Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

[OliviaLugria]

What's your long-term win-rate? You mentioned when you tested the new Shatter you won the majority of your games. Do you not think four out of 24 people boosting par from 33% to above 50% indicates their impact?

I have no doubt you'd like rewards to be based on K/A. Yours are eye-watering, being artificially boosted by your premade.

just made it to 55% the other day. Even before running premades and doing light calls I still had a respectable 40~ percent.

I take your comment to mean you don't support rewards for participating in a pvp mode? Also, thanks for leaving out the part about captures XD. If someone got an extra .25% of a level, a .5%for a kill, and maybe 1% for a capture do you think there would be less participation or more? Add in a multiplayer for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd like x1.5, x1.25, and x1.0, would people try to win? You could even have the exp gain show up in the log for a bit of dopamine. I don't see why you shouldn't reward the people doing more. My own personal performance isn't that much different with or without a premade, it really only changes the win rate. That's mostly due to drk facilitating damage more than actually doing it.

[Scintilla]

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It would be interesting to see how other DCs play and how well I adapt to differences in playstyle. Not sure how bad the latency would be, but I don't know until I try and I'll certainly give it my best effort!

Here, I've found that matches have improved a little recently, but still depends on how fortunate you are with your queues. At one point, premades were in practically in every game, with a couple of premades in particular becoming widely recognised for their obvious use of voice chat, use of DRK-RPR-DRG-DRG combo, and for being highly arrogant in games (responding to conflicting calls/team unrest in ways such as "Do you have a 90% win rate? No? Well I do, so shut up and do as I say"). Over time, this approach hasn't won them favour amongst many random players and, as a result, I see more and more negative responses aimed at them, both from their allies and opponents. More recently, I see those particular teams less often. Premades are still a common sight, but it doesn't compare to how the problem used to be (I hope I haven't jinxed it with that sentence!)

We have a few very good commanders who do well leading a random team to a win without being part of a premade themselves, and it is always very nice to see such teams. If we're lucky enough to have multiple good commanders with each one on different teams, it's going to be a very nice game.

General mixed / light team commanding is okay. I tend to find the teams to be overly cautious for my liking and more likely to avoid PvP unless necessary for objectives, but there is still the opportunity to PvP, so I wouldn't complain.

No commander. Could be great, could be dreadful. Usually the latter.

While it depends on the commander, markers are relatively common, marking ally DRKs / Healers and enemy DRKs.
Sound effects are very common.
Chat updates for Salted Earth CD tends to happen. Burst countdowns less so. They are used from time to time by some players, but I wouldn't say it's a common practice here in EU (not from my own experience, at least)

[Mawlzy]

just made it to 55% the other day. Even before running premades and doing light calls I still had a respectable 40~ percent.

I take your comment to mean you don't support rewards for participating in a pvp mode? Also, thanks for leaving out the part about captures XD. If someone got an extra .25% of a level, a .5%for a kill, and maybe 1% for a capture do you think there would be less participation or more? Add in a multiplayer for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd like x1.5, x1.25, and x1.0, would people try to win? You could even have the exp gain show up in the log for a bit of dopamine. I don't see why you shouldn't reward the people doing more. My own personal performance isn't that much different with or without a premade, it really only changes the win rate. That's mostly due to drk facilitating damage more than actually doing it.

I think FL in particular is currently being held back because the rewards (particularly roulette XP) are too generous and too evenly distributed, along with the fact some players seem to need every glam and mount in the game. That said, I agree with you that if performance-based rewards actually increased effort (both short-term in match participation and long-term in players trying to improve), then they should be encouraged. I'm also more than happy for people who are more effective at positively influencing a match receiving a reward boost, but as discussed above, this is challenging to implement. Worse, the simples solutions could even be counter-productive.

Here's an example. Suppose there was a far larger difference in XP for first, second and third. At first sight, this would appear to encourage people to try to win. Now suppose your premade with its 55% win-rate is on the field. Definitionally, this means in most matches the two teams you are not on will not take first. Moreover, depending on the map, this is obvious from the first encounter or two. (Magnified when someone types in chat" "Oh no, it's Olivia, we're playing for second.")

So what happens when there is a significant XP gap between first, second and third? The two non-you teams conclude they maximize EV by beating up each other and playing for second, thereby removing the primary counter to your premade and not actually playing to win at all. How has this helped?

[Mawlzy]

While it depends on the commander, markers are relatively common, marking ally DRKs / Healers and enemy DRKs.
Sound effects are very common.
Chat updates for Salted Earth CD tends to happen. Burst countdowns less so. They are used from time to time by some players, but I wouldn't say it's a common practice here in EU (not from my own experience, at least)

Thanks for that. Overall seems fairly similar, but one area NA really falls down is marking key enemies. It's sufficiently rare I'm not sure it'd be understood correctly, but I'll make more of an effort with that. I drop markers on my team's DRKs pre-engage, and it's not uncommon for the markers to be removed. No idea why.

[Scintilla]

snip

Yes, I was just trying to highlight that there was different ways of 'playing with friends', some which involved being a coordinated premade and some which didn't. If you like to play alongside friends, it shouldn't be assumed that that automatically means you have to play as a coordinated premade would. It's perfectly possible to play with friends without falling into the category of 'premade' which many players take issue with.

And I agree communication methods and being familiar with those in your team matters too. As you say, premades are not all identical: some are easier to work around than others depending on these factors.

