Thread: Patch 7.5 Discussion Thread

Legitimate question for those who are so set against this; how is it actually impacting your matches?

As a middling solo queue player, I am finding my matches are actually really close for the most part, which is making them a lot more fun. It is making me wonder, though, whether the changes are lessening the gap between the higher skill players and the rest of us, and whether that was the idea.

Originally Posted by Valence

I've had a game where my team and one of the other teams was literally 90% of BH5 players (which I grant you Borderlands Ruins probably helped a fair deal with the pve BH boosting mechanics), and the third team somehow barely had like 20-30% of their team with BH 4 or 5.

Because every single match has two teams trying to win. All of the people that refuse to fight anyone are conveniently funneled onto your team. This is how three-team PvP operates, and the matchmaking in this game does not reward individual performances.

Originally Posted by Deccado

Legitimate question for those who are so set against this; how is it actually impacting your matches?

As a middling solo queue player, I am finding my matches are actually really close for the most part, which is making them a lot more fun. It is making me wonder, though, whether the changes are lessening the gap between the higher skill players and the rest of us, and whether that was the idea.

They're all always close. There was once a time when you could have blowout victories in this mode, which were especially good because they were quicker. Now, victories are scarce and are always nail-biters, if not flukes.

Solo queue, meanwhile, is a waste of time for the win achievements. Premade leaders effortlessly get 200 wins a month. Pity they're all private friend groups so you won't be joining any.

I'd love to find these games where you guys are getting close fought matches down to the wire. Mostly, they have been blowouts with it being incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to claw back advantage from any team that gets to an initial lead. You can claw back some points, from kills. But you can't really take any advantage off the lead team. You chip their points, they just come right back, with their full BH and unload their reset abilities on you.

This feels like "Battle High is going away in 8.0, enjoy it while you can"

When they make balance changes for melee, they have to understand that, in the context of Frontline, melee is the hardest role to play well. But when you do, it has the highest payout. We are by far the best role overall at a certain skill threshold. We're absurdly sturdy while having incredible burst, but it takes a lot of awareness to know how to play that aggressively, especially prior to the battle high change. Having that said, you can't really balance melee around overall usage statistics. More than any of the other roles, you're just going to get more people struggling to get anywhere with it. There's really few people in an informed position that uses Swift, so you can't use the poor usage rates of Swift as a metric. You should really get data from people who clearly understand the role.

On that note, viper, the heavenly emperor of padding, is already one of the most annoying jobs in the game. I am not saying it's over or underpowered. It's just not fun to fight. It was already an annoying job to fight, and it's not fun gameplay to use MNK/RPR/DNC LB to have to go through their relatively short CD that's accelerated by all the practically free assists they get for just existing. Please reconsider the 60% passive damage reduction on viper (and 55% DR on GNB, on that note). If your metrics insist the job needs help for some reason, buff it in anything that's not related to their stall-based gameplay loop.

Originally Posted by Esmoire

When they make balance changes for melee, they have to understand that, in the context of Frontline, melee is the hardest role to play well. But when you do, it has the highest payout. We are by far the best role overall at a certain skill threshold. We're absurdly sturdy while having incredible burst, but it takes a lot of awareness to know how to play that aggressively, especially prior to the battle high change. Having that said, you can't really balance melee around overall usage statistics. More than any of the other roles, you're just going to get more people struggling to get anywhere with it. There's really few people in an informed position that uses Swift, so you can't use the poor usage rates of Swift as a metric. You should really get data from people who clearly understand the role.

On that note, viper, the heavenly emperor of padding, is already one of the most annoying jobs in the game. I am not saying it's over or underpowered. It's just not fun to fight. It was already an annoying job to fight, and it's not fun gameplay to use MNK/RPR/DNC LB to have to go through their relatively short CD that's accelerated by all the practically free assists they get for just existing. Please reconsider the 60% passive damage reduction on viper (and 55% DR on GNB, on that note). If your metrics insist the job needs help for some reason, buff it in anything that's not related to their stall-based gameplay loop.

Well, apparently Viper is struggling a little in CC. I mean, we all know the specific job balance stuff is only related to CC and never factors in FL. It's just the role action stuff. And no self respecting melee picks up Swift. Smite is S-tier for role action. But they buffed it anyway. Though, actually, it would be super super funny if they came out and said, yea, actually, job balance stuff does factor in FL. Could you imagine...

Originally Posted by ChrysOCE

Well, apparently Viper is struggling a little in CC. I mean, we all know the specific job balance stuff is only related to CC and never factors in FL. It's just the role action stuff. And no self respecting melee picks up Swift. Smite is S-tier for role action. But they buffed it anyway. Though, actually, it would be super super funny if they came out and said, yea, actually, job balance stuff does factor in FL. Could you imagine...

Of course, and they should balance PvP jobs around CC, just like PvE jobs should be balanced around high-end content. That said, in FL, jobs have separate modifiers for damage dealt/taken and LB generation specifically for this purpose. If a job was already good in FL gets a buff for CC, it just makes it all the more easy to adjust it in FL without having to consider how it impacts CC. I don't think any job should have more than 50% passive DR honestly.

I didn't know what the changes actually meant until I saw it via a stream. So it's just... nobody ever loses BH now? Like Soaring in RW?

Why? They already made it easier to get BH, why on earth this too? I just don't understand. Unrelated to what it even means to match flow itself, that's a hell of a lot of useless screen clutter for how pronounced a BH5 icon is. And most people will have it now, right..?

Gdi I just came back, enjoyed my time in the new map (one of the very few it appears) and then... this.

<sigh>

Yeah, I tentatively agree with an earlier post. This almost seems like a precursor to full removal. Stupid imo, BH as a system isn't bad, but what they've been doing to it over time is that's for sure. I liked it when it was just battle high and battle frenzy tbqh. Frenzy was harder to attain and maintain, and a lot of those that did became battle shy as soon they did get it (even though visible on the map), so making them useless lol. Proper boon and bane situation.

Also, no punishment for stupidly brazen gameplay is just laaaaaaaaaaame. I'd snort at daft SAMs doing their "werth it!!" LBs only to drop down to BH2 or whatever, every time, but now they can just do that all the time sans the shame BH loss? Being able to navigate out of the swarm after an LB (with decent yield) was a badge of honour. Now it just doesn't matter, you'd be better off going kamikaze like those ones do?

<sigh>
Again.

/mykneejerkreaction

I'll play on when I do, but I'm not happy with the sound and look of this at all. If the goal was to make more people less spineless, it may, but their effectiveness levels...? Idk man. Doubt that it's gonna cause an increase in aptitude or whatever it was they were actually aiming for. We'll see. Maybe. Maybe the fear of dying really is that mind-numbing, and with it being less profound there'll be an improvement?.. That's a big leap of faith though.

But also... why not just make it outright like Soaring then? But with like... I don't know, smaller increments up to a stack of 30-40? It's just too easy to cap out right now, for the players that care.

Ah yes, and finally: Smite changes LMAO. Does that even need a comment as to why it's insanity? Nah, didn't think so. I'm already on the side of those that benefit as a melee main, and that's crazy work seeing that.

Extra: quick skim of some JP stuff, and there's actually positive press for it. Uh-oh.

[the thread for those interested, "Frontline Improvement Requests"]

(3 out of 4 I randomly checked across that page and the previous one had praise for it. Region diff?)