Auto-balance for uneven teams?

(matsy) #1

Uneven teams, in terms of numbers of players. Has to be one of my top peeves about the game at the moment, and it will always happen due to…

[ul]
[li]Quitting midway through a game
[/li][li]Quitting at the end of the first sw round
[/li][li]Quitting in lobby after the teams were sorted…
[/li][/ul]

I think by checking the team balance, and if uneven by >= 2 (we can ignore 6 vs. 5 etc.), the last player to join the team with the advantage is moved to the opposite team. Maybe with some sort of credit award for being moved…

I’ve seen it in other games where you get asked if you want to move across, and the identification of the player could be worked out by the ‘teams’ computed skill to make it more complicated.

As I find it ironic at the moment a player is actually penalised for switching teams to make teams fairer.

There is also the UI side that it isn’t always obvious in game as to what the team balance is as pressing tab. You just see two list of players, and at a glance I guess seven boxes could look like five…

Obviously not appropriate for comp servers.

(abnorm) #2

yes, the penalty for switching the teams should be removed.

Primary its on the players to make the teams even. Some of the high level players in DB are not interested in even teams. They just want to farm xp, no matter the team is short-handed. Its really sad to rape a short-handed team, instead to changeover and help the team, and then writing " gg " in chat after the match. Dont know what the reasons are, just missing duty or no balls to join the weak team…

(BioSnark) #3

Some of the competition players like to stack up and pub stomp, just like in etqw. I forgot, years ago, why I disliked the competition crowd in that game.

However, very few people actively switch to balance player numbers in dirty bomb. I’ve stopped doing it unless there are other etqw players on the server who I know would do the same. I miss the level of etiquette or responsibility for maintaining server/game player pool that comes having a tiny community.

More than it needs auto/incentive balance, this game needs a team concession vote to just end and reshuffle spawncamp matches that are pointless wastes of everyone’s time.

(Violator) #4

Big discussion on this here - http://forums.warchest.com/showthread.php/43473-Stacking

I will try and even teams if possible but often it just isn’t (swapping doesn’t work). The ‘ghost’ bug (http://forums.warchest.com/showthread.php/43263-Server-Full-but-Isnt) is one of the main causes of this - there are several phantom places on every server which seems to skew the balancing imho as well as preventing players joining altogether. The main issues seem to be

  1. ‘Ghost’ bug - prevents a true picture of the list of players on a given server and skews auto-balance.
  2. Players leaving mid/end match.
  3. Bugs preventing changing teams
  4. Voting to shuffle skill not working (+ the prevent weapon change bug).
(PixelTwitch) #5

For team balancing what I believe Splash Damage should do is pop up a notification to certain players they believe would balance the match and offer them rewards for switching.

“Press F6 to switch teams”
Rewards could be stuff like…

1.5x XP Bonus after the match
2x Credit Bonus after the match

Also offer to not track the stats for that player after the switch.
Currently players refuse to switch if they feel that a win is in the bag and a loss would be almost guaranteed (especially in public stopwatch at the half way point). I know I would personally switch if I knew I was not going to get a LOSS or lose out on Credits and XP.

(Smooth) #6

We do want to reward/incentivize players to switch teams when deemed necessary. The system would choose an appropriate player to offer the team-swap to and Credit and XP bonuses are the most likely rewards.

In the short term, we’ll be removing the death-count and negative suicide XP from changing teams to make it a little nicer.

(matsy) #7

Seemed to be more on the sorting before hand, and the stacking of teams which SD has noted is complicated area to make a change to.

In terms of the auto-balance I am speaking of it is purely numerical in terms of team sizes, however I was unaware of the ghost bug!

(Szakalot) #8

definitely needs to be looked at.

stacked teams make large amount of games very boring/frustrating (boring to bash newbs, frustrating to get outgunned in every single fight)

(abnorm) #9

thats the reason you dont swap atm? " yea, I bash some newbies and get an epic win! what they are short-handed? I dont care, makes it more easy for me " kinda lame or maybe you are little statwhore? gg Pixel

(Violator) #10

[QUOTE=Szakalot;528032]definitely needs to be looked at.

stacked teams make large amount of games very boring/frustrating (boring to bash newbs, frustrating to get outgunned in every single fight)[/QUOTE]

Yeah this is my biggest gripe currently as well. When the teams are even it is fun to play.

(Amerika) #11

Due to the bug Violator mentioned switching teams can be impossible. Also, losing XP and credits sucks so I am glad that will be removed. I swear the 7v7 servers are the worst culprits (they are always 7v6) when it comes to that bug too. Yesterday I was on a 7v7 server for quite some time and it was always 7v6 and once I got disconnected and tried to join and the server said it only had 13 players on it but when I attempted a join I’d get “server full”.

