A question of balance
We’ve all been there. We’ve all been on a team that is wiping the floor with the opposition, watching them all burn and get stabbed in the back whilst a unhealthy dose of rockets and bullets also head their way. We’ve all entered into the last minute of the match knowing that victory is practically assured… And then we’ve all died in an unfortunate meeting with a critical rocket, seen those little scales pop up and had the sinking realisation that victory is lost and now you’re the puppet who is going to be dying a lot. That little picture that represents team balance – It’s so small, yet so mind-numbingly soul crushing.
I hate team balance with a passion, for the simple reason that it doesn’t work. Now, don’t get me wrong, I know the theory – Balance the numbers up, and it leads to a closer and fairer match. Yet have you ever seen an occasion where one person switching sides has changed the match from a massacre to a meeting of the minds? The concept seems to go against the essence of the game itself – It’s TEAM Fortress 2. Even if you’re the best player in the world, ending up on a team of disorganized players is going to bear no effect on the final result. On the other side of the coin, an organized team causing chaos isn’t going to take a knock if one person disappears. Therefore you’re left with the same inevitable result, only with the added bonus of knowing the fact that the one person who was forced to switch teams is cursing his luck.
Oh, but I forget to mention – That’s if the person who was forced to switch actually chooses to stick with the decision. Let’s face it, if you or someone else gets switched to the winning side in the dying seconds of a game there’s going to be no complaints… Even if this hardly ever happens, because people who are winning will never leave and let the slots open to you. But if the switch puts you on the losing team, it takes someone with guts to accept it and play on regardless. Otherwise, the desperate need to win will probably see that player dive into a spectator slot until they can get back in the home of the winners. Again, we’ve all been there – A losing team with player slots that could easily be occupied, but in reality the spectator list is brimming over because no-one wants to go there.
So, the chances are that the team balance effect will instantly be negated because the player who was switched instantly switches back, and even if they do stick around there’s very little chance the end result will change anyway. So my question is this – Why? Why does the option to balance teams even exist? Why do people turn it on only to find out they fall victim to it? After seeing a soldier absolutely destroying my losing team, only to get switched, stand in the spawn for 20 seconds or so and then switch back, I realised something… There is no answer to this question, besides the fact that people believe it will make a difference. In reality, if you take a step back and also reflect on what I’ve just said, you’ll also see that there is no difference at all. It’ll make you one very sad panda.
(General Balls made this picture. Worship his mad Gmod skillz.)
So, what to do?
I suppose I’d like to see some sort of balance system implemented to make games tighter, but it’d have to be one that is noticeable instead of just thrown in for the sake of it. My first thought was that a team that is losing by a great margin or who has a distinct lack of numbers could be rewarded with a very slight increase in the possibility to land a critical hit… I’m not sure if this would work in reality, but in my mind you still need to be strong and work as a team to take advantage of the gap that opens up after three or four people are blown into bits by a crit rocket or two. Another idea that popped into my head was the idea of the map subtly changing over time and in response to the situation. We saw how Steel opened up new paths when the offensive team succeeded – How about a team running out of time, or with only one or two people, being given more options for routes to take or methods to attack with? Heck, even subtle changes such as the cart moving faster on Goldrush and Badwater Basin as the timer hits its dying seconds could create interesting situations. I admit that these ideas may be flawed or need work, but at least they’d create a better way of balancing teams than the one that exists as of now.
After all, when it comes to enjoying close matches? Well, it’s all a question of balance…
supremesonic on October 13th 2008 in rants, team fortress 2
Stumble it!
Devenger responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 8:13 am #
I think a simple prevention of numerical team balance if one team is doing better than the other until the end of a round would help a lot with the annoyance factor, especially in 5 CP maps and CTF maps. It’s better beig changed after he conclusion of a round (or a dustbowl mini-round) than half way through or even just before the end of such a round.
Arena has got it right when it juggles teams entirely when one team is dominating the other. A full player juggle doesn’t discriminate against the successful or the failing - successful players will get a more satisfactory challenge and players who would have een stuck in a lose loop are given second hope (and morale is half the game!) Well, that’s if the juggle actully changes anything - sadly Arena shows it sometimes just doesn’t.
