Frontlines sucks Ultra megathread

[Burmecia]

IMO they should've revamped Secure and deleted Shatter. Shatter wasn't fun before, but this new one is even worse.

Before or before-before? I kinda liked the og variant the best, warts and all.

[Wyssahtyn]

having played shatter for the first time in a while since their rework, it's amazing how much worse it feels with every adjustment they do

[NorthernLadMSP]

Before or before-before? I kinda liked the og variant the best, warts and all.

Hmmm, good question. I've played for a very long time, but I'm forgetting what the before-before was. Can you remind me what was different between that and the version we had just prior to the current shitty version we have now?

[Valence]

The map was different (wider) and ices spawned very randomly on the og version, and you could capture the base of opposing teams.

[Mawlzy]

The map was different (wider) and ices spawned very randomly on the og version, and you could capture the base of opposing teams.

Ooh! That sounds like it might have the potential to produce interesting play.

[Valence]

It was still the worst map of the pool. But since there was big downtimes between ice rushes you had that formless massive blob war between the 3 teams in the wide middle area. Lurking behind enemy bases to capture them was made irrelevant or suicidal after they increased mount speed for ShB pvp rework.

[Mawlzy]

It was still the worst map of the pool. But since there was big downtimes between ice rushes you had that formless massive blob war between the 3 teams in the wide middle area. Lurking behind enemy bases to capture them was made irrelevant or suicidal after they increased mount speed for ShB pvp rework.

Interesting, thanks. Before my time.

Talking of lurking behind (near) enemy bases, has anyone come across this Ninja on Aether who makes straight for an enemy base? I'm intrigued by this. What they appear to be doing is simply keeping around half a dozen players from that team away from where they are needed. They just kite and recuperate. I mention it because it's the most data-based illustration I've seen of the melee DR being too damn high.

[Mistress_Irika]

I'm finally doing frontlines for once...until I get my carbuncle earring that is. Then I'm out until 7.1.

I've finally gave shatter a chance for once. I've only played 4 games. I prefer the OG map. I'm not sure what sort of reverts they did for the map. However, this map encourages heavy ice farming. As soon as a big ice is broken another is immediately getting ready to spawn. I don't see this map encouraging pvp at all. If I want to pvp I'm better off being in a premade duo. Otherwise, I may have no choice but to become an afk farmer if the team doesn't want to fight. As much as I would like to cry out how the old map is better folks are tired of dying to punts. Enough said.

Not related to the topic, but after 2 years of disappearing I come back only to realize that I don't recognize a soul. It feels like I'm in the twilight zone. If there is a premade out there I cannot easily identify them in my own data center. The solo life is rough.

Anyways, I have finally ran into the DRK burst team. I had 0 answers for how to deal with this whatsoever. If I get pulled in I was instantly dead before I had a chance to react. Literally no different than being in a high level CC match. On the chance that I happened to engage before them and I bait with guard well...WAR. MNK. RPR. NIN. I'm don't even understand how you melee mains are able to play frontlines like this. I will also admit that I now have 0 understanding since choosing to quit frontlines for the expansion. I am simply just another baddie. Vet status is revoked.

Out of these 4 games I've played I've won 50% of them. The other 50% I lost due to premades. It's not what you think though.

The second loss I actually had a premade in my alliance. They were leading the burst. Only 4 soloists followed through. Throughout the game 2/3s of the alliance chose to farm only. We held last place for majority of the game being behind by 200 and 100 pts respectively, and we finish last place. There's a huge advantage when it comes to premades. However, they aren't gods. I'm pretty sure that stories like this will hardly pop up on the forums. After all, most have the impression that majority of premades use voice chat.

My first loss dealt with said DRK premade. It was my worse loss thus far, the score being 1400-800-800. If you want an idea of how that went refer to the images below. They show 2 opposite ideas that has very strong proof no matter how you look at it.

1. Premades are too op for the casual base to handle and should be outright removed from frontlines for a more balanced match. (I'm pretty certain that a lot of you have worse games to show to further suggest this.)

2. There's too much of a team diff to be worrying about premades. So why care about them? (I'm pretty positive a minority group thinks like this. I fit this category more.)

[Mawlzy]

snip

The presence of the Mogtome event has definitely changed game texture noticeably the last couple of days, but many of your observations apply at all times. Some things I've noticed since the reset:

There is a lot more chat accusing people of cheating, either via hacks or win-trading. I think this is mostly coming from Mogtomers who don't really want to be there and are just venting, but it's still a bad look. My guess is neither are a significant problem; it's just a misunderstanding from casuals arising from the fact that such devastation (produced by premades) wouldn't be a feature of a well-balanced game mode.

Far more complaints about DRKs, whereas the real problem is the DRK-led stack. Yes, we all know the counters, and I'd even accept "it's a skill issue," but for people coming back to the mode or trying it for the first time, the playstyle is clearly a turn-off based on what they are saying.

Players I recognize as usually playing as a light party are doing a commendable job of defending the mode, mostly by stating that there are no premades on the field and that it's just a good solo team following the DRK. I'm the last person to help these people out, but I would note that when caught in obvious lies you're really undermining the position you're attempting to defend.

AFKers. While the matches have generally become more interesting simply because the odds of running into a premade have dropped, the AFK numbers are out of control. While I might argue people do this because they recognize they have no agency when premades are on the field, the reasons actually don't matter. Failure to enter commands for ~ 20 seconds should result in an auto-boot.

Overall there's a much higher level of unpleasantness and negativity in those matches where an efficient premade is blowing everybody up. Well done, folks, your playstyle contains within it the seeds of its own destruction. Playing Frontline with a de facto cheat code isn't going to last forever.

[NorthernLadMSP]

The map was different (wider) and ices spawned very randomly on the og version, and you could capture the base of opposing teams.

To me, that was just the before. You could steal bases of the opposite teams, you could Monk knock people off of the cliffs and kill them, etc. I only know that version and the current crap version. What was the third iteration?