PvP Frontline, same old, nothing new

[Valence]

I must admit I haven't done a lot of FL games since the last moogle event. But all I can say is that going for some more with the new moogle event, nothing has changed, it's still a premade fiesta focused around a game design that's all about AoE concentration to wipe whole alliances and steamroll games with little skill involved beyond having the right group. The DRK pulls in are still going stronger than ever, and this is further compounded by new role actions like Rampage and Comet.

All of this makes me think that the way FL are designed probably works for games full of pvp FL veterans all with their own little premades, or in short, what you'd get with custom games. This is ironic considering that the mode has been constantly served to everyone, casuals and players leveling their jobs especially with the rewards of the daily. This feels like a huge cognitive dissonance because the systems that are designed in the mode make everything insanely lethal (a whole alliance will die under 5s) when the mode is served to people that do not have the means to group up and pull the same tactics, leaving them at the mercy of the minority of tryhards that can (and are also more skilled at pvp). This generate situations where it's just seal clubbing time with games ending in 5 minutes tops. If anything, tryhard groups will farm their tomes faster that way and casuals will just be happy for games to end faster so they earn theirs faster as well...

All I'm asking SE is: is this what the experience is intended to be? Is this supposed to be fun and engaging? I'd have thought that with the new additions we got last patch added to FL (role actions, etc), we'd have shifted the design toward something a little more suitable to the actual playerbase using the mode, but I guess not? You didn't even try to address anything, the only thing you cared about was adding "fun new toys" to the mode without any consideration for its viability in the first place. We're still pandering to the few sweaty tryhards that brainlessly steamroll over the rest because that's the kind of imbalances that the design behind FL has been pulling for ages now?

[Mawlzy]

I'm still popping in to play the two PvP maps and the games fall pretty clearly into two classes. About 25% are as you describe. The other 75% are less sweaty and tend to be more entertaining.

This is an unusual and recent division. I haven't seen a lot of he premades from last year, so it's possible they're in OC or have unsubbed. (Possibly the tourist premades have given up because getting onto Aether is difficult.)

Despite my experience being less negative than yours, your central point is key: what is the experience intended to be?

[jesseleewelch]

I don't know what the intended experience is supposed to be, but I don't think there's any getting around the fact that aoe is king in large scale pvp where you have that many people involved.

Truthfully, I don't really enjoy Frontlines myself. I view it as a grind to get through. I got mahjong master, I got my rival wings achievements done, now I am 1300+ wins into Frontlines and pushing. I don't really enjoy pvp, but I am an achievement completionist, so it will be liberating when I can finally say I am done with this content.

[Valence]

I don't know what the intended experience is supposed to be, but I don't think there's any getting around the fact that aoe is king in large scale pvp where you have that many people involved.

Truthfully, I don't really enjoy Frontlines myself. I view it as a grind to get through. I got mahjong master, I got my rival wings achievements done, now I am 1300+ wins into Frontlines and pushing. I don't really enjoy pvp, but I am an achievement completionist, so it will be liberating when I can finally say I am done with this content.

I'm not going to pretend that earlier versions of FL were better (before the pvp job rework of EW), because they sure as hell were full of their own issues, but there was no AoE concentration and stacking or very little because there was almost no AoE moves, or one weak GCD that was purely AoE, so AoE isn't king by default. FF14 history has been extremely scaredy about AoE, which was definitely a shame because cleaving brought a lot of great things in Crystalline Conflict, but since the devs didn't seem to think it would be a big deal in FL, here we are...

I'm a pvp aficionado, and while I've been enjoying FL as a casual chill side fun mostly during tome events, I can't say that FL hold up in comparison to the one pvp mode which the system is clearly designed around.

[Hashu]

Frontline brings in all kinds of players, from the casuals just chilling to the ones who love the thrill of PvP and study every skill like it’s a science. If your goal is to level up, you can. If your goal is to have fun, you can too (well, sometimes, depending on the match RNG).
But honestly, among those groups who actually fight seriously in FL, it feels like playing a ranked match with your friends on a Sunday night.

