Why do premades lose Battlegrounds?

[Chixapy]

Why do premades lose Battlegrounds?
Many people complain that premades create an unfair advantage, inevitably leading to defeat. "This is bad for game balance, and something needs to be done about it."

However, there is another side to premades—one that leads to the exact opposite outcome on the battleground.

One example of this is shown in the screenshot:

You can see that the highlighted players have very few deaths, and it is evident that they were moving and playing together. Unfortunately, the player list is incomplete, so the premade's healers are not visible.

It would seem our team had an obvious advantage—a premade group that held a clear edge over the opponent in open-field combat. Yet, the battle's outcome shows that the premade failed completely to capitalize on this advantage. Consequently, we suffered a 1600 to 760 defeat.

Especially when the premade players had had an absolute advantage no idea what to do on the battlefield. Instead of controlling the center and an additional node, our premade ran as a full group from flag to flag, losing their previous position almost immediately.
Some players, seeing this unfold, joined the "running club" themselves. Consequently, Alliance players gained total dominance at all the other objectives. Meanwhile, the premade was dragging 6–8 people along with them. The rest of the Horde players were fighting an Alliance raid that held a numerical advantage (2–4 Horde players against 4–7 Alliance players) and were inevitably losing strategic positions.

As a result, the rest of the team, which did not suffer from the "herd instinct", got to Vietnam, fighting against enemies that were often twice as numerous. While trying to capture the necessary bases.

And just like that, those "true skill" premades throw away a winning Battleground out of nowhere.

Moreover, I’m sure that after the BG, the premade players said something like: "Our team was full of losers."

This is a prime example of incompetence and a complete lack of understanding regarding the game's tactical aspects. Instead of quickly securing and controlling two points, the premade group ran around as a full squad, picking off one or two Alliance players who couldn't get away in time. And it wasn't even a simple case of farming honorable kills (HKs), because if they had played correctly and positioned themselves well, their HK count would have been higher.

This isn't the first time such a disaster has happened. A day earlier I ended up in a WG against a premade team of 6–7 players. Despite that, our team won 3–1, even though we were all solo players. I have no idea how they could have organized the game so poorly as to lose to a bunch of randoms, —especially on a battleground where winning a single field fight is enough to push the enemy all the way back to their spawn.

[Shred]

The purpose of premades, and the game in general, is to have fun. Some premades simply want to steamroll players around the map because that's what they find enjoyable. They drag out the game by ignoring bases which allows them to kill more enemies before it ends. Since they do not need honor points, they do not need to win.

I doubt they simply wanted to farm HKs, because that's something you do in AV/IoC. It's really hard to farm HKs in AB because people are more likely to capture a base and it's also much easier for the enemies to escape to other bases, which makes graveyard camping impractical.

[Baartleby2]

You assume the objective for premades is to win the BG, it's not. Almost all premades are just concerned with farming as many HKs as possible. I don't understand why HKs are so important to these people myself, but that's what they care about. They spend the entire BG in a group, zerging a few players over and over again. They've been doing it for years.

[ChrisAkring]

I'm also a Blackrock player. For me personally, I just want to skip the tedious leveling process — I've had more than enough of that on official Blizzard servers. I want to jump straight into PvP and RBGs because, unlike my college days, I don't have endless hours to pour into WoW anymore. I want to be able to queue up quickly and play a match, just like in CS or LoL, so I can unwind after work and family time.
That said, based on my long-term observation of RBGs, premade players generally fall into a few categories:

Pure newcomers — They heard Blackrock lets you get a max-level character with decent GS right away, so they show up in RBGs completely lost. They might not even know the BG mechanics or how to win; they just follow the pack around.

HK farmers — Honestly, I don't get why anyone would grind HKs on a server like Warmane. I've heard it's tied to money somehow, so I guess... whatever. These guys usually show up in small groups, camping AV/IoC, and they're a pain because their presence usually means zero actual battleground fun.

Veterans like myself — Typically focused on 1–3 classes, very familiar with WLK BG mechanics, know how to win, and actually want to win. For us, it's like basketball or soccer: we want to run good plays and win the game.

I fully understand that premades can feel incredibly unfair to players from other realms, but that's the reality — Warmane throws everyone into the same pool. Personally, I'd have zero issue if Blackrock could queue for its own separate RBGs, but unfortunately the population just isn't there to support that anymore.

[Mitzen]

AI slop

Premades are made to achieve goals they set for themselves. Winning isn't the main goal most of the time. Achievements and HK farms take priority over a mediocre honor gain from winning.

Honor can be converted to items to be sold, or used, thus generating gold/coins for the player. Honor really has no other benefit after obtaining most of the gear. It's passive income. HK farmers are there for bagging rights.

Warmane doesn't throw everyone into the same pool. There are gear brackets, thus it's not same pool, there's two or more.

[Chixapy]

I'm also a Blackrock player. For me personally, I just want to skip the tedious leveling process — I've had more than enough of that on official Blizzard servers. I want to jump straight into PvP and RBGs because, unlike my college days, I don't have endless hours to pour into WoW anymore.

I have exactly the same attitude towards the game. I don't have time for long trips to the ICC, so I'm glad that I can buy them and save myself the time, which I've done hundreds of times before.

Pure newcomers — They heard Blackrock lets you get a max-level character with decent GS right away, so they show up in RBGs completely lost. They might not even know the BG mechanics or how to win; they just follow the pack around.

In general, players from Blackrock often play better than those from other servers. Of course, there are cases when newcomers come in, quickly get dressed and go to PVP. I think everyone has noticed this. Often people from Blackrock express their dissatisfaction with others during BG.

Veterans like myself — Typically focused on 1–3 classes, very familiar with WLK BG mechanics, know how to win, and actually want to win. For us, it's like basketball or soccer: we want to run good plays and win the game.

I agree. You're unlikely to play well if you play all the classes. Personally, I've only played three classes since 2008.

I fully understand that premades can feel incredibly unfair to players from other realms, but that's the reality — Warmane throws everyone into the same pool. Personally, I'd have zero issue if Blackrock could queue for its own separate RBGs, but unfortunately the population just isn't there to support that anymore.

Premades are made to achieve goals they set for themselves. Winning isn't the main goal most of the time. Achievements and HK farms take priority over a mediocre honor gain from winning.

That's why I noticed that premades are not always a 100% win. Recently, a premade horde from Icecrown of 7 people couldn't win against WG solo players.

That's why I mentioned this problem in the topic that premade is not always about quality. Sometimes tactically premade plays very poorly (I'm not taking into account cases where coil premade is clearly farming HK)