Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

[Mawlzy]

Of course premades happen to win more often. When you have a team already working together you're more likely to win the team based gamemode. Regardless, they are not THE deciding factor of a victory. Every win from a premade isn't an absolute blow out of a game. Although it happens, we can't say that every game a premade has played isn't hard fought or close in score.

100% agree. The funny thing there is, given the win-rates you guys report, can you imagine how much higher they would be without RNG (both spawn and team composition)? I'm actually worried SQEX - who are aware of the problem - will attempt to solve it through greater RNG. Nobody wants that, right?

I've played in plenty of games when the premade doesn't win, or the match is simply close despite a premade presence. I'll admit I get a certain satisfaction when I see one of the notorious premades get beat, but the dominant experience is still one of tedium produced by the DRK+ premade playstyle. I'm not blaming you and yours for that, simply lobbying SQEX to fix the mess they created. I'd like to live in a FF14 in which "Frontlines is sh1t" was no longer the dominant view of the mode.

Side point: I have no direct evidence that people are using plugins to gain an advantage. That said, you and I both know people who use banned parsing mods. I don't worry about them since they offer no competitive edge. But given the monomania to get a damn ugly coat, I don't think it's an unreasonable extrapolation to assume there are some players using plugins that do produce a competitive advantage. People have presented evidence for such on YT, but my ignorance of how such things work mean I can't comment on the reliability of that information.

[Aidorouge]

Someone tell me again with a straight face that "premades don't make a difference". Someone tell me again that "cheating doesn't exist".

I have not in my entire time of playing Frontlines seen a match end *this* quickly or the scores so astronomically lopsided. And the worst part is I'M TRAPPED HERE BECAUSE OF THE BLOODY DYNAMIS LOCKDOWN. Dear friggin' god... all of us pretty much just stood and waited in the spawn while red finished destroying our big ice for their ill-gotten win because there was literally no point in trying anymore. Two minutes of mass-nudging around to avoid a kick, while blue futility tried to fight them anyway (and at which point red won on kills and didn't need the big ice after all).

[Mawlzy]

Someone tell me again with a straight face that "premades don't make a difference". Someone tell me again that "cheating doesn't exist".

I have not in my entire time of playing Frontlines seen a match end *this* quickly or the scores so astronomically lopsided. And the worst part is I'M TRAPPED HERE BECAUSE OF THE BLOODY DYNAMIS LOCKDOWN. Dear friggin' god... all of us pretty much just stood and waited in the spawn while red finished destroying our big ice for their ill-gotten win because there was literally no point in trying anymore. Two minutes of mass-nudging around to avoid a kick, while blue futility tried to fight them anyway (and at which point red won on kills and didn't need the big ice after all).

Scores more lopsided than that have been reported in this thread, but yeah it sucks. Particularly since you're stuck where most of the premades are currently farming. Unfortunately, Shatter is by far the most predictable map in terms of spawns, to the point it feels scripted when a premade is taking advantage of the fact. Tedious, unimaginative, and worst of all IMO, imposed by a small group of people who think they know better than everyone else. But it's a playstyle that contains within it the seeds of its own destruction.

Tick tock.

[DallsBeep]

FL should be 1v1 teams and you shouldn't get exp or any rewards if you lose. That will encourage people to either learn how to PVP of they're just wasting their time. Premades aren't the issue, the issue is the clueless people they feast off of. This would make it very clear to people that you had better show up to play or just f off. Not every game mode is for everyone or needs to be accessible to everyone. The rest of the game is cooperative and not very difficult, if people aren't good with punishing poor performance they can go do literally anything else.

If you're going to allow premades (which I'm ok with) then encourage them as much as possible. The people everyone love to complain about will likely quickly lose interest once they see they're facing stiff competition every match. Which is what PVP should entail.

[Aidorouge]

Scores more lopsided than that have been reported in this thread, but yeah it sucks. Particularly since you're stuck where most of the premades are currently farming. Unfortunately, Shatter is by far the most predictable map in terms of spawns, to the point it feels scripted when a premade is taking advantage of the fact. Tedious, unimaginative, and worst of all IMO, imposed by a small group of people who think they know better than everyone else. But it's a playstyle that contains within it the seeds of its own destruction.

Tick tock.

At this point I'm tired of trying just to lose, and even if (not when, *if*) I win, there's no satisfaction in that either because I know with 100% certainty that it was due to RNG giving me the most people in a premade and/or using plugins. Effort and skill are a myth, and sportsmanship and competition were left for dead in a ditch years ago apparently. I'm done giving a damn, I'm just going to show up for the XP and series progress and wait for the outcome to be decided for me.

