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

[HylianBebop]

Intro: I haven't used the OF in years, but I figured I'd give it a try in an attempt to suggest some changes to Frontline. I know we're on the cusp of big PVP changes in 7.1 and 7.2, but I'm not confident everything will be addressed by the dev team. But, these issues being given more attention could lead to the devs addressing them in the future, so I think it is still a worthwhile effort to discuss them here. I got into Frontline PVP around the end of A Realm Reborn and became a regular starting with Shatter's arrival in Heavensward, so I've played through all iterations of the Frontline maps and all iterations of the PVP toolkit and have played 15,000+ Frontline matches across NA, EU, and JP.

The following issues and suggested fixes will address balance, map designs, and the objectives that contribute to win conditions in each map. In regards to the balance/adjustments, I am keeping in mind that they must first and foremost not break the balance of Crystalline Conflict as it is the dev's primary focus. Though truthfully I wish this was not the case, I tried to remain realistic with these adjustments in order to not disrupt CC's competitive balance. Please note, this only considers Ranked/Casual/Light Party CC in which job stacking is NOT allowed. My adjustments do not take into consideration custom CC matches with job stacking as that is just an unrealistic task to balance around.

This is not a comprehensive list, and I know others will have issues they'd like to see addressed, but I wanted to get the ball rolling. Also, I'm not suggesting any individual skill/tool fix or adjustment, just broad strokes fixes that would apply to all or most jobs, as I feel like these would largely solve the balance issues, whereas small, job specific adjustments (ie delete Salted Earth) are merely symptomatic fixes that do not actually remedy the true cause of the balance issues (some of which are listed below.

[HylianBebop]

1) Cap All AOE based damage to 5 targets, including Limit Breaks

Current Frontline meta favors synchronizing AOE bursts around grouping up enemy teams and disabling their ability to guard/act. This is achieved via stacking abilities like Dark Knight's Salted Earth combined with Reaper or Dancer's LB and then unleashing heavy hitting AOE LBs and skills. By simply stacking up certain jobs you gain a significantly stronger chance of winning than ever, even when all things are equal in terms of player skill level, but the other team has less effective jobs that synergize with this strategy.

Just try to go up against a SCH stack without jobs that can weather their barrage of DOT damage ... There's a reason the meme "book club" exists. Not to mention, stacking DNC/RPR LBs to keep you locked out of taking any actions for upwards of 10-15 seconds, combined with DRK's Salted Earth to group everyone up, and then sending massive AOE damage via DRG LB, SMN LB, usually enhanced by AST LB or the like. It quickly gets out of hand.

By capping AOE damage to 5 targets, you greatly reduce the potency of AOE abilities and reduce the potency of the "Death Ball/Murder Ball" strategy currently employed by strong premades/groups on NA DC, which largely forgoes engaging with objectives in favor of simply running around the map killing as many people as possible. AOE Sync Bursts would still be potent, but they should not be the end all, be all for winning or strategy in any Frontline map.

If capping AOE damage at 5 targets isn't feasible, then a damage scale reduction like the one that exists in PVE currently, for example the one for Afflatus Misery (Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 1,320 for the first enemy, and 50% less for all remaining enemies.) should be applied to all AOE damage abilities (including Limit Breaks) in PVP. Though I would honestly prefer the 5 target cap, I'll take what I can get at this point.

[HylianBebop]

2) Disallow the Stacking of Certain Debuffs/Effects (Or Re-Implement Unique Immunity)
This is quite possibly one of the most broken things possible in Frontline. It is painfully clear many of these types of abilities were never meant to be used back-to-back since you would normally only encounter just 1 of them every CD window in Crystalline Conflict. The biggest offenders are Miracle of Nature, Reaper's Limit Break Tenebrae Lemurum with its Hysteria effect, and Dancer's Limit Break Contradance with its charm effect.

