Another frontline

[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.