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.
Playing with *BAD* randoms is awful. Playing with good randoms is a completely different ball game. Still not as good as being premade with voice chat, but not even remotely the same.
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.
Well if that's the rationalization you use.....
If everyone is equally bad as you're claiming in pugs and if you continuously lose there's only one common factor....
I think that the whole pantheon theme is going to need to be ditched sooner or later.
I agree, but only because of the restricted hero choices. I don't think it was very well thought out in a game with such few heroes already to limit the team combinations.
Arranged team skirmish is what everyone really wants.