What's going on Frontlines?

[maximesan514]

Are you solo-queueing?
Cuz I can tell you, only people who queue together in a party ever get wins. It's a sad reality of Frontline and it's a main contributor of why it's the worst game mode in FFXIV.

I cannot agree more, Frontline roulette needs to be solo queue only

[Hik3n]

I cannot agree more, Frontline roulette needs to be solo queue only

And even if it's solo you will get the same experience, this is not happening because someone plays in a party or not, is just the trash balance... and someone already listed almost all the things up there... People really want to transform this game in a single player game... the moment they make Frontline only solo will be the moment i never again enter in PVP, even though i play solo most of the time... If people want to play solo, they can go and play single player games, i don't care, even CC not having an option to makes teams is dumb, now people even want Frontline to be solo... yeah, no, the moment it happens will be probably the moment i give up on this game and delete it after 10 years, this mentality of making everything solo in an MMO destroys this game... and they do just that... you can literally play almost 90% of this game in solo already. If i want an RPG... i go and play an RPG.

[Mawlzy]

I don't understand this argument. The "MMO" part of frontlines is playing with 71 other people, surely? Equally, it's apparent from this and a couple of other threads that there are those that enjoy queuing with friends. But there's simply no getting around the fact that a 4-person premade confers a sizeable advantage on the 4 individuals in it. Consequently, this extra "fun" such premades get is at the expense of making the experience less fun for others, to the point where I fear it will drive away new players and damage FL. So it would appear that to keep everyone happy we need two queue modes. Incidentally, Josh Strife Hayes is one MMO luminary who argues convincingly that solo players are the lifeblood of MMOs.

[Xylira]

Premade groups do ruin the balance of FL matches and can lead to some really unfair matches, especially when they involve two or more DRK, DRG, and/or AST. They straight up just synergize too well together in FL.

[Sinstrel]

I cannot agree more, Frontline roulette needs to be solo queue only

What would you suggest the folks who have 1 or 2 friends they'd like to PvP with do?

[Valence]

Haha, people are still thinking that you need a 4 man premade of DRK/DRG to stomp a game? You can do that solo too with the same jobs.

Are you solo-queueing?
Cuz I can tell you, only people who queue together in a party ever get wins. It's a sad reality of Frontline and it's a main contributor of why it's the worst game mode in FFXIV.

Done exclusively solo (jobs played: MNK, DRG, some SCH).

In before "b-but you just got lucky and paired with the premades!!1!"

[VictorSpoils]

Haha, people are still thinking that you need a 4 man premade of DRK/DRG to stomp a game? You can do that solo too with the same jobs.





Done exclusively solo (jobs played: MNK, DRG, some SCH).

In before "b-but you just got lucky and paired with the premades!!1!"

• Counterpoint: This is a team game, you have 23 teammates, you have zero control over how competent they are unless you're queue syncing (and even then, barely), and you're facing two opponent teams instead of one. It's pretty clear there's a luck factor involved.
• Countercounterpoint: Queueing solo right now and getting a 55% win rate over 27 games without queue syncing isn't lucky. It's reality-defying.
• Countercountercounterpoint: Player competence almost certainly varies between data centers. In a brief excursion to Primal, I could win more times in a few games than I would across two dozen in Crystal. Even though every game is guaranteed to have a winner, you can consistently find yourself on the losing team. Plenty of leeway when there are two losing teams instead of one.

[Valence]

• Counterpoint: This is a team game, you have 23 teammates, you have zero control over how competent they are unless you're queue syncing (and even then, barely), and you're facing two opponent teams instead of one. It's pretty clear there's a luck factor involved.
• Countercounterpoint: Queueing solo right now and getting a 55% win rate over 27 games without queue syncing isn't lucky. It's reality-defying.
• Countercountercounterpoint: Player competence almost certainly varies between data centers. In a brief excursion to Primal, I could win more times in a few games than I would across two dozen in Crystal. Even though every game is guaranteed to have a winner, you can consistently find yourself on the losing team. Plenty of leeway when there are two losing teams instead of one.

