Skill-Based Auto-Balance?

If this auto-balancing is not going to be an option (though it probably will be), I can already foresee the rage that will occur in some areas of the realism community. I just hope that people will eventually let go of their bias and play on the side where they are needed.

it was mentioned in an article on the russian forums, have yet to see it officially confirmed elsewhere though....i hope it is added for the following reasons:

1.) autobalance would be great to help make more fair fighting. especially if there is a "halftime" team switch type feature so two rounds, you play as each side once on your same team.

2.) less one-sided pub battles, thank god.....something that always plagued RO was the huge skill gap. also agree with zets about skill level severs to an extent to continue helping this.

3.) it is a positive because it will force (hopefully) players to get the full experience of the game instead of just them always playing the same side.

if you are an adult over 18 and you are one of those crazy diehards who refuses to play as one side because you don't want to be a "commie" or a "nazi" then you seriously need to take a step back and re-evaluate yourself because if you are that hardcore over a video game, i'd suggest you seek some professional counciling....seriously, not to insult people, but if that is you, you need some help.

most people i saw doing this in RO were stupid kids who were just in that phase of life.....we actually have a younger (at the time) clan member who always refused to play as russians until he started playing matches and he had to learn all new weapons and sides of maps because he HAD to play at least 2 rounds as russians in matches. the first couple times were a little rocky for him because he wasn't used to it. after a while he was just fine. while he likes to play more as axis in pub, he has no problem playing as allies when he has too.

kids 13-16 ok i can see them in this little "punk" stage......but adults pulling that crap? it's a video game people. yeah for realism guys it would make sense they'd like to play as the nationality that they are in their unit, but it's pub play. if you only want to stick to one side, then do it in training sessions, scrims and matches. and if it is manditory in pub play for all the modes, then you've always got the option to leave and honestly i hope those people do. but yeah, i'd expect somebody to make a mutator to allow you to always choose your side anyway because people are that crazy to never play a certain side

edit:
and i'm sure if implimented it would most likely be optional for at least some portion of the game where you'd be able to disable it.

It should be an option (i know i say that everywhere these days). The realism community should be allowed to pick the side where they play, the non realism community should be able to force the balance.

In the end players will find servers they like, even now servers can turn of the team balance and let 20 people play against 3 people, it wouldnt be my kind of fun but if people enjoy it i dont see why not.

i can only imgaine how badly this would be flawed

Wouldn't this mess up clan games though?

How is being auto assigned on a team at all like a dystopian autocratic society?

I'm pretty sure it will be an option. But I'll probably be playing on servers with it enabled. There are way too many OMG GERMANY UBER ALLES losers in RO. If you play a side exclusively for matches or tournaments that's fine, but don't take that into pub play.

yeah most people have their tendancies to favor a certain side for it's weapons, side of the map etc.... and that is cool that they'd want to play as that side more. i'm not against people being allowed to choose which side they wish to play for, but what i am for is autobalance based on "skill" (however that would be determined) for pub play.

in theory you want every battle between two teams to start as close to balanced as possible, meaning the teams are roughy balanced. the better players/team will rise to the top regardless. if you have one team start with having substantially more skill on their team, then the balance is thrown off from the begining in favor towards the team with more skill. you can see this all the time on pub servers when a team gets stacked with a lot of "top" playes who will win the map regardless of the side chosen.

it's like how people claim that some maps are by default "so unbalanced" because they only see them played in pub without skill being evenly distributed amongst the two teams. most all maps can be slightly unbalanced to begin with but adding a huge skill gap between teams will maximize to exploit that inbalance. if the teams were even in skill, that would drastically minimize the effects of the map being unbalanced and make for a more even match, which is what you should be experiencing in PUB play. in clan play it is different. if one team has substancially more "skilled" players, they will win both sides of any map. that of course is expected of clan play because that is the point of clan play...which team is better. in pub play, you want evenly balanced matches. auto-balancing will help acheive that.

Those who dont care on which side to play can always click on "auto-select" when they choose team.
I dont want to be forced to play on the side which i maybe dont want to play. Just take BFBC for example where you couldn't choose team, it completely ruined the game or at least made it very uncomfortable.
Skill balance by forceing player to play on one side not other is a very bad idea RO was always about realism. If both German and Soviet were balanced in skills then germans would have never crossed soviet border and soviets would have never come to Berlin.
Maybe someone have not noticed but there are many real nazis or just racists who play on german side and likes to say nazi thing. I personaly would NOT like to play together with them but switching side and killing them would be great.
And what about weapons? I like to use mosin nagant or ppd so i play on soviet side and enjoy those weapons, other people may like other guns so they choose the side they WANT to play.
There are many "why" why people want to play on one or other side, so forcing them to play on other side would ruin the game, but balancing the game somehow else would maybe be good but i personaly never have problems with balance, sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard, i like it.
P.S People like to use mic in RO, so image russians, germans, english talking in the same time and most probably starting to abuse each other later... forcing teams will be a really bad idea...

auto-select just puts players on a team for the whole map. what i am predicting is an autobalancing feature combined with a mid map switch where teams will switch sides. players assigned to a team, not side, based on their "rank" or "experience" whatever, and that team would play one round on each side of the map. besically forced clanwar play in pub servers.

either way, if there is an autobalance feature, it would most likely be a serverside option.

For gods sake, just keep the RO selecting system. Also, the fact that this was only on the Russian forms and not over here too, or on any of the other languaged forms, makes me think it's not true. Although an autobalancing option that occurred based on NUMBERS at the half time would be nice. If there's really a big difference. IE Germans have 20, Russians have 15. 2 members get sent over to the Russian side at the break, that way there is only a one person gap between numbders. Although I do pray this is a serverside option.

yeah that is something i wish is put in. for those servers where the admins can't set it up right and will allow people to join a team that already has 4 more players than the other, that is really frustrating. i recently played a DH map on one of the 29th 50man servers and the teams were 29 Axis and 20 Allies.....and yes i was on allies and no it did not go well

and yes, it should be set that if teams are even, then players drop, after ex. amount of time if no new players joined or players switched to balance the teams, then the numbers should be autobalanced to be equal.

if the skill autobalance feature is even really going to be in the game, it would most likely and hopefully would be a serverside option so i don't think anyone will have to worry about it.