176 replies to this topic

[Krivvan]

Game 15 in its entirety will be here once it has finished uploading:

Another 2 games will be after it once they finish uploading.

Edited by Krivvan, 31 October 2012 - 10:23 PM.

[Dr Killinger]

Thanks for taking the time to do this (and great performances as well, hope to fight alongside you one day), this shows what we suspected: people just throw their arms up and scream PREMADE as soon as they lose anything.

I'm afraid that they'll carry on doing this, though, since they won't take the time to even see this thread.

[Lavrenti]

Dr Killinger, on 31 October 2012 - 10:29 PM, said:

this shows what we suspected: people just throw their arms up and scream PREMADE as soon as they lose anything.

I'm afraid that they'll carry on doing this, though, since they won't take the time to even see this thread.

The premade bogeyman is real: is anyone seriously saying a premade is likely to lose to a PUG? I only run into them about 1 match in 3 or 4, though, so it's not as common as some people say.

I think that people are dimly aware they're losing because they can't communicate and coordinate as effectively as their opponents, and because premades embody those attributes they get blamed more often than they perhaps deserve. It's easier to just find a simple answer for the loss, and a lot of people don't want to look beyond that. The real issue is the lack of coordination, though, and there don't seem to be any plans to rectify that.

[Dr Killinger]

Lavrenti, on 31 October 2012 - 10:35 PM, said:

The premade bogeyman is real: is anyone seriously saying a premade is likely to lose to a PUG? I only run into them about 1 match in 3 or 4, though, so it's not as common as some people say.

I think that people are dimly aware they're losing because they can't communicate and coordinate as effectively as their opponents, and because premades embody those attributes they get blamed more often than they perhaps deserve. It's easier to just find a simple answer for the loss, and a lot of people don't want to look beyond that. The real issue is the lack of coordination, though, and there don't seem to be any plans to rectify that.

Yeah of course I'm not saying that pugs will beat premades (they might, but not often), just saying that, as you said, premades are blamed for most losses, even though it might even be a pug. But yeah, coordination is the only solution, and when I've been in pugs where all 8 players are willing to communicate, or at least listen, things go very, very well.

[Jman5]

I'm going to make a larger post tomorrow with more data points, but suffice it to say, I played 26 games and asked each game if there were any premades or friends playing together. 12 out of 26 games had people openly admit to pre-made groups. I only ran into a couple 8 player pre-mades, but there are a lot of partials out there.

[Krivvan]

Jman5, on 31 October 2012 - 11:21 PM, said:

I'm going to make a larger post tomorrow with more data points, but suffice it to say, I played 26 games and asked each game if there were any premades or friends playing together. 12 out of 26 games had people openly admit to pre-made groups. I only ran into a couple 8 player pre-mades, but there are a lot of partials out there.

I didn't really consider anything under 3 to be a premade team, I'm guessing a lot of the people who admitted were just a couple friends playing together?

If they are really that common, then holy crap I've been beating way too many premade teams with pugs.

[zverofaust]

The ironic thing is THIS ISSUE WOULD BE SO MUCH EASIER TO SEE IF THEY'D SIMPLY PUT SOME TINY LITTLE INDICATOR OF WHETHER OR NOT A PLAYER IS IN A GROUP ON THE PLAYER LIST SCREEN! Raaagh yelling

[EDMW CSN]

The new MM system will restrict pre-mades to only lance size, but if they are any good, they will still roll over people anyway. But again pre-mades are few and far between but it is the early losses that stack heavily against people in a NO respawn game.

Edited by EDMW CSN, 31 October 2012 - 11:27 PM.

[Lavrenti]

Jman5, on 31 October 2012 - 11:21 PM, said:

...there are a lot of partials out there.

Yes, there are. And they're just as dangerous as the larger premades are, against a PUG team: it takes a little longer, but the end is the same most of the time. This is why "phase 1" of the matchmaking system won't solve the problem entirely.

[Mastodonic]

Improved matchmaking won't make any difference, the majority of pug v pug match results will still be lopsided. All an improved MM is going to do is serve to shift the blame to something else.

[Ran]

However, you also have the case of when private groups make the team worse. For example, my friends and I haven't played Mechwarrior at all. We're new for the Open Beta, and for the most part we were rocking Trial Mechs until we were at 5 million credits. During that time, we were pretty easy pickings by people that were rocking their Founders mechs. With that said, thanks for supporting the game, but please remember that not all Premades are better than a pug. The main effect of a Premade for new players is that you know that four players in your team aren't going to DC, and at least they will -attempt- to do something. Unfortuantely, in the case of most of the new players, the four players are going to be in trial mechs, with very to little synergy with each other.

I do believe that the premade groups will increase in efficiency within a week or two. It will be awhile before the newer players reach a point where they purchase the proper suit, upgrades, and so forth to even be a threat. I would like to believe that most players are going to make at least one major purchase error while trying to find the mech they want. Personally for me, it was purchasing a Catapult and realizing how expensive it was going to be to maintain without premium bonuses. I'm now in a Genner, and enjoying it. My friend made the same mistake, except with a Hunchback.

[Bagheera]

Stonefalcon, on 31 October 2012 - 08:08 PM, said:

Yeah I have to agree this data seems concurrent with what I've been able to ascertain.

x2 seems consistent with my experience.