[Cidel]

Here's the thing; there's always going to be skill disparities between people in an accessible mode like Frontlines. Everything from the people who know what literally every job's skillset is capable of and can read enemy movements on the map to the people whose highlight of their skill is pressing the WASD keys and "1." The team that has more of the former and less of the latter is in all likelihood going to be the one that wins. People get steamrolled because they consist of too many of the latter. That's just the nature of the beast. The biggest RNG on any given map is not how the objectives spawn, but the quality of the people distributed on each team.

Frontlines tends to work for the JP because they tend to coordinate better each match and typically have competent shot-callers, in addition to having a societal innate tendency to make an effort and avoid being an active detriment to their team. Meanwhile, a large chunk of the NA playerbase are more rewards-driven and opts to behave with a more cavalier attitude knowing that win or lose, they're still getting the same participation trophy so long as they haven't been vote-kicked out. Because of this, coordinated play in NA games tend to stand out and people rather cry sour grapes over it and demand the skill ceiling be dropped to their level. That's why we have threads calling for the nerf of one-trick pony SAM's one saving grace, or nerf to NIN so people can be negligent of their HP levels without fear of repercussion; without even understanding the risks and nuances to their LBs.

I honestly prefer the unpredictable, dynamic PvP, warts and all, to the stale, mediocre and repetitive slop PvE has become. Unfortunately, I find that the sterile, formulaic behavior of PvE has actually conditioned a lot of the players dipping their toes into PvP to be unable (or unwilling) to think and react on the fly to evolving situations and skirmishes and quickly scapegoat other factors like DRKs, SAMs or 3-way teamfights to rationalize their own personal failings. The devs can't keep capitulating to the lowest common denominators that have dust forming on their Guard button or haven't read a SAM's PvP toolkit, ever.

You'd have more success trying to open a dialogue with the JP playerbase about their thoughts on FL, because if they're not having the same problems, the complaints here are going to come off as nothing but white noise (and to be fair, a lot of it is just that). I think it would probably blow a lot of JP minds if they discovered the kind of issues the NA FL scene struggles with. SE won't justify or defend themselves about FL if the JP aren't having a problem.

[Valence]

I don't think this is about skill disparities. You also clearly have those in CC casual (or even ranked tbh), and the mode works fine, because the system is designed around it, and for it.

I'm clearly talking about problematic designs that run unchecked. Even a tenth of something like this in CC wouldn't hold and have everybody up in arms because it would ruin the mode, so I don't get why we have to defend FL when it clearly shows issues that never get addressed because of what it would ask of the devs (some resources and effort put into it). Let's drop the essentialism for a moment, it's not "because it's in the nature of the beast". It's because of griped systems and design failures. Sorry for being materialistic here I guess.

I always hear that idea that floats around that it works better for JP, and since I haven't been there to check how it goes, I'll refrain from commenting, but let's just say that I'm all waiting to be positively surprised about it. People tend to paint societal difference as fundamentally as if people weren't human but aliens from another planet, and sorry but I have a hard time believing it, especially when said systems are still displaying the same glaring flaws. In fact, I'll tell you why I have a hard time believing it, because for one, there is no real counter to steamrolling strategies except doing your own premade with the same tactics, and two as shown with the modern Secure, as soon as people start splitting a little and losing the blob, they get steamrolled even more because there is even less resistance to the scary premades coming for their asses.

[Cidel]

Ah, so this is actually yet another veiled complaint thread about premades I take it? Otherwise it absolutely would be the case that some people are going to put in the effort to be knowledgeable and "git good," while others are going to queue-up once to get their 40 tomestones, die to everything and then whine about how everything they don't play is broken, and continue to be "bad."

You can also be steamrolled just as hard in casual CC for similar, but ultimately different reasons. Smallscale CC is clearly their priority for balancing, and because of it, core job abilities in their largescale modes go untouched and all of their adjustments are delegated to sweeping defense and damage modifiers across everything, and LB gauge fill speed adjustments. Asking for more development resources to be put into FL, which is largely seen as a meme in NA for several different reasons and not nearly as competitive as CC, is a tall ask. It sucks, but most vets already know nothing big ever happens to Frontlines systems if its not on the heels of a new expansion. That ship has sailed for DT. At best, we can hope for more impactful role actions.

