Dear SE, please never again put irregular tomestones into Frontline

[Chiami]

I have been doing Frontline for quite a bit now on various chars in hope to still get the GARO mounts...

... and of course anyone who isn't Mael (where all the good PvPers are on Crystal, see previous posts done by several people on the issue) will always end up in Flames or Adders, which makes the endeavor on any char who isn't red pretty bad to begin with...

... but what I see A LOT now, since irregular tomestones entered in the picture?

At least one of not both non-mael teams (blue and yellow) have a good chunk of players, if not nearly entire teams throwing the match on purpose. They run to Mael, get themselves slaughtered to feed Reds kill points, to make the match end in sometimes under 10 minutes.

That is a fast way to farm irregular tomestones, but makes already bad PvP thanks to imbalances in design EVEN worse. It gives people an incentive to LOSE on purpose, while in a dungeon if you want to farm irregular tomestones you have an incentive to play well = make the dungeon finish faster.

Yes, of course some Mael players can now say with glee "good, even more meat for my kill count" (and yes, I am quoting two different Mael players here who said such), but that's not what good PvP should look like imo.

So please SE, never again put something into PvP that gives people an incentive to lose on purpose by throwing matches to make them end faster, like right now. It makes already flawed designs even worse...

[Ixon]

Having played quite a bit of both FL and RW, I haven't seen mass lemmings like you mention. Sure I see inexperienced people jump into a mob and melt, but that always happens.

I personally enjoy the amount of people queuing, pops are faster, matches are fuller, I say more of this in the future.

[Arazehl]

I have seen this only a few times. Mostly I've seen PvP played competitively between the three GC alliances. Also I've seen a lot of new pvp players who have not tried Pvp before try it and fall in love with it. Adding this incentive has been more of a blessing than a curse. Getting new players into pvp is always good.

Oh and I've seen Adders and Flames win their fair share of matches since the irregular tomes have been included to PvP.

[Shinklet]

Tomestones in pvp are fine.

It's just that losing offers no reprocussion to your gain.

if there's a 33% chance of winning, winning shoulder offer like, 8, second should be 4 and losing should be 2.

Other regulars to the mode shouldn't have to suffer because people don't take it serious and want to lose as soon as possible.

[Chiami]

Tomestones in pvp are fine.

It's just that losing offers no reprocussion to your gain.

if there's a 33% chance of winning, winning shoulder offer like, 8, second should be 4 and losing should be 2.

Other regulars to the mode shouldn't have to suffer because people don't take it serious and want to lose as soon as possible.

I could get behind that. It might be fine on Aether with little to no lemmings (where the previous two other posters are from), but right now on Crystal Datacenter I have been observing obscene things in some matches, and some people even admitted to throwing matches. Losing on purpose should NOT be rewarded by faster farm time for irregular tomestones.

[Chiami]

btw, while I am glad this problem does not or not as badly exist on Aether, going by what two people here posted...

... but on Crystal the combination of Mael being where people who care about winning go (and don't go freelancer, see several other posts here mentioning this problem) as long as they don't have other reasons to stay with other GCs...

... and now people throwing matches on purpose because hey, you get your rewards anyway...

...the result can look like this. Just fresh out of a match as an Adder, Alliance chat (names removed due to privacy issues):

[1:05]((Player A)) Flames is throwing the match for Mael by camping us.
[1:05]((Player A)) Might as well give this one up.
[1:05]((Player B)) how bout no
(as more people indeed start giving up and throwing the match)
[1:08]((Player B)) how bout people dont throw
[1:08]((Player B)) and actually try and not give up?
[1:09]((Me)) for that losing would have to have consequences, rather than being rewarded
[1:09]((Player B)) if youre gonna give up after 1 death then dont play this

Mind you, on my char who is Mael I managed a win streak of over 50%, and I've watch people throw themselves at us Reds at times like lemmings. On my chars who are not Mael my win chances hovers between 15 and 20% ... and I watch teammates say in chat "lets throw this" and "I get wolfmarks/mythology anyway" in a variety of ways way too often.

Another suggestion, based something I learned was recently implemented in Warthunder, where similar problems cropped up:

- The top 3 players (by whatever metrics would make sense for their job) of the losing team get the same rewards as if their team had won. That way effort is rewarded, even if you are cursed with team mates who throw the match or otherwise hope to get carried while afking and the like.

- The bottom 3 players of all teams get nothing. That way "lol I get wolfmarks/mythology anyway" by throwing matches, or getting carried is prevented.

Anyone who needs GUARANTEED rewards for throwing matches / not doing a thing in hopes to get carried has no place in PvP. Frontline is better off without them.

[TheForce]

I feel you op, I really do. But I think instead of removing them completely, a happy medium could be reached.
Here's what I propose: 5 tomes for 1st place, 3 tomes for 2nd place, 1 tome for last place.

[KageTokage]

I have trouble telling whether people are trying to throw or if their situational awareness is just that bad.

One of my many Rival Wings games today just had me take a tower from 100% to 0% all by myself...and I wasn't hit even once for that entire period of time despite being a huge mob of players from the opposing team lingering by the tower and almost nobody from my team was around to defend me.

I know there are bots in the mode who focus on killing mammets over any other activity but I can't imagine all of them having been bots.

[Duskane]

i think its fine how it is
but they should have put feast instead of rival wings for those who are still missing that last mount

but after this moogle event garo is gone too
so no real reason to change it unless another pvp event comes in like garo

[Strywin]

I have been doing Frontline for quite a bit now on various chars in hope to still get the GARO mounts...

... and of course anyone who isn't Mael (where all the good PvPers are on Crystal, see previous posts done by several people on the issue) will always end up in Flames or Adders, which makes the endeavor on any char who isn't red pretty bad to begin with...

... but what I see A LOT now, since irregular tomestones entered in the picture?

At least one of not both non-mael teams (blue and yellow) have a good chunk of players, if not nearly entire teams throwing the match on purpose. They run to Mael, get themselves slaughtered to feed Reds kill points, to make the match end in sometimes under 10 minutes.

That is a fast way to farm irregular tomestones, but makes already bad PvP thanks to imbalances in design EVEN worse. It gives people an incentive to LOSE on purpose, while in a dungeon if you want to farm irregular tomestones you have an incentive to play well = make the dungeon finish faster.

Yes, of course some Mael players can now say with glee "good, even more meat for my kill count" (and yes, I am quoting two different Mael players here who said such), but that's not what good PvP should look like imo.

So please SE, never again put something into PvP that gives people an incentive to lose on purpose by throwing matches to make them end faster, like right now. It makes already flawed designs even worse...

Heh, I was put into a match a few days ago. It was actually a 24 man secure and it was pretty early in the morning. A few people openly decided that before the match started that they were going to feed mael and a few people said " Yeah, I don't care to win "since maelstrom does win a lot according to them so when the match started half the team would always hit maels base just to feed. Three of us tried objectives but not much we could do because more than half the team decided to feed for their easy moogle tomes.