With Miracle of Nature, if you have enough WHM on a side and with proper focus/coordination, it is possible to fully shut down a player or players for an extended period of time that is just simply broken. For all other types of normal crowd control, you can use purify to give yourself a window, but it does not work against Miracle of Nature. This is fine in theory for a single use, but not for multiple uses in a short time frame. This type of chain use was never the intent of the ability since it is designed around a mode where there should only ever be 1 WHM on each team with a 45s CD window. Thus, this problem does not exist in normal Crystalline Conflict play. Yet in Frontline, it's possible to keep a RPR or WAR locked out from anything other than movement for the entire duration of their own Limit Breaks, which are critical parts of their toolkit. Stacking oGCD abilities should not be able to fully negate a Limit Break (IMO, you should have to spend an LB to counter an LB). Simply adding a specific Miracle of Nature resilience that lasts 45 seconds would solve this issue.

As for the more important issue of certain Limit Breaks, getting hit by multiple DNC LBs to keep you locked out of actions for longer than the duration of a single DNC LB should not be possible. Same with RPR and WAR LBs. Similarly, MNK LB should also only go through a single guard + stun. A 2nd MNK LB, while it should deliver damage, within a certain window of time should not break guard or restrict your movement. The window of time is up for debate, but I'd start with a 10 second resilience to each LBs effect. However, using different, unique job LBs in succession would still be possible, so using 1 DNC LB, then using 1 RPR LB, and then 1 WAR LB, etc, etc, would still work. But no more getting chained by multiple DNC LBs or locked down by multiple MNK LBs. And again, like I said in my first bullet point, any AOE LBs should only affect up to 5 targets max.

[HylianBebop]

3) Restore the Pre-6.1 Limit Break System
Several of the above issues would be immediately solved by returning back to the old role-based Limit Breaks. Healers and Tanks would provide party-wide healing and mitigation to survive big bursts, Melee would provide a massive single target damage (encouraging chain Melee LBs on hard-to-kill targets), and Casters/Ranged would provide AOE LBs much like SMN LBS. AOE sync bursts (ie Death Ball/Murder Ball) were still possible pre-6.1, it just didn't happen as frequently each match so that it wasn't such a dominant strategy that it could be largely relied on to win the match rather than being used to win a single objective. It also would restore a bit of the original role identities without reverting back to the old style which the devs stated put too much pressure on healers, in which healing was almost exclusively the responsibility of healers, as well as damage mitigation was largely the responsibility of tanks.

4) Change the Battle High System to Be More Like Soaring
Rival Wings has the right idea for a kill perk system for Frontline, though ironically Soaring/Flying High might actually not be the best fit for Rival Wings. In case you don't know, Soaring, like Battle High, increases your damage and healing potency, but it also increases your LB generation, and most importantly you can't lose your Soaring stacks. However, the iteration of Soaring/Flying High I'd like to see implemented for Frontline would NOT impact LB generation, but you would not lose it upon dying. It should be 20 (200 points max, 5 pts per kill, 2 per assist) stacks shared between your party, and for every 4 stacks (40 pts from any combo of kills/assists), you gain 1 BH level (10% increase to healing/damage). So BH1-5 still exists, but you earn it as a team, it takes more points to achieve each BH level, and you can't lose it.

This reduces the anxiety around dying for newer players, as well as encourages more aggressive fighting rather than playing overly defensive as you won't have to worry about your players risking their BH. It also allows weaker teams to catch up more quickly rather than being bullied into submission and not being able to mount a decent counteroffensive. This would combat the widespread issue on NA DC of 2nd and 3rd place focusing on each other rather than 1st place because they believe the 1st place team is too strong/out of reach. This mentality has led to worse quality matches and in general bad vibes about Frontline/PVP.

[HylianBebop]

5) Improve the UI/UX
The scoreboard change was a nice first step, but the UI/UX of Frontline is still woefully outdated. At the very least, timed objectives need to be more clearly displayed via HUD elements like they are in Rival Wings, and the map elements need to be refined to be closer to how they look in Crystalline Conflict so that you can have an easy to see map element open at all times and not the clunky PVE style map and minimap elements we have now. Also, like CC has a countdown now for the end of the match, there should be an option to enable more prominently displayed or communicated notifications about a team about to win, or time about to expire. I'd say a 2 minute warning for the end of a match, or a team is within 100-200 pts of winning. Also, if 1st place starts to get a lead over say X amount of points over 2nd and 3rd place, there should be some sort of warning encouraging the teams to shift focus.

