15 Mar 15, 12:22PM
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
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