54 replies to this topic

[Naitsirch]

Hi there,

I will make it short and add an even shorter tl;dr to the end.

In Ask the Devs 34 I added the question, if there will be a queue for people who only want to fight in 8 random guys vs. 8 random guys matches. I want to know if there are more people who experience the same situation of being basically useless as soon as 4-people-premades enter the match.
Since Elo phase 2 I played about 50 matches (1200 all-time) which in itself is a far to low sample size, but i can't get myself to play anymore to get a bigger one, so please add your own observations. Of those 50 matches I won/lost exactly 50% so Elo works for me, BUT of those 25 matches I lost at least 20 solely due to the presence of premades. Either it was 1 premade on the enemy's side or 1 premade per side.
How can I tell those premades may you rightfully ask. Simple thing as those were either all in the same house and/or fielded ecm-only mechs (i.e. 4xRVN-3L, 1xCMD-2D+3xRVN-3L, 2xRVN-3L+2xATL-DDC, etc.). The only variation was in the fittings they had when fielding non-RVN-only compositions. Some also advertised openly.
This in itself is no problem as I experienced those things pre-Elo phase 2 too, but now it has become tiresome to watch the same each loss. Once the non-premade guys per match or side are gone the premade(s) will hunt down the rest and win/loss gets determined by who of those has more luck. The luck in this case is aimed at legging the remaining lights or not, as they will otherwise circle-kill the rest.
This means a) I am only there to provide a c-bill pinjata and b ) have no influence on the outcome. Keeping this in mind the 25 wins I had, also were largely not due to my influence as soon as a premade was on my side. Loosing is no big deal, but loosing regardless of effort is wasted effort.

I will hence consider playing the game solo-only as useless in the current situation with mixed matches and therefore asked the question in Ask the Devs. On a sidenote it also highlights the superiority of coordinated builds, ecm-heavy groups and voip, but that is in itself selfexplanatory.

--------------------------------------------
tl;dr
- lately premades in pugging have become a bottleneck to your w/l ratio which is frustrating
- Am I the only one having this problem? / What are your experiences?
--------------------------------------------

Please note: This is aimed at getting a broader view of the situation and not as a QQ-thread so please spare the potential "MWO is dead", "premades are fine/the devil", "L2P", "3L is fine/op", etc. I like the game despite the flaws, but if it is aimed at drastically different interests than mine I should just call it a day.

o7 Nait

Edited by Naitsirch, 12 March 2013 - 07:40 AM.

[Revorn]

Pug only vs Pug only.

[SuomiWarder]

I have been occasionally posting the question about why they have not started PUg v PUG only matches for many a month now.

The only answer I can even fathom is that there would not be enough groups of 4 to make a set of 8 reliably and that the 2 and 3 person groupings mixed in would lead to a lot of 8v6 and 8v7.

Although I do advocate letting 2 person "groups" play in the solo PUG matches.

[Padic]

I (almost) exclusively solo queue, and I do not sweat seeing premades on my team or the other team.

I certainly do not feel like they invalidate my contribution to the match. In a good match, I can handily out perform the members of the premade, and that feels good.

Either way, I am noticing a bottleneck of my W/L and KDR, but that's to be expected (and not because of premades). Elo is going to pit me against better and better opponents until I start to level off at around 50/50 (my KDR will level off because my teammates are more likely to do damage and get kills). I'm willing to accept that if I want to win more, I'll need to get even better.

I hope they never isolate me from the premaders. I like playing with them, and I like playing against them.

[Tickdoff Tank]

It can be difficult to determine a "pre made" just by the house and mech combination. In just about every "pre made" I have ever played in we did not have any "theme", We might have 1 or 2 founders, I am a Kurita (usually the only one), and I play whatever mech I feel like, just like the rest of the team does. We may try to fit certain roles (scout, sniper, LRM, whatever), but there is almost no coordination of "everyone drive a splatcat".