(abnorm) #12

" yeaaa, I bash some newbies to polish my stats. What they are short-handed? I dont care, make it more easy for me "

very sad attitude! only care in your holy stats? thats the challenge you looking for? “gg” Pixel

(PixelTwitch) #13

[QUOTE=abnorm;528148]" yeaaa, I bash some newbies to polish my stats. What they are short-handed? I dont care, make it more easy for me "

very sad attitude! only care in your holy stats? thats the challenge you looking for? “gg” Pixel[/QUOTE]

Actually, I am one of the people that switch teams very frequently…
I was just saying that I know I would be “EVEN MORE” likely to switch even if it was a guaranteed loss (for instance the loss is already final due to first objective time or something). If I never had to worry about losing 75% credits that I earned on attack, (losers get a lot less) and a big fat loss on record. Again this is mostly talking about Stopwatch where balance may not be too bad in the first half but people leave before the second half starts.

(abnorm) #14

[QUOTE=PixelTwitch;528151]Actually, I am one of the people that switch teams very frequently…
I was just saying that I know I would be “EVEN MORE” likely to switch even if it was a guaranteed loss (for instance the loss is already final due to first objective time or something). If I never had to worry about losing 75% credits that I earned on attack, (losers get a lot less) and a big fat loss on record. Again this is mostly talking about Stopwatch where balance may not be too bad in the first half but people leave before the second half starts.[/QUOTE]

I dont want to affront you. Maybe you switch teams very frequently, but that was not the fact I was playing against you and some othere high lvl players on chapel obj mode 6vs5 all along. I had only newbies and it was an easy rape for you. I can lose, but your " gg " in the end of the round was kinda misplaced. Just think about it.

(PixelTwitch) #15

Fair enough. I cannot remember the game in question but would I be right in thinking that maybe you was on Attack?
From my experience if someone who is decent switches to Attackers on Objective mode normally the balance swings massively into the Attackers favour due to the attack getting easier over time (built in mechanics) so in that case unless my switching would bring teams equal I normally just play it out. Sorry if my GG was a problem, I have played a lot of Starcraft where its considered rude to not say GG. It’s not like I popped out a “too ez” or “bg” though.

Anyway, can’t always be perfect, I may have just been having a bad day :stuck_out_tongue:

(yakcyll) #16

[QUOTE=PixelTwitch;528151]Actually, I am one of the people that switch teams very frequently…
I was just saying that I know I would be “EVEN MORE” likely to switch even if it was a guaranteed loss (for instance the loss is already final due to first objective time or something). If I never had to worry about losing 75% credits that I earned on attack, (losers get a lot less) and a big fat loss on record. Again this is mostly talking about Stopwatch where balance may not be too bad in the first half but people leave before the second half starts.[/QUOTE]
As long as there’s a material (ha!) incentive to win like credits, you can’t count on anyone to join the losing team. If they are to be kept as they are, they would have to be awarded on a per action or a per time slot basis instead of at the end of the match (and that would have to be clearly indicated somewhere), so that grinders don’t feel like they are losing something by making a match even.

(Erkin31) #17

[QUOTE=Smooth;528026]We do want to reward/incentivize players to switch teams when deemed necessary. The system would choose an appropriate player to offer the team-swap to and Credit and XP bonuses are the most likely rewards.

In the short term, we’ll be removing the death-count and negative suicide XP from changing teams to make it a little nicer.[/QUOTE]

I don’t think that will be useful. Players which stack will never go to the other team, or you will need to offer a lot of credits for the switch of team (more than the credits earned by a victory).

I still think that an auto-balance, for casual games, is the best solution.

(Mustang) #18

Often it seems like the auto-balance isn’t actually taking into account a players skill rating, but rather only considering their performance in the last map.

(alphabeta) #19

Please, please, please insert an automatic or rewards based autobalance for games that get way out of whack (off by >1 player). You’ll never stop stacking as long as players know each other; of course you want to play with your friends who are talented, and winning is more fun than losing. But the games I can’t tolerate are the matches that start out 7v7 and players keep quitting until it is 7v4 or worse, and no re-balancing occurs. Then you get stomped until the end of the match. Where is the fun in that?

(matsy) #20

An extension to auto-balance I would like to see is removing away from keyboard players to spectator.

Equally annoying as it looks fine at 7vs7 but you’ve got two players sat in spawn doing nothing…