That's lousy.  Sorry that's the type of people you end up playing with.  I hope you have better experiences going forward. 

Darn me for playing with friends. Of course, simply by having Voice Comm, we are inherently better at the game than a group of total strangers. It is not like a there is free, open software that you could install and then use as a team.

If you want to blame someone, blame the poor teamwork of your own public player base. Nothing is stopping a group of players from taking the 30 seconds to get a temp TS channel up and running except their own laziness, or apathy. If something is available to both sides, it IS NOT an advantage.

This is the first game I have seen where this concept of playing with friends is such a big deal. Never heard a peep in SupCom, RA3, or DoW, or even WiC.

I don't mind the premades so much, but I would like to see their ladder ranking in the game lobby...

You, sir, have excellent taste in games.

Jesus.

This thread continues to piss me off. People like "Inflames" continue to push the issue into a negative community concept.

I have my eye on a few other up coming games at the moment so personaly, if this game lives or dies, I wont be to heartbroken. That being said. I do really like this game, and hope its community thrives.

 

First I'll break down the comment from "Inflames".

[me shaking my head] First, since you seemed to have missed it somewhere along the line. This is about solo players randomly grouping together against premades. If they took the 30 seconds or so to get together, they would no longer be a premade. In that case it would be premade against premade. This isnt even what this thread is about. I'm not going to explain any further, if you don't follow, I suggest you continue to strive for good grades in school, and someday we can revisit this.

The fact is this game will always have solo players, who do not take the 30 seconds to band together and become "premades". The fact is, this game will not survive with a healthy community without those solo players. Many people start out in this game "solo".

Those players MAY eventually become team players. Without solo players becoming "premade" players this will all stagnate.

Thats the key people, so I hope it sank in. Someone near the start of this thread said something like:

my time [more important]> than random people whining about not having friends.

TRANSLATION: I'm important, and I don't give a sh*t about the community of this game.

Fair enough, you're a faceless, anonymous person on the internet, and its within your rights to think your "anonymous" persona has some greater value than the rest of our "anonymous" personas. While I personaly think you need a morality check, you retain every right to your point of view.

However, again. I believe, you are not supporting the growth of this games community by holding such values.

 

So how do we fix this? How do we try to build a community with not only a positive growth rate, but a positive mentality?

1. We listen to each other. Yeah, I know, this is Sesame Street stuff, but it all to often goes out the door on the internet. Just remember, both the solo (random join) player base and the premade player base is needed to keep this game alive.

Someone else on this forum said games with "premade" in the title it takes to long to fill up. Well maybe if we encourage the "solo" community more, it will grow and as it grows so will the premade communty. End result, quicker premade match ups. More quality team vs team combat.

2. We keep talking to the developers. And hopefully they will hear us, and eventually put in the features that will allow all of us (premades and soloists) to get exactly the type of game we desire.

 

This game will continue to live or die by ALL OF US, our challange is to unit, and use that power to further Demigod.

 

Question I have yet to see discussed:  If premade teams truly desire to have competitive matches and not rofl stomps, why dont they either...

A: join other matches so that they will likely be put up against another premade, rather than hosting their own all the time?

B: split up their little friend group as evenly as possible between both Light and Dark teams?  For example, a four-man premade can just as well do a 2v2 match all on their own.

A. We do when we can.

B. Because we like playing and working with, not against, each other.

In addition to Shadow's answer, I think 2v2 blows.

QFT. A 4v4 or even a 3v3 adds so much variety to the game. In a 2v2 you are constantly fighting the same demigod combination. In a 5v5 on Mandala you will fight for the portals and it usually ends in a massive brawl where you have to avoid the hammer slam of a QoT-shielded Rook while running past Reguls mines taking down towers and fortresses at the same time. This is what Demigod should be about IMO. 

>< It's all I can play.

I find it funny premades feel the need to hide the fact they are making a premade game cause it takes too long to fight (meaning there aren't enouth premade teams looking for games) when, on the other hand, PUGs complain of always falling in a ninja premade game which seems to suggest there are a lot of them.

 

Maybe premade teams should spend more time looking for premade games before creating a new one. Oh, of course the problem is simple! Since they do not flag their game as "premade", then it means a new team looking for a game cannot find them easily.

 

If you claim to do when you can, it certainly doesn't seem to show it on your gamelist where the vast majority of your played matches are obviously hosted by you.  More importantly, though, why exactly is it that you don't want to play against eachother?  It's rather counterproductive to your goal of getting a challenge.

That was merely an example.  Both sides can accept additional players and do a little bit of stat researching to ensure they are of roughly equal level, if it really matters that much.

