Official answer to premades pugstomping in normal WZs

[Xooey]

If I were Anthony I'd get a solid giggle at this thread.

[Erasimus]

WoW was launched in 2004. It is now 2014. This game just celebrated its 2 yr anniversary. Not truly comparable. Hell WoW didn't have BGs for a significant period of time post launch and relied on a massively painful grind centered around mostly world pvp.

 

Now this game, for what it cost to develop, and considering the standards set since 2004, fell short of where it should've been....but that doesn't negate the fact your comparing a significantly more matured game.

 

Now I like SWTOR but the above is simply not true. If you enjoyed PvP, even on a PvE server, there were almost always epic battles going even in Vanilla WoW at Tarren Mill/Southshore or the Crossroads. I've had some fun confrontations in Molten Core (can't beat MC'ing someone into the lava, until Blizzard put a stop to that )

 

While WoW PvP has had its ups and downs I feel they've found a pretty good balance between casual and hardcore PvP crowds. SWTOR would, in my opinion, do well to emulate the forumla.

 

Part of the issue in SWTOR is the much smaller PvP community and the inability to implement cross sever queues. I often have to wait 5-10 minutes even on my high pop server and then, more often than not, I'll get a 4 person death match, and I don't do those in PuGs. In WoW as alliance 30-40 seconds per queue is normal, up to a whole minute or two during off peak times. With a lot more variety. So that's where I do a good portion of my PvP.

 

PvP is pretty popular with casual players and pretty painful against a pre-made. With the smaller WZs in SWTOR, especially Death Matches, small differences in team composition make a much bigger difference. Without the casual PvP'ers the queues will just get longer and longer. So it would benefit the community and SWTOR to figure out a way to make PuG matches a bit more balanced.

 

P.S. And they really need to put a tea-bag emote in just for PvP

Edited January 19, 2014 by Erasimus

[Carter_Mathis]

You do realize that's a No Win argument, right? If PvP community is and never will be large enough to support the bare minimum of acceptable queues -- actually the number of queues they have right now -- then PvP has utterly failed and should be discarded. PERIOD. You might as well just cut to the chase and quit either way. I will never accept that; the day I do is the day I walk away from PvP altogether.

 

If you do PvP well, then the players will show up to support it. Any other argument is the death of PvP as a whole.

 

Yeah, a good pvp system should cause people to come to the game or stick around, but queue separation is just another way of doing pvp wrong. It doesn't accomodate the skill disparity, only a good matchmaking system does that. Go check the old QQ threads, any poster with a brain advocated matchmaking over separation and some offered good methods.

 

That's all well and good. It doesn't change the fact that we both have a right to a fair and competitive match when we press that queue button. I pay the exact same fifteen dollars a month as you do; my choice of play style is just as valid as yours. If I want to play with strangers and meet new people, I have every damn right. I shouldn't be forced to find a group of people to play with me just so I can have an even chance of winning. Hell, if I wanted to do that I would be playing operations.

 

All of that can be applied to groups as well. My guild gets new recruits by being randomly thrown in with at least 4 people each match. I moderately enjoy meeting new people, it sometimes ends well. What right do you have to say that I never get to see 4 potential friends?

 

And what do you think queue separation would solve? Good players would still crush bad ones. Good premades don't beat pugs because they get a buff from being grouped, they win because they're better. The vast majority of skilled players don't solo queue, which is apparent because premades aren't whining about how they're getting trounced by pugs and pugs complain that they can't beat those godly premades. Watering down pvp with a solo queue bracket and leaving a ghost-town group queue bracket isn't any way to make pvp better.

[Telaan]

Now I like SWTOR but the above is simply not true. If you enjoyed PvP, even on a PvE server, there were almost always epic battles going even in Vanilla WoW at Tarren Mill/Southshore or the Crossroads. I've had some fun confrontations in Molten Core (can't beat MC'ing someone into the lava, until Blizzard put a stop to that )

 

While WoW PvP has had its ups and downs I feel they've found a pretty good balance between casual and hardcore PvP crowds. SWTOR would, in my opinion, do well to emulate the forumla.

