Stacking?

MuckyMcFlyMuckyMcFly Join Date: 2012-03-19 Member: 148982Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
How often do you hear this used in NS2 recently? I swear nearly every game someone mentions it or goes off on a rage.

Does this annoy anyone?

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Comments

  • Maxx11_v2.0Maxx11_v2.0 Join Date: 2012-11-18 Member: 172221Members
    Its not going away, so you may as well get used to it.
  • joshhhjoshhh Milwaukee, WI Join Date: 2011-06-21 Member: 105717Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester
    People just misuse the term 'stack' in general. Teams will never be even. So when one team has more skill than the other team, its apparently stacked.
  • Maxx11_v2.0Maxx11_v2.0 Join Date: 2012-11-18 Member: 172221Members
    Recently though, a new type of stack has surfaced, the rookie stack. This time its the "good" players trying to outbid each other by the amount of green players on their respective teams.
  • MuckyMcFlyMuckyMcFly Join Date: 2012-03-19 Member: 148982Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited January 2014
    I have to say the badges thing is quite funny, since all that shows is people have far too much money :)

    A team with more players with mics and willing to work together makes it was easier to win.

    One thing I would possibly suggest, before getting an ear bashing, is that the vote random ready-room be moved to randomize all players even if they have already chosen a team, its the only way to be sure.

  • It's Super Effective!It's Super Effective! Join Date: 2012-08-28 Member: 156625Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
    I think Shine administration already does this, but even so, Random never solved anything.

    I've been encouraging a more civil approach, but it requires the cooperation of all players. Do team captains, with the two best players as captains. Or, choose 2 rookies who don't know who is who.
  • meatmachinemeatmachine South England Join Date: 2013-01-06 Member: 177858Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
    @Roobubba said exactly what I was going to say, and honestly it can't be reiterated enough.

    Much of it also has to do with the synergy of the differing roles various players naturally assume. Many times I've seen teams comprised almost entirely of silent players who consistently get high KDRs (and are thus seen as highly skilled) get decimated by a team of cooperative, considerate players who are perhaps less often at the top of the scoreboard. The games where people say 'aww shit marines are stacked!' and then the 'rines get rolled over.
  • MuckyMcFlyMuckyMcFly Join Date: 2012-03-19 Member: 148982Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
    Couldn't agree with you more there @meatmachine we've had some amazing games against what most would see as stacked teams and overcome with teamwork and great communication. You can't win NS2 alone, simple as that.

    Though there was this one time on Tram..... :)
  • GhoulofGSG9GhoulofGSG9 Join Date: 2013-03-31 Member: 184566Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Supporter, WC 2013 - Supporter, Pistachionauts
    edited January 2014
    Oh even after randomizing or balancing the hole teams based on previous K/D/A or Score or NS2Stats Elo ppl will still cry out that they only lost because the other team stacked. Even if that is impossible.

    The real issue here is that somehow it's hard for some ppl to realize that they loose mainly because they didn't cooperate as a team.

    Skill matters to some point, but skill alone doen't win games and there is no way to really track teamplay other than w/l what NS2Stats somehow does.

    But i think ppl will never stop calling out for stacked teams. They just need a reason why they lost because realizing that you yourself caused the defeat is always hard and painfull.

    So ppl stick to either "my teammates were all idiots" or "the other team was so stacked we didn't had a chance".

    And for the record i'm not saying that there are never stacked teams. But in most cases ppl call out for stacked teams they just don't realize that they lost because of their lack to work together as team.

    So after all in most cases i just ignore those ppl.
  • meatmachinemeatmachine South England Join Date: 2013-01-06 Member: 177858Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
    Frankly this touches on a point I've been thinking about for a while.

    See, you get this mentality of blaming others for failure in any team-based game. it's completely unavoidable due to the complex nature of human interaction.

    I know I'm guilty of it- Where it's a team based game you often take action based on your interpretation of the actions of your teammates.
    When this turns out to be a bad choice, it can seem like your teammate balled out on you.

    How many times have you committed to an assault only to realise your teammates are back at the armory?

    I've got some experience with LoL, for example. Everyone knows LoL has a reputation for ragey 12 year olds and 'toxic' 'players' and 'games'.

    The enfuriating gameplay experiences this induces are something a large amount of money, time and effort have been poured into trying to prevent and resolve.

    If UWE wishes for NS2 to be adopted widely as a competitive-style game for the long term, it will have to learn from other franchises that have walked the same path.

