Well, will this issue ever be addressed? At least relax it for a bit: 10x9, evrything is fine, but 10x8 - two people are not allowed to spawn. Well at least disallow only one person to spawn, this will cut down the pressure of this broken mechanic. Or make smaller team spawn faster.
Nothing worse than dying with flamethrower, welder and mines right in front of your base and not being able to recover your stuff. And not getting any res you were supposed to get during that time.
Punishment for team performing well. Punishment for leavers from the other team.
<!--quoteo(post=2045184:date=Dec 14 2012, 12:15 AM:name=Seahunts)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Seahunts @ Dec 14 2012, 12:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2045184"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->At this point 9 out of 12 alien players F4.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> That should have resulted in an instant alien team auto concede. The server was misconfigured and doesn't represent the working auto balance/concede system.
<!--quoteo(post=2063623:date=Jan 20 2013, 03:26 AM:name=lwf)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (lwf @ Jan 20 2013, 03:26 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063623"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That should have resulted in an instant alien team auto concede. The server was misconfigured and doesn't represent the working auto balance/concede system.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Autoconcede, on the other hand, is another broken feature. We had this match started and it was like 4v3 while other 10+ were still in RR. One guys from 3 team goes F4 and wow the match is won! Then we start again, somebody joins and insta F4s and the round is over again.
This game's autobalance feature is by far the best method for handling the issue I have ever seen. Yeah, it sucks to be the one player stuck out with a long spawn, but it's almost never THAT long. Meanwhile it keeps the game mostly fair without having to randomly shuffle teams which REALLY sucks. Being on the winning team and then randomly being shuffled to the other instantly breaks any sense of importance towards actually trying to win.
<!--quoteo(post=2063624:date=Jan 20 2013, 03:38 AM:name=xen32)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (xen32 @ Jan 20 2013, 03:38 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063624"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Autoconcede, on the other hand, is another broken feature. We had this match started and it was like 4v3 while other 10+ were still in RR. One guys from 3 team goes F4 and wow the match is won! Then we start again, somebody joins and insta F4s and the round is over again.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A minor flaw, but otherwise the autoconcede feature is still a pretty good addition in order to prevent the autobalance from getting completely out of hand. The instant win/loss doesn't really affect anything, there are no player statistics and the map change is based primarily on time, so instantly winning/losing at the start won't ever cause the server to change maps. If they ever put in achivements/statistics such that the "unfair" loss actually made a difference, they could simply give the autoconcede a 2 minute timeout to prevent it from activation at the very beginning of a game.
Usually, after it happens once enough people will finish loading in that you'll have more than 4 people on a team and it won't even be an issue. In fact, it unintentionally helps promote fairer games after map switch by buying a little extra time for the slow-loading people to get in and get on a team. Now THAT'S an actual problem with the game, the game starts before many people finish loading in. Needs a longer warmup time.
I hate being that guy stuck in queue but I agree it's better than being autoswitched. Besides someone has to die eventually and fixing it does not seem like a big deal. These days you do not even get to that point with people conceding left and right.
The NS2 community can complain about this all day long, week, month and year long but UWE will not fix this cause in some messed up way they think it’s needed. 1. Players F4 cause the game is coming to a close and team balance slows the game ending down. 2. One team is owning and the other team rage quits and sits in spectator forcing good players to wait in line or switch teams in many times a hopeless battle. 3. Some servers will turn this feature off, due tell which servers.
Took some screen shots of team balance and auto-team balance over a month or so.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This game's autobalance feature is by far the best method for handling the issue I have ever seen. Yeah, it sucks to be the one player stuck out with a long spawn, but it's almost never THAT long. Meanwhile it keeps the game mostly fair without having to randomly shuffle teams which REALLY sucks. Being on the winning team and then randomly being shuffled to the other instantly breaks any sense of importance towards actually trying to win.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> If you got it to the point where people started rage leaving because they see no way of winning the match, you just have to let them lose. Game won't ever start with unbalanced teams, people are only mass leaving when there is no hope. Blah-blah, competitive game, blah-blah, gotta have balance. People do not ever leave in comp. And pubs are made for fun. Sieging enemy base = fun. Turtling = fun. Not being able to spawn = not fun.
What's even worse with this feature, if rage quitter would leave the server, new people would join and we'd have full teams again. But when they choose not to play, but rather sit in RR/Spectate, there is no way for new people to join. And YOU have to suffer for them being such arseholes. No votekick and afk kick won't do a thing if they are still active in RR.
Spectators should get separate slots for sure, so people who want to play the game could join. And those who are already playing could spawn.
