Force Auto-Assign on #8

[Epicurus]

Stacking the RED team has become a huge issue on #8, making the team steamroll almost every round.
This is making the game unplayable for the BLU team.
The only solution I could come up with is a force auto-assign plugin, but it would have to be edited to allow playing with friends.
I know that this is a democracy etc etc, but forget that for a while and give us communism.
Post your ideas below.

[ApacheFlame]

I have moved the rest of this thread to the admin forums so that we can discuss viable ways to move forward based on what you have told us. Thanks for your feedback so far. Please do continue to leave feedback for us.

[Turbo ♫]

Yeah it totally wasn't my idea, give Bob all the credit .

lol - sorry Epi, was reading Bob's post at the time.

Some interesting points have been mentioned. As a regular player on 8 I can say that most people during peak (stacked) times know the majority of everyone else playing. The reason I mention this is if there was an auto-assign in place, they would still be playing with people they know. I honestly don't think players would mind the auto-assign imo. If the option to join red / blue is taken away I can't see any change in 'who' would play on 8. I would think the reason most players join 8 on a regular basis is 80% recognize each other and there is a fun / friendly team play which makes the server what it is today. The downside to this is people recognize who the better players are and quickly join their team, the list grows into stack and the map is ruined. I don't normally post on forums but when this was brought to my attention I felt I had to share my views as server 8 is my 'go to' server. On a side note - adding a few seconds to the spawn time would get my vote, it would help slow down the constant waves of Red Team (especially on last points where you end up killing the same Red player 3 times just to move the cart an inch). It would also help with playing spy, here's an example of the problem - Stab engineer, sap, engineer re-spawns and repairs buildings :/

Hope some of this helps

[13th Nightmare]

Rest assured the Admin team are aware of this problem and are fighting to the death Battle Royale/Hunger Games style looking into this and hopefully we will have something soon

[Slavechild]

Ugh 2 hours on #8 and it's a total one sided stack every round and people will sit in spectator at the start so they are with their "friends". You're on the same server as your "friends" stop being a **** and even the bloodys teams. Spent a whole round stalking m4ndy as spy to prevent her/him from effectively pairing up with the heavy he/she had been healing/critz-ing for the last 4-5 rounds.

[Slavechild]

Also this is why I play #6, it's an even map and only rarely stacks as people (most of the time) are happy to swap teams and even things.

[Slavechild]

3rd post, sorry

I heard from Cole that you can't forcible swap players onto other teams, isn't this something that could be introduced so admins can swap players and defuse the stack?

[Ger-h]

phone double posting

[Ger-h]

Wrong thread

[Epicurus]

I heard from Cole that you can't forcible swap players onto other teams, isn't this something that could be introduced so admins can swap players and defuse the stack?

There is a plugin that can do this, yes.
Can't remember what it was called, though.

[Synaphix]

If you allow Admins to move players it will probably make them rage quit and not play again. How do you also decide who gets switched to balance it? Move the top player of the dominating team will tick them off and they will leave no doubt. Move someone who has a friend on their team and both will probably quit and those are just two examples that will tick the players off.

Auto-assign would make it more fair and if you can delve into the balance plugin to make it seem more fair would be a good way to go if it stacks players one sided again having balanced them then it does it again every x amount of time if needed. Although this is TF2, we have this issue in the game I Admin and auto-assign is enabled and helps a lot, but the games are quite different so would it be the best outcome for TF2 over a change to the balance system or something if possible?

(Yeah Yeah, CSS player writing in a TF2 thread - I'll sod off!)

[Rico]

Doesn't matter whether you're a CSS player, of course. And I agree; aside from any other considerations, frankly I don't want to be in the position where I have to decide who gets moved. Honestly, it would open a whole can of worms - on a personal level as well as with regard to the player base overall.

[Ger-h]

Admins having the power to move people to the other team would create alot of work for us and would be so much screaming form that player why did you move I wasn't even playing my main class why don't you like me etc etc.

