Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

[Mawlzy]

The newest redesign was perfect for me until they destroyed it when they changed the spawn and scoring systems.

There's so few possible game states now, and players still don't understand to go steal enemy small ice before getting your own at base. The map is severely under utilized now with the upper section being almost useless and the opportunity for meaningful small scale fights is completly removed.

Interesting. I feel quite the opposite, and not simply to disagree with you. I rarely play more than one, but my match today was fairly typical, with lots of small fights. Do you turn off your "D" when small ice spawns? Maybe people are so used to following you around, it doesn't occur to them to do anything else? Genuinely curious why in the less-organized matches that I play the latest change was a definite upgrade, whereas for your highly-directed style it fails.

[Mistress_Irika]

The newest redesign was perfect for me until they destroyed it when they changed the spawn and scoring systems.

There's so few possible game states now, and players still don't understand to go steal enemy small ice before getting your own at base. The map is severely under utilized now with the upper section being almost useless and the opportunity for meaningful small scale fights is completly removed.

I'm not expecting for them to honestly. I tried ice resetting a long time ago, and everyone would rather race to kill ice before touching players. Just let them have fun. It's just a game after all.

Ooh! That sounds like it might have the potential to produce interesting play.

I've meant to reply days ago. If you're a fan of fighting I'm not sure if the previous map would have suited you. Everyone basically camped mid until big ice spawned. Very rarely did games start out where all the small ice would spawned first. I would take my opinion with a grain of salt, because it shouldn't be taken with much value. Majority played for ice. I played for base. It was fun, and that was where the thrill was for me despite the bases not having any meaning. It was my personal training playground, and despite me caring for wins I could care less about hitting ice unless I was killing a small group and taking the full value of the small ice for myself.

Base stealing was a thing back then with a small group of people in my data center. I didn't get a reaction when I invaded Crystal. They were chill. Aether, on the other hand, did not play games with me. Casuals actually fought back. Half of the time I go to invade the data center if they sense that I was here to steal bases my team would be farmed to last all game every single game until I stopped queuing. My team was usually confused as to why they were being farmed. Hiding behind a premade did not work for me. Games would usually be decided within a 200 point difference if they managed to punish the premade team. It was fun invading there. However, it was a brutal experience in Aether. I'm not sure if I would like another similar experience despite thinking of going back to visit.

[Valence]

It was still the worst map of the pool. But since there was big downtimes between ice rushes you had that formless massive blob war between the 3 teams in the wide middle area. Lurking behind enemy bases to capture them was made irrelevant or suicidal after they increased mount speed for ShB pvp rework.

[Mawlzy]

It was still the worst map of the pool. But since there was big downtimes between ice rushes you had that formless massive blob war between the 3 teams in the wide middle area. Lurking behind enemy bases to capture them was made irrelevant or suicidal after they increased mount speed for ShB pvp rework.

Interesting, thanks. Before my time.

Talking of lurking behind (near) enemy bases, has anyone come across this Ninja on Aether who makes straight for an enemy base? I'm intrigued by this. What they appear to be doing is simply keeping around half a dozen players from that team away from where they are needed. They just kite and recuperate. I mention it because it's the most data-based illustration I've seen of the melee DR being too damn high.

[Mistress_Irika]

I'm finally doing frontlines for once...until I get my carbuncle earring that is. Then I'm out until 7.1.

I've finally gave shatter a chance for once. I've only played 4 games. I prefer the OG map. I'm not sure what sort of reverts they did for the map. However, this map encourages heavy ice farming. As soon as a big ice is broken another is immediately getting ready to spawn. I don't see this map encouraging pvp at all. If I want to pvp I'm better off being in a premade duo. Otherwise, I may have no choice but to become an afk farmer if the team doesn't want to fight. As much as I would like to cry out how the old map is better folks are tired of dying to punts. Enough said.

Not related to the topic, but after 2 years of disappearing I come back only to realize that I don't recognize a soul. It feels like I'm in the twilight zone. If there is a premade out there I cannot easily identify them in my own data center. The solo life is rough.

Anyways, I have finally ran into the DRK burst team. I had 0 answers for how to deal with this whatsoever. If I get pulled in I was instantly dead before I had a chance to react. Literally no different than being in a high level CC match. On the chance that I happened to engage before them and I bait with guard well...WAR. MNK. RPR. NIN. I'm don't even understand how you melee mains are able to play frontlines like this. I will also admit that I now have 0 understanding since choosing to quit frontlines for the expansion. I am simply just another baddie. Vet status is revoked.

Out of these 4 games I've played I've won 50% of them. The other 50% I lost due to premades. It's not what you think though.

