Reading the forums is ... about normal. But one thing that I noticed was the same small group of players who do two things: PUG, and complain that the dreaded "pre-made" is why they lose all the time.
The latest myth being put forth is that "bad teams" are not using the 8v8 queue because they can't "hang" and are once again "stomping" PUGs.
So I thought ... right ... lets see about that. Use my "free" account which hasn't been used since OB started, and PUG in trial mechs to the 2mm C-Bills that would allow you to buy a commando. Not only would this let me see how bad this "pre-made" menace was, I'd also get that "new player experience" thing (Sort of, see comments at the end).
And by PUG I mean: Click the launch button. No TS3, no grouping.
First 15 games: The 3xERPPC Awesome:

Huh. That wasn't so bad. In fact, I kinda liked this trial mech (as an experienced player - see comments at end)
Next 5 games, the Jenner

I was going to do 10 games but ... couldn't. This is just a horrible mech.
Next 7 games: The Cataphract

Sadly, on game 23 I got the 4fps bug and had to reboot. Otherwise ... I kinda like this mech too.
Time? A little less than 3 hours.
The Verdict?
Erm. I'm carrying basically a 1:1 win/loss and a positive k/d in trial mechs during US prime time. Seriously, stop blaming the boogyman.
4-man "pre-mades"? Three that I could identify. One was an actual merc corp farming C-Bills and said as much in text chat. They brought atlases. Classy. The other two ... one lost to my random group of PUGers, the other stomped my random group who ran off in random directions to die.
And that's the thing, as always.
The wins? People were using text chat and communicating. We stuck together. We scouted. We won.
The losses? There were half that were good games, we just happened to lose. 2 - 3 damn close down to the wire. The bad ones were where no one typed a word, Rambo'd off, and died.
Oddly enough ... very few AFKs and disconnects.
Now ... this is not to say trial mechs are great for new players. They aren't. Especially with PGI's inability to create a matchmaking system. I used the trial mechs to show that if you're a half-decent player not only can you PUG and do just fine, you could even do it in trial mechs.
If you don't know what you're doing, you're going to overheat, and you're going to get slaughtered. But if you do know how to play ... they're not terrible, except for maybe that Jenner. Ok, the Jenner sucks. 4xML and SHS is just bad; you can really only use 2 of them. And you're too slow to outrun enemy scouts that outgun you. The 3xERPPC awesome is ... quite frankly, awesome. You can deal some serious damage with the thing.
Again though, if PGI was capable of making it so new players would only play new players ... it'd be fine. ALl trial mechs would actually be great games, IMHO.
tl;dr - If you're a PUG, you can do just fine in this game. It takes practice, and there's a learning curve. And when you lose, it wasn't the evil "pre-made" boogyman. It was just a better team and/or better players.
Edited by Delvish, 08 December 2012 - 01:38 AM.