I was in a pug yesterday (I say that as if I'm ever not in a pug) and got in a pretty good team all around 13-15k gear score with greaters to perfects. One of our team left after getting one kill right at the start putting us into a 4v5 and it turns out their 5 was a half premade, 3 people from the same guild. But you know what, just because they were probably friends and wanted to play in the same team with eachother didn't mean they were actually good players. It turned out that we won 1000-0.
Then getting to the entire gear score thing, here we have the same problem. Gear score can be obtained easier by some due to specs and gear choice also has a big affect on it. Not to mention the fact tanicity doesn't give any gear score. As well as weapon enchantments not giving any gearscore really. I personally am currently using all blues other than my ancient weapons as they give me more choice in my stats allowing me to get them to the exact point I want to get them at. It gives me less gear score most of the time but I find it makes me better than if I had purples in those same slots getting stats I don't really want. Thing is it'd be fairly easy for me to manipulate my stats in such a way I fall to the exact cap for one of the groupings then using a perfect enhancement would just be stupidly OP against these guys.
Not to mention gear isn't everything, some players are good players and use their gear well some despite having the gear don't really know as much about the game or their class. Gear score does not mean how good someone is in PvP.
Final point, if I wanted to play with a friend in a two man premade how would that work exactly if you are categorizing premade and pugs into different matches.
If there are enough players for premades to actually q in a reasonable amount of time it makes total sense. I am all for leagues and ladders and so on for premades and a whole different random q for pugs. I just dont think there are enough people playing pvp.
Final point, if I wanted to play with a friend in a two man premade how would that work exactly if you are categorizing premade and pugs into different matches.
You would be a l33t well coordinated premade which must be relegated to playing once a day vs other equally elite premades. Kidding. Seriously, who knows. To me the only true premade is a full on guild premade that regularly plays together. But people get stomped by teams pug or premade and see more than 2 people in the same guild and it is "zomg, a zerg premade <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> club farming pugs, qq, qq, pomocy! pomocy!"
Well it is starting to get to the point where i am seeing premades about 30% of my matches. I think that if you pvp exclusivly, like i do, then it is inevitable. I am in a guild that does not pvp, so i am always pugging, but I think at this point, and if i somehow advance any higher, i will get to a point where i will never be able to win a match.
Nothing I can do about it though. It is what it is.
Join/form a pvp guild? If you pvp exclusively, why are you in a guild that doesnt do pvp? Maybe start a pvp chapter of your guild and heavily recruit for it? Plenty you can do.
Join/form a pvp guild? If you pvp exclusively, why are you in a guild that doesnt do pvp? Maybe start a pvp chapter of your guild and heavily recruit for it? Plenty you can do.
i am still in the process of equipping. I will consider it though.
Funny things in pvp tonight- was in a pug vs a guild premade, match lasted an hour, we won. It was the most epic pug I'd ever been in. No one on my team was in the same guild.
Also, during pugging, ran into some cool people. Two were from the same guild, everyone else separate guilds but the cleric. The cleric was 5k gs. FIVE K. We won one. We chatted afterwards a bit (imagine that) and it mainly revolved around getting that cleric some better gear. I chipped in some pvp cleric gear, as did the others, gave him a stack of rank 5's (which he thought was amazing, but really for me are just arty fodder). The one guy who seemed like a leader type was actually coaching this dude and the guy was listening. We played another 8 matches and won 7 of them. The 5k guy ended with a gs around 10k and is turning into a solid pvp cleric. So I guess this was a pug that turned into a premade. In the course of it, we each made new friends, learned some things, and had a blast.
What is so hard about that? If you are nice to people and social, and not a jerk, you get friends. Which become a premade. It seems so natural that it is almost odd that it isnt a more normal outcome.
it's been suggested before and i agree that there just needs to be a custom match option. premades can fight each other however and whenever they want. don't want to pug? don't pug. if i recall, panderus said this may be something that can be easily added since the option exists in STO, but you definitely won't see it until after mod3 drops.
Tbh even when not pugging, pvp can still have depressing results.
