Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

[Cidel]

To the last conversation on the previous page, it's not so much that ranged dps jobs are worthless, so much as they somewhat ironically have a higher skill floor towards not being worthless in Frontlines. You need to work harder and smarter than playing a tank or melee, who both have the FL defense bonus handicap that makes them unkillable with anything less than a dogpile. And with virtually everything having a gap-closer or some sort of dash, the "advantage" of being able to attack from a distance it largely moot, and smart positioning becomes a bigger perk.

The physical ranged jobs have the worst of it. They usually lack any impactful AoE on-demand, and are more suited for bursting down a single-target (especially MCH). The ranged casters (sans RDM) are more respectable and arguably bigger threats, with multiple AoE options to burst with. The actual issue is so many casual players play physical ranged jobs that it's often oversaturated with bad to mediocre players; the 0 battle high ones that usually don't amount to much more than fodder in a given engagement, constantly lingering out in the open or point-blank, and end up dying 4+ times a match. You can't really low-effort the physical ranged dps jobs and get some results like you can with most melee and tank jobs and every healer (sans SGE). Newbs to the mode could probably better contribute by 1-shotting other newbs on SAM every 4 minutes or so, or Miracle-ing on WHM, or even constantly spreading Biolysis on SCH and hanging back until it's recast resets. Ranged physical dps 'aint it.

It's, as usual, a skill issue. I can regularly get BH5 on DNC and even BRD simply by contributing with assists and paying attention and not spending the whole game spamming 3% off random melee's HP per GCD that maybe 70% of the people queuing rdps jobs seem to be doing. Like, if you're gonna turn your brain off and do that, at least play SAM so you can both scare the crap out of people when you put Chiten up/ score a free battle high level off the like-minded people who turn their brains off when they repeatedly hit you...

Mogtome event starts after the next reset. What are our predictions? Will it trim back the growing queue times?

RW comes back, as this is the only time queues occur naturally. In fact, the 1st few nights/weekend usually have it going on non-stop even into the wee-hours of the morning. FL queue times haven't really suffered on Primal. It's still fast queues if it's during peak time. If anything, RW's activity might even slow FL's queues by a minute tops, but that's rarely an issue.

[Aravell]

I'd actually suggest to newbies to play NIN over SAM tbh.

Between Shukuchi, Bunshin and Huton, you're basically invincible in FL unless you do something incredibly dumb. Fuma and Hyosho allows them to poke at range. Then they have LB which allows them to just delete anyone below 50% HP.

SAM is a bit harder to play for a newbie with their cast times and no escape button. Sure, you can use newbies on SAM as a zoning tool, but they'd probably contribute more on a NIN tbh.

[Mawlzy]

Live Letter Digest added some more info (from Reddit):

The PvP action changes will involve the hit registering/confirming more in-line with the animation, to allow for more reactive play. MCH's LB and WAR's Primal Rend were given as examples where right now they're either unreactable or less reactable than would make sense.

Jobs other than PCT and VPR will receive action additions or adjustments (presumably adding a new DT skill for each job, at least).

For large-scale PvP content, 7.1 will focus on just the % damage modifiers and LB charge timers for each job.

More extensive rules and design changes for large-scale PvP will be in 7.2, including the addition of selectable role actions that are only useable in large-scale PvP to help differentiate and balance it from small-scale PvP (Welcome back ARR/HW PvP trait points).

[Archeron]

Fantastic so we're going to wait another ~5 months after 7.1 for any major changes to Frontlines. Guess I'll be chucking it on the daily roulette back burner yet again.

Damage % and LB charge modifiers are going to do literally nothing to affect the balance of Frontlines as it is currently. I don't know why they're even bothering to tinker with a system that they're going to be allegedly overhauling the patch after. But then again I guess it wouldn't be Square Enix if they weren't taking half a year to implement even the most basic of changes.

[Mawlzy]

Fantastic so we're going to wait another ~5 months after 7.1 for any major changes to Frontlines. Guess I'll be chucking it on the daily roulette back burner yet again.

Damage % and LB charge modifiers are going to do literally nothing to affect the balance of Frontlines as it is currently. I don't know why they're even bothering to tinker with a system that they're going to be allegedly overhauling the patch after. But then again I guess it wouldn't be Square Enix if they weren't taking half a year to implement even the most basic of changes.

