[Feature] Sticky player

[T3RR0R15T]

Add a command to sticky a player in one team. The autobalance shouldn't change him and he should only be able to change to obs and back to his old team. An admin should be able to unsticky or forcejoin him.

[not_payl_obviously]

Add a command to sticky a player in one team. The autobalance shouldn't change him and he should only be able to change to obs and back to his old team. An admin should be able to unsticky or forcejoin him.

I think that team system needs overhaul in general. I.e. right now "join a" will connect you to team with less players, but autobalance can change you back just right after you join, this is annoying as I wanted to join any team, but it has to switch me anyway.

[jitspoe]

I had something else pictured when I read the thread title.

What would be the purpose of this feature?  So an admin can stop somebody from switching back and forth between teams?  Can't you set g_autobalance to 2 to stop this?

I think that team system needs overhaul in general. I.e. right now "join a" will connect you to team with less players, but autobalance can change you back just right after you join, this is annoying as I wanted to join any team, but it has to switch me anyway.

If you just joined a team, you will be the one most likely to get switched.  Isn't it better that somebody recently joining the game gets switched than somebody who has been playing on a team for a long time?

[T3RR0R15T]

The main reason: It's annoying, if i want to play with some friends in the same team and they or me get switched to another team. So i have to forcejoin them back half of the time. With this command, i could make them and me sticky in a team and we can play together all the time.

You said another reason: To stop somebody from switching between teams. g_autobalance 2 is a general setting. Sometimes it's enough to have it temporary and i don't want to give out a cvar_set login level to the players.

[jitspoe]

The main reason: It's annoying, if i want to play with some friends in the same team and they or me get switched to another team. So i have to forcejoin them back half of the time. With this command, i could make them and me sticky in a team and we can play together all the time.

You said another reason: To stop somebody from switching between teams. g_autobalance 2 is a general setting. Sometimes it's enough to have it temporary and i don't want to give out a cvar_set login level to the players.

But this is just a solution that works for ops, not general players.  I think we need to come up with an approach that can work for all players, but not be abused...

[not_payl_obviously]

What would be the purpose of this feature?  So an admin can stop somebody from switching back and forth between teams?  Can't you set g_autobalance to 2 to stop this?

Oh, go obs, then join another team.

If you just joined a team, you will be the one most likely to get switched.  Isn't it better that somebody recently joining the game gets switched than somebody who has been playing on a team for a long time?

But if I just want to join any team, then why not join me where autobalance want's me to see? (I meant: I just joined and just after one sec got switched) I'm not so sure about autobalance, it usually does good job making game unbalanced always on one of sides (I'm not blaming you, probably it is not that easy). I wish there was simpler system that would join random people if teams were unbalanced in players (maybe another option).
This could possibly help a bit issue mentioned by terrorist, don't remove players freedom, depend on them a bit.

[T3RR0R15T]

Maybe make it, that each player can sticky itself and only ops can sticky each player.

[jitspoe]

Oh, go obs, then join another team.
But if I just want to join any team, then why not join me where autobalance want's me to see? (I meant: I just joined and just after one sec got switched) I'm not so sure about autobalance, it usually does good job making game unbalanced always on one of sides (I'm not blaming you, probably it is not that easy). I wish there was simpler system that would join random people if teams were unbalanced in players (maybe another option).
This could possibly help a bit issue mentioned by terrorist, don't remove players freedom, depend on them a bit.

Do you have a demo or log of what happened here?  If you joined, got placed on one team, then people from the other team disconnected, you'll get autobalanced.  Isn't it better to be switched after 1 sec (so you don't have any real commitment to the team) than to be switched after playing on the team for a while?

The rate at which people join/quit is just going to make autobalance kind of suck under any circumstance.  I wish people would at least stick around until the maps ended. :\

The "sticky" would have to be mutual, otherwise you could end up with everybody on the server going, "Player X is really good.  I want to be on HIS team!"  A friends system could really help with this as well if we had the game favor putting friends on the same team (though maybe there would have to be a way to opt out, as sometimes you want to play against your friends instead of with them).

Another thing that could be a problem is if, say, 5 people stuck together, but there were only 6 or 7 total people on the server.  They couldn't all be on the same team.  Trying to account for all this in an autobalance system could be pretty prone to making people unhappy...

Can we come up with a name other than "sticky"?  It's not very clear and has ... other meanings.

[T3RR0R15T]

The "sticky" would have to be mutual, otherwise you could end up with everybody on the server going, "Player X is really good.  I want to be on HIS team!"  A friends system could really help with this as well if we had the game favor putting friends on the same team (though maybe there would have to be a way to opt out, as sometimes you want to play against your friends instead of with them).

Another thing that could be a problem is if, say, 5 people stuck together, but there were only 6 or 7 total people on the server.  They couldn't all be on the same team.  Trying to account for all this in an autobalance system could be pretty prone to making people unhappy...

If you want to be in the team with a good player, why not. If it's an too easy game, unsticky and change the team. I don't think thats a big problem. If there is a 5v1 because of sticky players, they won't play a long time. It's boring, so i think they would change the team itself or disconnect. If it is like the mute command, they are automatically unsticky after a reconnect.
I think it would be like everything, you have to type in the console. Thats something for experienced players and won't get used very much by a normal player. So i don't see any big problems. If it get abused, we can change (or remove) it in a next build.

The friends system could help, but it would be complicated and much more work than this.

Can we come up with a name other than "sticky"?  It's not very clear and has ... other meanings.

I know "sticky" for years from teamspeak. If you make a client "sticky", he cannot leave the channel anymore. So i have no problems with that name. What would you prefer?

[jitspoe]

I don't think thats a big problem. If there is a 5v1 because of sticky players, they won't play a long time. It's boring

That's a problem, though.  It'll cause people to clear out of the server.

I think it would be like everything, you have to type in the console. Thats something for experienced players and won't get used very much by a normal player.

Then most people won't know about it, or if it gets added to the UI later and it's abusable, people will abuse it.  It doesn't resolve the issue of "I just want to play with my friends" for people who don't know console commands and such.

I'm not sure what a good term for this would be.  It's sort of like a "party" or "squad" type system, but those names don't fit well, either.

[Toxiic]

I had something else pictured when I read the thread title.

Can we come up with a name other than "sticky"? It's not very clear and has ... other meanings.

I see...

[not_payl_obviously]

Do you have a demo or log of what happened here?  If you joined, got placed on one team, then people from the other team disconnected, you'll get autobalanced.  Isn't it better to be switched after 1 sec (so you don't have any real commitment to the team) than to be switched after playing on the team for a while?

Well, if you type "join a" you are using old pre-autobalance mechanism that will tell which team to join basic on amount of people, right?
Isn't that if autobalance is on, still it won't get to choose where you join? I think this is the case: Old mechanism works, puts me in the team, then autobalance goes "it's wrong" any puts me in another team.
If I recall correctly, this was on speed tho, so could be that people just left. But since you added this mechanism:
1. I get switched all around if I don't play from beginning for rest of map pretty much (since i'm generally better than pub people).
2. If I play from beginning I can be switched, but more likely everyone else who joined later will be switched to other team to unbalance it so well we get spawnkilled.

At least it was like this few months ago, when actually what now I consider "good speed servers" were on. Right now I stick to "PGP-only" servers and there is no autobalance I think.