Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

[Archeron]

Compile your hatred for Frontlines here. Seems to be a million threads with the same general sentiments that go on for months at a time. Just put all your rage here. Especially when that Samurai LB's you, RNG steals a win from your team, or you just get pulverized to dust by DRK/AST premades.

We all want front lines to be a fun experience, which it currently IS NOT. This is a fundamental fact of the game mode. It's not fun for solo queuers, it's not fun for premades, it's not fun for the players who just want their free experience for the day.

We are given maps that have;

Too many PvE elements.
RNG being too much of a deciding factor in victories.
Flawed, unbalanced design.

Yes, the netcode is a problem with PvP. Yes the community has become apathetic to the problems with PvP as a whole. Those aren't reasons strong enough to stop us from constantly complaining about the same issues for 6 months at a time until they EVENTUALLY address them... Half heartedly.

[Mayonnaise_Jones]

Everything okay over there, Square Enix? or CBU3 if that's what you want to call yourselves?

New shatter changes are confusing. What was the reasoning behind it?

I'm still surprised after so many years how no one in the office seems to know what to do with PvP in this game. Is there a wheel of fortune spun every update? I actually didn't mind shatter from before 6.55. Sure it was a little wonky at times, but players figured it out eventually and the way the map was designed there were plenty of avenues for counterplay when facing deathball groups. Now we have a pvp gathering mini game. I'm not a fan or miner or botanist, so maybe smacking ice with my 3 weapon skills isn't for me. I would argue miner and botanist are much more fun, seeing all the skills you can use and being able to appreciate the world you're interacting with.

I get Frontlines is supposed to be chaotic. I don't even mind the 1v1v1 or 24 per team. But, do you want us to actually cooperate and fight other players or just hit a giant blue training dummy with a couple keystrokes?

Feels more and more like a free-to-play game, especially as it ages. Have you considered lowering the cost of a subscription so more people can justify the return on investment?

[george357]

played for a month got my mount and never went back its your problem deal with it.

[Nobuyuki_Sanada]

I don't hate frontlines but the new pvp abilities are not balanced for it so some things like the drk pull can make it not very fun to play. Shatter is also more a dps race than actual pvp, its not why I'm in the frontlines queue and its not very fun imo.

[Mostly_Raxus]

just go play league or even ESO if you want a game built around pvp, go play wow if you want to flavor chase and deal with micro managing addons more than playing the battlegrouns, heck even swtor has better pvp (rofl)..

ffxiv pvp has been reduced to a rip off of hero's of the storm.. but at least blizz moderated it and had anti cheat, thank god for ffxiv pvp, its keeping the botters off real games.

[SalamanderIX]

I've tried to make this point a few times, Dark Knight Salted Earth is the issue because you can't stop the succ. Every AOE dps becomes overpowered due to it, since it doesn't matter what kinda damage you're putting in the blender, since you are in a damage blender. Lately premades/bots have got even more vicious, sticking a Reaper in there to Tenebrae Lemurum or Dancer with Contradance into the Salted, so you will not be able to guard or survive.

Samurai getting so many nerfs is just due to people losing to Zantetsuken, not the job being good. All Samurai really had was Zantetsuken, and that's still the case. You took the bait and you lost. Kind of sucks a troll job get so much slack, Samurai was never good.

Square's response to some jobs large AOE damage or inherently strong displacement mechanics has been to simply "lower damage", taking frontlines damage far too low, you're basically in a wet noodle fight, especially if you're going to pick Dark Knight, Gunbreaker, Dragoon, Samurai, or *any ranged job*. Your agency is very low unless you got a bot network or premade, or your team happens to be on the ball. They have addressed zero issues and actually made things worse.

[CNitsah]

The problem is also the players. How many times do you see second team farm the third one and let the first flay away with no hopes of coming back.

[Archeron]

I'd rather they just go back to 8v8v8 and limit premades to two players. maybe just go to two teams of 25v25 with simpler map designs.

[Nobuyuki_Sanada]

I've tried to make this point a few times, Dark Knight Salted Earth is the issue because you can't stop the succ. Every AOE dps becomes overpowered due to it, since it doesn't matter what kinda damage you're putting in the blender, since you are in a damage blender. Lately premades/bots have got even more vicious, sticking a Reaper in there to Tenebrae Lemurum or Dancer with Contradance into the Salted, so you will not be able to guard or survive.

Samurai getting so many nerfs is just due by people losing to Zantetsuken, not the job being good. All Samurai really had was Zantetsuken, and that's still the case. You took the bait and you lost. Kind of sucks a troll job get so much slack, Samurai was never good.

Square's response to some jobs large AOE damage or inherently strong displacement mechanics has been to simply "lower damage", taking frontlines damage far too low, you're basically in a wet noodle fight, especially if you're going to pick Dark Knight, Gunbreaker, Dragoon, Samurai, or *any ranged job*. Your agency is very low unless you got a bot network or premade, or your team happens to be on the ball. They have addressed zero issues and actually made things worse.

I think the main reason for this is the PVP skills were designed for CC, I don't think any consideration was given to FL due to it already being a casual game mode. My hope is that with a future pvp update either FL will get their own skills or more likely AOE skills will all get "after 5 targets damage is reduced by %" this would essentially have no effect on CC but majorly nerf the excess damage in FL. I still think they might need to adjust certain abilities such as the drk pull and ast macro. I agree the damage blender is the catalyst for many of the problems in FL and even with reduced damage 5 targets can still be too major of a blow. AST's Macro has too large of a AOE and does too much damage, a coordinated group can just run in all pop macro simultaneously and get tons of kills with no counter play other than tracking the enemy ASTs an running away.

[ThaCa]

Frontlines is inherently flawed due too many players and being three way battle.