so i was playing a 2v7 last night on reactor. obviously we lost, so i prompted my friend to vote CCity with me so we could make up for our disadvantage in team numbers.
they blew the gate around 2 minutes in, but we were able to stop them from getting the bot to thr crane. by the end of the game however, at least 3 people who were on the enemy team had changed teams to be on the winning team.
i cant see any benefits to midmatch team changing, could it be disabled at all?
Hey Tom. 
IMO… I think its a bad idea to remove it for many reasons. However, I would like to see team-changing not being allowed when the team you are trying to change to has equal or more members on the team already (in Standard mode). That will kind of screw with parties since theres no lobby system, but imo its more important to have a balanced game.
In your game situation, you said it was 7v2 and 3 ppl changed so it was then 5v5… nothing wrong there. Its RARE people switch to the under-manned team. I understand where you’re coming from because I dig the 1v8, etc. scenario and laugh when people switch over when I’m winning with just bots, but honestly… they should anyways, well before the end of the match. I just hate it when ppl switch to the winning team and at the end of the game its gone from 5v5 to 2v8 because some chump couldn’t stand the loss.
It also doesn’t help that when people join active games, more often than not it puts the new player on the team with all the players.
That’s a tough one… because often people will switch teams to balance the match out, so no one is getting creamed (though, usually very early on).
If team-switching wasn’t allowed during a match, then you would eliminate those players (who prefer fair fights) from being able to help balance the scales.
it is incredibly frustrating that when you have a good 6v6 match that is taking a little longer to complete an objective, 2 of your guys want to change to the winning team and make it an 8v4.
Yeah, but thats different from disabling entirely. It should do like many PC Games do (UT series for example) where you can’t switch when the teams are already balanced or if the team you are switching to already has more players than the one you are on.
Maybe they should force the player limits like they do in ET:QW so you cannot have 2+ more players on one team then the other.
I would love to see team switching disabled. I think that the auto-balance needs to actually work and disallow team switching, I also think that if you should choose Security as your main choice when selecting a character you should always be on Security unless auto-balance puts you on to Resistance and vica-versa
SD just needs to recognize when the teams are mismatched 8vs4. Give those 4 humans some kick-ass Hard AI bots if the team of 4 isn’t getting much done as far as Obj’s are concerned (0% for 5 minutes straight or whatever works). Unfortunately, it seems like the bots in pub matches are ALWAYS set to their “So-So” setting no matter what is going on.
I’ve been in a few 4 vs 8 scenarios, and have even done very well with XP and kills, but couldn’t get anywhere near the heavily defended Obj because our bot teammates were just dumb cannon fodder. Or they’re spending too much time running ALL THE WAY cross map to try and cap that single enemy command post that has a mine or two at it. They blow up, or get incapped on the way, and try again over and over! I love the ComPost buffs as much as anyone, but not at the cost of being down 2-3 guys while trying to cap an Obj. I’d rather those bots be set to psycho-medic mode and buff/revive the heck out of us.
SD needs to improve the monitoring for these types of scenarios and up the AI to HARD level, so the team of 4 has a chance. If the Attacking team of 4 humans then begins to kick too much butt, scale back the AI to the next lowest level under HARD, etc.
Yes? No? Banana phone?
[QUOTE=SinDonor;367747]SD just needs to recognize when the teams are mismatched 8vs4. Give those 4 humans some kick-ass Hard AI bots if the team of 4 isn’t getting much done as far as Obj’s are concerned (0% for 5 minutes straight or whatever works). Unfortunately, it seems like the bots in pub matches are ALWAYS set to their “So-So” setting no matter what is going on.
I’ve been in a few 4 vs 8 scenarios, and have even done very well with XP and kills, but couldn’t get anywhere near the heavily defended Obj because our bot teammates were just dumb cannon fodder. Or they’re spending too much time running ALL THE WAY cross map to try and cap that single enemy command post that has a mine or two at it. They blow up, or get incapped on the way, and try again over and over! I love the ComPost buffs as much as anyone, but not at the cost of being down 2-3 guys while trying to cap an Obj. I’d rather those bots be set to psycho-medic mode and buff/revive the heck out of us.
