FFXIV: PvP and You! Part 2: Frontlines .

In my last article on FFXIV’s PvP, I wasn’t particularly kind to the Wolves’ Den. There’s always another side to the coin, though. Now, having given it a bit more work than I did before, I haven’t really changed my opinion significantly. This doesn’t come as a particular surprise to me, as arena-type PvP modes have never been my forte, nor have they been where I got most of my enjoyment.

I was always a battlegrounds player. I could get a lot more out of a game when I could apply myself to wildly changing situations and in a match more focused on point acquisition than on raw killing power. This is probably due to my playstyle, which is more focused on defense and passive combat scenarios than just loading damage numbers into people.

I played a good bit of Frontlines this last week, and I have to say that this is much more my speed than the Wolves’ Den arena ever was.

Huh. Well this is awkward.

For the uninitiated, Frontlines is a six-point resources gametype, where the purpose is to acquire points by holding onto territory. However, there is also a central hub that spawns enemies which can also be killed for points, allowing a falling group to come back. Battles are done using the Grand Companies of the game, which makes this a three-pronged battleground. The fact that you can fight off one group of enemies just to have a second group waiting to descend upon you makes for an interesting tactical situation to be faced with. A team which conserves their strength and manages their battle well will find themselves much better prepared for the oncoming attack on their point.

Sometimes, things can get a little chaotic, but that’s when it gets fun.

The game uses the system set in place by the Crystal Tower to draw its parties, and each party is ideally eight players, making a twenty-four man alliance formed out of your own Grand Company. This creates a small problem, as people who had made what was an earlier cosmetic choice now may be your enemy in the Frontlines. Fortunately, transferring between the Grand Companies is easier than ever, and now only endures a fifteen day waiting period before you can switch back. If you want to play with your friends, you’re easily able to do so. The only trouble that the alliance system really has is that players tend to communicate like they would in the Crystal Tower – with their party, but not their alliance. All strategy I’ve seen laid out was for one party, not for the full alliances. It’s a minor thing, especially since new players can simply follow their part and be at least a little effective, but it would be nice to have that more advanced communication, because when things get hot in the Frontlines, it tends to happen fast.

“C’mon, gotta hurry, gotta get to the flag, gotta-ah, damnit.” Repeat ad nauseum for thirty minutes.

Compared to other battlegrounds from other MMOs, Frontlines – specifically the current map, Carteneau Flats – is an interesting approach. Having to consider the attack waves of three groups as opposed to two changes the battle immensely, and unlike most MMOs where a map to contain that many players is generally enormous, Carteneau is perhaps slightly larger than the average battleground. This is approximately correct for the 72 players on the field, and there is rarely a moment for breathing room. Conflict is common, whereas in game modes such as RIFT’s Conquest mode, entire zones are used and unless one aims for a zerg of players your group may never find another in their roaming around the fields. This doesn’t happen in Frontlines – you will encounter your enemies, and you’ll be forced to fight. Another powerful feature that doesn’t exist in other PvP modes is the Limit Break. A single well placed Black Mage Limit Break can scorch half the enemy team to dust, and completely turn the tide of battle. The eternal risk of this ability, especially later in the round, can and has turned hopeless confrontations into complete routs of the enemy side and can transform the game into a very entertaining chess match where the entire team is watching for the orange circle of death and trying as hard as they can to not bunch up and give the other side an easy win.

That isn’t to say that Frontlines is a flawless PvP mode. Like most PvP modes, there is little desire for a tough tanking-style player. Very few games have managed to incorporate a playstyle that allows for a tank to play and be valuable due to the sheer value of burst damage. Perhaps the best PvP tank remains in The Old Republic, where taunting enemies and providing shields to allies transforms tanks from hard-to-kill point holders that you ignore until everyone’s dead to vital threats that have to be eliminated to get to the people you really want to kill. I’m not saying that FFXIV needs to emulate any other game, and to be honest I’ve come to not expect much out of being a tank in PvP. It’s just not the playstyle, and running around as a Marauder with tons of spike DPS is its own sort of fun, but it would have been nice. Besides, it’s not like we can’t do pretty much anything we want in the PvE part of the game. Benefit on one side, suffer on the other I suppose.

And sometimes people just get the drop on you.

The game also suffers from some of the same fundamental problems of PvP in FFXIV. Black Mages are very important thanks to chain sleeps and massive AoE damage, though when you can throw an entire group at one and melt it in ten seconds with healing trying to save him, it does mitigate their problem significantly. Running out of TP is still a thing melee players may have to tolerate, though the PvP skill Enliven mitigates that as well. The stun brigade that is Paladin is valuable, but really other than that I didn’t find much I could do with the class and ended up playing Marauder more. At least there I felt like more than a glorified shield bash on legs. Warrior has pretty much no functional role and is basically a Marauder with less skill options, but not everything can be perfect. There will always be better classes and worse classes in PvP, but to have a completely useless one is somewhat disappointing.

Is Frontlines perfect? No, it isn’t, but ultimately it’s a lot of fun. That’s really what’s important about it. I still firmly believe that FFXIV is a PvE focused game first with PvP second, but at least there’s something for all players to enjoy now.