My Current Issue With Balanced Teams...

(PixelTwitch) #1

Now I know it may seem strange to complain about balanced teams already when it rarely happens currently, however I do feel there are a few points worth touching on now so when games do become more balanced in general we will have the best experience possible. There is also what I believe is an imbalanced skill requirement between Objective mode and Stopwatch mode that I will try and quickly touch on. As this threads title says, these are my current issues with balanced teams and many of you may or may not agree with what I am about to say, so please let everyone know your feelings on the subject also…

Second Attacker Advantage / Objective Mode Attacker Advantage
This is something I have brought up in the past and the Echo stats did at least confirm my feelings that the second team to attack was winning around 10-15% more matches on average. I would love to see a big graph of avarage completion times compared to time left to see if we can notice a correlation between second round attackers and long round times. I would also love to see the number of overtime objective completions on Objective mode. Anyway, my concern is that the closer the teams are balanced the more likely the second attacker advantage is to play a role in the outcome. While this is a problem in its own right, I feel it is linked to the other issues that I will mention in this post. Such as…

Defender Bias Resulting In Extended Round Times
Obviously quite a simple concept… Attackers technically need to be higher skilled compared to the defenders in order to do the objectives quickly. My issue with this falls into two separate concerns, one being that each map does not have a lot of objectives and secondly the lack of in game progression results in a loss of interest and/or increased frustration levels. I very rarely see two even skilled teams both set decent times on a map. More often then not even teams are taking almost the complete length of time to get a completion resulting in a strange perception in game balance the second attacker advantage playing a little more of a role then on imbalanced teams.

The Perception Of Balance
The balance perception I mentioned is also quite simple, due to the length of time for each objective, while you are on the defending team you feel like you are actually stomping a low skilled team until you feel like you have made a huge mistake when they finally take an objective, but on attack it feels like you are playing vs people that are much better then you. Honestly feels its more about managing stress/frustration levels rather then actually having skill. Now I am not going to lie, this is likely more a frustration to me due to my short temper, though I do believe that a definite frustration due to a games mechanics will effect the vast majority of long term players eventually. I feel even when you are playing like a super human the game still makes you feel like your playing poorly. On top of that, when you do feel your playing well, its normally muted by the fact your likely full holding a team for 15 min on the first objective and it feels boring.

Sky High Stress Levels
I have tried to ask myself again and again why I do not feel this way with some of the games I play. The answer I keep coming back to is a mixture of distraction, comeback potential and mechanical feedback. When you compare games like Counter Strike, Dota 2, TF2, LoL and Quake to Dirty Bomb you realise you do not have this constant clock ticking away just stacking on pressure and even boredom in some cases. You almost always feel like you are able to make a comeback and when you realise you cannot its an instant GG (Dota, LoL and Starcraft) and your pressure, stress and frustration is instantly released. The use of builds in Mobas, economy in CS and map control in Quake all work as distractions that lower stress and frustration levels. Something outside of your play/skill to think about, even if it is just for a few seconds every now and again. Dirty Bomb does not really contain any break from the constant action and I think 30min of something this intense is simply too much for the majority of players (providing they are playing to win).

What I Believe Can Be Done To Improve This
Really, I guess that its quite simple in my mind. Shift the balance of power towards the attackers so that balanced teams would result in much shorter matches that would minimise the feeling of frustration and also would mean teams would be have to be massively out of balance to result in a full hold. Also simple things like ending the match when there is 55 seconds left and a C4 has not been planted and ending the match the instant that the second attackers win rather then waiting for the end of the timer.

These are the bare minimum changes I would personally like to see.

(INF3RN0) #2

I still think 20:30 A/D timers is needed. Attacker biased side objectives as well, like truly debilitating forward spawns especially. Attack is difficult simply because they have no opportunity to gain and sustain momentum. Defenders have incontestable spawns that allow them to easily hold the obj longer than they should.

It is just that it’s much easier to perform well on defense rather than attack atm. A defender just has to camp a choke point or sneak flanks in, while an attacker is trying to constantly make headway and secure ground, and then has to interact with and hold the obj. Most times it’s just best to try and hold from as far away as possible and throw rocks at it, thanks to the free reign defenders usually get. If defenders had a real incentive to over-extend in order to delay impending attacker advantage, then you’d have an overall better and more balanced experience on both sides. ‘Balanced teams’ is pretty subjective to me in a pub, as I find a lot of people struggle to perform better than a 1:1 on attack by comparison, which with equal spawn timers just ends up in a stale mate of map control.

