Teams shuffled each round

[Mitak]

It has been suggested before but it's still not implemented in the game.

The lack of it stimulates a situation where one team harasses the other several rounds in a row. Pros like to team up and slap weaker players around. We all know the old saying "blue team are noobs".

[Bonecrusher]

Should it be based on caps/kills/deaths or what? I've experienced CTF games when my team had most kills but still we lost the map. More info on how should it be done would be great.

[Furai]

It should be done PTB-like.

[thegrandmaster]

Nice idea - would be useful for teams to be mixed around to have a unique game each time.
Only thing which I wouldn't quite like is arranging games with friends where I'd prefer to stay with or against them rather than being tossed around from team to team each map...
Ooh and for newbies it might be pretty confusing to suddenly be blue when he was red xD

[Vos]

just use it on public servers and play with ur friends on private :F?

[jerich]

If there was an option for the server admin to turn it off because in leagues it would definitely get annoying


/randomize on
/randomize off

[smiluu]

Balanced teams are rare blessings, that's what I believe in. Team balancing doesn't really have any good solutions. Seniors appear to be stomping over juniors regardless of this "shuffle" option anyways and while considering this inside the container called Soldat, it's just useless crap congested struggling.

Shuffling teams each round is pretty much as gay as it could get. Shuffle teams- vote function would be as far as I'd go with this idea.

[thegrandmaster]

Vote function would just never be used though

[L[0ne]R]

Only thing which I wouldn't quite like is arranging games with friends where I'd prefer to stay with or against them rather than being tossed around from team to team each map...
Ooh and for newbies it might be pretty confusing to suddenly be blue when he was red xD

I agree.

How about a built-in auto-balance instead? If players feel teams are unbalanced - they could vote for auto-balance with a !balance command.
Also if one team completely annihilates the other - at the end of the round teams can be shuffled so that each team has equal amount of good and bad players. Good & bad could be defined by total kills or flags capped.

[Mitak]

!balance to make the kills-to-kills ratio 1:1

100 kills team vs 60 kills team will result in 80:80... Now that's not much of a difference because 20 kills can be evened out by moving only 1 player...

But evening teams out by deaths... 1 pro can kill each member of the entire team once repeatedly, so... Pro has 10 kills, each member of the opposite team (5 guys) has 2 deaths. Why not balance the teams by deaths?! My brain can't comprehend the fullness of this idea at 7 AM but it's the better option IMO.

[L[0ne]R]

Some people can die a lot, but also kill a lot (like me). Also, deaths are easier to get than kills, so I suspect some people will abuse this by self-killing themselves a lot in order to switch teams. Unless self-kills aren't counted..

[thegrandmaster]

Vote feature to autobalance might be used. I would certainly vote for it when I'm with two other awful guys vs some good people. (The only problem with having a command is that the noobs probably don't know how to use it) ¬.¬
Maybe one person can initiate the voting per map, then it comes up like an F11/F12 feature??

Some people can die a lot, but also kill a lot (like me). Also, deaths are easier to get than kills, so I suspect some people will abuse this by self-killing themselves a lot in order to switch teams. Unless self-kills aren't counted..

I'm not sure about using deaths... alot of good players are pretty kamakazi as you say and get alot of kills whilst dying alot, which would mean using ratio's would not result in a high score for those, obviously in some way, skilled players.
Also, using ratio would give as much credit to these good players, as to an annoying camper that just tucks himself in the furthest reaches of the map and pokes out once in a while to get someone - he would have few deaths and more kills so his ratio would be as good as the good player.... doesn't make sense to use the ratio in some circumstances...

If self kills aren't counted, remove those deaths then do something like: [Killscore] subtract [DeathScore]? This would mean the noobs that hide and hardly get any kills or deaths (who would actually get not too bad a ratio) will get a very low score, whereas ones who kill alot will get a good score even with subtracting the deaths.
The only other people to consider are the ones who are mad cappers - shouldn't they get recognition? I suppose if two people have the same [KS]-[DS], then the amount of caps would decide who is the better player.

[Monsteri]

There shouldn't be anything balancing, except for players count. I already hate it too, because all the time, when somebody leaves, It throws me to another team. When it happens usually, it's a pain ass. So I don't want any more throwing/flurrying players around.   

