I think I might be slightly offended. Anyways reef, how does your system account for players that generally just mess around? The type is is better than adverage but likes to have funs. Some guy failing for lolz could stax teams pretty badly.
Generally I agree, but your method (based on what you explained) is flawed. That server may very well have 4 REAL players, except they are still in the process of connecting. What you need to pay attention to is the number of players listed in Server Info. If they are shown there, yet not ingame, then you know their ghosts. If it says 4, but none are shown, then their players mid-connecting.
I agree that all this is overthought everengineering to solve a problem that can only be fixed with a central stat server and a sorting algorithm. Since we're not going to ever get a central stat server, the best bet is to leave it the way it is. Sometimes you're gonna be put on a team pitted against a much better team, that's just how games work. Not every game's gonna be epic, sometimes you'll lose because the other team's just better than you. Its just too much work for too little payoff, best case scenario is that it fixes a few horribly out-matched games, worst case it does nothing but gives admins a way of telling the players that the game is fine because there is a sorting script. I can only see this annoying people as they try to find a way to play on the team they like.
Yep, I mis-understood what Reef meant by "Ghosts", many lulz were had by all. I figured as much when I first posted. Good luck! D-Gen <Columbo Impersonation> Oh, yea. I have just one more question...Why should it be that my reward for busting my ass and doing a good job be that I'm endlessly shackled to a bunch of losers who don't carry their own weight? How exactly is that "Fair"? </Columbo Impersonation>
Their stats will get low because of that. The good thing is to publish the stats, so players will try to keep them up = they will not mess around on the public server. Also they can't mess around because the other team is on their neck. The games with the balancer are usually very intense, because the opponent is as dangerous as You are. That's a flaw of any team-based game where skill between player differs, being public, isn't it? Luckily, I have done all the work so You don't have to. Now, when the work has been done. The diffrence between the current system on KM and the new plugin system is that You CAN CHOOSE THE TEAM and YOU CAN CHOOSE THE BUDDY! I am tired explaining this over and over.
SUCCESS! The Balancer plugin is installed and operational on BDS server (217.172.187.203:27015) ! We need to stack it to death for a few days to ensure it does it's job good. Use statsall command to display Your stats. DO NOT USE THE BUDDY FEATURE FOR NOW! It works fine but it has no menu yet. I will try to code the menu today and we will test it on the 9-slot server and then we will put this all on BDS. Thanks for the GhosT clan for massively attending testing sessions every time I need it.
It actually works? Sweet! Once it's complete (and assuming it doesn't piss everyone off!) i'll see about getting it added to KM
The thing with the balancer is that eliminates the games that are very very easy and short. I think that's neat. We stack the BSD server today to test.
wow the KM stacking thing is annoying. I was comm-ing BE, and my wireless failed. After 10seconds it reconnected and all the buildings went invisible, so i had to rejoin. When i did so, because of the stacking thing, I couldn't rejoin BE to take back comm, i had to ask a guy on NF to go spec (thanks whoever you are :p ) then take back the comm- by which time i had lost alot of valuable researching time. I understand the problem, but perhaps the stacker thing isn't such a good idea, usualy people only stack when defeat is assured, and people are usualy sporting enough to stay on the team they were given.
Pete: we certainly have a problem with the rejoining players, but I don't know if there is a real way to fix it? First of all, the plugin is NOT installed on the KM server yet, but it would cause the same problem. We cannot rely on the players getting back ingame after they were disconnected, can we? You got to fix Your wireless dude, thats the problem. Also a piece of news: as menus are bugged, I will create a set of console commands for the buddy system instead of menus. If someone will still want menus, then I encourage him to feel free to code it by himself. Console commands are fine with me
At this point we use the bog standard valve 'try to keep the numbers the same' balancer. Not doing so would mean 39v1 would be a possible team pairing, so something has to be there. Still, looking forward to putting the KM balancer on KM
It needs a bit fixing, but it should be ready in a few days. I have gathered a bit of statistical data on the BSD server, I will analyze it to check if We can automate averaging the skill values of all players to set the default skill for new players. There was a game where some players left and the skill was like 79 vs 96. Player numbers were 15vs15. Guess what - the team that had lower skill was pwned badly. I consider implementing a timer-based thread that would give points for serving as a commander (this is currently an issue). It would also analyze the teams to check for situations like the one described above and suggest someone to move his ass to the other team... Unless there was a ragequit. We need a ragequit detector. BRAINSTORM! How do You (human) tell that ragequit has took place? Please answear, I really need that! UPDATE: many things have been fixed and tweaked. Choosing auto should now work. statsall should look nicely. Buddy should be fixed. I will need to add the thread tomorow, I need feedback about ragequit before that, thanks. UPDATE2: I didn't install the new version of the plugin yet, We need to test it on 9slot server first
As noone said anything about ragequitting, I didn't know how to describe it so I didn't know how to code it so it's not coded. New version has improoved buddy support and gives skillpoints to commanders, so they have profit for sitting there and they skill doesn't drop so hard. It was unrealistic. Today evening We will stress the BSD server with the newest version of the plugin. It might be that this version with some minor modifications (make some variables admin-settable) will be the final one (=release = go to KM).
More improovments and bugfixes to the buddy system have been done. Open testing session today evening on BDS server. I might not be around, though. If plugin does something bad, report it along with the statsall command. Also notice if the games are hard or easy or short or long etc.
Plugin (v0.4) is installed on BDS server and on [mush] server. The current plans in installing the plugin on KM are to wait one week until We will be sure that the mathematical formula (the core of the plugin) will not start doing some weird things if players will play longer than a few hours. We have never checked that yet. Please observe how the plugin behaves. Use statsall command to see stats. If Your stat will constantly increase when You play, thats very bad, report it here. If it will get lower and lower, report it here as well. It should change for first few maps and then it should less and less until it's stable. Observe how the games are played, are they long or short, are they difficult or easy (excluding 9-mine because from the generall point of view it's random).
Well I played a couple of matches on the server, and it was nice, the teams were fairly balanced; as each mach turned out rather challenging, though there is sometimes some quirky behaviour from the plug in, the way it calculates the points could be tweaked a little bit...