[Teno]

FL should be 1v1 teams and you shouldn't get exp or any rewards if you lose. That will encourage people to either learn how to PVP of they're just wasting their time. Premades aren't the issue, the issue is the clueless people they feast off of. This would make it very clear to people that you had better show up to play or just f off. Not every game mode is for everyone or needs to be accessible to everyone. The rest of the game is cooperative and not very difficult, if people aren't good with punishing poor performance they can go do literally anything else.

If you're going to allow premades (which I'm ok with) then encourage them as much as possible. The people everyone love to complain about will likely quickly lose interest once they see they're facing stiff competition every match. Which is what PVP should entail.

What a terrible take, nobody would play this if it was 1v1. Get lucky and you'll stomp the other team. Frontline is alive only because people can just tag and get easy xp while not caring much because it's 1v1v1. Yes games are at an all time low right now and people have never been so, so bad because literally everyone is leveling up. But it'd much, much worse with 1v1, especially when suddenly you'll be more inclined to hold people accountable. In a 1v1v1 you can always use the third team to your advantage, in the worst case scenario.

[Teno]

Someone tell me again with a straight face that "premades don't make a difference". Someone tell me again that "cheating doesn't exist".

I have not in my entire time of playing Frontlines seen a match end *this* quickly or the scores so astronomically lopsided. And the worst part is I'M TRAPPED HERE BECAUSE OF THE BLOODY DYNAMIS LOCKDOWN. Dear friggin' god... all of us pretty much just stood and waited in the spawn while red finished destroying our big ice for their ill-gotten win because there was literally no point in trying anymore. Two minutes of mass-nudging around to avoid a kick, while blue futility tried to fight them anyway (and at which point red won on kills and didn't need the big ice after all).

Premades make a difference, especially right now when people are so bad, but it's 1000% more an issue of this absolute atrocity of a map.

[Mawlzy]

FL should be 1v1 teams and you shouldn't get exp or any rewards if you lose. That will encourage people to either learn how to PVP of they're just wasting their time. Premades aren't the issue, the issue is the clueless people they feast off of. This would make it very clear to people that you had better show up to play or just f off. Not every game mode is for everyone or needs to be accessible to everyone. The rest of the game is cooperative and not very difficult, if people aren't good with punishing poor performance they can go do literally anything else.

If you're going to allow premades (which I'm ok with) then encourage them as much as possible. The people everyone love to complain about will likely quickly lose interest once they see they're facing stiff competition every match. Which is what PVP should entail.

In 1v1 BH would snowball far quicker than it does now, further exaggerating any a priori skill difference between the two teams. And if it remained 24-person teams, you'd still get the inept registering for it because their contribution would be irrelevant and they'd win 50% of the time anyway. If the winning team only gets rewards and XP, I think most rouletters irrespective of how weak/disinterested they are would still queue in.

I completely agree PvP should be about stiff competition, but with such large teams with no matchmaking algorithm I don't believe your model would discourage players "just here for the XP" from playing. The people being driven out currently are those who like PvP and attempt to be good at it, but dislike playing with or against premades who diminish their agency. I do agree that the last thing most premades want is stiff competition; the majority are simply reward farmers, padders and curbstompers, as a cursory glance at their Discord servers reveals.

I actually regard this as a social media problem as much as a FL one. The bubble communities where the premades form are largely disconnected from the broader and much larger FL community. Moreover, definitionally, they can never play against themselves. Consequently they have very little idea of how disliked they are, other than the pushback they receive from players on their own team who find their presence boring, and who didn't queue in to be ordered around by an aggressive commander.

[saucyshortcake]

Premades make a difference, especially right now when people are so bad, but it's 1000% more an issue of this absolute atrocity of a map.

this is definitely the case, it also doesn't help that most of the roulette-only pvp players just sit around licking ice with 0 peripheral vision of the oh-so-skilled DRK trains coming to press their skillful 3 button aoe bonanzas.

[Mawlzy]

this is definitely the case, it also doesn't help that most of the roulette-only pvp players just sit around licking ice with 0 peripheral vision of the oh-so-skilled DRK trains coming to press their skillful 3 button aoe bonanzas.

Yeah it's no coincidence that the only people I have heard saying they like this version of Shatter are premade commanders. The map lay-out plays into their hands through predictable spawns, then they know where a herd of weak players will be standing paying no attention to incoming threats.

I would be so interested to see what happens if you switch the objectives on Onsal and Seal. Scrap Shatter and have a 4-day rotation with each using their original objectives, then swapping.