Basic gameplay mechanics (round start, auto-balance)
YoungTrotsky
Join Date: 2007-03-09 Member: 60307Members
Join Date: 2007-03-09 Member: 60307Members
Hi all, been meaning to make a post on this for a while, I'm sure this has been discussed previously but there's nothing on the first forum page atm so I thought it would be worth a stab.
Round start
This got changed in build 238, previously the round started 15 seconds after both teams had 1 or more players. The problem with that was that some people connected faster, some people went to the bathroom between rounds, some people like to stack marines etc. etc. so round would start with only 3/18 players actually on the teams and usually no commander.
Now you have to wait until both teams have a commander, no matter how many players have joined a team or how long you have been waiting. This has led to many many rounds (I don't think I am exaggerating here) that have all connected players on teams (i.e. readyroom is empty) but don't start for several minutes - I have waited 10 minutes for the opposing team to get a commander on several occasions, and 2-3 minutes is very common. In theory this system means there are fewer games that are broken because one or both teams start with no commander, but in reality it often means players get really bored waiting for both teams to choose a comm and often that means the person who eventually does go comm is either inexperienced or not interested, so the game goes badly anyway.
I would suggest the following system, and hopefully some of you clever people will have better suggestions/additions to this:
- The round will start once 60% of connected clients have joined a team - ideally the server will wait 30 seconds or so after map change to give people with slower PCs time to connect, otherwise the round might start 2v2 on a full 18-slot server because 4-6 players loaded the map really fast and joined teams straightaway. I think it would even be OK if the server didn't let anyone join a team until 30 seconds had passed following map change. It could display a message "You can't join a team yet - please wait for players to reconnect".
Auto-balance
I understand the argument for this - it protects your team to a certain extent from ragequitters. In my experience, however, this usually leads to more rage-quitting by people on the bigger team who are prevented from spawning for ~30 seconds at best, several minutes at worst. I know the idea is that those players join the other team to balance things out, but I have seen that actually happen about 3 times out of dozens of rounds where this kicks in, normally players on the bigger team will just go to find another server rather than join the team they have just been beating for the last 20 minutes. It is especially frustrating on larger servers that still have the default value of 2 players imbalance - 10v8 but can't spawn because teams are imbalanced - sadface. In my experience this feature typically just drags out the end-game and makes the losing team even more frustrated because their opponents won't finish them off, which can lead to more quitting and make it even worse for the remaining players, in some cases I have actually seen entire teams quit and the server subsequently 'die' due primarily to team auto-balance.
I would suggest the following change to auto-balance mode:
Just remove it, it makes games worse more often than it makes games better.
If you read through all that you deserve a medal, thanks.
Round start
This got changed in build 238, previously the round started 15 seconds after both teams had 1 or more players. The problem with that was that some people connected faster, some people went to the bathroom between rounds, some people like to stack marines etc. etc. so round would start with only 3/18 players actually on the teams and usually no commander.
Now you have to wait until both teams have a commander, no matter how many players have joined a team or how long you have been waiting. This has led to many many rounds (I don't think I am exaggerating here) that have all connected players on teams (i.e. readyroom is empty) but don't start for several minutes - I have waited 10 minutes for the opposing team to get a commander on several occasions, and 2-3 minutes is very common. In theory this system means there are fewer games that are broken because one or both teams start with no commander, but in reality it often means players get really bored waiting for both teams to choose a comm and often that means the person who eventually does go comm is either inexperienced or not interested, so the game goes badly anyway.
I would suggest the following system, and hopefully some of you clever people will have better suggestions/additions to this:
- The round will start once 60% of connected clients have joined a team - ideally the server will wait 30 seconds or so after map change to give people with slower PCs time to connect, otherwise the round might start 2v2 on a full 18-slot server because 4-6 players loaded the map really fast and joined teams straightaway. I think it would even be OK if the server didn't let anyone join a team until 30 seconds had passed following map change. It could display a message "You can't join a team yet - please wait for players to reconnect".
Auto-balance
I understand the argument for this - it protects your team to a certain extent from ragequitters. In my experience, however, this usually leads to more rage-quitting by people on the bigger team who are prevented from spawning for ~30 seconds at best, several minutes at worst. I know the idea is that those players join the other team to balance things out, but I have seen that actually happen about 3 times out of dozens of rounds where this kicks in, normally players on the bigger team will just go to find another server rather than join the team they have just been beating for the last 20 minutes. It is especially frustrating on larger servers that still have the default value of 2 players imbalance - 10v8 but can't spawn because teams are imbalanced - sadface. In my experience this feature typically just drags out the end-game and makes the losing team even more frustrated because their opponents won't finish them off, which can lead to more quitting and make it even worse for the remaining players, in some cases I have actually seen entire teams quit and the server subsequently 'die' due primarily to team auto-balance.
I would suggest the following change to auto-balance mode:
Just remove it, it makes games worse more often than it makes games better.
If you read through all that you deserve a medal, thanks.
Comments
The auto-balance function certainly needs some work, it really doesn't work as it is meant to. Personally I would even be happier with a forced auto-balance, rather than one that tries to work on the winning sides goodwill (and rarely ever succeeds with that). It seems to go against the stance that UWE have taken against other game mechanics that take players out of the action for extended periods of time. (Yes I know this is different to a player ability)
Yes, I don't know what the best solution is, but getting rid of the current system would be an improvement imo. Yes it sucks when one team starts leaving, the winners then feel their victory is somewhat hollow, but forcing players on that team to wait around without spawning is not the answer and, as you said, goes against UWE's stance about being removed from the action.