Tbh even when not pugging, pvp can still have depressing results.
by custom match, i mean if ten, eight or six people in my guild want to go a few pvp rounds, we could set up a match to fight each other. 3v3, 4v4 or 5v5. or an even number of people from your friends list. a public channel. wherever.
as far as depressing results goes... someone always wins and someone always loses. if the value of the experience is in deficit or if the winning and losing don't balance out then i might want to rethink my game plan.
until they add a pug(solo) queue its a lopsided pvp game were premades farm pugs.
Premades should have to face other premades not get a handout for the easy win against pugs.
Sure there are some premades that want to actually face other premades for a challenge,but that is rare.Most of the time they just want a free ride.
So another week or so of trying out various strategies in PvP and I keep coming to this conclusion. Whenever either team has any premade group the game is lopsided and AFKing/quitting happens. Perhaps unsurprisingly the PvE guilds are more likely to have 4+ in their premade. The PvP guilds like mine, Chocolate Shoppe, usually don't bother with more than two people because we know the matches won't be fun. Not that we aren't guilty of occasionally pug stomping when bored but we call it that because we know it will be hopelessly one-sided.
It's worth noting that even when we duo queue we are likely to ROFL-stomp any pug or PvE premade unless they have a degenerate mix of melee (esp GWF and TRs). I think this is more evidence that even queuing with a friend should put you into the competitive/pre-made queue.
A competitive pre-made queue would be great for when we are bored, also, more fun fighting some real matches instead of 15seconds battling a PUG on 2 and then waiting five minutes for the match to end.
BTW Not sure why people are so hung up on gearscore. When we are bored we sometimes take all our gear off except our weapons and still have no problem crushing PUGs. In my opinion the order of importance for winning is Coordination (i.e. strategy) > Skill (tactics) > Class > Gear.
Not that we aren't guilty of occasionally pug stomping when bored but we call it that because we know it will be hopelessly one-sided.
Don't do that. Really. If you're that bored, then go bash trolls in Sharandar or something instead of bashing real people in PVP. That is the type of attitude that contributes to PVP's negative image.
It's especially annoying in lower brackets. Yesterday I fought out 5 consecutive matches against (partial) premades in 40-49. The population there is slim, so matchmaking puts anybody together regardless of rating. Because I recognized the names I convinced my team to not score a single point in the last match. After a minute or two of rants on the other side, the premade started leaving / disconnecting. We went on, captured the points and won the match. It's actually a pretty decent strategy to <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> off these guys that way and I will definitely look into it a bit more in the future.
That's also why I brief everybody to rush to two and ignore home. If you encounter a premade, there's a decent chance you won't score a point and they are not getting any glory. Sure sounds fair to me.
I prefer a very strict matchmaking. If there are no equal players to go against, then you can't play at that very moment. Given same skill, the players of premades will always have a better rating than solos, so they will soon run into very long queue times or don't find anybody to play against at all and have to switch chars or try solo themselves.
This does mean the two buddies that want to play together will end up facing stiffer competition. That is fair, though. Playing with your friend is already a competitive advantage. The only group really hurt by this are the pug stompers.
I queue up with a friend ( we're new btw, we just hit 60 and our best characters have 10k gear score, so it's not like we're stomping people in pvp ), and to be honest, I just really want to play with him. I wouldn't even care if we were against each others.
I wish there was an option to queue together in a match, regardless of the team. So sometime we'd be on the same team, sometime against each others.
But if we queue solo, sometime we're not even in the same game ( especially now, with the new ELO thing system, if we don't have very similar winrate, we won't get matched together at all ).
And that's the problem with this system.
We would have to either queue solo, and risks not even playing in the same game... Or queue together, and sometime be matched up against a 15k+ gear score elite premade.
I queue up with a friend ( we're new btw, we just hit 60 and our best characters have 10k gear score, so it's not like we're stomping people in pvp ), and to be honest, I just really want to play with him. I wouldn't even care if we were against each others.
I wish there was an option to queue together in a match, regardless of the team. So sometime we'd be on the same team, sometime against each others.