On the servers I have played on lately, I have noticed much less rage F4'ing when things go badly, and much more voice chat stating "hey guys, we just lost our 2nd com chair / base, we have 2 res nodes and no hope, lets concede" Followed by a few seconds of waiting and then the concede vote going through. Its so much better than the F4 rage upon losing.
I'd still say keep the autobalance though. Some times people leave servers half way through matches for other reasons, and it sucks if its 6v8 for too long.
The core flaw in the arguments presented here time and time again is that people only consider the games that are already over.
The other team has one hive and no res node, and they F4d and now you can't spawn? Who gives a ######? Oh no, a ruined game is now even more ruined, BOOHOO. Half the other team rage quit and now its 8v4 but the game drags on because you can't spawn in? Oh hark, what a shame that such an imbalanced game hath been ruined!
What about the good games? Say theres an 8v8 going on and suddenly two brothers playing have to go for supper? 20 minutes in, everything even, and suddenly all that time is wasted because the game is now 6v8 and it carries on as such? What if an ISP has technical difficulties and suddenly 3 people drop from the server at the same time during an epic battle in an even more epic game? Suddenly neither team is deserving because the game is decided by a 5v8 imbalance?
<b>Think about it</b> for just a single moment in your life. Realise that this mechanic <b>saves</b> good games from being ruined, rather than focusing on the fact that it can't save a game that is already long passed over.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->two brothers playing have to go for supper<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Not my f-ing problem. I should not be ever punished for other people's actions.
<!--quoteo(post=2063647:date=Jan 20 2013, 02:32 PM:name=xen32)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (xen32 @ Jan 20 2013, 02:32 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063647"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Not my f-ing problem. I should not be ever punished for other people's actions.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But you are being punished.
When a good game is ruined by imbalanced teams, for <b>whatever </b>reason, everybody loses. Everybody is punished.
I would sooner sit in a spawn queue for 5 minutes, and wait for people to join the other team (or indeed simply join the other team myself), than have the ability to spawn in and win the game in a minute undeservedly. If you don't hold the same sentiment then you aren't interested in a fair game, you are only interested in winning, and this mechanic is not there to serve people like you, its there to serve people like me.
This is actually a problem? Teams are uneven? Go switch over to the other side or go back to the ready room and spectate. Don't want to do it? Well tough go wait until enough people on your team die so you can spawn. I'm not a big fan of the mechanic as it is highly annoying, but I recognize that it is the MOST FAIR WAY OF KEEPING TEAMS BALANCED. I don't know about the whiners and moaners here, but I prefer my NS2 games with an even number of players.
Hell the long spawntimes or not being able to spawn at all when aliens are egg-locked is far more annoying in my opinion.
Most games have some form of auto-balance these days. Why? Because it's needed! unfortunately there will always be rage-quitters, or players who switch team to the winning side when their team is losing... Auto-balance helps avoid this. Sure it's annoying when your the one affected but it's better than stacked teams ruining the game for an entire team.
Story time:
Just last night, I was commanding and had to jump out to deal with a threat and died in the process. The aliens capitalized on my downtime by destroying half the base whilst the alive marines refused to hop into our 2nd Comm station to beacon everyone. I was out for about 4mins or so, during which there was mayhem on the voice chat with people screaming for someone to command. I finally re-spawned and hopped back in the chair and the game was prolonged another 10mins before we won...annoying? yes. But it stopped a steam-roll of the aliens and ultimately made a very tense few minutes where the aliens almost wiped us out (destroyed one comm station, and disabled power at our other temporarily). That experience simply wouldn't have been possible without auto-balance (or a player confident enough to command in my absence, but whatever). Similarly, if it had auto-switched me to the other team like other auto-balance systems (I'm looking at you Team Fortress 2) The marine team, which i had helped lead to a strong position would have been defeated and I'd have missed out on the chaos and be left thinking "how did that happen?" It'd have been far more annoying than sat waiting for someone else to die whilst watching my team crumble in my absence.
I'm sure there are other, potentially better, ways to balance stacked teams, but the current system works and I can't think of a single game with auto-balance that doesn't work in a similar way. It's simply not a big issue, and the Devs have far more important things to focus on. It also has the potential to give similar experiences to the one above :)
i honestly don't understand why people would play a onesided game that is mediocre at best when they can start a new round that has the potential to be a great game. yesterday i had a match in which you could tell that the game was lost after 25 minutes, marines lose tech point 2 and are down to 1 res for over 5 minutes that's when i had enough of this round; went spec and decided to watch the game for the lols.. guess what the game went on for over 30 more minutes because rines had 3w/3a and the onos on the other team played it as save as possible. every marine push was crushed by a horde of onos within 2 minutes and i probably had more fun watching them jerk around then getting stomped by superior res aliens.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
Ok let me start by saying I do not really see a better way of fixing this. The old NS1 plugins of forcing last one joined was utter crap.