You can choose not to believe or ignore the typical prevailing JP mentality regarding FL and their different, yet coordinated playstyle- but it is actually relevant. It has nothing to do about anybody being aliens or humans, but how their societal differences cause them to handle content differently from us. You can already see this sort of thing in their clear rates all the way down to their usage and expectations in DF and PF as opposed to ours. The DRK draw-in tactic isn't as effective there because a larger demographic of their players fundamentally understand how to avoid or survive it, sometimes counter it, and are not just there "for the tomestones." If they were having problems, we would absolutely see changes more frequently.

Premades running meta comps flourish here primarily because there's no lack of 0-effort fodder to farm Battle High off of. Some people like to rag on Olivia around here, but when they said that bringing-up the skill level of NA players is the solution to countering premades, it actually is. Until then, without me getting specific, meta comp premades will continue to feed off of the over-abundance of forever-no-Battle High indifferent players that will stand there and die to everything.

[Mawlzy]

Premades running meta comps flourish here primarily because there's no lack of 0-effort fodder to farm Battle High off of. Some people like to rag on Olivia around here, but when they said that bringing-up the skill level of NA players is the solution to countering premades, it actually is. Until then, without me getting specific, meta comp premades will continue to feed off of the over-abundance of forever-no-Battle High indifferent players that will stand there and die to everything.

It's possible to agree with Olivia on that point while noting that the skill level of NA players is no higher now than ~ 3 years ago.

[Valence]

Ah, so this is actually yet another veiled complaint thread about premades I take it? Otherwise it absolutely would be the case that some people are going to put in the effort to be knowledgeable and "git good," while others are going to queue-up once to get their 40 tomestones, die to everything and then whine about how everything they don't play is broken, and continue to be "bad."

You can also be steamrolled just as hard in casual CC for similar, but ultimately different reasons. Smallscale CC is clearly their priority for balancing, and because of it, core job abilities in their largescale modes go untouched and all of their adjustments are delegated to sweeping defense and damage modifiers across everything, and LB gauge fill speed adjustments. Asking for more development resources to be put into FL, which is largely seen as a meme in NA for several different reasons and not nearly as competitive as CC, is a tall ask. It sucks, but most vets already know nothing big ever happens to Frontlines systems if its not on the heels of a new expansion. That ship has sailed for DT. At best, we can hope for more impactful role actions.

You can choose not to believe or ignore the typical prevailing JP mentality regarding FL and their different, yet coordinated playstyle- but it is actually relevant. It has nothing to do about anybody being aliens or humans, but how their societal differences cause them to handle content differently from us. You can already see this sort of thing in their clear rates all the way down to their usage and expectations in DF and PF as opposed to ours. The DRK draw-in tactic isn't as effective there because a larger demographic of their players fundamentally understand how to avoid or survive it, sometimes counter it, and are not just there "for the tomestones." If they were having problems, we would absolutely see changes more frequently.

Premades running meta comps flourish here primarily because there's no lack of 0-effort fodder to farm Battle High off of. Some people like to rag on Olivia around here, but when they said that bringing-up the skill level of NA players is the solution to countering premades, it actually is. Until then, without me getting specific, meta comp premades will continue to feed off of the over-abundance of forever-no-Battle High indifferent players that will stand there and die to everything.

If you took this as a veiled complaint about premades, you not only missed my whole post history about the matter (which I don't blame you for), but also the entire point of this thread, which is specifically targeting bad designs and a lack of care for the mode (or either an unhealthy endorsement of that kind of gameplay by the devs which I'd find pretty horrifying).

The idea that the devs listen to JP more is also one of those memes that gets flung around on the western part, which is amusing when you read the exact same opposite on the other side of the fence. In fact, the idea that JP is so much better at everything in the game than the west is also one of those memes.

If your state of mind is "I don't understand why you bother trying to make things better because they never get better", then I guess it explains a lot about the state of the world right now as well. And if you're one of those that seemingly never learn the lesson and tell us to stop bringing up complaints because things aren't gonna change before the next expansion, you'll have to realize that waiting for the next expansion to be actually finished and released is already too late. If anything, this is the right moment to point fingers at problems.