Auto team balance
Know pain
Join Date: 2012-09-04 Member: 157674Members
Join Date: 2012-09-04 Member: 157674Members
<!--coloro:#48D1CC--><span style="color:#48D1CC"><!--/coloro-->[AUTO TEAM ENABLED] you will spawn soon
You can switch teams to spawn faster<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
This is by far the worst mod I have ever seen for this game or most games.
Let’s take a 10 vs 10 game, 10 marines and 10 aliens and see what this mod will do.
1. 1 alien leaves nothing happens.
2. 2 aliens leave and it kicks in and now 2 marines get caught in this mod.
3. Those 2 marines don’t spawn soon, they just don’t spawn unless a teammate dies.
4. Nearing the end of the game 6 more aliens f4 or just quit and the remaining 2 are really good, so they kill a lot of marines.
5. It’s still 10 vs 2 but now there are 2 marines and 2 aliens with 8 dead marines that can’t spawn.
You can switch teams to spawn faster<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
This is by far the worst mod I have ever seen for this game or most games.
Let’s take a 10 vs 10 game, 10 marines and 10 aliens and see what this mod will do.
1. 1 alien leaves nothing happens.
2. 2 aliens leave and it kicks in and now 2 marines get caught in this mod.
3. Those 2 marines don’t spawn soon, they just don’t spawn unless a teammate dies.
4. Nearing the end of the game 6 more aliens f4 or just quit and the remaining 2 are really good, so they kill a lot of marines.
5. It’s still 10 vs 2 but now there are 2 marines and 2 aliens with 8 dead marines that can’t spawn.
Comments
But I agree, it's not a very elegant solution. In CS the left players are replaced with bots, but since this isn't an option in NS2 and usually when players leave the game is effectively over, I think a properly implemented "surrender" vote which is easier to use and requires input (yes or no), and easier to call or vote on without having to bring up console and type "surrender," with server-adjustable "% needed to surrender" might be better.
and yes, it is terribly thought out and implemented.
The fact that the concede option works is GREAT with this system, since you will not turn into a 9v2 with 7 people waiting.
and yes, it is terribly thought out and implemented.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Most importantly, this feature is supposed to work in conjunction with another one: <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=121063&view=findpost&p=1986303" target="_blank">auto-concede</a>. Auto-balance kicks in when there is a minor disparity between teams, auto-concede kicks in when there is a major disparity between teams. But I'm yet to see auto-concede actually happen. Either the feature never made it in, or server operators are disabling it, or the default configuration values are too permissive.
I thought that's more or less how it works - if X% of the team quits, it automatically forfeits.
There is, it's a server configuration. I think it's something like if there are at least 6 players on one team and less than X% on the other, then end the game. The X% is what's configurable.
In fact, I believe there's also a server configuration option for number of players that can be unbalanced before team balancing kicks in.
on a side note, I much prefer this team balancing method than automatically forcing a random person to switch teams.
Most importantly, this feature is supposed to work in conjunction with another one: <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=121063&view=findpost&p=1986303" target="_blank">auto-concede</a>. Auto-balance kicks in when there is a minor disparity between teams, auto-concede kicks in when there is a major disparity between teams. But I'm yet to see auto-concede actually happen. Either the feature never made it in, or server operators are disabling it, or the default configuration values are too permissive.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well said, only-sane-person-in this thread. The spawn delay is something that both both balances the game for small number disparities, and prevents users from being annoyed when switched to the losing team. I only wish more FPS's did this.
Yeah it's true that automatically swapping people between teams would be worse, but this still needs work. A tangential fix for it would be providing a "Concede" vote to the losing team.
Yeah it's true that automatically swapping people between teams would be worse, but this still needs work. A tangential fix for it would be providing a "Concede" vote to the losing team.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I kind of agree with you, and this is exactly the point I made in the thread where Murphy first started talking about it. But... to get rid of auto-balance is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Auto-team balance & auto-concede should work well together, if the configuration numbers are well tweaked.
The problem you're identifying is caused by the late game grind/stalemate mechanics. Wanting to overcome that by permitting significantly imbalanced teams is actually pretty cheesy. See my point?
Issue is when one side is losing and half the other team f4's, leaving fewer of the winning side able to spawn back in and slowing down the end game.
If you want to speed up end game...just dont move once you spawn or shoot anything.
But the current auto balance mechanism is frustrating, solution is to count those in the ready room as on the same team they just left (has to be possible as they show up as skulk or lerk against their name)....this will mean that half a side f4'ing does not result in the winning side unable to spawn.
If players have disco'd and left the server fair enough...but not when they simply didn't want to play out the game went to wait in RR.
It gets really bad when players know how this works and begin to abuse it. Players know that they are loosing the they f4 and go to spectate knowing that it will hurt the other team by not spawning and give their side a chance.
[Aliens get xenocide and begin to spew themselves upon the marines. Marines who played NS1 think it's game over not realizing they still have 2 command chairs and full upgrades and leave with 100 p res. Marines leave but not enough for the auto concede to kick in (or enough do, the game ends when marines were still in it) and now xenocide becomes useless.]
In the case that the game is about to end auto team balance slows down the end adding frustration to this game.
If one team sucks the the players on the sucky team rage quit and spectate. This adds frustration to this game. Some players are good at heart and others have a halo above their heads so they switch teams to make the teams even again. The players that rage quit were in spectate but now join the non sucky team.
Those players that have that halo say WTF, leave and play another game.
<i>If someone thinks my assesment is wrong then tell me the benefits of <!--coloro:#00FFFF--><span style="color:#00FFFF"><!--/coloro-->auto team balance<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->?</i>
Yeah it's true that automatically swapping people between teams would be worse, but this still needs work. A tangential fix for it would be providing a "Concede" vote to the losing team.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Any autobalance system is going to have this problem because they are unable to distinguish between the regular playercount fluctuations (e.g. people joining/leaving throughout a game) and people leaving from losing. Its the least worst solution, but works well imo if you simply jack the autoconcede number up high enough.
I've had folks f4 because comm refused to drop them an exo after they went and charged in stupidly ahead of the squad. or because one skulk made it to marinestart in the first minute. Personally, Iv;e no problem waiting to spawn if we're winning, Helps keep me from getting cocky. when I can reflect on my stupid mistakes.
For example, triple the spawn timers while auto-team balance mode is active.
all the issues with auto-team balance stems from a team trying to 'conceded' but couldn't
notice how most examples is about lack of aliens, not lack of marines... because if it was marines wanting to concede they can just recycle