Random vs Premade: Can't We All Get Along?

And some thoughts on what we should really be talking about ^^

By Ke5trel on July 7, 2009 7:48:47 PM from

Just to put it out there - it seems to me the drama has gotten a bit thick around this stuff. People are freaking out about/vehemently defending premade teams on 10 different threads right now.

Threads that have nothing to do with the debate are getting dragged into it. People who are usually calm and logical have started flaming each other mildly, all over the forums. Trolls have started behaving reasonably or stopped posting altogether. The stuff that we should actually talk about (purely imo) is getting lost in the chatter.

So I'm gonna try and distill the perspectives so we can move on, yah?

Perspective 1 - Premades are the heart and soul of every good multiplayer game. They are loose collectives or militant clans, but what they represent is the urge to make connections with other players, to raise levels of play and teamwork or just to have fun with someone you know. Premade teams are a natural and healthy phenomenon, and being asked to make special concessions or apologize for playing with people you know is ludicrous

Perspective 2 - Premades are a natural function of multiplayer gaming, but organized teams with integrity and honor shouldn't play against random teams
a. under any circumstances, because of the many advantages a premade team has over a PUG
b. without clearly stating the nature and experience level of the game

Perspective 3 - Premades are closely allied with Satan, and use the unholy powers he grants them to melt the faces of excellent teams rendered powerless by dark blood magic

Perspective 4 - Premades pitifully weak, most are easily beaten by even mediocre teams who can communicate, and if you lose to one it's probably because you are the simplest noobtop in the game.

Each of these has a series of counter-arguments expressed at great length elsewhere, but none of them addresses the root cause of the issue - namely, teams have trouble matching with other teams. As soon as the devs put a system into place which allows team grouping both automatically and by selection the conversation will shrivel up and die.

If you want to pin this on someone pin it on devs who left this feature out, not on players who are doing their best to play the game without it

Meantime newbie211 will join your PREMADE PROS ONLY game and you'll solo-join games where the other team has a 600 game winning streak. Neither one is intentional (for the most part - the cougars know who they are and should be ashamed). Neither one is something to get angry at another player about. Instead let's try to have a little patience with each other and with the developers, and use the time to think about things that matter.

Please take the following examples and make posts or comments about them at your leisure -

1. Most of the items in the game could use some love. What are your thoughts on pricing, effects, and synergy? How can we make the items more dynamic with the least effort?

2. Several of the maps have obvious flaws. How can we make the maps more balanced with the least effort?

3. What would an effective friendslist look like?

4. What would an effective game lobby look like? I.E. what information do we need about other players? What communication options should we have?

5. Should player stats measurement be made public or kept under the hood? We don't have access to the baseline formulas. Should we?

6. What are the holes any new demigods should plug in the current selection of 8?

7. Should the results of 1v1 duels reflect our understanding of the game's balance?

8. How can AI be improved, and what protocols should exist for AI in online games?

9. What improvements could be made to the single player tournament with a minimum of effort?

10. How should minions be altered? Specifically, should they be nerfed or buffed? If so, how and why?

Well, that's a start on some things I'd actually be interested in reading about, rather than the married couple bickering many of the posts I've seen recently have started or ended as. (If I exaggerate the above debate I'm sorry, it's mostly in the interest of discarding it for something which we can actually make a difference on as interested players)

Thanks for reading, Kestrel

+118 Karma | 9 Replies

We should be ashamed of ourselves.

But we're not.

Should the results of 1v1 duels reflect our understanding of the game's balance?

IMO, 1v1 shouldn't even be in the game. I certainly wouldn't balance around it as theres no way you can balance individual skills against a team oriented game.

I liked perspective 3 btw, did you get that feeling when you played with us?

We should be ashamed of ourselves.

But we're not.

PREMADER!

Quoting Murth,

reply 1

We should be ashamed of ourselves.

But we're not.

Don't be ashamed at all. But let's focus our energy on some other things, maybe? ^^

Quoting WickedBear,

reply 2

I liked perspective 3 btw, did you get that feeling when you played with us?

lol, it might have been if I were on the other team...as it was your "just sit back and enjoy the ride" attitude said I was in good hands

Great story. Myself and two buddies tried playing custom games last night. OMG premade right?

Thing is, we put in the title of the game, that we were a premade group, and were genuinely trying to find OTHER premade groups to play with, or teams.

We had some people who joined, and then said 'wait, you guys are premade?' curse us out and then leave.

We had a specific person, one Viciousjs, who actually entered the game just so he could QQ about how most premades just like to stomp on newbies, and apparantly he had thought that we 'shouln't even try' to play with other premades.

I'm not exactly sure how bro's expectations worked. I mean, either we were newb stomping meanie heads, or we were wasting our time on an impossible task.

Of course, we actually did get to play against good or premade teams two or three times that night, so I think it was well worth it.

Just a note, if any premades out there are looking for games to play, my buddies and I generally play games in the evening (west coast US time). 8 pm to 10.

