Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

[Aravell]

Still think the mode was better when the DR values were lower. DRK and DRG flourish because most of the other jobs can't kill anything. Even when SMN and WHM used to rack up kills there weren't as many complaints.

The old SMN/WHM easy kill farm meta didn't have time to settle before things were changed, if it stayed for as long as the current DRK one did, I 100% bet that there would be a lot more complaints.

Honestly though, that old SMN stacking meta did need to be changed immediately, because unlike a DRK that you can see coming and you can then react by guarding, there was absolutely no counterplay to a SMN stack dropping 4 Bahamuts on your alliance. You don't see it coming, you don't have anything to react to, they just all press 1 button and then your entire alliance is respawning.

It was basically a game of how many SMNs your alliance had and who drops the most Bahamut bombs first, a game that a 4-man premade would always win as 4 Bahamuts were enough to kill any job.

[AriannaStormwake]

premades queue syncing and stacking limit breaks
and pugs who"play badly" and let themselves be beaten by the obvious premade for free points is not fun
think i found hidden gorge the better more fun map(design-wise that is) when 1 opposing team doesnt have a premade again haha

[EvianYmir89]

There’s no actual benefit for players who want to enjoy frontline since all PvP tweaks focus solely on cc now a days. There are multiple classes that are over powered in this frontline, such as healers, DRK etc. but anyone saying they won’t nerf classes didn’t play summoner or ninja earlier on in this expansion. Also explain to me how a battle high 1/2 tank can’t solo a dps or healer.

[Chasingstars]

There’s no actual benefit for players who want to enjoy frontline since all PvP tweaks focus solely on cc now a days. There are multiple classes that are over powered in this frontline, such as healers, DRK etc. but anyone saying they won’t nerf classes didn’t play summoner or ninja earlier on in this expansion. Also explain to me how a battle high 1/2 tank can’t solo a dps or healer.

Yeah I had to wonder why they tweaked paladin and realized it was likely done with CC in mind.

There are ways for a tank to solo healers or dps, but that can be a long and tedious process. Reapers and ninjas are especially hard to take out as they have lots of tools meant for creating distance, for stunning/fearing, healing, and shielding. Samurai are technically easier to deal with as they really only have tools to chase/engage, a root, and a stun, and some damage reduction that also doubles as potentially a lethal option if not treated with care. Bards and Machinists are much easier to get KOs on even though they have tools to somewhat give them a bit of survivability. Scholars are fairly easy to chase down if they are caught out, but astros and to an extent white mages are harder to knock out. Dragoons can be chased down but their backwards leap, if done right with camera positioning, can basically be a dash to get away. Monks can be a pain but more so because their dash lets them go towards allies in addition to their stun and knock back.

[Mawlzy]

Two practical solutions for addressing the premade vs solo queue problem in FL.

(Putting this here since if FL sucks, we have a responsibility to find solutions so it sucks less.)

The problem: Many FL players who solo queue do not wish to play with premades. However, the suggestion that party queueing should be disabled is naturally unpopular among those who queue as a light party. I see two possible compromises that keep both camps happy.

Solution 1. Two queue modes, one solo only, one solo+party. This addresses the problem that a premade-only queue would be slow to pop. Could include the option of double queueing with "first available" to speed queue times for soloists who don't care about premades.

Solution 2. Make the Duty Finder queue solo only. Add FL to Party Finder. (Ideally this would include an auto-fill for solo players.) In addition to solving "the problem," this would also allow players to organize events in a much easier manner, without Q-synching (which is also becoming more of an irritant to solo players).

[Chasingstars]

Two practical solutions for addressing the premade vs solo queue problem in FL.

(Putting this here since if FL sucks, we have a responsibility to find solutions so it sucks less.)

The problem: Many FL players who solo queue do not wish to play with premades. However, the suggestion that party queueing should be disabled is naturally unpopular among those who queue as a light party. I see two possible compromises that keep both camps happy.

Solution 1. Two queue modes, one solo only, one solo+party. This addresses the problem that a premade-only queue would be slow to pop. Could include the option of double queueing with "first available" to speed queue times for soloists who don't care about premades.