But this NS2 feature does have some problems / annoyances.
* good marines die less, making you a spectator for real long. * most people who worked for a victory do not really want to switch sides. * switching sides and making teams 'even' is not per se true, as the player who switched has good know-how on the marines bases, tech & strategy. * auto-concede feels rather unrewarding for the team winning. (its a lot more useful at turtles since this can get annoying for both sides fast)
But like I said.. I do not see a better solution then what is currently implemented. (although I prefer auto-concede off myself, as often many folk have no clue wtf just happened)
The idea of forcing people from the ready room into the team low on manpower is great. Its not like a new joined person has a choice with the autobalance system anyway. Might as well save the time. And people who quit the team and F4 should indeed leave the server, opening a slot for someone who does want to fight.
<!--quoteo(post=2063648:date=Jan 20 2013, 04:35 AM:name=|strofix|)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (|strofix| @ Jan 20 2013, 04:35 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063648"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->But you are being punished.
When a good game is ruined by imbalanced teams, for <b>whatever </b>reason, everybody loses. Everybody is punished.
I would sooner sit in a spawn queue for 5 minutes, and wait for people to join the other team (or indeed simply join the other team myself), than have the ability to spawn in and win the game in a minute undeservedly. If you don't hold the same sentiment then you aren't interested in a fair game, you are only interested in winning, and this mechanic is not there to serve people like you, its there to serve people like me.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Less people does not mean imbalanced, when will you learn?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->win the game in a minute undeservedly<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So, I'm taking important point from the very start, holding it until we get PGs, then I'm free to go and deny enemy harvesters, then we get jetpacks and flamers and go and solo their second hive with jpflamer, then their whole team comes along and they kill me while I'm destroying their last upgrade. Seeing that this all was done by just one person, many decide to rage quit. And I have to watch the rest of the game? Because winning now will be 'undeserved' for me? How is blocking players who made the match balanced?
It gives UNFAIR advantage to the other team by blocking players. By no means you can call it 'balance' feature. Crap happened, team two made terrible mistake. Their problem. They have to lose now. They know that and are leaving now. But then 'balance' kicks in to help them recover? In what universe this is fair?
Who even talks about balance in one single pub match? Globally, game is somewhat balanced. Well, in one given match one team sucked more than the other one, but ffs, let play everyone who still wants to. If some decide not to play, you should not force someone else not to play as well. Losing is fun as much as winning, just let me play, I've payed for the goddamn game, if I wanted to watch it, I'd go youtube.
My team wins most of the games I'm in. I'm always applying tactics that annoy the hell out of the other team, tactics that are hard to deal with (bile from vents, ninja phasegates), ruining their economy by all means possible, being generally aggressive. I'm usually at the top of the scoreboard because I'm killing so much structures, tho my K:D ratio is way below 1 (I taunt after every kill as well, which I know sets some butts on fire). I contribute too much to my team, I annoy too much of the other team, no wonder they are leaving. But being aggressive means you will have to die a lot. And this means you will be forced to spectate some parts of the most matches you are in. I'm spectating waaaay too much because I'm too good at making other team lose. Wow, nice 'balance'.
<!--quoteo(post=2063631:date=Jan 20 2013, 08:00 PM:name=Know pain)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Know pain @ Jan 20 2013, 08:00 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063631"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><img src="http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/1441/spawnol.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> lmao this sums up. how the devs claim that they played the game, listened to the community and knows what we need. then miss out the server browser refresh button, fail queue join on full server, fail interface, no building attacked warning, wall jump, hitreg, no afk kick, 6 minutes onos egg, auto-balance and whats next? the january update? i suppose that last one wasnt a big content update. i would be surprised if they make it january.
making team balanced? ok. seems legit. but wtf is up with f4 to switch another team? so you assume people should f4 everytime the other team losing and switch to other team? encourage team hopping? what logic?
People seem to forget the real reason why this happens. Hint: It's not because a team is losing.
The issue here is that there is no forgiveness in the game. Once you reach a certain threshold, your team will lose and there is nothing you can do about it.
Why are some people leaving?
Because many people don't want to sit and play a game they have <b><!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->NO HOPE OF WINNING<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b>. If your team is rolling the other team, they're gonna quit. No one likes getting rolled. (Not just losing - but getting rolled - there is a difference.)
Since there are a number of insanely silly game mechanics in the game right now (like a power node in the main base that gives the other team an easy 'I win' button) when that 'button' gets pressed many people throw up their hands and leave. You fight all game and then you find out that because some gorge snuck into your base and bile bombed your power node - which the game handily never warned you about - that you now have no main base anymore. Why continue to play? You won't recover from that. The game has no forgiveness.
