Wake-up call (clan stacking discussion)

[Frontliner]

Psyrus;2018621']So basically "I wanna have a good game on the good team, and fuck everyone else if they can't compete"?

Last I checked the point of any game is to have a jolly good time. If your team/squad gives you a headache by making avoidable mistakes, for example driving their tank into a known TOW/HAT position; Infantry squads being way out of place for no reason and/or without a plan; nobody communicating, especially not within your squad, I assume you wouldn't have a good time(unless you're not a competitive type of person) either. What's stopping me from leaving the server if that happens? Am I concerned with team balance? Yes. Will I continue playing when my team is just stupid? Nope.

Edit: Doesn't mean I'll leave every round that doesn't go well, I enjoy playing with my mates more than winning; but sometimes the overall team performance makes you unable to do even enjoy that.

[Psyrus]

I assume you wouldn't have a good time(unless you're not a competitive type of person) either. What's stopping me from leaving the server if that happens? Am I concerned with team balance? Yes. Will I continue playing when my team is just stupid? Nope.

Edit: Doesn't mean I'll leave every round that doesn't go well, I enjoy playing with my mates more than winning; but sometimes the overall team performance makes you unable to do even enjoy that.

I (rage or otherwise) quit often due to what I perceive as a bad team, however this is generally only the case when a skill vacuum has been created by 'regulars' gravitating to play with other regulars.

For example the admins on FCV so kindly ran a !scramble (which I really appreciated despite being on the stacked team prior to that), and it mixed the teams up nicely, but by two rounds later, they had been restacked by all the regulars team switching mid-round and between rounds... it was literally almost the exact same as before the scramble... and guess what, the raaaaape resumed ??:

It pisses me off to steamroll other teams round after round... I'm not sure why it doesn't bother other people. Lack of empathy, perhaps?

[Frontliner]

Lack of willingness to play fire brigade for a team that doesn't, doesn't know how or refuses to communicate itself properly, wastes assets in predictably stupid ways, doesn't built FOBs or has somebody on the defense.

[Walmarx]

... the biggest issue is; Clans just HOG the assets. So no others have oppertunites to use them... or at least join their squad of it.

I can name a lot of times where I have witnessed this issue. I just think clans taking all the assets are the problem. (I remember once, a clan had one armor squad... on Saaremma, Trans, then CAS squad) So no one had the opertunity to use them.... if they joined, they got kicked imeediatly.

I believe this is a huge part of this problem. There are groups within many clans, who are extremely disinclined to play on a team that doesn't have the assets they enjoy, even down to infantry equipment. Some people simply refuse to play with what they perceive as a major handicap. I dislike the inherent vulnerability of magnified optics and the exposure of armored vehicles, but many clan members will do all they can to ensure they never have to play without them.

I wish I had a suggestion to offer, but i'm afraid this entire issue is one of selfishness, and that is a difficult force to reign in. The 5:00 minute timer and general crackdown on pre-round mumble spamming would be a great start though. What about muting all local chat before round start? If it is even possible, what difficulties would that cause?

[Cassius]

Psyrus;2018621']So basically "I wanna have a good game on the good team, and fuck everyone else if they can't compete"?

It isnt about can not compete, but want not to compete. Thats the big difference. Quite the opposite, oftentime the team that does the steamrolling does not have players that stand out with crazy kills, unless they are in an APC, whereas in the team that gets steamrolled you will see some players with an high ammount of kills, they got by lonewolfing, but in the end werent able to stem the influx of a squad or multiple supported squads on their own.

I compiled a tactics and procedure guide that should give most players a handle on how to play the game. Yes it is more than one page, BUT what is in there can be applied easily by people smart enough to navigate the pitfalls of owning a PC and running a game on it.


But now that I cooled down I do not want to discourage people from teamswitching to help an ailing team. The biggest help they can get is from skilled squadleaders. But before such players switch over to help they should make sure in global chat they find on the other team at least 7 people that will work with them without giving them attitude.

[xact]

A scramble function might work, if it had an advanced algorithm (not purely random) but based on teamwork score as well as K : D, and prioritised keeping clan members on the same side. Then in the typical (and worst case) stacking cases, both teams would end up having some clans on board, plus pub players selected to balance the calculated skill difference. Of course you would need a different algorithm for INS vs AAS, and there is also the question of when to run scramble... automatically (round start/halfway through) or manually? All in all, this is a "wicked" class problem but an acceptable approximation of a "good" solution seems possible to me.

The solution is left as an exercise for the reader

[bren]

Bottom line is SA's need to pull their head out of their *** and pay attention to team management. Our admins are trained to do team management, I believe other servers should do the same to keep PR balanced.

When PR isn't balanced it's no longer fun, when it's no longer fun there is no interest and desire to be steamrolled with no ability to handle it.

Psyrus put it well a few posts above.

[Ghostwolf]

Didn't really arrive at the admins.

I understand if you as a clanmember want to play with your clan.
But another clan with a clan with another clan and with some regulars vs the rest and newcomers? With 7 men difference?
Come on...

[Ranzpirat]

Hey Ghostwolf. The next time you think balancing is needed, feel free to join our teamspeak and make a suggestion to the admins online. (I think this goes not only for our, but every other community too)

As you can see on your screenshots, our Community splits up almost everytime to help balancing (even though I love to play with all of my guys). We expect the same from other communitys and try to initiate such behaviour if not already present.

For Serveradmins its not always easy to see which clans will keep on joining or leave after the round. Nor is every clan which gets asked happy to comply (which means more work for the admins and possible drama).

