Stacking, does it really lengthen you're e-peen?

id like to see some games like these, even participate if possible

 

Yeah the team with more numbers definately needs more tickets, unless they really know how to revive. Usually it just ended up with every pubber having less lives than the vet team (that's per person).

 

Back in the sourceforts days, we do 'stack's all the time. There weren't that many vets though, so it ended up 5-15 or more a lot of the time. Once I did a 2 vs 12 with another guy (who, coincidentally, has just started going on steam again), we won 3-2. Anyway, in any game, purposeful stacks (skill vs number) are always great fun, win or lose. Sadly takes a lot of admin time to constantly switch people.

 

@Recon
If I'm behind the curve, which server can I go to for this custom balancer? I understand Trickster did it before, but who's doing it today? That's like saying farming is behind the curve because we all used to do it, even though now instead we're all eating dirt bitching about the quality of food. You're saying I'm behind the curve because you guys had and got rid of a good solution and now I'm bringing it back? I didn't claim to make something patentable, or even genuinely new (although my formula for ratings is unique as far as I can tell). Aside from your post, every single post from my last one to here is people agreeing it is/would be fun... I think you're the one behind the curve because I can only assume that against the opinions of everyone posting here, you removed said plugin from your server(s).

@Everyone else
Good to see I'm not alone. I only have a 10man test server running here (upload bandwidth is suxors here) but even with that I've had many 4v6 and 3v7 that were very entertaining. Also, good point on tickets I see from a few people, what kind of ratio should there be? 10v20 should the 20 have double the tickets? Perhaps tickets stay the same (to avoid possible exploits that could boost your tickets like mass joining and speccing to extend a game etc) and the team with 10 should cost 2 tickets to respawn?

 

infinitie tickets on the team with emps.

standard tickets for the pubbers leads to instant vet victory.

vets kill WAAAYYYYYYYY more than 2x.

 

Indeed Zeke, I have seen 1 'Vet' kill whole squads himself/herself.

I have seen 'Vets' charging and breaking entire stalemates.

Not even to speak of Squads of 'Vets' wich can change the course of a game, anhillating everything that stands in their way.

 

@Zeke
Infinite is the wrong way of thinking of it... If one team is skill stacked and the other EQUALLY number stacked, it should be a close game, meaning it could come down to tickets. From a balancing standpoint, the teams should be "even" so giving one team unlimited tickets throws the whole thing out of balance. Think District but not only are you outnumberd, but your enemy can just blitz you constantly without worry of losing tickets...

 

yet there is a tank limit which totally negates what you just said.

if the vets reach heavys that means the vets win.

hence unlimited tickets.

once the heavys are researched its instant vet win... so untill that point the nabs are allowed to go batshit insane to prevent that.

ofc, unlimited tickets doesnt work on a map like district... but district is hardly a map id play with vets vs noobs...

 

Only unless the numbers are so far off its absurd the vet team can always bunker down in defensive positions, tech up and comm rush.

 

So what are you saying, whichever team has more players has unlimited tickets? Like 10v20 I guess I could see that, but what about 10v12? 10v15? 10v11? You can't just say "if you have more players you get unlimited tickets" because 10v11 (balanced to ensure close skill total) is basically even teams, but the team with 11 players would have a major ticket advantage as well as having an additional body to cover ground, take out undefended refs etc. The part I think you are missing is that to get 10v20, the 10 players would be about as good collectively as the 20 players, so the only ticket advantage should be due to the fact that the 20 players are on average less skillful per player and thus will be requiring more tickets to support the same number of deaths per player. You still have to put a limit on it, although it can be really high.

So the real question for me is if it's two players vs one, and a system decides that the 1 player is worth exactly the same as the other 2 combined, should the 2 players have twice as many tickets, or even more? By the averages, the 2 players (if they stick together) would win half of the encounters against the one vet, so more than double tickets gives too much advantage to the two players I would think.

@Emp_Recruit
You are describing what I would call one of only a few strats for the underpopulated team. The tickets still should matter, it's not as if 10 players can hold back 40 without ever taking a loss, and if they can, they are probably too skill stacked (again, we're talking about a balance between skill and numbers).

I still think the best way is to charge the underpopulated team more than one ticket per spawn (fractionally, not always 2+ tickets) so them dying is more taxing rather than the overpopulated team having unlimited tickets.

 

we are talking about VETS vs PUBBIES games....

IOW NOT FKIN 10 VS 12. (unless those 10 are all bsids, then perhaps 12 pubbies are a fair challenge... but for all other clans that does not apply)

if its 10 vets vs 20 pubbies then those pubbies will die WAAYYYYYY more than 2 times more... unless said vets are bsid.


and if those 10 vets jump into a tank each, then they will rape the enemy commander when they are capable of rushing with some decent tech.

but really, i have no reason to argue with ya, ive played games like that and you obviously havnt.

 

I've seen this happen with half that number

 

@Zeke
That's our problem here, you're talking about vets vs pubbs, I'm not. I don't think that's what this was about... You're talking about landslide games where all the vets can join one side and all the pubbs on the other, and I'm talking about games where there is skilled players on each side yet a skill variance that can be made up for by increasing the players on one side (achieving a more or less balanced game). We are not talking about the same thing here. There's no way to balance a game where the only 10 players who know what the hell is going on join one side. What your describing may be balanced around 10v40, but if it's 10v20 then some of the 10 good players would need to be on the overpopulated side (for example 7 good and 3 bad vs 3 good and 17 bad).

@Trickster
Read the 6 words after the part you made bold... "and if they can, they are probablly too skill stacked". I doubt it was without a single ticket lost, but again even if it was, it just proves my point that it was too stacked. Take 1 of those 10 and trade them for an average player from the team of 40, and we both know it would have been much much closer.

 

You read way too much into that spawn. I was commenting that it's already been done, and IIRC, most people liked it.

 

Wouldn't be the first time I incorrectly assumed something, but I've got to wonder what happened to it if most people liked it. Glad to hear it went well in the past, I'm certainly planning on bringing it back.

 

Empires is a boring game without any squad play, hence people wanting to play with good players who know how to fulfill a squad role

 

pretty much

 

Exactly.

One of the main reasons why "stacks" are such a "big problem" is because the opposing team with less clanners just sees the tags and blames their loss on stacks, even though if they didn't go to spec after seeing the clan tags they could have won.

These are usually the queers who grief the com because "they're going to lose anyway".

 

they don't even bother to lead squads or coordinate any kind of strategy and expect to win. its not about stacks, it's about players who would rather play with leaders, rather than selfish loners.

 

I always try to lead a squad, and you know what happens? We end up dominating half a map.
When you can have one player that can assign roles, and coordinate actions amongst a group of decent individuals, you have a force to be reckoned with.

The stacks that I disapprove of are blatant stacks (sorry for the reference!) like BSID will do (or used to!). When I see 4-8 same-clanners on one team, I'll usually try to switch half to the other team.

The goal is not to just limit the game to you and your friends. It's to teach others how to play, so they can teach others.