Team Auto Balance

[BATTERIES]

This is a subject that has not be discussed yet is very important in-game.
I know usually things like this are left until near the end of development but in any case it would be good to get some input now from the dedicated fans and the more experienced gamer.

Auto Balance is something that a game doesnt need to have but it really is essential for balanced play. Of course admins will be able to customise their server experience but I just want to discuss possible options.

1. No auto balance at all. (ridiculous)
2. Auto Balance that forces the next player who dies from the team with numerical advantage to change.
3. Same as above but kills a random player forcing them to change.
4. Changes the lowest scoring player on the team with numerical advantage forcibly by killing or waiting for death.
5. Starting from the lowest scoring player and moving up the scoreboard it prompts players would they mind changing team, at which point if they choose yes they get swaped when they die.
6. Same as above but forcibly kills when yes is chosen.
7. Forcibly kills and switches player with least time in server on team with numerical advantage.


Basically I would not go for any option that forcibly kills the player making them switch team. Not only does this absolutly RUIN game flow and immersion it is also extremely annoying, there are probably some games you have all played that does this.

The reason I say start with lowest scoring player is the reasoning that they are probably on the server the least ammount of time and so the team swap doesnt really affect their experience.

I think option 2 is awful, Imagine you are team leader on scoreboard , blazing across the map winning the game with your squad really tearing up the enemy. You get shot by a sniper ... damn, no big deal Ill just respa... WHAT. You got team swapped and cannot go back, totally ruining your experience and you end up trying to switch back the rest of the map. This happens in another popular 64 player shooter all the time and is the most infuriating thing.

I think 5. is probably the best option if it starts with the person on lowest time in server just for finding a person who wouldnt mind changing.

7 I would be happy with , LAST IN FIRST OUT, is a rule which I think is fair.

Anyway TL;DR????

auto balance is a b*tch

 

[BATTERIES]

Nobody has an opinion on this important aspect of gameplay? Im surprised , people are more worried about if their rifle has the correct factory stamp on it than this.

 

[Forssen]

I thought I wrote in this thread, apparently not.

I think the auto balance should make use of the ranking/lvl system. If the battle is going really uneven or a number of players leave one of the teams it should forcibly move the least amount of players to make it more even. It would also be nice if it took into account which players you have on your steam friends list so it doesn't remove you from their team as easily.

When selecting team the choice should not only be limited by the number of players on each team, but also the rank/lvl of the players.

All moving of players should be done with dead players or in between rounds. If there is going to be any asking if you want to switch team it should be on death and not in the middle of a battle.

 

[Capt.Cool]

I totally agree - autobalancing is IMPORTANT!

4. Changes the lowest scoring player on the team with numerical advantage forcibly by killing or waiting for death.

I think 4) would be a fair solution. But maybe the skill level should be taken into account, too?
If one team has 10 top veteran players and the other team is full of newbies, it wont be fair either...

So the balancing system should shuffle veteran players so team skill level is even, too.
(could be turned off by admin for clanmatches)

 

[Zetsumei]

I say do not force change the lowest ranked played force change the player that joined the latest to the server. Its annoying if you have been playing on one side for 30 minutes and already did crappy to then get a further handicap by a forced team switch.

The switch should just happen without waiting for said person to die, however the person that gets killed unlike how it is now should not get the -1 point suicidal penalty added to his score.

Twi said in one of the early interviews that the game will have team balance and they will not only look at the player amounts of the teams but actually the skill distribution as well.

 

[LightsabeR]

I say do not force change the lowest ranked played force change the player that joined the latest to the server. Its annoying if you have been playing on one side for 30 minutes and already did crappy to then get a further handicap by a forced team switch.

Yeah, definitely this.

Twi said in one of the early interviews that the game will have team balance and they will not only look at the player amounts of the teams but actually the skill distribution as well.

I wonder what they meant by "skill distribution"? Is it based on how the player is doing in the current round, or how well he has done over all (over all kdr, points per game, objectives capped/defended per game, etc), or on the artificial character exp level? (I hope it's not the latter)

 

[Zetsumei]

Yeah, definitely this.

I wonder what they meant by "skill distribution"? Is it based on how the player is doing in the current round, or how well he has done over all (over all kdr, points per game, objectives capped/defended per game, etc), or on the artificial character exp level? (I hope it's not the latter)

The balance will likely work similar to what people get preference over the classes so a combination of someone's performance in the current round and some overall stat.

