Disruptive Frontline Gameplay

[Aubrey_A]

I think the best solution would be if they implemented a hidden rating system for FL queues, you perform well, you go up higher, you perform badly, you go down. Sure, some people may throw matches on purpose to stomp the weaker players, but if the ratings are retroactive and they take the highest rating of everyone in the party to determine the tier of the match, that would be much less of an issue (The current DRK meta pre-mades would have to throw hundreds of matches to get low enough to stomp people if the ratings are retroactive). If everyone is about equal in skill level, that means the game will be balanced and fun, if you're good enough to not die to the DRK combos all the time, you can then trust that your team is good enough to see it coming too.

I'm all in for a hidden rating system, especially based on the highest rating of the party. I worry this would either divide the queue up to the point where matches won't pop if a specific rating was not met. Inversely, not enough players are playing meaning everyone's lumped into the same que anyways. (I wouldn't have to worry if the players had some frontline statistics above what is shown in the Lodestone).

The thing about the DRK combo meta is that the combo is only as effective as the weakest player on the opposing team. I'm sure you've had moments where you're out of the deathball, looking at your team getting slaughtered and thinking "Man, if only they got out before the burst", now imagine that 21 other people are outside of the deathball with you, that means the DRK combo only killed 2 people. Killing only 2-4 people every time they execute the combo would severely hamper their effectiveness, meaning they can no longer win exclusively through kills without touching objectives. The only real solution to the DRK combo meta is to equalize the skill level of the match.

You are correct, the effectiveness of the DRK combo meta is the weakest links on the opposing teams. I die a little when I see 4+ players 100%-0% off the alliance list over a single tick. Obviously running into the meta is unavoidable sometimes, we don't choose to get pincered by our enemies afterall.

As a region we can't agree on what the best course of action would be, and we have been talking about it for months now lmao. This leads me to think educating teammates is the best way to go; and tempering expectations for those laissez faire teammates.




Sitting back and thinking about it, there honestly might not be anything to balance. It's not like FL hasn't had a meta in the past. Maybe it should be left as-is and the player base will eventually learn. Afterall, we figured out how to stop classes from getting height based kill, how to stop PLDs from pairing to cap points, to now stopping DRGs with a plethora of different CC.