Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

[Mawlzy]

To me it’s funny. I’m lucky enough that solo queueing and being comfortable at nin/mch/war that I do fairly well. I’ve had games with a rediculously high kill and assist counts, others I struggle to get anywhere. The fact I’m lucky enough good enough to show on the weekly win rankings shows me that. But you also have a lot of people in those same premade show up on that list as well, so I guess I’m doing well enough to keep up

My K/A tend to peak for relatively inept premades, or solo DRKs who play well. When the premade is well coordinated/on voice, then by the time I've landed all the enemies are dead already. I'm sure someone will now tell me it's a skill issue.

[Scintilla]

This. I even queue separately with friends trying to get on different teams. It gets to be a riot when we end up finding one another and seeing who’s got the better situation.

But I queue solo and can see certain top pvpers who also solo queue. Give them a lot more respect when I see them on the leaderboards

I'm not totally against playing alongside friends or FC members, as it is one way to help introduce new players to PvP. But, there's a great deal of difference between just queuing as a party and then playing as you would solo (giving your friend no more focus or attention than the random players in your team) and actively forming a pre-organised group to cover all meta jobs, syncing via vc to the point where attacks are simultaneous, and demanding the rest of the alliance obediently follow orders without question and responding to any conflict with "Do you have a 90% win rate? No? Well shut up". Sadly, that's the case for many premades.

I appreciate that a kill-focused, coordinated approach is the way to win but, even amongst a very good random team who aim to sync attacks, the level of coordination reached by decent premades cannot be replicated to the same extent by random teams. I enjoy a competitive game. Unfortunately, premades remove any sense of competition and just push more casual players away from PvP altogether.

[EvianYmir89]

I'm not totally against playing alongside friends or FC members, as it is one way to help introduce new players to PvP. But, there's a great deal of difference between just queuing as a party and then playing as you would solo (giving your friend no more focus or attention than the random players in your team) and actively forming a pre-organised group to cover all meta jobs, syncing via vc to the point where attacks are simultaneous, and demanding the rest of the alliance obediently follow orders without question and responding to any conflict with "Do you have a 90% win rate? No? Well shut up". Sadly, that's the case for many premades.

I appreciate that a kill-focused, coordinated approach is the way to win but, even amongst a very good random team who aim to sync attacks, the level of coordination reached by decent premades cannot be replicated to the same extent by random teams. I enjoy a competitive game. Unfortunately, premades remove any sense of competition and just push more casual players away from PvP altogether.

Yea, the group on crystal is DRK/Ast/Ast/dnc. They’ll move jobs around every once in awhile but they stick to that formula most of the time. I try to stun the DRK more often than not, but sadly at that point most of my team is usually dropping or falling back. It’s not difficult to tell it’s them either, so when I get the kill on any of them or even see them drop I feel good about my play.

[OliviaLugria]

Multiple reasons.

1. You claim a premade win-rate for yourself of 70%+ which I believe, although on Onsal I'd expect it to be 80% minimum. I've heard 80% from others, and as high as 90% for those real charmers who type that in chat to tell dissenters to fall in line or piss off. Let's take 80% as typical.

You or someone similar is running a premade session. I load in and find you are not on my team. I now have a 1 in 10 chance of winning the match (since the remaining 20% not sucked up by you is a priori split 50/50).

This is unlikely to be an interesting match since you're in it, and a 1-in-10 win probability is unattractively low. What else could I do to enjoy the next 15 minutes? Denying you a victory sounds reasonable. A natural side effect is that it increases the win probability of each of the two non-premade teams. Thus it increases my win chances, despite the fact the strategic imperative is to prevent the premade winning. As an advocate of "win at any cost" I would think this would appeal to you.

2. An attempt to evolve the meta. When premades are on the field, they dominate the current meta, both strategically and tactically in the stacks they use. Siding with the other non-premade team to defeat the premade is really the only counterplay, and by actively pursuing it, it's likely other solo players will follow suit. Again, this increases my win-rate long-term.

3. Spite.

I don't think that logic is sound. What I criticized was throwing the game to ensure a premade lost. If a premade farmed a team so hard they no longer have a chance of winning then they should also expect not to win due to retaliation.

This stays true the other way around. If you're going to attack a premade to the point they can't win, they will ensure your loss as well. So, really, it wouldn't increase your chances of winning, but only the 3rd unrelated team.

