Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

[Valence]

Yeah well, doesnt happen here. NA sounds like a wild place. What happens usually when this is attempted is that half of the team doesn't listen or even understand the idea/concept, doesn't follow, and you end up with only half a team going against the target and just end up feeding them.

Not really sure how you pull off camping a whole team at spawn for more than a couple of minutes without getting attritioned to death tbh.

[Scintilla]

Also if you want to have some fun even when losing, again your mileage will vary if people are willing to join in, is to completely camp the pre-made stack which I've pulled off a few times leading a team of randoms. What you do is call out in chat that the new team goal is to make the pre-made team lose and help the other losing team win at all costs.

Not saying it's impossible: it happens on occasions, but it's very unlikely.

First it requires almost the entire team to commit to this new 'goal' - a goal which often means putting objectives to one side and channeling focus instead on PvP to camp out in the premade team base. Given the number of casual players in Frontlines who are there primarily for the daily, I don't think I need to elaborate too much on how low chances of persuading a team do this can be. Even in the event that you do get your team to focus on the premade, it only takes an A or S rank node to spawn and you lose half your team to that, leaving the remainder to feed the premade. Try to call for focus on the premade, and you'll regularly get conflict calls to focus on objectives instead or to try to avoid the premade team. And that's not counting the number of teams who just take the defeatist attitude of "we can't do anything. Lets just end it quickly". It's particularly difficult to get this support early in the game while the premade are likely to be trailing slightly on points, as it goes against normal practice of 'focus on the winning team'. By the time they've built a notable point lead, they've also farmed very high BH and have begun to take easy control of the game. The two random teams wake up to the reality too late to stop them.

Secondly, it usually requires an unspoken alliance with the other random team, having both teams working together continuously to focus down the premade. Even in the event that your own team are willing to commit to this new goal, there is no guarantee that the same could be said of the other random team.
Common decisions include:
- They instead decide that the best course of action is to leave the other random alliance to 'fight' (die to) the premade alone, while they try to take unguarded nodes in the meantime. Obviously this doesn't work as the other random alliance tend to get flattened very quickly, the premade continue to get the BH, and the fight comes to the 'objective-driven' team anyway.
- They decide to try to leech from the premade and together farm the other random team, basically handing the win to the premade just to secure second-place for themselves.

[Mawlzy]

Seems to me the summary of the last few posts is that premades aren't invincible (of course true, some are much better than others), and that there are low-probability scenarios when a team/teams coordinate to neuter the premade.

Such situations can be fun on the rare occasions they happen, but as Valence has emphasized so eloquently, the least-fun scenario for a decent solo player is to be on the same team as a premade. And when on a typical team opposing a premade, you're basically holding a banana in a bar fight when the other side have knives.

The solution seems pretty obvious to me.

[CosmoBabylonia]

Not saying it's impossible: it happens on occasions, but it's very unlikely.

First it requires almost the entire team to commit to this new 'goal' - a goal which often means putting objectives to one side and channeling focus instead on PvP to camp out in the premade team base. Given the number of casual players in Frontlines who are there primarily for the daily, I don't think I need to elaborate too much on how low chances of persuading a team do this can be. Even in the event that you do get your team to focus on the premade, it only takes an A or S rank node to spawn and you lose half your team to that, leaving the remainder to feed the premade. Try to call for focus on the premade, and you'll regularly get conflict calls to focus on objectives instead or to try to avoid the premade team. And that's not counting the number of teams who just take the defeatist attitude of "we can't do anything. Lets just end it quickly". It's particularly difficult to get this support early in the game while the premade are likely to be trailing slightly on points, as it goes against normal practice of 'focus on the winning team'. By the time they've built a notable point lead, they've also farmed very high BH and have begun to take easy control of the game. The two random teams wake up to the reality too late to stop them.

