Skill Stacked Teams is Killing NS2
Mac1OMan
Join Date: 2004-10-29 Member: 32510Members, Reinforced - Supporter
Join Date: 2004-10-29 Member: 32510Members, Reinforced - Supporter
Replace vote random with a vote for splitting players up based on their stats is an easy solution to this problem. End this discussion of stacks once and for all!
Getting pretty tired of the best players in a server jumping on one team with their buddies. Typically marines choke the aliens from leaving their base right from the start and take over the whole map slowly increasing their ratios. I have only started playing a lot over the last month and this is the most discouraging thing in this game. It's so bad sometimes I can look at the names on a team before the game starts and call who is going to win correctly 9 times out of 10, and that 1 time I'm wrong is when the aliens get lucky and successfully rush.
One thing I have noticed is that it is very evident that badge players flock to the same team, and that's really a bad thing. You may say that badges don't reflect skill, but they actually do. They certainly display more skill than lack of. You probably wont find newer/lesser experienced players donating to a game. Either way this isn't my main point, but its something to think about.
Seems like a *good majority* of pro players (of what I personally have seen) only care about two things, and that's their ratio and winning (in their defense its human nature). As soon as they start losing 50% of the time they leave.
I must be one of the few that like to think outside of the box as I care about balanced teams, that are going to last more than 2-5 minutes. I don't even care if I have no choice in what team I end up on so long as its a balanced game. I feel that of the numerous randoms I've seen many people feel the same way.
Attemping to ask these certain players to split up, leads to them very rarely listening to anything from the "lower denominator", and probably throwing a smart ass remark back. These *specific* pro players seem to be the rudest and most stubborn players in the community.
I'm noticing friends that I turned onto this game leaving and playing other games and beginning to quit because of these stacked games. I'm actually considering going back to EA again as well and getting into BF4... now that's when you know there's a problem! I personally hate EA completely!
I would consider myself an above average player, but I can't begin to imagine how frustrating this game is to someone brand new jumping in these green servers with pro players stomping one team.
I'm speaking on behalf of 7 of my friends that play or played the game, when I say skill stacked teams is killing the game for the public player. It's really hard for me or anyone I can imagine to recommend this game to someone new when even an above average player is having trouble with this game... It's simply frustrating and people need to help make this a better place or a system needs to be put in place to force a numerical balance. Honestly I don't have faith in the common man so the force option is the only realisitic method to fix this issue. Either way I doubt to see anything like this coming in the near future directly from UWE, and I notice I am exiting out of this game more and more often and my patience is running thin. Others are already following suit.
So I hope the community can come up with something to better mitigate this issue! I've already stated one way. Step up and be a leader, don't trash this game for new players.Thank you for your time!
Getting pretty tired of the best players in a server jumping on one team with their buddies. Typically marines choke the aliens from leaving their base right from the start and take over the whole map slowly increasing their ratios. I have only started playing a lot over the last month and this is the most discouraging thing in this game. It's so bad sometimes I can look at the names on a team before the game starts and call who is going to win correctly 9 times out of 10, and that 1 time I'm wrong is when the aliens get lucky and successfully rush.
One thing I have noticed is that it is very evident that badge players flock to the same team, and that's really a bad thing. You may say that badges don't reflect skill, but they actually do. They certainly display more skill than lack of. You probably wont find newer/lesser experienced players donating to a game. Either way this isn't my main point, but its something to think about.
Seems like a *good majority* of pro players (of what I personally have seen) only care about two things, and that's their ratio and winning (in their defense its human nature). As soon as they start losing 50% of the time they leave.
I must be one of the few that like to think outside of the box as I care about balanced teams, that are going to last more than 2-5 minutes. I don't even care if I have no choice in what team I end up on so long as its a balanced game. I feel that of the numerous randoms I've seen many people feel the same way.
Attemping to ask these certain players to split up, leads to them very rarely listening to anything from the "lower denominator", and probably throwing a smart ass remark back. These *specific* pro players seem to be the rudest and most stubborn players in the community.
I'm noticing friends that I turned onto this game leaving and playing other games and beginning to quit because of these stacked games. I'm actually considering going back to EA again as well and getting into BF4... now that's when you know there's a problem! I personally hate EA completely!
I would consider myself an above average player, but I can't begin to imagine how frustrating this game is to someone brand new jumping in these green servers with pro players stomping one team.
I'm speaking on behalf of 7 of my friends that play or played the game, when I say skill stacked teams is killing the game for the public player. It's really hard for me or anyone I can imagine to recommend this game to someone new when even an above average player is having trouble with this game... It's simply frustrating and people need to help make this a better place or a system needs to be put in place to force a numerical balance. Honestly I don't have faith in the common man so the force option is the only realisitic method to fix this issue. Either way I doubt to see anything like this coming in the near future directly from UWE, and I notice I am exiting out of this game more and more often and my patience is running thin. Others are already following suit.
So I hope the community can come up with something to better mitigate this issue! I've already stated one way. Step up and be a leader, don't trash this game for new players.Thank you for your time!
Comments
Last night I had a game where the same insanely good players, talking 20+ to 1 or 2 deaths, not only stacked together for at least 3 rounds in a row, but rejoined Marines every game, after Marine team had won repeatedly. I mean come on, isn't it just basic courtesy to change teams if you see things going that way? I change teams every game unless there was a rush or I otherwise didn't feel like I got to play a full round as the team I wanted.
The skill ceiling in this game is ludicrous, I really don't understand it. I know there have got to be hackers at times, but I like to think most players are just skilled.
In their defense, it's hard not to play at your full skill level, and that's not what I'm asking. I just want a bit more courtesy, and thought towards the other players and the game overall. This issue literally kills servers, and drives people away from the game I think, in the end. I've even joined a kick vote at times because someone was just wrecking the entire game and wouldn't stop. Don't like kicking people for skill reasons, but there has to be a line drawn somewhere.