Why should anyone continue to play a game they KNOW FOR A FACT that they will lose? I'm not talking about a fight to the finish where either side can win. I'm talking about one side playing a game they know is only a matter of time before they lose.
Why should anyone be forced to hang around for target practice to stroke the epeens of the players on the other team?
<!--quoteo(post=2063717:date=Jan 20 2013, 09:50 AM:name=Savant)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Savant @ Jan 20 2013, 09:50 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063717"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->People seem to forget the real reason why this happens. Hint: It's not because a team is losing.
The issue here is that there is no forgiveness in the game. Once you reach a certain threshold, your team will lose and there is nothing you can do about it.
Why are some people leaving?
Because many people don't want to sit and play a game they have <b><!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->NO HOPE OF WINNING<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b>. If your team is rolling the other team, they're gonna quit. No one likes getting rolled. (Not just losing - but getting rolled - there is a difference.)
Since there are a number of insanely silly game mechanics in the game right now (like a power node in the main base that gives the other team an easy 'I win' button) when that 'button' gets pressed many people throw up their hands and leave. You fight all game and then you find out that because some gorge snuck into your base and bile bombed your power node - which the game handily never warned you about - that you now have no main base anymore. Why continue to play? You won't recover from that. The game has no forgiveness.
Why should anyone continue to play a game they KNOW FOR A FACT that they will lose? I'm not talking about a fight to the finish where either side can win. I'm talking about one side playing a game they know is only a matter of time before they lose.
Why should anyone be forced to hang around for target practice to stroke the epeens of the players on the other team?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I like the winorlose plugin the tactical gamer ns2 server uses for this reason. Basically, when you're down to one tech point your team can vote for it and if the vote passes it gives the other team a couple of minutes to destroy the last hive/cc or they lose. It's much less of a let down than just being tossed back to the readyroom with YOU WIN on your screen...
...and it disables attacks for the team that voted for it, so the winning team has no trouble doing so. Unlike the times one team is saying 'END IT WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR BLAH BLAH BLAH' while spamming non stop from a turtle. You have no idea how many times I've typed that "I'm on my way as a pacifist little gorgey so don't shoot while I bile" only to get killed by the last guy that said COME END THIS ALREADY.
<!--quoteo(post=2044597:date=Dec 12 2012, 02:13 PM:name=nawoa)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (nawoa @ Dec 12 2012, 02:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2044597"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Your team is dominating so heavily that <b>nobody has died in two minutes</b>, and the game is making you sit and wait so the other team has a fair chance of recovering, but you're too much of a ###### to switch sides so the game might be fun for everyone again instead of a cakewalk on one side and a slaughter on the other.
Wow, that must be awful. Would you like to cry on my shoulder?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Winning=Fun Not winning= Not fun
Seems pretty easy to understand to me. Why would anyone in their right mind join the team getting their poop pressed in? Masochism?
I really don't understand how anyone can claim autobalance isn't doing a much-needed job in this game. Losing the lead, or the game because of a lack of players is ridiculous and autobalance fixes this.
Autobalance isn't there to make you sit and wait because half the enemy team left in the final 10 minutes, although that is an unfortunate side-effect of the process.
Autobalance is there to make player numbers balanced in the event that players on one team leave, for one reason or another, until a time when new players join the downed team.
In a game of NS2 where it's possible to go from winning to losing in a manner of seconds, autobalance certainly has a place. If you get caught up in the waiting period, then I'm sorry, it really is unfortunate, but you should have the sense to know why you are sitting there waiting and understand the necessity of it. All I'm reading from these complaints against the system is <i>"I don't want the game to be fair. I don't care for the reasons."</i>
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It gives UNFAIR advantage to the other team by blocking players. By no means you can call it 'balance' feature. Crap happened, team two made terrible mistake. Their problem. They have to lose now. They know that and are leaving now. But then 'balance' kicks in to help them recover? In what universe this is fair?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Being 2 players down for any amount of time is enormously detrimental in NS2, for either team. So my team should lose because two people found themselves unable to play due to, say, a sudden power outage, or something else completely out of their hands? My team should suffer being 2 players down due to something completely out of their control, when there is a <i>perfectly functional autobalance feature</i>, implemented to cushion this exact situation and make the game more fair to the unfortunate side while new players join? That's just silly.
This game is competitive. Competitions have rules, and one of these rules, dictated by the maker of the competition, is balanced teams. There is a system that forces adherence to these rules, for the sake of fair play. You play by the rules, or you play another game, or join a server that doesn't have autobalance. Which is, strangely enough, quite rare; I wonder why that is?
now we have a propoer concede option I hope they go the next step and count people who are in the ready room as still on the team they left. This would stop the autobalance kicking in and stalling what is seen to be an inevitable loss for the team with players leaving.
