Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

[Mistress_Irika]

Premades are godlike. We all get it. In my experience, majority, if not all premades are extremely bad at avoiding being sandwiched *hint hint*. However, since not trusting no team and farming 3rd place is more popular and preferable I'm just going to step back and continue to let everyone change/adjust the rules.

Again, you can get rid of premades, and the only 2 things that are changing are the amount of effort put into killing and the difficulty with afk farming objectives, especially at the lower ranks. Playing just to earn experience points isn't going away. Fighting whoever is in front of you isn't going away. "Let 'em fight" definitely isn't going away since it's an undying religion. If it's somehow difficult to get to the objectives expect class nerfs and, in extreme cases, rule changes.

The skill gap us a major issue. I don't know if people are trying hard and whining... maybe trying or whining >.>

I'll disagree with that statement. Many do not care about the results, many definitely do not care about skill, and those that verbally make it known that they do will either be ignored or be outright told to go play rank.

[Jettinson]

Crazy to see so many people crying. There's a big skill issue for most, but also accept that you can't always win, especially in a 3-faction game with rng elements (both are which are good). Some people are whining but also trying way too hard instead of analyzing and focusing on their gameplay.

Yeah, if every match we have to think the perfect game then it will be way harder to enjoy.

Although Shatter remains the most boring atrocious mode now and I only feel excitement when we properly skirmish and not just play hot potato with the 3rd team lol

[Rueby]

Honestly, I just had a few matches where our alliance gave up on playing because there's a 'premade' on the other team. People don't even want to try anymore, and honestly, when I see my team not even wanting to fight and just rolling over because there's a premade on the other side, it's just sad. It's not fun being on the premade's team either because 'steam rolling' the other team to me isn't 'fun', it's not a 'good game' nor does it feel good. People coming at me with like 'just wait till you're on their team'...

I don't want to try anymore honestly either, I just want my series exp but even that feels excruciating with how unfun frontlines feel to me.

[Aravell]

It is an Ouroboros relationship, so don't complain.
You may claim the premade further widening the skill gap; while it may be true, but Premade is created because of good players got pushed into corner by players that are not trying hard and whining.

This is the harsh truth of the situation, as more and more people give up at the start of the match because of premades, more FL veterans will either form their own premades or quit FL entirely, so your chances of finding good solo players will keep diminishing.

Side note: Since travel to Materia DC is active, I'd encourage people to travel there for a match or two to see how JP/OCE deals with premades.

[Valence]

It feels like one side is playing one game, and the other side a totally different game, and both are mutually exclusive to my own enjoyment.

- I didn't mind fighting against premades because it's still fun to mess with their BH5 players, but the games end in less than 10min most of the time which is just extremely frustrating and yields games with not much happening if at all.
- I hate being on the premade's side because no matter what I do, I'm useless, they don't need me, and the game will end in less than 10min anyway.
- I don't want to be part of a premade myself even though I tried. It's boring and uninteresting gameplay.

This is why I quit, not because people keel over at the start of a game. If anything, I myself gave up when I stopped participating into them. It's not the first time this happens either, I also did during SB at some points where high BH nin premades were so dominating that it felt like seal clubbing and the only way to deal with them was to stay in our spawns and deny them any fight or fun until they left the queue.

[Mawlzy]

It feels like one side is playing one game, and the other side a totally different game, and both are mutually exclusive to my own enjoyment.

- I didn't mind fighting against premades because it's still fun to mess with their BH5 players, but the games end in less than 10min most of the time which is just extremely frustrating and yields games with not much happening if at all.
- I hate being on the premade's side because no matter what I do, I'm useless, they don't need me, and the game will end in less than 10min anyway.
- I don't want to be part of a premade myself even though I tried. It's boring and uninteresting gameplay.

This is why I quit, not because people keel over at the start of a game. If anything, I myself gave up when I stopped participating into them. It's not the first time this happens either, I also did during SB at some points where high BH nin premades were so dominating that it felt like seal clubbing and the only way to deal with them was to stay in our spawns and deny them any fight or fun until they left the queue.

I agree with all of this, but the emboldened statement is a beautifully distinct summary.

Mixing solo and party queueing means that, in the presence of premades, two completely different games are occurring simultaneously on the battlefield. My least favorite scenario is being on the same team as the premade.

