Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

[Archeron]

You sounds like you have never experience a X.1 patch before.
They never go details with they are going to do.
Even when 6.1 PvP revamp, the only info we got is "PvP Actions revamped and Limit Break Actions for each job" in PLL 70
There will be changes and each job will play differently with new PvP actions

If you are expecting DRK to be nerf to the ground, no, it will not happen.
Every expansion had a King and they never becomes unplayable after X.1 adjustment, Warrior in 2.x, Machinest in 3.x, etc...
Not to worry, you will soon find new thing to complain about, that I can ensure you.

Most of important, FF14 does not have PTR server like WoW, you won't get details of changes at all from MMO Champion data mining.
WoW has PTR build for data mining and FF14 has PLL to gives you a brief summary.

Okay so heres the thing.

FFXIV PvP (Frontlines) = Not fun.
WoW PvP (Battlegrounds) = Fun.

If you enjoy playing crappy PvP games, I have so many recommendations of games for you to play, and enjoy. I don't find them fun, and this forum exists for pointing out problems in the hopes something will be done about that. We're not here to blow smoke up the developers asses.

FFXIV Frontlines is objectively trash. They don't maintain it, they leave it broken for months, upon months at a time, and they don't listen to feedback or implement hotfixes unless something goes wrong to the point where it's genuinely unplayable. That is wholly unacceptable. I don't like the idea of there being "Kings" for each expansion, so you know what? I'm going to complain. Don't like it? Too bad.

Battlegrounds in WoW were fun. Arathi Basin for instance is a PvP map I have probably spent thousands of hours playing on because it's fun. Regardless of the problems WoW PvP had, you could have fun in it for hundreds of hours, and skill/gear often played the biggest part in deciding the winner. Unlike FFXIV where having a DRK premade, or 8 people who aren't watching youtube semi AFK on your team decides who wins, and you probably don't want to waste more than 20min playing it a day. Which style of PvP do you prefer? If you select XIV, I suggest seeking a licensed proffessional for help.

If something isn't fun, I'm not going to play it. If I, as a PvP player, who will literally fight people on any game where its offered as an option, show little interest in putting time into you PvP mode, you're doing something seriously wrong. Playing against the DRK meta isn't fun. So yes, send them back to the circus to be clowned on. Make them as useless as DNC. Shed your tears and let them hit the Salted earth below your feet that will be rendered useless or outright removed some day soon. Then, you'll come here, and complain like the rest of us.

[Mawlzy]

Anyone notice FL queue times getting longer the last week or two? It's been my experience on Aether.

[Windfire]

Know something other then the drk bs I'm personally tired of? Getting put on teams of 90% worthless rdps that REFUSE to switch to something more useful. No joke had one earlier where there was 1 healer (me) 2 tanks and 1 drg. Everything else was rdps, mostly brd/dnc queue /rageface

[Archeron]

Know something other then the drk bs I'm personally tired of? Getting put on teams of 90% worthless rdps that REFUSE to switch to something more useful. No joke had one earlier where there was 1 healer (me) 2 tanks and 1 drg. Everything else was rdps, mostly brd/dnc queue /rageface

Half of the casuals in Frontlines aren't even aware that you can change jobs mid match.

The other half are just cowards who play ranged jobs so they don't have to use their heads or watch their MP bars. They just hide behind everyone else and run away the second one AOE hits them. Nobody has any desire to be competitive they're just here to get their free rewards and leave, it's a pathetic state for a PvP mode to be locked into.

[KageTokage]

I can't really blame people for wanting to play ranged in FL when the player counts are so high that the opposing teams are like a walking death radius that can potentially kill you in the space of a few seconds with aggressive focus fire even if you're guarding.

DRK is broken largely because it can drag multiple people into that death radius to be picked off, which wouldn't be an issue if the player counts were lower or if the frontline design more frequently encouraged splitting up over just sticking with the murder ball...which is what Secure favored but that mode's been put on hiatus for who knows what reason.

[Malganis_L]

dont remind me of Secure,
the capture the flag mode where you cant defend the flag in any shape or form,
every round drag out to the timelimit
and you perma run from the flag to the right of your base to the one on the left side and than back again

[Cidel]

To the last conversation on the previous page, it's not so much that ranged dps jobs are worthless, so much as they somewhat ironically have a higher skill floor towards not being worthless in Frontlines. You need to work harder and smarter than playing a tank or melee, who both have the FL defense bonus handicap that makes them unkillable with anything less than a dogpile. And with virtually everything having a gap-closer or some sort of dash, the "advantage" of being able to attack from a distance it largely moot, and smart positioning becomes a bigger perk.

