ultimately the biggest downside with all balance approaches is that they only work as long as there is no spectator mode ...
? what if the spectators also can't see names? I would join the opposing team, pwn you, find out that you lied and be dissapoint.
no in the end you can just avoid playing and join spectator. and this is what people will do - join spec and bitch about whatever system :D
Spec just needs to be disabled for the first 5 minutes, with unassigned spectating fixed, as well as not being able to type or talk in unassigned.
Allow squads to be formed before the game starts then. Give it 90 seconds, people can form squads. Game starts and splits the squads and players. Players vote for com for 30~ seconds. Something like that. This would be easier with a 3rd real faction you are auto assigned to at game start. Ready Room anyone?:D
Time doesn't work. I know tons of people that suck at FPSes but keep playing. Even if you have people that can build well, you also need people that can kill well. You need some balance. My system is flawed for being single sample, sure...but I already said that. Multiple sample is harder to do right. And no, I don't think you have the people that can make that system work well.
You guys have to view spec for empires differently though. each empires round is long, so after the third or fourth round people like to go spec and just chill. Counter strike and most other mods are different since the rounds last shorter than 10 minutes, maybe even 5 minutes.
Some servers slay you if you aren't actively attempting the objectives. Rounds last no longer than 2 minutes in those circumstance.
1 player should be 50 - 100 hours. Everything else sounds fine. You need people who can revive and repair. Sure being able to shoot helps, but as long as people can do those two things, they are an asset. Flawed? It's completely inaccurate and impractical. People are needed to create the system and ensure its integrity. While you seem to think the rest of us are incapable of that, I disagree.
Again, you're not reading my posts. I'm saying some balance needs to be found between those who can use tanks...and those who belong in a cheap tank to repair stuff, put up turrets, repair other tanks, etc. As for ability, last I checked the emp dev team was stagnating. I don't trust people there to write a secure back end that would be reliable. Maybe they got some new devs in that are amazing....
When did I ever suggest otherwise? The Empires dev team is more active than I've ever seen it, and at what point did I ever say that the devs must be the ones to implement the system? The implementation could be as simple as a SourceMod plugin and a MySQL database.
remove team select screen, replace with single button that says "PLAY" - button is auto team, disable scoreboard until round start.
Which as I said, still requires some secure backend; a username and password wouldn't cut it. I see less progress now than when Krenzo was coding.
Forgive me for being late to the discussion, but what exactly is wrong with allowing servers to randomly mix teams or allowing a "scramble" voting option? If the big problem is that people will switch teams back, then allow servers to lock players on one team, so that for that round they can only be on their locked team or spectate. Perhaps have the lock activate when someone joins a team besides spectating and wear off after X minutes or something. Just some ideas here I guess....