Dunno do you understand my point.

[Edit\]: If you spwan to good team, then it's good, and you win the other team. Isn't  it the idea of CTF and all the teammatches?  Sometimes they can be balanced, sometimes not.
You can aswell spwan to good team, as to bad team. That's lot of excitement of this game.
If you are good, you can aswell make bad team to win.

[thegrandmaster]

Yeah I get what you're saying.
The only way the team shuffling would work is after every round, so you wouldn't be switched mid-game with this system anyway.

If you are able to join and help the 'bad team' just about beat the other one, doesn't that show the sides are obviously fairly balanced anyway?
And remember, we're talking about a vote function here, so it would only be initiated when a proportion of the players want a fairer match. Many matches would remain how they are.

[L[0ne]R]

(The only problem with having a command is that the noobs probably don't know how to use it) ¬.¬

If it's the /command - then yeah. Surprisingly enough only about 1 out of 10 people has enough brainpower to get that right from 1st or at least 2nd try. The rest keep typing it in chat even though the rest of the server tells them not to.

However if the command is meant to be typed in chat (like !balance instead of /balance) - then it shouldn't be a problem.

[Mitak]

Nah, no commands, just force team shuffling at the start of each round the North Korean way.

[thegrandmaster]

However if the command is meant to be typed in chat (like !balance instead of /balance) - then it shouldn't be a problem.

However 8/10 noobs don't even know how to use chat...
The !balance makes it sound like a scripting idea? Is that what we're thinking of rather than hard-coded option (activated on a command)?
What about the F11/F12 thought? I like that idea... for noobs will notice something like that.
F11/F12 could be either activated on typing a command (in chat or whatever).... or.... (check attached picture) xD

Nah, no commands, just force team shuffling at the start of each round

Not helpful. Tell us why that's the best idea.

[L[0ne]R]

Not even knowing how to use chat means they have no clue how to play the game, and therefore shouldn't vote for anything in the first place.

F11/F12 would of course be even easier to understand, but the problem is that a lot of players find vote windows annoying, so they press F11/F12 just to close the vote window and don't care about what the vote was called for. (thats how innocent people get instantly voted out while hackers live through 5 or even more votekicks)

[thegrandmaster]

Instead of not knowing how to use it, I think it's more the case that the worser players just don't use it..
I'm not sure about the whole getting rid of the vote window thing...
Surely there's several scenarios:
1. Everyone except the guy who wants the balancing says F11.
In this case, the server is actually probably pretty balanced and its just some whining dude wanting 'balancing'

2. Everyone selects a random answer just to get rid of the window
If the vote is overall F11, then obviously no-one minds what the teams are like because they are not reading the vote panel. If overall F12, then it'll result in fairer teams based on results - which can only be a good thing

3. Some people actually see that the server is pretty unbalanced so vote F12
Result: Shuffling of teams making the game fairer

I think that even with the 'getting rid of the window', it would mostly produce good results.

[L[0ne]R]

Unfortunately there are more jerks on Soldat than you think. Consider the scenario when all of the winning team votes against balancing only because they like easy wins. So it's all up to the losing team to vote for balancing.
And it just so happens that one player on the red team happens to be "random voter" who votes F11 for anything. And most likely it would be the deciding vote against rebalancing.
With 8 or 10 players on the server usually every vote makes a big difference. Also consider a scenario when the server isn't even full.

[smiluu]

God damnit Loner and grindmaster, your nothing but pessimistic blabber that doesn't help anybody. Shuffle vote would obviously be a big help in place of nothing. It would be abused by huggyplumps just like vote kick feature is, thats given, but isn't it nice you can vote an asshole out of the server when it's really appropriate?

[L[0ne]R]

you can vote an asshole out of the server when it's really appropriate?

1) It's 33% chance that you can, 33% that you can't, and 34% that you'll end up being kicked instead (I admit, I exaggerated somewhat, but you get the picture)
2) I don't see what does "voting out an asshole" have to do with balancing problems.

Also, why add more abusable features if they'll need to be fixed later on anyway? It's better to make them hard to abuse in the first place, and also fix what is already abusable.