But if we queue solo, sometime we're not even in the same game ( especially now, with the new ELO thing system, if we don't have very similar winrate, we won't get matched together at all ).
And that's the problem with this system.
We would have to either queue solo, and risks not even playing in the same game... Or queue together, and sometime be matched up against a 15k+ gear score elite premade.
You already have that risk today. The risk will be concentrated to spare single queuers that fate. As a duo, however, you are way better equipped to deal with it than any single queuer and you are, all else being equal, much stronger than two equally geared solo queuer so playing against them isn't really fair. If you happen to be a gwf and your friend is a gwf you are likely to ROFLstomp the other pugs because the matchmaking system tries to rainbow the group mix.
Nothing about this prevents you from playing with your friend. Feel free. It would just toss you in with and against other people playing with their friends. What can be more fair than that?
I strongly agree that premades should have their queue, and pugs another queue you can join only when out of any Group.
It's not just a matter of gear. When you go pug, you get a matchup and a random Group decided by the system.
When people form premades looking for specific classes and gear score (yes, in lfg chat you can see it happening), they can, for example, build up a 4 tanks-1 tank DC groups with specific builds. And 99% of the time these premades have a huge advantage not just in gear and experience, but in class composition too, over a random pug.
It's fine if someone wants to form a premade Group and have a competitive match. And so, a premade queue is even better for them.
If on the other hand, someone forms premades and go pug just to roflstomp people and get easy glory, then sorry, i hope one day this will be over. So you either try your luck in a true random pug or you go premade vs premade.
Another funny thing I am finding which makes me think the elo is working on some level, when we q a full on guild premade we usually end up vs a full on guild premade. OR we end up against like 2 tornado of souls, 2 eoas, and a chocolate stand. Which means a seriously difficult pug group. All premades aren't the same, all pugs arent the same. That latter type pug I mentioned (2 tos, 2eoa, 1 cs) is going to annihilate almost any pug they come across.
So lets make separate q's for pugs and premades so that latter type pug can stomp other pugs into bloody holes in the ground? Nope. Lets encourage the devs to keep tweaking elo to get something that works consistently well. Lets actually HELP the willing and polite, but otherwise hapless 6k gs players that end up on our pug teams. And lets have some patience. They are giving us open world pvp. You are going to have a premade there or you are going to be like a cannibal victim in a walking dead episode.
EDIT:
ALSO, a separate premade q means friends who do dailies together because they are friends, but who are mainly pve, are going to be shredded in a premade q, pretty consistently.
To me, the solution is NOT separate q's for pugs and premades but (again) a ranked league q and an unranked q. League could be very simple. You register your guild and when you have 3+ in the same guild you can only q that group as a ranked match. The unranked q would be exactly as it is now. Ranked matches would earn more rewards. That means the hardcore pvp'ers would always want to play a ranked match. Casual players would want to do their dailies and <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> around pvp with their friends and would just q unranked.
As it is now we have Major League teams playing games against pickup squads of guys from the pub, and an elo system that tries to somehow make sense of the scores and match teams. A League would mean those guys from the pub can play their unranked match for some fun and ad and not have to ever even see a major league team. If you know American football, Imagine getting together a casual game with guys from the local bar, or from work (whatever). You get to the field and on the other side you see the Seattle Seahawks full on, waiting to just kill you. Your not even gonna get off the bench. Thats about what we have now.
Another funny thing I am finding which makes me think the elo is working on some level, when we q a full on guild premade we usually end up vs a full on guild premade. OR we end up against like 2 tornado of souls, 2 eoas, and a chocolate stand. Which means a seriously difficult pug group. All premades aren't the same, all pugs arent the same. That latter type pug I mentioned (2 tos, 2eoa, 1 cs) is going to annihilate almost any pug they come across.
The later would be a premade because the ToS or EoAers likely duo queued. I think it is fine to let single queuers ask to be included in premade queue to fill it out but it must be an option. I, for one, would likely do that all day long when not queuing with my fellow CSers.
All premades may not be alike but they are all better than solo queuers simply because of coordination and composition. Yes occasionally you get lucky and end up in a PUG with four top players from four random PvP guilds. ELO will help there. ELO cannot address the huge boost anyone gets when queue with friends and queued with degenerate compositions.