Voodoo Circus, on 31 October 2012 - 08:27 PM, said:

So when you get "stomped" in a 8-0 dont assume you are playing a premade

Huh. I've been saying that since it's been possible to team. Go figure.

[Vassago Rain]

There are way more of them than your numbers suggest. They don't tell you they are, because they know they're ruining things for the playerbase as a whole right now.

[Krivvan]

Vassago Rain, on 31 October 2012 - 11:46 PM, said:

There are way more of them than your numbers suggest. They don't tell you they are, because they know they're ruining things for the playerbase as a whole right now.

The point wasn't just about opposing teams admitting they were premade. It's about my own pug teams stomping other pug teams as if we were premade, the lack of many premade groups being obnoxious or constantly advertising their corp and the normal win/loss ratio.

Unless you're suggesting that my PUG teams regularly beat premade teams?

Are there many small premade groups of 2-3 players? I have no doubt of that, but that's very hard to gauge. I'm focusing on the complaints about large 5-8 player premade groups belonging to corps.

Edited by Krivvan, 31 October 2012 - 11:54 PM.

[CCC Dober]

Here's another hint for you gents:
If you see the whole other team connect at the same time while yours is still waiting for players to trickle in, go figure.

It would be nice if the game would advertise the fact a bit more openly ...

Edited by CCC Dober, 31 October 2012 - 11:55 PM.

[Mastodonic]

Vassago Rain, on 31 October 2012 - 11:46 PM, said:

There are way more of them than your numbers suggest. They don't tell you they are, because they know they're ruining things for the playerbase as a whole right now.

What a load of carp(sic). You're running some BS delusional paranoid conspiracy **** now. Time to lay-off the rock.

No premade ive been in gives a **** what anyone else "thinks". The game offers you the option of grouping up so you group up if you want to. If anyone asks, then you'll get an answer. Otherwise we chat amongst ourselves and play the game. Fact is, 95% of the time the other team doesn't even say a word in chat, let alone ask if we're a premade.

[BigJim]

First Knight, on 31 October 2012 - 08:14 PM, said:

With the negative feedback pre-mades have been getting, I am shocked that any actually told you they were a pre-made team.

The opinions of people who would get angry about you being a premade don't matter anyway, so I don't see why anyone would hold back from confirming they're a group.




I was in a match last night, when the opposition announced themselves as cReddit corp (or however you spell it).

I responded with "zomg! a premade the sky is falling!" in global chat, and bless em, my (our?) Pubs did the same - "you guys are ruining the game wtfbbq!!!1!", etc, etc.. -, basically everyone taking the pi** out of this terrible forum attitude that has broken out recently.

Warmed the heart!

Edited by BigJim, 01 November 2012 - 12:02 AM.

[EDMW CSN]

Vassago Rain, on 31 October 2012 - 11:46 PM, said:

There are way more of them than your numbers suggest. They don't tell you they are, because they know they're ruining things for the playerbase as a whole right now.

But yet he could still perform stellar. Individual skill does come to the equation after all. The enemy LRMs pre-made boats cannot do much when they realize all their 3 scouts were taken out by a single guy in a 140+ Kph jenner.

Strategy, teamwork then individual skill. An incredibly skilled player can skew battles in the small run for now. But he can't be everywhere so CW will change things significantly.

Good tactics can save a sh1tty strategy. But the best strategy can't save sh1tty tactics.



However, I still believe his figures are right. Premades are a lot less than people think. Just telling everyone to dig in or hold a certain line does not make them a pre-made if they happen to thrash the opponent pug 7 to 1.

Edited by EDMW CSN, 01 November 2012 - 12:04 AM.

[Yokaiko]

CCC Dober, on 31 October 2012 - 11:54 PM, said:

Here's another hint for you gents:
If you see the whole other team connect at the same time while yours is still waiting for players to trickle in, go figure.

It would be nice if the game would advertise the fact a bit more openly ...

Nope, that is entirely dependant on your machine, I watch everyone load in every game I play. People with slow comuters are Crap connection may take the entire waiting period.

Hell I've seen a guy I dropped with no actually connect until after the waiting period.

[Academus]

From OP's data:
Ignoring all unknown.
All 4 matches with premade ended with the winning team losing no more than 3 mechs. That's 100%
7 out of 12 matches ended with the winning team losing no more than 3 mechs. That's 58%.
Combining them together, the overall likeliness of having a match that ends with the winning team losing no more than 3 mechs is 11/16 = 69%.
Which means by seperating premades from pugs, pugstomp occurance can be reduced by (69-58)/69 = 16%.
YMMV but I think a 16% reduction is significant enough to warrant action.

In addition, phase 1 will increase the number of premade teams which means it will make premades + pugs vs premades + pugs matches far more likely than before. I'm quite confident that such a match up will make matches much more intense and closer than before.

Finally, I'm looking forward to the official population and matching ratio figures. OP's data point to at least 25% of all matches having a premade. If premades are indeed present in 25% of all matches, but occupy a significantly smaller percentage of the total players base, that will comfirm to my theory that due to the fact that pugstomp matches finish faster than normal matches, premades will drop in twice more matches than pugs will in the equivalent time period, therefore having a disproportionate effect on the likeliness of pugostomp.