 

Part of the issue in SWTOR is the much smaller PvP community and the inability to implement cross sever queues. I often have to wait 5-10 minutes even on my high pop server and then, more often than not, I'll get a 4 person death match, and I don't do those in PuGs. In WoW as alliance 30-40 seconds per queue is normal, up to a whole minute or two during off peak times. With a lot more variety. So that's where I do a good portion of my PvP.

 

PvP is pretty popular with casual players and pretty painful against a pre-made. With the smaller WZs in SWTOR, especially Death Matches, small differences in team composition make a much bigger difference. Without the casual PvP'ers the queues will just get longer and longer. So it would benefit the community and SWTOR to figure out a way to make PuG matches a bit more balanced.

 

P.S. And they really need to put a tea-bag emote in just for PvP

 

I agree with most if what you said. You're mistaking the enjoyment received from pvp with the painful grind associated with the ranks during that period. The pvp was fun, the grind associated with the ranks was not.

 

Regardless, this game and that is not truly comparable. This game takes theme park to an extreme that I thought had already been reached by WoW. This game while similar in many ways is also too fundamentally different to ever mimic the type of pvp at xroads, Tauren mills, or even the capital cities.

 

Anyway, the ************ would never end. Most the bads whining in this thread about premades are actually be stomped by pugs who are simply good players and play the objectives.

 

Additionally there are no true premades in this game as the max queue-able group of people is four and all non-arenas are 8v8. And lastly inbeforecryingaboutsuperqueues.....

Edited January 19, 2014 by Telaan

[Telaan]

Making suggestions to improve the game is a more productive approach.

 

You don't have to worry about premades in class stories. You're welcome.

[SlightlySychotic]

Making suggestions to improve the game is a more productive approach.

 

Couldn't have put it better myself.

 

Your opinion of fair is biased.

 

Fact: MMO definition = A massively multiplayer online game. A computer game in which a large number of players can simultaneously interact in a persistent world or can potentially play against a large number of players..

 

Keyword of a mmo is Mutiplayer.

 

Solo Q = roll of the dice, you may win some, or you may lose some, your choose to solo Q without guild mates or friends is your prerogative.

 

Premade = playing with guild mates or friends to enjoy the game as a group, it also is a premades prerogative to do so.

 

Bottom line, if you complain about premades in a mmo, then a mmo isn't for you.

 

Look at the definition of a mmo before you complain what a mmo is.

 

It's amazing how someone can actually state the crux of the problem yet fail to understand it so horribly.

 

First of all, PLEASE drop the argument that premades in PvP are more appropriate for the social atmosphere of an MMO. First, it's insulting; second, it's just not true. I could just as easily state that playing with a broad variety of new and different people is far more appropriate to the spirit of what an MMO is, and that premades are just isolationist cliques that refuse to interact with new people and are fundamentally poisoning the atmosphere of the game and that they would be far better off playing a smaller scale game like CoD or L4D or Diablo. But that's just my opinion just like your opinion. Neither one is actually true; just different points of view of the same reality. And the sooner we accept that the sooner we can move on and see a little closer eye-to-eye. Just don't come back and say, "But my opinion is fact and yours isn't," because I'll just come back with, "No, my opinion is right and yours is wrong." And we'll just keep going back and forth until the heat death of the universe.

 

However, to the crux of the problem, you are exactly right: I am taking a chance when I queue as a solo player. I completely understand that and accept it. I take the chance that the skill level of my opponents might exceed that of myself and my teammates. I understand that I might get into a match where the role balance and class break on one team might be far more advantageous than the other. I have to hope that the other players on my team know what they're doing, have decent connections, and aren't going to be affected by any sort of distractions on their end. I understand all that and I accept it.

Do you know why? I can accept that because if every other player is queuing solo, they take the exact same risks as I do. Fate might screw them over and they might screw me over but the odds are good that random chance will leave neither side with a profound advantage. Because at the end of the day, it's completely fair.

