Am I the only one who consistently has poor experiences with all random?

draktok

More often than not, after a long game people will start an all random vote. Again in my experiences, more often than not, follows 30 minutes of one sided-ness.

I just leave servers as soon as all random vote is called now, since all it takes is two great players to be randomly thrown on the same team and just stomp the server for a half hour. I don't get it, really.

StrikerX3

You're not alone. And most often I'm on the weak side. And if they try all randoming again, the teams will stay mostly the same, but still very imbalanced.

Nordic

Random can be bad. I think people like it because someone can't choose to be stack a team, it just is fate sorta speak. I don't know really.

The way I know of to actually get balanced teams is choosing captains.

draktok

I dont' have poor games as often with people picking teams, and when I want to learn how to do X better it's kinda crap that i get forced on the other team and then just sit back as i either win hard or lose hard

Vay

Lets say four players are good. They may be stacking all on one team. So you random. The key thing to remember is you aren't really mixing up 16 players, all that really matters is these 4 players get split. The chances of that are a lot lover than most people realize. There is only a 37.5% chance those four players will be evenly split with a purely random system.

draktok

The thing i've noticed though is that i very very seldom run into great players intentionally joining the same team all the time, and more often they all split after the first "stomp" of a match by themselves. Seriously, it happens a ton. The 3-1 split really doesn't cut it when it comes to this game, honestly. 3 great shots on marines vs one great skulk and a bunch of mediocre other players still results in a stomp.

Blarney_Stone

I still think someone should come up with a server mod that sorts people based on their scores in the previous round. Highest scoring player (either team) to marines, second and third to aliens, fourth and fifth to marines, etc.

Ghosthree3

Then power node biting skulks will get rewarded with first place :P

Blarney_Stone

Haha, I guess it isn't a perfect system

aeroripper

Random is random, so its a bit like throwing the dice. The best solution is a captains game like somebody mentioned, where the captains are familiar with everybodies approximate skill on the server and can sort skill accordingly between themselves (or they'll just grab all the top players to be on their team... lol)

Failing that, I know the tacticalgamer server runs a "balance" mod where it sorts players depending on their historical win/loss count on the server when used. So the handful of players that are pro and on the winning team most of the time, are much more likely to be put on opposing teams. The longer the win/loss data is accrued, the better it works. The downside is it doesn't work as well if the sample base is limited from a server full of non-regulars. Not a perfect solution but it usually produces GGs.

CrazyEddie

Vay wrote: »

The chances of that are a lot lover than most people realize. There is only a 37.5% chance those four players will be evenly split with a purely random system.

Yay math!

draktok

The other downside is it's tactical gamer.

tarquinbb

yeah i don't know why it isn't like the tf2 scramble mod (where the vote can be cast whenever).

the random system we have in ns2 is kinda disfunctional as an anti-scramble mod when it locks itself for 30 minutes; even when the teams are still a joke.

Chizzler

tarquinbb wrote: »

yeah i don't know why it isn't like the tf2 scramble mod (where the vote can be cast whenever).

the random system we have in ns2 is kinda disfunctional as an anti-scramble mod when it locks itself for 30 minutes; even when the teams are still a joke.

Calling a scramble mid-match would be awful. It's only ever going to be used when one team is winning decisively, and odds are by that point it's too late for a turnaround, so your just putting guys who've put one team into that winning position, into the losing side. "Great job securing all those points, now take them all down...too bad you bought that JP+shotgun last life, looks like your stuck as a skulk"

Vay

tarquinbb wrote: »

yeah i don't know why it isn't like the tf2 scramble mod (where the vote can be cast whenever).

the random system we have in ns2 is kinda disfunctional as an anti-scramble mod when it locks itself for 30 minutes; even when the teams are still a joke.

People don't like fighting against themselves. You spend 15 minutes building this forward position, suddenly scrambled and now you have to fight against your own base you established before.

Also the RTS elements mean that one team has an advantage going forward.

Fully random systems still do not favor even distributions.

And you have the issue of personal res to deal with also. What happens when someone is a fade? or an exo?

draktok

Random scrambe mid game would just be terrible. It's the fact that servers lock you into a 30 minute random, and if it happens to be a stomp - you're still stuck with it and can't swap teams around. Then the next game randoms again, and you are likely stuck with the same stomp... again...

Blarney_Stone

Random scramble works okay in TF2 because TF2 isn't a strategic game. If you go to the other team, what of value can you tell them? "They have a Spy?" "Their Engi is using the Wrangler?" All of this stuff becomes apparent almost immediately anyway.

On the other hand, what if your team is setting up a ninja PG? What if they are building up an army of ARCs in main base? What if they're planning on forcing a beacon so they can push into a forward base? If someone is scrambled while this is going on, it allows the team to react in a way they wouldn't have if they weren't aware of the strategy.