Also, we need better commander tools. Why can't somebody ping a spot on the map and a visual icon shows up for me immediately rather than having to click the chat box (real fun for controller players, btw). Just look at other contemporary/popular multiplayer games for what elements they use to help teammates communicate without needing voice/typing. Frontline (and FF XIV PVP in general) need to improve on this front.

We need more info in-game, too. Tell me where in-game or on the Lodestone where you can find the point value for any objective in any Frontline map? You can't. Most players can't tell you what any objective is worth, and even veterans like myself struggle at times to do quick math in our heads to figure it out at times when an objective is already capped/being occupied. Or seeing more visually the impact of your player deaths on screen by showing like a -5/-8 flash so newer players get how much a death impacts the score, and vice versa when you're scoring kills. Scoring values need to be more easily and readily communicated to players in the match. This leads into the next point...

6) We Desperately Need a Training Mode with Bots
Listen, we know there are concerns that this could be abused. So here's a simple solution! Disable all rewards for this mode. However, we could really use a training mode with bots to help teach newer players, or simply to allow newer players to jump into the mode in a consequence free zone where they can make mistakes and learn. Or for veterans to try out new jobs to get used to them. And it honestly should be required to go through one of these bot matches before you can even queue into any PVP modes with normal players. If you don't want us to have bot matches as an option, we really need some sort of training mode at least to show players the basics of PVP (ie the shared actions like sprint, guard, recuperate, limit break) and the fundamentals of each mode (like capping objectives/destroying ice in Fronline and what kills/deaths mean score wise).

[Mawlzy]

I think it's telling that we've accepted that FL will never be balanced independently of CC. AoE target caps and similar are a way of finessing a solution, and I support such suggestions. But if the devs refuse to treat FL as a unique mode, I suspect its best hope is to end up covered in sticking plasters. As such it's never going to be very good IMO.

[HylianBebop]

7) Restore the Third Ramp/Path Option to Side Big Ice in Shatter
The Old Shatter map was not perfect. It was too big, yes, and probably a bit too tall (see a point below for what I'm hinting at). But one thing that is undeniable is that it was designed in a way that better suited a 3-team format than the current iteration of Shatter. This is simply due to one alteration. The removal of the third approach to the side big ices. tl;dr 2v1 (2 teams versus 1 team) is a baked-in come back mechanic in Frontline that has existed since the dawn of the mode. JP was utilizing this in Slaughter/Secure way before we saw it on NA/EU, and it's clear this is the intended way to keep matches close when one team is clearly too stacked.

Unfortunately, the current iteration of Shatter massively reduces the potency of the 2v1 comeback mechanic by removing the extra lane to a crucial objective, as well as another approach point to more equally engage an enemy team with the help of another. While there are some strategies that can still be employed, they are nowhere near as effective as they are in the other maps, which provide ample opportunity for 3-team engagements. Thus, you see the losing teams generally struggle to mount an effective 2v1 push back on the current Shatter map, and thus, you see the most lopsided matches on Shatter nowadays. Beyond being a comeback mechanic, the third lane approach to the side big ice just meant more 3-way engagements in general, which means more fighting over actual objectives, which is something that's currently a big problem in Shatter, where kills matter way more than the ice a lot of the time.

[HylianBebop]

8) The Pendulum Needs to Swing Back in Favor of Winning Objectives over Kills
Listen, kills should still be important for winning a Frontline match. The issue here is that, for the first time ever in Frontline history, it makes more sense to arrange a certain comp (usually DRK + guard breakers + heavy AOE damage dealers) and just continuously ambush teams with minimal focus on objectives. Throw in a competent commander on your side who can use even the most basic ambush strats, and you can see why Death Ball/Murder Ball is the winning strat of choice. Yes, objectives still matter, it's just that kills matter way more than objectives right now. Way more.

Back in the day, on Primal, there was a meme about the Immortal Flames. It was originally stacked with the "hardcore PVP" players, and all they did was run around Seal Rock killing everything in their sight. Yet, they lost almost every time. Because they ignored objectives. So if you were on Adders or Maelstrom, but your team just focused on kills, people would question whether they mistakenly ended up on the Flames for a good few years there. Other DCs had their own respective GC that fell into this category, too. Now, that meme strat has become the reality where veterans try to stack together against casual players to farm them via Death Ball/Murder Ball and largely ignore many objectives because it provides the best chance at winning.