I think they could have both the premades and pugs separation and the gs separation. so you would have 4 main groups. pugs 0-12kgs, pugs 12.k+gs, premades 0-12kgs and premades 12k+gs.
The other option is to have 2 types of pvp, unranked pvp where it's everyone against everyone, and ranked pvp with better systems so you face people of your level.
I think they could have both the premades and pugs separation and the gs separation. so you would have 4 main groups. pugs 0-12kgs, pugs 12.k+gs, premades 0-12kgs and premades 12k+gs.
The other option is to have 2 types of pvp, unranked pvp where it's everyone against everyone, and ranked pvp with better systems so you face people of your level.
Thing is, if the ELO wouldn't match down/up when it's unable to find competition, further GS separation would not be needed. Sure, a player without rating would receive more balanced matches in the first games, but that's it. Also you can imagine that players might just strip down to a lower bracket to get easier opponents.
If Cryptic is concerned about queue times under a strict matchmaking, give the player an option whether it is wanted to be matched up/down or not. You just want to play? Match me up with anybody no matter. Otherwise take longer queues and a balanced match.
A premade/solo separation is mandatory under the current system, everything else is just silly. This has been long requested in the preview section and received notable consensus. You also want a challenge system for full premades.
There might be concerns that the challenge queue could be exploited for glory (generating 15 min wins back and forth with high points), so we suggested to cut glory from these matches and maybe introduce a team rating instead.
It's really not that complicated from a logical standpoint.
Hey, and while you're at it, why not think about allowing 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 as well (+challenge -glory)? Simple changes that would make PVP that much better. It's really sad that withstanding continued feedback (some of) these things didn't make the PVP patch. And now it's also too late for Mod3 which means PVP is bound to go downhill for the foreseeing future.
The later would be a premade because the ToS or EoAers likely duo queued. I think it is fine to let single queuers ask to be included in premade queue to fill it out but it must be an option. I, for one, would likely do that all day long when not queuing with my fellow CSers.
All premades may not be alike but they are all better than solo queuers simply because of coordination and composition. Yes occasionally you get lucky and end up in a PUG with four top players from four random PvP guilds. ELO will help there. ELO cannot address the huge boost anyone gets when queue with friends and queued with degenerate compositions.
I see what you mean, though I would still rather have a basic ranked league than a separate premade q. Most especially with the incoming leader boards. The premades will be getting serious about every match and beating a "top ten" guild in a long match will mean so much more than just the pride and virtual rep for your guild in the community. If they separate q's, they should be different brackets, or the pugs shouldnt count towards wins on the leaderboard at all. Or you will have those two guildies pugging together to carry whatever 50/50 team they get, and shred pugs. It happens now and quing with 1 other guildy in what is otherwise a pug can make for some challenge when you end up in a team of scrubs. How would we go about defining "premade"? Anything other quing totally alone?
I'm beginning to think there should be some sort of GS gating for new players with no ELO rating yet. Last night I was pugging with my 12.4k GS CW and ended up in a couple of matches with a 15k GS GF. Our three teammates for one match were all well below 10k GS (two of them around 8.5k) and in the second we had 2 teammates around 8-9k GS and one guy sitting at 6k GS. Most of these guys were rocking PVE blues and greens with empty enchant slots.
I was facing a problem. A team ... GF / GF / DC / TR / TR, playing like : 2GFs + DC in mid , HRs one each side (perma stealth ofc - runners = max run speed). My team was 16k+ gs and seing that I was like "hell yeah - what a team". You can imagine the rest - they were always having 2 caps out of 3 .. ALWAYS.
Sugestions : balance that and you will have pvp. And we need to see more fighters - I'm tired of fighting "runners".
If you see this and have the answer - PM me or answer real quick because this post will be removed
I just played 4 quick matches before the shard went down - 2 premade's that roflstomped our pug group back to back. Last one was a legit PuG v PuG, but stupid one sided again (in my teams favour).
