Disruptive Frontline Gameplay

[Mawlzy]

And if people do decide to play with friends, what do they get? Ah yes, they get to wait in a longer queue just to get stomped by the pre-mades that everyone claims are a problem when they get a match. This is basically just pushing the problem that people have off to somewhere else that they don't plan to go.

You're creating a hypothetical that may be problematic for a small number of players, whereas I'm attempting to address one that is poisoning the entire mode.

[Aravell]

You're creating a hypothetical that may be problematic for a small number of players, whereas I'm attempting to address one that is poisoning the entire mode.

Clearly it's not poisoning the entire mode. I and several others have never had much issue with this supposed pre-made problem.

Does it happen? Sure it does. Is it a problem everywhere? Not at all.

Calling pre-mades a poison upon the entire mode is an exaggeration. And before you deflect and call me one of the pre-mades, I only queue solo, been doing it since FL began, will continue to queue solo.

[IDontPetLalas]

Clearly it's not poisoning the entire mode. I and several others have never had much issue with this supposed pre-made problem.

Does it happen? Sure it does. Is it a problem everywhere? Not at all.

Calling pre-mades a poison upon the entire mode is an exaggeration. And before you deflect and call me one of the pre-mades, I only queue solo, been doing it since FL began, will continue to queue solo.

I couldn't agree with you more, I don't know whether this stems from people who detest the actual mode (3 alliance) , who haven't had a lot of experience with larger scale random alliances, or find it really different from their prior experience and don't like it.

For example, one prior comment said that it was "daft" to mix a pre-made into solo queues. Now, this isn't the first game where I've seen this in a non-competitive mode, it was used in a PvP/PvE game and players here would have found it even worse because a whole pre-made team (6 people) could be matched against a full pug OR a pre-made. Were pre-mades hard to form there? Not at all, yet some people solo-queued anyways - and yes, the premades would usually win.

[Mawlzy]

I couldn't agree with you more, I don't know whether this stems from people who detest the actual mode (3 alliance) , who haven't had a lot of experience with larger scale random alliances, or find it really different from their prior experience and don't like it.

For example, one prior comment said that it was "daft" to mix a pre-made into solo queues. Now, this isn't the first game where I've seen this in a non-competitive mode, it was used in a PvP/PvE game and players here would have found it even worse because a whole pre-made team (6 people) could be matched against a full pug OR a pre-made. Were pre-mades hard to form there? Not at all, yet some people solo-queued anyways - and yes, the premades would usually win.

Uhm. Sounds kinda daft

[Scintilla]

I don't know whether this stems from people who detest the actual mode (3 alliance) , who haven't had a lot of experience with larger scale random alliances, or find it really different from their prior experience and don't like it.

I presume you aren't referring to those of us who are making points against premades because, if you were, I'm not sure where you draw this conclusion from at all?

Personally, I like the 3-alliance structure and would be rather sad to see it go. It has it's flaws, not least as it can be baffling to try to understand the logic of the third team in some games, but I still very, very much prefer it to a regular 2 alliance game.
I wouldn't say the second point applies to me either: I much prefer PvP to any other aspect of this game and, aside from a few daily roulettes, practically all of my online time is spent in playing FLs across my 3 alts (CC too, but to a somewhat lesser extent. As I said, I like the larger scale, 1v1v1 setup of FL more). 3-a-day are purely my alts FL dailies; I play extra to that even after those are completed.
And, finally, in the past I have played PvP heavily in other games before FFXIV and I much prefer the system here. In one in particular, PvP was extremely toxic and flaws in the system were heavily abused by players wherever possible. There, flaws were even greater and more numerous than those here, hence I was very pleasantly surprised when beginning here at how much different it was. However, while better than other games, this system still has issues and we want to highlight these issues in the hope that it results in some kind of resolution or improvement being found. It won't be easy or straightforward, but it's still immensely better than simply ignoring the situation.

this isn't the first game where I've seen this in a non-competitive mode, it was used in a PvP/PvE game and players here would have found it even worse because a whole pre-made team (6 people) could be matched against a full pug OR a pre-made. Were pre-mades hard to form there? Not at all, yet some people solo-queued anyways - and yes, the premades would usually win.