I admit that it is suspicious when you see 4 Liaos all in 3Ls, but you also need to remember that the 3L, DDC, and A1 are all VERY popular mechs, and we have a limited number of houses to choose from. It is not outside the realm of possibility for you to be matched against a truly random group of players that simply look like a coordinated group when they are, in fact, just a random pug.

[Naitsirch]

I agree, 2 guys talking to each other is no big deal, as you can emulate that easily by just using the keyboard on a team-level.
Those matches I have seen had at least 25 out of 50 times 4-man-premades. So as long as PGI does not provide other data on the userbase, then there are by far enough matchable premades.

-thx for post suomi

Edited by Naitsirch, 12 March 2013 - 07:57 AM.

[NitroDev]

those damn [LNW] guys are always ganging up on me it seems. like almost every match there are at least 4, sometimes 8!

[Stoicblitzer]

I like your post. It is rational and polite.

Before MM phase 3, you would see premades but they would usually be grinding so you wouldn't see the cheese as often. Now, it is harder to win with Elo in full swing. Premades are kinda forced to take the most powerful/cheese builds possible because we would rather win than lose. I've been pugging a lot more lately and it usually has two opposing effects. Either I feel humbled by all the skill I am witnessing or I feel arrogant/superior/pissed when I see people on my team playing like dummies. Anyways....

The real solution is integrated VOIP. This needs to be priority one for PGI if they want to retain new players.

[Naitsirch]

Padic, on 12 March 2013 - 07:53 AM, said:

I (almost) exclusively solo queue, and I do not sweat seeing premades on my team or the other team.

I certainly do not feel like they invalidate my contribution to the match. In a good match, I can handily out perform the members of the premade, and that feels good.

Either way, I am noticing a bottleneck of my W/L and KDR, but that's to be expected (and not because of premades). Elo is going to pit me against better and better opponents until I start to level off at around 50/50 (my KDR will level off because my teammates are more likely to do damage and get kills). I'm willing to accept that if I want to win more, I'll need to get even better.

I hope they never isolate me from the premaders. I like playing with them, and I like playing against them.

I may have been unclear on my part. The problem is not the loosing in itself, but the case that getting matched against premades in order to achieve getting "downed" to 50/50 w/l-ratio is frustrating. I normally top the dmg-board in heavies and assaults (no lrm-cheese, just regular builds) and get killed somewhere mid- or endround cause i take one for the team or flank to cause chaos and enable an ambush. This holds true regarding some casual premades on the red side. Then there comes a gap of nothing else, no in-between, after which the pugstomp of average to good premades start.
I would gladly use the opportunity of learning from better players, but I can't learn from a coordinated 4-man, aside from getting into a swarm of meatshield or join a group (,which i don't want and hence asked about the solo-queue).

-thx for post

NitroDev, on 12 March 2013 - 08:04 AM, said:

those damn [LNW] guys are always ganging up on me it seems. like almost every match there are at least 4, sometimes 8!

thx for sharing your really funny and witty thoughts, no really, thank you and for your investest time to come up with something as usefull of a post as this is and I am deeply in your shadow of wisdom.

[p4r4g0n]

Only problem I would have with premades are those that intentionally drop with 4 of the same mech class be they cheese builds or whatever. These are the guys who make it even more difficult for the matchmaker to put together a 2-2-2-2 drop these days.

Incidentally, just wondering if anyone else has noticed that since the last patch, the frequency of roflstomps (8-0 to 8-2 games) has gone way up or is it just me?

Edited by p4r4g0n, 12 March 2013 - 08:24 AM.

[Idolo]

p4r4g0n, on 12 March 2013 - 08:24 AM, said:

Incidentally, just wondering if anyone else has noticed that since the last patch, the frequency of roflstomps (8-0 to 8-2 games) has gone way up or is it just me?

No, it has, atleast for me. Been playing alot over the past few days and almost all matches have been very lopsided.

[grayson marik]

Naitsirch, on 12 March 2013 - 07:38 AM, said:

Hi there,

I will make it short and add an even shorter tl;dr to the end.