So... hows this matching thing working out for everyone else? :P
I'm beginning to think there should be some sort of GS gating for new players with no ELO rating yet. Last night I was pugging with my 12.4k GS CW and ended up in a couple of matches with a 15k GS GF. Our three teammates for one match were all well below 10k GS (two of them around 8.5k) and in the second we had 2 teammates around 8-9k GS and one guy sitting at 6k GS. Most of these guys were rocking PVE blues and greens with empty enchant slots.
Needless to say we lost both matches heavily.
This happened to me yesterday also. No tank for a few matches, then finally there is a tank on the team. The team was bad (bad bad bad), and I did my best. Towards the end I checked my teams gs. A 10k..ok, a 12k, a 9k...then the tank 5k. No really 5k. Yep at the very very least there should be a minimum gs score to do level 60 pvp.
Maybe they could add a system that could allow to party leaders invite a PvP match to another party leader, and if you don't find a party to match with, then just queue to PvP and you may find PUG or premade, but I can't think a way that couldn't affect the time you queue in PvP, cause a change like that will make that a lot of parties will try to search another premades to fight.
Another funny thing I am finding which makes me think the elo is working on some level, when we q a full on guild That latter type pug I mentioned (2 tos, 2eoa, 1 cs) is going to annihilate almost any pug they come across.
So lets make separate q's for pugs and premades so that latter type pug can stomp other pugs into bloody holes in the ground? Nope.
You really think that 2-2-1 or mixed groups from strong guilds are "pugs"?
Or, for example, more like they meet/ communicate and preform a team? Premades are not only the full guild ones.
For example, if you go to PE during PvP delve you can read the lfg where people look for 14-15k players of specific classes and builds for PvP.
So, forcing people who form a Group and then queue for PvP, to queue in a premade only queue, is extremely fair.
And force the rest of the players to be out of a Group to be able to queue for real pug PvP.
Yes, there are premades that suck or are weak. Then there's the ELO system, coupling them with a comparable premade, if available.
Also: if you pug solo like i do, it's the ELO system that decides the composition of your Group. So, if by chance the Group you mentioned is not a premade (and i would say not a chance such strong players are grouped together randomly, but let's assume that's the case), but is formed automatically by ELO system, then it's to match it with a Group with comparable strenght. Else, the ELO would scramble them and Group them with weaker players.
If your premade is strong, the ELO will form a strong pug to face you. Not a chance the ELO would form a pug with elite PvPers to face a random pug.
Right now, when an elite team faces off a random pug, it's cause they formed a premade, the ELO couldn't find strong enough groups/ players to match them, and eventually coupled them with a random pug.
Just a note: such random pug to face the strong premade, may even be formed by 14-15k GS players, but since GS means not much in PvP, they could just be geared nabs or geared PvE players doing the daily. And they will easily get dominated.
The point is, if people is forced to queue for pug only when out of a Group, it's the system that entirely decides team composition and matchup.
If some people can organize and for premades, be them full-guild or through alliances/ friends/ LFG chat, they have a 100% Assurance that their Group will work at its max, and they have a much higher chance to end up against a weaker team if ELO can't find a proper matchup or if the pug chosen as a matchup has strong individuals but eventually can't work together/ communicate well enough.
Yes, cause another difference from organized premades and pugs is that often they have vocal communication, expecially the ones from top guilds. A full premade from a strong guild going pug can even be matched against other top players. But if the guild has instant communication through teamspeak/ ventrillo exc... and the other team have only the game chat, they have a huge advantage. Example: it's quite different to be able to instantly tell your mates where they are needed and what is happening, or write it in chat. Which is obviously why top guilds require the use of vocal chat for both PvP and PvE.
Comments
Then getting to the entire gear score thing, here we have the same problem. Gear score can be obtained easier by some due to specs and gear choice also has a big affect on it. Not to mention the fact tanicity doesn't give any gear score. As well as weapon enchantments not giving any gearscore really. I personally am currently using all blues other than my ancient weapons as they give me more choice in my stats allowing me to get them to the exact point I want to get them at. It gives me less gear score most of the time but I find it makes me better than if I had purples in those same slots getting stats I don't really want. Thing is it'd be fairly easy for me to manipulate my stats in such a way I fall to the exact cap for one of the groupings then using a perfect enhancement would just be stupidly OP against these guys.
