Another frontline

[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.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

The biggest problem with this idea of HAVING to switch to a particular GC and turn off Freelancer if you want to win is the demoralization it causes players who don't know better if they're NOT on that GC.

How many times have you heard someone basically give up before the match even begins, or complain about being on a particular GC?

Not only that, but it really just brings us back to the same issues we had before Freelancer that prompted its addition. Once queues for the GCs become imbalanced enough, we'll be back to lengthy queues, because no one wants to freelance in fear of ending up on that GC or whatnot. Granted, so long as the idea stands that you HAVE to be on that winning GC to win, and not perhaps learn more and get better, perhaps meet and team up with other skilled players, and start queueing together (giving bots less room to take up), the problem would only get worse. The "good" GC will just become bloated with people wanting to be carried, and the "bad" ones will never get better. That would only perpetuate the demoralization and prompt more switching, which again, only makes the problems worse. At an extreme case, it would only deter people from queueing because they're not in that GC, or think they can't win for not being in it.

Look, all in all, if you want to win, if you even just want to enjoy PvP more, there's no substitute for learning to play the mode better and finding/forming a team that can coordinate and play well. And you can do that no matter what GC you're in. We even have more tools now (Freelancer, Cross Server PF) to do that with.

[Geryth]

The biggest problem with this idea of HAVING to switch to a particular GC and turn off Freelancer if you want to win is the demoralization it causes players who don't know better if they're NOT on that GC.

Yes, that is a problem. I had that same demoralization landing on Flames over and over and over and losing almost all of those matches.

Not only that, but it really just brings us back to the same issues we had before Freelancer that prompted its addition. Once queues for the GCs become imbalanced enough, we'll be back to lengthy queues, because no one wants to freelance in fear of ending up on that GC or whatnot.

Also correct - we're resegregating and going against the design and implementation of the Freelance idea. I think we actually have bots to thank for keeping queue times low. This is flowing real players in Maelstrom and Adders while bots are filling up Flames, and it's probably a large part as to why flames are always losing.

Granted, so long as the idea stands that you HAVE to be on that winning GC to win, and not perhaps learn more and get better, perhaps meet and team up with other skilled players, and start queueing together (giving bots less room to take up), the problem would only get worse. The "good" GC will just become bloated with people wanting to be carried, and the "bad" ones will never get better. That would only perpetuate the demoralization and prompt more switching, which again, only makes the problems worse. At an extreme case, it would only deter people from queueing because they're not in that GC, or think they can't win for not being in it.

Learning to play absolutely makes a difference. I was able to maintain a 50% win rate with Adders despite the Maelstrom dominated "GC swapping meta". Really though, as I mentioned earlier, I think the "Good" vs. "Bad" GC's are more of a function on the ratio of real players to bots, rather than baddies wanting to get carried by strong players. I think that has a lot to do with why Maelstrom has been so strong for so long - it should be a cycle. The cycle is either really slow or freelance bots have killed the cycle and put Flames in permanent bad status.

Look, all in all, if you want to win, if you even just want to enjoy PvP more, there's no substitute for learning to play the mode better and finding/forming a team that can coordinate and play well. And you can do that no matter what GC you're in. We even have more tools now (Freelancer, Cross Server PF) to do that with.

If you're struggling to get wins, yes - seek out help and learn the mode and read these forums for tips on how to play. If you have the patience and time and ability to seek out others to play with, that's also great. But, I'm just saying that it's a fact - swapping to Maelstrom and turning off freelance is going to help a lot with those wins too. I mean I don't want bad players doing that to get easy wins - it just makes it harder for me. I want players to put in the time to get better as well. But for now, the simple act of changing GC (no matter how good you are) is going to make a difference in your win rate. And a lot of that probably has to do with the bots.

Frontlines is in for a queue time reckoning if the bots start turning off freelance status if getting wins ever becomes a bot's goal.