Do folks actually believe spamming macros is useful in Frontlines?

[Gserpent]

Very much this. Even if sometimes they're questionable, the effort that that person /those people are making is appreciated and I won't debate them, I will follow them, even though I always have the map open, since we should act as a team.
However- for someone who is repeatedly spamming alliance chat with macros and with <se.> sounds for callouts? It is going to get me distracted and will get ignored at some point. I'll just look at the map at that point.

The sound effect spam is what chaps my ass, not the macros themselves. Even "turning off" alliance chat doesn't stop the sound effects from being played, since what you're doing is just *hiding* alliance chat, not actually leaving it (you can't leave default channels like that.) Moreover, spamming sound effects results in it just turning into background noise instead of sound cues to help people associate things with the sounds. Danger bongos is probably the only one that's bred bone-deep into the average player, but even the bongos stop meaning anything substantial if they're constantly being used (and you are frequently "in danger" in FL anyway.) Less is more, in the case of adding sound effects to macros, but the ones spamming them don't seem to appreciate or understand it.

So while I agree people should learn pvp just like they learn pve instead of praying for or expecting a carry I decline to put the teaching on the shoulders of the player base in the actual match. I put that right where it belongs. Namely on the dev team who really didn't think it mattered to teach anything about pvp.

That's always been a pet peeve of mine with respect to PvP in this game. We can't form premades, so there's no point in using Party Finder. No one sticks around after the game to chat, so there's no opportunity for confused or new players to ask questions about things they didn't understand and didn't have time to ask about during the match. Respawn timers are extremely short, so there's no time for a quick question or planning session between spawns.

It's kind of like Ex or Savage raiding with a random assortment of players and instead of having time to share macros and make plans before the pull, you're forced to pull immediately every single time, with no breaks or delays. That would be a pretty unpleasant way to raid, at least if you wanted to accomplish something.

I still think preventing players from forming full premades was a big mistake. I understand people didn't have fun getting rolled by 24 coordinated people on voice chat, but... if they could use discord servers and Party Finder to assemble a group of 24, why couldn't you?

[Elfidan]

I think the problem wasn't could you. It's that there isn't a big enough player pool to segregate the solo queue players from premade parties. Sometimes you just want to roll in no prep and have some fun. I wish we had more people in the pool, but I still hear people say, 'I hear that games pvp is bad.' when I mention it in conversation. Stigma is a powerful adversary.

I wouldn't mind having premade queues for things with a bit of increased wait time, but most people would lose their mind if they had to wait more than five to ten minutes.

Voice chat is a weird thing, loads of people don't use it when it's available in games and it opens the door to all sorts of headaches for the game company.

[Lacksz]

Let them fight

[tsuchii]

No. I tried it a few time and no one really listens. It's a waste. 1/3 chance, roll the dice. That's frontline.

[IDontPetLalas]

You know, sometimes no one will listen, and that's just going to happen. However it also takes some practise to do callouts. For example, "don't split" is a good theory, but a better callout is " head to location_name".

People who see "don't split" (which I have seen) are going to randomly pick a target, or a base and often not the one that you think that they logically think they should pick, either because you have a strategy in mind, are looking at the score, are looking at the map- or hopefully all three. Whereas some of them are lost or just want to make the minimum investment and need very specific guidance.

[BubblyBoar]

I do call outs. People tend to listen to them. I have a pretty high win %. So....yes?

[Garten]

There's a reason this rarely if ever happens on JP when someone is commanding and it's because EVERYONE actually follows macro play.

This is literally what i was thinking.. also often there are times when YOU HAVE TO IGNORE OBJECTIVES, but ppl still go like moths to flame