Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

[Mistress_Irika]

Yeah understood, and I completely get why people want to queue with friends. As I've mentioned before, from SQEX point of view they are simply not going to tolerate the behavior of some premades that takes a 33% par win-rate to 70%+. In other words, the premades are simply too good at what they do. But hopefully some solution can be found that allows all camps to be catered to.

That's just how it by design. There's no getting past that. I ran my casual 8 man premade for the last 6 weeks before it was yeeted. The only thing we had was a good defense. We stayed together. However, we had no shot caller, and we were very horrible with gathering kills. Despite this, if there was no other premade in our room our win rate was around 60% for that time period. Not close to the 70% - 90% that people have done, but close enough to where it could be called a problem. If there was another premade, however, the win rate drops to 0%, my only personal proof that it's impossible to balance games around premades. I wouldn't be surprised if half of your games you're with a casual premade that is just here for experience points. People do be doing that to enjoy time with each other instead of suffering solo q. However, it does be hard to tell with the lack of matchmaking. All you see is the dominating group. That's it.

[Mawlzy]

That's just how it by design. There's no getting past that. I ran my casual 8 man premade for the last 6 weeks before it was yeeted. The only thing we had was a good defense. We stayed together. However, we had no shot caller, and we were very horrible with gathering kills. Despite this, if there was no other premade in our room our win rate was around 60% for that time period. Not close to the 70% - 90% that people have done, but close enough to where it could be called a problem. If there was another premade, however, the win rate drops to 0%, my only personal proof that it's impossible to balance games around premades. I wouldn't be surprised if half of your games you're with a casual premade that is just here for experience points. People do be doing that to enjoy time with each other instead of suffering solo q. However, it does be hard to tell with the lack of matchmaking. All you see is the dominating group. That's it.

Oh I imagine I'm unaware of many casual premades, and that's absolutely fine. I don't have some vendetta against party queueing, just the way it is currently abused. That said, when people claim they are just casually queueing with friends in the current meta, I find it amusing to ask what group composition these 4 friends have settled on. There's an awful lot of gaslighting around this issue, with people currently benefitting from it pulling out all the stops to defend what I regard as the indefensible.

Similarly commanders playing the victim card because someone on their team pushed back against them spamming chat, despite the fact nobody asked to be commanded in the first place. One might suppose such commanders would ask themselves why they are massively unpopular. Instead they simply point fingers at the stupidity of filthy casuals. Complete lack of self awareness.

[Archeron]

I have quite a few issues with these "commanders", and most of it comes down to their general attitude, and behaviour towards the community.

They will be the first ones to hop on here, make fresh accounts and tell everyone about how positive they are for the community, how they do this, that, and the other thing. How gracious of them. Yet they will often talk down to the community, they insult people who play "Non Meta" jobs, sometimes even openly in Alliance chat, and I've seen some nasty discord chat logs, (especially when their teams aren't dancing to their tune). They seem to forget that they're curb stomping 2 teams of 48 other players who often have no relation with each other, and limited experience with PvP, and that nobody is impressed by their winrates, or how "skilled" they seem to believe they are.

[Mawlzy]

I have quite a few issues with these "commanders", and most of it comes down to their general attitude, and behaviour towards the community.

They will be the first ones to hop on here, make fresh accounts and tell everyone about how positive they are for the community, how they do this, that, and the other thing. How gracious of them. Yet they will often talk down to the community, they insult people who play "Non Meta" jobs, sometimes even openly in Alliance chat, and I've seen some nasty discord chat logs, (especially when their teams aren't dancing to their tune). They seem to forget that they're curb stomping 2 teams of 48 other players who often have no relation with each other, and limited experience with PvP, and that nobody is impressed by their winrates, or how "skilled" they seem to believe they are.

Completely agree. On a more technical level, I wish more of them appreciated how little impact their call-outs are having. I swear some of them credit triggering 3-2-1 macros is winning matches. People are either going to follow the DRK or they're not, and no amount of spamming chat is going to change that. In fact I suspect if they'd simply be quieter and show a little respect for their team-mates, some of the dislike for them would abate.

[Aidorouge]

What is it you're asking for exactly? Except for obviously the removal of an obstacle that's standing between you and FL wins. Irrespective of how "cheap" or "unskilled" it might be, that's literally all I can attribute to your posts in essence. "I want to win"..well..so do the people who queue together in pre-mades, what makes your desire for W's in PVP more important than theirs?

