The Frontlines Premade issue has not been fixed.

[BubblyBoar]

I can only assume the reason SE decided to prevent 8 man premades was to break up full alliance premade ( a particular problem on aether with adders) while letting people still play with their friends, just in smaller parties. Having one alliance be coordinated while the others are basically PUGs makes matches incredibly one-sided and no competition at all. I assume not allowing 8 man parties was to make things more fair. I could be wrong, but I don't know.

The problem is that this hasn't changed anything. The premades are all still in adders and still queue together to get into the same match as one. They are broken into smaller parties, but they are still all in the same GC and are funneled there. I won't go over the specifics of how they do it, but I believe the easiest solution to fix this is to make it so that premade groups are forced into the freelancer mode, even if all members are in the same GC.


Edit for those saying Queueing as a premade puts you into freelancer. This is only true for the frontlines roulette, not queueing directly into an FL match.

I mean I get that frontline is supposed to be kinda casual. But if 5-10 people of 24 can have such an big impact on the match outcome. Maybe they deserve the win then and shouldn't be punished for playing better with the same set of skills like everyone else.

When somebody is leading in one GC but none leaders in the other two, is that also an unfair advantage and the person should be muted? xD

The Premades, which people are complaining about arent even on voicechat together or have some new strategies or tactics how they farm others, its just pvp players playing pvp with friends. What stops other people to play smart and counter that? The maps are pretty random objective wise and can make that possible.

This is false. They absolutely are on VC using discord. I'm apart of the same discord and have even been in VC with them. The discord even encourages other GCs to join and do the same.

So let me get this straight. What you're complaining about right now is that in Frontlines, a large-scale PvP army game, people are actually trying to organize their armies in order to win games in (and I put heavy emphasis on) a PvP game mode?

Clearly you don't understand how winning works in Frontlines. The win conditions are clear, the more organized army (like the premades) or the more mechanically skilled healers (with over 1.5m points healed) who can carry wins games. If you can't meet either criteria, then you will (definitely deserve) to lose. From this point you can choose one of several things:

1.) Join the dominant army and win.
2.) Organize your own army, train your troops, and beat the enemy general at their own game.
3.) Train yourself to be a skilled healer to carry your team to victory.
4.) Wallow in your own PvE self-pity and keep taking loss after loss after loss.

If you can't adapt to win then you don't deserve the wins, you don't deserve the mounts/glamours/titles/achievements, and you should feel bad for not getting good at the game. I have zero sympathy for players who try to destroy the efforts of people who actually work hard to achieve goals in PvP.

I think you misunderstand me. I want a healthy PVP FL. Having one premade absolutely crushing everything they are in isn't healthy. I know the competitive spirit sees that line of thought as blasphemy, but a fighting chance is what makes PvP more enjoyable, even for the losing side. What this specific premade trick does is not fun or interesting or competitive. It's borderline abuse of the system to stomp. Like I said, if this wasn't what SE was trying to prevent with the change, then I get it. If they were, it didn't work at all. I find it more fun with premades are fighting other premades, not when premades are stomping PUGs.

I noticed when a GC is out performed on the field, they begin pointing fingers claiming "pre-made". Freelancing a lot myself from one GC to the next, I find that in many cases this is not true at all. GC's that perform well on the field are usually experience enough with Frontline, so that they can work together as a team to compensate the imbalances of PUG's. People willing to switch to tanks or healers to give the right mix to make the odds more in their favor, because they know what it takes to win. Also doing the objectives, along with a certain amount of aggressiveness helps. I've seen more GC get baited into fights, missing the objectives, that I've lost count. I've seen others think that it's all about the killing and nothing else. Knowing how to position yourself in the pack when fighting, so that your dps isn't dropping like flies. I've seen dps think they are invincible taking up a tank position, only to find themselves dead the next minute. Watching the map constantly to know when, where and how to move on the field. Same for watching the scoring. The list goes on and on. If everyone learns to do all that, there is still going to be only one winning GC per match. Most times it's not always "pre-made". Poor performance is more to blame.

Sadly this isn't the case on Aether. There was actual groups that get together on discord and voice chat to organize and abuse the queue system to be a premade together to stomp PUGs. I don't blame them for doing it. I just want to see premades fighting each other more often than premades stomping PUGs. Makes for more interesting fights.

Counterpoint to the anti-premade crowd:

You know what I find offputting about frontlines?

-People on your team who say "it doesnt matter we're going to lose" and phone it in the second it's not going their way.

-People who refuse to play as a team and go off solo and just feed the enemy points.

-People who just afk and wait it out to get their marks.

