Autoteam

[MathiasB]

How does it come that players who join the game aren't put in the loosing team (if they have the same amount of players)?
How is it possible that after playing for half a game with one team having double score as the other, that autoteam hasn't yet kicked in the balance teams?

[Vermi]

because its broken as fuck

[Marti]

#ThanksObama ...

[ExodusS]

The autoteam is not based on who lose/win for the whole game, it's based on the last minutes of the game and if the loosing team played better than the winning one during the last few minutes, the server will force new players to the winning team because the team is currently considered as loosing for the server. It comes from a good idea but it's just broken.

[MathiasB]

The autoteam is not based on who lose/win for the whole game, it's based on the last minutes of the game...

Yes, but I sometimes feel like my team is really running over the other team and also the inverse. So it's actually not working as it should be :)

[quico]

Yeah I think as MathiasB, autoteam works really bad :/

[stef]

It comes from a good idea but it's just broken.

IMHO, the idea itself is "broken".

Furthermore, I consider that trickjumps must be removed

[Marti]

why don't we just remove autoteam?

Furthermore, I consider that trickjumps must be removed

i consider they must stay

[Vanquish]

i consider they must stay

I concur

[stef]

why don't we just remove autoteam?

I'd rather revert it to the 1.0 functionality.

Furthermore, I consider that trickjumps must be removed

[Mousikos]

Since stef is putting it at the bottom of every post, I'm going to consider it on-topic and just ask:

Why should trick jumps be removed?

[stef]

I'm going to consider it on-topic

It's offtopic. Make a thread.

How does it come that players who join the game aren't put in the loosing team

Actually, that should be how it works. If it doesn't, it's a bug.

Furthermore, I consider that trickjumps must be removed

[Marti]

why don't we just remove autoteam?

I'd rather revert it to the 1.0 functionality.

Even though i am not sure what exactly the 1.0 functionality is, it's probably better than the current autoteam. Go for it

[stef]

1.0-autoteam only took action, when the number of players per team differed more than one. It tried to make a good pick to even out the team sizes, but it did not try to "balance" teams of equal size.

Furthermore, I consider that trickjumps must be removed

[Mousikos]

So a team could potentially be kicking ass 20-0 and it wouldn't try to balance?

Furthermore, I think that trickjumps are a nice feature of AC.

[Ronald_Reagan]

1.0-autoteam only took action, when the number of players per team differed more than one. It tried to make a good pick to even out the team sizes, but it did not try to "balance" teams of equal size.

Furthermore, I consider that trickjumps must be removed

Go ahead and revert to 1.0 functionality. I don't think anyone will complain.

[Thrawn]

1.0-autoteam only took action, when the number of players per team differed more than one. It tried to make a good pick to even out the team sizes, but it did not try to "balance" teams of equal size.

Go ahead and revert to 1.0 functionality. I don't think anyone will complain.

Edit2: nevermind.

Wouldn't that make the problem worse? Even less frequent balancing?

Though, I guess we could get away with that, just with more people forcing autoteam's hand. Or, you know... Less servers disabling player's ability to vote for team shuffles (which is a lot more common than I would have thought) :P

Edit: Not that I think that the current autoteam system couldn't use fixing in one way or another

[MathiasB]

Can't we have a function 'balance teams', that way instead of calling a 'shuffle teams' vote when teams are very unfair, you just call 'balance teams'.
Shuffle is often useless, but balancing can solve that problem.

[stef]

The whole idea of "balancing" is wrong, IMHO. Autoteam only applies to pubs, where people are coming and going. Huge differences in teamsize are a common problem, whenever more than one player of a team leaves. As long as the difference is only two, an 1.0-server would have waited for 20 seconds (IIRC) before it would have forced one player from the bigger team to the smaller team. Only at 3 players, the server would have forced one at once. However, "who's winning" is not that much a problem in a pub.

When I implemented that system, I considered the forced team change to be a huge inconvenience for the players and an annoyance, so I tried to minimize the forced action to a minimum. But I also implemented a function, that would pick the most suited player for the smaller team, because if I /have/ to force someone, I might just as well pick the right one. The system was combined with the functionality, that a joining player would always join the smaller team. Forced action was quite rare in 1.0.

After 1.0, I implemented spectator teams and other stuff, like match mode. However - before I could finish any of it, I was kicked from the dev team and boron took over. He didn't finish any of my features, but instead implemented new ones ontop, like the auto-balance. For example, the concept of spectators is unknown to the autoteam system - otherwise it would first force spectators to play before it would move active players around. The whole thing is just not properly integrated into newer concepts.

Also, I think, the whole idea, that only a game, that ends in a draw, is a good game, is completely wrong. After all, we are talking about pubs - those are played for fun, not for outcome. I, for example, have more fun playing a much stronger enemy than fighting a bunch of noobs. Of course, others call for a shuffle vote, each time they get killed...

A perfectly working balancing system would prevent any player from trying to win - because, as soon as you score a flag or frag too many of your enemies, the server would force you to the other team. What exactly would then be the goal of the game? "Try to win, but only by an inch"?

In short: forced team switching is annoying and killing fun - and should be reduced to the absolute minimum. Balancing the teams should be left to the players.