Solves the issue of people being disconnected impacting numbers..and means if you dont want to fight out a loss that the winning team does not have to take longer to finish the game.
<!--quoteo(post=2063717:date=Jan 20 2013, 07:50 AM:name=Savant)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Savant @ Jan 20 2013, 07:50 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063717"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The issue here is that there is no forgiveness in the game. <b>Once you reach a certain threshold, your team will lose and there is nothing you can do about it.</b><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not always. Often the game will be evenly matched and you get a nice back and forth until someone wins. That's what I love about NS2 vs NS1. In NS1 you would know after 8-12 minutes whether or not you were going to win.
Now if the team is completely dominating your players and destroying your res towers early on, then yes, there's no way of coming back from that.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You will respawn when your teammates die.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And I just wanted to add...
I absolutely LOVE this feature and I wish more games would incorporate it.
<!--quoteo(post=2063994:date=Jan 21 2013, 09:22 AM:name=hakenspit)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (hakenspit @ Jan 21 2013, 09:22 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063994"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Well most often you see it enabled due to F4's.
now we have a propoer concede option I hope they go the next step and count people who are in the ready room as still on the team they left. This would stop the autobalance kicking in and stalling what is seen to be an inevitable loss for the team with players leaving.
Solves the issue of people being disconnected impacting numbers..and means if you dont want to fight out a loss that the winning team does not have to take longer to finish the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I would only support this option if it was implemented with mandatory for all servers ready room kicking after one minute. (when the round is active that is, you can all hang in the rr between rounds for longer)
<!--quoteo(post=2064024:date=Jan 21 2013, 01:06 PM:name=Seahunts)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Seahunts @ Jan 21 2013, 01:06 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2064024"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I would only support this option if it was implemented with mandatory for all servers ready room kicking after one minute. (when the round is active that is, you can all hang in the rr between rounds for longer)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> At the start of each round the teams are reset....so its only if you actually played in the existing game that you are counted.
Ready room idling between rounds is a seperate issue, this is to stop people f4'ing and killing the game for the winning side.
The intent of people is that the games lost...so I am not f4'ing to allow other team to win....sadly the autobalnce thwarts this.
Instead we have a great griefing tool that a losing side can do to agrevate the winning side.
Has anyone in their experience seen an Alien team take advantage of it? i.e. Alright, we just fought a battle and the marines all died. Bob and Joe are Onos and in position with Sam and John who are fades. Everyone else hit F4 to autoteam-balance their team and we can hit the power button and win the game. I don't care noob, hit F4. Hit F4 or you're a (derogatory name).
Or: Alright, we're down by a lot. The 4/10 bottom players hit F4 so the pro players can rape their team.
I could see the Auto-balance team mechanic being abused this way.
Comments
At least relax it for a bit: 10x9, evrything is fine, but 10x8 - two people are not allowed to spawn. Well at least disallow only one person to spawn, this will cut down the pressure of this broken mechanic. Or make smaller team spawn faster.
Nothing worse than dying with flamethrower, welder and mines right in front of your base and not being able to recover your stuff. And not getting any res you were supposed to get during that time.
Punishment for team performing well. Punishment for leavers from the other team.
That should have resulted in an instant alien team auto concede. The server was misconfigured and doesn't represent the working auto balance/concede system.
Autoconcede, on the other hand, is another broken feature. We had this match started and it was like 4v3 while other 10+ were still in RR. One guys from 3 team goes F4 and wow the match is won! Then we start again, somebody joins and insta F4s and the round is over again.
<!--quoteo(post=2063624:date=Jan 20 2013, 03:38 AM:name=xen32)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (xen32 @ Jan 20 2013, 03:38 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063624"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Autoconcede, on the other hand, is another broken feature. We had this match started and it was like 4v3 while other 10+ were still in RR. One guys from 3 team goes F4 and wow the match is won! Then we start again, somebody joins and insta F4s and the round is over again.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A minor flaw, but otherwise the autoconcede feature is still a pretty good addition in order to prevent the autobalance from getting completely out of hand. The instant win/loss doesn't really affect anything, there are no player statistics and the map change is based primarily on time, so instantly winning/losing at the start won't ever cause the server to change maps. If they ever put in achivements/statistics such that the "unfair" loss actually made a difference, they could simply give the autoconcede a 2 minute timeout to prevent it from activation at the very beginning of a game.
Usually, after it happens once enough people will finish loading in that you'll have more than 4 people on a team and it won't even be an issue. In fact, it unintentionally helps promote fairer games after map switch by buying a little extra time for the slow-loading people to get in and get on a team. Now THAT'S an actual problem with the game, the game starts before many people finish loading in. Needs a longer warmup time.
