Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

[Mawlzy]

Not on pre-mades are sweaty try hard groups. I am willing to bet a lot of money many just queue together for fun and some memes.

You're between a Seal Rock and a hard place. If SE does follow it's usual trend, premades will be banned and it won't be your fault. Meanwhile, if you're queueing together for fun and some memes, you'll probably get roasted on here for lethargic play.

[Xylira]

I mean it is an MMO. Playing with others is an aspect to that. CC is a thing for those that want to a more "balanced" game mode or was supposed to be that. It does have a solo queue option.

CC is only solo queue, ranked and casual, likely because SE recognizes entirely just how unfair it would be for a premade team to face off against a group of random solo queuers. And I dislike CC for a variety of reasons, one of them being you're stuck as whichever job you queue as and I like to at least try to be flexible to support my team.

FL is supposed to be the more casual game mode why limit those that want to queue with 3 others?

The casual mode of CC is still solo queue only. Very likely because SE still recognizes just how unbalanced pitting premade groups against solo queuers is.

Not on pre-mades are sweaty try hard groups. I am willing to bet a lot of money many just queue together for fun and some memes.

Yes I know, 'not all', but enough of them are sweaty try hards that skew matches in unenjoyable ways. Facing up against them isn't fun, and neither is playing on the same team as them. The most boring matches are ones where I just mindlessly follow along a meta comp premade group that just demolishes everyone in their path. I had one of those matches earlier today.

As for meta comps, and meta will always be present. So as you said if people are not willing pick the comp that has a higher chance at victory maybe that just goes to show people don't care that much as many seem to think no?

It's supposed to be the responsibility of the Devs to keep making balancing changes and tweaks to keep the meta shifting, so that the same meta comps don't stay on top forever, especially not by such a wide margin. FF's dev's have been incredibly inattentive to downright lazy when it comes to PvP, particularly for FL. All of their balance changes seem centered around balancing for 5v5 CC, with an afterthought of incoming/outgoing damage tweaks tacked on for FL. Instead we've had two years of mostly the same old nonsense.

As I said earlier, I would prefer the SE actually do a better job of balancing Front Lines PvP, but I would settle for it being changed to solo queue only.

[Bobby66]

CC is only solo queue, ranked and casual, likely because SE recognizes entirely just how unfair it would be for a premade team to face off against a group of random solo queuers. And I dislike CC for a variety of reasons, one of them being you're stuck as whichever job you queue as and I like to at least try to be flexible to support my team.



The casual mode of CC is still solo queue only. Very likely because SE still recognizes just how unbalanced pitting premade groups against solo queuers is.



Yes I know, 'not all', but enough of them are sweaty try hards that skew matches in unenjoyable ways. Facing up against them isn't fun, and neither is playing on the same team as them. The most boring matches are ones where I just mindlessly follow along a meta comp premade group that just demolishes everyone in their path. I had one of those matches earlier today.



It's supposed to be the responsibility of the Devs to keep making balancing changes and tweaks to keep the meta shifting, so that the same meta comps don't stay on top forever, especially not by such a wide margin. FF's dev's have been incredibly inattentive to downright lazy when it comes to PvP, particularly for FL. All of their balance changes seem centered around balancing for 5v5 CC, with an afterthought of incoming/outgoing damage tweaks tacked on for FL. Instead we've had two years of mostly the same old nonsense.

As I said earlier, I would prefer the SE actually do a better job of balancing Front Lines PvP, but I would settle for it being changed to solo queue only.

Okay I will grant you SE made CC the way it is because they saw how unfair pre-mades are. So begs the question why have they not done the same for FL? Couldn't one argue FL's are kind of just meant to be chaotic cluster fuck that is not inherently meant to overly balanced? The community is just as capable at altering meta's, it is not like you have to join DRK bandwagon you can play classes to counter it.

My point is you have CC as a game mode that can only be played in Solo queue, don't try and advocate taking friends playing with friends because of some sweaty try hard pre-made groups. PvPing with friends while shooting the shit is discord is a lot of fun. Now if they did premade verse premade groups by switching it to 8v8v8 fine that would be awesome. As it stands only options they have to get rid of pre-mades from stomping is making pre-made only queues which would probably never pop if you still need 72 people or remove pre-mades.

FFXIV really needs to stop asking for stuff to be removed when has SE ever delivered on removing something and actually fixing it?

You're between a Seal Rock and a hard place. If SE does follow it's usual trend, premades will be banned and it won't be your fault. Meanwhile, if you're queueing together for fun and some memes, you'll probably get roasted on here for lethargic play.