Didn't we have something like this before? Might be more of a reversion than major change. In 5 months.

[Archeron]

Didn't we have something like this before? Might be more of a reversion than major change. In 5 months.

Yes they did a -10% damage modifier to Dark Knights and Warriors, probably a few other jobs iirc. They changed some LB's around and made SAM take longer to charge an LB. It really did absolutely nothing to shift the meta at all. The problem with Frontlines lays within the actions of each job. That is what makes or breaks jobs in Frontlines. They can toy with the values all they like it will literally do nothing without nerfing certain jobs into oblivion.

[Valence]

I must admit that while FL have always been a clown fiesta with outright broken jobs or abuses for various things in the system (remember the good old days of 8 ninja premades in SB all with BH5, where the other teams outright refused to leave their spawn?), this is the first time I see such a division in mentalities between two sides that seem totally unable to understand each other. I may have bitched a little in party chat yesterday when seeing I was partied with a premade farming everyone, so perhaps I deserved it, but still being told I have a main character syndrome by a premade DRK player was a surreal experience for sure.

But it's exactly what it is in a nutshell, from their own words, they play to win and will do anything to achieve that, and don't care about the actual experience to get to that result. I never cared about winning much, and perhaps that's where the divide lies.

[Aravell]

Before condemning premades, I think it's worth noting one thing.

'The only obligation any player has in FL is to help their team win'

Nobody is under any obligation to make sure everyone else is having a pleasant experience (as long as they don't violate ToS).

The group of people who will play any job and follow any meta with the ultimate goal of having the highest win rate will never get along with the group of people who just want to queue into FL for some mindless zerg fun and don't care whether they win or lose.

Neither group is more correct either, it's simply an irreconcilable difference between players.

[Mawlzy]

Before condemning premades, I think it's worth noting one thing.

'The only obligation any player has in FL is to help their team win'

Nobody is under any obligation to make sure everyone else is having a pleasant experience (as long as they don't violate ToS).

The group of people who will play any job and follow any meta with the ultimate goal of having the highest win rate will never get along with the group of people who just want to queue into FL for some mindless zerg fun and don't care whether they win or lose.

Neither group is more correct either, it's simply an irreconcilable difference between players.

Quite, that's how I reached the conclusion that putting those two groups on the same battlefield is the problem, hence the solution is matchmaking.

To Valence's point, this really is a profound mindset issue. And not all premades are the same in this regard. I'd argue the padders are violating the prime directive of "The only obligation any player has in FL is to help their team win." There are many regular groups on Aether who have their own little games going on that are not driven primarily by winning.

More fundamentally, I genuinely cannot fathom the win-at-any-cost premade mindset in the context of the current meta. When done efficiently, it is dull, repetitive curbstomping. Is topping the weekly leaderboard really a sufficient carrot to grind out this monotonous, one-dimensional playstyle? Or are we simply dealing with sociopaths who enjoy making others miserable? Having played EVE for many years, I'm well aware such people exist.

If we took this "obligation" to "help the team win" literally, then solo players would be banned, right? Clearly I would be helping my team win far more if I hooked up with the best DRK/RPR/DRG that I could find and queued in as a light party, rather than splashing about as a solo WAR with my pathetic 33% win-rate.

I agree premades have no obligation to ensure everyone else is having a pleasant experience, but some seem to go out of their way, both in chat and approach, to make life as miserable as possible for those not in their clique. Which reminds me of the old poker maxim: You can shear a sheep many times, but only skin it once.

If the premades need the unwashed masses to populate their favorite mode, at some point they might have to be a little nicer to them.

[Mawlzy]

I must admit that while FL have always been a clown fiesta with outright broken jobs or abuses for various things in the system (remember the good old days of 8 ninja premades in SB all with BH5, where the other teams outright refused to leave their spawn?), this is the first time I see such a division in mentalities between two sides that seem totally unable to understand each other. I may have bitched a little in party chat yesterday when seeing I was partied with a premade farming everyone, so perhaps I deserved it, but still being told I have a main character syndrome by a premade DRK player was a surreal experience for sure.

But it's exactly what it is in a nutshell, from their own words, they play to win and will do anything to achieve that, and don't care about the actual experience to get to that result. I never cared about winning much, and perhaps that's where the divide lies.

This caused a rather indifferent Merlot to shoot out my nose.