[Ghostwolf]

I made a suggestion yesterday.
The [NEW] admin on the weaker side said it is unbalanced.
The [NEW] admin on the stronger side said it is balanced.
Voila...

Sorry, I didn't want to adress the admins. They can't do much anyway. Or don't want to do much.
I wanted to adress the community. But it seems like they are unteachable and only worried about their temporarily good, disabled to look into the future of project reality.

Please, show a bit of reason and fairness.

I see the aspect of fun in the stacked team. Everything runs smooth. But it is such an agony for those who disagree to stacking and try to put up some resistance against it.

Those who let PR newcomers in their squads instead of fleeing from them to the stacked teams are todays losers.
What a sick social fact.

[matty1053]

I was arguing with an admin on this issue a while ago....
But this is what it's like...
A new player is trying out PR for his/her first time. They have a mic and everything and is friendly as a kitten. (Well Kittens can be mean, but you get what I mean). They join a team, and then within 15 min of the game.... the other team is already advancing on the last flag. So they think in their heads.... "This is how every match is... maybe I'll try next round and see".
Next round is the same deal.
Then they think.... "this game is dumb.... we don't even have a chance.".

I can name at least 100 times where I see clans taking the same asset round after round....

Like once on Kokan, they had the CAS Kiowa claimed and used it. (They didn't do **** w/ it though, they got killed since they thought it was smart to fly into 2 .50cal techies).
Next round.... Khami....
They claimed the jet CAS on MEC..... again they didn't do ****....
Next round.... Shijia.... CAS yet again. Didn't do ****.

That was ONE of a ton of examples.... i'll give another one.

A clan member made a tank squad.... Then the other clan members made a CAS squad. The tank squad leader. (He was part of clan) kicked EVERYONE from the squad.... He let in only 1 more clan member... so they claimed the 8 abrams on Kashan.


But servers are getting better, but really.... clans need to ask to be switched to balance it out. Losing doesn't effect anything. You don't have stats or ****.

Just my 2 cents on this issue.

[[NEW]Elmariachi]

Hey Ghostwolf we at NEW really try to keep the matches balanced but sometimes clans join and leave during the round and then is getting unfortunatly unbalanced. And then you can try to find clans to volunteer to switch during the round.. good luck..

And then sometimes the teams are even but only 1 or 2 wrong decisions made in the field and it seems the teams are unbalanced.

I think i am not lying when i say that the most rounds on NEW are balanced because its one of our highest priorities at NEW.

I am personally rating the balance after the round has finished.

1-125 Tickets Difference is not unbalanced
125 - 250 Tickets Difference ist slightly unbalanced.
250 - 350+ Tickets Difference is totally unbalanced.

And its not only up the the Admins to keep it balance.. Its common sense of all Clans to think about balance before choosing the Faction you like to play.

regards mariachi

[Squirrel[STF]]

As an admin, you really have to know your playerbase. Not all clans, are super elitests. So clan stacking, may look scary, but it might not be all that bad. Granted, clans are gonna play together, and if they can't, they will go somewhere where they can. You might not be able to get around an issue like this, but I'm sure most servers will appreciate your feedback on this issue if it does become a problem in-game, just make sure when bringing it up, you are very polite and handle it responsibly, and not "!r UHHHH admins we are loossing this server sucks fix this bad clan stacking!!!".

[Ghostwolf]

Hey mariachi.

You are right. The main responsibility lies with the community, not with the admins.
But you could consider giving team-switch-rights only to those clans who actually use their rights to unstack teams.

Currently I see many small clans switching towards to the favored side. And that is what outbalances the teams.

[[NEW]Elmariachi]

Hey mariachi.

You are right. The main responsibility lies with the community, not with the admins.
But you could consider giving team-switch-rights only to those clans who actually use their rights to unstack teams.

Currently I see many small clans switching towards to the favored side. And that is what outbalances the teams.

Yes, but the autoadmin will seperate them sooner or later and thats something we dont want. In very abusive cases we will remove switch rights from clans using switch rights for bringing unbalance.

[matty1053]

That is another thing...

Clans should realise and switch to the other team, for example.... where the other team doens't have 5 clans on them.

I support and love seeing clans playing together, but it's too fustrating seeing a team of clans vs pubbies.

[tiki]

Why is clan stacking allowed?

Every single round in PR nowadays boils down to whichever team had clan(s) moved onto it winning. It's disgusting and almost all the servers based in the US are like this. This issue needs to be addressed within the community and also by the developers, as it fucking soils the public servers. Playing with friends IS superior and I don't want to be a hater of clans, but the stacking has to stop. There's clan wars for that.

This is also a huge problem because it's done by admins of these servers who seemingly have zero problem with it. Nobody likes playing with public players who are new to the game vs a clan of experienced vets completely stomping these servers. It IS a significant factor in the balance of the game now, whereas a squad of clanmates working together earlier in the mod's wasn't that big of a deal.

But really? Almost every match is a cycle of clan gets swapped, clan takes assets, clan steamrolls over new players with assets. No particular clan is soley guilty of this. I'm not here to name and shame. But it needs to come to an end on these servers if this mod as a whole wants any credibility left or wants to attract any new players.

[Peeta]

I've played on FCV a lot during the late evening US hours and have not witnessed this.

[sirfstar]

join one ffs
been like that for ages and will be

[sickem]

You make a good point tiki. In my personal opinion I don't mind the stacking. Look at it as a challenge and I find that fun but then again that's just me. I get what you are saying though.