What I want is a sporting and satisfying competition, which is close to impossible in Frontlines right now. I mean, my FL roulette yesterday (because one round is about all I can stand these days) was the opposite of the day before, my team was at 1400 when the next closest one was at 700, and it didn't feel good in the slightest, especially the part where it felt like I was a non-factoring spectator to the uncannily coordinated and inhumanly fast group on my side that was smearing the other two teams single-handily (especially at mid). You complain about people "not wanting to engage" but that's exactly what happens when a premade and/or plugin users show up and spoon feed you a win, your own participation is rendered optional to the point you wonder why you and the other people on your side were even there. I'll take close wins and close loses over roffle-stomps every time, because at least with those I can gauge when and where a right or wrong call made the difference, whereas blowouts only teach you "and the real lesson is kids, never try".

I've honestly gotten tighter matches in Triple Triad and Chocobo Racing in the last few months, which says a lot about the state of PVP that it's become less than an over-glorified mini-game, and that's keeping in mind the stuff at the Gold Saucer is chock full of BS and RNG, but it's at least a part of the game's mechanics, as opposed to the players who come off like an invasive species (especially on Dynamis) with their current methods and tools.

And I say PVP "in general" because Rival Wings and Crystaline Conflict have their own share of problems too, so it's not even like I can just skip FL and play a different mode instead ...not that RW would ever pop outside of mogtome events anyway.

[DallsBeep]

where it felt like I was a non-factoring spectator to the uncannily coordinated and inhumanly fast group

lol The question was rhetorical because you're constantly describing things like this. You seem to think everyone in a premade is a bot and it's just funny. In you saying that, you're the one making the allegation that premades are somehow skillful, you're giving them more credit than they deserve by attributing "inhuman abilities" to them. When the far easier answer is the one I presented which is, they're playing against cattle thus they slaughter them like cattle. I for one don't mind should they continue to do so because it's entirely within the rules to make a premade and clown on people wanting their daily exp. Anyone with PVP chops and friends could do that. The more I see people complain about it the funnier the whole thing gets to me.

[Aidorouge]

lol The question was rhetorical because you're constantly describing things like this. You seem to think everyone in a premade is a bot and it's just funny. In you saying that, you're the one making the allegation that premades are somehow skillful, you're giving them more credit than they deserve by attributing "inhuman abilities" to them. When the far easier answer is the one I presented which is, they're playing against cattle thus they slaughter them like cattle. I for one don't mind should they continue to do so because it's entirely within the rules to make a premade and clown on people wanting their daily exp. Anyone with PVP chops and friends could do that. The more I see people complain about it the funnier the whole thing gets to me.

...I wasn't implying that particular group was skillful, I was implying they're perhaps using less then legitimate means to win because contrary to popular belief, cheats and hacks *do* exist for FF14's PVP as pathetic as that sounds, and the blowout was even worse than the one I took a picture of. The only difference is that I personally benefited from their methods and tools, which feels worse than losing to them, because I now have to doubt EVERY win and KO I've ever made up until now because people like this can end up on my team just as much as I end up against them.

PVP chops, tch, as if there's any way for me to assess if I was ever good or bad now, and that trying to improve at all is meaningless when there's outside factors determining every single match.

[OliviaLugria]

The thread is back I see. It is a bit sad to see the fronlines skill level regress so much with the expansion launch. If you're aiming for wins, please seek out the resources and guides to help you improve.

If you don't know where to look I'll be happy to share.

[DallsBeep]

PVP chops, tch, as if there's any way for me to assess if I was ever good or bad now

Since you obviously spend the majority of your game time concerned about "cheaters" or "people playing cheaply" then yeah, no point in worrying about it then lol that mentality doesn't allow for insight or improvement. I don't worry about stuff I can't control and I do fine, haven't encountered many people that I would even consider were cheating at this game. If I did, they weren't that much better than me that I was even concerned about it.

Hard facts, if you're playing a competitive mode and you just constantly complain about cheaters and all this then you don't need to be worrying about who's good or bad at the game, you have no idea.

[saucyshortcake]

The thread is back I see. It is a bit sad to see the fronlines skill level regress so much with the expansion launch. If you're aiming for wins, please seek out the resources and guides to help you improve.

If you don't know where to look I'll be happy to share.

90% of the people queueing right now don't care about either winning or improving, they care about getting their daily roulette done because they dont have any real interest in pvp in game where pvp is not a focus.

not like they really need a resource anyway, each job has like 2 aoe buttons, jump in with a drk then everyone presses them. such hard.