Automatic team handicapper?

[Biggs]

Seeing as team scrambling rarely seems to actually make balanced teams... I have the idea to implement an automatic team handicapper. Here's the idea:

 

Each round when the first team leaves the saferoom, a "handicap" is calculated. Not sure what would be best for balance, but to start I'll say the handicap is 1 for every 250 pts (or part thereof) difference between the two teams scores.

 

Example: No mercy map 1, team A gets killed before getting out of the first building, team B gets everyone to the saferoom.

--> Team A - 123, Team B - 900.

 

So when map 2 starts, the handicap will be set to 4. I'm thinking then that the winning team's players would all start with -4 pts as Survivors. That's it. No bonus points for the infected team, so no early tanks or early 5 spit/charge limit, it'll just make it a bit harder for the winning team to survive.

 

 

 

I think this'll be pretty easy to code--not sure though--but I just want to check for feedback here to see if anyone else is interested by this idea. Eh? Ok, feel free to shoot me down... now!

Edited March 6, 2012 by Biggs

[chick82]

Seeing as team scrambling rarely seems to actually make balanced teams... I have the idea to implement an automatic team handicapper. Here's the idea:

 

Each round when the first team leaves the saferoom, a "handicap" is calculated. Not sure what would be best for balance, but to start I'll say the handicap is 1 for every 250 pts (or part thereof) difference between the two teams scores.

 

Example: No mercy map 1, team A gets killed before getting out of the first building, team B gets everyone to the saferoom.

--> Team A - 123, Team B - 900.

 

So when map 2 starts, the handicap will be set to 4. I'm thinking then that the winning team's players would all start with -4 pts as Survivors. That's it. No bonus points for the infected team, so no early tanks or early 5 spit/charge limit, it'll just make it a bit harder for the winning team to survive.

 

 

 

I think this'll be pretty easy to code--not sure though--but I just want to check for feedback here to see if anyone else is interested by this idea. Eh? Ok, feel free to shoot me down... now!

 

Pros-

Well there are a few it would help a team who is struggling seeing as they have to get 19 pts to buy a full heal vs 15. So that can balance it out so maybe where a team could of bought up now can't because of it or buy an extra med pack.

 

Having a good balancer would be nice but

 

Cons-

You do have players who getting lots of points very quickly is easy peezy. So unless it was significate it's not going to make a huge difference. I.e. guys who are notorious head shotters.

 

Just because your down 800 doesn't mean you can't come back.

 

No mercy map 1- team a 200 pts. Team b 900

Map 2 team b- 175 team a - 600. Score 800 vs 1175

 

Just bc you do bad one map doesn't mean you can't come back. Even teams of regulars have lost to non regulars.

 

 

It's so tough to find that balance though I do have a thought on scrambling.

 

Ideal- let's say 2 maps go and team a has 300 pts and team b has 1900, I think if on map 3, 3 people type vote scramble it auto does it without a vote. I only say this because sometimes people on a winning team don't want to and it's frustrating.

 

Now coding this could be a pita so I mean really if it's to difficult that's understandable. I don't want Jackie to have to put a huge amount of time on it.

 

I've been on winning and losing it is what it is but as long as people are having fun that's all that matters. It's a good thought Biggs.

 

Maybe we stop being stubborn and just vote scramble when it's pretty obvious. Even myself, Tirtul, talpa, SK, gotyoursix have swapped to help or try and balance it. It doesn't always help lol but you know if more people would be willing to vote yes might be more balanced.

[Times138]

Dude a Team has to lose, nothing wrong with what is going on now,

 

Theres something great in being able to be okay with losing.

 

Dont change the game, change the attitude!

[Cinkadeus]

Oh... I saw the title of this thread and thought it was about me.

 

<backs slowly out of the thread>

[JyKri]

It sometimes only takes one good choke point or a mistake of one person to take a whole team down, I don't see why the team doing well should be punished for playing smart.

 

I'm seeing less and less gg's at the end of the campaigns from either sides either in chat or voicechat, so yes it may be the attitude that needs improvement.