 

That's also why premades completely screw up that fair balance. They guarantee that at least half their team will be people they know and trust. Hell, I'll even admit that most premade players are better than average; that just guarantees four good players on their side. The especially good ones will make sure they're premade is role balanced, and the really serious ones will even be in voice chat. They will have stacked the deck in their favor. I may be rolling the dice but they're using loaded dice. There's a word for people who have an advantage over the majority of other players: cheating.

 

But I won't go there. I don't want to. I want it to stay at, "My way of playing is perfectly valid and so is yours." I just want us both to be able to press that queue button and know that we have an equal chance for a fair and even match. And that means separate queues.

[Speedyconnor]

I just got off the phone with Anthony in Austin, Texas.

He said and I quote,

 

"We have no intention of removing group queues from normal war zones. People have a right to group with their friendts and play as a group."

 

My responce was colourful to say the least and I will not be renewing my subscription based on this answer.

It seems BW figures the solo community is not worth concerning themselves with so I call out to all of you who are fed up with this to also cancel your subscriptions.

 

If you don't cancel your account and wish to continue being farmed in normal WZs, just know that you have been warned. So don't bother posting about it because they (BW) don't care and you will be wasting your time.

 

It's best to just move on to a game that respects ALL its players and treats them equally well by providing a fair playing field for everyone. After all this is supposed to be a game and being frustrated by the continuous trouncing by the same untalented group members over and over is hardly fun.

 

I welcome people to list games that they know have a better PvP system and leave this game to be what it was intended to be in the first place. A multiplayer solo game.

 

From what I can tell, your issue stems from your own inability to take advantage of the MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER aspect of this game. Complaining about the fact that you cannot individually control a TEAM game will not change things, nor can you argue against that fact. Warzones are intentionally designed to be played as a team - otherwise, the queues would match you up for 1v1 duels. Something that people do not play MMOs for. If you are blaming the developers for either your own lack of skill, or that fact that other players are joining together with their friends, you have another thing coming. The beautiful thing about getting together with friends and using programs such as Ventrilo or TeamSpeak is that it enables you and your team to compete on a higher level via increased communication and organization. In my eyes, the only thing you are doing is telling the community and the devs that you are a selfish, ignorant individual who believes that this game - and most likely the entire world - revolves around meeting your irrational expectations and needs. Thank you for joining warzones though, as I do rather enjoy playing with a few close friends and stomping on solo players like yourself and I hope to see you on the battlefield so that I may /laugh at your corpse every time you die.

 

I recommend making some friends, joining a guild, or just getting better at playing the game because you clearly do not fully comprehend it. If none of these options seem viable to you, I suggest you go pick up a console and a copy of either Assassin's Creed or Call of Duty, where you do not need to rely on a team for the purpose of a team-based match! Or maybe pick up a bottle of lube to ease your pain.

 

Good day.

Edited January 19, 2014 by Speedyconnor

[Moosestick]

But I won't go there. I don't want to. I want it to stay at, "My way of playing is perfectly valid and so is yours." I just want us both to be able to press that queue button and know that we have an equal chance for a fair and even match. And that means separate queues.

 

If premades always win no matter what in your world, then rejoice. There is just as good of a chance that you will be on their team. There you go. otherwise, man up and realize that if you lose most of your matches, it probably is not premades. You should look in a mirror and find what the common error is.

Edited January 19, 2014 by Moosestick

[Carter_Mathis]

However, to the crux of the problem, you are exactly right: I am taking a chance when I queue as a solo player. I completely understand that and accept it. I take the chance that the skill level of my opponents might exceed that of myself and my teammates. I understand that I might get into a match where the role balance and class break on one team might be far more advantageous than the other. I have to hope that the other players on my team know what they're doing, have decent connections, and aren't going to be affected by any sort of distractions on their end. I understand all that and I accept it.

