Ways to make multiplayer teams BALANCED!!!!!!!!!

[Johner]

First I must say that Jedi Knight II IS GREAT AND EVEN BETTER MULTIPLAYER. I think the foce powers are well balanced (by that i mean just the dark side teeheee). Since I mentioned that I think that the light side needs serious boost/reform rather than weakening the dark side.

 

Anyways as for multiplayer I am always seeing EXTREEEEMLY unbalanced teams much moreso than other FPS games. I am talking in the context of CTF games. By unbalanced I mean UNBALANCED not UNEVEN. Too many freaking stupid people think that even teams = balanced teams. So that means everyone is the same skill level????

 

Heres the worst case scenario about balanced teams (and it happened to happen to me today). I join a ctf game and 1 team is leading 4 captures to 1 and going strong. I play for a bit and realize I did not join as the tides were turning. So I asked if someone on the other team could switch. Meanwhile most of the other team, but one guy in paticular, was gloating sooooooo MUCH about how much we sucked and he ruled (even though compared to the rest of his team, time included, he wasn't even very good at all). So I asked him to switch and he said no you guys suck too bad.

 

"you guys suck too bad"

THATS THE FRIGGIN POINT, ok fine "we" suck so we need your help.

 

I keep asking then he calls me a whiner.

 

I don't think it's whining if you give a sound suggestion. Offering reasonable requests is not whining but rather the oposite.

 

Anyhow now it's "MY TEAM is retarded"

So i guess it's my team and I control every action of each person within.

 

We goto the next map and I asked the guy to see if he can back his sh!t up if he switches to our side.

SUPRISINGLY HE DOES.

 

Ok now remember when you switch over, your time and score revert to zero like they should to prevent people from just switching sides to whatever team is winning and gain a HUGE score (since thats what many people care about is scores, but regardless the scoring system in my opinion should not favor this kind of play).

 

So he's on our side getting his ass kicked for 10 minutes while I, as always, am number 1 on my team at maximum time. So after 10 minutes he gets 10 points JUST 10 FREAKING POINTS!!!!!!!! I think that's the equivalent of 1 kill. Then he says oh it's all YOUR teams fault I did everything I could...

 

THEN HE SWITCHES BACK TO THE DOMINATING (same one as last map) TEAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

So I tell him he completely proved me right, then he says well I tried but you're team is retarded.

 

OK FINE "MY" TEAM IS RETARDED, THATS WHY WE NEED HELP!

 

Here's how to fix this problem. There needs to be ONE and ONLY 1 option for servers (this cuts out complications) called AUTO-BALANCE (i think there is 1 like this but it's really auto-equality or numbers but i think its called auto-balance). Anyways my request for this option would be to see how the scores/teams are going every 10 or so minutes/captures/whatever and switch players based on their respective teams. IN THEORY this should be a solid way of balancing the teams since the computer can be programmed to switch the best player from the winning team to the losing in exchange for the worst player in the losing team. If this were entertained by the makers, I am confident they could tweak it very well

 

It's really not that difficult of a concept, when the autobalance kicks in it would compare the individual scores of each team respectively then decide which players, based on their scores, would suit which team in order to have similar scores.

 

On another note: SCORES ARE THE BEST WAY TO MEASURE BALANCE. People say "duh the teams are fine its 12 on 12". Well in my opinion the teams are NEVER FINE if the score is 4 to 0 on captures!!!!!!!

 

I think that the balance should kick in at a cleary defined time LIke after each capture or after 10 minutes so players dont have to keep switching teams constantly.

 

On that note I always try to be on the losing team BUT once I join the losing team and if we start winning that doesn't mean I'm going to switch EVERY TIME the winning team changes!

 

And before this is implemented (if ever) REMEMBER:

 

1. Balanced teams are based on scores NOT numbers.

2. Try to be on whatever team is losing balanced games are fun!

 

And finally I realize no game can be perfectly balanced but they usually can be balanced enough so the game can go either way.

 

Clans wars are an obvious exception to trash talking/team switching cause your going to want to stay with your clan. Point is to see which clan is winning. Just thought i'd bring that up but just for the record I was always talking about public servers.

 

Another reason to implement my form of autobalance is because people do not switch to the losing teams as is, at least not much. Secondly admins are not often there to play around/enforce the teams they want. And at last, this would be optional (even though it shouldn't be jk )

 

REMEBER: IF YOU LIKE THIS IDEA SPREAD THE WORD ESPECIALLLY TO DEVELOPERS/RAVEN/ACTIVISION/LUCASARTS....HELP MAKE THIS A BETTER GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tarus]

I know what you mean. The best games are when the skill level is equal. However the other day the team I was on in CTY slaughtered the other. At first we were doing so-so and no one was capping and so I organized us. I got the people on offense to work together to capture the flag and me and another guy held defense. Once i got us working together the score just rolled in.

 

Its not 'always' skill level. Teamwork is also a key thoughw ith CTF it seems like its just a matter of spamming bombs and plasma all over the place instead of any real work.

[Johner]

But teamwork is skill. You can use any words you want to describe why a team is winning, but fact of the matter is it's the scores that count and, in my opinion, goes to show how balanced the teams are. Furthermore in you're specific case I find that telling people what to do and ESPECIALLY telling people "c'mon guys, or c'mon red score dammit" doesn't make any difference (although I know you didn't say that, but this is something people expect will change the balance).

 

My guess is the teams probably DID change. People leave, join, and switch teams. It is then when you see major imbalances switch.

 

Furthermore, SOMETIMES the domanating team is the team that's losing....what I mean is one team could be destroying the other in ctf or something then people leave/join/switch and start raping the other team. This is all subjective however, so my theory is that IF something like this happens, after the scores are equal and 1 team (doesn't matter which) starts pounding the other then balance is required.