I also don't understand why members of a premade find the playstyle amusing, but given the volume they put in I guess they must. Here's a suggestion to premade commanders though. Solo queue. Experience a few games when you're on the same team as a competent premade. Did you have fun? Why or why not?

It seems to me the only reason for premades to exist is to artificially skew win-rate, and the only reason to do that is to get rewards faster. Which frankly is a bit sad and pathetic.

[Teno]

Premades are fine, and far from godlike. If anything you can definitely play around them. It only becomes a problem when there are multiple, or 1 premade + other good players who can take advantage of it.

Also I'm a solo player.

[Sinstrel]

It doesn't avoid players not trying or constantly whining so I don't understand that point at all.

To help put things in a bit more perspective to help you understand what he meant:

There are mainly 2 types of players queing for Frontline Roulette.

1. The player who is "just here for xp/reward" for participating
2. The player who ques to PvP for fun and/or win games.

The expectation from both of these players is drastically different from one another. Player 1 does not care too much about winning or losing, they are here to collect the daily reward they get just for simply being here. These are the majority of players queing up for Frontline Roulette.

Player 2 may que Frontline multiple times in a day. They expect thier team mates to have put forth an effort to learn thier jobs, have some PvP awareness, and try thier best to coordinate with the team to win the match. There are much fewer of these players.

The problem lies within the difference in expectations for Player 1 and Player 2. Player 1 does not care about winning because no matter what they are getting thier full reward of massive xp, poetic tomes, causality tomes, comedy tomes, and moogle tomes. This is frustrating for player 2 since there is nothing they can do to motivate thier teammates to try (why try if you get the same reward?)

After months/years of constantly being matched with Player 1, Player 2 decides they will form a group with other Player 2's who have the same expectations, thus a pre-made is born. Player 2 finally has a team of players with the same expectations and they flatline every Player 1 in the lobby, and player 1 is not having fun being farmed. So they come to the forums to ask for a ban on Pre-mades.

Of course there are other types of players like solo and those in the middle between Player 1 and 2. But you get the idea.

[Mawlzy]

To help put things in a bit more perspective to help you understand what he meant:

There are mainly 2 types of players queing for Frontline Roulette.

1. The player who is "just here for xp/reward" for participating
2. The player who ques to PvP for fun and/or win games.

I think this is an accurate breakdown of the demographic, but in that case I'd suggest your conclusions don't actually follow from that starting hypothesis.

There are certainly daily one-and-done players in FL. Many people when leveling jobs run some or all of the roulettes for the XP boost, and FL is particularly advantageous because of job switching and it being such a big boost. It is more probable that people in this category play poorly, either through the limited experience they get, or because they just don't give a crap (an attitude, as others have noted, which gets massively magnified by the presence of a premade).

However, particularly later in the day, the presence of such players should be completely swamped by genuine PvP enthusiasts. You can see the volume some players put in from the leaderboards or just by seeing them match after match. They are actually playing for the challenge and the fun of it. But that enjoyment is completely denied them once some damn premade settles in for a few hours.

[Scintilla]

snip

I am fully aware of these '2 types of players', so I'm afraid your explanation does not sway me whatsoever.

To me, it is simple: Premade teams are just people who want an easy run of it. Players who want an easy win without having to go through the usual challenges of working as part of the larger alliance team, without having to employ any kind of strategic approach to the game, and without having to input much effort/thought at all. Minimum effort for maximum reward, but one which usually ruins the game for everyone else playing it (including the random players on their own alliance). It's not against the rules, but does push even more players into adopting that 'don't care' attitude and, in time, will turn more and more players away from FLs.

I play multiple games daily across my alts: does endless ice-licking frustrate me? Yes. Does the PvP avoidance of many objective-blind, 'let them fight' players annoy me at times? Yes. Do I strongly dislike the 'we lost, just end it fast' approach of some of those exp players? Yes.
But working as part of this wider team of a mixed range of motivations and abilities is part of the challenge of FLs. Remember: these players exist on every alliance. Everyone is working with such players while trying to push their team to first place, entering as premade is not avoidance of this as you claim - it's just players who find they can't / can't be bothered to win using the typical means and are out to look for an easier and faster option to get a decent win rate