Do you know why? I can accept that because if every other player is queuing solo, they take the exact same risks as I do. Fate might screw them over and they might screw me over but the odds are good that random chance will leave neither side with a profound advantage. Because at the end of the day, it's completely fair.

 

This just in: You also get queued into groups with premades. Additionally, premades have just as much a chance of fighting other premades as you do.

 

That's also why premades completely screw up that fair balance. They guarantee that at least half their team will be people they know and trust. Hell, I'll even admit that most premade players are better than average; that just guarantees four good players on their side. The especially good ones will make sure they're premade is role balanced, and the really serious ones will even be in voice chat. They will have stacked the deck in their favor. I may be rolling the dice but they're using loaded dice. There's a word for people who have an advantage over the majority of other players: cheating.

 

Cheating - "To violate rules or regulations". Premades don't do that.

 

But I won't go there. I don't want to. I want it to stay at, "My way of playing is perfectly valid and so is yours." I just want us both to be able to press that queue button and know that we have an equal chance for a fair and even match. And that means separate queues.

 

So how do you plan to deal with the logistical issues of queue separation? Groups wait forever. 3man groups wait even longer. Those casual premade get stomped by the super-serious ones you mentioned with much higher frequency than in the current system. If you want it so that super-talented, super-serious players don't mess up the experience of the untalented solostar, why don't you push for an adequate matchmaking system rather than separation?

[SlightlySychotic]

Yeah, a good pvp system should cause people to come to the game or stick around, but queue separation is just another way of doing pvp wrong. It doesn't accomodate the skill disparity, only a good matchmaking system does that. Go check the old QQ threads, any poster with a brain advocated matchmaking over separation and some offered good methods.

Of course matchmaking would solve that problem. But it has the same problem as cross-server queues: it likely would take too long to implement. We need some sort of stop gap solution right now, preferably something that can be implemented in the next three months (and good God I've been saying this for three months already). Anything longer than that, anything that can't be done in less that six months or a year -- we'll be damn lucky if there's any sort of PvP community left by the time it comes out.

 

All of that can be applied to groups as well. My guild gets new recruits by being randomly thrown in with at least 4 people each match. I moderately enjoy meeting new people, it sometimes ends well. What right do you have to say that I never get to see 4 potential friends?

I do believe I first said that the general queue should be left alone. It would be precisely for the reasons you just stated: so premades and solo players can have a certain degree of casual interaction, so new premades can form and existing ones can expand their roster.

 

And what do you think queue separation would solve? Good players would still crush bad ones. Good premades don't beat pugs because they get a buff from being grouped, they win because they're better. The vast majority of skilled players don't solo queue, which is apparent because premades aren't whining about how they're getting trounced by pugs and pugs complain that they can't beat those godly premades. Watering down pvp with a solo queue bracket and leaving a ghost-town group queue bracket isn't any way to make pvp better.

I just broached this in my last post. I completely accept as a solo player that I might get into a match where the other team might be better than me. I accept that because the inverse is true as well and because there's also a good chance that the match will be fairly balanced for both sides. If I couldn't accept these risks, then I absolutely would be seeking out a premade so I could play in the grouped queue.

 

Also, you might want to cut back on the whole "ghost-town group queue" argument. Because every time it's made all I hear is "The premades are an extreme minority of the player base and can be safely dismissed, that we can do away with any sort of premade grouping and PvP would just tick along just as well as it always does -- possibly better." And I really don't want to chase that argument because, well, first of all it's kinda mean and, second, it actually might be completely true. Because I don't see any PUG players arguing that the solo queue would be a ghost town.

[SlightlySychotic]

If premades always win no matter what in your world, then rejoice. There is just as good of a chance that you will be on their team. There you go. otherwise, man up and realize that if you lose most of your matches, it probably is not premades. You should look in a mirror and find what the common error is.

 

Speak of the devil. If premades were actually prevalent enough no one would be complaining because they'd constantly be sharing teams.