    It worries me that I've heard nothing of any steps taken to this end. I'd love to hear the official position on the matter of player toxicity and attitude in a competitive team-based game such as NS2.

    Sure, assholes currently get banned, but fact of the matter is that the ones on the receiving end of abuse are those most likely to quit.
  • Ghosthree3Ghosthree3 Join Date: 2010-02-13 Member: 70557Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    With relevance to the above 2 posts, it really is just an ego problem, people seem really blind to their own faults. I must admit it took me way longer than I would have liked to overcome that particular boundary myself (about 3,000 LoL games).
  • current1ycurrent1y Join Date: 2003-12-08 Member: 24150Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester
    edited January 2014
    The best pubber rage i've seen yet was last weekend when I helped prevent a marine 7 min slaughter by shit talking marines bragging about killing my green team. We got 2 hives but lost the second. We replanted the 2nd and then lost the first (now with no hives) we ended up growing generator and then retook our first hive again in departures. 60 minutes in and after 2 failed vote kicks by 1-2 marine players on me we took east wing where they had a big base set up all game. Then then the server mysteriously crashed 10 seconds after we took the ground.

    Was really funny way to end that crazy game. I mean what shithead tries to kick a player off the team they are stomping for 60 minutes simply because they are the 1 player they get killed by. Then ddos the server when the aliens start to retake ground.
  • _INTER__INTER_ Join Date: 2009-08-08 Member: 68392Members, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow
    The best games I had so far were, when the good players actively "anti-stacked". It needs a lot of players that wish to have a good game rather than to have an easy-win game though.

    Also the Hive matchmaking system is in the making. But we don't know how exactly it works and how effective it will be in the end.
  • MuckyMcFlyMuckyMcFly Join Date: 2012-03-19 Member: 148982Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
    I did have some concerns that the implementation of a 'skill level' might cause these imbalances but it seems that its not been that big an issue.

    I enjoyed @current1y 's post, seen that happen a few times :)
  • VengaboyVengaboy The Swamp Join Date: 2013-08-24 Member: 187053Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    MuckyMcFly wrote: »
    I have to say the badges thing is quite funny, since all that shows is people have far too much money :)

    Donating to the development team that created the most unique gaming experience ever IMO means I have far too much money? Mmmm no. It means I enjoy this game so much that i'm willing to support it using the money I worked hard to earn. However, donating thousands of dollars to Spike Lee's movie kickstarter for a film that hasn't been made yet... that's a sucker with far too much money looking for recognition. Direct your snarky opinions that way, not toward members of a community that you yourself are a part of.
  • Maxx11_v2.0Maxx11_v2.0 Join Date: 2012-11-18 Member: 172221Members
    Vengaboy wrote: »
    MuckyMcFly wrote: »
    I have to say the badges thing is quite funny, since all that shows is people have far too much money :)

    Donating to the development team that created the most unique gaming experience ever IMO means I have far too much money? Mmmm no. It means I enjoy this game so much that i'm willing to support it using the money I worked hard to earn. However, donating thousands of dollars to Spike Lee's movie kickstarter for a film that hasn't been made yet... that's a sucker with far too much money looking for recognition. Direct your snarky opinions that way, not toward members of a community that you yourself are a part of.

    So, by your logic, peope who supported NS2 with their preorders when it was just a concept are also idiots?
    If you're going to argue at least try to make it resonable.
  • FarewelltoarmsFarewelltoarms gainesville fl Join Date: 2013-03-03 Member: 183603Members
    Okay, I'm a person who moans all the time about stacked times. I moan about it because it's a constant cloud hovering over almost all games. Here's how the stacking process works.

    1. A god-like, hero player joins the server. This is a player who pretty much racks up a crazy k/d ratio as either an alien or marine. They usually are very quiet, many times they don't even use a mic. If they are alien they almost always go either lerk or fade if possible, and as marine they always go shotgun/jetpack.
    2. After he joins the game, all the good players with some decent sense realize that this guy is good and they don't want to get killed by him over and over so they join his team the next round.
    3.The rookies, being dumb and naive, don't realize just how good this guy is, so they just join the other team because they don't feel like waiting.