Secondly, it usually requires an unspoken alliance with the other random team, having both teams working together continuously to focus down the premade. Even in the event that your own team are willing to commit to this new goal, there is no guarantee that the same could be said of the other random team.
Common decisions include:
- They instead decide that the best course of action is to leave the other random alliance to 'fight' (die to) the premade alone, while they try to take unguarded nodes in the meantime. Obviously this doesn't work as the other random alliance tend to get flattened very quickly, the premade continue to get the BH, and the fight comes to the 'objective-driven' team anyway.
- They decide to try to leech from the premade and together farm the other random team, basically handing the win to the premade just to secure second-place for themselves.

Agreed on all points. It's rare to have the team suddenly unite and commit, and it's even rarer for the team that you are trying to help realize what's going on to cooperate. It can definitely happen, and when both scenarios occured it was the most fun I've ever had in FL since about 2020...

[Colt47]

I mean frontlines is a problem because it isn't just about committing to a goal...

1) Targeting is a nightmare in frontlines and half the time I can't even target someone before they just dive back into the protection of their super cluster of players.
2) Ranged dps need a major range increase so that they can shoot targets that are behind the blue tanks trying to bait all the attacks. There needs to be a role to force or help break up these massive mobs and they just don't have them.
3) Fishing targets is too strong in frontlines. It works in CC because there isn't enough players to just flat out annihilate someone that gets fished by a holm gang or something, but in FF someone gets fished and then even guard isn't really enough since you'll be engulfed in less then a second.
4) Three kingdoms style pvp is just bad. I don't think there has ever been a time I've been in a first place team since the changes to jobs in pvp, and the majority of the time I've been on the teams that make third or second. There is no clear way to improve, no one is communicating, and it just turns into whichever team gets ahead first loses, since both other teams then pick on that team and continuously hound them well after they went down. This mode literally punishes trying to win.

This would mean that they'd have to set role restrictions on the groups, though. Like people would lose the ability to just swap to whatever or everyone would do ranged or everyone would just do what they do now with fishing players out with tanks or diving in as dark knights to eat up all the valuable damage skills.

[Niroken]

2) Ranged dps need a major range increase so that they can shoot targets that are behind the blue tanks trying to bait all the attacks. There needs to be a role to force or help break up these massive mobs and they just don't have them.

I wouldn't want this, they would just increase melee DR even more.

[IDontPetLalas]

"Three kingdoms style pvp is just bad."

Well, you're perfectly entitled to your opinion, I disagree, and want to keep this mode- we have RW as the 2 opponent large scale mode.

" I don't think there has ever been a time I've been in a first place team since the changes to jobs in pvp,"

That is odd, since even with RNG, you should somehow end up on a first -place team.

" and the majority of the time I've been on the teams that make third or second."

Due to pure RNG, that would make more sense.

" There is no clear way to improve, no one is communicating, and it just turns into whichever team gets ahead first loses, since both other teams then pick on that team and continuously hound them well after they went down. This mode literally punishes trying to win."

Well, I would disagree that the team that gets ahead first always loses. Yes, that can happen, however it is also quite possible that they build on their advantage and steamroll as they build BH as per the comments above- both can happen - that's exactly why the 3-way mode can be interesting.

[Valence]

I do agree that mathematically you'll be winning less, but I do think that the 3 ways system prevents a lot of snowballing, which still happens don't get me wrong, but imagine if the strongest team had literally no secondary check beyond your own alliance that apparently can't get the superiority no matter when you engage...

[Mawlzy]

I'm guessing if you're finding the team that gets ahead first ends up losing, a significant factor is they're prioritizing nodes over BH early, and paying for it in the end game. At least my experience is that is more common than 2nd and 3rd coordinating. I don't see FL working as a 2-team contest without completely reworking it, and as Lalas notes, it does provide a different angle to RW.

[Colt47]

I posted this in the other thread involving Job issues. The only thing I could tell from the leader boards post game that was different is that the Adders had minimal AOE capabilities and few tanks. The flames AND maelstrom literally slaughtered everyone back to the base camp and even with a machinist with an LB and drill combo, I couldn't kill a black mage. He tanked both shots and then self healed because no one could finish them off due to being mass CCed, AOEed, and people getting chained into mobs.

Any team that has a job that can't AOE, can't use some kind of draw in / fish skill, or can't mass CC is basically dead weight in there.