[Carter_Mathis]

Also, you might want to cut back on the whole "ghost-town group queue" argument. Because every time it's made all I hear is "The premades are an extreme minority of the player base and can be safely dismissed, that we can do away with any sort of premade grouping and PvP would just tick along just as well as it always does -- possibly better." And I really don't want to chase that argument because, well, first of all it's kinda mean and, second, it actually might be completely true. Because I don't see any PUG players arguing that the solo queue would be a ghost town.

 

I have no doubt that the game could survive just fine without the premade population, but the pvp community (that I've seen on pot5 and JC) has been almost entirely comprised of people who would be considered "premaders". They are the people who set the records, who organize ranked, and who bring some semblance of skill to the game. The grouping community could be marginalized further and TOR would survive, but it would be such a special olympics, watered-down cluster that it would hardly be worth playing.

[Carter_Mathis]

Speak of the devil. If premades were actually prevalent enough no one would be complaining because they'd constantly be sharing teams.

 

So since they aren't that prevalent, no one should complain that the small bands of premades get the occasional win against the horde of pugs?

[SlightlySychotic]

I have no doubt that the game could survive just fine without the premade population, but the pvp community (that I've seen on pot5 and JC) has been almost entirely comprised of people who would be considered "premaders". They are the people who set the records, who organize ranked, and who bring some semblance of skill to the game. The grouping community could be marginalized further and TOR would survive, but it would be such a special olympics, watered-down cluster that it would hardly be worth playing.

Petty insults are the hallmark of a losing argument.

 

So since they aren't that prevalent, no one should complain that the small bands of premades get the occasional win against the horde of pugs?

No. The problem is that you get one or two syncing up against you so that every match you play ends up against the same blasted premade. They are just prevalent enough that at the wrong time you can find yourself constantly going against them but never having one on your side. During the weekends, I'd say maybe one in every five matches are actually PUG v PUG.

[Raazmir]

Nothing in the TOS promises you pug v pug

 

Edit: There's always the solo ranked que. If there were REALLY so many people eager to avoid premades, that queue would be bumping at all hours.

Edited January 19, 2014 by Raazmir

[cashogy_reborn]

Nothing in the TOS promises you pug v pug

 

Edit: There's always the solo ranked que. If there were REALLY so many people eager to avoid premades, that queue would be bumping at all hours.

 

There is a reason you dont see good players ever complaing about any of this crap.....

[OnyxTwoSeven]

People will QQ about everything these days. How are you going to complain about group queues and premades in an MMO? Its like ************ about sand on the beach. Instead of crying, why not find a premade of your own to run with? Edited January 19, 2014 by OnyxTwoSeven

[SlightlySychotic]

Nothing in the TOS promises you pug v pug

 

Edit: There's always the solo ranked que. If there were REALLY so many people eager to avoid premades, that queue would be bumping at all hours.

 

You can drop the TOS crap. There's nothing in it that offers premades protection either.

 

However, you are correct: there is already a solo queue and a group queue. I've said this before just as I've said that they are being handled poorly. To reiterate:

1) We need some sort of ranked daily to encourage greater overall participation. There's actually another thread discussing ranked incentives and this is the number one suggestion. (It would also be a good idea to add in dual queue for ranked and general but I'm not sure just how difficult this is technically. Again, we need fast solutions.)

2) We need 8v8 objective warzones added to the ranked queues. There is just not enough interest in arenas to sustain the queues on their own.

3) We need tangible rewards today rather than vague rewards to be delivered at the end of the PvP season months from now. Something similar to a reputation system would work wonders. And the rewards for the grouped queue must be substantially better than those for the solo queue both to keep grouped players in their own queue and to encourage new groups to form.

 

I've said this all before. If I have to say it every few pages for it to sink in, so be it.

[Carter_Mathis]

Petty insults are the hallmark of a losing argument.

 

Or just a not nice way of putting something that's very accurate. There's a huge sample pool of screenshots on the forums that attest to a player in a premade setting a server record or people in premades outputting 5-10x the amount of damage, healing, or protection that their pug teammates/enemies did. And while it can be argued that output isn't always a good indicator of skill and that those pugs were just always carrying objectives, it is highly probably that those pugs were just getting heavily carried. If you separate the people who group and pull records/carry and the people who are average/underperform, you'll be left with a bracket that is just a mess. Or do you have some logical refutation to that?