Paper Shadow responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 8:30 am #
Lets go nag at Valve to post why on earth they put in Team Balance on their blog…
goosemonger responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 8:34 am #
Scramble teams!
I say if you are on a server where one team completely steamrolls the other, you might as well pick a new server.
There’s no balancing system or idea that can make a non-team-playing/combat medic heal you when you’re standing right infront of them with 3hp, let alone using his über charge to help take out sentries.
Sypheros responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 8:39 am #
You do bring up a good point, and your solutions are similar to L4D’s “The Director” AI. If the team has lower health and lower ammo, The Director will send a smaller wave of zombies, where as the players in the opposite situation will get a much larger wave, and maybe a boss.
What works for L4D sadly cannot be said for TF2, TF2 is a Reward/Punishment type of game. Where good players are rewarded for their game play (Higher Crit Ratio) and the losing players are punished for their suckage.
Thats beside the point, I agree that the auto-balance should be changed, or at least the formula in which it operates.
My Idea is that, as you said, the teams performance should be taken into account, and with that a player of a specific rank on the boards should be chosen. For example, a team is doing terribly and people are leaving. The solution is that a player on the top of the boards on the other team should be auto-balanced. Its not really a punishment to that player, hes already doing well, and his presence may help stem the tides of the opposing teams onslaught. If its just people leaving on a team because they want to and it causes an imbalance, a player not as high on the leader boards should be auto-balanced.
Similar to the L4D “The Director” system, but a lot less eating of the brains.
Stephen responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 9:27 am #
Ah, but alas, valve designed the game so that the winners keep on winning. If blue team owns 4 points on cp maps, their increased critical hits and decreased cap time will guarantee them the last. if anything, valve would probably make the cart go slower for the losing team on goldrush and badwater basin. Valve apparently doesn’t like even, fair matches…
Infradead responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 9:44 am #
I absolutely hate team switching. If it happens to me I just spectate until my old team opens up again.
Derrl responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 10:20 am #
“Yet have you ever seen an occasion where one person switching sides has changed the match from a massacre to a meeting of the minds?”
Yes I have actually, Once, playing the last part of Goldrush, I was a Blu medic, we were kicking ass, we got to the the final corner before the big finale, when suddenly I get switched to red, after much cursing on my part, I accept that atleast it won’t be long until the game’s over.
Four minutes later and the cart is almost halfway back to the previous control point.
with 30 seconds left to go, Blu is stuck by the first control point, we won’t let them through to the cart, myself, a demo, and two soldiers, I have just unleashed an ubercharge.
Then we win.
Whimsical Goofball responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 10:27 am #
There’s one case I experienced where the team balance option literally swung the match so drastically in the other teams direction the BLU team won instantly.
I was an Engineer, and my sentry was literally the only thing left standing watching the bottleneck leading to the final capture point. No one on the BLU team could pass, because no matter how many sentries they destroyed, mine was still standing.
So the BLU team make one final attempt at a rush and wipe out every sentry but mine. Then all the remaining engineers come to help me keep mine alive.
A stray grenade clips me.
Okay, that’s cool, the other engineers are constantly repairing my sentry. Victory is ours. About five seconds after I died, watching my sentry fight back the BLUs, I get team switched!
IT TEAM SWITCHES THE ONE GUY THE ENTIRE RED DEFENSE PLAN IS BANKING ON!!!
So my stuff all gets destroyed, the BLUs march in without a problem and capture the point before I’d even respawned.
Admittedly that’s the worst incident I’ve experienced, but the game constantly switches me when my sentry is the only thing guarding a vital point…
FrohmanForPrez responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 12:40 pm #
Great thoughts. I’ve definitely been in some matches where there’s people from both sides shouting “stacked teams”. The best way I’ve seen that players deal with it is by just enjoying the challenge & having fun despite being pwned by the other team. Those matches are some of the best ones I’ve played, totally fun because all the stress melted away by everyone deciding to just have fun playing the game. Kudos & cheers to you, my Steam friends.
