In fairness

[E sharp]

I like pub. I like it a lot, actually; it's all I ever play. As much fun as it can be, though, it's also real hit-or-miss. When it's good, it's great—a genuine struggle, a real match, etc. Fun times. Of course, it's not always like this. Here's a more typical scene: it's 10v8; most of the losing team is javs, and half of them are making inept roof shots; players start to ragequit or hop; no one from winning team will switch; they win, and exult in their glorious victory, but still will not switch; players from both teams quit for lack of interest; pure pub dies. It's really pathetic, and I don't understand it at all. How much fun is it to win against a team half your size? Apparently, for some people, loads of fun. I'm not sure how much of this is mundane selfishness (well I don't want to be on the losing team, jeez) and how much of it is that classic antisocial internet bullshit (ez fags, gg, etc) but it's clear that the only way teams do get evened, other than new players entering the arena, is when someone chooses to help even them out. And I would say this doesn't happen enough.

How do you fix that? Well, the bot offers a bribe of 25 bounty, but I'm sure no one really cares about this. It's nothing, and in a base game you're going to be dead in a minute or two anyway. Bribes worked in Distension because they were actually worth something; here they're worthless. So if bribes are out, how about threats? If the teams are unbalanced, freeze the flag timer until they're evened up—and if this hasn't happened yet within 30 or 60 seconds, maybe start running the timer backwards. I think it would be great, personally. But why do we have to wait for someone to make this choice? Why do we care if there's an exercise of will involved? In this scenario it's more of a coercion anyway, so I'm not sure it could be called much of a choice. If we skip all this nonsense and just let the bot autobalance we not only save our precious time but can also make sure the switch is optimally fair. That is, who exactly do we want to switch over?

Well, for instance—does freq 0 have 2 terrs, and does freq 1 have none? Give them one of the terrs. Is it 3 sharks to 1? Give them one of the sharks. Or, all of that being even, but the game still being imbalanced (say 10v6), who do you switch then? If the winners have more spids, switch one over. Or do the losers already have plenty of spids, maybe more than the winners? Foist an excess jav on them then. And so on. Example:

0000 / 0001
10/ 6
1 / 1 terr
2 / 1 sharks
3 / 0 spids
4 / 2 warbirds
0 / 2 javs

And post-balance:

0000 / 0001
8 / 8
1 / 1 terr
2 / 1 sharks
2 / 1 spids
3 / 3 warbirds
0 / 2 javs

It's a simple formula. And notice that it doesn't mean enforcing completely identical, mirror-image lineups. Of course that would be silly. And this is only from one team to the other, not both ways; if the losers have plenty of shitty javs, well, they're still stuck with them.

And numerical imbalance aside, 10v10, what if it's already 2 terrs to 1 and some warbird decides to esc-5 and be that freq's third terr? I think the bot ought to stop him and say "hey, you jerk, you have enough of those already". Is this unreasonable? Or if it's 3 sharks against 2 and one of freq 1's sharks leaves the arena, leaving the fight 3v1 but otherwise even, should you redistribute then? I think you should. 9 reps to 3, or 6 to 0, is a pretty much guaranteed win. I've played too many games like this, and it's extremely boring.

Call me a socialist and ask me why I hate America and freedom and baby Jesus, etc, but I think this really would improve pure pub. We already have balls-out laissez-faire libertarianism in pub 0, and of course that should be kept just as it is. But here, if the object is NvsN basing, then why not optimize it for this kind of play? I don't want that awful ritual sterility of ?go base—just enough control to keep things fair and fun.


Along those lines, some other more extreme suggestions:

- Could this auto-limiting also apply to spids, etc? Should there be a max number of javs per team (say ~20% of total)? I'm less sure about these. It's just that in my experience people are not so great at maintaining well-rounded lineups, and then end up bitching about it when they somehow lose. Really, you lost to spids and lancs with your javs and warbirds? Shocking.

- What to do with those pesky spawnbirds? I say warp them into mid, or at least to the tube, if they spend too much time dicking around. If you want spawnfaggotry there's always plenty of it in pub 0; in pure pub the object is the base, and if you're not there then you're taking up a slot on a team and unbalancing things etc. Not that this is usually a problem, but it's annoying when it does happen.


And not so much related, but also, because I don't feel like starting more threads:

- What happened to the TK watcher? Maybe it's still on and I haven't noticed, but I don't think it is. It would be nice to have, especially when there's no staff around to reply to cheater calls.

- lvz for !warp status sure would be nice. Sometimes it's on and sometimes it's off, and most of the time I don't remember to check. Why isn't it always auto-on anyway?

- Different flag time modes once in a while—eg ?go base type, or tug-of-war. Aren't they already coded into the bot? Probably.

[Jason]

i agree with absolutely everything this gentlemen (or lady?) has said.

seriously.

no sarcasm.

i mean it.

[Stompa]

seems like some serious micromanaging, but what the fuck do I know, it's not like I have any better suggestions to make better pub games.

[Arobas+]

I say very good idea for pure base.