Not to mention gear isn't everything, some players are good players and use their gear well some despite having the gear don't really know as much about the game or their class. Gear score does not mean how good someone is in PvP.
Final point, if I wanted to play with a friend in a two man premade how would that work exactly if you are categorizing premade and pugs into different matches.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's
Jugger Conq GF
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You would be a l33t well coordinated premade which must be relegated to playing once a day vs other equally elite premades. Kidding. Seriously, who knows. To me the only true premade is a full on guild premade that regularly plays together. But people get stomped by teams pug or premade and see more than 2 people in the same guild and it is "zomg, a zerg premade <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> club farming pugs, qq, qq, pomocy! pomocy!"
Jugger Conq GF
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Join/form a pvp guild? If you pvp exclusively, why are you in a guild that doesnt do pvp? Maybe start a pvp chapter of your guild and heavily recruit for it? Plenty you can do.
Jugger Conq GF
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i am still in the process of equipping. I will consider it though.
That's pretty freakin' awesome. Just sayin'.
Tbh even when not pugging, pvp can still have depressing results.
by custom match, i mean if ten, eight or six people in my guild want to go a few pvp rounds, we could set up a match to fight each other. 3v3, 4v4 or 5v5. or an even number of people from your friends list. a public channel. wherever.
as far as depressing results goes... someone always wins and someone always loses. if the value of the experience is in deficit or if the winning and losing don't balance out then i might want to rethink my game plan.
So another week or so of trying out various strategies in PvP and I keep coming to this conclusion. Whenever either team has any premade group the game is lopsided and AFKing/quitting happens. Perhaps unsurprisingly the PvE guilds are more likely to have 4+ in their premade. The PvP guilds like mine, Chocolate Shoppe, usually don't bother with more than two people because we know the matches won't be fun. Not that we aren't guilty of occasionally pug stomping when bored but we call it that because we know it will be hopelessly one-sided.
It's worth noting that even when we duo queue we are likely to ROFL-stomp any pug or PvE premade unless they have a degenerate mix of melee (esp GWF and TRs). I think this is more evidence that even queuing with a friend should put you into the competitive/pre-made queue.
A competitive pre-made queue would be great for when we are bored, also, more fun fighting some real matches instead of 15seconds battling a PUG on 2 and then waiting five minutes for the match to end.
BTW Not sure why people are so hung up on gearscore. When we are bored we sometimes take all our gear off except our weapons and still have no problem crushing PUGs. In my opinion the order of importance for winning is Coordination (i.e. strategy) > Skill (tactics) > Class > Gear.
Don't do that. Really. If you're that bored, then go bash trolls in Sharandar or something instead of bashing real people in PVP. That is the type of attitude that contributes to PVP's negative image.
That's also why I brief everybody to rush to two and ignore home. If you encounter a premade, there's a decent chance you won't score a point and they are not getting any glory. Sure sounds fair to me.
I prefer a very strict matchmaking. If there are no equal players to go against, then you can't play at that very moment. Given same skill, the players of premades will always have a better rating than solos, so they will soon run into very long queue times or don't find anybody to play against at all and have to switch chars or try solo themselves.
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"
I queue up with a friend ( we're new btw, we just hit 60 and our best characters have 10k gear score, so it's not like we're stomping people in pvp ), and to be honest, I just really want to play with him. I wouldn't even care if we were against each others.
I wish there was an option to queue together in a match, regardless of the team. So sometime we'd be on the same team, sometime against each others.
But if we queue solo, sometime we're not even in the same game ( especially now, with the new ELO thing system, if we don't have very similar winrate, we won't get matched together at all ).
And that's the problem with this system.
We would have to either queue solo, and risks not even playing in the same game... Or queue together, and sometime be matched up against a 15k+ gear score elite premade.
