Frontline General

[kisada]

i don't expect them to do that at all.

their whole thing so far has been to cannibalize previous version of PVP to make new ones work.

WD was abandoned in favor of frontlines. secure abandoned for slaughter. this will be the same thing because they want their new version played, not the old one.

[Seravi Edalborez]

The other "problem" I can see with level 60 Wolves and Frontline is that it makes 50 barren for new snowflake players.

Also let's be real unless Fraggle Rock has 10x the payout, you know people will still just do faceroll Slaughter because there's too many people who only care about the gear.

It's not necessarily that new versions cannibalized old (they did), it's that the new versions became more and more faceroll/zerg. You also have the problem of people who only played WD or pickup Secure who will just never touch PvP because of their "terrible experience".

I miss premade-ish Secure.

[Kiarax]

Well, that problem doesn't really exist when Wolves Den pops essentially do not exist as is and Frontlines are dead until primetime and even then are real slow anyway. Come next week when 60 cap exists I doubt even 50 cap frontlines will ever pop.

[Spider-Dan]

It's not necessarily that new versions cannibalized old (they did), it's that the new versions became more and more faceroll/zerg. You also have the problem of people who only played WD or pickup Secure who will just never touch PvP because of their "terrible experience".

While Slaughter was completely derp, I wouldn't necessarily categorize Secure as more faceroll than WD. WD always seemed to put too much emphasis on gear; Frontlines' i80 cap (but with major/major secondaries) struck a much better balance on gear making a difference without being completely overpowering.

Also: the idea of preserving content for people who want to hang around at LV50 forever is not reasonable. 50cap era is over, bro.

[Seravi Edalborez]

I mean, why have the 30 and 40 cap Den then though? I'm not saying 50 isn't irrelevant, buy maybe SE thinks otherwise. I dunno.

[kisada]

no old school WD player worth their salt would consider frontlines, in any form, anything but faceroll. secure, slaughter, whatever: it's a trash mode, plain and simple and it's only worth playing cause there's no other game in town.

also there is pretty much no way they are going to add eso to frontlines, whereas they will be adding it into whatever this new shit is called. that'll pretty much put the nail in the coffin for those modes.

[Spider-Dan]

I look at 30/40cap WD as similar to Guildhests. Even though everyone does them once at most, it's too much work to remove them.

Old school WD was way too gear-centric to be a real test of skill. Maybe it's better under iLVL sync or something.

[kisada]

gear imbalance went away when they revamped morale anyway, which has been a change for quite a while. even then all the hardcore guys ranked up to max asap so gear difference wouldn't really have been considered a thing except for the people not fully ranked.

[Spider-Dan]

Yeah, that's the problem. If you didn't max rank immediately on release, trying to play WD meant you were in for a steady diet of hopelessly lopsided losses until you could buy/equip decent gear. No effing thanks.

The morale revamp fixed it, but that was well after WD stopped being relevant.

[Niiro]

I mean, why have the 30 and 40 cap Den then though? I'm not saying 50 isn't irrelevant, buy maybe SE thinks otherwise. I dunno.

To increase queue times as much as possible.

[kisada]

Yeah, that's the problem. If you didn't max rank immediately on release, trying to play WD meant you were in for a steady diet of hopelessly lopsided losses until you could buy/equip decent gear. No effing thanks.

The morale revamp fixed it, but that was well after WD stopped being relevant.

i think we are taking different avenues here. i agree with you that if you weren't hardcore then you stood no real chance against hardcore players because of rank/gear disparity. and yeah you're right, revamp fixed it but WD wasn't at all relevant anymore. i'm more talking about what gear not being a factor for the hardcore group in and of itself cause they were all in the same boat anyway.

[Spider-Dan]

For those who were hoping the new Frontlines would no longer be GC-aligned, no dice.

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/pr/blog/001105.html

"If you have yet to get involved with PvP, Patch 3.05 is the perfect opportunity to hop into battle and aid your Grand Company!"

[Niiro]

aaaaaand dead on arrival.

(or at least after the first few weeks as usual)

[Lucavi]

WoW just introduced the merc system, so maybe (hopefully?? Since SE seems stupid enough to keep pushing this GC angle) they'll quickly copy the shit out of WoW so people can actually PVP instead of sitting in queue for hours.

[kisada]

decisions like these make me wonder how these guys have jobs

[Spider-Dan]

I'm not sure why anyone would think it's DOA. I'd say it'll be popular for exactly the same reasons that also-GC-aligned Secure was:

- minimal barrier to entry
- law+esoterics (+Wolf marks) for completion
- quick matches

Is there even any question that this will be the fastest way to cap esoterics each week? I'm guessing it'll give somewhere around 10-20 eso while dungeons give 20.

[Rocl]

I mean, why have the 30 and 40 cap Den then though? I'm not saying 50 isn't irrelevant, buy maybe SE thinks otherwise. I dunno.

I actually knew people who did 30/40 WD for exp while leveling their first jobs lol. A small minority and you only get exp for winning, but \'='/

[Raldo]

Is there even any question that this will be the fastest way to cap esoterics each week? I'm guessing it'll give somewhere around 10-20 eso while dungeons give 20.

I haven't done any PvP since expansion hit. How much Law does Frontlines give? I don't recall seeing any bonus tomes on the roulette, so I haven't done it.

Edit: I just realized I could totally check the answer to this myself by looking in the duty list, but I'm not at home right now, so I'll leave the question up anyway.

[Rocl]

Frontline gives 0 Law atm. Only 50 poetics.

[Tobi]

All players will receive PvP EXP and Wolf Marks, as well as Allagan tomestones of law and Allagan tomestones of esoterics based on their performance.

I know when achievements were datamined, I saw nothing of new kill title, but there were one for 200 seal rock wins, so guessing that'll give a mount sorta like ADS as its titled Behind Enemy Lines: Seal Rock, or some shit similar to that, I forgot. There's also ones for like x amount of victories for your GC in seal rock, then achievements for ranks varying from 65-90 IIRC(I think these have been around for awhile though).

At least I can choose to do this for the new tomes over grinding dungeons, even if it ends up shit like slaughter