63 replies to this topic

[Garth Erlam]

Thank you for this well written and thought out thread - as you may have seen over here - we are aware of these issues and are working to help mitigate them.

[Antasius]

Thank you Garth for the "Admin nod of approval" with this thread. Justly deserved, and the link is a great boost to moral too!.

Edited by Antasius, 31 October 2012 - 08:56 AM.

[Bilbo]

StrataDragoon, on 31 October 2012 - 07:33 AM, said:

You know its funny how pug players always run into premades 1 out of 3 matches or whatever.
But i play in premades a lot and yesterday, blood pearls, had a count of playing PUG teams 8 out of 10 matches (Had a party of 8) ((didn't count if we had less than 8)). How do I know I ask them if they pug or premades, aint no use in lying about it.

So how do all these PUG players run into more Premade teams than Premade teams run into other premade teams?
I just don't see it.

In order for a premade team to meat another premade team, they need to be running the same distribution of weight classes. They then need to launch at the same time, almost exactly. With coordination we can drop team v team consistantly. The chances of randomly finding another team of the same makeup dropping at the same time you are is extremely low. In the 42 games I played Monday night, we came across only 4 announced or known premades.

[IIIuminaughty]

Bilbo, on 31 October 2012 - 08:58 AM, said:

In order for a premade team to meat another premade team, they need to be running the same distribution of weight classes. They then need to launch at the same time, almost exactly. With coordination we can drop team v team consistantly. The chances of randomly finding another team of the same makeup dropping at the same time you are is extremely low. In the 42 games I played Monday night, we came across only 4 announced or known premades.

thanks for clearing this up

[Nightcrept]

Garth Erlam, on 31 October 2012 - 08:49 AM, said:

Thank you for this well written and thought out thread - as you may have seen over here - we are aware of these issues and are working to help mitigate them.

That's awesome. Thanks for the link I had actually never seen the command chair section before.

[Krondor]

DCLXVI, on 31 October 2012 - 09:05 AM, said:

players with 3 games or so with 0 damage done or even 0 kill assists should have their game shut down for 1 day! it cant be stopped altogether. no one dc's 3 games in a row. no one will try to farm if they can only be a tool bag 3 times per day.

last night one of our guys CTD'd 3 times in a row....

[Taryys]

You have a good point.
Right now hit detection is broken a bit and that may be the cause of some of it if they are not farming.

DCLXVI, on 31 October 2012 - 09:05 AM, said:

players with 3 games or so with 0 damage done or even 0 kill assists should have their game shut down for 1 day! it cant be stopped altogether. no one dc's 3 games in a row. no one will try to farm if they can only be a tool bag 3 times per day.

[Hurnn]

meteorol, on 31 October 2012 - 06:32 AM, said:

The way the matchmaker puts together mechs on the teams can also often lead to a really brutal stomp.

I don't want to start a trail mech debate here, but the trail awesome (which seem to be picked pretty often by new players because it's the heaviest trailmech) is no matchup for a thought over minmaxed Atlas.

I have been in a few matches with 2-4 trail awesomes being matched against 2-4 atlas.
Needless to say, the trail awesomes were brutally murdered within seconds.

This is very much the case. Last night in River City one of our guys in a custom atlas went solo on 3 trial awesomes in the north end of the city and killed all three no problems.

[Sean Casey]

Yeah the premades are fairly rare. You just sometimes land on an inexperienced team get a few AFK'ers. I had one match last night where in my Centurion I did about 345 damage, and the highest damage anyone else on my team did was 76 with two players getting 0 damage. You just can't win in that case. Although there is some satisfaction in dealing more damage than the rest of your team combined using a fairly basic Cent-A, perhaps not enough to cover the fact that you still lost, but some!

As the newer players get better it will balance out more. When I am on the "getting stomped" side I do try to look at the winning teams tactics to learn from them.

[Iliad]

One way to figure out if is a pre-made group is when you get into the game and waiting for players; one side is already full and the other side is filling up one by one.

hopfully you are on the side that is already full

[TehArgz]

Nightcrept, on 31 October 2012 - 05:36 AM, said:

Good day fellow MechWarriors.



Sorry ahead of time for the ramble. It's early here.
I just wanted to give an explanation of what I perceive has happened to create the illusion of pre-mades ran wild. First, like many of you I have played many MMO's, lead multiple groups in MMO's and moderated a few MMO forums.