Mobba responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 12:44 pm #
Whimsical, I loved the story, as much as it sucks when that happens.
The most frustrating thing to me is when I’m playing offensive, and we are working as a team really well, I get to the last cap point, start capping and get killed, then get team-switched at that moment. Putting all the work in and being robbed of the reward is annoying. Its happened more than a couple of times. Why don’t they switch the players that joined most recently? Thats how the custom admin mods worked in dod and cs.
Goit responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 12:59 pm #
There is no good automated system for balancing skill (rather than just numbers) and there never will be; we just have to live with that fact. I’ve seen servers with auto-balance off and it isn’t pretty - one team always ends up heavily numerically stacked.
The best solution, I have found, is to play on servers where players can initiate a votescramble. My personal favorite sets the percentage of “Yes” votes required at 50%. What’s more, avoiding autobalance is a kickable offence there. It’s just a shame that there are few servers like this.
DPyro responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 2:09 pm #
I like full scrambling more than autobalance. The autobalance to ignore greater contributors to the team’s success and instead picks the lowest ranking member of a team to autobalance (very annoying if you just joined, are capping a point, almost finish, die, and are now in the team about to lose).
Spindrift responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 2:37 pm #
Team scrambling after a massacre of a match would be ideal. Otherwise, one team gets its ass beat, then teams switch, and the losers get their asses beat from the other direction. The only thing that changes is which half of the map gets sprinkled with gibs.
I’ve seen plenty of people fight like they mean it when they get auto-switched, though. That’s certainly my policy… and my first instinct was to say that it’s because I’m a newer player who’s just happy to be playing at all, and not prone to that jaded sort of “I’m taking my ball and going HOME!” attitude that prevents people from pitching in to help a losing team. But then, I’ve seen experienced (or at least highly effective) players fight just as hard for the losing team as they did for the winning team following an auto-balance… and often have a noticeable effect in the process. So I guess it’s a matter of attitude more than anything.
Some sort of team scrambling system would be great. In its absence, though, we need fewer self-absorbed quitters and more people willing to play like they mean it, even in the face of unlikely odds.
n00bie51 responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 2:55 pm #
I dislike auto balance myself, but the main cause of our grief here is the fact that people are given the option to leave the server in the middle of the game without any consequences to themselves. (It’s another reason I enjoy organized, competitive matches; you don’t have to deal with this crap.)
Nessmk2 responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 3:28 pm #
I think Autobalance is a necessarry evil. I mean, I understand it sucks. Nothing I hate more than being on a good team with my friends and suddenly being against all of them, being steamrolled, and not being able to enjoy our out-of-game talk as much because I’m too busy dying…
But it’s really the first step towards an even match. I’ve played on (literally) 5 on 10 matches before, and I remember thinking “If only we had some more BODIES to take hits” even if the players were complete crap, just the extra distraction and rockets in the air would’ve helped stop it a bit!
Next, I think that, instead of crits, maybe spawn time could be tweaked a bit, with the steam-rolled coming back faster and/or the roll-ers back slower (I’d rather have it faster than slower, so that no-one is sitting around unhappy.) That way neither team is particularly unhappy that there are 30 crits flying at them. A subtle general damage buff/defbuff would also work. Nothing huge, but enough to give an extra umph to a losing team.
The problem with any solution BUT autobalance is, though, that a team could hypothetically lose right until the end, then use the bonus (which, if scaling, would be big by that point) and crush the other team using the balance feature. I imagine stopping that would be hard to program.
