Ideas on Fixing/Improving Frontline - Balance, Map Design, UI/UX, Objectives

[Valence]

The absolute removal of flanking and sandwiches would be one of the worst thing you could do to the mode.

The three teams just creates a dynamic where the losing team can throw for whichever team they like. I prefer my matches end with the most skilled team winning the game. That doesn't happen in a 1v1v1 setting. Just look at half the matches on seal rock without premades. North spawn, or South spawn teams get camped and farmed at their spawn points and they're denied the ability to even capture a single node for several minutes that effectively seals their fate in third or second place without the intervention of RNG spawning nodes right at their doorstep. Even Onsal is guilty of this happening as well, though unlike Seal Rock the node spawns are at least loosely balanced and defensible between the teams.

Three way PvP is not a good idea if you care for competitive PvP.

1v1 PvP has always been superior, and if one team is getting slaughtered, they lose the match and it ends quickly for them. There is a reason the vast majority of PvP games are 1v1, not 1v1v1. If you want your comeback in a 1v1 setting you better work for it and not hope that one of the other 2 hostile teams throws for you.

Frontlines is not competitive and will never be competitive the same way that casual CC will never be as well. Hoping to get anything competitive with a mode filled with casuals players just interested in having casual fun or doing their dailies is a pipe dream. If you want something competitive in XIV, the current and only mode for it is ranked CC, period. They'd need to add a ranked FL mode for it to ever happen.

Seal Rock is a great map in terms of variety when it comes to its layout where no other map even comes close (Seal Rock has small winding corridors, wide open areas, altitudes, promontories, tunnels beneath those). The main problem with Seal Rock is that the spawns and the nodes are not balanced, and it's a real shame.

I'm not against a 1v1 mode in FLs provided the game gives a lot more catch up mechanics to the losing team in order to make up for it, because 1v1v1 does work where I play most of the time, and most of the time the winning team gets attacked by the two others. People just notice the times one team is being dented and make blanket statements out of it.

Personally, I don't see the problem with large AoE bursts or why people are calling for it to be nerfed. Being the attacker and getting 16+ kills is an amazing feeling, and Frontlines is the only place you can get that.

While this is also possible in Rival Wings, the difference is that single-target burst is viable in that mode thanks to LB generation and reduced damage resistance.

Modern pvp is all about bursting correctly, and when there are 48 enemies on the field it will always be about bursting the most targets in the shortest amount of time. Since single target isn't viable, group AOE is the solution (and a more fun one at that). If you cap AoE at 5, matches will get real boring real quick.

Why would it get boring? It's not like AoE would stop being the better option...

Also I can't say I can relate to seeing 16+ players keeling over after executing literally braindead strategies that are even more braindead when 95% of the playerbase is not even playing the same game. Countering it requires so much effort that you'd be better of just fielding your own premade of DRK abusers, much more efficient. If anything getting into the same teams that use this is the most boring shit I've ever had the displeasure to play in FLs. On thing I'll give to modern FL players though, they don't care, they just go back again and again. I do remember days in SB against a different kind of abuse, some teams would just refuse to go back and fight and just wait on their spawn so the game would end.

[Mawlzy]

Why would it get boring? It's not like AoE would stop being the better option...

Also I can't say I can relate to seeing 16+ players keeling over after executing literally braindead strategies that are even more braindead when 95% of the playerbase is not even playing the same game. Countering it requires so much effort that you'd be better of just fielding your own premade of DRK abusers, much more efficient. If anything getting into the same teams that use this is the most boring shit I've ever had the displeasure to play in FLs. On thing I'll give to modern FL players though, they don't care, they just go back again and again. I do remember days in SB against a different kind of abuse, some teams would just refuse to go back and fight and just wait on their spawn so the game would end.

It baffles me too that people apparently enjoy executing this tedious strat, and even more exposing themselves to it. But this is where we are, and to me the AoE cap seems the neatest solution to address the problem.