[ValenAlvern]

-4 points? Seems to low, can just kill 4 commons with a headshot with a pistol to make it back, if we keep with this idea, should be about -12 thats a real handicap.

 

 

Personally, if we can get a code going for Survivors and Survivors only. Code keeps track of Accuracy is some way, since its in your personal stats. If you loose it gives the most points (on the turn the next time the losing team is on survivors) to someone with the lowest accuracy, and less points to the one with the highest (if this can be implemented, I think it would be more ideal). Lets starts with 10 to 12 points and it just degrades like so 12, 11, 9, 8, 6, 5.... so on and so fourth.

Edited March 6, 2012 by ValenAlvern

[KiraMama]

There's no point bringing this up. I've mentioned this 2-3 times and it always gets shot down with a "Don't punish the team that's doing their job" or some other bs. Fact of the matter is the teams are random. Not built around friends or real organized players. So a lack of chemistry or just bad random players/griefers can easily screw it up. No one wants to acknowledge that a lot of the "teams" are that in name only.

 

What I find lols however is that most, not all, who think this way will go with a vote-scramble when the game is going bad. Anyway, what's the point? Gc has clearly gone downhill, obvious with the admining and games lately. Everyone rather complain about ideas or problems when it benefits them. You could just do what jackie did yesterday. I joined 3rd map of swamp, hear people on mic complaining about a votescramble. 2k gap in points, check the teams and see one side completely stacked with this Olympic beat-down lineup(now on the losing side) against a team of randoms I've never seen on the server. And bam, admin giving a huge (saw the trigger for 15 go through twice) chunk of points to them(his team) to make sure they annihilate the other team and win by finale. Don't forget to say "HEY, you're winning" or "stop complaining" when doing all this to emphasize how fair it is for this newly generated team by vote-scramble. Can't remember if you were there in spectate then. Left when I got tired of watching the massacre during finale. Not that I was there in the beginning, so I don't feel the rage the losers were feeling, but scrambling THEN giving points is ridiculous. But hey, just stop caring or expecting things on gc. You'll have more fun.

 

Probably the only thing you could remotely do without enraging everyone is have a team assignment function at the start of the campaign based on a variable that is actually accurate in terms of skill. But there isn't one on the stat page, last i recall. Thus, you're sol.

Edited March 6, 2012 by KiraMama

[samurai nightling]

Teams will never be even in peoples eyes. 10% of the time they will be and that is just pure luck that no one switched, no new players are ruining one team, and there may be some experienced players on each team. People need to accept scores will be separated by over 2000 points some times and I personally will not always scramble it because it's not going to make a difference. It will just make people angry that teams got swapped close to the end of a campaign or some stupid stuff.

 

It's people attitudes that need to change. I joined 2 nights ago into a game where the other team of REGULARS were only buying up jockeys and stuff no one normally does because they didnt want to play a map. After playing the first round of that, they then mostly proceeded to leave. Save us all the trouble and gtfo before the campaign even starts. I don't join to try and play with the few hours i have at night to be trolled by some jerks who think because they've played here a while they can get away with blatant griefing of the entire other team by not trying and being idiots.

 

You can say GC has gone downhill all you want but in all honesty, it's the regular players and even some people who have donated who's attitudes about the game have gone downhill. People need to accept a loss every now and then, not just a loss, a blowout by all standards.

Edited March 6, 2012 by samurai nightling

[KiraMama]

That sounds familiar. I wanna say that was dark carnival at the hotel area. I Remember joining when they got to it and half the team leaving before you guys cleared after they complained on mic about the map and spamming to use jockeys. There were 3 admins on the other team, last i recall. Why not just do a change map vote? Anyway, I'll admit I left at that point. No fun if i join because 10 or so people on my friends list are playing and then leave a few minutes after i join, with all the others on the opposite team and now a 10vs4 situation at 2am in the morning.