You already have that risk today. The risk will be concentrated to spare single queuers that fate. As a duo, however, you are way better equipped to deal with it than any single queuer and you are, all else being equal, much stronger than two equally geared solo queuer so playing against them isn't really fair. If you happen to be a gwf and your friend is a gwf you are likely to ROFLstomp the other pugs because the matchmaking system tries to rainbow the group mix.
Nothing about this prevents you from playing with your friend. Feel free. It would just toss you in with and against other people playing with their friends. What can be more fair than that?
It's not just a matter of gear. When you go pug, you get a matchup and a random Group decided by the system.
When people form premades looking for specific classes and gear score (yes, in lfg chat you can see it happening), they can, for example, build up a 4 tanks-1 tank DC groups with specific builds. And 99% of the time these premades have a huge advantage not just in gear and experience, but in class composition too, over a random pug.
It's fine if someone wants to form a premade Group and have a competitive match. And so, a premade queue is even better for them.
If on the other hand, someone forms premades and go pug just to roflstomp people and get easy glory, then sorry, i hope one day this will be over. So you either try your luck in a true random pug or you go premade vs premade.
Only fair, if you ask me.
So lets make separate q's for pugs and premades so that latter type pug can stomp other pugs into bloody holes in the ground? Nope. Lets encourage the devs to keep tweaking elo to get something that works consistently well. Lets actually HELP the willing and polite, but otherwise hapless 6k gs players that end up on our pug teams. And lets have some patience. They are giving us open world pvp. You are going to have a premade there or you are going to be like a cannibal victim in a walking dead episode.
EDIT:
ALSO, a separate premade q means friends who do dailies together because they are friends, but who are mainly pve, are going to be shredded in a premade q, pretty consistently.
To me, the solution is NOT separate q's for pugs and premades but (again) a ranked league q and an unranked q. League could be very simple. You register your guild and when you have 3+ in the same guild you can only q that group as a ranked match. The unranked q would be exactly as it is now. Ranked matches would earn more rewards. That means the hardcore pvp'ers would always want to play a ranked match. Casual players would want to do their dailies and <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> around pvp with their friends and would just q unranked.
As it is now we have Major League teams playing games against pickup squads of guys from the pub, and an elo system that tries to somehow make sense of the scores and match teams. A League would mean those guys from the pub can play their unranked match for some fun and ad and not have to ever even see a major league team. If you know American football, Imagine getting together a casual game with guys from the local bar, or from work (whatever). You get to the field and on the other side you see the Seattle Seahawks full on, waiting to just kill you. Your not even gonna get off the bench. Thats about what we have now.
We need a League, not separate pug/premade q's.
Jugger Conq GF
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The later would be a premade because the ToS or EoAers likely duo queued. I think it is fine to let single queuers ask to be included in premade queue to fill it out but it must be an option. I, for one, would likely do that all day long when not queuing with my fellow CSers.
All premades may not be alike but they are all better than solo queuers simply because of coordination and composition. Yes occasionally you get lucky and end up in a PUG with four top players from four random PvP guilds. ELO will help there. ELO cannot address the huge boost anyone gets when queue with friends and queued with degenerate compositions.
The other option is to have 2 types of pvp, unranked pvp where it's everyone against everyone, and ranked pvp with better systems so you face people of your level.
Thing is, if the ELO wouldn't match down/up when it's unable to find competition, further GS separation would not be needed. Sure, a player without rating would receive more balanced matches in the first games, but that's it. Also you can imagine that players might just strip down to a lower bracket to get easier opponents.
If Cryptic is concerned about queue times under a strict matchmaking, give the player an option whether it is wanted to be matched up/down or not. You just want to play? Match me up with anybody no matter. Otherwise take longer queues and a balanced match.
A premade/solo separation is mandatory under the current system, everything else is just silly. This has been long requested in the preview section and received notable consensus. You also want a challenge system for full premades.
There might be concerns that the challenge queue could be exploited for glory (generating 15 min wins back and forth with high points), so we suggested to cut glory from these matches and maybe introduce a team rating instead.
It's really not that complicated from a logical standpoint.