Yeah we run into that at times, when we do our 4 stack of a random class at night. One of our friends just sets up a wheel with every class and we spin it to see what class we end up stacking as. Sometimes it works out wonderfully, other's not so much. 4 stack pld is kind of funny at times.

[Mistress_Irika]

None of my friends bother with PvP, and given the state of it I don't blame them. I have no one to queue with, so I just solo-queue. The alternative is for me to just not PvP anymore, which for how badly skewed so many matches tend to end up is becoming an increasingly enticing option.

My friends started to quit the moment full party premades were disabled. I had a small group of savage raiders that gave pvp a try despite going as a full party and fell in love with it despite losing a ton to the veteran teams. Only one person stayed balancing pvp with savage. The rest went back to strictly raiding over the premade change. I have new players that recently joined the fc around that time fall in love with pvp and looked up to me as a guide. They asked about my journey, and I told them. They quit pvp then and there stating how stupid it was for the 8 man option to be disabled. Hurt over their decisions I stopped talking about my pvp experiences with others. It did not stop other people I knew from quitting overtime. I eventually started invading the other data centers to fill the hole that was starting to build. It worked until we got the new kits. More people quitting. Didn't help that I abandoned frontlines for CC for a time. Now I look out into the crowd, and I hardly know a soul. I'm just there alone struggling to find a purpose. Majority of the people I have played with has moved on. With teammates being random it's hard to make a new friend outside of premading.

Which should have people questioning why the meta comp is so badly skewed toward certain jobs. And it's not just DRK, it's DRK+ that's the issue. You need someone to play DRK matched with people in the same group willing to play the jobs that accompany it the best, and be willing to follow said DRK around as support. Even just a competent DRK with a competent pocket healer AST is silly OP. Which surprise, works out perfectly for premade groups that decide to plan ahead and queue together with one of the meta comps.

I don't see a difference when it comes to meta. You can go ahead and turn the game completely solo, and a meta is going to form there. There's just no getting rid of it. It's no different than how most raiders act. Everyone is just going to go to the best performing class, and it that get's nerf they'll find another to use.

Honestly this is a moot point, because the same argument could be made for why should solo-queuers be punished for having to face up against premade groups that abuse the poorly balanced meta.

Solo q is a punishment. Premades are part of the issue. My personal blame will be the team however. If they're getting dominated 2 minutes in it's, "GG." "Go next game." No different from a moba game or any other team based game. I could simply join a premade. But then I'll run into the issue of not having a challenge. Funny catch-22 in this scenario.

[OliviaLugria]

No, the community cannot simply alter metas.

I don't understand your statement. Meta is of course affected by the dev team, but it is driven by the community. Strong options become weaker has people choose other options that counter them. When new strategies or tactics are discovered it will also change the meta.

The best possible comps aren't even being played right now because it requires more than 4 people to coordinate. Relying on some random who ques once a day just isn't possible.

3 parties of 6smn,1 ast, and1 brd can wipe an enemy alliance in a wide area, well outside their engage range, and be completely untelegraphe every 30 seconds by rotating which party is using lbs. This comp has the funny affect of making the current worst job (bard) crucial to keeping up the offense while making drk relatively useless in comparison.

24 scholars can bypass melee mitigation, bypass guard, and be a touch of death combo every 15 seconds while only being exposed for 1gcd. Once they max BH they can split into 2 groups and fight 2 fronts easily.

Waymarker commanding has yet to be split into 3 party commanding. Any team running 3 parties of meta roles would run circles around the large deathball style, but we don't do it.

Frontlines has a skill ceiling in the stratosphere and we barely manage to make it out of the mud as a community.

[Xylira]

I don't understand your statement. Meta is of course affected by the dev team, but it is driven by the community. Strong options become weaker has people choose other options that counter them. When new strategies or tactics are discovered it will also change the meta.

The best possible comps aren't even being played right now because it requires more than 4 people to coordinate. Relying on some random who ques once a day just isn't possible.

3 parties of 6smn,1 ast, and1 brd can wipe an enemy alliance in a wide area, well outside their engage range, and be completely untelegraphe every 30 seconds by rotating which party is using lbs. This comp has the funny affect of making the current worst job (bard) crucial to keeping up the offense while making drk relatively useless in comparison.

24 scholars can bypass melee mitigation, bypass guard, and be a touch of death combo every 15 seconds while only being exposed for 1gcd. Once they max BH they can split into 2 groups and fight 2 fronts easily.

