Frontlines: There should not be ANY rewards for 2nd or 3rd place

[Mawlzy]

Right, I haven't seen anything nearly that bad since 7.1. Certainly if teams are massively lopsided then even BH1 might be a struggle. But in that case your team will lose anyway, so it's a push relative to team-based rewards.

[ChrysOCE]

but if you are on the winning team, you get rewarded regardless. its only on the losing teams, that not contributing would mean no/reduced rewards. you would hope that even if you are winning, you are being productive. but definitely, 2nd/3rd spot, if you are doing nothing or just feeding, there should be some way for Square to tell - what buttons were pressed, what movement did they make on the map etc

[Mawlzy]

but if you are on the winning team, you get rewarded regardless. its only on the losing teams, that not contributing would mean no/reduced rewards. you would hope that even if you are winning, you are being productive. but definitely, 2nd/3rd spot, if you are doing nothing or just feeding, there should be some way for Square to tell - what buttons were pressed, what movement did they make on the map etc

Yeah exactly so, and with 24-person teams, I don't see the AFKers being motivated to try based on team rewards. They'll hit 33% same as always.

[Kaurhz]

This is a problem around designing it around 24v24v24, it's incredibly saturated, and more often than not you get people in there that either play lethargically, or play to do kill stomping (e.g., don't care about win/loss, but about kill count for achievement)

Whilst it is annoying -- This is a horrible solution, and all it will do in the long run is lend itself to being a more toxic environment than it already is, tbh.

Trying to enforce this is an incredibly bad decision, again, just on saturation alone.

[Mawlzy]

This is a problem around designing it around 24v24v24, it's incredibly saturated, and more often than not you get people in there that either play lethargically, or play to do kill stomping (e.g., don't care about win/loss, but about kill count for achievement)

Whilst it is annoying -- This is a horrible solution, and all it will do in the long run is lend itself to being a more toxic environment than it already is, tbh.

Trying to enforce this is an incredibly bad decision, again, just on saturation alone.

I definitely think the better solution is to suspend players for lethargic play.

But the toxicity is mounting around this issue. A vote kick went through today. This led to an apparent friend of the dismissed ("They weren't AFK, I was talking to them on VC") rallying the party to report the vote kick to the GMs, recommending that whoever initiated the vote kick have their account suspended.

I hope I don't have to report back on how that ended up.

[Atreus]

I definitely think the better solution is to suspend players for lethargic play.

But the toxicity is mounting around this issue. A vote kick went through today. This led to an apparent friend of the dismissed ("They weren't AFK, I was talking to them on VC") rallying the party to report the vote kick to the GMs, recommending that whoever initiated the vote kick have their account suspended.

I hope I don't have to report back on how that ended up.

This is exhausting to constantly be vigilant of and probably not sustainable for GMs to be on constant watch (even though I do wish we had active moderation to begin with). I think killing the incentive for lethargic play is the way to go.

[Mawlzy]

This is exhausting to constantly be vigilant of and probably not sustainable for GMs to be on constant watch (even though I do wish we had active moderation to begin with). I think killing the incentive for lethargic play is the way to go.

Right, which is why I think extending auto-kick beyond the current 2-min AFK and/or auto-suspensions for repeated sub-standard engagement numbers. SE have the data.

Like yesterday I had two 0/0/0s in the summary stats. The process of me reporting them and a GM reviewing those numbers (assuming they do) is unnecessary. Once in a blue moon any automatic system will flag someone who had some disaster with a bowl of soup or something, but it's easier to automate the kick/suspension process and allow a rare appeal than the current system.

In other words, I think you kill the incentive for lethargic play by imposing ToS, not via rewards. Because in a 24-person teams it's too easy to do nothing and get carried to a win.

[Goldolds1972]

I think they should start making people play the different classes in frontlines. Whatever you join in as is the class you play instead of being able to switch. Yes, it has helped me level alt classes, but it also gets annoying to join as a melee person and everyone else on the team is ranged. Im seeing that majority of players on FL are ranged (mainly being either bard or summoner) now being they all have push back and pull in skills. Its really frustrating when playing as a melee and its pointless as you cant do anyhting at all cause you get pulled and pushed around 10+ times before being stunned and then destroyed. In my opinion it should be either even out the teams between ranged and melee or take away all push back and pull in skills and start making players actually fight instead of cheap kill players. Yell at me if you will, but thats my take on it. I try to fight in pvp but all pvp players wanna do is a cheap slap and run away and hope the enemy gets stunned and killed by others. And give more awards to those that actually try and fight while taking over bases and such instead of just pushing and pulling people all over the place. If the malmstones did not have any rewards to work for, i would never do pvp cause theres no fighting each other unless its a gauranteed 10 on 1 victory.

[OMGJesuis66]

Honestly, a lot of people here are saying, "If you change Frontline rewards, no one will play it." And if the reason why people play a game mode is because you are being overgiven a reward? Then, the mode itself already failed in its purpose of being an engaging experience? It creates a bad mode.

And Frontline is precisely that, a low effort, big reward mode that requires none or a bare minimum of skill expression within a competitive system with other players.

Sadly, you cannot remove the rewards. As said, people would not play it, and they indeed would not play it. FFXIV players have little-to-no care about PvP, they want the gratification, and the system itself rewards that kind of behaviour and mentality. As it stands, the game whole PvP system needs a massive overhaul to pursue improvement and try to be more engaging for players. It is genuinely sad.

At the very least they could add Rival Wings to a PvP Roulette, so we could have a proper variety when playing that perhaps leads to a lesser frustration. Granted, rewards are not just given based on the PvP system itself but the bonus reward from the Roulette system. PvP by itself gives basically 0 rewards, no matter if you win or lose. Just add more modes to it, I think it will improve the situation a tad.