What defines performance we do not know. I just hope that whatever variables are taking into account cannot easily be exploited in a way disadvantageous for the team. So lets hope it takes into account kills with respect to deaths, quantity of kills with respect to time, captures, team support stuff yada yada the whole shebang.

 

[Snuffeldjuret]

Forssen said it well and I just want to repeat a bit.

In some way, restrict the swapping based on steam friend list. Prolly need a quite elaborate system to deal with situations like when you play with 3 close friends on your side and 6 less close friends on the other.

 

[jalex3]

auto balance is good but as a server setting. but i prefer to swap my self.
unfair teams are a harder subject, uneven should swap the laster player to join.

 

[Taisenki]

option 800)

Don't auto balance friends away from friends or clans. It ruins the purpose of them playing together.

 

[Ender]

I wouldn't mind if it was based on the last few players to join and then moved the one that would balance the teams the best.

Also I think it should only be kick in when the numbers are uneven not based on a sides overall skill.

 

[Colt .45 killer]

If there is one thing I really dislike, it would be joining a server getting my team in gear; kicking ***, and on the eve of victory. *boom* team switch round lost. *fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu*

I would look into the possibility of giving players some honour points for evening the teams(dont take any away if they decide not too, some nights you just want to play team X). Also possibly a prompt that comes up while in the respawn Queue asking you to change teams. ( in the weapon / class selection area, an actual popup would get annoying as heck ).


edit:

@ender: Dunno bout that, I think I've seen lots of round's which were an absolute stomping for one team, not due to numbers but just raw skill.

 

[u-s-e-r]

If there is one thing I really dislike, it would be joining a server getting my team in gear; kicking ***, and on the eve of victory. *boom* team switch round lost. *fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu*

Yeah, that is very annoying.

@ender: Dunno bout that, I think I've seen lots of round's which were an absolute stomping for one team, not due to numbers but just raw skill.

Me too, so some kind of skill based team evening could be good too.

 

[BATTERIES]

I see people are more interested in skill levels than numbers , which makes logical sense but... One team has to win anyway. Do people want every round to be nail bitingly close or end in a draw? I mean one team has to win so why should it make that much of a difference what skill level the person is?
The anecdote of getting swapped with 10 seconds to go and then getting the you lose screen must be avoided as I said in OP.

Possibly something could be done like team mixing for the next round if one team has completly destroyed the other , winning with little loses. In that case a team mix would be good, but to swap players automatically due to their skill level in an attempt to even teams that havent even played out a full round against each other , I just cant see that as being benificial.

Also I would go with a prompt when a player character dies to ask if they would mind evening the numbers on each team. I think a lot of people wouldnt mind but just arent aware of the fact in many games.

 

[u-s-e-r]

I see people are more interested in skill levels than numbers , which makes logical sense but... One team has to win anyway. Do people want every round to be nail bitingly close or end in a draw? I mean one team has to win so why should it make that much of a difference what skill level the person is?
The anecdote of getting swapped with 10 seconds to go and then getting the you lose screen must be avoided as I said in OP.

Possibly something could be done like team mixing for the next round if one team has completly destroyed the other , winning with little loses. In that case a team mix would be good, but to swap players automatically due to their skill level in an attempt to even teams that havent even played out a full round against each other , I just cant see that as being benificial.

Also I would go with a prompt when a player character dies to ask if they would mind evening the numbers on each team. I think a lot of people wouldnt mind but just arent aware of the fact in many games.

Well, it is rather boring to play on a team where you only die, die, die, die, die, die and die again until the game ends don't you think?

 

[Ender]

Since HOS is going to have ranking maybe there should be a bribe of honor point to join the team that you would balance more?

So next to the join axis or allies your would have a +5 honor next to the one you would balance.

 

[jalex3]

Is it just me, but all this get honor points for doing the right thing sounds abit silly.

 

[LJFHutch]

I just want to be able to join the team I want to join unlike BC2/BO that forces you to play a random team each game

 

[u-s-e-r]

I just want to be able to join the team I want to join unlike BC2/BO that forces you to play a random team each game

I think that servers should be able to force people to use Auto-assign if they want.

 

[Actin]

I think that servers should be able to force people to use Auto-assign if they want.

I a sorry for reviving this thread, but I had an idea for promoting the auto-assign in pub games.

So instead of forcing auto-assign, it might be better to exclude players from autobalancing when they chose auto-assign when entering the server.

In this way the players contributing to team balance (auto-assign) are slightly rewarded for doing so.

Anybody have some thoughts on this?