Call me a pessimist if you want. What I'm doing is I'm considering worst case scenarios and basing my judgement on real experiences. And above all that - I'm simply expressing my own opinion. I don't think it's against the rules.

[smiluu]

Why so insecure? Well, I don't think it's agaisnt rules to have opinions on others's opinions as well. Asshole kick comment was simply a reference for there's plenty of features that are there for the greater good, but which still has it's abuser kindoms. What they call it? Two edged sword? Beaver's barrage? Shiitake mushroom shaped butthole? Well you get the idea.

[Mitak]

Lawdy lawdy! Jeebus, you gots ta help me! Stop trolling ma thread with your fukken philosophical bullscheisse. Real assholes won't bother ruining your whine of despair. They'll abuse the votekick instead. If you're looking for a no-abuse option, then just do it the communist way - Shuffle the herd automatically at the start of each round. If you make it a voting option mid-game, not only will it produce a massive chimpout, but if it works, you're gonna ruin what the players have achieved so far.

We're talking about BALANCE during startup to avoid further patheticizing of one team, not balance mid-game which will result in Quasheequa chimping out and votekicking yo ass...

Also, go to Athens or something...

[thegrandmaster]

Unfortunately there are more jerks on Soldat than you think. Consider the scenario when all of the winning team votes against balancing only because they like easy wins. So it's all up to the losing team to vote for balancing.
And it just so happens that one player on the red team happens to be "random voter" who votes F11 for anything. And most likely it would be the deciding vote against rebalancing.
With 8 or 10 players on the server usually every vote makes a big difference. Also consider a scenario when the server isn't even full.

The vote percentage for shuffling would have to be around the 50% mark to pass.
I get what you mean by this.

there's plenty of features that are there for the greater good, but which still has it's abuser kindoms

I also agree with this - most features can be abused in someway, the kick feature especially. However the usefulness of the kick feature outweighs the idiots that abuse it, in the same way I think that the shuffle feature would on the whole produce better games.

[smiluu]

Lawdy lawdy! Jeebus, you gots ta help me! Stop trolling ma thread with your fukken philosophical bullscheisse. Real assholes won't bother ruining your whine of despair. They'll abuse the votekick instead. If you're looking for a no-abuse option, then just do it the communist way - Shuffle the herd automatically at the start of each round. If you make it a voting option mid-game, not only will it produce a massive chimpout, but if it works, you're gonna ruin what the players have achieved so far.

We're talking about BALANCE during startup to avoid further patheticizing of one team, not balance mid-game which will result in Quasheequa chimping out and votekicking yo ass...

Now your confusing the fuck out of me. I thought the topic was about shuffling, not balancing.

[thegrandmaster]

Shuffling would achieve little. Balancing is shuffling while making the game fairer. Simples?

[smiluu]

Im following you, sire. But incase you forgot, my suggestion was to forget the each round team balance idea and make a vote option for Shuffling Teams instead, that would do something around like this to the teams. First shuffle was for vain? Then vote ze shuffle again.

[thegrandmaster]

ahh we were not planning on automatic balancing at the end of each map...
We were on about a system where players would vote for shuffling, then the server would look at the stats of the players at the end of that map, then shuffle them into teams that would be fairer (essentially balancing teams while shuffling them)..

Basically, your idea except the server calculates the new teams rather than just picking at random.

[Mitak]

Calculating their power is useless since, by my observation, many players get kicked at the end of the round because they don't have the map. The vote is even more useless. It'll work in maybe 1 of 10 cases. Nobody surviving the map change can skip the shuffling during startup, though

[10th_account]

Replace the team selection when joining a game with a screen that tells the player to "press [Fire button] " to spawn, and the player will be placed in the team with the least players or, failing that, a random team. But one could also press T or something to manually select the team, so as to not annoy clan players and friends.

Screenshot from a game I think handles it better than Soldat:
http://skoskav.org/etc/spawnmenu.png

[thegrandmaster]

Could work I suppose.
I would suggest that it would select which team you automatically join by either the one with less players, and failing that the one who's losing.
Some servers almost do this already - once connected to the server it automatically places you in a team.
I think this is a simple suggestion, but it's nice - instead of choosing manually first, and possibly being changed afterwards by the server, it would be better to be placed automatically by default and then use the old 'change teams' menu ingame if you have a specific need.