 

Anyway, I agree the attitudes need to change, but many of those same people have always been that way. I could list a good 10-20 that used to be deemed "regulars" on the server and are the reason I joined, but aren't here anymore. The new "regulars" are just players that play a lot. There's no noticeable skill attached to that term, or anything that warrants any merit. In essence, I'm saying the new players are what make up gc for the l4d community, and they have brought down gc. Using that term loosely as this is just in reference to the l4d server.

[samurai nightling]

Yeah it was the dark carnival map 2 nights ago, and yes you were on that team. Why not throw up a map vote? Because there were a ton of people who still wanted to play carny, more than didnt. Just cuz a few didnt want to, they should of left at the beginning instead of doing what they did. And had you stuck around the team got full again, and we scrambled team immediately at the start of next round. But people dont bother to even try and see if something like that will happen. Can't wait til CS:GO comes out so i can play a proper game.

[JackieChan]

People were acting like me giving the losing team points like it was a brand new thing. "Uh oh, the admin gives his team points. Yell admin abuse." I only gave the losing team 15 points as infected and 10 on survivors (starting on the third map by the way). I did the 15 twice because it didn't go through the first time. The most I would ever give a team is 10 or 15. I do this then Nemesis gets his panties in a bunch and wanted me to give the winning team points in compensation. Lolwut? Finale map? Infected 10, survivors 5. My whole intentions behind that was to keep people in the server, not have an entire team RQ.

 

Also, sometimes I question why I made the campaign switcher plugin choose a random campaign to go to. All everyone ever friggen wants is parish or no mercy. Drives me nuts.

[JyKri]

/cough The passing >:3

 

Anyways this is going off topic a bit.

[Garychios]

Jackie, A lot of people thought it was unfair including me. You gave enough points to buy up charger and spitter right away. We got hammered at the spawn safe room. 5 pts would have been a lot more fair. Also, A lot of servers that I personally played fell apart because of stuff like this such as zcc. In the end, instead of arguiing with you, a lot of guys left the server including me. Why are you getting mad at us? We were winning fair and square with really good players on the loosing side and at that point, the points closed the gap with a 100-200 pt differance.

 

Times has said, one must win and one must loose. We were winning, and the other team was loosing and it was mid game. One person could leave and change the game as it has happed dozens of times before.

 

I use to complain all the time about unbalanced teams and being on the loosing team. I was criticized and jumped on. Now it seems when I am on the winning team, I still get criticized for voicing and opinion. For this server to grow, everyones opinion including times should be respected.

[chick82]

All Biggs wanted to do was have a thread about a possible balancer and now it's completely lost by a bunch of witchy Bettie's. I'm sorry trust me I use to be the queen of follow the rules and chill the tudes. But then I decided to just enjoy it. So I'll say this

 

Make a NEW THREAD!!!!! This was about and ideal not so you could all come on here and turn Biggs ideal thread into a volcano of never ending crap. Leave this thread alone, and complain in another one.

[Garychios]

Actually, On topic. A 5 pt balancer would be cool. I am in for it.

[KiraMama]

Well, I only joined on the third map, hence my reference to what was done and said. In light of that, giving points to losing team if it's a big score gap? Cool, go ahead. How about making that a set and regulated function though, not on a whim? And if that's the case, disable scrambling. Joining a team that's qqing cause of the scramble, etc plus getting hammered by a now stacked team is ridiculous. Now unless there was no switching of players at all, besides Times who i saw do it manually, something like that shouldn't even remotely take place. It's not even remotely fair to those who've been playing since the beginning. And if there was no scramble... then shame on you guys. Player for player the other team was better, at least when I joined. In which case you guys should have sucked it up and admitted you were overconfident.

 

Personally I prefer the whacked out version biggs does. If the score gap is whacked i've seen him give 30 points to each player on both teams on the finale at the same time, making it extremely fun yet also fair in terms of distribution. In these situations one team is going to lose anyway, but at least it's fun. He does that by a vote though asking if people want it...

 

Oh, and night, my point was I left cause I wanted to play with the ones that decided to leave. It was the only reason I joined at that time. Could have stayed, but decided I'd go finish off ME2 instead. Don't regret that decision at all.