[Slavechild]

Hmm good points

Synaphix wasn't there a similar CSS thread about team stacking and the auto team balancer only balancing the bottom few players and none from the top?
I think the forced auto-assign is probably the better idea but you always get people who moan, it's impossible to make a decision where people won't moan and/or leave.

[Synaphix]

In all honestly, I have not looked into how the balance system works and if it is even the same for all games we have, but in CSS I just assumed it balanced it based on your ranks via the stat system rather than who had a good round but if that where true then it does not work all the time. I saw a team get one kill in CSS yesterday on Terrorist then the balance hardly made any difference switching the teams as it was still one sided as it did not switch it around much just 2-3 players.

If it balances by stats then it would be a good way to balance the teams to even them out if it was possible to do this and to ensure sides are somewhat evenly balanced...this again brings back to the issue that even if Admins balanced players it would be a bad idea as it would make people leave not playing with friends and removing their fun which can be used in the same scenario as the stat balance. If you did do it via the stats as I think it may do this anyway then it could possible be altered in some form to even it a bit more.

If there is just a script that balances them and not via the stats then it could be a pain deciding who gets switched still without testing different alterations which again would annoy players and bring the same issue as now if it gets stacked again.

(Most of that makes sense in my head!)

[Slavechild]

(Most of that makes sense in my head!)

Ditto.

Hmm well I'm going to hush now and stop throwing proverbial spanners around as this is probably best left to the TF2 admins to decide on etc.

[m4dny]

Ugh 2 hours on #8 and it's a total one sided stack every round and people will sit in spectator at the start so they are with their "friends". You're on the same server as your "friends" stop being a **** and even the bloodys teams. Spent a whole round stalking m4ndy as spy to prevent her/him from effectively pairing up with the heavy he/she had been healing/critz-ing for the last 4-5 rounds.

Why would you take me as an example
I don't even care for server #8, I am a server #2 regular, I only play on #8 if #2 or any other (#1 or #4) is empty or something other forcing me to choose #8.
Playing on any other servers than UKCS is not an option for me

Also stabbing me is easy on server #8 because no such thing as spychecking exists. I do believe playing with friends is allowed, and I want teamwork from my team, and that happens easiest with friends. Like server #2 regulars who sit in mumble and play, that's my thing, teamwork


Edit: Just thinking, is it forbidden to be.."good". "You're too good, go to the other team!"

[Slavechild]

Ah sorry m4dny you know I think you're awesome, you must admit you guys did steamroll us quite a bit that day :p
Personally I join the losing team and stay there to try and even things out, but that's probably why I'm left feeling a bit deflated.

[Rico]

Edit: Just thinking, is it forbidden to be.."good". "You're too good, go to the other team!"

Of course it's not forbidden, and there are a lot of very good players to are regulars on the UKCS servers.

The only problem with it is when "all" the good players join the same team (generally RED rather than BLU). Also, a good demo/solly/heavy and good pocket medic can be absolutely devastating. =)

No names, no pack drill, but I recently had a (good) demoman tell me to stop healing him and not uber him, as "I only play with X." Double shame, because I had a tasty kritz all primed for him, and I was drooling at all those lovely assists. But the goal certainly isn't to stop friends playing together, nor is it to discourage good play,

[Ama_]

If all good players know each other though, it would make sense that they would want to be on the same team even if it results in imbalanced teams, cause it would ensure them better teamplay, higher level etc. What's beyond me, however, is how people can find these games to be good and fun when they are imbalanced. I'm no #8 regular though, only play on #2, #4 and #7 which can be stacked at times too, so I have no idea to which extent the red stacking is an issue.

I played on a server that was forcing auto-assign some time ago and people were always complaining because they couldn't be with their friends. Eventually the admins had to go back to allowing people to play with whom they wanted to. People kept complaining about stacking.