play on any team and do well. I've said this. They still need a team of skilled teammates, or even just good support/coordination, but whether they freelance or not means nothing. Whether they're in Maelstrom or not means nothing. People don't lose because they AREN'T in X GC.

People lose because they want to rely solely on the ice to win.
People lose because they don't actively try to fight other players or take advantage of other means to score.
People lose because they don't get off their mounts when near enemies, or try to get on them near enemies.
People lose because they don't help each other, or support their team in the right ways.
People lose because they think if they miss one large ice, it's impossible to come back.
People lose because they'll drop everything and turn their backs on an attacking enemy just to rush to the ice.
People lose because they won't even defend themselves or each other at the ice.
People lose because they keep jumping off cliffs to hurry to the ice, despite there being a safe way down and inside each area.
People lose because they think sitting on the base alone in the name of "guarding" it actually does anything helpful. (PROTIP: It doesn't. You're just 5 extra points along with the stolen base when a group rolls in.)
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.

The problem isn't what team you're on, it's everything people do wrong/don't do right, and worst of all, don't even know they're doing/not doing. Let this talk of "People who want to win go to X GC/don't go Freelancer!" be laid to rest here and now. Freelancer isn't the issue at all, and being skilled isn't an exclusive trait to Maelstrom or any other GC.

[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?