Yes renegade, you are correctly identifying the problems, however, even with its flaws I think integrated stats-system it would be a great <i>addition</i> for public servers to help balance the teams out. I'm not talking about full-blown match making system. Lobby-system requires only votable captains, however even there <i>statistics</i> could provide help a lot.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->People playing with friends really isn't stupid in anyway and it's half the reason why MMO's are so popular. Communities in FPS games are born and people stack the teams all the time to play with people they want. Sometimes this unbalances the skill levels, but like I said, deal with it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> You see renegade, this <b>is</b> the problem. There're lots of people who want to play with their friends (including me), and some of them don't really care if they unbalance the teams or not. The flaw in your solution is that there won't be an <i>alternative</i> between random-on and random-off servers. I want to join a team with my friends without causing unbalanced teams, and with proper statistics-backed system that'd be possible.
I think there's so many things you can't quantify it'd make a skill rating inaccurate, most apparant would be people who play the support role from NS1.
I've had a quick scan over the posts here and it seems there's two trains of thoughts: basing the skill on K/D/ stats and basing it on wins. The former wouldn't be fair on the support players, the latter wouldn't be fair on good players getting dragged down by playing in a bad team.
<!--quoteo(post=1762614:date=Apr 4 2010, 02:27 AM:name=SentrySteve)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SentrySteve @ Apr 4 2010, 02:27 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1762614"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->People playing with friends really <i>isn't</i> stupid in anyway and it's blah blah blah<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I never said playing with friends is stupid, but your proposed solution of "just dealing with it" <i>is</i>; it makes worlds more sense to simply tag on a random-all option to be set by admins at their discretion.
<!--quoteo(post=1762680:date=Apr 4 2010, 04:28 PM:name=Jiriki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Jiriki @ Apr 4 2010, 04:28 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1762680"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You see renegade, this <b>is</b> the problem. There're lots of people who want to play with their friends (including me), and some of them don't really care if they unbalance the teams or not. The flaw in your solution is that there won't be an <i>alternative</i> between random-on and random-off servers. I want to join a team with my friends without causing unbalanced teams, and with proper statistics-backed system that'd be possible.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> It's a problem for both solutions, as I addressed in my last post: a stats-system with any hope to maintain balance must also force teams. The act of two skilled friends joining a team is an inherently unbalancable scenario in many cases. You must either decide to allow it or disallow but do realize the outcome isn't going to balanced even with the greatest of stats systems; being only marginally better isn't enough to warrant such an undertaking. Besides there is again a much more simpler solution for random-all: since NS2 will be incorporating Steam, simply have three settings for random-all sv_autobalance 0 = free team joining sv_autobalance 1 = random-all sv_autobalance 2 = random-all while trying as best as possible to place friends from Steam on the same team
I agree that a stats system may see some use, but my major point here is that the size and nature of the NS community does not lend itself to skill-rating as would justify an implementation of systems that are notorious for needing much and constant work, versus a simple solution that is community-controlled, open, and will yield similar results.
Comments
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->People playing with friends really isn't stupid in anyway and it's half the reason why MMO's are so popular. Communities in FPS games are born and people stack the teams all the time to play with people they want. Sometimes this unbalances the skill levels, but like I said, deal with it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You see renegade, this <b>is</b> the problem. There're lots of people who want to play with their friends (including me), and some of them don't really care if they unbalance the teams or not. The flaw in your solution is that there won't be an <i>alternative</i> between random-on and random-off servers. I want to join a team with my friends without causing unbalanced teams, and with proper statistics-backed system that'd be possible.
I've had a quick scan over the posts here and it seems there's two trains of thoughts: basing the skill on K/D/ stats and basing it on wins. The former wouldn't be fair on the support players, the latter wouldn't be fair on good players getting dragged down by playing in a bad team.
I never said playing with friends is stupid, but your proposed solution of "just dealing with it" <i>is</i>; it makes worlds more sense to simply tag on a random-all option to be set by admins at their discretion.
<!--quoteo(post=1762680:date=Apr 4 2010, 04:28 PM:name=Jiriki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Jiriki @ Apr 4 2010, 04:28 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1762680"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You see renegade, this <b>is</b> the problem. There're lots of people who want to play with their friends (including me), and some of them don't really care if they unbalance the teams or not. The flaw in your solution is that there won't be an <i>alternative</i> between random-on and random-off servers. I want to join a team with my friends without causing unbalanced teams, and with proper statistics-backed system that'd be possible.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's a problem for both solutions, as I addressed in my last post: a stats-system with any hope to maintain balance must also force teams. The act of two skilled friends joining a team is an inherently unbalancable scenario in many cases. You must either decide to allow it or disallow but do realize the outcome isn't going to balanced even with the greatest of stats systems; being only marginally better isn't enough to warrant such an undertaking. Besides there is again a much more simpler solution for random-all: since NS2 will be incorporating Steam, simply have three settings for random-all
sv_autobalance 0 = free team joining
sv_autobalance 1 = random-all
sv_autobalance 2 = random-all while trying as best as possible to place friends from Steam on the same team
I agree that a stats system may see some use, but my major point here is that the size and nature of the NS community does not lend itself to skill-rating as would justify an implementation of systems that are notorious for needing much and constant work, versus a simple solution that is community-controlled, open, and will yield similar results.