No no no. You need to have premade teams and 1 system. This is a team game. It would be really silly to divide the community in a way where people have separate ladders and such. We need 1 system. It works for Red Alert 3, it'll work for Demigod.

You mean kind of like how there's already 3 different ways to play MP?

I think the community is already large enough to support an additional team vs team layer in the Pantheon and Skirmish modes. It wouldn't even need a separate ladder, just make sure Pantheon premades don't get set up with Pantheon randoms, everything else can stay the same

Exactly as he said...

We are not saying have two totally different leaderboards etc for random team games and premade team games....the results all go together. Just have the match matchmaking system though in that if they add the ability to join the Pantheon as a team...make it so the matchmaking will only match them against another premade team. Dont take 3 guys playing together with the perfect character combinations and then match them with a random team of 2 Sednas and a QoT. This will drive people away from the game.

You cannot logistically support a team based game by creating a system that caters to single players. The game does not have any built in voice chat. Pantheon -should- be a tournament where people who want to play together fight against other people who want to play together. If a person wants to avoid that he should join a custom game. The more skilled players generally do ranked games more than custom.

I will use Red Alert 3 as an example. We had 1v1 for a while but the community wanted 2v2 automatch. They listened and gave us a great 2v2 system and ladder. It was an option for for people who wanted to competitively play together. It works. There's no need for separate ladders there.

Red Alert 3 is way more of a 1v1 game than Demigod is. Demigod is a team game.

I would argue that the system Warcraft 3 uses works much, much better. Pre-made teams are matched against other pre-made teams. Randoms are matched against randoms.

I like the idea of being able to go in as a time, but the only fair way to handle it is to have two separate ladders.  One where people join solo and get put together with a random team, and another where people can join as a team going in.  If you mix the two, the guy without a team always gets screwed and he has zero motivation to play that way at all.

There needs to be an arranged team and random team ladder. There's a market for both playstyles. Some people love to be able to get with their buddies on ventrilo and coordinate their attacks. This is gaming at its finest. However, there are also lots of people that just want to be able to pick up and play without having to rely on others and "find friends" in order to compete.

WC3 had a solo ladder, random team ladder, and arranged teams ladder. This worked the best.

I know that I will probably quit Demigod if I find I "have to" make friends just in order to enjoy myself on Pantheon. I'm too old, too busy, and too engaged with my family to try to create a "social life" in an online gamespace.

Furthermore, my experience with WoW arenas has taught me that teams that are not made of real life friends are extremely utilitarian and perfunctory. A few bad games and one dude decides to quit because he is too immature to handle the learning curve. We don't need any of that here.

Bottom line: If you introduce arranged teams, you have to have a random team ladder. If you have just one or the other, then you will limit the player base and overall popular success of the game.

P.S. I am a ranked player on Azeroth for random teams in WC3FT and I find that system, though with flaws, works well. It's true, you usually get at least one noob on your team but so does the other side. Finding out who that noob is and exploiting that weakness is part of the art of winning random team games. So, on one hand, I love to be part of a team effort. On the other, I don't have the stomach to try to "make friends" with other gamers in order to compete. That's just me. SD and GPG don't have to cater just to my playstyle, however they need to keep in mind there are a lot of people that like team play but just don't want the social overhead of being on arranged team.

It doesn't cater to single players. This isn't a 1v1 automatcher.

Obviously, which is what it is now. (or will be, once they remove the AI from it)

But there's a difference between being a "team" game and a "stacked team" game. A premade team that gets matched with randoms is stacked heavily in the premade's favor. This isn't an even playing field, but the ladder would reward them. Climbing up the ladder would be less about skill than it would be getting lucky and getting auto-matched with randoms so you could roll over them and get lots of favor points.

If you want a competitive game, you should realize this. Any premade team should only be allowed to be matched with another premade team. Then a win would actually mean something.

This sounds very carebearish. You cannot cater to everyone. Having separate systems decreases the matchup frequency. Why does there need to be an automatch for people who play solo? There's custom games for that. This is not Starcraft or Command and Conquer where 1v1s reign supreme. This is a team game. There is no need convolute matters more by catering to every person's playstyle.

Again, no one is complaining about this in Red Alert 3. If you don't want to play like this, then you can avoid it through custom games. Its simple.

It's a marketing issue and from the perspective of a gamemaker you want to appeal and satisfy a broad number of customers. If the game only suits and favors one narrow interest or another, then you will decrease your player base.

Now, if SD and GPG wants to have less people playing their game, I guess they could take your attitude. But I'm not quite certain why a game company would want to do that.

YEAH

multiplayer is for team player thats what is all about

number 1 priority imo as soon as connection problems are solved

You have referred to 1 vs 1 a couple times now. Do you understand what we are talking about? NOBODY is talking about playing 1 vs 1 matches. We are talking about you have 4 guys who play together all the time matching up against 4 random people smashed together against them. I dont see how that in anyway is fun for either group and in the long run allienates more people from playing take Eternal_Silence's post as an example. 

Yeah it would increase the matching time for the premade groups but I dont think it would be bad. It would probably just make it so your better off only joining as a group of 2 or 3 max in order to get faster matches. 

yep

actually, custom games are there for organized teams if you want to use that argument. for the health of the game, getting in new players etc, there needs to be random vs random teams. read up what everyone is posting above, you're just dead wrong.

well i dont see nothing wrong to have a ladder for single players and a ladder for premade team, probably its more easier to setup 2 differend ladders with a good system than a single system that cover every aspect of the game in a good way