There has been no shortage of posts addressing this issue. While premades have existed since the beginning of this game, it has only been recently that the issue has grown out of control. You can now face these groups in back to back BGs.
Premades - These are groups of 6 or more players stacking a BG to circumvent the queue restrictions on raids. Raids were once allowed years ago, but that option was removed. These communities now stack anywhere from 10 to 40 players into a single BG, giving the opposition not only no chance to win, but often no chance to play.
The issues:
- Queue Dropping - If these groups don’t get everyone in, they’ll leave BGs before the gates even open. I have had 30+ players leave before and this gives you no opportunity for a fair match. Time wasted.
- Griefing - Many, if not the majority or premades will farm the graveyards and not go for the objectives. They will run down the clock. To make matters worse, if I don’t want to be farmed, I can drop the game and get penalized for it and also lose my spot in whatever else I am queued for.
These players represent the very worst this game has to offer up. They gladly pug stomp and have 0 consideration for the experience of other players. Per WoWs CoC.
Behavior - We expect our players to treat each other with respect and promote an enjoyable environment.
Is this play respectable? No.
Cheating - engaging in any activity that grants an unfair advantage is considered cheating.
These premade groups stack to create an unfair advantage.
These are the rules that the majority of abide by every time we play this game. If Blizzard wants 30-40 players stack a bg, why was the option to queue as a raid removed?
How have these players responded to our complaints?
Is this what Blizzard finds acceptable in their game now?
There are only a few responses Blizzard has given. The one the premade groups continue to push is one that doesn’t even address premades.
Continuing the discussion from Is this cheating?:
The response addresses queues, which we all understand. Someone trying to queue into another person or at the same time obviously doesn’t break rules, but what happens when 8 groups of 5 are doing it. Is that the same?
In the past, Blizzard has acknowledge the impact premades have on pugs.
Daxxarri: “All premade vs. PuG battlegrounds do is serve to discourage and frustrate the PuG team: this isn’t “true PvP”, as advocates of pre-mades like the “Rath Strat” like to assert. Yes, there are disparities in gear and the like that make for imbalance, but two wrongs don’t make a right, and pre-mades only worsen the problem.”
Possible Solutions:
- Limit the number of 5 man groups that can be in a single BG on one side. For 40 man groups, limit it to 2 groups of 5. For 10 and 15 man BGs, limit it to one group of 5 per side.
- Heavily penalize player who constantly drop queues or actively leave matches. While leaving queues or even active BGs happens for all of us, these communities do it constantly.
- Place 5 groups on opposing sides.
- Or simply, acknowledge that this type of play isn’t intended and is against the rules.
In the end, the ability to queue as raids was removed and yet this practice of stacking bgs is still allowed? It doesn’t make sense.
BGs have been taken over by these communities and are ruining a part of the game a lot of players still enjoy. These premade players actively seek to ruin the game for others and gladly will post about it and harass anyone that tries to address the issue.
We all recognize that PvP is inherently unfair at times, but we expect that unfairness to be random. Some BGs will be a loss, some will be a win. Randomly placing players against each other sees to that. While individual player skill still has some weight on the outcome, often times it’s just up to the luck of the draw. Premades break that and instead take their enjoyment from the ruined experience of other players.