    So basically after all this ends up happening you get a team with a god-like player and several other decent players, while the other team is full of green newbies. The newbies proceed to get slaughtered and soon after the server either dies or is filled with a fresh batch of people of don't realize who the god-like player is yet.
  • LamboLambo Iceland Join Date: 2012-08-07 Member: 154915Members, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    joshhh wrote: »
    Pub Logic; Rule #23: Typically, if team A beats team B, team A is obviously stacked.
    This is why public sucks.
  • HamletHamlet Join Date: 2008-08-17 Member: 64837Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited January 2014
    @farewelltoarms

    Time and again I see the server population splitting up like this on a 16 slot server:
    Last game's top 8 scorers stack one team, the bottom 8 go to the other.
    Nobody needs a crystal ball to foresee how that snorefest will bore everyone to death....

    When I see that kind of shit going down, I usually make a snide comment and quit playing for that night...

    It also made me host my own server. It's only 14 slots, but I figured it out last weekend.
  • joohoo_n3djoohoo_n3d Join Date: 2012-10-30 Member: 164703Members, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Supporter
    stacking is, in most cases, a myth or an excuse.
    most of the time when i hear this word used ingame what should be said is "outplayed" not "stacked".
    one team wins, one team loses.
    that's not stacking, that's how every game goes.
  • MoFoMoFo Join Date: 2013-09-09 Member: 188047Members


    Okay, I'm a person who moans all the time about stacked times. I moan about it because it's a constant cloud hovering over almost all games. Here's how the stacking process works.

    1. A god-like, hero player joins the server. This is a player who pretty much racks up a crazy k/d ratio as either an alien or marine. They usually are very quiet, many times they don't even use a mic. If they are alien they almost always go either lerk or fade if possible, and as marine they always go shotgun/jetpack.
    2. After he joins the game, all the good players with some decent sense realize that this guy is good and they don't want to get killed by him over and over so they join his team the next round.
    3.The rookies, being dumb and naive, don't realize just how good this guy is, so they just join the other team because they don't feel like waiting.

    So basically after all this ends up happening you get a team with a god-like player and several other decent players, while the other team is full of green newbies. The newbies proceed to get slaughtered and soon after the server either dies or is filled with a fresh batch of people of don't realize who the god-like player is yet.

    That's not really "stacking" though, it's one player who is so far above everyone else they unbalance the server on their own. It's not as if the good players can join the other team and have any sort of chance of winning against that "god like, hero" player. They can slaughter the "good" players just as easily as they can slaughter the green rookies.

    There's a few of those "god like, hero" players I encounter on occasion, and I have never once seen their team lose a game... Including a few times we've tried to "stack" against them, and were still decimated.

    Unbalanced teams is really the biggest problem, not stacking. In most cases it seems teams are unbalanced because of either
    a) Those "god like, hero" players who just walk through everyone else.
    b) Too many rookies / not enough of the "good" players to balance between teams.



  • NaRcONaRcO Madrid Join Date: 2005-03-07 Member: 44219Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    first sorry for my english :D
    i "cry" for stacked teams when i saw the same ppl in the same team wining round after round after round. Maybe a new stat showing, like a badge, last played team (marine or khaara) to see who is doing that easily (my poor memory :(.. ) so maybe i can succeed in a random teams vote ^^
  • GreymaneGreymane Join Date: 2013-08-30 Member: 187268Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited January 2014
    Hummm, firstly sorry for my poor english skill, will try to be clear.

    I'm one of the pub trying to call for a balanced game, using this term of stacking.

    Generally I start to chat about that when I see all the green name in the same team and, strangly all the 0 kills score in this same team.

    I call it more like this when I see, in the next starting map, an good amouth of players, waiting in ready room that the real good players of the last game have choose a side to go with him.

    When I see the same kind of experienced player, going in ready room for switch team after 3 min (generally when k/d start to be positive in a single team.

    When I see that after 10-15 min of pain, that no one of the "already easy-winning team" don't really care of the fact that the other team got 3-4 players missing and prefer wait 5 min for a spawn than having a real challenge in the other side.

    I'm not totally a rookie but i'm far than a experienced player but the thing i've understood is that unbalanced game are really boring and we really got a nice satisfaction when we get off a turtle def and reverse the game.

    Sometime, I ask for "experienced player" of the other team to come in "the noob one" to take a real challenge, when we got some player coming, giving some good advice with their mic, the game start to take some fun.

    But a lot of time, no answer...

    If you don't like the term of stacking, prefer the one of "average unability to balance team when the round is started"...

    Balanced game are always more interesting, the thing is to take care when we are in the (easy)winning team, it's the time where you got to do something to finish with an interesting game.

