Nope, the teams are "randomised" now while players are joining. What people do is sit in spec past the beginning of the game to slowly stack a team once a slot on that team opens up. Ive applied an update to the plugin to allow "unstacking" or "balancing" without a "cool down" period. (i.e. if 1 team has a few more players than the other team)
To enforce team balance, it's what admins are supposed to do. Not trying to be a smart ass, but from what I've seen the only real way to keep teams balance is to have admins on the server, as friends/clans like to play together on the same team, thats the fun about multiplayer games, playing together. Thats why such a plugin is too commie for my liking. ;D Apart from that I've never actually seen any of these plugins work without pissing off a load of people.
I have personally attempted to enforce a non-stacking policy - its even listed as "forbidden" in the server rules which every player agrees to follow. We are not talking about a rare occasion a clan joins the server as a group - we are talking every single map. It may work having someone manually go through the teams, but I would probably have to pay someone to sit there and make sure nobody is stacking. Also, when asking players not to stack I get a load of crap from them with BS excuses. Example: "the league is starting, we need to train" > "so train on your own server?" "would it make you happy if people left your server?" > "what makes me happy is when the people playing here are happy" ... after this I was just completely ignored. Even when the people are complaining on the server & the admins are complaining, these people ignore it all just so they can stack the game for lulz. If there's one thing I don't want to do, its start handing out bans for stacking - but its either this or I use an "automated" method to make the game unstacked and fun for all to enjoy - so I'm attempting the automated route. Whats so "not attractive" about joining a team and just playing your best to try and win? Only when the team works together as a whole the games become epic and stacking completely destroys the teams forming.
I'm starting to think greater use of the kick function would be useful.. Certainly anyone who's still unassigned after a couple of minutes should be kicked to make way for another player. I know we sometimes have 4-5 players who are afk but just get churned through each map change and sit unassigned. For spectators it may be better to stick to the manual method for now, a polite request to join a team and if they don't then a swift kick to clear. Mind you that requires someone on server to do it..
We should bug Krenzo until he implements proper events. If I understood Evan's post, Krenzo is already on it, so we just have to wait (but I am trying to clear it with Evan to ensure that this is the case). With the new events, the mechanizm would be more accurate. Per-map plugin behavior is easy to code. If You ask me, I would exclude escort form counting any points to any players for now, maby later We can do something about it. There will be some things that would have a slight impact to the point system. We will have to observe it, it will be easily visible on statistics. It will be easy to compensate it. It will require a bit of work, but in the end it should be ok. Alternatively, We can build a system that will balance itself automaticly. RANDOMNESS IS BAD.
Spectators should be left alone if they are not afk. The issue with the stacking issue, the only real way to solve it is admins. Any automated system will not work as well as one admin. The automated systems normally don't work also... More for the stacking issues, people should not be forced to pick a random team or stay away from there clan. When a group stacks every map it is an issue as it is now, but singling out clan tags will not work. The one method that could work is to track the odds of each Steam ID of winning, and if that number is too high on average for one team the team is forced switched. People may not like it, but it doesn't single every clan there is yet allows clan/team stacks while stopping skill stacks.
I would say: Give 2 minutes to let all players sign up for a team, but don´t show them who is joining which team. After the 2 minutes have passed, the players will get into their teams and the game begins. If one team is stacked, the last one who joined the team will get moved to the other team.
you all assume that because some one is wearing a "tag" that they are better than you.Would this problem be be solved if all clans didnt use tags then? just cuz i have (_+ABC_+) doesn't mean im better than you, have you guys even seen the l33t clan play they are worse than pubbers. The only time people cry about the "stacking" is when they are loseing never when they are on wining team the main problem with this game is the fucking DRAMA never seen a game with so much whats the wost that could happen lets see oh my god u might lose a map end of the world or for some it seems Guys its just a game you play games to have fun right so if your not having fun dont play the game problem fixed
Cyber-Kun: Let's for a moment assume that You are an admin on a full, 40slot server. You have 40 players to assign to teams. Do You know all of them and their skills? What if some of them changed nicknames? Are You still able to balance the teams? The idea of manual rebalancing the teams is the fail of the thread. It even beats the 2^n time consumption algorythm. Lollum and Evan: That would mean total randomness. RANDOM IS BAD. A good example of that: we have 4 players, 2 emp_recriuts that downloaded the game 10 minutes ago, and 2 veterans. there are 6 possible combinations of players in teams and two of them are stacked. Thats 33%. RANDOM IS BAD. Please don't make me bring Bernouli forumla to proove it to You. I already counted it and it freakin' doesn't work well if we assign players randomly! Random is better than nothing, but it still fails.
@ lollum's idea: people could still stack if they has TS or vent. Nonetheless, we can make a plugin to fix this.
You forgot Steam ID. It is simple for a computer to keep track of Steam IDs and how often they win or loose on a map. Compute the average win/loose to the entire team 1 minute after the game starts and there you go.
Whenever I play, I'm the one carrying the team on my back to victory. If I somehow lose, it's either that my whole team are nubs or we're against clan stackers. This applies to every other JPL. I flip flop teams to see which team will give me the most difficulty playing and try and win from that.
First You say that only admin can balance teams, now You introduce an automated rank system that would track players based on their steamid's and their game achievements. In my opinion, the only real way to solve the stacking issue is a smart plugin, not admins. An automated system described above by me will work far better than a group of admins. That is an exact negation of Your post. I would like to challange such issues, before We start writing code.
If people really want to stack they will find a way, your not going to eliminate it When it gets to the point of admins actually switching players all they are going to do is change their names. Impossible!1111
Your right Reef, I did contradict myself in the sense I said only admin would work. Since admins all the time can't be used all the time... well I had an idea. There is it. Don't be such a jerk about it.
Plugin can remember where it assigned You, so even if You reconnect it will force You back to the same team. Or it can ban You for trying to hack the balancer. I hate guys that hack usefull systems, so expect a "You have been banned for 15 minutes because You atempted to bypass the autobalancer" window. Imagine that EVERY SINGLE game on a server that has the plugin installed is not skill-stacked. That would mean that You actually have to try hard to push Your enemy and if You try hard, You can defend. No more beating crap out of the other team. No more other team beating crap out of Yours. This is potentially awfull. Teams can be too balanced, so games will last forever. It might be that we would have to implement a feature that would make the teams f.e. 10% inbalanced, to ensure that games eventually end.