1. Most of the items in the game could use some love. What are your thoughts on pricing, effects, and synergy? How can we make the items more dynamic with the least effort?

reduce journeymans proc plz, maybe only procs off demigods attacks/spells only(and reduce cost)

HoL was nerfed too much

fix heavens wrath, its too easy to control the map with

reduce range of horn of battle, atm i think it has inifinite range

reduce cost of artifact consumable potions

increase crit chance on items(excluding ashkandor), i dont see crits occur enough due to slow attack speeds.

allow instant cast items to work whilest running.

add in more activatable armor/helms/gloves/boots or rework some that are already there

controversial: limit hp stacking to an extend. low kill/death matchs can get very boring!

2. Several of the maps have obvious flaws. How can we make the maps more balanced with the least effort?

crucible, remove the artifact flag at the bottom of the map, and put one at each base, and reduce towers around bottlenecks

exile, remove healing from sides of map, and reduce towers around bottlenecks

zikurat, move the front most towers alittle away from each other

3. What would an effective friendslist look like?

personally i dont like it movable, its too fiddly

allow an option to turn off player images

allow on mouse over to scroll down the friends list

enable you to see the game name of the game your friend is playing, "in-game" isnt good enough

allow it to fit nicely on the screen in the in-game lobby and custom game list, the width limit is still too big

allow right clicking of your friends name to view their stats/link to pantheon page

make chatting easier with someone, during a game. i dont want to be clicking a picture just to chat(an easy whisper function in the normal in-game chat would be good)

4. What would an effective game lobby look like? I.E. what information do we need about other players? What communication options should we have?

disconnection %

i dont really care for leavers, but for others maybe a leave/RQ %

kill/death/assists

average kill/death/assists per game

wins/losses and total games played

pantheon ranking number

how many times a player has used each demigod

how many times they have randomed

just basically all the information from the pantheon site. most of this is to make the game more competitive, i know most people wont like half the stuff listed so maybe an option to hide it?

5. Should player stats measurement be made public or kept under the hood? We don't have access to the baseline formulas. Should we?

make an option to hide/show your own stats

yes, we should be able to find out everything we want about the games mechanics.

6. What are the holes any new demigods should plug in the current selection of 8?

do you mean like nerfs/buffs?

7. Should the results of 1v1 duels reflect our understanding of the game's balance?

yes, for true balance.

no, for team play, 3v3 and higher.

8. How can AI be improved, and what protocols should exist for AI in online games?

it should be removed from the game. it is bad for a multplayer centric game

9. What improvements could be made to the single player tournament with a minimum of effort?

i dont think it needs one.

although a testing mode for single player would be awesome, set level, gold, spawn creeps etc..

10. How should minions be altered? Specifically, should they be nerfed or buffed? If so, how and why?

dont know tbh.

note: all of the above is my opinion. you do not have to agree

1. Most of the items in the game could use some love. What are your thoughts on pricing, effects, and synergy? How can we make the items more dynamic with the least effort?

Increase cost of level 4 siege archers, change minion items to be % based so Erebus and Oak aren't insanely better than QoT/Sedna, half the +hp/s of horn of battles activation, or reduce the range severely. Oh and of course fix all the completely useless items.

2. Several of the maps have obvious flaws. How can we make the maps more balanced with the least effort?

A lot more towers around the Citadel on leviathan, Remove prison altogether, more towers around the citadel on Crucible, add a neutral portal to the middle of mandala or move one of the creep waves into the middle.

3. What would an effective friendslist look like?

It should show the name of the game or lobby they are in, and who else is in it. It should also have an option to invite or join into lobbies.

4. What would an effective game lobby look like? I.E. what information do we need about other players? What communication options should we have?

Team chat, option to be unable to see the opposite teams Demigods, player ladder ranking, player region.

5. Should player stats measurement be made public or kept under the hood? We don't have access to the baseline formulas. Should we?

Why on earth should we not be allowed access, it would help to find flaws in their system to help make it better.

6. What are the holes any new demigods should plug in the current selection of 8?

Stealth, Static areas of debuffs.

7. Should the results of 1v1 duels reflect our understanding of the game's balance?

Never.

8. How can AI be improved, and what protocols should exist for AI in online games?

If there is more than one enemy Demigod nearby run the fuck away.

9. What improvements could be made to the single player tournament with a minimum of effort?

Some sort of story-esque voice acting or text inbetween matches.

10. How should minions be altered? Specifically, should they be nerfed or buffed? If so, how and why?

Oak and Erebus minions maybe need a tiny debuff, but Queen and Sednas definately need a pretty big buff, especially Sednas.

Too... many... quotes.... I'd sick the iron sheik on the lot of you if I could... but I can't, so I'll try to add something constructive.

I'll just address number 2 (how to make maps more balanced with little work). Towers. More and more towers specifically around the citadel. I'd think this would be easy to add to any map and it would reduce the effectiveness of minion pushes. Obviously not the most brilliant idea, but it should be something very easy to implement (or at least I'd think).

some excellent thoughts here - for more and similar I'll point to transitive's continuation of

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Random vs Premade: Can't We All Get Along?

And some thoughts on what we should really be talking about ^^

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