SD needs to improve the monitoring for these types of scenarios and up the AI to HARD level, so the team of 4 has a chance. If the Attacking team of 4 humans then begins to kick too much butt, scale back the AI to the next lowest level under HARD, etc.
Yes? No? Banana phone?[/QUOTE]
Agreed.
What truly sucks about being vastly outnumbered (other team 3+ more humans)… is that all the human-heavy team has to do to ensure victory, is focus on killing the human opponents, because the AI are useless outside of their lackluster support.
I’ve been in a number of matches where it was 1v4… and all the 4 had to do was keep me dead, and my team went nowhere, because my 7 AI teammates went/were braindead.
If AI scaled against being outnumbered… that would be awesome.
I honestly cannot think of one justifiable reason that could explain why bots are even included in the online portion of the game. Putting bots in multiplayer makes absolutely zero sense which is why you haven’t seen it a multiplayer title since 1999, if ever.
One could argue that bots are now a necessary evil since the player base shrunk much faster than anticipated, but that still doesn’t explain why bots were included in multiplayer at the game’s launch. Haha, I’d like to think SD didn’t foresee their game’s community jumping ship.
Splash Damage, how did you guys think it would ever, ever, ever be a good idea to have people play against bots when they are trying to play online against other people?
I could totally understand the method of bots filling in empty spots, if they allowed/limited bots to fill in slots 7 and 8 for both teams (forcing at least 6 humans per team).
But bots being able to fill in 7/8 slots per team… does a huge disservice to the online MP matchmaking/gameplay.
It’s not like the bots make your team worse than if you were playing 8vs4 without bots and also, the bots don’t lock the server full. Humans can still join and take a bot’s spot on the active roster mid game. Perhaps your request should be for better matchmaking and not “no bots”.
Having bots in there to even up the team numbers is fine with MOST people playing Brink, and it could be even better if they would vary the bot AI depending on the situation. I’d rather play 8 vs 2 with 6 bots, than just 8vs2.
In your dream scenario, sooner than later, those 2 guys quit because nobody on the team of 8 wants to move over. It is then 8 vs 0 until some other few random guys join just to get destroyed by the team of 8 and then they leave. Yea, fun.
bots are placeholders. ideally you either have balanced teams with bots - e.g. 4+4 v 4+4, or you have full 8v8 with humans.
i’ve played matches (old skool?) where it was a -2 to -3 differential for my team, but no bots to take up the slack, and it sucked. we had just enough people playing that the other team didnt notice (fair enough), or they didnt care (grrrr), but being down a couple players is way worse than having bots hold those spots - even if they do occasionally build the fence MG on refuel when you’re still trying to deliver the freaking hydro.
[QUOTE=SinDonor;367763]It’s not like the bots make your team worse than if you were playing 8vs4 without bots and also, the bots don’t lock the server full. Humans can still join and take a bot’s spot on the active roster mid game. Perhaps your request should be for better matchmaking and not “no bots”.
Having bots in there to even up the team numbers is fine with MOST people playing Brink, and it could be even better if they would vary the bot AI depending on the situation. I’d rather play 8 vs 2 with 6 bots, than just 8vs2.
In your dream scenario, sooner than later, those 2 guys quit because nobody on the team of 8 wants to move over. It is then 8 vs 0 until some other few random guys join just to get destroyed by the team of 8 and then they leave. Yea, fun.[/QUOTE]
And Brink would somehow be the only game with this problem? Have you played any other multiplayer game within the last decade? Guess what? You don’t need bots. When I try to play a game online I don’t want to play against 75% bots.
[QUOTE=thesuzukimethod;367767]http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1216265-not-seeing-much-change-in-the-ai/
post #14[/QUOTE]
Oh wow, ok nothing to see here guys.
Covan2306 on the bethesda forum said yesterday bots work well.
That’s good enough for me, I’ll wrap it up.
