yourbestfriend

@Sky, you are right, about the playtime, if that is counted as being online rather than being on infected or survivor. It could still be used, but then it would be more like a filter. So people with more than 3 hours of online time (or members) will be devided on both teams so you don't have a pile of newbs on one team and a pile of members on the other. But that plugin sounds promising, I hope you can arrange something with Jackie to plug in the plugin. And @Sky & @Samurai, I agree about the saferoom reaching points. But it has to be kept in mind that giving too little points for survivors who made it will probably yield a lot of rushers/ runners.

You make a lot of sense. But about the balancing, I don't follow what your opinion is exactly..? But what I do see is for example, if you'd only sort teams on playtime on our server (so player with the longest playtime -> team 1, second longest playtime -> team 2, third longest playtime -> 1) you would already have a huge improvement in scramble quality. And since teams get scrambled at the start of every game it is a big deal.

Kick.

Nice. I took a look at it. Can you perhaps send me a copy of the server contents, or take a look for me? In the common.php file, there is a function function createtablerowtooltip($row, $i) it creates this variable: $ppm_versus = number_format(getppm($row['points_survivors'] + $row['points_infected'], $row['playtime_versus']), 2); That's for getting the ppm. The other stats are very similar, if you check out the common.php file. I think the $row indicates the player identifier, or maybe there is a function for that. But maybe you can send me the .php file where the server commands are in. I just need the scramble command code and the code that displays player rank and such when you join the server. Combined, it should be enough to program our own excellent scrambler. If you'd like to create this thing together trough skype, that's a possibility too. Or is the server using the l4d2scores.sp file? (http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?p=1029519) Because then I think I might already have these functions!

Yes.... Thanks for moving. Now I haven't heard anything from Jackie regarding my pseudocode. If someone would show me the ropes I could also do some server modding myself. @JackieChan can you please respond to my previous post?

BRING IT ON!!!

Thanks ValenAlvern, TheDude and Jerkoff.

Hi Everyone, About a month ago, I joined some server and I thought: "Oh no, not another crappy modded server with way too many players in it." Little did I know, I was to pay for that very server only a month later. How come, might one ask after reading this preface... What I really like about 'our' server is the buy mod. It works great and is well balanced (the buy mod is, the 10vs10 could be more balanced, but my rambling about that is readable on another post). Also I like that it's 10 vs 10. But that's just technical. What I really like is that there are good, friendly people playing on these servers. Microphones being used, spammers kicked, no abusive language. Just awesomeness. Hope to make it some sweet gaming hours with you guys. Your (Very) Best Friend

@Socks, your post makes a lot of sense. @Jackie I don't know about your computer skills and your capabilities of learning new things and spare team you have for this, I can understand that you DO NOT want to make time free for something like this. But I have some programming skills for my education (Electrical Engineering) and I think it shouldn't be that hard.... I would like to help you if you'd require the help. Basically we would need to acquire every player's: win/loose, PPM and server time, with a for loop. Weigh these (scale the variables to the importance we think they're worth) and add them for all players, so you know your 'team power'. Then you shift the 'best' player, calculate how much the 2 team powers differ. If this difference exceeds a certain threshold, shift again a second 'best' player. Check again (so another for loop). Now I do not know how to obtain the data (how to obtain the variables like PPM), but these are also displayed in the RANK screen (!rank). So there you must be able to find a function that collects the same variables... Well enough with the nerdtalk.... Curious about your thoughts, pal.

More scrambling might be a good idea, or it may not as Lookback said. But I think you're drifting away from the initial problem here: the cr*ppy votescramble that is available at this time. What I see is that hard stacking is not put down by admins, in a lot of cases. But also, I think we might first focus on improving HOW scrambling happens, and then focus on WHEN it scrambles, perhaps. Is anyone from the GC team who can change things on the server actually reading this? :-) I would like to hear your view on the ideas presented.

@Lookback. You certainly have a point there, my friend. In the range of point differences under 300 per round, things seem reasonably fair and scrambling should be avoided. Sure, there are always people screwing with the system. But that's why it's a votescramble, if teams are already fair, it will not pass. But there is also a problem, if teams are not fair, the winning team will not like to scramble... But in the essention, I think most fun is being haved (or how do you say this in English lol) on a server when you just barely win, or just barely loose.. Then it really is an achievement if you win, and it's okay if you loose, so maximized fun. And I think that is important since a lot of people play this game for fun (duuuh). So if a new votescramble is to be made, a few things should be kept in mind: Divide players into teams based on: + Points per minute (PPM) + Playtime on server (really important, if one team has 4 skilled players and the other 0, you know there will be a boring match) + Win/Loose Percentage + Is there already a big enough point difference? But I understand what you are saying Lookback, it should not be misused of course.

@Lookback, you are joking right? ;-)

Hey guys, I'm new here but I wanted to pitch in on this. In about 30% of the games I play, teams are horribly unbalanced. I don't mind if I loose, except when I'm completely being raped in a game. And this happens, a lot. Also, the scramble doesn't always seem to actually take place, even if the vote passed. I think, indeed, a better scrambler can be made by using gamers statistics. I think points are indeed a good representation of skill (since they are earned by hitting survivors, killing zombies, healing teammates, getting teammates up). Also server rank, or server playtime is a good one. People who like our server and played a lot on it know how to play well (or at least better than an average Joe). And maybe win/loose statistics. If a team is losing, you might wanna put more winners on it (a winner meaning closer to 100% win ratio and loser closer to 0% win ratio). Since better players will probably win more games than bad players. So a nice way to even teams out would be to take a weighed average of the following skill indicators: + Points per minute + Playtime on server + Average wins I hope I don't have to explain how a weighed average works, I presume were with enough bèta's here. Now, this is not a perfect solution, but it's way more intelligent than what's currently used. Hope to hear from you admins. Regards, Your Best Friend