I am a pug exclusively for now.

I play approx 5-10 hrs a day.



Over the last few days I had gotten very frustrated with the game myself and thought about quitting. This was due to the amount of frustrating loses I was experiencing.

But i had such a wonderful experience with the original PC versions of the game and in closed beta that I decided to calm down and figure out what was happening.

This is what I discovered.


Pre-mades:

The amount of pre-mades I actually ran into was at the most 1 out of 3 games. They sometimes unfortunately seem to run in series. So you may get 2 or 3 pre-mades back to back and then none for awhile.

So while being on the caustic board and topping over the crater to see eight mechs evenly spaced on the g3 ridge all with LRMS in the air about to hit you is frustrating. It doesn't happen often enough to explain the amount of frustrating extremely uneven loses I was seeing.

But after being steam rolled by the few pre-mades I did find I was sensitive to it.




New Players vs Beta Vets:


Experience. Period. These I call vet-mades. The old beta vets have already played around with most if not all of the set-ups to know what works for them and their individual play style and have the experience to be deadly. Newer players have neither.

This creates what I call vet-made teams. This is when a team randomly has a larger amount of vet players (with their experience and established builds). The result is the appearance of a pre-made in deadly efficiency vs the team with more inexperienced players and their unbalanced builds.




Suicide Artists, Afk's, Disconnects.


Unfortunately, all of these seem to have increased since the start of open beta. And in many games I was discovering that we had multiples of these. The result is generally a steam roll of your team. I do not know how to stop any of these for the simple reason that they all happen naturally as well as maliciously. Suiciders can also be new players not knowing any better, Afk's can be due to kids setting the house on fire etc etc, DC's are caused by bugs (I bug out a few times a hr). But they all add to the perception of pre-mades ran wild and frustration.





So in conclusion these are the factors leading to the appearance of pre-mades gone wild:

1. The few Pre-made pug-stomps make you sensitive to them compounding the other issues.

2. Vet-mades happen due to the random nature and learning curve of the game.

3. Suicide Artists.

4. Afkers.

5. Disconnects.



So all of these issues taken together give the appearance of Pre-mades everywhere. But in reality it is many problems leading to frustrating lopsided losses.

But this is open BETA. Emphasis on the BETA. If they aren't fixed then cry. Till then bite a pillow, kick the cat, beat on your cross-eyed neighbor or something....lol.

But have faith that our dev team will work to fix these issues best they can.

I have nothing to add to this thread, except that is a great post. I think you captured the reality of the matter. I too pug almost exclusively (that is changing now that my guildies are coming online since open beta), and have been on both sides of the 'vet-mades'. That is a great way to put it and I think your post really explains the experience people are having.

It's too bad ZOMG PREMADES! has become a mantra on the forums because while there is certainly an issue with pug stomps, it is not understood very well by most players.

[paladin yst]

Quote

The amount of pre-mades I actually ran into was at the most 1 out of 3 games

Ure wayyyyyyyyyy too lucky, pls give me some of your luck, mines 7-9/10 premades

[Krivvan]

paladin yst, on 31 October 2012 - 09:54 AM, said:

Ure wayyyyyyyyyy too lucky, pls give me some of your luck, mines 7-9/10 premades

Or you're the one that's just so unlucky. Or you decide that every single time your team loses it's because of a premade. Wasn't it you that said that if anyone on the enemy team focus fires something that means it's definitely a premade?

[silentD11]

TehArgz, on 31 October 2012 - 09:48 AM, said:

I have nothing to add to this thread, except that is a great post. I think you captured the reality of the matter. I too pug almost exclusively (that is changing now that my guildies are coming online since open beta), and have been on both sides of the 'vet-mades'. That is a great way to put it and I think your post really explains the experience people are having.

It's too bad ZOMG PREMADES! has become a mantra on the forums because while there is certainly an issue with pug stomps, it is not understood very well by most players.

VET mades aren't really an issue. I've been on both sides of the premade stomp fest.

When I'm on a premade it's usually with people I know and have been playing with for a while. We know each others playstyle, know the builds we tend to use, and the team is made for those builds to mesh. We usually already have a plan for the map that has been decided upon before the match and ran as a group a few times. Furthermore, voice coms.

