Team stacking has returned! Who else is sick of the skill stack? the influx of new players with the recent updates has made team stacking more prominent because less people are aware that they are being savagely raped before the game has even begun. yeah it's fun to play w your friends/clan but it is creating fucking awful games. the game should have a server option to "force random" teams, this is NOT auto team, because auto team can be abused. this would assign a team, or allow you to go spec, but if you go spec, that's it, you're spec for the rest of the map. this would make for better games, and if you are playing a few maps in a row you would still be on a team with your friends sometimes, just not every single 5 minute match in a row. BEFORE YOU FLAME ME: Im only proposing a server *option* to use the random team assign mode, not as a change to anything else that you may flame me for.
- Empires should track the players kills, deaths, captures and wins. Get a ratio, and then balance the teams so that they both have the same ratio average. - ???? - Profit Or, disable spectate, and enable it after a team has either no tickets or spawnpoints left. I agree, something has to be done.
The infamous BSID jeep rush. A prime example of teamwork, but an unfair one. Things like these really throw into question how the game should be played.
Well...I have nothing against BSID stacking really, but without a team to anti-stack, we did seem to get pwned a lot...and in not so great ways sometimes. No idea how to combat this except that vets should be on the lookout for it, and be anti-stacking...but then again, some of you do want the easy win, or just to "play with people who know what to do".
larger servers = less stacking, basically atm clan A can stack team A and clan B can stack team B just let the newbie wave wear off...
Pickled Heretic was bitching about this all night last night. Me and a couple jpl members join a shitty team that had no comm for the first 15 mins. So we turn the game around and help them win and then he joins the server and says were stacking.... Then the next map I join a shitty team that has no commander and all noobs. So I have to be commander(which i suck at) and I end up making it a good match but we end up losing and he says EPIC FAIL STONERHEAD!! blah blah Then hes on a good team so me and someone else in my clan helps the shitty team and then he join spec and screams stacks.. Even though it was still an evenly matched game with out.. It's retarded.. If your going to bitch about stacks at least ask if they can fix the teams instead of just saying JPL STACKERS.. Your just trying to get people to dislike us. I try my hardest not to stack. I can't speak for all of JPL but I try my hardest not to.. Heres a screen shot to prove me trying to help a shitty team One of those bsid guys was originally on my team and then switched to be with his clan mates.
thats right about larger games having more players and working out to having one clan/good players vs others of the same caliber, but man, do we really have to deal w this shit every time there's a release, or even those times when theres only one half of the 'stack/counterstack' equation playing? this is such an old issue, a server cvar (is that what you call it when you can set up shit like this?) should be in place, at the very least on one server. this could be the defining characteristic of a "noob server". all the other servers are cutthroat, but the noob server would remove even the possibility of a retarded stack.
saw this on viper a few days ago. for a good 45 mins (3-4 maps btw) it was just BE rapes NF over and over and over and over because of new ppl selecting random and 430967340 people in spectate waiting for the teams to even so they can join BE. forced auto join - win. atleast for a few weeks after each major patch.