1. Players F4 cause the game is coming to a close and team balance slows the game ending down.
2. One team is owning and the other team rage quits and sits in spectator forcing good players to wait in line or switch teams in many times a hopeless battle.
3. Some servers will turn this feature off, due tell which servers.
Took some screen shots of team balance and auto-team balance over a month or so.
<img src="http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/1441/spawnol.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
If you got it to the point where people started rage leaving because they see no way of winning the match, you just have to let them lose. Game won't ever start with unbalanced teams, people are only mass leaving when there is no hope. Blah-blah, competitive game, blah-blah, gotta have balance. People do not ever leave in comp. And pubs are made for fun. Sieging enemy base = fun. Turtling = fun. Not being able to spawn = not fun.
What's even worse with this feature, if rage quitter would leave the server, new people would join and we'd have full teams again. But when they choose not to play, but rather sit in RR/Spectate, there is no way for new people to join. And YOU have to suffer for them being such arseholes. No votekick and afk kick won't do a thing if they are still active in RR.
Spectators should get separate slots for sure, so people who want to play the game could join. And those who are already playing could spawn.
I'd still say keep the autobalance though. Some times people leave servers half way through matches for other reasons, and it sucks if its 6v8 for too long.
The other team has one hive and no res node, and they F4d and now you can't spawn? Who gives a ######? Oh no, a ruined game is now even more ruined, BOOHOO.
Half the other team rage quit and now its 8v4 but the game drags on because you can't spawn in? Oh hark, what a shame that such an imbalanced game hath been ruined!
What about the good games? Say theres an 8v8 going on and suddenly two brothers playing have to go for supper? 20 minutes in, everything even, and suddenly all that time is wasted because the game is now 6v8 and it carries on as such?
What if an ISP has technical difficulties and suddenly 3 people drop from the server at the same time during an epic battle in an even more epic game? Suddenly neither team is deserving because the game is decided by a 5v8 imbalance?
<b>Think about it</b> for just a single moment in your life. Realise that this mechanic <b>saves</b> good games from being ruined, rather than focusing on the fact that it can't save a game that is already long passed over.
Not my f-ing problem. I should not be ever punished for other people's actions.
But you are being punished.
When a good game is ruined by imbalanced teams, for <b>whatever </b>reason, everybody loses. Everybody is punished.
I would sooner sit in a spawn queue for 5 minutes, and wait for people to join the other team (or indeed simply join the other team myself), than have the ability to spawn in and win the game in a minute undeservedly. If you don't hold the same sentiment then you aren't interested in a fair game, you are only interested in winning, and this mechanic is not there to serve people like you, its there to serve people like me.
Hell the long spawntimes or not being able to spawn at all when aliens are egg-locked is far more annoying in my opinion.
It's a bit frustrating when you can't be there for the finish but I made myslef a reason and spectate. It's still the team's win.
And if it's at early or middle game, it works keeping balance until more people join or some people switch side.
Story time:
Just last night, I was commanding and had to jump out to deal with a threat and died in the process. The aliens capitalized on my downtime by destroying half the base whilst the alive marines refused to hop into our 2nd Comm station to beacon everyone. I was out for about 4mins or so, during which there was mayhem on the voice chat with people screaming for someone to command. I finally re-spawned and hopped back in the chair and the game was prolonged another 10mins before we won...annoying? yes. But it stopped a steam-roll of the aliens and ultimately made a very tense few minutes where the aliens almost wiped us out (destroyed one comm station, and disabled power at our other temporarily). That experience simply wouldn't have been possible without auto-balance (or a player confident enough to command in my absence, but whatever). Similarly, if it had auto-switched me to the other team like other auto-balance systems (I'm looking at you Team Fortress 2) The marine team, which i had helped lead to a strong position would have been defeated and I'd have missed out on the chaos and be left thinking "how did that happen?" It'd have been far more annoying than sat waiting for someone else to die whilst watching my team crumble in my absence.
I'm sure there are other, potentially better, ways to balance stacked teams, but the current system works and I can't think of a single game with auto-balance that doesn't work in a similar way. It's simply not a big issue, and the Devs have far more important things to focus on. It also has the potential to give similar experiences to the one above :)
But this NS2 feature does have some problems / annoyances.
* good marines die less, making you a spectator for real long.
* most people who worked for a victory do not really want to switch sides.
* switching sides and making teams 'even' is not per se true, as the player who switched has good know-how on the marines bases, tech & strategy.
