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.

[Scintilla]

I suggested shot-calling, because you seem to have come up against them often enough to have learned their tactics

You mentioned an FL guide for new players. I'm curious, what would you include in this guide which would be so profound that it would make premades suddenly survivable?

As others have said, shot-calling will do nothing.

DRK vokes, RPR removes Guard, followed by 2 BH5 DRG LBs. Simultaneously.

You've marked the DRK to try to get as much warning as possible of their coming.
Guard is going to be totally useless: regardless of whether you use it before or after the voke, the reduced movement speed won't let you escape in time before the RPR removes it and you'll still be caught in the LBs.
Stun the DRK or try to stand to attack? A nice try, but since their first attack which alerted you to their being there in the first place, they now have a high BH and an almost reckless alliance behind them - an alliance that knows chances of a solid counter attack are slim so they're safe to push further and harder than they would normally have done. Killing them will take longer and be much harder now they have BH. You may stun the DRK initially (but if you've used a melee to do it, good luck getting out of no-mans-land alive), but it will be removed far quicker than your team will be able to kill them. Some of your team may have already learnt their mistake from earlier and will have already begun to run. A few new players may not even be aware of the incoming danger.
Just run the moment you see them coming? Ignoring the fact that this would leave you having to completely give up objectives without any kind of counter-attack to defend them, if you've used sprint and you're early enough, you may escape. But remember: the only reason you escaped is because the DRK landed in a substantially large victim group that they remained there to voke. If all of you run, they'll just keep running after you, to the point where you're now nowhere near the objective.

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"

As said above, if everyone runs leaving only 3 people at the forefront of the enemy team, the DRK is going to run straight past them to catch up with a larger body of the team. Unless you all keep running for your lives until you're now far, far away from the objective, which you have no given them with no counter. If anyone got away, it's purely because a substantial number of their alliance didn't.

I think the best solution would be if they implemented a hidden rating system for FL queues

Ultimately, it will lead to the same veteran players being endlessly matched against the same premade teams, to the point where they just stop playing. So no, to believe that such a system will work shows naivety at best

[Aravell]

As said above, if everyone runs leaving only 3 people at the forefront of the enemy team, the DRK is going to run straight past them to catch up with a larger body of the team. Unless you all keep running for your lives until you're now far, far away from the objective, which you have no given them with no counter. If anyone got away, it's purely because a substantial number of their alliance didn't.

You do understand that if the DRK pre-made runs past the stragglers to engage the bigger part of the alliance, they've made the grave error of pinching themselves while parts of their team are hanging back at the objective, right? In that situation, the pre-made is at a severe disadvantage because they're down people while you have the entire alliance there and they're now pinched in the middle of your alliance. If an entire alliance somehow manages to lose the fight when the enemy is at such a disadvantage, then the average skill level really needs to go up.

In that situation, you'd turn around and clean house, then take their objective.

[Mawlzy]

You mentioned an FL guide for new players. I'm curious, what would you include in this guide which would be so profound that it would make premades suddenly survivable?

There is such a guide! Made by notorious shot-caller Olivia L. on Aether. Haven't read it for a while, but these are the salient features I recall.

How to win in FL:

1. Be a shot-caller. Various helpful macros are included.
2. Form a premade.
3. Various meta compositions are offered.
4. Tactics are suggested that inevitably involve fairly heavy casualties for those on your team not in the premade. Don't worry about that, they're not your friends anyway. The premade is so devastating they are simply collateral damage on the way to easy wins.

It's actually a really good guide, and I wish more FL players would read it because it corrects some common strategic misunderstandings. It's also deeply cynical IMO.

The problem is premades.

[IDontPetLalas]

You mentioned an FL guide for new players. I'm curious, what would you include in this guide which would be so profound that it would make premades suddenly survivable?

snip

I'm not sure this is coming from. My point regarding tutorials was related to a comment regarding new players.


Perhaps you have never met someone who has entered their first FL without knowing how what the purpose of each match is, and what the general objectives are, or how the job skills change in PvP, or that it is a good idea to keep their map open? If so- you're fortunate.

I'm not a game designer, however a tutorial could possibly use NPCs to simulate a short match, and allow someone to practise all of the above.

If you think that I will now say " and now you're ready to beat the best premade', you're sadly mistaken. If you think that I will say " you have an advantage over a premade on voice comm" you would also be mistaken or 'you are the equal of a veteran PvPer" you would also have the wrong impression.

[Aravell]

When I say these attacks are simultaneous, I'm not overexaggerating.

I'm not doubting your experiences are real, but I remain skeptical. I've played a lot of FL across every iteration and on several DCs, I've never met an unbeatable pre-made that could not be disrupted in some way, even the 8 man deathballs back when we could queue as a full party could be disrupted. People aren't robots, I'm very skeptical that people can have perfect coordination throughout the entire match. Unless, of course, said people have some, shall we say, assistance?

As for this reply to my suggestion of a hidden rating system:

Ultimately, it will lead to the same veteran players being endlessly matched against the same premade teams, to the point where they just stop playing. So no, to believe that such a system will work shows naivety at best

How many experienced FL players do you know that consistently dies to DRK combos? Most veterans are experienced enough to understand how to deal with it. You yourself conceded that you can deal with them by pinching them with the other alliance. What makes you think a full game of 72 veterans would be so disorganised to completely lose it to a singular pre-made?

