[Suggestion] Stacking Deterant

[Socks]

I think one of the ways to prevent people from stacking is to give people means to police themselves. Right now, it is hard to tell if a player was trying to stack. I think we need a simple and easy way to quickly review the result of a players switching teams. I suggest that we output some information in chat when someone changes teams. Such as:

 

[Player X] has changed teams from Survivors to Infected.
Now there are [##] Infected vs. [##] Survivors.
Infected team is [winning/losing] by [##] points.
New Infected Avg. PPM is [##].
New Survivors Avg. PPM is [##].

 

Etc.

[Biggs]

Just like trying to compare two sports teams, there are often many "intangibles" when it comes to how fair a matchup is. Certain players play well together and sometimes having too many 'good' players isn't best, if there's no leadership or too much leadership. Similarly, PPM is not a very good measure of how valuable a team member is. Linemen never score touchdowns in football (well, almost never) but you still need them.

 

In any case, I don't think there's any way to measure how balanced the teams end up being statistically, at least not in any truly meaningful way.

 

 

 

*Aren't sports examples great?!

Edited June 6, 2012 by Biggs

[direkt]

To be honest, it's probably easier just to have an understanding from the admins to the regulars that they won't be banned for abuse of !votekick if they kick someone for team stacking in the absence of an admin.

 

PPM doesn't take into account the intangibles like Biggs said. Most times it'll be based on a match by match basis. Just as long as we don't have people complaining they got votekicked by someone because they stacked, and the admins temp ban the kick initiator (and take the complainers side) it'll be better.

[Socks]

I have given this issue more thought and I have concluded disabling the team switches is the only viable solution.

 

I agree that it is very difficult to correctly assess the 'fairness' of a match and thus hard to discern if a particular team switch can be considered 'stacking'. Unlike rushing and hacking, stacking cannot be proved with a single snapshot of an event (such as what I suggested). Even a five minute demo will not be enough to prove, without a doubt, stacking did occur. This means if we still want to punish someone for stacking we will have to rely on the credibility of an accuser, since most of the 'evidence' will be primarily hearsay. This causes even more problem since by definition stacking is committed by a person with a known skill level, i.e. a regular or a member. Consider what would happen if I accused Biggs of stacking. And what would happen if Biggs accused me of stacking. I imagine the debate will quickly turn into either a popularity contest or a screaming match.

 

While I was thinking about this issue, it occurred to me from all the hours that I have spent on this server I have never witnessed anyone getting banned or kicked for team stacking. I think my anecdotal story describes this problem quite well. Team stacking is a problem that is not worth our time or effort. I say we simply disable the team switching and move on.

 

edit: grammar and spelling.

Edited June 6, 2012 by Socks

[Lookback]

I say we simply disable the team switching and move on.

 

Seconded, with one qualification - an autoscramble to rebalance for player numbers if there is a big rage-drop.

[Jerkoff]

Sounds like a feasible idea. There are some additional things we should include in votekicking by the way.

 

-Allow members in spectator mode to votekick for both teams. Too many times I find myself unable to do anything when I caught someone doing a bad act mainly because the team would be too busy to notice or can't find out who it is.

-When a votekick menu is up, put in another menu noting what is the reason. So people who suddenly see a vote would know why instead of asking multiple times.

[GotYour6]

Well what about someone like *SK that is a really good player that will switch to the losing team to balance it, this would stop him from being able to do that. I have seen him do this many times where the end score is pretty close. not all regs stack. just the crappy ones.

 

-6

[Biggs]

Hah or we could have !voteswitch. If you want to switch to the other team, you type !voteswitch , and it would bring up a vote for all players to decide if it's fair. Would go something like...

 

I type:

!voteswitch Lookback

 

Biggs has requested to switch to the infected team, and to have Lookback switched to the survivor team. Do you agree with this swap?

1. Yes

2. No

 

Then I don't know, require a 60% majority of yes votes for the swap to go through...

Should only be usable before the round starts.

 

*Also, you should always be able to switch teams if they're unbalanced (10v8, 9v7 etc.)

Edited June 7, 2012 by Biggs

[JackieChan]

 

I'm always on the losing team anyway. Any team I'm on that is winning gets scrambled. You guys all suck.

[Biggs]

Could have a draft-style setup at the start of every campaign.. two players with the longest playtime are promoted as captains, and they draft the other players. Would be kinda fun

[Socks]

How about disabling the team switches except for players like SK? That way SK can continue his noble crusade against Voldemort while dirty peasants like myself can run around like a headless chicken trying the extend my insignificant life.