* auto-concede feels rather unrewarding for the team winning. (its a lot more useful at turtles since this can get annoying for both sides fast)
But like I said.. I do not see a better solution then what is currently implemented. (although I prefer auto-concede off myself, as often many folk have no clue wtf just happened)
The idea of forcing people from the ready room into the team low on manpower is great. Its not like a new joined person has a choice with the autobalance system anyway. Might as well save the time. And people who quit the team and F4 should indeed leave the server, opening a slot for someone who does want to fight.
When a good game is ruined by imbalanced teams, for <b>whatever </b>reason, everybody loses. Everybody is punished.
I would sooner sit in a spawn queue for 5 minutes, and wait for people to join the other team (or indeed simply join the other team myself), than have the ability to spawn in and win the game in a minute undeservedly. If you don't hold the same sentiment then you aren't interested in a fair game, you are only interested in winning, and this mechanic is not there to serve people like you, its there to serve people like me.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Less people does not mean imbalanced, when will you learn?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->win the game in a minute undeservedly<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So, I'm taking important point from the very start, holding it until we get PGs, then I'm free to go and deny enemy harvesters, then we get jetpacks and flamers and go and solo their second hive with jpflamer, then their whole team comes along and they kill me while I'm destroying their last upgrade. Seeing that this all was done by just one person, many decide to rage quit. And I have to watch the rest of the game? Because winning now will be 'undeserved' for me? How is blocking players who made the match balanced?
It gives UNFAIR advantage to the other team by blocking players. By no means you can call it 'balance' feature. Crap happened, team two made terrible mistake. Their problem. They have to lose now. They know that and are leaving now. But then 'balance' kicks in to help them recover? In what universe this is fair?
Who even talks about balance in one single pub match? Globally, game is somewhat balanced. Well, in one given match one team sucked more than the other one, but ffs, let play everyone who still wants to. If some decide not to play, you should not force someone else not to play as well. Losing is fun as much as winning, just let me play, I've payed for the goddamn game, if I wanted to watch it, I'd go youtube.
My team wins most of the games I'm in. I'm always applying tactics that annoy the hell out of the other team, tactics that are hard to deal with (bile from vents, ninja phasegates), ruining their economy by all means possible, being generally aggressive. I'm usually at the top of the scoreboard because I'm killing so much structures, tho my K:D ratio is way below 1 (I taunt after every kill as well, which I know sets some butts on fire). I contribute too much to my team, I annoy too much of the other team, no wonder they are leaving. But being aggressive means you will have to die a lot. And this means you will be forced to spectate some parts of the most matches you are in. I'm spectating waaaay too much because I'm too good at making other team lose. Wow, nice 'balance'.
lmao this sums up. how the devs claim that they played the game, listened to the community and knows what we need. then miss out the server browser refresh button, fail queue join on full server, fail interface, no building attacked warning, wall jump, hitreg, no afk kick, 6 minutes onos egg, auto-balance and whats next? the january update? i suppose that last one wasnt a big content update. i would be surprised if they make it january.
making team balanced? ok. seems legit. but wtf is up with f4 to switch another team? so you assume people should f4 everytime the other team losing and switch to other team? encourage team hopping? what logic?
The issue here is that there is no forgiveness in the game. Once you reach a certain threshold, your team will lose and there is nothing you can do about it.
Why are some people leaving?
Because many people don't want to sit and play a game they have <b><!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->NO HOPE OF WINNING<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b>. If your team is rolling the other team, they're gonna quit. No one likes getting rolled. (Not just losing - but getting rolled - there is a difference.)
Since there are a number of insanely silly game mechanics in the game right now (like a power node in the main base that gives the other team an easy 'I win' button) when that 'button' gets pressed many people throw up their hands and leave. You fight all game and then you find out that because some gorge snuck into your base and bile bombed your power node - which the game handily never warned you about - that you now have no main base anymore. Why continue to play? You won't recover from that. The game has no forgiveness.
Why should anyone continue to play a game they KNOW FOR A FACT that they will lose? I'm not talking about a fight to the finish where either side can win. I'm talking about one side playing a game they know is only a matter of time before they lose.
Why should anyone be forced to hang around for target practice to stroke the epeens of the players on the other team?
And the others are leaving because the game won't simply let them play.
The issue here is that there is no forgiveness in the game. Once you reach a certain threshold, your team will lose and there is nothing you can do about it.
Why are some people leaving?
Because many people don't want to sit and play a game they have <b><!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->NO HOPE OF WINNING<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b>. If your team is rolling the other team, they're gonna quit. No one likes getting rolled. (Not just losing - but getting rolled - there is a difference.)
Since there are a number of insanely silly game mechanics in the game right now (like a power node in the main base that gives the other team an easy 'I win' button) when that 'button' gets pressed many people throw up their hands and leave. You fight all game and then you find out that because some gorge snuck into your base and bile bombed your power node - which the game handily never warned you about - that you now have no main base anymore. Why continue to play? You won't recover from that. The game has no forgiveness.