Solution 2. Make the Duty Finder queue solo only. Add FL to Party Finder. (Ideally this would include an auto-fill for solo players.) In addition to solving "the problem," this would also allow players to organize events in a much easier manner, without Q-synching (which is also becoming more of an irritant to solo players).

Neither is perfect solution as maybe you have 2 or 3 people partying together just because they are friend and want to play on the same team, maybe they are doing some silly strat like double Machinist LB on a target.

To some extent the premades make sense. The locations and order of flags/ice/rocks are randomized. A match could be lost because of bad node spawns for one or two teams. So obviously doing queue-synchs and premade stuff are a manner to try and stack the deck in their favor, to effectively get a Royal Flush poker hand every game. On the surface there is nothing wrong with it. But queue-synching is an exploit within the system that is not intended.

There is also another way you can exploit the queue-synching system: Intentionally Feeding.

Where they will purposefully get themselves killed and help the enemy team win, in this case giving the enemy more battle high. What generally separates inting from wintrading, is wintrading is trying to make it not look obvious you inted on purpose, of pretending to make a legitimate effort. Which also could be done with queue synching intentionally but being a solo player instead. As lets say there is two players that are friends and in discord voice chat together, if they are on the same team, they play as normal. But if they are on different teams, you have one intentionally dying, accelerated by simple things like fall damage to intentionally lower their own health, for the other friend to get increased BH if done repeatedly. On old maps it would be a lot easier, because of the verticality, as all the friend would need to do is hit the feeder once and then the feeder would jump off a ledge and die immediately. Repeat this however many times and one friend could magically have a battle high 5 very early on into the match.

[Mawlzy]

Neither is perfect solution as maybe you have 2 or 3 people partying together just because they are friend and want to play on the same team, maybe they are doing some silly strat like double Machinist LB on a target.

I have no doubt that some people will find a means to exploit any system. However, if both camps in this debate are being honest about what they're trying to achieve, I would think both would be happy with, and advocate for, this kind of solution.

[Valence]

Solution 1 is never a solution. One queue will work, the other will be dead day one. On top of it, I am certain as hell that my casual friends that do party up for FLs sometimes would just stop doing it and would go solo instead if it prevented them to end up in sweaty premade games.

Solution 2 doesn't solve the problem either, because it removes the possibility to queue with casual friends.

I do not understand why people insist in trying to split party play from solo play. Address job combos instead, notably pull ins, AoE stacking, etc.

[Mawlzy]

Solution 1 is never a solution. One queue will work, the other will be dead day one. On top of it, I am certain as hell that my casual friends that do party up for FLs sometimes would just stop doing it and would go solo instead if it prevented them to end up in sweaty premade games.

Solution 2 doesn't solve the problem either, because it removes the possibility to queue with casual friends.

I do not understand why people insist in trying to split party play from solo play. Address job combos instead, notably pull ins, AoE stacking, etc.

Everyone is going to end up in sweaty premade games anyway under the current system, as Olivia and co train more premade commanders. She's literally said she'll do "everything in her power" to achieve this goal, and based on trends on Aether she's having some success.

I regard party and solo play as two variants of the mode that cannot play nicely together.

[Aravell]

I do not understand why people insist in trying to split party play from solo play. Address job combos instead, notably pull ins, AoE stacking, etc.

Unfortunately, you can never truly address AoE stacking unless you make every job mostly single target with heavily limited access to AoE.

The preferred method of wiping out an alliance in old FL on JP was to mark a target, hit the group with BLM's AoE Sleep, then drop every caster and physical ranged LB on the marked target (and everyone around them). Then in 6.1, it became SMN/WHM stacking, then now it's the DRK draw-in into AoE nuke.

AoE stacking is always going to be favoured in FL because it's the most convenient way to wipe out your opponents. It would be pretty boring in an alliance v alliance fight if you could only hit 1 person at a time, but if you give the players access to AoE, they're going to stack it, even if it has a 2 minute cooldown.

I will agree though, that the DRK draw-in appears to be a major pain point in the current iteration of FL, that should probably be addressed.