The second loss I actually had a premade in my alliance. They were leading the burst. Only 4 soloists followed through. Throughout the game 2/3s of the alliance chose to farm only. We held last place for majority of the game being behind by 200 and 100 pts respectively, and we finish last place. There's a huge advantage when it comes to premades. However, they aren't gods. I'm pretty sure that stories like this will hardly pop up on the forums. After all, most have the impression that majority of premades use voice chat.

My first loss dealt with said DRK premade. It was my worse loss thus far, the score being 1400-800-800. If you want an idea of how that went refer to the images below. They show 2 opposite ideas that has very strong proof no matter how you look at it.

1. Premades are too op for the casual base to handle and should be outright removed from frontlines for a more balanced match. (I'm pretty certain that a lot of you have worse games to show to further suggest this.)

2. There's too much of a team diff to be worrying about premades. So why care about them? (I'm pretty positive a minority group thinks like this. I fit this category more.)

[Mawlzy]

snip

The presence of the Mogtome event has definitely changed game texture noticeably the last couple of days, but many of your observations apply at all times. Some things I've noticed since the reset:

There is a lot more chat accusing people of cheating, either via hacks or win-trading. I think this is mostly coming from Mogtomers who don't really want to be there and are just venting, but it's still a bad look. My guess is neither are a significant problem; it's just a misunderstanding from casuals arising from the fact that such devastation (produced by premades) wouldn't be a feature of a well-balanced game mode.

Far more complaints about DRKs, whereas the real problem is the DRK-led stack. Yes, we all know the counters, and I'd even accept "it's a skill issue," but for people coming back to the mode or trying it for the first time, the playstyle is clearly a turn-off based on what they are saying.

Players I recognize as usually playing as a light party are doing a commendable job of defending the mode, mostly by stating that there are no premades on the field and that it's just a good solo team following the DRK. I'm the last person to help these people out, but I would note that when caught in obvious lies you're really undermining the position you're attempting to defend.

AFKers. While the matches have generally become more interesting simply because the odds of running into a premade have dropped, the AFK numbers are out of control. While I might argue people do this because they recognize they have no agency when premades are on the field, the reasons actually don't matter. Failure to enter commands for ~ 20 seconds should result in an auto-boot.

Overall there's a much higher level of unpleasantness and negativity in those matches where an efficient premade is blowing everybody up. Well done, folks, your playstyle contains within it the seeds of its own destruction. Playing Frontline with a de facto cheat code isn't going to last forever.

[OliviaLugria]

I can only say I added the modifier "meaniful" for a reason... maybe you did have a lot of small fights, but should you have been? Unless you're taking out a person every 2-3 gcds you're probably wasting time more than helping your team.

Furthering that thought, small ice is worth so many points in comparison to a kill, that you're better off just licking smalls then trying to take out the enemies next to you.

This is distinctly different from onsal and seal, where small groups from 2nd and 3rd place will fight over a node while the main forces are stalling 1st in their spawn can often be the deciding factor in a match.

As for following... I just split the team in half by having someone else marker up during that time as well. That comment was more directed at enemy teams not seizing obvious opportunities.

It's not like commanding doesn't work, it's just strategically shallow.

[Mawlzy]

I can only say I added the modifier "meaniful" for a reason... maybe you did have a lot of small fights, but should you have been? Unless you're taking out a person every 2-3 gcds you're probably wasting time more than helping your team.

Furthering that thought, small ice is worth so many points in comparison to a kill, that you're better off just licking smalls then trying to take out the enemies next to you.

This is distinctly different from onsal and seal, where small groups from 2nd and 3rd place will fight over a node while the main forces are stalling 1st in their spawn can often be the deciding factor in a match.

As for following... I just split the team in half by having someone else marker up during that time as well. That comment was more directed at enemy teams not seizing obvious opportunities.

It's not like commanding doesn't work, it's just strategically shallow.

I find there's significant fighting over the smalls. The skirmishes occur there in an effort to grab the quick ice points while denying them to the enemy. I've been playing immediately after reset recently to avoid the Aether regs and I suspect there may be EU/JP PvP enthusiasts running alts here. Lot of people I don't recognize, a significant fraction of whom are quite good.

[Valence]

The second iteration was the release of the reworked map. It was somewhere between what we have now and what we had before, meaning ice wasn't constantly spawning and we had a bit of smaller downtimes to actually go fight and skirmish with other teams. Small ices were also not always all spawning all at once I think, like on the first map?

Current version is scripted ice licking hell.

[NorthernLadMSP]

The second iteration was the release of the reworked map. It was somewhere between what we have now and what we had before, meaning ice wasn't constantly spawning and we had a bit of smaller downtimes to actually go fight and skirmish with other teams. Small ices were also not always all spawning all at once I think, like on the first map?

Current version is scripted ice licking hell.

Oh ok, thank you for explaining. I completely missed that version entirely during the time I unsubbed. Because I went from playing on the OG Shatter, to the crap we have today, and never saw the in-between.