[QUOTE=Awez0me;317304]Vote Change Team:
Same as Vote Kick but it doesnt kicks the person, it just puts the person voted for in the other team.
As it is now, if me and my freinds whant to play in the same team we often need to vote kick people from the match, even if theres space in the other Team.
Asking People to change mostly not works because they in XBLIVE Party Chat or dont have a Microphone.[/quote]I agree that the current implementation of party-support in Brink is largely inadequate. However, I disagree with your proposed change, itself.
A more elegant and less, frankly, obnoxious solution than either your proposed change (vote change team) or your implemented workaround (vote kick) is allowing players to search for and join games as a party:
- WITHOUT requiring all players to “Join Session in Progress”
- WITHOUT dictating that players play private matches
The ideal embodiment for this change would be a working lobby system in the Brink character selection interface where a party leader could search for a suitable game.
Alternatively, or in addition, another solution could be allowing players to start a private match (in the warm-up mode) and then allow the match host to “Open the Game to Public” to allow players to join the opposing team.
Splash Damage’s Richard Ham has described the current system in detail, and he has attempted to account for this oversight with the following explanation. Prior to games, players are allowed a ‘warm-up’ period which is supposed to fulfill all of the functions of a working lobby system without dictating that players sit around in a ‘boring’ lobby. This is an interesting idea, but it clearly doesn’t satisfy all stakeholders, particularly those seeking to join and play games as a party on the same team (without presently exhibiting less than desirable behaviours such as the vote-kicking of ‘innocent’ players).
Yet another alternative that borrows from Splash Damage’s concept of ‘boring lobbies’ would be allowing players to start a private match (in the warm-up mode) and then allow the match host to enter the search criteria for a new game. The only instance in which I think this would qualify as an improvement is if this were the only way to implement party-support when searching for matches (i.e. suppose the lobby variant weren’t possible for some reason).
[QUOTE=Awez0me;317304]Vote Hostmigration:
Often The Game chooses a Host that cant handle the max player numbers, or just has a unstable connection, uses weak wireless or is downloading stuff in the backround.
Even when everyone gets red bars every 5-10 secs the game doesnt do this on this own.
If the Host is on our team and we all suffer lag we just Vote-Kick the person to force a Host Migration, after this it runs fine 99% of the time.
So it would be really Usefull and a good way to cure the Lag if we had a Vote to let the Game choose a new Host. Of Course all people on the Server had to Vote.[/QUOTE]
I more or less agree with this change.
That is, I think that it could function as a temporary work-around until they resolve the more pressing issues:
- Poor netcode resulting in significant lag even in the instances when a ‘decent’ or ‘good’ host is selected (note: ‘excellent’ hosts can presently host lag-free games, but these are few and far between in my personal experience)
- Lack of Automated and Optimized Host Selection. Realistically, the game should select the best host from the connections available, and it should apply a ‘stress test’ to each potential host in the event of a Host Migration. Likewise, Hosts should be selected for having an ‘Open NAT’, because those with ‘Closed’ and ‘Moderate’ NATS are incapable of hosting games for other players (with the exception of those with Open NATS i.e. this is a function of whether ports are open or not).
- Lack of Automated Host Migration. Again, a properly coded game should implement a feature to Migrate Host upon the detection of some significant form of latency amongst the majority of players. Host Migration is already enabled for those instances in which a Host leaves the game, however, as is outlined in List Item #2, the current process is suboptimal.