[CaptainPoopface]

I agree with some kind of auto-balancing for numbers, and ideally for ship types (2 terrs or 2 sharks vs. 0 is pretty obvious).

Ship limiting, for javs especially, has been controversial. I'd say 20% is too strict, but 50% is reasonable. Max of 3 sharks per team would be nice. We're already limited to 2 sharks' worth of mines per team, which I think is wise. It's obnoxious for everyone when it's a large number of sharks vs. a large number of sharks + 1. I think 3 sharks and 50% javs would be right at the balance point between people who will quit because the teams are lopsided and people who will quit because they can't be shark or jav.

TK Watcher is a great idea and really should be brought back.

Switching to the team that has the flag should not be allowed. If a team needs more people, let them lose the flag first.

Warping spawnkilling warbirds to mid only makes them more of a pain in the ass. I don't think there's anything to be done for them bot-wise. Just kill them old school. I would like some kind of autowarp for roof trash though. After 60 seconds on the roof, you get warped back to spawn with 0 energy.

Different flag modes would be cool.

Warp is auto-off in pub 0, and auto-on in purepub. A little confusing but not hard to remember.

[Frightful]

I would like some kind of autowarp for roof trash though. After 60 seconds on the roof, you get warped back to spawn with 0 energy.

Sounds like the words of somebody who hunts roofers for two hours and doesn't kill them once. :turned:

[E sharp]

Well, roof is complicated. It's not like roofers ignore base in the same way that spawners do; they're actually at least shooting at the people inside of it, usually. Granted, having half your team on the roof is not going to win you any games, and it can get frustrating trying to take even mid when 50% of your teammates are up there taking and missing their inept potshots. But a lone roofer doesn't bother me much. A good one is a valuable asset—breaking up lines, putting pressure on the ear during FR battles, getting TD teamfers on newb terrs and people who can't dodge. That's the ideal case. Most javs are not that good. Or if they are, they're too busy dueling each other and speculating about who's the easiest or gayest or darkest-skinned to lob more than a perfunctory bomb or two into the flagroom once in a while. You might say in that case it evens out; if there are two javs from each team dickfencing each other up there, then neither team is at any particular disadvantage. Still, of course, I'd rather see those ones in the base, but I'm not sure there's any way to solve this without unfairly punishing the few javs and even warbirds who actually do use their roofing skills to help their teams.

Also, side note: would be nice to have the bot remind you when a shark is needed, and offer some arbitrary bonus for switching ships, like in Distension. (It's already in !team, yes, but how often do you check that?) My guess is that botspam would get someone to switch a lot quicker than a teammate asking the same, if only because it's more annoying.

[kthx]

the problem is, when you force people to base, you kill basing. TWBD is a great example of that after trying to do pure_pub for the last 3+ years.

[blackrazor]

I play only pub since 2000, I love it, and I notice the same issues ... except your balance idea won't address these issues:

1) team1 has 4 or 5 tking javs that are bored and doing it on purpose, and team2 is already full.
2) team1 has a couple sharks using up the team's mines in spawn trying to kill chasers for kicks or self-imposed leetness.
3) team1 has a noob shark that stubbornly keeps mining on entry; said mines are consistently repped back into the team.
4) team1 has a decent mix of ships, but they have decided to hold a party on roof, or near safe, or in spawn, etc.
5) team1 actually _needs_ 4 sharks (of the quality they are, you take what you can get) to rep into a particularly well defended flagroom. In this case you don't want to limit sharks at all, as this will make for a great, albeit messy, flagging match. A real rep 'n shrap slugfest.

These are just a few of the common pub basing-killers that come to mind. (Except for #5, that would be a new problem if sharks were limited.)

Simplest solution: When the matches are 3:0, or teams become unbalanced, randomly redistribute the teams completely just before warpin for a new match. No formulea. Nothing that can be predicted and likely will just "outsmart" itself in many cases. Just random.

[Teh Super]

Simplest solution: When the matches are 3:0, or teams become unbalanced, randomly redistribute the teams completely just before warpin for a new match. No formulea. Nothing that can be predicted and likely will just "outsmart" itself in many cases. Just random.

This, and disallow changing team completely unless there is a case of imbalance. How about? Are there any arguments against this considering the objective of the arena and how much weight would they have?

As in: if for whatever reason you're too high and mighty to play in the team you were put in, don't play at all.

[Astrogirl]

There's also a !team list which shows ship imbalance on the team, I think this should be used more and teamers encourage others to make necessary changes to help the team.

[Dank Budz]

What will fix the balance problems? Levs work great for that. When one team has the flag, and the other team is weak there is nothing better to shake things up than a well placed Lev shot.

[Zeebu]

What will fix the balance problems? Levs work great for that. When one team has the flag, and the other team is weak there is nothing better to shake things up than a well placed Lev shot.

and once the base is shaken up the lev will gladly shipchange and return to help his team gain the base?

[Dank Budz]

LOL Zeebu I think you know the answer to that already I just want Levs back once in a while.

[Tigron-X]

why not just allow bot to track reported tks and then once it hits a certain number the team can vote whether or not to change that player to a ship with bullets, e.g. spider.