[ValenAlvern]

Dont let your personal feelings (i.e what happened one night) influence what you post. Its starting to look like flaming or flame baiting. If you have a personal qualm with someone please make it private it.

[Garychios]

Well, I only joined on the third map, hence my reference to what was done and said. In light of that, giving points to losing team if it's a big score gap? Cool, go ahead. How about making that a set and regulated function though, not on a whim? And if that's the case, disable scrambling. Joining a team that's qqing cause of the scramble, etc plus getting hammered by a now stacked team is ridiculous. Now unless there was no switching of players at all, besides Times who i saw do it manually, something like that shouldn't even remotely take place. It's not even remotely fair to those who've been playing since the beginning. And if there was no scramble... then shame on you guys. Player for player the other team was better, at least when I joined. In which case you guys should have sucked it up and admitted you were overconfident.

 

Personally I prefer the whacked out version biggs does. If the score gap is whacked i've seen him give 30 points to each player on both teams on the finale at the same time, making it extremely fun yet also fair in terms of distribution. In these situations one team is going to lose anyway, but at least it's fun. He does that by a vote though asking if people want it...

 

Oh, and night, my point was I left cause I wanted to play with the ones that decided to leave. It was the only reason I joined at that time. Could have stayed, but decided I'd go finish off ME2 instead. Don't regret that decision at all.

 

NIcely put. I agree with you 110%

[ValenAlvern]

Well, I only joined on the third map, hence my reference to what was done and said. In light of that, giving points to losing team if it's a big score gap? Cool, go ahead. How about making that a set and regulated function though, not on a whim? And if that's the case, disable scrambling. Joining a team that's qqing cause of the scramble, etc plus getting hammered by a now stacked team is ridiculous. Now unless there was no switching of players at all, besides Times who i saw do it manually, something like that shouldn't even remotely take place. It's not even remotely fair to those who've been playing since the beginning. And if there was no scramble... then shame on you guys. Player for player the other team was better, at least when I joined. In which case you guys should have sucked it up and admitted you were overconfident.

 

Personally I prefer the whacked out version biggs does. If the score gap is whacked i've seen him give 30 points to each player on both teams on the finale at the same time, making it extremely fun yet also fair in terms of distribution. In these situations one team is going to lose anyway, but at least it's fun. He does that by a vote though asking if people want it...

 

Oh, and night, my point was I left cause I wanted to play with the ones that decided to leave. It was the only reason I joined at that time. Could have stayed, but decided I'd go finish off ME2 instead. Don't regret that decision at all.

 

The beginning admins always gave points to the losing team (if it was a large gap, i.e stomping), theres a difference between winning and wrecking.

Votescramble is iffy at best, there seems to be conflicting with codes of some kind, since when it works 45% of the time when a vote is called or if an admin forces one it doesnt happen right away. I can see if it scrambled after giving them points, buut you cant really fix broken code if you dont know whats causing the problem.

!teams allows you to switch and see how many people are on a team. Anyone can use it.

Edited March 6, 2012 by ValenAlvern

[Lookback]

Booms and Jocks finales in blowouts FTW, or a good round of 10v10 TANNNNNK

[JackieChan]

Jackie, A lot of people thought it was unfair including me. You gave enough points to buy up charger and spitter right away. We got hammered at the spawn safe room. 5 pts would have been a lot more fair. Also, A lot of servers that I personally played fell apart because of stuff like this such as zcc. In the end, instead of arguiing with you, a lot of guys left the server including me. Why are you getting mad at us? We were winning fair and square with really good players on the loosing side and at that point, the points closed the gap with a 100-200 pt differance.

 

Times has said, one must win and one must loose. We were winning, and the other team was loosing and it was mid game. One person could leave and change the game as it has happed dozens of times before.

 

I use to complain all the time about unbalanced teams and being on the loosing team. I was criticized and jumped on. Now it seems when I am on the winning team, I still get criticized for voicing and opinion. For this server to grow, everyones opinion including times should be respected.

I just have a question: What do you think should happen if it's a complete decimation half way through the campaign like that happened last night?

 

Biggs, if you want to, I can give you some forwards to perhaps help you out a bit if you want to make something like this.

