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

[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!).

[HylianBebop]

Wish List Items

1) Restore the Option for 8v8v8
Yes, we know why this option was killed off. It was abused hardcore by win farmers and botters. For those who don't know, whenever Frontline queues couldn't support 72 people, after a certain time had passed, it would try to fill a 24 person match with 8 people on each side, with some objective and point adjustments. However, back then, you could have an 8-person premade ... so premades abused the hell out of this to get easy wins. Not to mention, botters, who were usually the free trial accounts, used PVP as a preferred method to level up. So if you were not in a premade, you were stuck with the bots...and usually lost.

So, we could have a few options for bringing this back. First, it could come back exactly as it was, with it implementing after enough time passed for 72-person matches not popping. However, restrict it to solo queue only (any type of premade for this would give too ridiculous of an upper hand, so sorry it shouldn't be allowed at all in this situation). Also, since free trial accounts can't play PVP now, you won't have to worry about rampant botters (hopefully). Second, it could become a special option to queue into in the PVP menu, like the Casual and Ranked CC modes. You'd have to queue into 8v8v8 mode, and you could allow any number of people to party together (up to 8 people). This would be clearly described as a mode where you could encounter a strong premade team, so queue at your own risk. Third, you could give us custom matches....

[HylianBebop]

2) Enable Custom Match Options like Crystalline Conflict Has
This has been my personal biggest ask for Frontline for nearly 5 years. tl;dr, there is a PVP community called Revival that spearheaded the return of Rival Wings queues after Square Enix pretty much abandoned the mode (despite being asked to make a Daily Challenge option for it like Frontline, it's still left for dead) outside of making it active for 1 month a patch during the Moogle Tomestone events. This community organizes events on certain DCs on different days to keep Rival Wings somewhat active in the time between these Moogle Tomestone events.

I bring up this community because it, like many others, also hosts Frontline events with the intent of bringing together veterans who want a more competitive style Frontline match. They also organize other cool themed events. The problem is, the only way this is possible is to call out a time (usually a Server Time) plus queuing up in another language other than your clients (in NA's case, Japanese language usually) to maximize the chance that all 72 of you get into this match. This type of event, known as a Queue Sync (Q Sync), is also routinely held on EU and JP DCs with varying degrees of success.

Ultimately, it would be so much easier if we could have a custom match option that allowed us to form the parties in advance and queue into the match without all the hassle of server times and specific languages. Not to mention, we could ensure certain players got onto specific sides to better balance the teams for a more competitive match. Or, in the dream big fashion, organize international matches where one side is NA, one is EU, and one is JP for a sort of exhibition match to see how the different regional play styles stack up. Or organize silly things like turning off healing, restricting certain jobs, turning off objectives (so it's just a win by kills match), etc.

The point is, it makes organizing easier, makes some incredible fun possibilities a reality, and could also be used as a teaching tool to take newcomers in and guide them with everyone under the understanding it's a training/teach match. Content creators/guide makers could also get better access to clean footage showcasing different things. And people could join as spectators to maybe provide commentary on matches in a stream setting, or commanders could be a non-participant who could see the viewpoint of any of their teammates to make their calls. Also, you could just add the 8v8v8 option I talked about before here as a custom setting (as well as 16v16v16 if you wanted).

And custom matches would not count towards anything, so no exp, no tomes, no achievements, no series points. Just like custom CC matches.

[HylianBebop]

3) Explanations on all Frontline Related Changes
We get these for things related to CC, but why not Frontline? Why did they change the Shatter map? Why did they take Secure offline? Why did X job get their HP or damage modified? We're left guessing without any actual answers. It would be nice to gain some insight into the developer's intentions to help better inform the community.

Finally, a Crazy Idea

1) Change Frontline into a 2 Team Format
This idea has been gaining traction in the PVP community for a few months now. Essentially, I believe it is easier to balance a mode around 2 teams than 3. Leave up the current version of Frontline until this new one would be ready, but when it arrives, I would expect newly designed maps and objective locations, shorter match time (probably 15 mins like rival wings, with the aim of most matches lasting less than that). That way if things do get out of hand, the match just ends pretty quickly, like it does in Rival Wings currently (with some matches ending in about 5 mins if its really bad). But at least its not dragged out for 10+ minutes like it is in Frontline with 3 teams, you'd likely get more wins each day on average, meaning you'd get your achievements and rewards faster, too.

However, I do really like the 3 team format and feel it's part of Frontline's unique identity, and we have Rival Wings as the large-scale 2 team mode already. But I would be remiss in not at least mentioning this as I've seen many friends and fellow PVP players discussing this option, and if it ultimately would lead to better Frontline match quality, I would be all for it.

Closing
Thanks for reading all of that if you did! I really love Frontline (and Rival Wings!), and feel lit is a vastly underused and underestimated piece of content for Final Fantasy XIV. My viewpoint for Frontline is to make it feel good to play for everyone, which doesn't always mean catering to veteran/hardcore PVP players, but casual players as well. This is because Frontline is the casual PVP mode of the game. Yet, it can be better for everyone, and I think there are ways to change it to improve the experience for newcomers and veterans alike. I also have ideas for adjusting/improving Rival Wings, but I'll save that for another day. Please let me know what you think and what are some of your own ideas!