Frontlines: Leechers and Feeders

[Menriq]

You're still correlating gearing up with effort and participation in a duty. Even if a player is too lazy to upgrade their artifact gear with dungeon/tome gear, if they are still doing their dps rotation and making an attempt to respect the mechanics in a fight, then they are doing their job and it doesn't matter if its artifact gear because they are still making an honest effort to participate inside the duty. Not to mention the fights were designed by SE to be cleared with said item level which the artifact gear has +5 item levels on.

Also, someone with upgraded/tome gear can do jack all in a fight, so all that "effort" they put into gearing up means literally squat if they make zero effort in the duty.

So again, it boils down to subjectivity. This is the crux of the issue. You feel they are not putting effort in and should not be rewarded. Someone might think you coming in with improper gear is not putting effort in. In both cases, there are no objective thresholds that determine a standard.

Now, if this were ranked CC, or if they ever implemented ranked FL, then I would absolutely agree with you that the performance is extremely poor and they should stick to casual mode until they get better experienced. However, since this is FL, there is nothing you can really do about it. I would be all for what has been mentioned before about having MMR that would pit people of equal skill together, but just like a duty in PvE, you get what you get in a queued environment.

Weird thing about PvE content, if I chose barely participate by only pressing a single dps skill on my keyboard, decide not to heal the tank, not use my mitigations as a tank, or repeatedly die to the same avoidable mechanics. High chance I'm not clearing the content and won't receive any rewards because I refused to participate and a hindrance to my party.

Only reason its a high chance and not a 100% chance because too many people keep making excuses and refuse to hold anyone accountable for when players are purposely making no effort and are griefing the party.

This is the thing. People are carried in PvE casual content all the time doing exactly what you said. You have DPS not doing AoE on trash packs, healers either spamming cure 1 or doing no damage, and tanks not doing mitigation all the time. The content is still cleared.

I highlighted the bold part because this is 100% on SE. They have made so many people afraid to say anything with their ToS, and you can be reported for the smallest slight, so people just don't say anything. There have been many examples of people trying to hold others accountable and getting account actions. Absent of that, I think you would have more people calling people out for their play, both in PvE and PvP. I can't tell you how many times in PvP you have the group focusing on the team not in 1st and just want to call people out, but can't.

[MisterNublet]

So again, it boils down to subjectivity. This is the crux of the issue. You feel they are not putting effort in and should not be rewarded. Someone might think you coming in with improper gear is not putting effort in. In both cases, there are no objective thresholds that determine a standard.

Good lord. The avg item level requirement of 685 is literally the objective threshold, the minimum standard set by Square Enix themselves for players to met to be able to use the duty finder to queue into Arcadia. Party finder is for players who want a higher item level above (or below) what Square Enix themselves have set.

Again, the gear itself does not correlate with player performance inside of a duty. It's a bad argument.

Now, if this were ranked CC, or if they ever implemented ranked FL, then I would absolutely agree with you that the performance is extremely poor and they should stick to casual mode until they get better experienced. However, since this is FL, there is nothing you can really do about it. I would be all for what has been mentioned before about having MMR that would pit people of equal skill together, but just like a duty in PvE, you get what you get in a queued environment.

I disagree. Doesn't matter if its ranked or not. If I see someone dying repeatedly because they run solo into a group of enemy players repeatedly over and over again, I'm going to report them. Being bad is no longer an excuse at that point when you go 0-10. The GMs can review the report and decide from there.

This is the thing. People are carried in PvE casual content all the time doing exactly what you said. You have DPS not doing AoE on trash packs, healers either spamming cure 1 or doing no damage, and tanks not doing mitigation all the time. The content is still cleared.

Guess you don't follow TalesfromDF, but a lot of those you pull-you tank players, cure 1 spammers, and zero damage dps players are getting votekicked more and more lately. I've also kicked players from dungeons when they think they're going to get a free ride. It is on you then if you're allowing such players to leech off you.

I highlighted the bold part because this is 100% on SE. They have made so many people afraid to say anything with their ToS, and you can be reported for the smallest slight, so people just don't say anything. There have been many examples of people trying to hold others accountable and getting account actions. Absent of that, I think you would have more people calling people out for their play, both in PvE and PvP. I can't tell you how many times in PvP you have the group focusing on the team not in 1st and just want to call people out, but can't.

I've called dozens of players out in PvP and PvE for being leeches and never once have been contacted by a GM for it. I've called out multiple teams over their terrible decision to fight the 2nd/3rd place instead of pushing back against the 1st place team and haven't heard a peep.

The whole "gm will get ya" for calling someone out in chat is such a boogeyman story, that it feels like a rumor perpetrated by nuisance players to keep them from being called out on.

[Silaryn]

While there is a perception that the match is decided by team assignment and who got the premade, you'll have people throwing to make their loss come quicker.

The people throwing don’t want to play pvp in the first place. Premades are just their current excuse. Get rid of premades and they’re still going to throw; they will just have a different excuse. People will only stop throwing if they get penalized for it.

[Mawlzy]

The people throwing don’t want to play pvp in the first place. Premades are just their current excuse. Get rid of premades and they’re still going to throw; they will just have a different excuse. People will only stop throwing if they get penalized for it.