-People who would rather spend their time typing out arguments to the person who took the time to make callout macros in a game that really doesnt allow you time for it.

You wouldn't want these people doing PvE content with you. Why would you expect other people to accept it in PvP?

As much as I'd like to believe you can get an entire PUG on the same page, and same mentality in the 2 minutes before a match starts, it will almost never happen.

If people can PF for Savage (or any team content in this game for that matter) with like-minded people to learn and win, there should be no reason the same can't be said for PvP.

Premades are fine if there are other premades to fight them. As it is now, at least on Aether, they are all stacked into one GC and stick together instead of fighting each other for a healthy FL.

Then don’t PvP or form your own group

I'm attempting exactly that, but if there are groups of premades, why aren't they fighting each other, why just fight PUGs?

Maybe they should restrict pve parties to 4/8 and force raiders to queue duty finder for savage and ultimates. Im so sick and tired of losing at the world first races and parse leaderboards just because other players have better dps, organization and tactics

This is a false representation. Premades vs premades are fun and healthy. Them fighting each other with PUGs sprinkled in makes things fun for everyone. Premades vs PUGs are the problem. Especially when all the premades that are focused together and in one specific group (on Aether). They all sit in VC and gloat about how they stomp PUGs. It's not about being better players. Even they admit there are better ones that aren't in their group. It's about having one GC stacked and the other just being loose PUGs by abusing the queue system. But to give them credit, some are actually trying to od the same for other GCs But on Aether it's pretty much only ingrained on Adders.

[Kaelia]

That was what I was thinking when they made the change, couldn't people just break themselves into smaller parties? If you have a premade group with two groups of four... does it really make any difference at all? Plus, once you are in the match, you are all in the same group anyways. I don't see how this change fixes the problem at all. The only possible change that might work is basically banning all premade groups from frontlines. Even that does not fix the problem necessarily if they all queue at once, although they might not get into the same games, although with the 72 player requirement now, the odds of there being two 72 person groups going on at once seems pretty remote. Another reason why removal of 24 person makes no sense really. I could definitely see TWO 24 man FL going on at once, and if that were the case, the groups might be put into different matches. In a way, it seems that having 24 player groups could actually be beneficial to splitting up premade gank groups.

[ladyalleyna]

I’m pretty sure being in a party forces you into freelance mode. My hubby and I are both in the same GC and we had a daily FL roulette match last week where we were Maelstrom (we’re in Adders GC). And neither of us had Freelancer option enabled.

[Atreus]

Or they can restore the ability to form an 8-man group and stop trying to restrict friends from playing together in an MMORPG.

[NorthernLadMSP]

Ummm, anytime you queue up as a party (even a party of 2) you're already automatically placed in Freelancer. The only way to queue for your own GC is to queue solo.

[Shpy]

Premades are freelancer, you should just make a premade with friends or just join premade with likeminded people that want to win and have fun. Frontline is meant to be a team effort, not solo content. A lot of people believe that one of three of the GCs always win (depending on DC) and won’t bother trying to win if they aren’t on the proclaimed winning GC, and with that mindset people will always complain about premades or other things instead of themselves.

[Commander_Justitia]

Make frontline only queueable as full party. Solved.

[Shpy]

Make frontline only queueable as full party. Solved.

Maybe people will actually socialize and get premade groups together in Pf instead of being antisocial and complaining about premades and the special few that consider it cheating. smh

[Kisama]

Square didn't make this change because premades were overpowered- They changed it because people whined and cried about it constantly.

It took them years of begging from the community to enable freelance to begin with, don't expect them to force it any time soon.

[Noitems]

I love how instead of the community actually trying to improve themselves they cry about the evil premades ruining their games and request action to it. SE listens and puts a restriction yet more and more people complain, these premades are in some cases the reasons why games are even able to be formed, especially with the new frontlines changes.

I'm sure this issue was given a lot of backing by the casuals due to Garo being a main focus and people expecting to be carried. Now that these people are out of the picture we now have to live with their actions restricting play for others and being forced to queue into only prime time to play.

If you're fighting a premade, point it out and focus on the aces on their team, and push them into pinch situations so they're caught in the chaos. The best you can do in Frontlines especially is get them off guard, kill their healer and watch them fall like dominoes. Premades don't win games by default, bad play from the other teams causes that whether it's due to something understandable like lack of skill or just incompetence.

EDIT: I have been told these premades on Aether were made with intent to completely screw over the other players and that's not something I would advocate for. Would much rather have a healthier PVP style where it's people having fun and i's skill that takes the win, no bullying and the like.