Not sure if this has been looked into or thought of before but been playing a lot spa servers recently and noticed from time to time you'll get all the 'skilled' people joining one team with no one wanting to join the team with the 'lesser skilled' people - For example Server does a map change, 4 skilled people on red, 3 randoms on blue, 17spectators not joining a team because they can't join team red and as soon as someone joins blue, another player /instantly/ joins red (spamming 3 waiting)).

Now based on the skill rating produced by your ranking system (if possible) i thought it might be an idea to 'auto-sort' teams into a roughly even total skill level (total skill ranking of players halved for each team and each team assembled as close to that sum as possible).

Put it so people can call a vote on it and if the overall majority decides for it, teams get auto sorted.

Obviously this may upset players wanting to play with each other so perhaps some sort of spapoint immunity purchase or some such could be implemented (another reason for folk to rack em up).

Just my two cents, feel free to rip to shreds or cry impossibility.

I've attempted to get a plugin working on server 1 which makes people auto select team. Not entirely sure if it works correctly, but i'd say give it a try.

Cheers

Would be a great feature. The most fun games to play are the ones with even teams, and you're team winning in the end ofc :P But not without paying a fair amount of blood, tears and sweat! :D
Never fun to be steamrolled 3 rounds in a row within 5 mins tops on a map you really like (ofc, there are exceptions. Wouldn't mind it if it was 2fort just to get to mapchange :P ), and only slightly more fun to be on the steamrolling team :/

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"There is a simple, logical explanation... and there is nothing under the bed.”

After we had the massive row about people stacking I continually change team to make it fair, but when I'm on the losing team it seems other people don't give a shit and are fine with being on the team which is winning in 1 minute per round. This pisses me off even more because often they were the ones complaining about it in the first place, and they only care about it when it's 'unfair' towards them.

So I think we need a system which makes it harder for people to stack so much, fair enough you can play on the same team as your buddy for a map, but when 7-8 people purposefully pick one team 2-3 maps in a row it ruins it for everyone else on the server.

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig

I really dislike not being able to pick your team, or more importantly teammates. I also agree that team stacking can get very frustrating if a team ends up being steamrolled.

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Comfortably Numb

People just need to grow up and realise that in a multiplayer game you can't just play for your own enjoyment, hence I would say that team stacking is a form of griefing.

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig

Why would we play games if not for entertainment?!

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Comfortably Numb

Yea, not being able to play with your friends suck, didn't think about that, silly me ><
Just when you mention auto balance I remember the old CS, where the plugin would check
after each round if one team had won too quick or had a win/lose streak or something like
that, and I can't remember if it also kept track of the player stats and switched one player
from CT with one from T, or if it just based the switch on randomness. I liked it back then,
but then I didn't have an awesome community to play with and get auto balanced away
from... instead there were plenty of Swedish 13 year olds on both sides -.-'

Anyway, no matter how the auto balance would work, it would mean to move players around
whether they like it or not. You can't get away from that. But there's already auto balance
in place, if only to maintain the team balance. But how does it work? What are used to
choose players to move over? If it doesn't already account for the player skill I'd suggest
it be changed, trying to balance the total team skill sounds rather logic as Chimera2402 said :)
That is, keep the auto balance trigger intact (when there's more than one in difference
in team members), but make it use the stats as basis for the player move.
That way you would only change the people being auto balanced, not the number of
people being balanced, pretty much as it is now.
Of course that would perhaps mean that skilled players would not be able to play with their less skilled friends :/
Again, just assuming that the auto balance isn't based on the stats/skills :p

"Your thoughts?"

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"There is a simple, logical explanation... and there is nothing under the bed.”

i dont like it one bit... i do play games for my own enjoyment. otherwise i wouldnt play them.
i agree that teams being steamrolled is no fun at all(hence no enjoyment for yourself either). but in a game there will always be a skill difference in people. especially in a game as tf2. you cant fix that by forcing ppl in a team.

also dont forget that this system doesnt fix the problem, lets say(calling some random names here) nox, minimoose, sebas, migu, blackhawk, frosty, and cookye(sorry if didnt name you ) all are on the same server.. the plugin forces mini, nox, frosty and cookye on one team and the others on the other. no offence to any of these players but the team with nox minimoose etc. will most likely steamroll the other team. so this system will not fix anything.

ofc the clan stacking is a problem sometimes, but imo admins should be more active in these cases and solve this problem. there arent always admins around, but we have a huge list of admins that should be around most of the time to fix these problems.

further more i think we as spa members should be more like minimoose when it comes to these situations, switch yourself or encourage regulars or other members to make the teams more even.. everyone knows certain players are of a different skill level and make efforts to fix the balance in the game.

and be happy teams arent even, endless stalemates would be fucking boring as hell and wouldnt help enjoying the game.


sorry for the long post.

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Sebas the avenging zebra's sidekick! <3

People just need to grow up and realise that in a multiplayer game you can't just play for your own enjoyment.

Hence my point about team stacking being a form of griefing, since it might be fun for the people doing it, but it has a negative impact on the game overall. If you read into the way I phrased it you will see that I wasn't saying that we have to hate the game For example, I might enjoy playing with an aimbot more than playing without one, that doesn't mean that I have the right to use it and so, I will have to settle for the slightly less enjoyable non-aimbot approach. Otherwise we might as well remove VAC and let people use all the hacks they want so they can enjoy games to the max, who cares if the people not using hacks hate it.

We, especially as admins have to promote fair gameplay on the server, rather than just let a few regulars/spa members who like to stack have fun (I haven't seen any SpA members stacking lately, but I have seen some who have just been happy to not do anything about a rapetastic match because they are fine with winning).

