I don't know about you guys, but personally, starting a game is a living pain. Because of the stats, nobody ever wants to be on the losing team. It is not possible to start a game unless either the teams are perfectly balanced, or you are lucky enough to play against players who don't care to lose, and accepts to start the game. Not to mention rage disconnects right before the citadel falls...
New commers who don't know about this, or who aren't very good get a 2W/20L, and get kicked out of games. And when they don't get kicked, the game never starts anyways, because nobody wants to play a game along side the noob.
Not only that, but it creates an obsession about winning. I personnally just want to have fun, and don't care about losing, but not if I am later judged for not having enough wins. It prevents me from trying to experiment alternative builds, or just plain having fun. I used to not mind losing, but now it really pisses me off, and that is not the way I want to play this game. Playing Demigod has become a source of anger and stress for me.
Isn't there a way to simply have a "ranking"? In lots of games, you have "levels/rank", including supcom. If a player with a high rank wins against a player with a low rank, he gains nothing, and vice versa. Defeating higher ranking players nets higher reankings though.
I think it is vital to try to give players a ranking on something less binary as Win/Loss. I think it is vital that a player can just "Play his best", and have a rank that reflects on his skill, on his performance, and not just on the outcome of the game.
I don't have a concrete solution, but I think something as simple as "Favor per match" could be a better alternative. If you are the best on your team, and still lose, you won't go home empty handed. If you suck, but are on the winning team, then the net gain will be pretty low.
How do you guys feel about this?
