actually what i got from your OP was "i feel sad since i had lost against a premade team in a custom game."

it does. you imply in your OP that premades are a bad thing and should stay away from random puggers like yourself, so i felt the need to leave a comment saying why i think you are incorrect.

premades can do what they want. just because random puggers dont like it, it isnt going to stop them doing it. there are many other factors, such as lag/time zones/skill levels/lack of features.. etc, but im sure you already knew that.

32 from 35 in a 1v1 game like Starcraft would be a godly record, unfortunately stats don't mean anything in DG because it's reliant on passable teammates, even if you can solowin to a degree against newbies. Rank is also pretty meaningless, since it's based on experience which doesn't seem to be a measure of...anything much.

I have no reason to believe I'm a better player than you despite having a higher rank (you're probably better than me, I've been playing DoW2 lately), and the shoddy stats tracking is only further hurting the estimations as to who is good and who isn't.

I stand by my assessment that we just need people to be better at the game, and a team automatch option.

A big chunk of my games that you would class as "Premade" (and someone had the nerve to whine at me in game for being a stacker while I was doing this) were actually me on the mic teaching a friend how to play. A fair portion of the games I play with Verspunken we try out more left-field tactics that invariably are less effective than just health stacking and buying creeps, so it's not like we are making game after game and stomping through all opposition unopposed. If people like Ryanheart and Stacked Actor join our games its generally a decent fight, the problem is that there just aren't enough people at that level of competancy and a single poor player can ruin the game for all of us.

To answer your OP: They don't play each other because it's extra effort to get a game going. A single random joining so one of your teammates can't get in creates issues. Hosts playing with fsk stupid game settings causes issues. People wanting no doubles/no minion erebus/no people with 3 arms cause issues. Host disconnect problems cause trust issues. People wanting to play Exile because it's pretty cause issues.

To avoid all the hassle, most premades just make their own game. There's not even any guaruntee that a pre vs pre game would be anytihng other than a walkover anyway, many premade teams I've seen have been worse than randoms.

How do you know they don't? Wait, you're talking about something you have little knowledge about again, nevermind. I'm sure quite a lot of the people you are branding with your "premade" tag are just friends playing together, whereas most of the organised teams when I played tried to play against each other fairly often.

Are there actually any competitive teams left? Mine has moved to DoW2 at least until there's a hassle free way to find other teams to play with.

I know, he just keeps whining about the same things, no matter how often the flaws in his point of view are pointed out. 

Premades do sometimes play eachother. Its not like it never happens, it does. I look through the custom game lobby every time before we host a game, looking for potential premade games. There are at least 3-4 threads on this forum dedicated to trying to arrange premade vs premade games. I've played about 120 games this epoch, probably about 25 of them were against premades of some caliber, probably about 20 of those were against premades which put up a decent fight. Thats a pretty good ratio considering that you know, theres no team automatch. Speaking of team automatch, its pretty laughable how he shrugs off this point in his OP. Its like he doesn't realize that the absence of team automatch in this game completely thrashes his arguments. 

Lem: Stop whining about premades. Stop talking about things you clearly have no clue about. Stop making unjustified assumptions about what premades do.  

i agree with stacked/ryan and all others that r on the same page as them.

seriously ... premades are nothing to argue about FULL STOP. I felt i needed to emphasize that.

find something worth arguing, or suggest something. Do something constructive!

I usually try to pug one game a night and I run into the same issues OP is talking about. I check the stats of each player and hosting team = 90% win premade and my partners 30% and below...yeah okay ill play WoW instead. The fact that custom game stats count towards your ladder ranking makes things so much worse, once this fix this things should get better.

I know of 2 or 3 other teams who moved onto other games as well, I don't blame them considering how a large (and clueless) portion of the community treats them, not to mention the lack of support for teams for 3 months now, or is it 4?

[quote who="StAcK3DActR"]actually what i got from your OP was "i feel sad since i had lost against a premade team in a custom game."[/quote]

I don't know how you got that. My only loss in about thirty games was against the invincible minions inside the enemy citadel wrecking it -exploit.

No I didn't. Nothing wrong with premades.

I was just wondering the fact that when there are four Cataract games with 3/6 premade players on them the next premade team that comes along hosts another one. This has really gotten worse during the last two weeks. Or perhaps I just have rotten luck or something - who knows.

Yeah yeah, sure they can. I can also make a post on the forums wondering about the fact. How constructive and fruitful, eh?

...

See? This is why you're so awesome. You answer, without undue snark, thoughtfully and intelligently.

Most of those reasons, seems to me, should also stop PUGgers from joining, but fair enough (and some reasons were specific to premades joining premades).

...

