Thread: Olivia's Frontline Guide 2.21

Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

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Thank you for putting this together Olivia! While XIV does not do a great job of explaining the nuance that goes into an FL match (from bursting to health management), a guide to familiarize players with what they might read in the chat is going to be a world of help to someone starting FL for the first time. There are numerous guides in the various discords explaining the nuances of Frontlines, but nothing on the English official forums.

My personal experience comes from solo queuing for the most part, and choosing to command when no one else chooses to. My honest opinion is that most players (yes, including the rouletters) are receptive to guidance in FL if you lay it out in an understandable manner.

To make a clear distinction, the ability to listen to high-quality orders does not necessarily lead to wins. Sometimes there are engagements created that you say "oh we can't win against this, we don't have the skill/bh/team composition/manpower/map footing/time/third team's support/etc..", even if the correct call was made.

One thing I would like to add. Commanding can be as detailed or undetailed as you want it to be, as long as you are conveying information to your team in an understandable way. I keep macros for the following:

• Rank of a node that has spawned
• Cardinal/ Inter-cardinal direction of node spawn
• Fall back or pincer/sandwich notifications
• What team should be attacked
• Miscalls

The less information provided to your team leaves opportunities for things to go wrong, but if someone wants to start calling objectives, taking small steps by calling new nodes, directions to go, etc is already a huge contribution to obtaining a win.

And as for my last note, you don't need to be in a premade party to make calls. I find there is a distinction between calls made to alert your team of new nodes or beneficial/not beneficial scenarios, and making calls to direct your team's firepower in a quick, concentrated manner. The latter example works well in a premade situation, whereas the former example works regardless if you are playing in a group or solo. My point is, that anyone can step up to make calls, regardless of the team situation.

In regards to you comments about commanding:

You can call the best moves and do everything right and still lose. That's the nature of a 3 way game with rng elements after all. You can't win every match, but you can up your chances significantly with calls.

If the general player base had macros for their limit break and incoming pinches we'd be much better off for certain. The more buy in we have with communicating with our team the better.

I don't lay out a good groundwork for how to start commanding and progressing down that path. I think a general road map would be a good addition. Start simple and work your way up.

Finally... I don't outright state you should be in a premade to call. I do highly suggest it.Playing with your friends and putting a comp together, having peeps already following you, and winning the first engagement is going to make your team much more interested in listening to you. This is doubly so if you're unknown.

Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

You can call the best moves and do everything right and still lose. That's the nature of a 3 way game with rng elements after all.

Isn't that ever a reality.

Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

If the general player base had macros for their limit break and incoming pinches we'd be much better off for certain. The more buy in we have with communicating with our team the better.

While I do agree more communication is always better, I would stray from the LB macros given the nature of 24 teammates and potential chat/ sounds effect spam. If SE put in a LB bar above each person's section in the alliance/party tab, that would give much better insight to the LB power of the team, and no one would need to let their team know of the status of their LBs.

Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

I don't lay out a good groundwork for how to start commanding and progressing down that path. I think a general road map would be a good addition. Start simple and work your way up.

I think it was a great groundwork roadmap! Each person is free to develop their own macros/ leading guidelines, but laying out potential macros, and showing a commanding point of view gives newer players a decent starting location, even if all they do is receive commands and never issue any.

Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

Finally... I don't outright state you should be in a premade to call. I do highly suggest it.Playing with your friends and putting a comp together, having peeps already following you, and winning the first engagement is going to make your team much more interested in listening to you. This is doubly so if you're unknown.

I do agree buy-in is a lot easier if you have a team composition that can get that first decisive win. I do agree that premades make for better commanding, that shouldn't discourage anyone from trying their hand at leading, regardless if they are in good company or by themselves. I like to think if the orders make some sense and you get buy-in from your team, people will listen regardless if you're new or a veteran. Moreso if no one else will step up to the plate.

Originally Posted by Aubrey_A

While I do agree more communication is always better, I would stray from the LB macros given the nature of 24 teammates and potential chat/ sounds effect spam. If SE put in a LB bar above each person's section in the alliance/party tab, that would give much better insight to the LB power of the team, and no one would need to let their team know of the status of their LBs.

Oh, let me clarify. You shouldn't put sounds on lb notifications!!! Just put it in yellow/yell. If a slew of yellow text comes up in chat you know it's about to be clobbering time. Just having lb bars above your party mates would be perfect as well, they already do that in CC. Should be in every pvp mode.

Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

Oh, let me clarify. You shouldn't put sounds on lb notifications!!! Just put it in yellow/yell. If a slew of yellow text comes up in chat you know it's about to be clobbering time. Just having lb bars above your party mates would be perfect as well, they already do that in CC. Should be in every pvp mode.

Oh, you detailed that in your guide, my bad! But I do stand by the fact SE should put teammates LBs into the UI somehow.

Those UI suggestion would be extremely helpful. Unfortunately I find even one person spamming multiple commands with sounds to be really distracting, just the thought of one person taking multiple lbs with sound seriously added was !