Purely because the situation might be worse in a completely different game, it still doesn't mean that the problems here are non-existent. Okay, so there's another worse-off game (there'll be many out there), how does that mean that this game requires no improvement whatsoever? Do only the very worst games in history need improving because the rest are "well, they're worse than us, so our problems can be ignored"?

It sounds almost like you're suggesting that because a different game is currently in a much worse situation, that means that all issues and reports of problems in this game are invalid

[IDontPetLalas]

"you aren't referring to those of us who are making points against premades because, if you were, I'm not sure where you draw this conclusion from at all?

snip



Purely because the situation might be worse in a completely different game, it still doesn't mean that the problems here are non-existent. Okay, so there's another worse-off game (there'll be many out there), how does that mean that this game requires no improvement whatsoever? Do only the very worst games in history need improving because the rest are "well, they're worse than us, so our problems can be ignored"?

It sounds almost like you're suggesting that because a different game is currently in a much worse situation, that means that all issues and reports of problems in this game are invalid

I worded my post carefully to state that these are are some possible reasons why - i.e. they are some hypotheses. That's all that anyone can do.

I don't see why this idea of "we shouldn't ignore our concerns" keep popping up, there's a difference between Case 1 " person A sees issue 1 as critical for a feature, person B disagrees with the priority" and they have a discussion as opposed to Case 2 "person B tells person A to go away, they shouldn't even work on any issues affecting that feature, it's so far down the product's list of priorities". I don't see anyone acting like Case 2. So no, I am not and have never been saying "ignore our comments" , but there is clearly an issue with some people not understanding the difference between a difference of opinion and refusing to even discuss issues.

Finally, if you think that I'm describing a game with worse PvP than FFXIV- that is your assumption based on extremely limited information. On the contrary, FFXIV has worse PvP, and I would be surprised if many people would disagree. Nor should it be surprising that a game designed at the outset for PvP, with multiple modes of PvP, would have a better UX than one designed with PvP as a niche mode, running on an outdated engine.

That certainly does not in any way logically lead to my arguing "that means that all issues and reports of problems are invalid", that is a fallacy, you are jumping to a conclusion based upon no evidence.

[Mawlzy]

Clearly it's not poisoning the entire mode. I and several others have never had much issue with this supposed pre-made problem.

Does it happen? Sure it does. Is it a problem everywhere? Not at all.

Calling pre-mades a poison upon the entire mode is an exaggeration. And before you deflect and call me one of the pre-mades, I only queue solo, been doing it since FL began, will continue to queue solo.

Friend, I'm not in the habit of accusing people here of anything. I believe we bother to post because we enjoy FL and want to see it improve and grow.

I only play on Aether, so yes, I cannot speak for the entire mode.

I do hope SQEX look into the data, because ultimately that should be the deciding factor. For example, if the vast majority of those queueing as a light party have comparable K/D/A and win-rates as those queuing solo, there is no problem worth addressing. But it sure doesn't feel like that.

[Aravell]

Friend, I'm not in the habit of accusing people here of anything. I believe we bother to post because we enjoy FL and want to see it improve and grow.

I only play on Aether, so yes, I cannot speak for the entire mode.

I do hope SQEX look into the data, because ultimately that should be the deciding factor. For example, if the vast majority of those queueing as a light party have comparable K/D/A and win-rates as those queuing solo, there is no problem worth addressing. But it sure doesn't feel like that.

I'm just covering my bases so I don't get accused of being a pre-made abuser myself.

I've played on Crystal, Materia and Elemental, but the bulk of my matches are on Elemental. I suggest playing a few matches on Materia to see how people deal with the DRK combos, they've dealt with 3 famous DRK pre-mades for months now, they've gotten pretty good at dealing with it. Elemental is pretty evenly matched most of the time, you can see people fighting on mid in Onsal Hakair for 9 minutes with no clear victor, you can even occasionally time out on Onsal Hakair. Crystal is.....iffy, they seem to generally know where to go, but they seem hesitant to engage the enemy most of the time, but matches usually go pretty good if people have enough melee jobs that actually go fight.

Can't speak much for Aether, I've barely played there, maybe I'll DC travel over to do my matches to see this pre-made problem for myself.

As for SE looking at the data, I'd assume they won't see much needs changing. I won't deny that I've seen matches that massively favour one team, but I've also seen a lot of matches where the difference between 1st and 3rd place is less than 100 points. Maybe Aether really leans towards to former, I don't know, but I intend to find out for myself.