Please prevent pre-made parties from queueing into Frontline

[Valence]

It's always the same debate you find in every team based multiplayer game ever. Premades vs solo players. And while it can offer a small advantage, the things they do together is usually not rocket science most of the time. At least not something that randos can't attempt on their own. DRG/DRK combos? Come on, don't tell me it is hard to find randoms willing to switch to DRG/DRK and follow simple commands if they know about the combo. Duo or trio premades in CC? Again, at best they'll be able to combo LBs more efficiently, else I don't see what they could pull more than what randos can, and they're still screwed by a non compliant team that just play like clowns (suiciding into enemy blobs solo, chasing all across in narnia, not following objectives...).

People grossly overestimate the gap premades bring when they're only partial. And I do feel it's somewhat exacerbated a lot by the fact that the players that generally take the time to form premades and act as teams are usually good players and/or tryhards, and they stand out a lot more because of it, while the random solo player that got lost in FLs their first time with half their pvp skills missing from their hotbars or the casual that is just here to level up their dailies will be feeding on the other end of the spectrum. It's like saying gear or job balance makes or break the deal, but in actuality it's mostly a player skill issue at the deep core of it.

[sparroww]

The only issue with pre-made are the bad balance jobs, (drg/drk/ast) these 3 if premade will win almost every match and ruin the match for both other teams. if Se can nerf drk then it will be fine, idk why is drg still being buffed.

[IDontPetLalas]

The only issue with pre-made are the bad balance jobs, (drg/drk/ast) these 3 if premade will win almost every match and ruin the match for both other teams. if Se can nerf drk then it will be fine, idk why is drg still being buffed.

A premade will usually (not always as you say) however there's nothing to stop anyone from entering with their own party. I've been in an alliance with randoms where we beat a pre-made that clearly had drks and dragoons syncing their skills, they got us so mad that we beat them - all that it took was a number of people with experience marking and not giving up.

Before calling for nerfs or saying that jobs are poorly balanced , you have to be careful on how it's applied, one of FL's challenge is the lack of control over party composition- we already saw that happen with summoners. You don't want a job neutered so that it's really not fun to play because 2 players (or more) use their heads and sync their skills.

[sparroww]

I dont care about premade but drk skill pull is not what you call balanced.

[ptown2]

How do they ensure they all end up in the same alliance?

They don't, the queue sync is to guarantee they're in the same instance, but the RNG to be on the same team is different from just doing that. All comes down to pure luck to what team you get.

[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).

[Valence]

They don't, the queue sync is to guarantee they're in the same instance, but the RNG to be on the same team is different from just doing that. All comes down to pure luck to what team you get.

I don't disagree, I was just taken aback by the mention of "premades of 6-8 players" and "queue syncers", whatever that meant?

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.

That I totally support.

[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.