New Shatter map... something Feels off.

[Aravell]

Premades will still get BH5 rapidly even against semi-competent opposition IMO. It's a consequence of the powerful synergy of coordinated LBs as the skillset currently stands. When Olivia is doing her book club thing, for example, I saw all 4 of them get BH5 in 3 minutes. As I mentioned before, you can't simultaneously balance FL for solo players and light parties running certain comps, the synergies are too powerful.

While I absolutely agree that premades will still get BH5 rapidly due to surprise attacks or pinches, I disagree that an alliance of equal skill is unable to deal with it. I've played, as a solo player, in a match against the dreaded DRK+RPR+DRG+DRG premade, not only did my team have no commander, we also stomped that premade so they can't even maintain their BH5.

You definitely do not need a premade to beat another premade, you just need a motivated enough team that has the skills for it. The hidden rating suggestion would help get a skilled team. Most of the wins I've gotten against an obvious premade were also silent in alliance chat with only maybe 3 calls of a direction to go towards throughout the whole match.

I also disagree that having people who don't try isn't destructive to the team. The less people you have attacking, the less chance you have of killing anyone, which heavily hurts your team's BH generation in the long run. I firmly believe that people who don't try are more destructive to your chances of winning than going against a premade.

[IDontPetLalas]

While I absolutely agree that premades will still get BH5 rapidly due to surprise attacks or pinches, I disagree that an alliance of equal skill is unable to deal with it. I've played, as a solo player, in a match against the dreaded DRK+RPR+DRG+DRG premade, not only did my team have no commander, we also stomped that premade so they can't even maintain their BH5.

You definitely do not need a premade to beat another premade, you just need a motivated enough team that has the skills for it. The hidden rating suggestion would help get a skilled team. Most of the wins I've gotten against an obvious premade were also silent in alliance chat with only maybe 3 calls of a direction to go towards throughout the whole match.

I also disagree that having people who don't try isn't destructive to the team. The less people you have attacking, the less chance you have of killing anyone, which heavily hurts your team's BH generation in the long run. I firmly believe that people who don't try are more destructive to your chances of winning than going against a premade.

Pretty much this, and even if we didn't win, in some cases we came close enough to make them work hard for their win. In any case I had a good time.

[Mawlzy]

I also disagree that having people who don't try isn't destructive to the team. The less people you have attacking, the less chance you have of killing anyone, which heavily hurts your team's BH generation in the long run. I firmly believe that people who don't try are more destructive to your chances of winning than going against a premade.

Sure, if the random matchmaking happens to assign you half a dozen people looking for a rock to hide behind, you're in bad shape. My point was that, on average, the presence of such players gets distributed across all teams. Contrast that to a premade which, due to their relative rarity, is much more binary. You're either on the team with one or your not, and that has a profound impact on how the match goes. They're not invincible, but the nature of the contest is changed, IME for the worse.

I think those of us obsessed enough with FL to be posting here all want the same thing. A higher overall skill level, or perhaps more accurately, a greater proportion of people who are genuinely giving it their best shot. That produces more interesting matches. Olivia suggests that her approach encourages that because it teaches people how to play (is that right?). My experience is that it does the opposite, largely because it removes agency and encourages the belief that the result is determined by factors a solo player cannot control.

Do we think skill-based matchmaking has any shot of happening? I can't see it. Is it desirable to separate wheat from chaff by massively reducing the rewards? I wouldn't mind that, but it's so antithetical to the philosophy of the NA player base I can't see it happening either. And I realize that some players simply like to queue with friends for reasons other than getting 85 assists per match. I don't want to remove that opportunity, but trying to balance FL around synergized premades seems like a case of the tail wagging the dog.

A question to those who do play in premades: Wouldn't it be much more fun for you if you could test your skills against other similarly-dedicated premades? It might have to be 8v8v8 with smaller maps. But surely that would be far more interesting for you?