Pre-6.1 felt like it had hit the sweet spot for balancing kills and objectives, with a slight favor towards winning objectives. I think this is mostly due to the toolkit, but that doesn't change the fact for me at least, Stormblood - Shadowbringers Frontline was some of the best IMO, even with its flaws. The dev team needs to find a way to get people fighting for objectives more and making them matter more than kills, even if it's just slightly. Again, Rival Wings to me nails this balance, so maybe there's some truths to be gleaned from Hidden Gorge's design. But whether its reducing kill values again, increasing objective valus, or adding in more objectives to force people to spread out more so that it's more unrealistic to group everyone together and win via just killing everyone non-stop, something needs to happen to address this problem.

[HylianBebop]

9) Remove (Lethal) Fall Damage
Okay, it's time to address one of the more controversial aspects of PVP. Killing players by knocking them to their death via lethal fall damage, aka golfing. It was an epidemic on NA for years, most notably on Secure and old Shatter, though it's still possible to execute on Secure (see east Node cliff). The pre-6.1 toolkit gave almost every single job a way to counter a single golfer on these maps if you knew what you were doing, thus golfing IMO felt fair and earned, though I concede to unsuspecting new players it probably felt like BS. Some of my favorite Frontline moments were dueling other golfers on the ramps of Secure.

However, once we got the current toolkit, though, most jobs lost their ability to counter golf, and many jobs lost the ability to golf at all. Monk, Reaper, Dark Knight, Warrior, Machinist, and technically Dancer (really hard and rare to pull off) and Summoner (never saw anyone pull this one off, but it's possible) could do it. Yet, you know what we're really talking about. Monks, meteodive, and enlightenment. A combo that when executed without interference from latency/server hiccups, lead to your unpreventable death unless teammates intervened at the right time (good luck with that happening if you weren't in a premade). Even DRK Salted Earth pulls or WAR Blotas were pretty easy to avoid/counter if you were a veteran of golf tactics. But Monks were the one thing that could put real fear into you, even the most seasoned of golfers.

As somebody who partakes in golfing, I am the first to say it really doesn't need to exist. Primarily because it is likely a massive turn off to new players who are unsuspecting of the tactic. I generally held the belief that using golf to take out a high value target was a strategically sound strat. But targeting a single person, or non-BH people, excessively, crossed the line into what I would argue is blatant griefing. So, if it would improve the quality and perception of Frontline and PVP in general because too many players abused it to grief, I'm all for the removal of this tactic. So maybe instead of fall damage, I think falling from a certain height could trigger an unavoidable heavy or stun debuff that lasts longer than usual so that it still has its uses (like as a stall/delay tactic to help you secure an objective). Or, you know, the devs could put ramps on every spot you could possible fall off of, but that would also kill some, IMO, valid advance tactics that would really suck (ie jump off LBs like SAM LB so you don't teleport into the enemy crowd and get instantly deleted in retaliation).

[HylianBebop]

10) With the Return of Role Actions in 7.2, Remember Why they Worked in the Pre 6.1 Toolkit
The apparent announcement in the last Live Letter that role actions would be returning gives me a lot of hope. I just hope it's similar in style to what we had pre-6.1, where we had multiple actions to select from, but couldn't take them all. This led to having different "builds" for jobs (not incredibly pronounced, but still felt like some degree of it). For example, I would take Weapon Throw and Chaotic Swing on WAR when going up the ramp in Secure to, you guessed it, golf players to their death. When I came back down to go after bases, I would swap them out for rampart and retaliation, so I would have way more survivability and actually be more like a proper tank (taking more damage, and reflecting a lot of it back at enemies). Another would be on melee classes whether to take more defense, more CC immunity, more self healing, or more mobility.

So my hope is that these role actions address several of the shortcomings of the current toolkit, but also restore some of the variances in play style for each job that made pre-6.1's toolkit feel so rewarding for each job. Even if it's not exactly the same role actions, I want whatever they add to capture that same sense as before. Now obviously I would just love to have the entire pre-6.1 toolkit back for Frontline period, but we know that's never happening (seriously just give us back the old kit for Frontline!).