Hey, and while you're at it, why not think about allowing 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 as well (+challenge -glory)? Simple changes that would make PVP that much better. It's really sad that withstanding continued feedback (some of) these things didn't make the PVP patch. And now it's also too late for Mod3 which means PVP is bound to go downhill for the foreseeing future.
I see what you mean, though I would still rather have a basic ranked league than a separate premade q. Most especially with the incoming leader boards. The premades will be getting serious about every match and beating a "top ten" guild in a long match will mean so much more than just the pride and virtual rep for your guild in the community. If they separate q's, they should be different brackets, or the pugs shouldnt count towards wins on the leaderboard at all. Or you will have those two guildies pugging together to carry whatever 50/50 team they get, and shred pugs. It happens now and quing with 1 other guildy in what is otherwise a pug can make for some challenge when you end up in a team of scrubs. How would we go about defining "premade"? Anything other quing totally alone?
Jugger Conq GF
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Needless to say we lost both matches heavily.
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
Yeah this is a good idea. They would naturally attract premades away from regular pvp.
I was facing a problem. A team ... GF / GF / DC / TR / TR, playing like : 2GFs + DC in mid , HRs one each side (perma stealth ofc - runners = max run speed). My team was 16k+ gs and seing that I was like "hell yeah - what a team". You can imagine the rest - they were always having 2 caps out of 3 .. ALWAYS.
Sugestions : balance that and you will have pvp. And we need to see more fighters - I'm tired of fighting "runners".
So... hows this matching thing working out for everyone else? :P
This happened to me yesterday also. No tank for a few matches, then finally there is a tank on the team. The team was bad (bad bad bad), and I did my best. Towards the end I checked my teams gs. A 10k..ok, a 12k, a 9k...then the tank 5k. No really 5k. Yep at the very very least there should be a minimum gs score to do level 60 pvp.
Jugger Conq GF
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You really think that 2-2-1 or mixed groups from strong guilds are "pugs"?
Or, for example, more like they meet/ communicate and preform a team? Premades are not only the full guild ones.
For example, if you go to PE during PvP delve you can read the lfg where people look for 14-15k players of specific classes and builds for PvP.
So, forcing people who form a Group and then queue for PvP, to queue in a premade only queue, is extremely fair.
And force the rest of the players to be out of a Group to be able to queue for real pug PvP.
Yes, there are premades that suck or are weak. Then there's the ELO system, coupling them with a comparable premade, if available.
Also: if you pug solo like i do, it's the ELO system that decides the composition of your Group. So, if by chance the Group you mentioned is not a premade (and i would say not a chance such strong players are grouped together randomly, but let's assume that's the case), but is formed automatically by ELO system, then it's to match it with a Group with comparable strenght. Else, the ELO would scramble them and Group them with weaker players.
If your premade is strong, the ELO will form a strong pug to face you. Not a chance the ELO would form a pug with elite PvPers to face a random pug.
Right now, when an elite team faces off a random pug, it's cause they formed a premade, the ELO couldn't find strong enough groups/ players to match them, and eventually coupled them with a random pug.
Just a note: such random pug to face the strong premade, may even be formed by 14-15k GS players, but since GS means not much in PvP, they could just be geared nabs or geared PvE players doing the daily. And they will easily get dominated.
The point is, if people is forced to queue for pug only when out of a Group, it's the system that entirely decides team composition and matchup.
If some people can organize and for premades, be them full-guild or through alliances/ friends/ LFG chat, they have a 100% Assurance that their Group will work at its max, and they have a much higher chance to end up against a weaker team if ELO can't find a proper matchup or if the pug chosen as a matchup has strong individuals but eventually can't work together/ communicate well enough.
Yes, cause another difference from organized premades and pugs is that often they have vocal communication, expecially the ones from top guilds. A full premade from a strong guild going pug can even be matched against other top players. But if the guild has instant communication through teamspeak/ ventrillo exc... and the other team have only the game chat, they have a huge advantage. Example: it's quite different to be able to instantly tell your mates where they are needed and what is happening, or write it in chat. Which is obviously why top guilds require the use of vocal chat for both PvP and PvE.