(PixelTwitch) #3

My issue with the spawns and free reign that defenders get is that many times I have managed with my team to hold a great KD and be literally feet away from the objective. However, you get into the loop of a constant wave of defenders that even on 30second respawns feel like they are just coming none stop. you end up fighting 2 - 3 waves before getting wiped and having to start again from scratch to get back into that position. Victoria is a prime example of this when its all going really well but in the space of 10 seconds they kill you, defuse the bomb and retake the forward spawn and you are left thinking, whats the point?

In defence of the defending team, the same is true when it comes to trying to defuse an objective…

I want to see lots of plants and lots of defuses with intense action but I don’t want to feel that its just intense action all of the time with nothing in-between.

(potty200) #4

Spawns: 30/30 seems to be working competitively. The system is fine as it is, I just wish maps would be QUICKER. 5-8 minutes is about perfect each way. Getting a BO 3 maps done in less than half hour would be awesome for quick ladders and BO 5 for bigger competitions. People have a short attention span when it comes down to this. I also hope there is a way in throwing the towel in if you know you cannot complete an objective in “X” amount of time, instead of wasting both yours, the other teams and the spectators time. (Will cover this somewhere else)

Balance: It is fine if you are playing IN a team against a team. If you are playing obj or in a mix it is so crappy to attack. Pushing in against weak players who don’t need to push up and getting killed. Not much you can do about this I guess other than make each objective shorter?

I am glad that spawn times have been adjusted. With longer spawns it is easier to attack. I would like to suggest moving defenders spawns back just a little more (2-3 seconds further away) just so it is almost split seconds between setting up and the first wave. Miss judge the first wave and you are F**ked as defenders! Precision and tactics would really be tested here not just who can out gun the other team!

The stress thing: If you would go to my point about having REALLY fast maps, I think this would eliminate the problem you are facing with raging. I sometimes rage in game, usually when my team mates are playing with their feet. Keeping the action non-stop means quicker maps would keep people interested more. It would also result in less time being wasted on objectives people clearly do not have enough time for! It would certainly become right down to the last few seconds a lot more which = excitement! Also, would love to see matches completed in both BO3 and BO5 formats!

So overall my ideal changes right now would be:
-Shorten the maps to keep interest high. (10 minute time limit with the expectations of maps to be completed between 5-8 minutes)
-Push defenders back a little to decrease time they have to set up before waves of attackers.
-Remove shotguns from small mercs and give them to heavier mercs
-Add option to give up for dead rounds on SW. E.g: you have 40s remaining on the second half of a SW map. You need to blow something up but the c4 takes 45 seconds.

(fzl) #5

So overall my ideal changes right now would be:
-Shorten the maps to keep interest high. (10 minute time limit with the expectations of maps to be completed between 5-8 minutes)
-Push defenders back a little to decrease time they have to set up before waves of attackers.
-Remove shotguns from small mercs and give them to heavier mercs
-Add option to give up for dead rounds on SW. E.g: you have 40s remaining on the second half of a SW map. You need to blow something up but the c4 takes 45 seconds.

100% agreee…!!!

(Floris) #6

[QUOTE=potty200;516345]So overall my ideal changes right now would be:
-Shorten the maps to keep interest high. (10 minute time limit with the expectations of maps to be completed between 5-8 minutes)
-Push defenders back a little to decrease time they have to set up before waves of attackers.
-Remove shotguns from small mercs and give them to heavier mercs
-Add option to give up for dead rounds on SW. E.g: you have 40s remaining on the second half of a SW map. You need to blow something up but the c4 takes 45 seconds.[/QUOTE]

I agree to a certain extent.

  • In my opinion, shorter maps are good for competition, but bad for public play. It would be nice if we could disable some objectives for competitive play, like skip the first OBJ in Dome.
  • Pushing defenders back is relevant on some maps, but on maps like Bridge final stage I would say the defenders’ spawn should actually be moved more towards the front.
  • Shotguns seem OP considering they favor close combat which DB is full of, so either give them to a heavier merc or weaken them. I guess giving them to a heavier merc is better because no-one wants to play with a weak gun.
  • Perhaps allow teams to internally vote to surrender once garbage time is reached. Garbage time being defined as any time less than the time required to complete all the remaining objectives in the most ideal situation.
(AssortedStuff) #7

Public play only - I don’t want to change the subject of this thread but since it’s on the subject of ‘balanced teams’ I must also point out that there should be some sort of team sorting algorithm, instead of just being purely random.
I remember someone else suggesting sorting teams on each player’s KD ratio, not a perfect solution but perhaps easier/quicker to implement.