    I've seen so much excuse but not a lot of solution, not so hard, just got to avoid frustration for leaving a winning team to get some challenge.

    PS: Sorry if the ton could look aggressive, I've got a poor english skill, no rage in my word, just some saddness when no one want balance a game...
  • VengaboyVengaboy The Swamp Join Date: 2013-08-24 Member: 187053Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited January 2014
    Vengaboy wrote: »
    MuckyMcFly wrote: »
    I have to say the badges thing is quite funny, since all that shows is people have far too much money :)

    Donating to the development team that created the most unique gaming experience ever IMO means I have far too much money? Mmmm no. It means I enjoy this game so much that i'm willing to support it using the money I worked hard to earn. However, donating thousands of dollars to Spike Lee's movie kickstarter for a film that hasn't been made yet... that's a sucker with far too much money looking for recognition. Direct your snarky opinions that way, not toward members of a community that you yourself are a part of.

    So, by your logic, peope who supported NS2 with their preorders when it was just a concept are also idiots?
    If you're going to argue at least try to make it resonable.

    You missed the entire point of my post but that's ok, reading is hard. The "hasn't been made yet" part of my comment wasn't the reason I used it as an example of money being wasted. It was the fact that Spike Lee was actually using kickstarter to fund his next project. Maybe you're too young or uncultured to know who that is or why it's ridiculous for him to use kickstarter but the people who do will understand why I took the opportunity to attack him. It was a very VERY specific comment directed only at the subjects I mentioned. It has nothing to do with funding projects that are still in early development. I applaud the people who pre-ordered NS2 and others who continue to support UWE through cash donations.

    Also, -*reasonable*- but that's ok, spelling is hard.

  • Maxx11_v2.0Maxx11_v2.0 Join Date: 2012-11-18 Member: 172221Members
    Vengaboy wrote: »
    Vengaboy wrote: »
    MuckyMcFly wrote: »
    I have to say the badges thing is quite funny, since all that shows is people have far too much money :)

    Donating to the development team that created the most unique gaming experience ever IMO means I have far too much money? Mmmm no. It means I enjoy this game so much that i'm willing to support it using the money I worked hard to earn. However, donating thousands of dollars to Spike Lee's movie kickstarter for a film that hasn't been made yet... that's a sucker with far too much money looking for recognition. Direct your snarky opinions that way, not toward members of a community that you yourself are a part of.

    So, by your logic, peope who supported NS2 with their preorders when it was just a concept are also idiots?
    If you're going to argue at least try to make it resonable.

    You missed the entire point of my post but that's ok, reading is hard. The "hasn't been made yet" part of my comment wasn't the reason I used it as an example of money being wasted. It was the fact that Spike Lee was actually using kickstarter to fund his next project. Maybe you're too young or uncultured to know who that is or why it's ridiculous for him to use kickstarter but the people who do will understand why I took the opportunity to attack him. It was a very VERY specific comment directed only at the subjects I mentioned. It has nothing to do with funding projects that are still in early development. I applaud the people who pre-ordered NS2 and others who continue to support UWE through cash donations.

    Also, -*reasonable*- but that's ok, spelling is hard.

    Seeing as I'm not a native speaker of English and wrote that from a phone, yeah spelling can get pretty tricky.
    I won't even bother addressing the rest of your comment because you clearly missed the point of mine. Bottom line though, you tend to justify your opinion by attacking someone be it me or Spike Lee or whoever else might come to mind. In my book that mostly disqualifies anything you have to say. Seeing how Spike seems to be a hot topic with you, maybe you'd like to take your grievances over to his twitter or something he might actually see as I doubt he browses these forums.

    Lets not derail this thread any further.
  • cooliticcoolitic Right behind you Join Date: 2013-04-02 Member: 184609Members
    It is very annoying when people complain about stacking over and over again.
    Usually people may mention at round start, but usually people dont get too annoying with it.
  • BobRossTheBossBobRossTheBoss Join Date: 2012-12-31 Member: 176824Members
    The only time I absolutely know a team is getting stacked is when I see the exact same handful of players on the same team 2-3 games in a row (after that I just switch servers and try to find a game that isn't JPs vs no-leap skulks or Fades vs a0 marines by 8 minutes).

    There are times where everyone on a server will try to follow 1 or 2 exceptional players and inadvertently stack a team. With all the recent rookies this has happened to me a couple times and I usually just go comm/gorge if this happens and let them fend for themselves.
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