Where we seem to differ, though, is how much of an impact we feel such teams have on FL as a whole.
I feel that these coordinated premade teams have a very negative impact on FL. The strength of this impact does obviously vary based on the approach of the premade (classes used, voice chat used or not etc.) but, from my own experiences, the effects on the wider FL community remains negative. My apologies if I'm wrong, but you don't seem to feel this to be the case.

While I can add my voice to highlight the issues from my experiences, I'm afraid I cannot really offer a solution. I would be sad to see FL team sizes reduced or for party queues to be stopped. That said, I don't feel that it would be good to leave things as they are currently.

[Scintilla]

Thanks for that. Overall seems fairly similar, but one area NA really falls down is marking key enemies. It's sufficiently rare I'm not sure it'd be understood correctly, but I'll make more of an effort with that. I drop markers on my team's DRKs pre-engage, and it's not uncommon for the markers to be removed. No idea why.

Perhaps a dislike of too many markers? I suppose it can be more of a distraction if there's markers everywhere. Personally, I'll only mark our ally DRK and chain mark an enemy DRK who needs to be watched for - usually a premade DRK, along with a quick reminder in chat to look out for them on red/yellow/blue and to use Guard if unable to escape in time.

Not always useful with RPR in some premades, in which case I can only really try to go RPR myself and try to Hysteria to buy a little escape time... desperate times, desperate measures

[OliviaLugria]

Worse, the simples solutions could even be counter-productive.

So what happens when there is a significant XP gap between first, second and third? The two non-you teams conclude they maximize EV by beating up each other and playing for second, thereby removing the primary counter to your premade and not actually playing to win at all. How has this helped?

Which is why I didn't suggest such a system... The system I suggested was 2 pronged. It rewards both the placement and the performance. By rewarding both, you incentivize teams not to give up and to fight for 1st place. Even if you're 3rd with no chance at winning, you're still going to try and pvp as much as possible to earn that extra little bit. I'm not saying my system is some air-tight stroke of genius, but at least it incentivizes the game mode's goals.

Even the system you suggested would still be moving towards the right direction. It's not like I am in every game. The number of teams going for the rewards and wanting to win would increase, and teams that would be playing for second when facing me were doing so before the change, so they don't really matter.

[Mawlzy]

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While I can add my voice to highlight the issues from my experiences, I'm afraid I cannot really offer a solution. I would be sad to see FL team sizes reduced or for party queues to be stopped. That said, I don't feel that it would be good to leave things as they are currently.

Like you, I don't want to remove players' ability to queue with friends. Any reduction in playstyle options is a step back. Thus by far my preferred solution is to have separate queues for solo players and parties. The usual objection is that this would lengthen queue times. On Aether at least, this would not be an issue for the solo queue. I can see the party queue being more of an issue, but that's not entirely clear since it's hard to determine how many players currently queue with friends rather than an oppressive premade. SE, of course, does have that data.

Further, if there was a party queue, I'm convinced many current solo players would try it. Indeed it might even help Olivia's dream of having many skilled premades all following her guide and producing high-quality matches. I'd certainly attempt to form a semi-static and participate.

But then again, is this really what current premades want? Would they be happy moving from seal clubbing solo randos to testing their wits on a level playing field against other premades? That 55% win-rate is going to be hard to maintain. And sometimes you might even have to step back and let someone else command the team. Hmmm.

[Mawlzy]

Which is why I didn't suggest such a system... The system I suggested was 2 pronged. It rewards both the placement and the performance. By rewarding both, you incentivize teams not to give up and to fight for 1st place. Even if you're 3rd with no chance at winning, you're still going to try and pvp as much as possible to earn that extra little bit. I'm not saying my system is some air-tight stroke of genius, but at least it incentivizes the game mode's goals.

Even the system you suggested would still be moving towards the right direction. It's not like I am in every game. The number of teams going for the rewards and wanting to win would increase, and teams that would be playing for second when facing me were doing so before the change, so they don't really matter.

Provided individual performance rewards for those entering as a party are suitably downgraded relative to solo players, and some kind of cross-job algorithm can be developed, I'd be in favor of it. Whether this actually makes any difference to those primarily playing for roulette XP I guess we won't know unless we try. I find it so puzzling that someone would invest 15 minutes of time and not do their best, I'm similarly puzzled as to what it would take to change this mindset.

I think capture rewards, which at first sight are logical since it definitely synchs with the purpose of the game, are also likely to backfire, particularly given they're already featured in the achievement log. As you're well aware, if you run into a freshly-spawned node on the way to engage and there are players on your team following you, the correct response is usually to ride straight past it.

So one approach to raise the skill floor is bribery via rewards modification. A second is to make the mode fairer and return agency to solo players so they feel there's a reason to improve. I'm happy to try both.

[OliviaLugria]

But then again, is this really what current premades want? Would they be happy moving from seal clubbing solo randos to testing their wits on a level playing field against other premades? That 55% win-rate is going to be hard to maintain. And sometimes you might even have to step back and let someone else command the team. Hmmm.

Lol, I doubt they would exposit the golden land that is JP FL and que sync together if they didn't want better quality games. Some groups do just want to grind their achievements and roll over others. They have crystal for now, but I'd prefer that this just wasn't an option for them. I don't know why you're jabbing at me though XD. I have my guide posted everywhere relevant, and try to spread the good word. I'd keep it to myself if I just wanted to farm easy wins. Finally, my FC is focused on FL commanding so I don't have to command (please get good at calling so I can dance and black mage, thank you everyone.)


Guide Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing