New Shatter map... something Feels off.

[Archeron]

If one of yall is willing to have a salted earth timer and a "I'm attacking now" macro you could start putting a pretty nice dent into them. (You can always look up my guide to >.<)

As for what Mawlzy said... I don't think it should be surprising that a group that wants to win consistently does in a gamemode where many don't care. I'd rather more players improve and adopt a winning mindset for a competitive game mode than breaking up the people who probably enjoy/know the most about the mode.

Not everyone wants to make a premade just to have a chance at winning in a game mode which you unfairly skew in your favor every single time you queue with your premade group. You make the game mode actively less fun for the other 2/3 of the people who are in your match. You can make those macros as much as you like, random PvE normies still aren't going to help AoE on your salted earth, and you'll probably just get stunlocked and murdered repeatedly as a result, and your coordinated premade is just going to slaughter them anyway regardless of if there are DRK's using macros on your team or not.

[OliviaLugria]

Not everyone wants to make a premade just to have a chance at winning in a game mode which you unfairly skew in your favor every single time you queue with your premade group. You make the game mode actively less fun for the other 2/3 of the people who are in your match. You can make those macros as much as you like, random PvE normies still aren't going to help AoE on your salted earth, and you'll probably just get stunlocked and murdered repeatedly as a result, and your coordinated premade is just going to slaughter them anyway regardless of if there are DRK's using macros on your team or not.

If you're not doing everything in your power to win, then I don't really see why you should complain about the result. I don't exactly see what's "unfair" about it. Everyone has access to the same jobs and can use the same strategies. Information on comps, burst, counter-play, and map strategy is available online. I also don't really see your point in ensuring my enemies have fun... Is there some other pvp game where this is encouraged? Finally, there are plethora of "PVE normies" that will follow and very much appreciate you telling them your burst is ready and it's time to attack. I know that from experience. You might not get everyone, but this small amount of communication can start making a big impact on your matches.

[Archeron]

If you're not doing everything in your power to win, then I don't really see why you should complain about the result. I don't exactly see what's "unfair" about it. Everyone has access to the same jobs and can use the same strategies. Information on comps, burst, counter-play, and map strategy is available online. I also don't really see your point in ensuring my enemies have fun... Is there some other pvp game where this is encouraged? Finally, there are plethora of "PVE normies" that will follow and very much appreciate you telling them your burst is ready and it's time to attack. I know that from experience. You might not get everyone, but this small amount of communication can start making a big impact on your matches.

Making PvP less fun for everyone is a NET LOSS for the community as a whole.

-Your premades make Frontlines less enjoyable for everyone who participates.
-Your premades take away fair competition, and contest. You will either win by landslides (1/3 of the time), or not at all.
-Less people queue for PvP because you've made it less fun for everyone.
-Even less people will care about your sweaty strategies that 1% of the PvP population even cares for.
-Less people playing PvP, means less attention to PvP, which gets even less resources poured into a mode that everyone thinks is garbage.

Should I have to be "doing everything in my power" to win by employing your sweaty strategies, forming up a group of 3 other sweaty players, and farming wins for hours every single day just to have fun?

I also don't really see your point in ensuring my enemies have fun... Is there some other pvp game where this is encouraged?

Why yes, in other PvP games, its called matchmaking. So teams are balanced, and they generally don't get steamrolled - Because thats not fun, and doesn't encourage further participation.

[OliviaLugria]

Making PvP less fun for everyone is a NET LOSS for the community as a whole.

-Your premades make Frontlines less enjoyable for everyone who participates.
-Your premades take away fair competition, and contest. You will either win by landslides (1/3 of the time), or not at all.
-Less people queue for PvP because you've made it less fun for everyone.
-Even less people will care about your sweaty strategies that 1% of the PvP population even cares for.
-Less people playing PvP, means less attention to PvP, which gets even less resources poured into a mode that everyone thinks is garbage.

Should I have to be "doing everything in my power" to win by employing your sweaty strategies, forming up a group of 3 other sweaty players, and farming wins for hours every single day just to have fun?

-everyone? that seems pretty rich. I get a lot more love than hate when I'm calling and leading a team.
- No... it doesn't. There is nothing a premade does that can't be done by every other player. You can't call a competition unfair when everyone has equal access to the same things. Most Pvp communities that focus on FL don't even bother with voice chat either; it really is all in game. If more players would communicate with each other effectively they'd be able to compete.
-If it's people who don't care about the mode, than I guess that's fine. If they find something unfun, then they shouldn't play it. There's plenty of things to do in the game. There's people who get wiped and complain, and people who get wiped and want to figure out how to avoid it and how to do it themselves. The latter are the people I want to support, and there's nothing more I want to do than encourage them to get better.
-If there's a higher percentage of people that take the mode seriously, then that's great.
-I don't know how much less they could really care about the mode. They seem pretty content to put band-aids over gaping wounds.

-If you care about the outcome, then yes. Do you want to win without putting in any effort? There's plenty of content in the game to accommodate that mindset. Why are you so against playing with friends? Do you not have any that PVP? I can introduce you to several discords or CWLS where you can interact and make some. You call it "sweaty," but we have a pretty chill time. Even if you are disgusted at the idea of playing with others, you can still help your team by adding some simple macros and callouts.

-Matchmaking is a neat idea that will probably never happen. If there comes a day it gets added then great, but until then I'd like to focus on making everyone better players.

[Mawlzy]

- No... it doesn't. There is nothing a premade does that can't be done by every other player.

Olivia, this is completely inconsistent with the conclusions you present in your guide. You explain very coherently and correctly why a premade with specific comps boosts win rate. Playing with the same group of people over hundreds of matches inevitably increases efficiency further. There is no way that four people thrown together on the same team are going to coordinate to anything close to the degree a premade will.

[Archeron]

everyone? that seems pretty rich. I get a lot more love than hate when I'm calling and leading a team.

I'm sure you do, when EVERYONE YOU PLAY WITH IS ON YOUR TEAM. I'm not going to shower you with "love and praise" because I, along with the majority of players find premades downright obnoxious.

There is nothing a premade does that can't be done by every other player.

Yes there is. Premades often use voice chat, Just because you don't, doesn't mean that its not happening on the other 2 DC's. (It's fairly common on Primal for instance.) If that wasn't enough, you're asking a group of strangers, who don't know each other, to organize and make tactics to ward off a premade designed to wipe entire teams with salted earth, and coordinated call outs. I need not say that trying to organize random Frontlines players is like herding cats. It very RARELY works out. You yourself admit that premades are an advantage to your team, and its one the others do not have. It is not fair, and winrates alone prove that. If you're winning 50% of matches, imagine how much worse you make it for the other 2/3 of players who don't have friends to queue with, and don't know what they're doing enough to make call outs.

If there's a higher percentage of people that take the mode seriously, then that's great.
-I don't know how much less they could really care about the mode. They seem pretty content to put band-aids over gaping wounds.

They're going to continue to put band-aids over the gaping wounds, because why put resources into a game mode that is universally disliked? As both a Solo queue player, and a Mentor I see the attitudes firsthand towards PvP, and its universally negative. Why would they put resources into much needed QoL updates, new maps, or new modes when people have NO interest in Frontlines? You cannot deny that premade groups are harming both Frontlines as a whole, and the community at large. Players who otherwise may have given PvP a shot will go elsewhere. We've seen the consequences of the generally apathetic attitude the playerbase has with Shatter being ruined, Borderland ruins being outright removed, and us waiting 6 months just to get half hearted patches to "fix" issues that were discovered day one.

If you care about the outcome, then yes. Do you want to win without putting in any effort? There's plenty of content in the game to accommodate that mindset. Why are you so against playing with friends? Do you not have any that PVP? I can introduce you to several discords or CWLS where you can interact and make some. You call it "sweaty," but we have a pretty chill time. Even if you are disgusted at the idea of playing with others, you can still help your team by adding some simple macros and callouts.

I put in plenty of effort, I have a 41% winrate as a solo queue player with over 1600 frontlines matches played across my account, so don't go accusing me of wanting "a win without putting in any effort." I organize my teams full of randoms to win. I make call outs, and I leave practically every match with BH IV or BH V. I put my pound of flesh into this mode, and I play to win, I don't play for a participation trophy like you seem to be suggesting.

As for why I do not form my own Premades, or join up with my friends;

1. Dark/AST/DRG compositions aren't fun to play as, or with.
2. I'd rather play jobs I find fun, that aren't "meta", that would not fit into a typical steamroll set up.
3. I don't find steamrolling my enemies enjoyable. I want competition.
4. As you suggest, my friends don't enjoy PvP, for the reasons I've described in numerous posts. The ones that do have no interest in putting in the time that I do into PvP.

I'm not against joining any such communities, and I do consider myself open minded, but you'll find it very difficult to convince me that premading is benefical in the long run to anyone. If we want all these PvP changes, the community needs to be large enough to demand them, and not allow ourselves to be ignored, or stepped on by the PvE community that works against us more often than not.