Obviously, hitting the premade team and keeping them from barreling over everyone is strategically sound. Doing this to the extent you also lose is stupid.

[Mawlzy]

I don't think that logic is sound. What I criticized was throwing the game to ensure a premade lost. If a premade farmed a team so hard they no longer have a chance of winning then they should also expect not to win due to retaliation.

This stays true the other way around. If you're going to attack a premade to the point they can't win, they will ensure your loss as well. So, really, it wouldn't increase your chances of winning, but only the 3rd unrelated team.

Obviously, hitting the premade team and keeping them from barreling over everyone is strategically sound. Doing this to the extent you also lose is stupid.

I'd suggest there's also a flaw in your logic.

If a premade team farmed a non-premade team so hard the non-premade team retaliated, what would happen? The non-premade team would get wiped out even faster. This is the crux of the matter. The only counterplay is if both non-premades get sufficiently hacked off they double-team the premade. Which is not easy to do without cross-team chat, although ironically the one group that could arrange this are PvP Discords. (Hence an unrelated concern about win-trading.)

Where I suspect you and I agree is that I regard it as contrary to the spirit of the game when non-premade_1 deliberately feeds non-premade_2 so that non-premade_2 edges ahead of the premade. The level of frustration is so high in some games I have seen it happen. I would never advocate for that approach.

[OliviaLugria]

I'd suggest there's also a flaw in your logic.

If a premade team farmed a non-premade team so hard the non-premade team retaliated, what would happen? The non-premade team would get wiped out even faster. This is the crux of the matter. The only counterplay is if both non-premades get sufficiently hacked off they double-team the premade. Which is not easy to do without cross-team chat, although ironically the one group that could arrange this are PvP Discords. (Hence an unrelated concern about win-trading.)

I don't think 2 teams coordinating is difficult, I think it's mostly a player base issue. Many people think of only who to attack (many don't even get that far) and don't think about the when, where, and how of doing so that leaves them getting farmed.

If you can't win the 1v1, that's why there are 3 teams. To often, instead of looking for an opportunity to work with the other team, teams attack each other, feed their mutal target, or decides to throw their chances entirely just so the current 1st doesn't win.

[EvianYmir89]

I don't think that logic is sound. What I criticized was throwing the game to ensure a premade lost. If a premade farmed a team so hard they no longer have a chance of winning then they should also expect not to win due to retaliation.

This stays true the other way around. If you're going to attack a premade to the point they can't win, they will ensure your loss as well. So, really, it wouldn't increase your chances of winning, but only the 3rd unrelated team.

Obviously, hitting the premade team and keeping them from barreling over everyone is strategically sound. Doing this to the extent you also lose is stupid.

I’m guessing you’ve never dealt with spite in a PvP match. There’s been times in matches where the team I was on was so feed up by being constantly attacked by the team in first even when we were in last the team collectively said screw it.

Besides, most premades aren’t going to be spiteful since many think they’re better than everyone and most will just blame the team for a loss instead of blaming themselves. I’m not lying, the other day in shatter the DRK from the premade had no hits on any ice. Just on people. I get that kills get you points in PvP, but when you and your little group are not actively participating in the attacking of crystals or attempting to grab ovoos or nodes, you are actively hurting your own team.

[Mawlzy]

I don't think 2 teams coordinating is difficult, I think it's mostly a player base issue. Many people think of only who to attack (many don't even get that far) and don't think about the when, where, and how of doing so that leaves them getting farmed.

If you can't win the 1v1, that's why there are 3 teams. To often, instead of looking for an opportunity to work with the other team, teams attack each other, feed their mutal target, or decides to throw their chances entirely just so the current 1st doesn't win.

Yeah, I figured you'd conclude the problem was due to someone other than you.

Your second paragraph seems to contradict your first. It may be the case that two non-premades loaded with decent players in principle should be able to pile on the premade, but in practice that doesn't happen. Even then, without any means of communication, I don't see how 2-team coordination could be described as easy.

I believe you play almost exclusively leading a premade? I'd suggest one consequence is you have very little idea of the levels of frustration experienced by your solo opponents, nor the defeatism it produces. Many have simply quit, others have joined the ranks of "Ah juss want mah XP." I've taken a middle road by lurking on Discord servers in an attempt to avoid premades.