Although as I've noted elsewhere, if some form of matchmaking was used, those 16+ kills per burst would be significantly reduced.

[Mistress_Irika]

Responding to the proposed ideas.

1.) Folks are going to move to range only classes with this change. DNCs, WARs, RPRs, DRGs, and other melee based classes will be BMed before being nuked. I'd rather see falloff damage the moment the AOE hits another player.
2.) Agreeing with you. CC immunity needs to return. Too easy to lock a player down.
3.) Personal opinion, but I think the new limit breaks are better. Just needs tuning (SAM). Let's agree to disagree lol
4.) I'd rather go back to losing battle high progress and awarding bonus points for shutdowns. I'm not ruling out your idea however.
5.) Also agreeing with you.
6.) If pvp goes through another calamity I don't want bots. Regarding everything else I can't respond. Mixed feelings with this suggestion.
7.) Not exactly sure how effective that will be since there's always 2 active areas whether ice is being killed or being spawned.
8.) Folks already hyper focus objectives as is, the only time the deathball being applied where the S rank objectives exist or the highest point objective at the time. I'm not sure how this would change other than kill less farm more being heavily pushed.
9.) Secure was lock for this reason, and I won't be surprised if the new shatter map was designed to solve this problem. Regardless, my opinion stands: folks would rather remove things other than finding another way. You can find that within certain changes that has already took place. Overall, I'm iffy with the suggestion.
10.) Haven't watched the live letter. The change seems promising. Seems as though they're going slow for us all to test the changes out before 7.2. We need more buttons. So...

[Themarvin]

Reduce the gain from killing people... problem solved also most Flank King right now is a total disaster, if you can keep yourself alive in in FL, and getting objectives is more effecient.

[Mawlzy]

Reduce the gain from killing people... problem solved also most Flank King right now is a total disaster, if you can keep yourself alive in in FL, and getting objectives is more effecient.

I don't see any benefit in making PvP more like PvE.

[IDontPetLalas]

Reduce the gain from killing people... problem solved also most Flank King right now is a total disaster, if you can keep yourself alive in in FL, and getting objectives is more effecient.

I don't see how this would help. Personally, I prefer to have objective based PvP , the mode that I like least- usually because it's not easy to balance for- is "last man standing".

That being said- I want to have kills rewarded, I want to encourage active participation. I want people to see that they can't just show up and breathe and win. I don't see why that's too high of a bar.

I would rather go the route that it requires some minimum contribution to get rewards. The thing is- the best system that I saw compared each person's performance against others in in the same job for the same match- even with hundreds of players- so that eliminated some obvious ways of getting rewarded for no contribution.

[Mawlzy]

I don't see how this would help. Personally, I prefer to have objective based PvP , the mode that I like least- usually because it's not easy to balance for- is "last man standing".

That being said- I want to have kills rewarded, I want to encourage active participation. I want people to see that they can't just show up and breathe and win. I don't see why that's too high of a bar.

I would rather go the route that it requires some minimum contribution to get rewards. The thing is- the best system that I saw compared each person's performance against others in in the same job for the same match- even with hundreds of players- so that eliminated some obvious ways of getting rewarded for no contribution.

Agreed on all points.

Without job-specific thresholds it'll just be a new path to abuse. Like if it was damage-based, you'd have the non-combatants do something like drop a SCH plague and then go hide.

[CidHeiral]

I think the damage reduction in Frontline should be removed or reduced significantly, and I'm someone that plays melee a lot of the time. I was playing Rival Wings earlier today and realized one of the reasons it's so much more fun than FL is that people actually take damage. After thinking back on it I recall FL being significantly more fun when the PvP revamp first launched for that same reason. It feels like you're actually outplaying people on the battlefield rather than just being along for the ride in your team's giant death ball.

[NightHour]

Removal of Salted Earth's pull would put a stop to this drk drg ast bs.

[Valence]

Or so you say, but I'm not willing to get into insipid discussions about definitions like it's been for many pages now in that trainwreck of a DRK thread in the tank section.