And, to everyone complaning about the ‘bonuses’ to the winning team? It’s to make sure the match doesn’t go on forever. If the last cap in a map took the same time as the previous ones, the map would probably never end, or rarely end. Being THAT close to a spawn, defenders could stop the cap with sheer numbers unless they’re spawn-camped, and if you need to spawn-camp to win, why not just cut that out and shorten the cap time?
a TF2 guy responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 3:33 pm #
well there are some very intresting ideas, but l have to say l got autobalanced only thrice during my whole TF2 career (l started playing a few days after the pyro update and l play almost every day), and it wasn’t that bad…well l wasn’t an engie with a vital sentry, but l just kept on playing…
Well, at least autobalance should see if an engineer has a sentry up, and if he does, they just DON’T autobalance him…
Same goes for a demo with stickies on a vital point…l agree that they should balance the best players because they could actually make a differece…and they should scramble teams after 3 consecutive victories…l was in an autoscramble arena server, it was very nice..
mew4ever23 responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 4:35 pm #
Man, it really confuses me when i get autobalenced. And it irks me knowing that all the effort I put into thwarting the other team is now worth absoutely nothing, especially a switch from the winning team.
funkeystu responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 4:50 pm #
While I think autobalance is a bit of a necessity, and generally works *most* of the time, it very much has the potential to cause some of the most downright frustrating occurrences possible in the game.
I can recall perhaps a dozen cases where I’ve done the team thing by sacrificing myself to cap the 1st 90% of a point, or score a defence in the dying seconds of the game only to be teamswitched. The engine effectively punishes you for doing the selfless team-orientated actions that help win a game.
It’s also quite disheartening to take a leadership role for most of the match, get switched in the final minute and be steamrolled with the very tactics/strategies you implemented and coordinated yourself. I suppose the reverse has also worked on one or two occasions, where I’ve helped to back the other team into a wall, been teamswitched and managed to fight back for a win. Although the frequency of the latter is substantially less, the corresponding high was pretty huge.
I think merely providing a few conditions to the autobalancing feature would improve the situation markedly - just not switching players who died on a control point (or even capped or defended a certain number throughout the match) would help a lot.
Instantly switching the most recent joining player and giving them a 50point health buff for the sheer inconvenience could also work - that way no one with strong allegiance to a team will be ticked off.
It will be interesting to see what happens, I mean it probably works fine 90% of the time, but the remaining 10% is truly awful and imho should be fixed.
Nessmk2 responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 4:51 pm #
I could see how they could not swap engies that have sentries up… but at the same time, aren’t teles and dispensers just as important in a lot of cases? What about medics with full or almost full ubers? Spies about to stab-sap? Still, I digress on that point…
The Demo-sticky thing would be impossible to program, though? What’s a ‘vital’ point? A CP? By the cart? By an important doorway? That also raises the question of ‘what happens if everyone on a team has sentries up’? Rare, yes, but I suppose it could happen if people wanted to avoid the autobalancer. Would it just pick at random?
Sypheros responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 5:08 pm #
Keep in mind that Auto-Balance only occurs when you die.
Dark Master responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 5:23 pm #
Some of these points seem rather strange to me:
First off, in order to be autobalanced, the player MUST be dead; that means that demos won’t have stickies and medics won’t have ubers.
Secondly, I can’t believe that Valve allows engies that have equipment to be autobalanced, thats just poor foresight.
Thirdly, the game autobalances the next person to die after it says ‘teams will be autobalanced in 5 seconds’ I have seen many people hid in the spawns when those words come on screen and it ends up being the team contributer (or some unlucky soul) that gets forced to leave their team.
Conclusion: Playing a team player in TEAM Fortress 2 on a public server must be punished, what?
Uribaani responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 7:24 pm #
A little help for losing team could be even a bit shorter respawn time.
Mooman responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 8:01 pm #
I don’t wait for my team to have an open spot if I get autoswitched to a team getting steam/breadrolled or just plain losing, I leave the server!
Why? Because I play for the team. If I’m dead when my team caps a point, odds are I was at the door of where the opposition are coming from; acting as a blockade. Working against yourself is not fun. funkystu’d second paragraph summed up my thoughts pretty well.
Here’s a better idea of balance: If the person with the lowest score on one team is 5 higher than half of the other, something is wrong. Switch the MVP of the winning team for someone on the other. This seems drastic, but it’s a clear sign of stacked teams. Stacked teams should be discouraged. Having this not count in the first minute or so would keep mass teamswitching in the beginning of the map.