The physical ranged jobs have the worst of it. They usually lack any impactful AoE on-demand, and are more suited for bursting down a single-target (especially MCH). The ranged casters (sans RDM) are more respectable and arguably bigger threats, with multiple AoE options to burst with. The actual issue is so many casual players play physical ranged jobs that it's often oversaturated with bad to mediocre players; the 0 battle high ones that usually don't amount to much more than fodder in a given engagement, constantly lingering out in the open or point-blank, and end up dying 4+ times a match. You can't really low-effort the physical ranged dps jobs and get some results like you can with most melee and tank jobs and every healer (sans SGE). Newbs to the mode could probably better contribute by 1-shotting other newbs on SAM every 4 minutes or so, or Miracle-ing on WHM, or even constantly spreading Biolysis on SCH and hanging back until it's recast resets. Ranged physical dps 'aint it.

It's, as usual, a skill issue. I can regularly get BH5 on DNC and even BRD simply by contributing with assists and paying attention and not spending the whole game spamming 3% off random melee's HP per GCD that maybe 70% of the people queuing rdps jobs seem to be doing. Like, if you're gonna turn your brain off and do that, at least play SAM so you can both scare the crap out of people when you put Chiten up/ score a free battle high level off the like-minded people who turn their brains off when they repeatedly hit you...

Mogtome event starts after the next reset. What are our predictions? Will it trim back the growing queue times?

RW comes back, as this is the only time queues occur naturally. In fact, the 1st few nights/weekend usually have it going on non-stop even into the wee-hours of the morning. FL queue times haven't really suffered on Primal. It's still fast queues if it's during peak time. If anything, RW's activity might even slow FL's queues by a minute tops, but that's rarely an issue.

[Mawlzy]

Know something other then the drk bs I'm personally tired of? Getting put on teams of 90% worthless rdps that REFUSE to switch to something more useful. No joke had one earlier where there was 1 healer (me) 2 tanks and 1 drg. Everything else was rdps, mostly brd/dnc queue /rageface

I think it's quite possible that at least half a typical team only have PvP hotbars set up for a single job. And rdps is probably the natural default for those that don't really want to be there in the first place.

You can't dump rouletters and rookies in the same pool as players with thousands of matches and a desire for competitive PvP, and expect any result other than general disappointment and frustration. The DRK+ premade mono-strat kind of "solves" the problem since it renders the rest of the team borderline irrelevant, but completely stifles interesting gameplay.

As you say, team composition matters, and we have the ability to create a workable and interesting comp during the 45 second countdown. And that never happens. It's a massively underutilized element of the mode, further hindering FL evolution.

[Archeron]

I hate getting into battles where neither side is making any serious kills. It's just a back and forth of attacks on the frontline melee, AKA the Dark Knights, Warriors, Paladins, and GNB's. Everyone else is just hiding behind them scared to push or engage. The reality is every single ranged DPS has the tools to solve this. You can stun, you can bind, you can silence. With frontline melee silenced and stunned you can rush them and wipe their casters out. There is no easier way to make an Alliance wipe, than to have people in that alliance start to run away. It's as effective as killing a player when they disengage.

Unfortunately most ranged players behave as I describe. They're too scared to engage. They don't want to think. They want to attack things that won't get them hit by any spells or damage. But that leads to Dark Knights diving onto their Alliance because they're not putting out any meaningful damage onto targets who are going to die. If all that DPS is focused on Paladins/Dark Knights/Warriors who have both MP, and healers giving them regens/shields, there may as well be no DPS going out. It's a staring contest.

[KageTokage]

...Yeah, that's the other thing that's frustrating about frontlines is that because there are so many players, your own individual contribution matters much less. Even if you're doing the right thing, if nobody else is you're just stuck treading water and unable to get any kills if nobody wants to follow up on you taking initiative on someone who's overextending or if you make an opening with holmgang, salted earth, etc.

I like RW because individual players can reliably pressure the opposing team in various ways, like pushing the lanes by killing mammets, going for the towers with oppressors, etc. Worst case scenario you can just go grab fuel canisters so you're still accomplishing something even if you're not actively engaging with the enemy team.