Waymarker commanding has yet to be split into 3 party commanding. Any team running 3 parties of meta roles would run circles around the large deathball style, but we don't do it.

Frontlines has a skill ceiling in the stratosphere and we barely manage to make it out of the mud as a community.

The community will over time gravitate toward the most consistently effective meta comps per what is capable within game design.

That's why DRK+ settled as the current meta and has remained that way for as long as it has, as it's the most easily abusable within the 4 player premade limitation and SE has done very little to balance it. It's also why I keep harping on the fact that SE is supposed to be more active about making balance tweaks and changes to disrupt one or a few specific metas from solidifying as the defacto way for premades to significantly disrupt matches.

[Mawlzy]

The best possible comps aren't even being played right now because it requires more than 4 people to coordinate. Relying on some random who ques once a day just isn't possible.

...

Frontlines has a skill ceiling in the stratosphere and we barely manage to make it out of the mud as a community.

But we are currently compelled to rely on, or at least play with, a large number of randos. In other words, are we not stuck in the mud because the matches are numerically dominated by people who have little to no interest in developing the exciting strategies that you outline?

Olivia, while I admire your tenacity, your plan of forcing players to care about the mode by drowning them in that mud so that they quit or improve simply isn't going to work, at least as long as everyone queues into the same match. The allure of XP is simply too powerful. And my sense is that the harder you and other commanders push in-game, the more push-back you're going to receive. In addition to rouletters, there is a middle ground of players who like PvP but who don't wish to turn professional.

Even setting job balance aside, SQEX has to take action to create the environment where high-quality NA matches are possible. I'd suggest even the non-roulette XP bonus is currently an insurmountable obstacle.

Custom matches strike me as the simplest, least disruptive option. I think we should all be pushing for this.

But beyond that, we run into this Queue Paradox. For queues to pop on NA, we apparently need massive XP bribes. This attracts players just there for the XP (shock).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what you would like is to play matches with people whose devotion to FL at least approaches yours? With the current queue options, you can get close to that through Q-synching, but even that is a blunt instrument and one that will only be employed a few hours a week at most.

So sure, people like me complain about the current meta, and maybe some don't try to improve. But you and yours complain constantly about how crap the player base is, and yet seem to have no interest in addressing it through tiered play.

The quality of your matches would be instantly improved by a three-tiered system. Can you really not wait 7.5 minutes instead of 2.5 for the queue to pop?

[OliviaLugria]

The community will over time gravitate toward the most consistently effective meta comps per what is capable within game design.

That's why DRK+ settled as the current meta and has remained that way for as long as it has, as it's the most easily abusable within the 4 player premade limitation and SE has done very little to balance it. It's also why I keep harping on the fact that SE is supposed to be more active about making balance tweaks and changes to disrupt one or a few specific metas from solidifying as the defacto way for premades to significantly disrupt matches.

What "community" are you referring to I wonder... it certainly isn't the xiv one. The community seems pretty content with complaining while doing nothing about their own gameplay.

It's just sad that the "meta" is 4 people playing high damage jobs and pressing buttons at the same time.

Why bother "balancing" something when the player base hasn't bothered to engage with the systems at any level?

[Xylira]

What "community" are you referring to I wonder... it certainly isn't the xiv one. The community seems pretty content with complaining while doing nothing about their own gameplay.

It's just sad that the "meta" is 4 people playing high damage jobs and pressing buttons at the same time.

Why bother "balancing" something when the player base hasn't bothered to engage with the systems at any level?

The community in general. It's rather obvious from the tryhard premades that tend to run DRK+ groups that it works.

And yes, it is rather sad that 4 players are able to wipe entire alliance raids simply by coordinating their LBs.

Why are you so insistent on defending poor game balance? PvP is clearly unbalanced for FL, yet your response to anyone raising concern with it is just to dismissively tell them to play better.

[Mawlzy]

The community in general. It's rather obvious from the tryhard premades that tend to run DRK+ groups that it works.

And yes, it is rather sad that 4 players are able to wipe entire alliance raids simply by coordinating their LBs.

Why are you so insistent on defending poor game balance? PvP is clearly unbalanced for FL, yet your response to anyone raising concern with it is just to dismissively tell them to play better.

This puzzles me too. I do believe Olivia would like to be able to develop the strategies she outlines and play with similarly-dedicated individuals. Interestingly, this makes her quite an oddball within the Discord community, where it is readily apparent that the dominant ideology is not producing more competitive matches, it's padding personal stats. As those on Dynamis can testify.