Pub team evener

[Theif of Time]

How do people feel about this idea?
Problem: In pub, (Timed pub specifically) sometimes teams become uneven, both in numbers and the skill level of people on a team. Basing then begins to stagnate as one freq banishes the other to lower base, tube, and roof.

Proposed solution: Some bot system that evens the teams. For example, in timed pub, once one freq has won 3+ games in a row with a time of 3 minutes (3 min games), the bot activates, and shuffles players among teams. (subsequently also evening them out, so 10 vs 15 becomes 12 vs 13)
I can see problems. Like people who resent having their freedom encroached by enforced team switching, or people who resent being split up from their friends. Aswell as people who don't understand the system yelling "OMfg freqhopper! die!"

[cundor]

Good idea but not really needed imo

[Theif of Time]

because uneven teams are just so damn fair...

[Edify]

because even teams are for other zones.

[Troll King]

I've proposed this before, but reduce the arena population cap.

With smaller arenas, the default teams are also smaller, and when you do have uneven teams, the differences will more often be like 10-8 instead of the 12-8 you often see now. There will still be uneven teams, but with smaller numbers, the differences will be more manageable and the smaller team can still be competitive.

[Kuukunen]

Dunno if it really would work like that Troll... If 4 people decided to leave (either by accident or maybe they were buddies.) Then it's 10-6. 4 out of 10 leaving happens more often than 8 out of 20.


And I think it's not really that much needed. It will get balanced pretty soon.

[Troll King]

The same thing can happen in current pub arenas, and that will change 12-8 teams to 12-4. It's the same problem, but you still have a better chance when it's 10-6 than if it were 12-4. It doesn't get rid of the problem entirely, but it doesn't make it as bad.

[Morroco]

It just wouldn't happen, Troll king :fear:

Anyways, tot, I think an added feature to roboboy/robogirl could be switching players with "even" points onto different teams.

[Troll King]

People keep saying that but I have yet to hear a reason as to why not. It's the easiest change to make, can fix a lot of the problems in pubs and it's one of the least disruptive changes you can make; most people won't even know the difference. There are other solutions that don't involve tweaking another bot.

[Theif of Time]

If you took that idea up to TWPS, I'd sign it TK

[Kolar]

If you lower the population cap there will be a considerable loss in the number of people going inside the base or doing anything else besides spawning. There's a better solution and yes, the solution is a bot. Why not at the start of each game mark down the team a person is on (or whatever team they enter onto mid game) then *setfreq then back if they decide to change teams.

[Theif of Time]

thats a sound idea but doesn't account for people just leaving the arena when their team is losing.

It need not even the teams after or before every game. Just when one freq is dominating, several (very short) games in a row.

[Kuukunen]

The same thing can happen in current pub arenas, and that will change 12-8 teams to 12-4. It's the same problem, but you still have a better chance when it's 10-6 than if it were 12-4. It doesn't get rid of the problem entirely, but it doesn't make it as bad.

Of course it's better chances for 10-6 than if it was 12-4, but what's your point? 10-6 is a lot more common than 12-4, which would be quite an exception. :P And agreed with Kolar too, the pubs really don't have too many people right now.

Also: bots are fun.

I've understood this bot thing is proposed to only the timed pub, because elsewhere it wouldn't work. (For example: me and 3 others were just owning the second pure pub in prev freq the other day, what would the bot do?) So many people aren't even basing there anyways.

I don't like the idea of changing people around based on "skill level". It makes little sense, what's wrong in winning 4 games in a row if they are better? Actually I don't like changing people around. Maybe the bot could do like it does in Metal Gear. After every game it checks if teams are balanced and if the other team has two more, it sends a freq message with "Teams are unbalanced, 1 person must switch teams." (2 people, if difference is 4 or 5, 3 if 6 or 7, etc) If no one changes and teams are still unbalanced at GO, it will setfreq them.

[duel pasta]

Yep, very good idea!

[Troll King]

Of course it's better chances for 10-6 than if it was 12-4, but what's your point? 10-6 is a lot more common than 12-4, which would be quite an exception. :P And agreed with Kolar too, the pubs really don't have too many people right now.

My point is that the worst case scenarios of uneven teams in a smaller pub would be something like 10-6 which is still very competitive. Not only can you still do well down 10-6, but with a smaller arena size, it will even up faster.

And addressing Kolar's point, I don't see how lowering the arena cap size will reduce the number of people basing or increase the number of people spawning. In fact, I see it going the other way with spawning decreasing. With less people in the arena, you get more space and the spawn area won't be as crowded. There's also less chance of being spawned next to someone and getting spawnkilled. I see there being less "action" in the spawn area which would decrease the popularity of hanging around there.

I also don't see how there'd be less basing. I'm not talking about having arena sizes of 15 or anything that small, but more like a cap like 30 plus room for incoming bots or mods. That's a loss of 5-6 people in an arena which would translate to only two or three less people per freq. With freq sizes of full arenas now being 13-15, a drop of two or three would still give you a bigger team than league basing games.

And here's the kicker: with 5 or 6 fewer people in an arena, you can be fairly sure that there'd be one less levi per arena. That's just from pure mathematics. There are X number of people in all pub arenas at any one time. By reducing the population of all arenas by 5 or 6, you'd have room for one extra arena. Say there's 180 people in pub over 5 arenas with a population of 36 each. In each arena, there's usually about 3 or 4 levis. Over 5 arenas, that's about 15 to 20 levis in total. Take the same population of 180 and lower the arena sizes to 30. That would make 6 arenas of 30. Take the same 15-20 levis and spread them over 6 arenas instead of 5. Instead of 3-4 levis per arena, we're now looking at 2.5-3.3 levis per arena. That means that more often than not, you'll see fewer levis in each pub. That change alone will improve pub basing.

Before anyone starts complaing that 30 is too small a change, remember one thing: for a long time in TW, 30 WAS the pub arena population cap.