[quote who="ItchyDustbin"]How do you know they don't? Wait, you're talking about something you have little knowledge about again, nevermind. I'm sure quite a lot of the people you are branding with your "premade" tag are just friends playing together, whereas most of the organised teams when I played tried to play against each other fairly often.[/quote]

It has been a relatively new development, but I seriously see those five Cataracts with 3/6 players quite often these days usually hosted by people whose rank is between 50 and 300 and who always play with the same people. But perhaps those teams with 90% wins are just random friends who happen to play with each other all the time as opposed to real premades (with military call signs, code languages, tactics books and so on as is usual for premades).

...

Since you're giving me mandates, I suppose that I can give you one as well: Stop addressing me. I'm not interested in what you have to say about this game. Also, QQ

I gotta say, it doesn't feel like the number of premades are that high.  I play with my friend(s) almost exclusively, and we rarely host games.  We join games as a group (usually 2 of us joining 3v3 games).  I feel like we often still don't end up playing against premades, even tho that is one of the reasons we join other players' games instead of hosting our own.

Pathetic whiney premade-critic can't refute arguments so he blusters incoherently about mandates. Stop posting your trash here. No one wants to hear any more of it. 

EDIT: TDude, your team and mine should meet for a decisive game 3! Those were fun games.

Oh, hold up. Evidence of premade teams playing eachother? I think I know of a certain person who would look rather foolish if these facts were to come to light.... hmm who could it be?

Next patch stats will be visible in game and premades who refuse to fight players with similar records will hopefully have a much harder time playing at all. 

The community as a whole needs to develop here when it comes to personal matchmaking. Automated matchmaking needs to get implemented, but having stats visible will give players the ability to do exactly what the invisible hand would normally do.

Noobs need to stomp joining 'pro' and 'expert' games and experts need to start kicking them on sight and fighting each other. I really think that stats are going to thin out the pool of 'noobs' in these pro games and at the very least it'll be easier to ridicule the less scrupulous teams. Screenshots of dudes with 90% win rates getting ready to start games against 10% win rate players should start making their way into the hall of shame.

In the meantime just let it go. Premades don't routinely fight premades, they pub stomp, that's just the way it is. It's a cyclic problem in which every premade that fights pugs increases the wait time of other premades, who in turn get sick of waiting and fight pugs. On top of that only premades who host have any guarantee that the game will even be recorded.

If you're just venting then whatever, do what makes you feel good, but if you're trying to evoke genuine outcry or change there's no point. Anyone who understands what's going on is just waiting for the patch.

If/when random teams are implemented, that should be far less of a problem.

I have nothing against premades as long as they are willing to put "premade" or "pro", "experienced", "skilled" or "good player" or something that indicates they are good players in their game titles. People might argue that putting a "pro" label in their game tittles doesn't necessary help because some bad players would just join eventually. But at least, by putting a label in their game titles increases a little, if not much  the chance of good players joining their games.

Decent players who can't get a match will leave.  Even without this kind of thing it's taken my friends and I over 40 minutes to get a game going with people joining/leaving - joining/leaving - joining/leaving OOPS! Loby crash.... Start over again.  Who wants to host this time? .... Rinse and repeat.

Strange how I've played people with an extremely low ranking that were very good as well as people with a high ranking that play poorly.  What about the guy with a 150-125 record that has ended up with an exp count of 100?  I've seen those guys before and they tend to be pretty decent players.  How about the guy with a 8-2 record with an exp of 1100?  All this stats display thing will do is make it hard for people with good ranks and people with bad ranks to find games.

"He's 100-9, I'm not playing him."

"He's 15-62.  I don't want him on my team."

Here's a tip for you.  There is no other way for people that are friends to log in and play together.  Give it a shot sometime. Try to get 4 people into someone else's game.  Props if you succeed.  We haven't been able to.  No arranging times or anything, or putting passwords on games.  Just find one of those ubitiquitous premade teams and get in their game with your friends.

-- Tukulis

Probably the best course of action.

OTOH something good came out of the thread - woppin's response for example  

You're obviously lying, go back to stomping nubs and kicking high ranked players from your lobbies, damn premades. 

Let's be careful here. There's no such thing.

http://forums.demigodthegame.com/360337/get;2320701

Heres a tip everyone shut up and kiss.

No they don't.  No other competitive game has this issue because in competitive games... PREMADES DON'T GET MATCHED AGAINST PUGS.

Premade vs Pug is just plain dumb.  It doesn't help either side get better.  It frustrates the pugs.  It bores the premade (except for the scrubs who just like stomping on pug newbs).

In theory, ok, in practice this would be the death of the Aus DG community, so it will never happen. The only option we have is to raise the overall skill level so that we are all roughly on par with each other.

US/EU may have a large enough player pool to start that sort of segregation but it's hard enough getting a game already during anytihng other than peak hours that I'm not going to kick anyone except known cheaters at this point in time.

Raise the skill level for puggers?  BS.

Exhibit A: wsu

Exhibit B: Myself

It's incredibly frustrating to play against a premade, or even against a decently skilled team that will support.

As for learning experience, I think the thing most casual players will learn is who not to play against.

So really, you just don't like playing against good players?