Please prevent pre-made parties from queueing into Frontline

[Kowen]

Title. I've lost so many Frontline matches just because I happened to queue in to an alliance that didn't have a pre-made party. They're easy to spot. If you see a group of 6 - 8 players, all with battle high V, you've run into a pre-made party and there's nothing you can do about it except hope the match ends soon so you can try again afterwards.

I see you're on primal, so I know the regulars you're talking about and I agree it can suck the fun out of the match being against them.

The problem is that Frontlines is the most "casual" PVP mode in the game. If you take away people's ability to queue with their friends it'll tank the population. I have multiple friends who love PVP, but didn't resub for Crystalline Conflict simply because there's no easy way to play with friends. I think making FL the same way would be a mistake.

A better solution (although it would take work from the devs) is to make it so the duty finder prioritizes putting pre-made groups on opposing teams. That's already how the matchmaking works in most other PVP games too.

[Xylira]

I see you're on primal, so I know the regulars you're talking about and I agree it can suck the fun out of the match being against them.

The problem is that Frontlines is the most "casual" PVP mode in the game. If you take away people's ability to queue with their friends it'll tank the population. I have multiple friends who love PVP, but didn't resub for Crystalline Conflict simply because there's no easy way to play with friends. I think making FL the same way would be a mistake.

A better solution (although it would take work from the devs) is to make it so the duty finder prioritizes putting pre-made groups on opposing teams. That's already how the matchmaking works in most other PVP games too.

If FL is supposed to be the most casual of the PvP game modes, then there shouldn't be any team queuing for it. Premade teams are quite literally the opposite of a casual friendly mindset for a game mode. They ruin the fun for solo queuers, and put an onus on other players to have to form their own premade teams to have a fair chance, by evidence of so many people in this very thread telling people to do it if they don't like being stomped by premades.

I do agree though that CC should allow for teams. In fact, ranked should be only premade teams queuing against other premade teams. Seems like a fair compromise to remove team queuing from FLs and add it to ranked CC.

[Kowen]

If FL is supposed to be the most casual of the PvP game modes, then there shouldn't be any team queuing for it. Premade teams are quite literally the opposite of a casual friendly mindset for a game mode. They ruin the fun for solo queuers, and put an onus on other players to have to form their own premade teams to have a fair chance, by evidence of so many people in this very thread telling people to do it if they don't like being stomped by premades.

IMO what makes it fine in Frontlines is the fact you can fully communicate in party and alliance chat. A solo queue DRK who marks themselves and calls out a countdown before they dive in can be just as effective as one in a pre-made (assuming people pay attention).

[Mawlzy]

IMO what makes it fine in Frontlines is the fact you can fully communicate in party and alliance chat. A solo queue DRK who marks themselves and calls out a countdown before they dive in can be just as effective as one in a pre-made (assuming people pay attention).

Hmmm. Compare typing into alliance chat while trying to move around to an experienced premade on voice coordinating their LBs. I'd suggest the latter is far more effective, particularly at n00b-stomping. Unfortunately, irrespective of the actual effectiveness of premades, there is a growing perception that they are dominating the mode. That both turns people away and adds to toxicity.

Slightly orthogonally, I had an idea that has probably been brought up before and dismissed. Why not make PvP mentorship meaningful by assigning each team a non-combatant commander? This came to me after a FL match in which half my team were galloping very confidently towards an objective, only to be passed by the other half of our team galloping in the opposite direction. Just use any mentor who queued in, and reduce the contest to 23v23v23. That's a little closer to 8v8v8.

[Valence]

If FL is supposed to be the most casual of the PvP game modes, then there shouldn't be any team queuing for it. Premade teams are quite literally the opposite of a casual friendly mindset for a game mode. They ruin the fun for solo queuers, and put an onus on other players to have to form their own premade teams to have a fair chance, by evidence of so many people in this very thread telling people to do it if they don't like being stomped by premades.

I do agree though that CC should allow for teams. In fact, ranked should be only premade teams queuing against other premade teams. Seems like a fair compromise to remove team queuing from FLs and add it to ranked CC.

I feel that people are chasing the wrong culprit. The problem isn't premades. There is a lot of casual premades btw, I rarely play FLs unless some friends want to do them, and we don't play DRK/DRG. We don't even fill the 4 slots of the premade half the time, and I'm sure a lot, if not the majority of premades are actually "casual" as you say.

The problem is twofold:

- DRK/DRG combos, perhaps, could be looked upon. But then again DRG is just the most effective, but not the only job capable of being stacked for AoE damage with LB. Some are even easier to use and almost instant like SMN. Perhaps the problem is Salted Earth specifically? I think the pull in effect is too much on top of the AoE bind (which is also nuts in Crystalline Conflict tbh).
- Casual players unwilling to take the extra effort to do the same. Again, nothing prevents an alliance to find players willing to switch to DRK/DRG and pull the same combo. It's not exactly rocket science to do and it's seeing that kind of success precisely because the amount of effort to deploy is low, and the result is highly effective. However in the scenario where every team and every casual starts using that DRK/DRG combo and others jobs turn into actual minorities, then we go back to the first bullet point. In the scenario where it doesn't change because, guess what, most people just want to play the job they feel like at any time (which is also why it was a nightmare to find healers in FLs back when healers were the sole deciding factor of victory), then we also go back to the first bullet point.

So perhaps indeed the problem is the combo and not premades.