Ok, I’ll edit this to be more constructive:
AI tweaks on the bots are excellent. That’s awesome and is a welcome addition to improving the single player experience. However, when I want to play online, I shouldn’t have to wonder what the human:bot ratio is going to be every server I join. I don’t get the argument in support of bots, why is suddenly Brink the only game played now that needs bots to save their multiplayer and every other game gets along fine with just humans? Playing against bots just isn’t as fun as playing against other humans. If I wanted to play against bots I’d play single player, the reason I choose to play multiplayer is because I expect to play against other humans.
So you’d rather play 8vs2 until hopefully the server fills up in time? If it takes longer than 3-5 minutes, the match is pretty much over because the team of 8 has already crushed the team of 2 while attacking or has setup a bunch of mines and turrets and then spawn camp the 2 guys. Yeah, that sounds like a blast.
I have played many games JUST LIKE THAT over the last decade. It sucks. I am glad SD included bots, it is a welcome evolution of MP play. They just need to spend time improving the way the bots play and spend NO time listening to whiners like you begging for the way things used to be.
You sound like my grandpa when he complains about all these new fandangled gadgets/movies/music/etc.
YOU NEED TO ASK FOR BETTER, FASTER MATCHMAKING, not “no bots”, grandpa.
Nice picture man, you’re so funny! LOL!!11
So every other multiplayer game has it completely wrong. They should all have bots because otherwise every single multiplayer game I play will for some reason be 8 v 2. Yeah when I play TF2 it’s always way lopsided, yeah when I play Halo it’s always way lopsided, yeah when I play CoD it’s always way lopsided. Thanks for opening my eyes. If Brink didn’t have bots every game I played would be some lopsided affair. The proof is indisputable!
I’m so sick of all these 8 v 2 in these damn games without bots!
I think the team switching works well right now. One thing you could add is a “Team Balance Vote” like the one used to invite someone to the fireteam. Anyone can call for a Balance Vote once during the match, so that a message pops up to try and initiate a positive shuffling. Like an online version of Pick-up Basketball. Its an option, if you want to keep the teams uneven, then its the group choice. Or similar to the map vote, there is a Team Balance Vote. If the vote goes the way of Team Balance, then the two teams are divided by experience points. 
Obviously, people could still switch, but at least it would provide a means to initiate a more balanced match. Some will say, No Way, and vote No, and some may want to try a more even match. Party chat is the monkey wrench thrown into the mix, but the Party system has its flaws since day one.
[QUOTE=morguen87;367768]Oh wow, ok nothing to see here guys.
Covan2306 on the bethesda forum said yesterday bots work well.
That’s good enough for me, I’ll wrap it up.
Ok, I’ll edit this to be more constructive:
AI tweaks on the bots are excellent. That’s awesome and is a welcome addition to improving the single player experience. However, when I want to play online, I shouldn’t have to wonder what the human:bot ratio is going to be every server I join. I don’t get the argument in support of bots,[/QUOTE]
The other post was simply that the bots help fill in the gaps when human players aren’t there, bail, etc. if not for bot placeholders, when players drop out (rage quit, kids are crying, have to take a ****, mommy grounded them) w/o the bots to keep up the slack, the objective oriented gameplay would absolutely fall apart. Unlike most FPS games, where the main point is to kill either everyone else, or 1/2 of everyone else…where dropping out has little effect)
It seems we mostly agree re: the bots…i wish we didnt need them…but people drop out for all sorts of reasons, and Brink could be COD popular, and you’d have a hard time just dropping people into matches as soon as another human dropped out. The bots are (or should be, and i think were intended to be) a placeholder to keep things relatively even on the objectives as humans came and went. Obviously the player base is not as big as could be hoped for, b/c then the issue would be a lot less visible.
edited to add: yeah, you should finish matches you start, to not leave your team high and dry…but if you’re playing pub/casual, who takes it this seriously all the time. some people wanna just play for a bit, and that sometimes means they have to bail mid match. i’d rather they take care of their kid/life/whatever than make sure to tough out the game just to not be a bad teammate. bots give them this option, b/c they know someone will cover for them
