Don't respawn surplus players if teams aren't even

(jazevec) #1

I’ve seen this posted on the Nexon forums. Good ideas are worth spreading.

It’s very common for one team to have more members for a few minutes. Matchmaking can’t entirely deal with this, especially that players who join mid-game must wait 15 seconds even if they join the smaller team.

The idea is simple and could work instantly!

If teams aren’t even, excess players don’t respawn as often.

Example implementation:
Team A has 7 people.
Team B has 5 people.
The difference is 7 - 5 = 2. Let’s call it X.
When people on team B die, they respawn normally.
When people on team A die, X players from it don’t respawn with others. So they can respawn only up to 5 players. If 1 player of team A is dead, he doesn’t respawn at all. If 2 are dead, they don’t respawn. If 3 are dead, ONE respawns. If 5 are dead, 5 - 2 = 3 respawn. If 7 are dead, 7 - 2 = 5 respawn.
People who have been delayed for one spawn cycle are prioritized in the next spawn wave.

I think it solves the problem of outnumbered teams neatly. Players in the bigger team will be annoyed by waiting, and that’s great!. They will be motivated to switch over instead of waiting for the issue solve itself magically (crapically) through matchmaking.

Another advantage is that it can be used for Stopwatch. If people leave on Stopwatch, that’s not nice, because you’re no longer comparing the same teams. But if a new player joins mid-match, that’s also not so nice, because Stopwatch is supposed to test two identical teams.

(Szakalot) #2

agree completely, but should only apply for differences bigger than 2 (so no changes to 6v5 situations).

simply throw the excess players in a spawn queue, and make them wait… or switch teams!

‘enemy team is outnumbered and you have been placed in a spawning queue. would you like to switch teams (and spawn immediately)?’

(jazevec) #3

I think part of the charm of this system is that it allows balancing even with just 1 person difference, and can be applied and disabled at will. And it should be applied even with 1 person difference. At least pretend teams are supposed to be even.

Balancing teams by level is balancing by patience, but that’s another problem.

(DarkangelUK) #4

This is how Natural Selection 2 does it, teams may be 12 vs 10 but the team of 12 will only ever have 10 live players at any one time. Dead people join a queue and are left in spec until someone else dies then they get that slot, which works quite well really.

(dlul) #5

Or just add auto team balance

(Glottis-3D) #6

autobalance is a must.

(Szakalot) #7

problems I have with autobalance:

  • on pub OBJ/SW servers it is not uncommon for 1-2min periods of 2 player differences. People come and go all the time. However, those 2min is often enough to tip the balance of the game
  • I’m afraid that autobalance would flip people this&that way constantly, due to ever changing player numbers
  • autobalance would have to adjust for skill: what if one player is constantly being shuffled due to their particular skill level

‘spawn queue’ solution proposed here doesn’t punish any single player specifically, and maintains balanced teams at all times. sure it sucks to wait in spawnqueue, but hey; whenever it happens you can INSTANTLY switch teams and play

(jazevec) #8

If one player is constantly pushed from one team to another, he will feel detached from any team and any objective. Most will probably start playing deathmatch.

(alphabeta) #9

I vote for spawn cue.

(matthiew) #10

This is brilliant! A much better idea than just team balancing. Nobody likes being moved from the winning team to the losing one.

(Phantomchan) #11

Think about this :

You are having a glorious game as proxy, kicking ass and taking names and ninja-plant a C4 at the first objective @ Terminal. Meanwhile your ’ allies don’t push and just play defensive, whilst they should push towards to objectives and defend it until the C4 is blown. You hold off the defenders on your own with your trusty shotgun and some well placed landmines. You die, but it wasn’t for nothing. The enemy can’t defuse the C4 in the remaining time and the C4 explodes, giving you a nice triple kill (pls nerf C4 explosions. Too big). Invigorated by your accomplished feat, you are gone with the wind and manage to stealth plant both C4’s at the objectives, as the defenders are too busy being upstairs next to the turret and stuff. One C4 at an objective blows due to the fact you kept constant pressure on the spot. Just a few moments until the other one explodes… when suddenly you are at the other team due to forced team balancing :smiley:

(Szakalot) #12

Yup, there is too much ragequit in this game to handle auto-teambalance forced into the game.

Spawn queue is a much more elegant solution, it punishes no single player specifically, and with how fast-paced the game is, it won’t make anyone suffer for too long either. It also handles temporary team unbalances way better than shuffling players around.

(ispellcorrectly) #13

How about a faster spawn time dependant on how fast you died after spawning?

People camping in the spawn are easy to kill, because they’re mostly classes which aren’t medic.
Spawning faster will give the handicapped team the advantage. when the spawn killers are killed, then spawn times are back to normal.

(Szakalot) #14

[QUOTE=ispellcorrectly;536803]How about a faster spawn time dependant on how fast you died after spawning?

People camping in the spawn are easy to kill, because they’re mostly classes which aren’t medic.
Spawning faster will give the handicapped team the advantage. when the spawn killers are killed, then spawn times are back to normal.[/QUOTE]

not sure what it has to do with unbalanced teams.

There is already some compensation in place, when I was playing 2v8 I had 2sec spawnwaves.

(Beermachine) #15

Spawn queues work well in NS2 and many other games to handle permanent and temporary team number imbalances with the least amount of annoyance compared to other solutions. It encourages players to swap rather than have longer wait times while not taking control away from them. Gets my vote.

Faster re-spawns is often pointless as it doesn’t solve the underlying problem of not enough players in the field on one side to effectively attack or defend.