 

No. The problem is that you get one or two syncing up against you so that every match you play ends up against the same blasted premade. They are just prevalent enough that at the wrong time you can find yourself constantly going against them but never having one on your side. During the weekends, I'd say maybe one in every five matches are actually PUG v PUG.

 

If you're dealing with 2 premades that queue sync, you're facing an entirely different issue (though superqueues usually consist of horrible players). Additionally, you do have the ability to wait ~3 minutes to requeue if you really don't want to face the same people again.

[Marrius]

Been Premading a few hours now, not with 'friends' just to pugstomp. In fact the guy who advertised to join said 'lets pugstomp'.

 

FTR in 3 hours of pugstomping I got 2 accusations of cheating, 3 emote insults, and 1 thrreat from someone logging in an alt. I told them all BW doesn't care so bend over 'cause more is coming.

 

Nope pugstomping aint a problem at all.

Edited January 19, 2014 by Marrius

[Cempa]

Its a crying shame that they don't figure we deserve an official response on our forums and when I asked Anthony why, he had no answer to this either.

 

They gave a formal response -yellow- on the forum after launch...Back then group queue was removed and after a short while the back lash was so powerful they had to allow it back. The fact of the matter is solo players may whine but they never cancel subs...

[Carter_Mathis]

You can drop the TOS crap. There's nothing in it that offers premades protection either.

 

However, you are correct: there is already a solo queue and a group queue. I've said this before just as I've said that they are being handled poorly. To reiterate:

1) We need some sort of ranked daily to encourage greater overall participation. There's actually another thread discussing ranked incentives and this is the number one suggestion. (It would also be a good idea to add in dual queue for ranked and general but I'm not sure just how difficult this is technically. Again, we need fast solutions.)

2) We need 8v8 objective warzones added to the ranked queues. There is just not enough interest in arenas to sustain the queues on their own.

3) We need tangible rewards today rather than vague rewards to be delivered at the end of the PvP season months from now. Something similar to a reputation system would work wonders. And the rewards for the grouped queue must be substantially better than those for the solo queue both to keep grouped players in their own queue and to encourage new groups to form.

 

I've said this all before. If I have to say it every few pages for it to sink in, so be it.

 

1.) That would be cool and before 8v8 ranked was taken out, it was set so that you could queue for both, so I'd assume it's technically possible still

2.) It would probably just separate the ranked queues more. It wasn't successful enough before it was taken out to warrant it staying in, and it would be awkward to implement since arenas require a different number of people than wzs

3.) Sure

[Raazmir]

Been Premading a few hours now, not with 'friends' just to pugstomp. In fact the guy who advertised to join said 'lets pugstomp'.

 

FTR in 3 hours of pugstomping I got 2 accusations of cheating, 3 emote insults, and 1 thrreat from someone logging in an alt. I told them all BW doesn't care so bend over 'cause more is coming.

 

Nope pugstomping aint a problem at all.

 

Yeah I can't imagine why someone who behaves like you might get that kind of response

[Carter_Mathis]

Been Premading a few hours now, not with 'friends' just to pugstomp. In fact the guy who advertised to join said 'lets pugstomp'.

 

FTR in 3 hours of pugstomping I got 2 accusations of cheating, 3 emote insults, and 1 thrreat from someone logging in an alt. I told them all BW doesn't care so bend over 'cause more is coming.

 

Nope pugstomping aint a problem at all.

 

That just sounds like a player with a bad attitude

[cashogy_reborn]

They gave a formal response -yellow- on the forum after launch...Back then group queue was removed and after a short while the back lash was so powerful they had to allow it back. The fact of the matter is solo players may whine but they never cancel subs...

 

This is wrong, queuing up to a 4 player group has always been allowed in WZs.