[Jerkoff]

I want to add in a idea that votescramble can ONLY happen WHILE in SAFEROOM. It's pretty bs when you're infected charger, pummeling a survivor on the floor and then a scramble happen..and now you're the survivor getting plummel by your own charger. Votescramble can still be done in the middle of the match but won't be scramble until both teams have gone through their turn and scramble on the next chapter (map).

 

 

And on the whole issue of unbalance, I would say it's all the bad attitude. Even though I'm relatively new, I say I been around here long enough to notice the trends. There was this particular night at No Mercy, someone spoke on the mic about this game "I play to win" over and over. That specific attitude startle me, as I always found this server to be very friendly and easy going. That seem to be a lot of the case whenever I'm on, people joking around and making crude remarks (messing around) especially yesterday at the Dead Center map. Afterall, this server is dedicated to the idea of newbie-friend zone, everyone is accepted and etc etc, maybe some of us regulars just need to remember that and make the most of it, even if you're losing behind 2000 points. I know this hasn't been my week as I haven't join any winning games as of late.

[chick82]

Answer to Jackie's question: while there is the standard don't punish a good team mentality the truth is there are a lot of different people who play. Forget this regular non regular new non new stuff. Honestly everyone has good days and bad and good decisions and foolish ones.

 

Fact- A team will win and a team will lose weather its by 20pts or 2000pts.

 

Fact- people are going to be unhappy and happy by whatever comes from this ideal of balancing.

 

Fact- attitudes do need to change. And by this I don't just mean accepting losing, I mean being a bigger person and saying yes this is one sided we should scramble, or if a scramble passes have fun and not complain.

 

Fact- if you are winning by a lot and don't votes ramble being a jerk and stop trying or buying just jockeys and boomers if your not happy with something. Play your best weather you like it or not.

 

I've had a lot of mean comments made about me over the last few weeks about of if chicks not winning she's going to demand a votescramble or oh chicks on the losing team I bet she's mad. Actually I'm having fun, I'd lie to say I don't get annoyed but we all do.

 

I've even seen people being mean to Jykri because she talks a lot or seems bossy but she just wants the team to work together. And yeah I've been that way I've been mean but I've calmed down a lot ingame why because it's stupid to be so hateful. Even SK has been getting grief and trust me we use to not get along but he's a pretty cool dude, and yet people are just making snide comments nonstop.

 

I think the overall attitude is getting bad and I've been on the giving and receiving end and it hurts and its childish and uncalled for.

 

Honestly I'd like to instead of changing anything at the present moment how about we all be nicer and weather you are winning or losing if it is truly uneven and you can tell let it scramble and try to come back from it.

 

If you don't like a map voice it but accepted it if a majority want it to stay.

 

If you don't like your team leave don't ruin others fun because your upset or annoyed.

 

So my vote/choice is change the attitudes for the better and be more open to scrambles and not so harsh on people. Not everyone has thick skin.

[Times138]

I think this is totaly a non-issue, and if admins give points out to people, it does not matter

 

The points were given out after a scramble to a new set of teams.

 

The points did not make the teams imbalanced.

The thing tthat totaly wrecked the "winning" team was TANKS, it was so obvious.

 

I got the first (default) tank at beginning of map and kept it alive for a long time getting rock hits and stayed alive till all survivors were dead!

then next map Jackiechan got the first default tank and threw rocks and held off survivors until they were all dead!, a very similar strategy to mine, (aka how to play a good tank)

 

Think what you want about my skill, but I was a good witness and I know how the game works, it was the skilled tanks that changed the game, so stop complaining about !points given.

 

This should not even be a topic.

 

/close topic

Edited March 7, 2012 by Times138

[Biggs]

Wow, I just got home after an 11 hour day... this thread got so off topic I can hardly beleive it. Really, stop being so dramatic. All I was looking to do here was to propose was an idea to make the game a little more challenging for the stacked team whenever the teams inevitably are stacked. I should just restart this thread somewhere else at this point.

Edited March 7, 2012 by Biggs