 

Defeats the point, I refuse to play with randoms in any game 99% of the time.

Why don't the non-premade hosts just put "not premade" or "PuG" in their title? Why is it our responsibility to inform you? If premades don't want to advertise that their a team, just advertise that your not a team...

It's a bit redundant.  As we've shown, premades don't join games, they make them, so you're safe if you as a non-premade make a game.

And some of you would have to lose.

But you would be helping all the other puggers find a non-premade game, no?

Because we derive greater satisfaction working with each other instead of against. The game rewards good teamwork, we've simply taken it to the next level.

If my goal was merely "getting a challenge" I would go outside and attempt to deadlift my car.

That's true.  And by hosting you'd also have the power to make the other team lose if they turned out to be a hidden premade and you were feeling like a vengeful jackass.

Step one : flag all your premade games in the title.

Step two : search for a (now tagged) premade game of the correct size before creating one yourself

 

That or wait for an "arranged team" automatch which would do the exact same thing anyway.

I challenge you to deadlift your car. 

Shadow's premade likes doing > 2v2 as a matter of preference, so ok.  But regarding the challenge factor, they appear to have more than enough people in their group to break down and do 3v3 against each other to step up the challenge factor (and I'd hope makes things more fun as well).  If I was in a group that consistently stomped all competition, it would seem pretty logical to split up and do a 3v3 with as even teams as possible.  You can't look at your group and say Shadow + cdr + dust would be a good match up against x+x+x in the group and then play it out?  At least for me, if I didn't feel like I was being challenged regularly with this game, I probably wouldn't play it.  I find it surprizing that you wouldn't want to do that from time to time just for the fun of it... plus I'd be curious in the outcome.  I get the appeal of going for a win streak, but...

Actually that sounds like a great idea.  Make games with "Premade only" in the title to lure in premades, then host disconnect loss them to ruin their precious records.

Genius I say!

99% of the time?  Even if both sides are on par with eachother or, better yet, clearly to the advantage of your side?  Now what's your reasoning for that?

It sounds like you might as well be saying that you get greater satisfaction from having as much of an advantage over your opponent as possible, even before the match starts, to guarantee your wins.  Actually rewarding teamwork would be like a group of players who, after a long and challenging match, beat a statistically superior opposition because they were able to work together effectively, especially if this was a inpromptu alliance of random players.  In your case, it's just overkill to not only be statistically superior, but also have better communications, preset strategies, and a vast amount of time to get acquainted with your allies, unlike your outmatched opposition.

I'm curious as to what this "next level" consists of, though...

Playing with randoms is awful, once you play in a premade you never want to go back, having people do stupid shit, take stupid builds, and generally screw you over through incompetence isn't even remotely fun. That your opponents are terrible as well doesn't make the game more fun for you, it just makes it a close contest of retardation.

Find me a team of randoms that will play Sed/UB/LE and do chainstunning on a target and focus fire them consistently. For me this is what playing premade is about, 3v3 random games I don't die very often because playing Sedna is easymode from that point of view. 3v3 premade I get ganked properly and actually have to pay attention because with a coordinated strike you can easily be left completely helpless and relying on your teammates to save you. This is interesting, challenging, and fun. If I try this behavior in a pug, I'll die because my teammates won't know what's going on, or my attack will be useless for the same reason.

Premades kill each other by outsmarting each other and drawing targets into positions that seem safe but are actually vulnerable (eg holding back on pounce for the first 5 minutes of the game to convince your opponents you don't have it) and this sort of shit is why I enjoy playing strategy games. You actually have to think to win a premade game, all you need to win most pugs is choosing the right avatar and clicking a lot.

No, if you lose as a premade, it feels like a genuine loss. If you lose in a pug, it feels like it was out of your hands and it was doomed from the start. That's why I like playing with friends. I could have a losing record and still be happy with every game.

This applies to every game i have ever played regardless of stats, internet, and genre.

I play both premade and pug.  When playing premade, it is very tedious to get everyone into a premade game hosted by someone else.  I can tell everyone over vent to join such and such a game, but inevitably, the game fills up before we all get in.  At that point I can see if the host is responsive to kicking the extra player, or just return to hosting my own games.

The game really needs automatching (i.e., Pantheon) for premades.  Of course Pantheon doesn't match up players based on skill (seems like a tertiary consideration), so that does not really fix anything.  And unfortunately, I predict most premades will not use this because they enjoy the pub stomp too much.  Or to put it another way, they don't want the threat of losing.  Another alternative is a lobby for premades, but there are down sides to that too.