I'm at a loss here. So I am asking the community. Why stack teams? I am talking exclusively about skill stacking. Isn't it more fun to have a real challenge? To not be 99.99% sure you are going to win? I participated in a game like that, and it was different from what I was used to. We were getting attacked all the time, and attacking back all the time. There was a serious battle for territory. Now for a minute, I thought the teams were stacked against us, but then at the end of the game, I realized that's what fair teams are like. I have seen a lot of stacking in my year or so of Empires playing, and I've seen two main reasons for it. Reason #1: I want to play with my friends. Clan members want to play with each other. My response to people using that reason: Play in clan matches. Sometimes you won't always get to play with your friends. Tough. Reason #2: After the last map where we got fucked because of a stack, we're gonna stack this map so there's no chance in hell that we'll lose. I am certainly guilty of this reason. After dealing with a stack and getting pounded by the other team, I could care less how stacked it is as long as we win for once. Reason #1 is the cause, IMHO, of reason #2. Writing an ATB for Empires is next to imposable (lots of things to account for), and unless it is forced on every server (e.g. hard coded into the MOD and forced on at all times), people will just play elsewhere. I am begging the community to fix this problem. If everyone on this forum system agreed to do everything in their power to ensure teams are balanced at all times, stacking would disappear from this MOD. STOP STACKING! Play fair. Enjoy the game. To anyone who is planing on responding with trolls, flames or similar garbage. Don't. No one wants to read that crap. Don't waste your time, the moderators or ours.
I agree. I admit I stack sometimes just to play with a competent and cooperative team or with some of my friends, but overall I try to join a team where I think I can be more useful. Rarely do I choose auto-assign, because I'm usually first into a server - most of the existing Empires servers are hosted very close to me. Historically I've never really been one to complain about stacking and rarely do I fault "skill stacking" or "number stacking" for the outcome of a round. However, lately it has indeed been getting out of hand. Rounds are very static, stale, too quick, boring, or just plain frustrating. Most of us are attracted (if not addicted, like myself) to Empires for its dynamic game play. When we (myself included) do things that intervene with the dynamic game play of Empires, it becomes less fun overall and our play sessions remain less interesting. Even if you're pro-stacks or something, at least make a deal with yourself to stack only every other round or something. Provide some rounds with a bit more longevity and dynamics, and server populations will stabilize and grow. Empires is far from perfect, but it's our precious little source mod. We love it and we don't want it to die out like so many mods that provide only static game play.
Didn't bother reading past the first sentence cause I knew you were talking about me on mvalley. First off we DID NOT skill stack, we ended up losing. It was me and my brother who hasn't played in at least 3 months, we were both "Hotel" squad which is what you got so flustered about and I could apologize if that made you felt better. The teams were not skill stacked me and him worked as a squad and took down a couple of buildings but before the match even started you switched him to your team 3 times before I convinced you otherwise, skill stack is all in your head because its rarely stacked so badly When is the last time you played a game and the entire time you knew you would lose no matter what? For me its been a while and I normally counter stack Oh and just read reason 1. No one wants to scrim us
I know how you feel. I've been stuck on the receiving end of a stack more times then I can count. The idea of counter-stacking doesn't sound very good if you think about it for a minute. Thought process: I don't like stacking so I am going to stack. Is it just me or does that not make any sense? You guys and XCCP should scrim. That would be a really fun match to watch.
It's just like WoW. People ganked me all the way from level 1 to level 70. Now I'm going to gank people from level 1 to level 70, because I'm level 70.
So since they were assholes to you, you're gonna be an asshole to them? An eye for and eye and the whole world goes blind. Two wrongs don't make a right. Clear enough?
Agreed. Maybe the comms should have to pick teams! Then you have the scenario of noob comms who don't have a clue what they're doing of course...
i join as NF when ever possible. sometimes it ends up with me on a stacked team and sometimes not. granted i dont get to play as much as i would like to, but i see it as being fair.
Opposed to clicking autoassign which is fair. If everyone picked NF everytime it wouldnt be much of a game, would it?
I wasn't saying that's what I do, but a lot of people I thought above that sort of thing have all of a sudden become asshole gankers. I've quit WoW BTW. I might go back to that warlock one day. But it's not this day.
I don't see why you're so opposed to having clan members play together, it's not like having a clan tag suddenly makes you 1000x better than before. Theres a lot of skilled pubbers out there who are as good as or better than clan members, so blaming only clans for "skill-stacking" is stupid. I don't think skill stacking is good, and I'd never agree with it, but I won't join a team full of noobs and retards to make a game fair. People play games for fun and enjoyment and wheres the fun in playing with a team thats so incompetent you may as well be playing by yourself. I think whats worse than skill stacking, is admins kicking and banning players for playing the game how its meant to be played. Its a team game, so stop punishing people for using teamwork.
If you make the game good enough you can force random joining of teams and people will still play simply because the game is good. Saying the game is bad and therefore you have to make concessions like this to the player to make him want to play instead of fixing the game doesn't make sense. Just remove the team selector, and replace it with a 'join' button, also consider having some code to make it so that each player will alternate between the two teams each round if possible, but not if it messes with the team balance.
I agree with chris, make it spectator or join. Sure, people will hit join again to switch, but it'll negate MOST stacking which is accidental or subliminal.
maybe have teams that are losing gain quicker skills/recourses? this could balance it a little for the under stacked teams... i am only talking about a small balance though, not more then 2% extra resources if you have 1 % less players and 10% extra skill points if you are with 1 % less players (preferred unnoticeable, we dont want sucky players to swich teams to the team with the skill bonus just to get a high skill point combination and thus weakening the team even more) skillstack is something that in my eye is impossible to fix, but if you get team size stackings out then skill size stackings should decrease along with them
Where's the fun in playing with a team that's so overcompetent that you're spawncamping the other team's starting barracks within 5 minutes? That's when the skilled pubbers start stacking spec. It's just as fun, but you don't waste your time running across the battlefield. :p
