First round fail
Troubleshooter
Join Date: 2012-11-15 Member: 171559Members
Join Date: 2012-11-15 Member: 171559Members
I know this isn't a new topic, but I wanted to add a simple observation about the issue of first round abortions. Team stacking makes it worse.
I have no problem with players who like to play together because they are friends or part of a clan or what ever... but there is a real problem when one of them loads early and jumps on (the alien) team and then one player goes (marine) and then the game starts with 2 stacked players on the (aliens) team and no one else wants to join because 5 rounds in a row they see the same two players playing on the same team and dominating. First round goes to hell fast even as new players join the server who don't know the history and let a few more stacked players pile in on the (aliens) side well into a game that has no hope of recovery because there's basically a 2 minute head start for one side.
I know that UWE is aware of the issue, but I think it needs to be said that with such small sides and skill imbalances, stacking and fear of stacking causes paralysis in the ready room that makes it even harder to get a decent game started.
Suggestions :
1. Add a grouping feature to the game that lets grouped players all pick a side together. If this puts the game into auto-balance mode, so be it... they can wait to spawn for the chance to keep their core group together.
2. Give a 10 second countdown following the initialization of a round (at least one player per team). Everything still in the ready room at that time gets random teams. Keep groups together if need be, but get the game started with even teams every time. If people dislike the auto-balance feature, the option to switch sides remains.
3. Make the initial team selection always random. First player to join the game gets a random team and +5 P-res at the start of the round, all other selections could be made normally. This would reduce the advantage to players running the game on an SSD and load the map first from jumping on (the alien team) and causing RR paralysis.
4. Disable the Ready Room for players for 1 minutes after team selection to prevent "random" spamming.
I have no problem with players who like to play together because they are friends or part of a clan or what ever... but there is a real problem when one of them loads early and jumps on (the alien) team and then one player goes (marine) and then the game starts with 2 stacked players on the (aliens) team and no one else wants to join because 5 rounds in a row they see the same two players playing on the same team and dominating. First round goes to hell fast even as new players join the server who don't know the history and let a few more stacked players pile in on the (aliens) side well into a game that has no hope of recovery because there's basically a 2 minute head start for one side.
I know that UWE is aware of the issue, but I think it needs to be said that with such small sides and skill imbalances, stacking and fear of stacking causes paralysis in the ready room that makes it even harder to get a decent game started.
Suggestions :
1. Add a grouping feature to the game that lets grouped players all pick a side together. If this puts the game into auto-balance mode, so be it... they can wait to spawn for the chance to keep their core group together.
2. Give a 10 second countdown following the initialization of a round (at least one player per team). Everything still in the ready room at that time gets random teams. Keep groups together if need be, but get the game started with even teams every time. If people dislike the auto-balance feature, the option to switch sides remains.
3. Make the initial team selection always random. First player to join the game gets a random team and +5 P-res at the start of the round, all other selections could be made normally. This would reduce the advantage to players running the game on an SSD and load the map first from jumping on (the alien team) and causing RR paralysis.
4. Disable the Ready Room for players for 1 minutes after team selection to prevent "random" spamming.