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig

ok i've removed the plugin and will look for a differant version which does the same but somehow allowes you to play with your mates. Not sure yet how.

I'd join the loosing team... but don't think that this would improve the situation.

@Topic: As we're talking on this issue for somewhat like over a year and didn't came to a conclusion, I don't think that there is a technical way to solve this problem which will be loved by everybody.

@Autobalance with buyable immunity: The "good boys" don't need the immunity and the "evil stackers" would buy it... which leads to the same situation as without such a plugin.

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SaintK: I'm completely lost

Chimera, as Blackhawk said, this topic has been discussed within the techteam for over a year already and we haven't found a good solution yet. Every solution we discussed has some major flaw in it.
This one would be especially flawed, because the "skill points" used by our rating system aren't accurate enough. For example, minimoose would be counted the same as 2 cookeys. And I bet 2 cookeys would beat 1 minimoose 99% of the time. (no offence mini )
So as you can see, those skill points won't work with the "top" players, but they also wouldn't work with the "normal" players, because there the difference in points isn't large enough between them.


Also, as the others already said, forcing players into teams also isn't good for the moral.

Oh. No biggie then. I don't mind really as it is now (and has been for as long as I remember).
I don't know about the guys that wait til a spot open on the winning team, I never notice or
pay attention to those things. I just press random and '9' :P
In the long run I think It's rather balanced as it is. When one team that is getting steamrolled
many players will leave that team, causing the existing auto balance to kick in, as well as new
players joining. Both of these "mechanics" scrambles the teams up a bit, may it be for good or
bad. Like some kind of natural randomization. Just thinking out loud :o

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"There is a simple, logical explanation... and there is nothing under the bed.”

1 cookye would beat 1 moose 99% of the time (We had a scout 1v1 and I didn't actually do as badly as I thought I would ^^ 50 - 80 isn't bad vs cookye )

People who play scout as their main class and are used to play scout in 6v6 often will have much lower skill since in 6v6 the scouts go for the danger classes, putting themselves in more danger (hence in pubs they get killed a lot on certain maps). Where-as soldiers often just support in 6v6, which in perfect in pubs since they can spam even more than in 6v6

So pretty much the skill rating is useless to an extent.

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig

I don't think that it's so much people trying to get on the winning team (or, sometimes in the case of dustbowl/goldrush, team RED) as people trying to get in the same team as their friends, which is perfectly acceptable imo. the two might easily get confused.

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ュ~ちゃんgamer.jp Pinky: true genius
ュ~ちゃんgamer.jp Pinky: doesn't make sense
ュ~ちゃんgamer.jp Pinky: till you're senseless

Yeah but normally people will play much better with friends, and since a lot of people know others in the community it means that playing in the same team as your friends can easily turn into a stack.

I personally find it fun to play against friends as well, so I don't see the need to be on the same team as someone all the time.

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a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig

True true, variation is nice :)

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"There is a simple, logical explanation... and there is nothing under the bed.”

I think this is all that really needs to be said on the matter.

Mini for president!

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Ze Ãœbermensch

True, there's nothing better than dominating a friend, let him make revenge and dominate again

I made a balance suggestion (or rather, an anti-one-team-getting-steamrolled-constantly-until-map-change), but it's invisible to general public. Maybe a mod could move it here?

That seat is already taken by Max, sorry!

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SaintK: I'm completely lost

yeah, tea and pringles for everyone!

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Comfortably Numb

Who's Max?

http://maxforpresident.org/

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SaintK: I'm completely lost

[\ontopic]
About team balance.
Could we not put it on all servers?
Idea for server 2 (make it a feature):

[spa#2] http://www.specialattack.net ~clan stack allowed~ !!Beware!! <-- blinking!!! (red/yellow)

[spa#2] http://www.specialattack.net mayhem (clanstack/melee) The server where spa kicks YOUR ass....

[spa#2] http://www.specialattack.net danger zone (clanstack/melee) etc. etc. etc.

We could try and create a permanent spa vs. community match.
Last time that one was full in 8 hours would not mind playing like that more often.

[\offtopicisch]
Added in the melee part because i would not mind a place to practice my medic weapons.
I know i take this game much to serious.... but i like to play battle medic for at least 4 hours every week.
I now have to practice on an other server because I can get banned.
(while I'm in the top three... with kills.. (I'm getting good at it )

[\ontopic]
but Yeah I think a clanstack server would not be a bad plan...

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MOV AH, 02
INT 21

On some servers they use a sort of "buddy" system. Where you can pick one person to be your "buddy" which basically makes it so that you can't be autobalanced seperately. I personally think this is a good idea as it gives a way to be with a friend you enjoy playing with, while not completely stacking a team.

This is slightly offtopic, but I'd also like it if people weren't able to join spectator during games, or at least if they did, the server only allowed them to join the team they were originally on. There's been too many people on a losing team joining spec in order to get someone from the winning team autobalanced, and then joining it.

On that note, would there be a way to make it so that the autobalancer autobalances the person who's been there for the least amount of time? I could be wrong but I think that atm it works that the person with the most deaths on the team gets balanced. It seems more logical to me that the person who's been there less time, and therefore hasn't contributed as much to the win/loss as other people, gets autobalanced instead. It's rather annoying getting autobalanced from the winning to the losing team in the last 2 minutes when it's too late, or even worse WHILE the last point is being capped.

Wow, that was a long post, my thoughts anyway. <3

Hmm, that sounds good tbh.

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Comfortably Numb

Just do /shrug and go try funny stuff. Eventually enough people will get bored and the server will become one big massive melee slugfest!

I can recommend a holiday to Cuba to anyone, really changes your perspective!

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Da boyz need themselves a Nob they do