Thread: Patch 7.5 Discussion Thread

Originally Posted by ChrysOCE

Probably just get rid of BH entirely.

Find another way to recognize and reward performance. Expand the achievement system or and have something else that is visible, like the BH symbol, but its just a visual thing without any boost behind it. Based not just off Kills and assists but also damage dealt.

i dunno, something that might encourage people to put more effort into their individual performance.

Presumably, the BH system was there to incentivise PvP as opposed to simply node farming.To outright remove it would leave already passive players with even less reason to engage.
Killing more gives a buff, which, in turn, gives you more leverage in the game. It gives a purpose, a reason to PvP, and not just blind focus objectives.

Now to the suggestions:
Just having a worthless symbol with no purpose or value beyond perhaps a tiny ego boost does nothing. It gives no reason or reward for actually PvPing in a PvP duty. If many casuals don't care now where gaining BH helps them, what care will they have if it does nothing for them at all? They would have even less reason to engage.

As for expanding the achievements or rewards system, while it would be very nice to have more achievements and rewards for the long-neglected FL, actually applying that in the manner you suggest would be difficult.
There are already achievements for number of kills and assists obtained. Clearly, it makes little/no difference in pushing players to actually PvP. Admittedly, the rewards are rather poor (minions and titles). Not only this, but achievements are a done and forget thing. What's to keep players putting in effort once they've got the achievement they wanted?

It's not even simple to do extra rewards on a game-by-game basis depending on kills/assists/damage dealt. Would this be based upon individual performance or the alliances?
For example:
If it's individual requiring x amount of damage dealt in a game to get a reward/boosted reward, what's to stop someone just going SMN, throwing down a Bahamut and then AFKing the rest of the game? Would this mean more defensive classes where it might take a bit more effort to farm damage dealt are penalised and no-longer worthwhile playing?
If it's a team-based ranking requiring x amount of damage dealt for a boosted reward, surely this would just push more regulars into playing as part of a coordinated team (because why keep losing that chance of a better reward because you keep getting passive 'idc' casuals when you have a bunch of friends who you know you can rely on to put the effort in?) and split the community even further? Even if they removed the ability to queue premade to prevent that happening, it would still lead to issues: increased stakes and a reliance on the rest of your team to help you get it leading to more toxicity between those players who want/still need the bigger reward and those who don't care/already have it and don't want to put the effort in.

What possessed them to do this?

I can only guess the intent was:

Many complaints arise about team imbalances with one coordinated team steam-rolling the others. The coordinated team spending the entire game on BH5, and rapidly regaining it if they do die, while the two other alliances can find it more difficult to gain and keep BH because of the clear ability difference results in them consistently being wiped.

Whether BH is kept after death or halved as it used to be, a coordinated team will likely remain BH5 regardless. I can only presume the change was to try to help those less able teams to continue to build their BH despite a wipe and stand more of a chance in countering an aggressive enemy team, which in theory, would erase the problem mentioned above.

Unfortunately, theory doesn't always work in practice. The fact that a huge proportion of players still end the game with low BH despite no way of losing it says it all... it's not just the loss of BH following mistakes/poor play that causes the imbalance, but a lack of effort in getting it in the first place! And, yes, it's not a 'magic fix' by any means:
On the one hand, it's reduces the repeated punishment on solo tank/melee players who try to engage in PvP but are consistently abandoned by their passive, predominantly ranged, team. On the other, it just encourages an overly reckless playstyle - what is there to lose? At most you'll have a minute out while you run to catch up with the fight location, but all your cd times will be reset so...
Again, on the one hand it stops less coordinated teams being so heavily punished after a wipe from a strong team, allowing them to keep their BH and potentially regroup and launch a counter attack.
On the other, now killing one of the players from those strong, coordinated teams won't weaken them any.

Certainly an odd and totally unexpected change, I'll agree. For now, I'll just see how it goes. But I suppose there was some kind of logic behind the change, albeit a somewhat flawed one

It was genuinely fun trying to target and get the few enemy BH5 over a game.

Now everybody is BH5 though so... You can't even properly identify the actual threats anymore, and punish them even less so.

Like what the hell is this mess.

Originally Posted by Valence

Now everybody is BH5 though so...

Shockingly (and I can't believe I'm saying this), I beg to differ:


And no, that isn't a game having just started. That's not far from the end

These BH changes are legitimately dreadful. What is the best way to campaign for change here? I really love Frontlines and I thought the way it worked before was fine.

Originally Posted by Avarence

1) The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Once you recognize a Comm or premade, your tactics switch from 1v1v1 to more 1v2. Even if only 8 people on your team recognize this, you can go harass the Commander for a possible 24 vs 24+8.

No doubt, take the chances you can and flank 2v1. I won't do the "I don't care who wins, so long as they lose" and throw the game, but I'll happily 2v1 an alliance if they're clearly dominating and will win unless they're kept in check. It's only fair! We want to win as much as they do and they'd show us no mercy.

I completely agree with everything you said and I'll regularly look to counter troublesome players. It's just sad that so few players share that mindset...