Like I said before, the main problem is the skill gap at work. And when I say "skill", I don't mean how well someone pushes their buttons, any monkey can push the 6-7 buttons that we have now. I'm talking about FL-related skills like map awareness, knowing when to go in and when to back off, understanding when you're in a bad position, being able to tell when your team is in a perfect position to get pinched, all qualities that a shotcaller would have.

[Scintilla]

It kind of looks like people have forgotten what PvP is

I presume you saw my previous reply to 'it's not being disruptive' so I'm not going to write it all again

My points in your post specifically:

"They're not being disruptive, they're not being mean-spirited"
Debatable. My personal experience when being placed on the same alliance as these premades has suggested that they very much are, and it seems that others have similar experiences. That said, this only accounts for our own experiences, and we cannot make the claim that this poor attitude applies to every single premade team out there. Similarly though, you cannot make the opposite claim.

their only obligation is to win for their team, there is no obligation to make sure the opponent teams have a good and fun match
Are they breaking any rules? No. Have anyone here claimed them to be breaking rules? Also no. So why you seem to feel that we are placing accusations against the premade teams personally, I'm not sure.
The issue that lots have is the many system faults which converge to enable such behaviour. Behaviour which causes such an immense disparity between each teams chances of winning that sometimes teams are given no choice but to either:
1. Let them win
2. Actively help the second random team just to keep some kind of competitive game going

As for FL being as balanced as possible, if you want to get rid of the overperforming pre-mades, the underperforming people would need to be cut out too.
This isn't an 'over-performing' players vs 'under-performing' players issue. In random games, there are a mix of extremely capable veterans and completely new players, but despite this mixture of player experience, FL matches remain competitive and balanced. It is only these games in which the premades exists where problems come about.

And to describe them as 'over-performing' seems almost laughable. I would argue it takes far, far less skill to win as a premade than it does to guide a random team to victory. A random match requires coordinating an unknown team, the balance of objectives and PvP, adjusting tactics as necessary to reflect your team or changes in the situation.
A premade is purely: get a group of 4 friends on a voice chat, use chat to simultaneously voke, remove Guard, and LB, then flee while the alliance covers your escape. No objectives needed, minimal alliance coordination - once they realise there's free kills on offer, most will blindly follow you around the map.

And sadly, in some circumstances there is no way to combat this, regardless of whether you're an experienced FL player or not.

[Aravell]

This isn't an 'over-performing' players vs 'under-performing' players issue. In random games, there are a mix of extremely capable veterans and completely new players, but despite this mixture of player experience, FL matches remain competitive and balanced. It is only these games in which the premades exists where problems come about.

And to describe them as 'over-performing' seems almost laughable. I would argue it takes far, far less skill to win as a premade than it does to guide a random team to victory. A random match requires coordinating an unknown team, the balance of objectives and PvP, adjusting tactics as necessary to reflect your team or changes in the situation.
A premade is purely: get a group of 4 friends on a voice chat, use chat to simultaneously voke, remove Guard, and LB, then flee while the alliance covers your escape. No objectives needed, minimal alliance coordination - once they realise there's free kills on offer, most will blindly follow you around the map.

And sadly, in some circumstances there is no way to combat this, regardless of whether you're an experienced FL player or not.

Many people make the claim that the DRK combo is very easy to pull off and requires no skill, so why doesn't everyone do it then? Have you ever seen a bad DRK+AST group? I've seen many, they feed the enemy team a lot because they think they're meta and invincible.

As for how to combat this combo when the pre-made is actually good? There is one way that almost always works. Flank the enemy and dive their backline as the pre-made makes their charge, the backline will flee and condemn the 4 man pre-made to die. ASTs are basically food, the DRK will usually get away, but that's fine, just feed on the ASTs and they'll never gain battle high. No matter how good the pre-made is, they cannot control 20 other people, when people get flanked, their first instinct is to flee. If no one follows-up, the pre-made is basically useless.

So why you seem to feel that we are placing accusations against the premade teams personally, I'm not sure.

Some people in this very thread have claimed that the pre-mades are griefing or being disruptive. None of that is true, they're simply using the tools available to them to win the game. If some start mocking people, then sure, they're being toxic. But most are simply using the means available to them to win, nothing wrong with that.

[Doozer]

As for how to combat this combo when the pre-made is actually good? There is one way that almost always works. Flank the enemy and dive their backline as the pre-made makes their charge, the backline will flee and condemn the 4 man pre-made to die. ASTs are basically food, the DRK will usually get away, but that's fine, just feed on the ASTs and they'll never gain battle high. No matter how good the pre-made is, they cannot control 20 other people, when people get flanked, their first instinct is to flee. If no one follows-up, the pre-made is basically useless.

That requires all 24 people on your team to understand this and cooperate, whereas what usually happens is they see their party get one-shot and go "oh, these people again, gg" and half of them give up. And you can't blame them for that, when again these teams win every match they're in. If that strategy was so easy to use to counter these teams, people would already be doing it. But they aren't.

[Aravell]

That requires all 24 people on your team to understand this and cooperate, whereas what usually happens is they see their party get one-shot and go "oh, these people again, gg" and half of them give up. And you can't blame them for that, when again these teams win every match they're in. If that strategy was so easy to use to counter these teams, people would already be doing it. But they aren't.

The DRK combo is very ineffective against that solution. How do I know it actually works? Because that's what everyone does on JP.

Like I said in an earlier post, the problems with the DRK combo does not need any nerfs, it requires players to be of equal skill. If the game matches people of equal skill, then the match would be properly balanced. Currently, the team that loses is the one that has the most people that are unable to cope with the DRK meta.