It happens all the time: one team with most players L10 or lower, other team with multiple L30+. This is because it is easy to switch or to choose a team when starting. The teams are stacked and it’s very bad for newer players.
I think this is nr. 1 issue with Dirty Bomb. Games are very onesided because of this.
Solution: players can’t swap teams, autobalance should be implemented.
While I agree balance is an issue, completely removing the swapping feature isn’t a very good idea.
The biggest reason I say this is just because it hardly ever happens. Balance issues are almost never caused by people switching, but more often people leaving or high level players simply happening to join onto the same team by random chance.
You’re right, balance issues aren’t appealing to new players, but removing team switching won’t appeal to regulars either. There are far better ways to deal with that issue.
There are too many variables in terms of player skill for a truly balanced system to exist. You can’t simply use levels as an indicator, nor can you use player stats, as the circumstances that said stats were gathered are also largely varied.
It has been confirmed that in the near future, casual matchmaking will be implemented, in an attempt to cease the imbalance. People will agree and disagree with this. Personally, I feel like it will create chaos, as I can say from personal experience that myself and the other top players in our region will undoubtedly be queuing together from that point onward. In regards to players leaving, there will also be a (small) penalty for those who leave games, hopefully deterring players from leaving games and inevitably letting down their team.
When it comes down to it, it is simply impossible to create a system where all said variables can be taken in to account without a large player base. In order for such a system to exist and actually work, there must be a data spread larger than we could comprehend
In casual? Really? That just seems like a terrible idea honestly. Considering that those slots often refill quite quickly. There’s a reason why I’m playing on public servers too. I don’t want to be forced into a match, considering I do sometimes have to leave for various reasons I can’t control.
@STARRYSOCK
I’m unsure whether or not official values have been announced, though I can’t imagine the times would exceed 5 to 10 minutes. Perhaps they would become exponentially longer the more games you leave.
[quote=“STARRYSOCK;182077”]While I agree balance is an issue, completely removing the swapping feature isn’t a very good idea.
The biggest reason I say this is just because it hardly ever happens. Balance issues are almost never caused by people switching, but more often people leaving or high level players simply happening to join onto the same team by random chance.[/quote]
I agree that most unbalanced games occur because of players leaving and new ppl joining but I would like to add that it isnt exacly uncommon with intentional teamstacking either.
There ought to be an acceptable skill gap measure that automatically blocks people from switching if they would make the teams unbalanced. That way people can still balance themselves, but clear one-sided stacking becomes impossible. It could be a combination of the hidden skill value as well as the total points in the game value on the score board.
Leavers should receive time penalties that get smaller the more lopsided the game is they left.
Higher does not necessarily mean playing better (I myself suck pretty hard, although I am L35). But on average, someone with level 20+ will do better than level 10-. So if one team has more of those guys, the team has an advantage.
I see it all the time: losing team full of newbies get a high level player, but then they have 1 more player than the expert team, and the guy switches immediately.
Autobalance should look at level and recent matches. It does already look at recent matches anyway at the beginning of a game(to figure out in what team you should end up). But that doesn’t prevent switching and high levelers stacking.
Autobalance should be activated every minute or so. Teams balanced or slightly favored? No problem, play on. Teams skewed? One or two players from winning team get switched.
It happens in lots of FPS-games, it’s not something unusual.
Auto balance is a dumb as shit idea that kills incentive to play because at any moment your hard work could be for nothing. For 4 years we had that disabled in our community server on TF2 because nothing would clear a server faster than auto balance and the frustration that players felt because of it - and you expect that to go down well in public where people are much less tight knit?
You’ll just get even more people sitting in spectator until their side gets an open slot, or more people will leave. It’s not even the winning team’s fault that their opponent won’t stay for the full game or coordinate enough, so you’re just punishing people who played correctly to appease the losing side, for no reason at all.
People have to lose in these games, that’s how it is.
This shouldn’t be an issue once Casual Matchmaking makes it’s way into the game 
I feel its not an issue of auto balance, more of an issue of joining and leaving. because Autobalance happens before the game starts. and while can sometimes be unbalanced I find it works decently 9/10 times, but what happens is when people leave (due to either not having time to play, or due to not playing well) it can sometimes happen where Higher skilled players tip the balance via joining.
Now to fix this would be hard, you cant stop people from leaving or joining. But I purpose more of a “Warning” when leaving, and maybe even short bans, if you constantly quit.
Either Way there’s no “quickfix” to this situation, and this game being F2P also means it harness more people which also leads to more salty players imo, or kids that don’t have to put a dime in, and hormones that are tip[ping out of control, to hence rage and leave.
The best thing that can happen is joining a Min level 10 server, and even better a Min level 20 server, they tend to be betta for balance, as they have data samples to balance you, not to mention people that have played the game that long are less of the ragey type, as most ragers normally leave the game after several amounts of rage quits.
But Ive gone on for too long, but yh, there’s no true fix to this problem.
I have to disagree with this. I’ve provided my input above (comment 3, paragraph 2) as to why. Of course it will not apply to all cases, but many.
I have to disagree with this. I’ve provided my input above (comment 3, paragraph 2) as to why. Of course it will not apply to all cases, but many.[/quote]
Hmm In this paragraph you stated about grouping with friends for casual, problem is most groups use TS, hence making it so much harder for the other team imo. Which is why I kinda feel grouping should be kept to ranked matches, or if you want to group, be prepared to be split, due to Autobalance. But I just want to say I don’t know whether you are trying to get across that you will be grouping so you’re on the same team or not. Just trying to make it more clear on what your intentions of grouping is for casual play.
That being said Casual should be fine, with the additional punishments for consecutive rage quits that salty people preform. And as long as people no matter if they’re in a party, are split up during Autobalance. The only thing I’m worried about is then people switching back just to play with their friends. which imo should be prohibited and stop people changing team once autobalance is done. IF people do leave (which Is inevitable then I feel all punishments from then being placed on any other player leaving - Hence if the game really is unbalanced to high heavens, for no one else to be forced to play a game where the teams are stacked, and no Shuffle teams will take place.) Oh course IF a person leaves then team changing should be enabled, cause people Like me try and counter that by trying to balance it ourself’s ;-;