I am at wits' end with skill stackers on Nachos, G4TC, and ELC. We get so many complaints about stacked teams, yet when we forcibly unstack teams, we get equal complaints from the stackers about being team switched, or even removed from the server if they persist in circumventing any team adjustments. It's either: "This server sucks, the rounds are always stacked in one team's favor. The rounds are therefore boring." or: "This server sucks, the admins are always switching people and not letting friends play together." I see such statements (mostly explicit, but sometimes implicit) about Nachos, G4TC, and in the past I've seen them about Training Server, RichAnderson, and sure as shit about Mittoes back in the day. It's the same story, and there's no perfect solution. One thing I've begun making abundantly clear is that I, or any of my admins at any given server, will not succumb to any brow beating from clans. We will run the servers as determined by each server's owner, and we will not give in to the clan politics that may arise. If a clan member gets banned, a clan can rally together until it's blue in the face. The ban is between the player and the administrators, not between the clan and the administrators. Likewise, we won't succumb to brow beating from clanless players either. Clans aren't the only occasional stackers. It's just as unfair for a team of miscellaneous players to be forced to face off round after round with a team of clanless veterans. I have friends in JPL, friends in CW, and friends in BSID, and among other clans. I know members in each that disapprove of stacking, and who would probably back me in most scenarios if stacking can be identified, such as the issue on Nachos earlier this evening with some BSID guys who wanted to debate policies and mouth off. I certainly can level with clans and clanless players when it comes to wanting to play with friends. That is, after all, the goal of joining a clan or having friends. However, I also like facing off against my friends, even if for no other purpose than to get some bragging rights if I dominate them for a few rounds. I love playing on Dubee's team just as much as I love mortaring his arse... so I neither cry about it nor disrespect admins when I am unable to do one over the other in any given round. Ghosting is naturally supported by Empires, what with targets, text chat while dead, and the like. If you're on a different team, you can use VoIP clients or Steam chat to channel info to your opponents, but that's so intertwined in Empires that it's hardly a rationale for not splitting clanmates or clanless players across the teams in a manner that seems fit (for one round at the very least, which is little to ask of any large group of skilled players). Players often don't recognize it, but admins try to cooperate with the players on a server more often than players try to cooperate with admins. Most players won't even try to meet us half-way when it comes to resolving skill stacks. Number stacks don't even really matter these days. A team that is half comprised of JPL, BSID, <insert clan>, or clanless veterans that only amounts to 10 players, can and likely will defeat a team of 20 emp_recruits. Skill stacks are what give us the largest headaches. Not really a black-and-white solution to it, as it's always subjective and conditional.
Quoted for accuracy, agreement and truth. 2.24 really delivers a 2.12 experience on ep2. Now that's out of the way, it's time for the devs need to fix some legacy problems (read create global stats and built-in auto team balancer).
I think that stacking is a dire problem with no cure without an iron fist and innocent casualties. Wait! revelation! I noticed Viper's rank system that keeps track of points. Make a server plugin that takes all players with over 1,000 lifetime points, and put them into the auto balance pool, so that way, in the case of team stacks, the experienced players get put over on the smaller team. This works because it resolves the experience balance between the teams, and also does not negatively impact new players. by moving old players, we can be more confident that they will just suck it up and keep on playing empires, unlike a newbie who gets hit with auto balance then gets mad and stops playing empires. Of course, a main problem with this is that there is a fine line between an experienced player and a skilled player. (This is a much more difficult problem to solve.)
What ever happened to anti-stacking :/ 3 BSID join one team, you sit and spec and call 5 homeboys...next round its 6 of you vs 3 of them
I think the best solution is to just shoot everyone with a clan tag. Ok that's a lie, I think the best solution is to simply try and make the mod more popular, clanstacking is only a problem because there are no other servers, you can't clanstack a dozen different servers at once. But, I prefer the idea of shooting everyone with a clan tag.
i dont want to sound bias or like a douchebag but maybe stacking is good to an extent noobs can see how stacked teams play and then learn from them. After watching how skilled players play, noobs can then employ those same tactics and transform into intermediate players, creating balance in the future. This may sound absurd but so is the idea a doctor injecting a virus into you. Stacked teams can be like a flu shot, but instead of building up an immune response, you're teaching more players how to play the game as a team, therefore creating balance. And thats my two cents
That has a few holes in it. First off players are more intelligent than your immune system, the solution to stacking is not to become better and oppose it, the solution to stacking is to be on the stacked team. This is the equivalent of your leukocytes leading an armed uprising against the rest of your immune system and the lympahtic system declaring seccession from the rest of the body. Secondly if they can't do that, unlike your immune system they can fuck off and find another game. If a game is obviously imbalanced (playing against a universally better team is an imbalance, it's just a very hard to correct imbalance) you don't stay around hoping it will get better, you find the game annoying and boring and never play it again.
I liked Harryhoot1's analysis, but Chris beat me to my counter in his last paragraph (though I would have phrased it nicer, because I'm not british) Yeah, that's right, its not capitalized on purpose! EDIT: I have no real qualms with the british, but I felt a bit of 4th of July pride in me, even though its not independence day.