Also, in the developer commentary, I think I recall quite a bit of stalemate hate/distaste. On a plate. Sorry. Anyway, they mentioned how they aimed to make stalemates rarely happen at least once, so they did try. They talked about tipping the scale towards the winning team to keep stalemates from occuring. For instance; respawn times, capping times.
yer mum responded on 13 Oct 2008 at 8:37 pm #
“The game autobalances the next person to die after it says ‘teams will be autobalanced in 5 seconds’ I have seen many people hid in the spawns when those words come on screen” - I now know I’m just not sneaky enough, because this just wouldn’t occur to me. But maybe it’s because if I’m playing TF2 I’m in it for the shootin’ sneakin’ burnin’ healin’ sappin’ cappin’ MADNESS, rather than hiding in the spawn like a MAGGOT. If I get switchedto the losing side, it’s an opportunity to try and work out what’s going wrong and try and fix it. Sadly the answer is usually switch to medic because no-one else is playing that class. What’s really depressing is when you’re on a team with what seems like a good balance of player classes yet you’re still getting mashed into the ground. It’s on teams like that where adding one more player just won’t make a difference, there’s just something not happening in the team-work. Perhaps autobalance should take two people from the winning side and one from the losing? That way there’s a chance that there’d be a pair of players who could act as a nucleus for the rest of the team to work with, and potentially a player who’s not had the chance to play on a good team can see what it’s like.
soylent robot responded on 14 Oct 2008 at 2:43 am #
agreed!
i was playing TF2 last night, and i got team switched in every game. to the losing side. in the last thirty seconds. each time
;_;
tomfin responded on 14 Oct 2008 at 5:43 am #
> Let’s face it, if you or someone else gets switched
> to the winning side in the dying seconds of a game
> there’s going to be no complaints…
http://www.wegame.com/watch/The_Murderous_Autobalancer/
Backstabbed before ubercharged for the last few lives, we gather to retake the centre point. Oh, there were complaints after this.
This is a ’smart’ balancer mod that will kill and switch a live player if no dead players are available within an alotted time.
I agree that losing teams are too often missing Medics and surplus a few Spies. I enjoy fighting back with a losing team (I generally have fun with TF2 whether winning or losing) but some damage-dealing-or-healing classes on my new team would be handy
Team balance is integral to TF2, but I believe team stacking is a sociological problem for which a technological solution isn’t appropriate. The most experienced players are able to exploit any balancing ruleset to ensure they end up on the side they prefer, so it may as well be kept simple.
Prio responded on 14 Oct 2008 at 5:50 am #
“Yet have you ever seen an occasion where one person switching sides has changed the match from a massacre to a meeting of the minds?”
Yes. Frequently. On pub servers especially, it matters. Fact of life.
If I get teamswitched, I don’t go OH NOES EVERYTHING I DID WAS FOR NOTHING NOW I’M GONNA LOSEEEE and ragequit like a pathetic little baby. It’s a game. Everything I did WAS for nothing whether I was teamswitched or not. I’m not playing because my fucking life depends on it, I’m playing because I want to be entertained with informal team-based competition. I can do that on my new team, competing against my old team, and it can be fresh and different and fun. It usually is.
Team scrambling’s good, though. Biggest thing I like about Arena mode.
Sanns responded on 14 Oct 2008 at 9:09 am #
I can’t beleive gamers sometimes. I mean sure, by definition, people play games for their personal hedonist fulfillment, but the fact basic “golden rule” eludes so many people is–seriously–very sad.
Yes, Auto-Balance is a good thing. Yes, it sucks when it happens to you specifically. No, it usually doesn’t immediately change the round so drastically that the losing team suddenly wins. In fact, it shouldn’t–considering the fact the other team was (presumably) unsucsessful for a significant portion of the game, it would require a significant effort to make up for that lost time. Auto-Balance is about making the game more competitive–that’s it. Even if there’s only a couple of minutes left on the clock and the odds of a comeback are near impossible, it’s still more fun for everyone if there is a competitive attempt between the two teams rather than the losing team just “sitting out” until the round is over. Competitive games are more fun. In an ideal world, players would create even teams of their own accord; in a real world, you need a server-controlled mandate to yank players off the winning team. If you disagree: feel free to start your own server and turn auto-balance off.