1) Who said there is no luck factor involved? Of course luck is and has always been a significant part of pvp teamgames. Why are you bringing luck into this? Unless you're trying to imply that there is legitimately absolutely no impact that an individual player (or a group of 4, since that was the original point made) can have upon a game and the odds are a flat 33% to win no matter what on averages. Which would imply that people that have better results, be it in FLs or even CC ranked, are here out of sheer luck with no skill involved whatsoever. I just said that one individual alone can have a significant impact on even a FL game, especially when playing the obvious culprits like DRG, etc.
2) It's probably in the higher bracket of the results I've gotten. I used that screen earlier because it was specifically conducted with my tryharding at field commanding during a week, which I do believe flat out can beat any premade or DRG/DRK combo or whatever. Won't always work ofc, because it is still reliant on luck and your team actually being amenable to follow commands and know what to do, but it eliminates a lot of the skill issue from the equation when it works, and actually coordinates 20+ people at once instead of just 4. For reference, my total ratio hovers around 39-40% on 1st place, with over 1500+ games as sample, least I be accused of using too low sample sizes and a luck streak. And it does seem the ratio you find defying reality is actually found on the screen just above that you conveniently ignored, with a sample of a way higher size, so if that's just about luck as you say, then what is reality defying again here?
3) Again, nobody argues that luck is not part of the equation, or at least I don't. You're building strawmen here. If your DC is worse as you say, I only played FLs on Crystal in Stormblood (for a lot of games though), and Crystal back then used to be one of the best if not the best pvp DC on the western side. Perhaps it's not the case anymore. You need to teach people by showing and leading, that's as simple. Make macros, show them how to lead instead of complaining, and work hard to it for weeks, months, until people start understanding how it works, what tactics to employ, and how to react organically to the battlefield. You'll soon see them re using your macros or making their own variants, and while at first you'll just pull your hair out, later on, maybe you'll see results.

[Xylira]

Haha, people are still thinking that you need a 4 man premade of DRK/DRG to stomp a game? You can do that solo too with the same jobs.

Done exclusively solo (jobs played: MNK, DRG, some SCH).

In before "b-but you just got lucky and paired with the premades!!1!"

You literally did mostly just get lucky if that's from purely solo queueing. You're 1 player in a 72 players match; 1 person on a 24 person team, you make up only 4% of your team. So either you're some amazing player that is able to carry the random teams you end up on to sway that drastic of a win rate, or much more likely, you're above average and you got lucky with the matchmaking system.

And I say this having achieved a much higher win rate solo-queuing the past week on one of my alts, over 40 matches. I'm not going to pretend I'm some amazing PvPer, I know I'm decent enough at it, but I also know full well that a huge part of it was getting really lucky with matchmaking and ending up on teams with competent team mates that knew how to work together. And yes, more than a few of those matches I ended up on the same team as premade groups.

[Valence]

You literally did mostly just get lucky if that's from purely solo queueing. You're 1 player in a 72 players match; 1 person on a 24 person team, you make up only 4% of your team. So either you're some amazing player that is able to carry the random teams you end up on to sway that drastic of a win rate, or much more likely, you're above average and you got lucky with the matchmaking system.

And I say this having achieved a much higher win rate solo-queuing the past week on one of my alts, over 40 matches. I'm not going to pretend I'm some amazing PvPer, I know I'm decent enough at it, but I also know full well that a huge part of it was getting really lucky with matchmaking and ending up on teams with competent team mates that knew how to work together. And yes, more than a few of those matches I ended up on the same team as premade groups.

I'm by no means at the top of FL tryhards and honestly, I could probably do a lot better if I cared and practiced. I'm mostly a CC player and I don't play FLs that much. I just chill here if I need to, and I'm as you say, at best above average. I can however consistently get to BH3-4 on DRG after barely 2 LBs, or even before, because that's how potent DRG is in FLs. 3 LBs should bring you at BH5. Now then, using the power of napkin math as well, if you manage on your own, solo, no premade, to get consistently 2-3 kills on average per LB during team engagements, you essentially remove 10% of the enemy's numbers (on top of the AoE splash that didn't kill other players), and that alone can make a game swing in your favor. Now then, it also depends of what the other team is fielding, yes, and if they're doing the same thing, how effectively, etc. 1 player doing this will be hard pressed to even match a premade doing this because there is 4 of them, but 4 players even solo, doing this, definitely can. The premades aren't a problem, because as soon as you remove them from the picture, you'll still end up with the same whining about DRGs good players murdering everybody.

With that said, let's just ask then, what is your global ratio, with a good sample amount then? Can you honestly tell me in the eyes that past thousands of games, it's just sheer luck? Yeah i'm sure CC players at the top are all there by sheer luck as well. B-but they have much more weight! Yeah and you wanna bet how much higher their ratio will be if we just take their casual games? Unfortunately harder to track, but I have little doubt about it.