In Ask the Devs 34 I added the question, if there will be a queue for people who only want to fight in 8 random guys vs. 8 random guys matches. I want to know if there are more people who experience the same situation of being basically useless as soon as 4-people-premades enter the match.
Since Elo phase 2 I played about 50 matches (1200 all-time) which in itself is a far to low sample size, but i can't get myself to play anymore to get a bigger one, so please add your own observations. Of those 50 matches I won/lost exactly 50% so Elo works for me, BUT of those 25 matches I lost at least 20 solely due to the presence of premades. Either it was 1 premade on the enemy's side or 1 premade per side.
How can I tell those premades may you rightfully ask. Simple thing as those were either all in the same house and/or fielded ecm-only mechs (i.e. 4xRVN-3L, 1xCMD-2D+3xRVN-3L, 2xRVN-3L+2xATL-DDC, etc.). The only variation was in the fittings they had when fielding non-RVN-only compositions. Some also advertised openly.
This in itself is no problem as I experienced those things pre-Elo phase 2 too, but now it has become tiresome to watch the same each loss. Once the non-premade guys per match or side are gone the premade(s) will hunt down the rest and win/loss gets determined by who of those has more luck. The luck in this case is aimed at legging the remaining lights or not, as they will otherwise circle-kill the rest.
This means a) I am only there to provide a c-bill pinjata and b ) have no influence on the outcome. Keeping this in mind the 25 wins I had, also were largely not due to my influence as soon as a premade was on my side. Loosing is no big deal, but loosing regardless of effort is wasted effort.

I will hence consider playing the game solo-only as useless in the current situation with mixed matches and therefore asked the question in Ask the Devs. On a sidenote it also highlights the superiority of coordinated builds, ecm-heavy groups and voip, but that is in itself selfexplanatory.

--------------------------------------------
tl;dr
- lately premades in pugging have become a bottleneck to your w/l ratio which is frustrating
- Am I the only one having this problem? / What are your experiences?
--------------------------------------------

Please note: This is aimed at getting a broader view of the situation and not as a QQ-thread so please spare the potential "MWO is dead", "premades are fine/the devil", "L2P", "3L is fine/op", etc. I like the game despite the flaws, but if it is aimed at drastically different interests than mine I should just call it a day.

o7 Nait

OP Iam all yours for a PUG vs PUG only queue! It would even make PGI's live more easey, since events like the latest "Topgun" would run a: without the stupid rule "solo players only" while those players run into teams or get covered by synced friends.
and b: the PUG-Cry about premades ruining their experience would die instantly.

But all this, Iam only with you as long as FINALLY the team players get a queue where they can play with and AGAINST their friends.

The same frustration you solo players get every day, the teams get when they try to do some balanced matches.
Imagine: you load up a balanced team and drop in the 8v8 and what do you get? A bunch of min maxers with 4 DDC + 2 PPC Stalker + 2 Raven 3L.
Over and over and over again.

It is the same on the team queue as it is on the PUG+4 queue.

So once again I suggest:
-Remove teams from the PUG queue entirely
-Let at least invite one team of 4 or 8 a SPECIFIC other team of 4 or 8 to a match.

[Hamm3r]

In the absence of a dedicated server browser, it would be nice to have SOME choise in the kind of game I play. I would love to have a PUG only que and a general que. People who only want to play other PUGs can play other PUGs, people who want the challenge of playing against premades, either in them or other wise, use the general que. that way everybody is happy. I PUG exclusively, its all I really have time fore, only reason I'm on now is I'm on vacation, but my Wife is deployed and we have a 1 year old, not a very conducive scenario for premade play, does that mean that what little time I do get to play should be limited to getting stomped by premades?? No, I think I should be able to drop into a match against other people just dropping in, not farming for CBills and KDR. I could care less about KDR honestly, just looking for a good game.