_Necro_

I agree with having a mod that divides the player at the teams by their score in the last round. It will work good enough. Also: There is no perfect system.

So don't let "perfect" stand in the way from "good"! This system is better than pure random and probably easy to implement by the devs from DAK Admin-mod.

Lets screw random and get this better system in place.

SquishpokePOOPFACE

I like how you can't f4 with the random mod active. F4 comes in handy when there's forward shifts on every TP and you are stuck with 1 RT... 5 minutes in.

Roobubba

I'd like to see a server mod that essentially does what happens in the ENSL gathers. Poll people for two captains, then the captain choose their teams.

Now if you start on a server and don't know any of the players, it's basically random. If you've played a round and see that there are 2 very good players compared to everyone else, then they're almost certainly going to get voted as team captains...

It could work

Ghosthree3

Squishpoke wrote: »

I like how you can't f4 with the random mod active. F4 comes in handy when there's forward shifts on every TP and you are stuck with 1 RT... 5 minutes in.

Yeah, what's up with that -.- I WANT TO STOP PLAYING NOW PLEASE GAME. "NO, START HAVING FUN".

tarquinbb

Vay wrote: »

tarquinbb wrote: »

yeah i don't know why it isn't like the tf2 scramble mod (where the vote can be cast whenever).

the random system we have in ns2 is kinda disfunctional as an anti-scramble mod when it locks itself for 30 minutes; even when the teams are still a joke.

People don't like fighting against themselves. You spend 15 minutes building this forward position, suddenly scrambled and now you have to fight against your own base you established before.

Also the RTS elements mean that one team has an advantage going forward.

Fully random systems still do not favor even distributions.

And you have the issue of personal res to deal with also. What happens when someone is a fade? or an exo?

i would argue that it doesn't matter because when people vote to 'scramble' they've admitted the teams need to be changed, and if denied the vote would probably stop playing/contesting the round anyway.

when the teams are notably imbalanced in ns2; i shamelessly use vote concede and begin idling. hopefully, this will accelerate the defeat so we can get on with another game with improved teams.

i'm not an 'easy mode' gamer. i play the hardest difficulty mode in every game (except firaxis games because that's like self-harming, and their easy mode is like other games 'impossible' mode). why? because i'm too old for playing with action figures in the bath tub. i need some challenge, contest and excitement.

playing with significant skill gap between the teams is s*** whether you're on the good team or the bad team. it's literally a waste of time.

|DFA| Havoc

We use sv_randomall a lot on our server, and it is indeed a crapshoot. We will often try and tweak things a little after a random, to split up the players we know are exceptional, but we also like to do the team captains selection sometimes for better balance. In both cases though, there are sometimes people who jump in that we aren't familiar with and they end up doing really well. Cultivating balance is tricky, and people are surprisingly resistant to swapping players around sometimes for a better mix.

My personal favorite though, is when we get a ridiculously stacked random and then sv_rrall, re-random, and end up with exactly the same team compositions but reversed sides.

Neoken

Unless people will start consciously joining a certain side in order to create the most balanced matchup possible, random will always be as much a crapshoot as not-random, but with the benefit that it can prevent players from deliberately stacking teams and force people out of the rr. Hence I still prefer random most of the times.

StrikerX3

Well, NS2Stats has a setting which causes it to autobalance teams based on their ratings. Doesn't work very well with people who haven't played enough games in servers with that mod enabled, but it does a much better job than sv_randomall.

The other option would be the team captains idea, which is exactly what happens in ENSL gathers.

Or you could get into a competitive team and participate in tourneys. In there, if you get stomped, it's because the other team is a lot stronger than yours. Also, you'll become so good at the game you'll end up being a pub star too.

statikg

I agree that random doesn't really work. I usually do quite well in pubs and I never purposely stack the teams, in fact unless I particularly feel like playing one side I often actively work to counter any stack going on. When I get randomed its just like...oh well I can see its stacked but its not my fault.

CrazyEddie

|DFA| Havoc wrote: »

people are surprisingly resistant to swapping players around sometimes for a better mix.

So people who want to play a particular side are surprisingly resistant to being forced to play the other side?

You don't say.

Lúst

I just want it so people stop sitting in the ready room.

Narfwak

aeroripper wrote: »

Random is random, so its a bit like throwing the dice.

Dat tautology. If you have a descent idea of player skill from previous games trying to use player captains sometimes helps but it's really hard to do in a public game.

DC_Darkling

I must say I am growing more against random and more to manual picking.
I find it much more fun to fight versus players I know do not suck then fight versus newbies alone.

Some challenge you know.

yuckfoo

if random is voted after someone has already joined a team, they remain on the team they joined before random assigns everyone else. so it only works kinda, it doesn't random EVERYONE per se.