[Cinkadeus]

I'm always on the losing team anyway. Any team I'm on that is winning gets scrambled. You guys all suck.

Amen, brother... Amen.

[MasterTalpa]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ussCHoQttyQ

 

I'm always on the losing team anyway. Any team I'm on that is winning gets scrambled. You guys all suck.

Because no one wants you to win.

[specialk]

Locking the teams would be a great idea and if i get immunity even better!

[ValenAlvern]

Locking the teams would be a great idea and if i get immunity even better!

I think this was fixed, but unsure. If theres a small chance you get moved to spectator during a scramble, and the teams lock, well...you'd be screwed (especially for non members since the lock would probably last as long as the cooldown for revote and the fact you get kicked after 5 to 10seconds sitting in spectator.)

[DeadEye]

The biggest problem with teamstacking is when the server crashes. This has become more frequent lately, or possibly it's just the times I'm able to play. I find people like to do it when no one is there to police them, or even catch them doing it. Having a way to stop this would very much benefit the server.

 

There is also the unintentional stack which happens after a server crash. The teams are scrambled before even half the server is full most of the time, without anyone there to do it again, as admins are the only ones who can scramble on the first map.

 

I have to agree with Socks, the only real solution is to remove the ability to teamswitch, if it's possible just for the winning side so at least someone has a chance to help the losing team by switching.

[Sky]

What about possibly making it so scrambles are based on gather variables? That way it's based on stats instead of completely random. You could let a player team switch as long as that players server rank (rank among the other players connected) is:

a.) the bottom half of the rank, if trying to join the winning team

b.) anywhere in the rank if trying to join the losing team

 

 

that way, the high ranking players wouldn't be able to further stack a team, since only the players not highly ranked among the other players could join the winning team, but anyone, including the number one (in-game ranked) player could join the losing team.

[Socks]

Disabling team switches is the only solution that will stop team stacking. Other solutions, while they do have their own merit, will still be open to abuse and will not fully prevent stacking from happening. Of course, disabling team switches has its downsides. With team switches disabled, when a game becomes unbalanced (either naturally or by poor scramble) players have no means to correct the problems themselves.

 

To be clear I am not in favor of disabling team switches. I believe we should seriously consider other options before we disable team switches completely. However, I am hesitant to give my full support to other suggestions because all of them require the players to balance the games themselves. Whether it is swaps or drafts, it requires a good player to join the weaker team voluntarily. But how often do you see this happening right now? Currently we have all the tools necessary to balance the game ourselves but matches are rarely fair. Tacking on more ‘features’ will not stop stacking or balance the game.

 

Whatever solution we decide to implement if we don’t change our attitude, especially the attitude of the members and regulars, nothing will change. Of course, we can always disable team switches. It will not make games balanced, but it will stop stacking. Permanently.

[TheDude]

To be honest i would'nt change anything. If a lot of people are online stacking is usually quickly condemned by the other players.

 

There are some good ideas in here but i don't think there's a better solution than what we have now.

[whiteguy]

Just not let herbs/paro/malo be on same team.

[Lookback]

Depends who is on the other team AND who their supporting cast is.

[Sky]

just have a plugin monitoring team scores as well as the number of players on each team, and force a player over if it's happening. Hell, just do away with scores altogether. It's about having fun, not winning, right? (Unless your team gets annihlated right outside of the saferoom door)

[tonerrrr]

I'm always on the losing team anyway. Any team I'm on that is winning gets scrambled. You guys all suck.

Amen, brother... Amen.

[Socks]

Hell, just do away with scores altogether. It's about having fun, not winning, right? (Unless your team gets annihlated right outside of the saferoom door)

 

I have thought about this as well. Like what you said, large differences in scores happen because one team makes it to the safe room more often than the other team. It does not matter if the losing team survives for 99% of the map. With the winning team racking up 50 (or was it 25?) points per survivor that makes it to the safe room, we already have 1,000 points gap.

 

Maybe the games were fair and balanced all along. Perhaps we just felt the games were unbalanced because the point system never reflected the true 'skill' level of the 'losing' team.

[Sky]

And, that's the other thing...

 

I like the competitive atmosphere where points are rewarded purely for distance - not how many people survived.