[Scintilla]

I don't think 2 teams coordinating is difficult, I think it's mostly a player base issue. Many people think of only who to attack (many don't even get that far) and don't think about the when, where, and how of doing so that leaves them getting farmed.

If you can't win the 1v1, that's why there are 3 teams. To often, instead of looking for an opportunity to work with the other team, teams attack each other, feed their mutal target, or decides to throw their chances entirely just so the current 1st doesn't win.

It's precisely because they realise this that they focus down the premade's alliance 2v1, even going so far as to sacrifice their own game to stop the premade's win.

Initially, they play the game as they usually would: aim to win, combining the winning of objectives with gaining kill points through PvP. Admittedly, in many random teams the objectives tends to be considered the stronger priority and a number of excellent attack opportunities would be missed because of the objective-focus or general avoidance of 'unnecessary' (they think) PvP.

However, as the game progresses, it becomes apparent that at any moment in which the premade is left alone to 1v1 either team, a wipe will be guaranteed to the random team and a big point and BH gain to the premade's alliance. Even in the event that one of the random teams was particularly combative and sought the opportunity to try to pincer the premade during one of these attacks, the effect will be somewhat limited - the premade's whole alliance will already have a substantial BH advantage from their first two attacks on unawares targets, the random team will not have that benefit. Some of the premade's alliance will likely become victims and the premade's DRK may be caught depending on the availability/use of their LB, but the premade DRGs and RPR will be long gone thanks to BH buffs, DRG speed buffs, and RPR teleport. Put simply: their main damage source remains buffed and safe and you're totally reliant on the other random team doing the same when the premade regroup and come to attack you, which in random matches, is incredibly unlikely to happen.
This isn't to mention the obvious difference in coordination between random teams and premade ones - even with a well coordinated random team, damage will be slightly spread as players cast at slightly different times, giving chance to Guard/Heal/Run. In any decent premade, this damage is almost instant.
The chances of a random team having a random DRK/RPR/DRG all reach the same coordination as a premade on voice chat?

So yes, you can try to counter them and some teams will, but the result will not compare to that of their attack on you.

Eventually, even to the most beginner players, it becomes obvious that the points being endlessly farmed by the premade are creating such a drastic score difference that to leave it longer will only result in the premade win. Some will resort to defeatism ('just end it fast'), some will try to push for second place and will try to leech what kills they can from the premade's attacks on the other random team, others will "look for an opportunity to work with the other team" and form a silent agreement with them, resulting in both teams practically camping near to the premades respawn while the objectives go to whichever random team is in second.
(And before you say 'camping outside of base isn't the way', as I have mentioned above, doing a pincer attack will have limited effect too - the premade will wipe the opposite team in seconds before running away to regroup. Your own team will have to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. Their attacks will have to be just as simultaneous, with the same meta jobs used by the premade. In a random team where communication is fully in-game with a team of varying skills and experience, this will not happen. Hence many resort to having both teams simply camping outside of base. Not ideal, but at the end of a desperately imbalanced game, at least they know it works when nothing else for them has)

Casual players' avoidance of PvP (unless it's directly over an objective) doesn't help the situation, I agree. But it can't be denied that premade teams have a significant advantage over random teams, not just through game strategy, but through the availability of a very closely coordinated group of meta jobs. Hence why they play as part of this pre-formed party of friends, rather than queue solo. The main issue is that this advantage is so great that it removes all competition from a game and helps to push disinterest in PvP amongst new/casual players.

[EvianYmir89]

Yeah, I figured you'd conclude the problem was due to someone other than you.

Your second paragraph seems to contradict your first. It may be the case that two non-premades loaded with decent players in principle should be able to pile on the premade, but in practice that doesn't happen. Even then, without any means of communication, I don't see how 2-team coordination could be described as easy.

I believe you play almost exclusively leading a premade? I'd suggest one consequence is you have very little idea of the levels of frustration experienced by your solo opponents, nor the defeatism it produces. Many have simply quit, others have joined the ranks of "Ah juss want mah XP." I've taken a middle road by lurking on Discord servers in an attempt to avoid premades.

Even with this, I’ve seen a premade with some of the best players on crystal lose before, simply due to the fact of how much the server loathes that group.