Going along with that, the option for premade groups to play against another group that they choose. As it sits right now, you can group up in TS, agree to a fight with another group, synch drop and pray htat it matches the two groups together....frustrating for the groups who are actually looking to play other premades, and not just pug stomp.

I wonder how much revenue PGI has lost because people download the game, try a few matches, get PUG stomped and just leave because its not fun for them.

Edited by Hamm3r, 12 March 2013 - 08:39 AM.

[Naitsirch]

grayson marik, on 12 March 2013 - 08:30 AM, said:

OP Iam all yours for a PUG vs PUG only queue! It would even make PGI's live more easey, since events like the latest "Topgun" would run a: without the stupid rule "solo players only" while those players run into teams or get covered by synced friends.
and b: the PUG-Cry about premades ruining their experience would die instantly.

But all this, Iam only with you as long as FINALLY the team players get a queue where they can play with and AGAINST their friends.

The same frustration you solo players get every day, the teams get when they try to do some balanced matches.
Imagine: you load up a balanced team and drop in the 8v8 and what do you get? A bunch of min maxers with 4 DDC + 2 PPC Stalker + 2 Raven 3L.
Over and over and over again.

It is the same on the team queue as it is on the PUG+4 queue.

So once again I suggest:
-Remove teams from the PUG queue entirely
-Let at least invite one team of 4 or 8 a SPECIFIC other team of 4 or 8 to a match.

thx for post, i agree and guess we have the same situation. The only reason I can come up with for this would be PGI wanting to have the section of 4-men premades / 8-men premades allways covered as good as possible. Pugs get to fill up the matches for 4-mans and the lack of challanging a specific enemy in an 8vs8 stems from providing as much coverage of random 8mens (2x4mens if they get in same queue).
This leads to the conclusion that the main playerbase seems to be random 4-men / 8-men premade which kinda makes it absurd to hassle the rest of the players with getting stomped.

Or am I having a brainfart there?

Edited by Naitsirch, 12 March 2013 - 08:53 AM.

[Naitsirch]

Idolo, on 12 March 2013 - 08:28 AM, said:

No, it has, atleast for me. Been playing alot over the past few days and almost all matches have been very lopsided.

Same here, I blame it on the mentioned bottleneck or glass-ceiling , can't think of anything else right now.

[Jestun]

Given the current "balance" (and I use the term very lightly), there is an excessive amount of ECM regardless of whether there are pre-mades.

You cannot use that to judge whether there's a pre-made present.


FYI I solo / duo queue and see no reason to seperate pre-mades from pugs.

[Kaspirikay]

I don't have a problem with premade as of late, infact almost never had after they moved 8 mans away. I pug exclusively, too.

[Naitsirch]

Jestun, on 12 March 2013 - 09:02 AM, said:

Given the current "balance" (and I use the term very lightly), there is an excessive amount of ECM regardless of whether there are pre-mades.

You cannot use that to judge whether there's a pre-made present.


FYI I solo / duo queue and see no reason to seperate pre-mades from pugs.

If I get you correctly, you say that a ) 4 Liao/Steiner/Kurita or a mix of those in all ecm-mechs sticking together are not neccessarily a premade, b ) do not influence the total amount on avarage fielded by 8-men no premade teams and c ) are no problem to you if they are directly linked in performance to the outcome of the match, regardless of effort?

If so, I beg to differ.

[Jestun]

Naitsirch, on 12 March 2013 - 09:08 AM, said:

If I get you correctly, you say that a ) 4 Liao/Steiner/Kurita or a mix of those in all ecm-mechs sticking together are not neccessarily a premade, b ) do not influence the total amount on avarage fielded by 8-men no premade teams and c ) are no problem to you if they are directly linked in performance to the outcome of the match, regardless of effort?

If so, I beg to differ.

All I am saying is that the assumption that they are in a pre-made is just that, an assumption.

ECM makes a huge difference in the battle, enough that many pug players use it too. The presence of multiple ECM on one team does not prove that they are a pre-made.

[PurpleNinja]

Solo queue vs. solo queue option would be nice.