Krenzo: Please make this the default in future versions. Server admins: Please change this setting on your servers. I've been playing a lot of small games lately because I've been up at odd times (it's 6am here and I've not gone to bed yet). Unfortunately, due to the default of this command being 2, as far as I can tell, it's very difficult to have a good game. Here's a timeline of a typical 10 player game: Map starts. Commander of the winning side from the previous game picks a team. Next player joins his team. Remaining players wait until someone joins the opposing team so they can pick that same team. You then end up with 4v6, at the start of the game when that difference in players is most important. Typically, a few minutes in another player will join. If they're new, they'll probably join the smaller team without even looking. If they're not, they'll probably look at the teams and decide the 4 man team is guaranteed to lose at this point and go spectator. The round ends quickly and the above process repeats again. And I'm fed up. There's periodic threads here complaining about team stacking, and as long as the majority of servers have mp_limitteams 2 it'll keep on happening. Clanners often want to join their clan mates, that's normal, but the teams get stacked even when the clanners themselves don't. If you join a 10v10 match where 4 people on one team have the same clan tag and nobody else has any, which are you likely to join? Which do you think the majority of players are likely to join? The answer to the former question is probably "whichever one I feel like", but the answer to the latter is pretty obvious. Which team do you think the next player to join is then going to pick? I know some clans would rather not change it so they can all join one team at the start, and often the teams will still balance in a larger game. They can always force someone to switch and balance afterwards if there's an admin on. But I don't see any reason why mp_limitteams should not be 1 on the official servers. If any admins of UK servers have this setting already, please say so, I want to add your server to my favourites list.
So... what happens if clan mates want to UNSTACK? If one team has 2 good people and rest are nubs and the other team is all nubs, then can't unstack since your silly limitation won't let us do it without kicking someone. Oh and typing a command to force a team switch is out of the question since SourceMod doesn't allow that kind of thing. (Someone fix Mani mod please >_<) Let the community handle team balancing, we shouldn't baby them.
As I said, on your typical clan server there's reasons why 2 can be justified. Not that I agree with your argument to begin with, exactly how often do you think servers are skill stacked compared to team stacked? Just when was the last time you saw a 10v10 with unbalanced teams skill-wise where a player from the winning team switched sides? If it was really that common and clanners were all desperate to switch from a winning but stacked team then there wouldn't be all these screenshots floating around where balanced games turned unbalanced later on. If you could get a player from the losing team to temporarily join spectator then you'd be fine. And the teamswitching command doesn't need to work, just threaten to kick someone if they don't move. I'm making this thread because the community isn't handling team balancing and does need someone to baby them. I have a buddy with a good reputation as a commander, and I never get to play on the same team as him any more, because it's always stacked. If I join his team and the teams are even, it typically becomes stacked within a few minutes and I have to switch because I feel guilty if I don't. Anyway, I never said mp_limitteams 1 is perfect, I just think it's an improvement. I have no desire to restrict every server to running that setting, but it would nice to know there's at least one out there that I can play on and be happy with more balanced games. I already find the balance to be usually good enough on clan servers, but they're not always populated and there's plenty of servers out there without clan affiliation and regular admin presence.
I always switch teams if that makes the game more balanced.. Also I'm pretty sure most of CW/old players would do it too.
