AUTOBALANCE

[hendog]

The lack of an autobalance on most if not all servers is frighting.  There used to be an autobalance feature that WOULD NOT LET PEOPLE CHANGE TEAMS unless it was so done to make teams even. Now people change teams during the game and at the end of the round the autobalance makes teams even...only to have people start switching teams as SOON as the round starts.

I read a post about getting new users...well I for one would not recommend this to my worst enemy as the unorganized feeling of the servers when playing a game and having 10 people on one team and 4 on the other is the biggest turn off; it makes me never want to play again and I have been playing for 6 or 7 years...just think how a new user feels after they spend the time to download everything only to find out that the games are just a mess from the organizing of teams standpoint.

I'm not sure who the 'voices of reason' are here, but someone needs to step forward and make these severs set up so that people can NOT switch teams 100's of times in 1 game and have the teams so uneven that it makes literally NO SENSE to even play. NO WHERE ON PLANET FREAKING EARTH is there ANY game or sport that is played where people can just keep changing teams throughout the game to play on whatever team you feel like.  This issue NEEDS to be dealt with ASAP as this great game is just an unorganized dog fight which is time wasting and pointless, when it should be something to look forward to...like it used to be!!!

This company, Digital Paint (if you can call it that) needs someone to take it by the rains and make it as good as it could be. I know from being in business in North Amercia that this company could be making $100,000's in a couple of months if the right people got behind it and made it happen. I have tons of logic and understanding for business on a corporate level from years of experience in Marketing and Website Design. Digital Paint has tons of potential...but it is only as strong as its weakest link, and right now that weak link is the lack of structure for the games that are played. There HAS to be even teams through out the course of a game! It is crucial to the lift of Digital Paint as NOBODY likes being on the team with 4 players when 10 others are just spawn killing the crap out of them. That leaves 4 people talking about how retarded Digital Paint is...which is NOT the way to succeed long term, and by 'succeeding' I don't mean surviving, I mean showing a profit and improving the quality of the product being offered each and EVERY day.

Regards,

Jason Henry
aka hendog

Feel free to contact me should any of the decision makers of Digital Paint feel inclined to do so.
jasonh@liftlockmedia.com

[SuperMAn]

Sounds like someone had a bad game. ^^



I have the current auto-balance feature disabled on my servers.  Mostly because it is annoying.   I can't stand being auto-switched every time a newbie changes teams.  Happens almost every round.  I find the teams balance themselves out more efficiently than the auto-balance feature.

[hendog]

I would say the only 'bad game(s)' I've had on Digital Paint is when a group of people switch teams back and forth and teams are never even.

Someone needs to write the script to have the autobalance work as follows:

Teams are EVEN to start (or to the offset of 1 should there be an ODD number of players at the start or at any point through out the game. Make it so players can NOT switch teams manually at ANY point. Have it setup so players automatically switch if teams get out of balance, meaning one team has 2 or more players than the other team at any time; at which time the autobalance would kick in and the teams would become balanced again.

The big thing is having people on even teams...people quit when the score gets out of hand which causes most problems.

Here is the solution:
Should the game become a blowout (than a mercy rule should be in place; have it set so that if a team gets ahead by more than 30 at ANY time in the game, the game is OVER. Have this set for all games with a 10 or 20 minute capture the flag style games.

Things need to change with the why the autobalance is used. If players know they can circumvent the current autobalance they will. This causes games to become less and less enjoyable as the uneven teams cause an absolute disaster as far as trying to play a game. Having the players understand that they are on one team until the end of the game is simple, and people will conform to the rules should digital paint decide to create and enforce an autobalance.

I understand you can't make everyone happy, but for the most part, if the autobalance worked to keep teams even then there would be better quality games.

 

[jitspoe]

If g_autobalance is set to 1, it will autobalance teams if they are uneven.  If g_autobalance is set to 2, it will autobalance teams if they are uneven, and prevent you from switching teams (unless the team you're switching to has fewer people).  I've noticed the behavior you're describing and set the value to 2 by default for the next release.  In the meantime, it's possible for server admins to change this value to 2.