Stack happens. Possible solution?
Fat_Man_Little_Coat
Join Date: 2003-12-02 Member: 23857Members
Join Date: 2003-12-02 Member: 23857Members
There has been a lot of debate on stacking lately, and I think that maybe a random only server maybe an option. With a good AFK kicker, random only may at least (if anything) give the sense of fairness to the game. Not ELO based shuffling. And not the Random where you can immediately f4 and join the team you want. Forced Randomizing, every game, may be be the best solution at this point.
I feel the pain of both sides. I play on rookie free servers because I don't want to play with unskilled players. But I also like to com on rookie servers as well to help newer players learn. So I know the sense of impending doom when you look at the roster, and know your best efforts are not going to be enough to carry a team to a win. Its tempting to adopt a "can't beat em, join em" mentality.
The other alternative would have the community police itself when it comes to games (after all its a voteable option on many servers). But who wants to do that most of the time? Most people want to win, and be on the winning side, not spend their playtime coaching a team they know are going to get drilled (not fun). NS2 is a competitive game, and competitive players want to win. I totally get that.
But seeing how only a month after humble bumble this playerbase has tumbled severely: a few hundred during the weekday compared to when it was close to 6000 a few weeks ago (which is a whole other topic in itself). This may be the best way to give newer and midlevel players a sense of fair distribution of talent in the game itself.
I feel the pain of both sides. I play on rookie free servers because I don't want to play with unskilled players. But I also like to com on rookie servers as well to help newer players learn. So I know the sense of impending doom when you look at the roster, and know your best efforts are not going to be enough to carry a team to a win. Its tempting to adopt a "can't beat em, join em" mentality.
The other alternative would have the community police itself when it comes to games (after all its a voteable option on many servers). But who wants to do that most of the time? Most people want to win, and be on the winning side, not spend their playtime coaching a team they know are going to get drilled (not fun). NS2 is a competitive game, and competitive players want to win. I totally get that.
But seeing how only a month after humble bumble this playerbase has tumbled severely: a few hundred during the weekday compared to when it was close to 6000 a few weeks ago (which is a whole other topic in itself). This may be the best way to give newer and midlevel players a sense of fair distribution of talent in the game itself.
Comments
edit: Or you just play with your friends and couter stack.
On, and please add a simple AFK detection to prevent them from being moved into teams on randomize RR votes.
We start to have something here, not enough good to do something on a balance but I've sometime seen 2-3 players, switching team to go in the "losing one".
They use mic and try to do something with random players like us, after 10 min of a nice pack rush we get of a turtle def and destroy 1 marine alt-base.
The round finish by the "losing team" victory after 30 min of awsome game...
Voluntary balance is one efficient solution, but for that, the community really need to do something to change habits...
Random new players aren't so bad, they just don't know what to do, tell them, most of them are volonteer (sometime more than experienced players just seeking fun/lame)...
PS: topic like this one http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/133962/you-know-your-team-mate-is-bad-when/p1
are fun, but in my opinion, this mentality really don't help for some futur balanced games.
But maybe there can be a system in NS2, which regulates the players on each side not just on the game start but during the game. We all know the downsides of voting elo and leaving players, so there must be a regulation while the game is in progress.
I could imagine a "player swap", when there is one dead player on each side aliens and marines, and they will just be swapped out, keeping the current res. So a good player would join the losing team, keeping the amount of res and can therefore buy sg / jp or evolve to a higher lifeform. The "bad" player joins the winning team. Of course with this mode on, the manual team switch should be deactivated (like on elo).
The shine elo-shuffle split the 8 players with the highest elo score (the carry players) and the other players by kd/r of the last 3 rounds.
We had endless discussions about how usefull a sorting by kd/r is.
Fact is:
A awesome aimer has a large impact on the overall game.
A gorge sitting in a vent for ages and go for 2 suicide bile runs to get some score not really.
But instead of repeat things parrot-fashion, think about it again before complaining about elo-shuffle next time.
Just randomizing the teams won't cure the stack, I've seen this quite a bit last night where matches were even MORE one-sided. A non-shuffled, stacked games at least allowed aliens to leave their sole tech-point, and expand to another one. We shuffled, and they were trapped in turbine with MAYBE getting three RT's. (Then again, I had to exit the command chair to build a power node in exchange. So I guess that's "balanced.")
ELO shuffling, on a server with a decent tracking system. That would probably be the best, more-so if the voting requirements were very low.
I whine about elo-shuffle because I've seen it make A LOT of bad games on HBZ. Personally I think it should be full KDR shuffle, or atleast try it, because something, (I think) is skewing it.
If you want Full Random Only go on EU and Dumbass Brits server, there's a random that works exactly as OP described. No RR, straight into team when u join server. You can activate it by saying "random" in chat. Good luck getting 13 people to do that for the vote to pass. (Hint: never gonna happen, people think it's the same as UWE random and thus always use UWE random.)
Well, the elo shuffle works but you cant balance bad teamplay for example.
Sometimes you can have very good players in one team and they going to lose. shit happen
Ive heard you can have a lot of bad games without shuffle also?
Ah, nonsense. what im talking about. Only elo shuffled games are bad.
What happen after a successfull shuffle mode sometimes?
- Players rejoin to switch the team (wich make the shuffle useless)
- The carrys from one team left and lower skill players fill the empty positions.
The result is: "if you want unbalanced games, vote shuffle" BLABLA
The players itself are the reason why every shuffle or balance method didnt work.
They cry about stack and joining the stronger team cause they want to win.
Shine has FIVE shuffle methods.
- pure random
- by score
- by kd/r
- elo
- uwe stats
How about random over the shuffle method? So you didnt know what method is coming if you vote for it.
During voting the players only see "PLayer X votet to shuffle"
After the succesfull vote the method is shown to all players.
Forcing people to stay on the same teams after a random needs to be disbaled once teams are uneven (playercount wise), especially with a good AFK kicker. I've seen too many games where I cant even out the teams, and due to this, the difference grows and soon its 10v5
bind <key> sh_votemenu
Example:
bind N sh_votemenu
This is usefull for the people who had the map on F5 or F10 and shoot on M also.