MMR provides a penalty that they'll get put in matches with other people who don't want to be there. Can you imagine how popular spectator mode would be? 72 people not doing anything at all. Epic.

Given that apparently some of you have figured out how to report such players, do we know if anyone has ever suffered any repercussions for doing nothing/throwing in FL? I realize the GMs won't report back on complaints because that would be helpful, but I'd be amazed if SQEX has ever taken action for FL AFKers and throwers.

And I'd be equally amazed if that changed.

[okigomimis]

So that being said, people should surely learn after trial and error correct? My point being if someone dashes into a group of players 5 times, regardless whether or not they're intentionally throwing, and dies those said 5 times thinking they can 1vX however many players there are; surely they would learn NOT to do that after the 5th time right? It's simply not even a matter of skill at that point, it's flat out throwing. There's been countless times I will see someone throw out a single ability, run in, die, then go AFK for half [if not the rest of] the match just so they can get their EXP bar filled. It's flat out just purposely throwing the game for everyone else just to get your daily EXP, and it's annoying for everyone else who is trying to actually play a Frontline/CC for more Trophy Crystals.

Also, people don't necessarily care if you're "bad" at PvP content. As long as you have effort put in, that's all you really can do. The effort comes from actively playing though, as there's no requirements for gear iLvl. With that being said, let me ask you this: If someone were to pre-pull your boss in Savage, hit 1 damage ability, purposely run into AOES, out of stack markers, and or/jump off the edge, would that count as a "skill issue" in your book; even if they had the highest iLvl attainable for their job with perfect melds? Because speaking frankly here, if that's a "yes" I think there's qualifications for speaking on this matter should be met before speaking on them in the first place.

Players who are throwing on purpose is is non-negotiable honestly, as in other games with PvP centered content you are punished severely for that kind of behavior. Square is fairly lenient in terms of the player-base, but we still need to have a closer eye on players who have evidence against themselves for ruining other players experiences by choice. I'd strongly recommend reconsidering your first statements in the thread before continuing your posts on the thread, as what you've posted doesn't line up the way you've intended it to I don't think.

(Edit: In reply to Menriq. I'm not sure how to use the forums very well...)

[Escalan]

I completely agree with you, and the biggest reason for that problem is the extremely bad PVP design. Most people who play the game don't like PVP and only enter frontlines just to leech xp or tomestones as you said. The main reason is that the PVP is terrible. You don't feel having any impact because it's pure RNG and everything depends on your placement on the map (Seal Rock) and your team, hence when people realize that that they stop caring, and they enter frontlines just to do nothing and get their rewards. Devs and players both contribute to this problem.

[Vandi]

Rewards based on performance. Square Enix needs to get rid of the kid gloves and stop pussyfooting around by taking a stance on what kind of performance/standard of play a player should present when queuing into a PvP match. Take the median or average (which ever is more lenient) damage dealt and K/A-D ratio and make that the baseline and go from there. Easy to see that some of the players that go 0 kills 10 deaths and damage equal to their gapcloser (to die quicker) should receive zero duty rewards.

I unapologetically agree with the above statement. The fundamental problem however, runs much deeper, meaning:


Yoshi and his devs deliberately cater to casuals just to keep drawing people to pvp.


This is nothing more than a bi product of a problem that’s going on for years with FFxiv pvp. Notice we have no crits, no auto attack, no gear bonuses? The devs have gutted EVERYTHING that gives an actually dedicated pvper whose willing to invest their time and energy to optimize their job’s performance so as to keep it level with people who could care less about combat…just to get their rewards. This is also the reason premades are formed, because individuals who genuinely care about and enjoy pvp are SICK of getting matched with these types of players and having to get killed because of their lack of drive.

So yeah, toooootally agree there needs to be a bar met for rewards distributed.

[Mawlzy]

New Record! Just had a Seal Rock match where my team finished on 0. Nul points. And it appeared people were trying.

MMR now.

[Menriq]

New Record! Just had a Seal Rock match where my team finished on 0. Nul points. And it appeared people were trying.

MMR now.

I've had that happen a few times and it actually impresses me since this is without premades.

[IDontPetLalas]

I hate them too, but how do you propose they fix it? Adjusting the rewards just screws players who join for things like tomes but still try their best. Making it easier for you to report them (though it’s important to note that they technically aren’t doing anything wrong—there’s no rule against being a feeder) sounds like something that would be ripe for abuse instead of being used for the purpose you propose.

Two points - agreed you don't want to just report anyone for being a "feeder" when they could legitimately be in one of their very first FL. I'm also come across people who honestly didn't know that dying resulted in a loss of points.

Point two however regarding whether feeding is "wrong" ? I have yet to be in any PvP game where this wasn't considered to be "wrong" - it's likely covered by

"Aiding the enemy / Uncooperative behavior / Lethargic behavior Refers to an act of performing actions that give an advantage to an enemy (monsters, or the opposing team/players in PvP content) by not performing the necessary gameplay required of the situation. This may be combined with combat sabotage as well."

See https://support.na.square-enix.com/f...&la=1&ret=rule

In a game that is focussed on PvP, with dedicated PvP community, these players won't pull these shenanigans or if they do, they don't get invited to premades, no one wants someone who is actively helping the opposing teams to get the match over with/to get it over with as quickly as possible/ to help their friends on the other team/etc.