Btw, it would be easy, to add a function, so that the server could aid the manual team balancing - for example, every player could set a flag "I want to switch teams", and the server could make the switch as soon as possible (that is, when the enemy team is smaller or also has a player who wants to switch).

Furthermore, I consider that trickjumps must be removed

[grenadier]

Wouldn't that make the problem worse?

1.0 autoteam wasn't so annoying like 1.1-1.2 autoteam and wasn't bugged (now new player joins often automatically to the stronger team instead of weaker, if 2 teams have the same number of players). It wasn't ideal, but it's better, also as base for further modifications. :) 

[stef]

Shuffle is often useless, but balancing can solve that problem.

A shuffle at the beginning of a game is random, because the server doesn't have enough information to balance the teams. After one minute, a shuffle will do exactly what you desire: try to create two balanced teams.

Furthermore, I consider that trickjumps must be removed

[MathiasB]

Also, I think, the whole idea, that only a game, that ends in a draw, is a good game, is completely wrong. After all, we are talking about pubs - those are played for fun, not for outcome. I, for example, have more fun playing a much stronger enemy than fighting a bunch of noobs. Of course, others call for a shuffle vote, each time they get killed...

I have no problem at all with loosing a match, but I do have a problem when the other team is really too strong (meaning that you're always killed before you have walked five seconds).

Shuffle is often useless, but balancing can solve that problem.

A shuffle at the beginning of a game is random, because the server doesn't have enough information to balance the teams. After one minute, a shuffle will do exactly what you desire: try to create two balanced teams.

Well, i didn't know that :)

(But I guess that's sometimes buggy, since sometimes teams are just inverted, but all players keep te same teammates)

[stef]

(But I guess that's sometimes buggy, since sometimes teams are just inverted, but all players keep te same teammates)

The problem is, that the server can't properly judge the capabilities of players. Right now, it just uses the "points" for that. So, if the teams are basically the same after a shuffle, the teams were already balanced, according to the points.

Which is one reason, why I think, /automated/ balancing is nonsense. Boron deeply believed, that he could teach the server to assess a player's capabilities, just like he thought, he could teach the server to recognise good teamwork. I don't.

Furthermore, I consider that trickjumps must be removed

[Nightmare]

I'd rather have autoshuffle at the beginning of games(new fresh teams) and just get rid of autoteam otherwise.

Even if it becomes a 4 vs 6 game, new players will be there soon.
Autoteam right now punishes you for being good. Your team battles hard to get the lead, some noob ragequits. Suddenly your best player is thrown to the other team. The game is now tied and the team just losing now has the star player and a tie game. Why? Bad players need to learn to do good by playing against the better teams. Two consistent teams is more important than forcing a close game down our throats imo.

---

Steffy Claus have a discussion with the other devs and remove whatever is agreed upon. I think that's how it works.

[Thrawn]

Indeed, an overzealous autoteam can be a very bad thing. In another game I've played, on some servers with unlimited round time-limits and first to X flags wins (in a ctf mode), single matches usually take HOURS. It's rediculous. Some level of imbalance is a good thing, yes. However, I think that too much unbalance is also bad, if the teams are insanely uneven, many people get frustrated.

I recall once instance when the other team was just aboslutely dominating, and autoteam barely did anything at all. It was rather frustrating.  Though, in retrospect, I was more upset at autoteam than the imbalance itself.

After giving it some thought, I suppose, to me, it would be better to have more consistent balancing or none at all, rather than having autoteam balance too much sometimes and other times throw you to the wolves. (In other words, though my personal preference would be toward some level of active balancing, reverting to the 1.0 behavior as mentioned would also be okay. Perhaps even preferable to leaving it as it is now)

(I dug up these screenshots from 1.2.0.0)

Spoiler

For the rest from that match:

http://imgur.com/a/QFIM0

[Aside]
 Also, I started playing AC in 1.1, so I don't know what autoteam was like before that
[/Aside]

[grenadier]

In v. 1.0 age, when one team dominated too much, then usually some player with good stats changed winning team to losing, in order to game was more balanced (too easy win doesn't give satisfaction and such game is boring). So v. 1.0 had some kind of balancing, manual balancing, as "good practice". I notice, that v.1.1-autoteam reduced, sadly, this behaviour, return to v.1.0-autoteam just will bring it back (I hope :)).

[Alien]

I don't like team socialism. I understand balancing 1. at the beginning of the game 2. by /forceteam command with voting or by admin 3. /shuffleteam after voting or by admin (too many players left) 4. select weaker team for entering player and nothing more !! where is the motivation if teams are still balanced ;)

[Waffles]

It is a serious problem to be on a team with 5 other players with acting as just meat shields. I like the concept of being able to flag yourself. There are too many variables to "teach" the server about how good a player is and those variables get even larger every time the team is changed. Would there be a way to allow the server to call a vote for it's proposed changes that was unobtrusive? That way a server could give a suggestion as opposed to forcing it's will. I'm not sure if that would be any less annoying than the current system.

[MPx]

I'm the only one who thinks that the autoteam should not balance teams when the flags are taken/stolen?

[MathiasB]

I'm the only one who thinks that the autoteam should not balance teams when the flags are taken/stolen?

How do you mean?