For those reasons right there even a team of veterans with custom builds, no disconnects/afks/idiots is still going to get curb stomped. And to be brutally honest one of the biggest reasons right now is to curb stomp pubs and generate a massive amount of cash so all everyone cay buy everything and nobody has to deal with MC. It's mostly just farming pubs, vet-made or trial-made, as quick as possible to pad the bank.

[Dagger906]

I hope their "solution" to farming isn't to make you watch other ppl play the whole game. This is a dealbreaker for a game. If I want to watch other people, I'll go watch TV.

[Comassion]

The other reason you may see lopsided victories is due to the snowball effect. If a team is down 1 or 2 'mechs, the disparity in firepower is likely to bring down more enemy 'mechs quicker. Whoever gets the first kill is probably going to win the game 75% of the time.

[Ghosth]

Sorry sir but I have to disagree, that is strictly a function of connection speed has nothing to do with grouping.

I have often seen our group fill up last when several of them are from Europe.
So I have to cry foul on this old wives tail.

Iliad, on 31 October 2012 - 09:41 AM, said:

One way to figure out if is a pre-made group is when you get into the game and waiting for players; one side is already full and the other side is filling up one by one.

hopfully you are on the side that is already full

[silentD11]

Dagger906, on 31 October 2012 - 10:09 AM, said:

I hope their "solution" to farming isn't to make you watch other ppl play the whole game. This is a dealbreaker for a game. If I want to watch other people, I'll go watch TV.

I hate to break this to you but PUGs are just there for premades to farm. It doesn't take much effort. The wins come fast and quick with tons of component destruction so your cbill/xp gain is off the charts. If you focus fire like crazy you can often go taking only one or two casualties so nobody is repairing **** at all.

Prior to open beta the key was to just PUG farm for a night or two at which point you had so many cbills you could build all the top rated builds and swap them out as random. You'd generate cbills faster than you could ever expect to spend them and had something new been released that changed the meta you could have instantly swapped over to the new top build and your bankroll would still be fine.

If you're not going with a premade be aware that you're going to have to buy MC left and right to have any chance of keeping up with how fast a premade can rack up cbills.

[wanderer]

Nightcrept, on 31 October 2012 - 05:36 AM, said:

Good day fellow MechWarriors.

Sorry ahead of time for the ramble. It's early here.
I just wanted to give an explanation of what I perceive has happened to create the illusion of pre-mades ran wild. First, like many of you I have played many MMO's, lead multiple groups in MMO's and moderated a few MMO forums.

*snip*

This man speaks the truth, and should feel good for doing so. PUG losses are often far more the random factors noted, and I'd add in the "comedy of errors"- that is, two PUGs blundering around doing all the wrong things and often cancelling them out in the process- one team member runs into three on the other side while the enemy does the same thing halfway across the map, with the steamroll only happening when one PUG manages to step up the stupid enough to overwhelm the other team into beating them like a pinata.

[IceSerpent]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 31 October 2012 - 08:35 AM, said:

I run primarily pre-made groups, however last night we were 2 players short so dropped with a 6-man team for several hours.
Having just 2 PUG players on our team really highlighted the cancer that has taken hold of the community, and now I see why people are up in arms. The issue is not premade teams it is the PUGs, well specifically the ones that are griefers and exploiters (AFK, disconnects, suicide scout, TKers). With just two of these on our team we suddenly face a 8v6, which is a challenge for TS3 team, but for a team without voice comms, it is a death sentence.

And if we are able to pull 1 or 2 bad apples with such consistency I imagine that out of 8 random people there is a good chance that over half the team is working against itself.

I used to think that putting 4 PUGs in pre-mades was a good idea to introduce new players to team tactics, but now I see it as a fire way to incite and infuriate the foundation of MWO, the organized teams.

This is why those of us who have been through that sort of thing before (mostly folks who played SWTOR) are so against the idea. On top of what you've mentioned, it also doesn't prevent PUGs from being stomped. The end result will inevitably be frustrating to both sides - a team of 4 + 4 PUGs vs. 8 PUGs = 8 PUGs steamrolled and complaining on the forums, a team of 4 + 4 PUGs vs. another team of 4 + 4 PUGs = result is decided by who got PUGs that are not "bad apples", the losing team frustrated by the outcome being basically decided by RNG and also complaining on the forums.

Edited by IceSerpent, 31 October 2012 - 11:49 AM.