Why should anyone continue to play a game they KNOW FOR A FACT that they will lose? I'm not talking about a fight to the finish where either side can win. I'm talking about one side playing a game they know is only a matter of time before they lose.
Why should anyone be forced to hang around for target practice to stroke the epeens of the players on the other team?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I like the winorlose plugin the tactical gamer ns2 server uses for this reason. Basically, when you're down to one tech point your team can vote for it and if the vote passes it gives the other team a couple of minutes to destroy the last hive/cc or they lose. It's much less of a let down than just being tossed back to the readyroom with YOU WIN on your screen...
...and it disables attacks for the team that voted for it, so the winning team has no trouble doing so. Unlike the times one team is saying 'END IT WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR BLAH BLAH BLAH' while spamming non stop from a turtle. You have no idea how many times I've typed that "I'm on my way as a pacifist little gorgey so don't shoot while I bile" only to get killed by the last guy that said COME END THIS ALREADY.
Wow, that must be awful. Would you like to cry on my shoulder?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Winning=Fun
Not winning= Not fun
Seems pretty easy to understand to me. Why would anyone in their right mind join the team getting their poop pressed in? Masochism?
Autobalance isn't there to make you sit and wait because half the enemy team left in the final 10 minutes, although that is an unfortunate side-effect of the process.
Autobalance is there to make player numbers balanced in the event that players on one team leave, for one reason or another, until a time when new players join the downed team.
In a game of NS2 where it's possible to go from winning to losing in a manner of seconds, autobalance certainly has a place. If you get caught up in the waiting period, then I'm sorry, it really is unfortunate, but you should have the sense to know why you are sitting there waiting and understand the necessity of it. All I'm reading from these complaints against the system is <i>"I don't want the game to be fair. I don't care for the reasons."</i>
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It gives UNFAIR advantage to the other team by blocking players. By no means you can call it 'balance' feature. Crap happened, team two made terrible mistake. Their problem. They have to lose now. They know that and are leaving now. But then 'balance' kicks in to help them recover? In what universe this is fair?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Being 2 players down for any amount of time is enormously detrimental in NS2, for either team. So my team should lose because two people found themselves unable to play due to, say, a sudden power outage, or something else completely out of their hands? My team should suffer being 2 players down due to something completely out of their control, when there is a <i>perfectly functional autobalance feature</i>, implemented to cushion this exact situation and make the game more fair to the unfortunate side while new players join? That's just silly.
This game is competitive. Competitions have rules, and one of these rules, dictated by the maker of the competition, is balanced teams. There is a system that forces adherence to these rules, for the sake of fair play. You play by the rules, or you play another game, or join a server that doesn't have autobalance. Which is, strangely enough, quite rare; I wonder why that is?
now we have a propoer concede option I hope they go the next step and count people who are in the ready room as still on the team they left.
This would stop the autobalance kicking in and stalling what is seen to be an inevitable loss for the team with players leaving.
Solves the issue of people being disconnected impacting numbers..and means if you dont want to fight out a loss that the winning team does not have to take longer to finish the game.
Not always. Often the game will be evenly matched and you get a nice back and forth until someone wins. That's what I love about NS2 vs NS1. In NS1 you would know after 8-12 minutes whether or not you were going to win.
Now if the team is completely dominating your players and destroying your res towers early on, then yes, there's no way of coming back from that.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You will respawn when your teammates die.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And I just wanted to add...
I absolutely LOVE this feature and I wish more games would incorporate it.
now we have a propoer concede option I hope they go the next step and count people who are in the ready room as still on the team they left.
This would stop the autobalance kicking in and stalling what is seen to be an inevitable loss for the team with players leaving.
Solves the issue of people being disconnected impacting numbers..and means if you dont want to fight out a loss that the winning team does not have to take longer to finish the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I would only support this option if it was implemented with mandatory for all servers ready room kicking after one minute.
(when the round is active that is, you can all hang in the rr between rounds for longer)
(when the round is active that is, you can all hang in the rr between rounds for longer)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
At the start of each round the teams are reset....so its only if you actually played in the existing game that you are counted.
Ready room idling between rounds is a seperate issue, this is to stop people f4'ing and killing the game for the winning side.
The intent of people is that the games lost...so I am not f4'ing to allow other team to win....sadly the autobalnce thwarts this.
Instead we have a great griefing tool that a losing side can do to agrevate the winning side.
Or: Alright, we're down by a lot. The 4/10 bottom players hit F4 so the pro players can rape their team.
I could see the Auto-balance team mechanic being abused this way.