Or, if there are survivor points, make it something small like 3 points per survivor. That way, it isn't such a devastation.

Think of it this way. at 3 or 5 points per survivor, it's only a 30 or 50 point bonus if and when all 10 survivors make it.

 

25 point gap is just way too much in a 10v10 server because if one team dies outside of the saferoom, and another makes

it in, that's 250 points (assuming their whole team makes it) and on most maps, that's close to half a maps distance. It would

only take a map or two of that for one team to soar far above the other.

 

If someone wanted to go the distance only route, you could calculate all survivors flow, divide by the number of survivors, and

that would be the average flow distance through the map, and set that number as the survivors team score for that round.

That way, distance isn't based on the 4 core survivor players, but everyone. And, that way, you'll never have to hear the

"he's not a main, leave him!" or "save the main, first!" comments.

 

 

Personally, I think, after reading post after post of people frustrated with the poor team balance options, and the problems that

it's causing, that it might be just as well to reset both teams scores at the start of a new round. That way, you won't have people

trying to stack the "winning" team. And, that way, heck, the only stacking you'd probably see is people trying to get on the same

team as their friends, but we're all friends here, right?

 

Still, I'm adamant and firm on the idea that it's about having fun. Score should be the last thing on a players mind. But, like I

said, the one time it does matter is if one team gets 99% of the way, and the other gets face rolled when they're attempting to

leave the safe room.

 

 

At the same time, if you want a plugin that will maintain player ranks, much in the way that hlstats does it, through a database system

and then balance the teams based on how each player who is currently connected stands up against the other players, based on

a mind boggling amount of variables, check out this plugin:

http://forums.allied...530#post1728530

or, simply read through it, learn a few things, and continue to evolve your own work.

I think, though, that any of these approaches would probably help with the team balance issue. But, lesson learned: Completely random scrambles don't usually do much other than annoy players.

 

I'm not screaming "Use this, it'll solve all of your problems!" because it won't. It uses statistics gathered to do balanced scrambles, which means, the longer the plugin is running, and the more

data the plugin collects and stores, the more accurate scrambles will be. The downside is when a new player, who has never been there before, joins, they'll start at the bottom rank. So, they

could very well be an amazing player, and face roll people, but for the first few rounds, several categories will be lower ranked. Keep in mind, it calculates things like, for example:

"Player Total Kills" and then also "Player Total Kills Average" both of these are survivor categories, though they exist for Infected as well. A new player would most likely score higher than anyone

who has more than 1 round played, and this is done to make sure that someone like jackie doesn't enter the game for the first time, face roll other players, and still be the bottom ranked player

when the second round starts.

This also means that the first few days the plugin is running, and the statistics gathered are low, scrambles will start from totally random (because it has no data on players, yet!) to eventually being

based on the data.

 

How does it make sure teams are balanced, anyway?

When a scramble occurs, it grabs all 20 players ranks. It'll randomly choose 50/50 whether it starts with the rank 1 (best) player, or the rank 20 (worst, if 20 players) player, and assign them to a team.

If it's the lowest ranked player first, he'll get assigned to the winning team. If it was the best ranked, to the losing team.

Then, it will, effectively, go through all the players who are rank 1 (there can be several, since ranks are based on averages of each statistic, similarly to why on some major games, you see multiple people at the same rank)

or rank 20, respectively, and alternate which team they are assigned to, all the way down the block.

 

The poopy part is if you and your 4 buddies are all top ranked players in that game, you're guaranteed to be split up. The plugin will never allow the top 10 ranked versus the bottom 10 ranked.

And, since data is stored constantly, if a server crash occurs, the data is still saved.

This also means, though, that the more a player plays, the sooner it can balance out that players statistics.

And, honestly, I spent a lot of time writing this to make sure it got the job done, since I used to run a community myself, and team balance was a major issue.

 

 

However, it's just an option, and there are many options. Since the team balance is a topic of discussion, I felt, "Hey, why not?"

 

@Socky: I'm not sure if your last sentence refers to the points-per-minute thing. If it is, I don't think a single variable (or even 3 or 5) can properly account for skill level of a team. The problem with calculations like this

is it takes a ridiculous amount of data to do it. You can spend months writing it and extensively testing it (like I did) or you can lock the teams, or download a plugin. Though, I don't believe there is another plugin that

balances teams from statistical gatherings.

 

Even if they don't use it, it's a great source to learn from!

Edited June 14, 2012 by Sky