Ban premades from frontline, fix all issues

[Exmo]

The single best thing they can do to mitigate the worst stomping that happens right now is put premades in their own matches.

[TofuLove]

The single best thing they can do to mitigate the worst stomping that happens right now is put premades in their own matches.

That really isn't going to happen though, is it? There are only maybe 2-3 meta premades that see themselves as that at any given time, so it's just something that wouldn't pop outside qsync, which i suppose would be fine.

I think it's worth admitting this is a casual game mode.
How many "premades" are just friends, and how many are meta stacks that figured out that pressing buttons together is just way more efficient? I would imagine they are a minority, no?
It would seem to be an overcorrection to remove ability to queue into a casual mode with friends for majority of players. Especially as the problem is "stomping" and not the innate grouping up.

Surely, the best thing to do for a more competitive game mode that you guys so want is to have solo only ranked queue with it's own rewards, but keep the casual experience casual with grouping up.

p.s.
I would thrive in solo ranked queue environment, so personally I would be all for it. I just think it's disingenuous to say that premades are "the problem", when it's actually just current iteration of skills being so insanely burst focussed.

[Exmo]

That really isn't going to happen though, is it? There are only maybe 2-3 meta premades that see themselves as that at any given time, so it's just something that wouldn't pop outside qsync, which i suppose would be fine.

I think it's worth admitting this is a casual game mode.
How many "premades" are just friends, and how many are meta stacks that figured out that pressing buttons together is just way more efficient? I would imagine they are a minority, no?
It would seem to be an overcorrection to remove ability to queue into a casual mode with friends for majority of players. Especially as the problem is "stomping" and not the innate grouping up.

Surely, the best thing to do for a more competitive game mode that you guys so want is to have solo only ranked queue with it's own rewards, but keep the casual experience casual with grouping up.

p.s.
I would thrive in solo ranked queue environment, so personally I would be all for it. I just think it's disingenuous to say that premades are "the problem", when it's actually just current iteration of skills being so insanely burst focussed.

I'm not making a distinction of causal mode (solo players) vs competitive move (premades). Players who want to buddy up in a premade can still play casually if they wish, they will simply be doing so against other premades.

There's no easy way to identify toxic premades short of collecting battle+log metrics and flexibly searching for patterns. Easier to put all premades in the same bucket.

I disagree that the problem boils down to a current configuration of skills or a meta strategy. The problem is caused by the approach and mentality of some players. You can change the skills of jobs but those players will just find another strategy that allows them to enact their desire to suffocate other players. It's naive to think all we have to do is remove salted earth and those toxic premades will suddenly stop treating all other players outside their premade as NPCs.

[TofuLove]

I'm not making a distinction of causal mode (solo players) vs competitive move (premades). Players who want to buddy up in a premade can still play casually if they wish, they will simply be doing so against other premades.

There's no easy way to identify toxic premades short of collecting battle+log metrics and flexibly searching for patterns. Easier to put all premades in the same bucket.

I disagree that the problem boils down to a current configuration of skills or a meta strategy. The problem is caused by the approach and mentality of some players. You can change the skills of jobs but those players will just find another strategy that allows them to enact their desire to suffocate other players. It's naive to think all we have to do is remove salted earth and those toxic premades will suddenly stop treating all other players outside their premade as NPCs.

I think that competitive mode IS solo mode, surely? The whole point of removing premades as a suggestion is more balanced competition, no? And casual mode is actually the one that allows groups of whatever nature they want to play.

Also, I am not talking about JUST salted. I am talking about overall damage numbers within the game mode and how many aoe and cc skills are there. This is what role actions haven't resolved, but in fact made worse - there is a lot of dps, and our healthbars are only very small.

[Themarvin]

Most premades is now more or less easier to handle, its just for both teams to figure it out and gang on them, it workd every time and the winner will be either of the two teams ganging on the premade.

Here is the thing, Flank King does not work well if you find the trigger PC's and mark them, can easy dodge them so the DRK only pulls 1-2 unlucky playes in... if the other team is smart would just gang on the premade team from behind as PvP is designed to only go in one direction in this game and as soon as their DRK and main targets move to the rear pew pew pew.....

Remarkable enough it does not require alot of cordination to deal with them either... you just drag them out..... if other team comes from the side, just give them the space needed.

It is very nice feeling keeping their so called main players down, make sure you pick up the objectives at the side, as now it is far from all BH and multiple kills.

[Burmecia]

...
do people think murderblender lead by decent caller + enough people actually listening are "friends"?

[TofuLove]

...
do people think murderblender lead by decent caller + enough people actually listening are "friends"?

I've frequently done this as a solo caller. You literally don't need a premade to "stomp", but just enough people following up pulls. Sure that doesn't happen every time if you don't have a premade, but enough times to make me think that the whole "ban premades" is funny. It literally wouldn't impact me, but will not resolve the issue that people are talking about.

Hypothetical question. At what point should a premade be banned?
2 people? 3 people? 4 people? Removing premades entirely will actually piss off a lot of casual players, who frankly don't care about frontline at all, and just doing roulette with friends. What roulette is there where you can't queue as a group?
I get it that it's to help balancing, but balancing in a casual mode with bad rewards doesn't matter. Because any participation is rewarded equally, the majority of players don't actually care about performance.

If you want a hardcore mode, with only solo performance, it needs additional rewards, and actual matchmaking - because I don't think people would queue for it as much otherwise. "Premade only" mode will be dead on arrival.

[Mawlzy]

If you want a hardcore mode, with only solo performance, it needs additional rewards, and actual matchmaking - because I don't think people would queue for it as much otherwise. "Premade only" mode will be dead on arrival.

Please no more rewards. They simply attract people who don't want to be there.

Matchmaking is the key.

The situation on Aether is deteriorating to the pre-7.1 situation. The individual stats for members of semi-statics are now in the 5/0/80 realm. They haven't reached the 10/0/115 we saw previously, but I imagine they are on their way.

As before, my personal issue is that playing with such a premade is tedious, whereas playing against one at least offers the prospect of a hard-fought upset. But with a significant fraction of all teams just being there for the rewards, we've drifted back into monotonous shooting fish in a barrel territory.

[Kuroka]

Its not hardcore if we are sick of gettin literally murdered by just few premades. Premade should not work with rouletts, even if that means i cant play with FC mates or my wife...

[Teno]

Its not hardcore if we are sick of gettin literally murdered by just few premades. Premade should not work with rouletts, even if that means i cant play with FC mates or my wife...

Go play another game, this one is for playing with people.