There have been a good amount of servers up lately, so another suggestion of simply switching servers until you find one closer to your skill level is reasonable, I think. I do it all the time, both up and down the skill range.
I can't agree with you more here. Even when I'm on a stacked team for a game it bothers me. When I can look at the map from either side and call GG within 3 minutes its a waste of time to me and pisses me off, like I said even if I'm on the winning team!
As you said I'm not upset at players for being extremely good, its the fact that they don't make an effort to balance out a game. Instead they deny that there is a stack and continue to beat the pulp out of the very obviously weaker skilled team.
Having to switch from servers that I've built up from 0 population is not an option. The main reason I'm making this post is because today was the last straw. I literally built a server today from 0 people to 24, and watched it fall back to 0 within 2 hours due to players skill stacking every game for 6 rounds. It's sickening and frustrating. And this has become a daily thing, maybe not to this extreme, but it is a consistent and constant issue daily!
May wanna move this in general discuttion?
@Mac1OMan
unfortunately stack happens depending on server & area. It makes it even harder because a player which has a skill to crush you may not even be close to a div3 player. (who again are far removed from a div1 player)
What I am trying to say is, the skill level isnt good player / less good. You have a lot of steps and each 'lower' step gets owned.
The best games are often on community servers as they try to stack less & are frequently under admin supervision.
An effort actually needs to be done to address this issue, or people will continue to come and go as soon as they can't take it anymore.
Community servers self govern to a point as those players play more often with another and due to peer pressure will less likely accept stack. Admins can grind out the exceptions.
But uwe is working on a ranking system! That would, I hope, help.
Also if you are in the eu, give us a shout at taw.
We also organize our own matches with are somewhere between public play and competitive play. So less stack.
I've seen many occasions where the more skilled players will spread themselves out to balance a game, and these games are always far more enjoyable. On the other hand, using the Random Teams option can result in horrible matches, but that stems from the fact that there is a large skill range between the best and the worst players on the server and this leads to the imbalance.
One thing I would like to see, is something similar to the green Rookie servers, but for higher skilled players. These would indicate that new or average players should avoid these, but those seeking a challenge or wanting to play with and against good players would be more inclined to stack up on the higher skill servers.
The only downside to that is the quality of games at the lower end would get much worse, as many of the better players tend to be good commanders and drive the matches in the right direction.
Most of the time admins are no where to be found, and when they are you can't just kick/ban people for being really good players.
I would love to see a matchmaking system that would put people in servers with other people of their perspective skill level. The problem with that is the game lacks the population, and I for one feel lucky if I get into a server that isnt empty or having to wait a half hour for a slot.
Even if matchmaking gets implemented, people will still stack. There isn't any solution unless you want to try and fix the human race in general. lol
The only way to mitigate it is through proper admining... like someone posted already.
Well, can't say I've experienced that, but yeah, if they are deliberately playing on Rookie servers just for the sake of griefing, then that is a dick move. But you should consider that many of the servers that high end players like to play on tend to always be full, so you might see them wandering into other servers when they can't get a game on one of their favourites.
Unfortunately if they are choosing to play on Rookie servers for the sake of griefing there isn't much that can be done about it. Encouraging skilled players to play on higher skill servers is one thing, but if they are choosing to play with new or bad players, then all that can really be done is banning them.
I believe there's a server plugin for NS2 that doesn't allow you to switch teams after it chooses the teams randomly. That's the only instance where a "fix" for the human race would be viable.
You couldn't be more wrong. Even NS1 had a numerical balance mod based on K:D... It's pretty sad that almost a decade later this doesn't exist for its successor.
I remember being on some of those servers for Combat. It made it very enjoyable because it was no longer a steamroll
It doesn't exist because people are in perma denial about KDR being a valid stat for balancing teams, even though they admit that KDR is the stat people care about the most when it comes to balance. So we're stuck, waiting for that perfect and omni-potent balance tool that will never see the light of day.
KDR wouldn't be a good stat to use for the purpose of matchmaking. If you put a pro player in with a bunch of noobs, they would easily wipe the floor with them, gaining a very high KDR. If you put that same player into a match with other pro players, their KDR will drop dramatically because of the increase in quality of the opponents.
And also, there are good players that have terrible KDRs for a variety of reasons, such as a tendency towards support play (playing as Gorge for example) and others like myself, that get a lot of kills and assists, but die a hell of a lot as well. I prefer to play as Aliens most of the time, and I prefer to play as Skulk, so that tends to lower my KDR a great deal. On the other hand some other player playing a Fade pretty well can get lots of easy kills but will die only a few times.
But they can ask the stacked persons to spread out in teams the next round. and I ment 'ask'.
I have faith in the upcoming matchmaking though. It's not going to eradicate the issue, but it should definitely make it a bit easier to get some balanced games going.
I prefer the ns2stats ELO-random cause its a mix between ELO (the 8 players with the highest ELO score) and the average KD/R of the last 3 rounds for the other players.
No system is perfect and i saw teams with "great" named losing the hard way after random vote.
But thats more cause missing teamplay (happend to high-skilled players also)
If you see to much stack, how about counterstack?
You have stacked teams in EVERY onlinegame cause people want to play with ther friends not against.
But if i see the same players again and again stomping the server i force random from time to time.
So yes, admins can use theyr control abilitys in this way and they should do so if they are good admins.
I think K:D ratio is as good a place as any to start. It a basic numerical value that can be balanced, and it would improve balance better than nothing.
Wasn't talking about a matchmaking tool, just a team random balance tool.
Bitey proves this statement false