Is There A Better Way To Autobalance

[javadog]

I still feel the auto balance thing in BF2 is broken. Wondering if any of you have given it any thought as to how to best 'fix' the way it’s handled.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate the fact that with the patches the change was made that commanders and squad leaders don’t get team switched, HOWEVER, that doesn’t change the fact that all of us have at some point been in a great squad, with a cohesive team, gotten killed, and switched to the other side....

imo this is just UNACCEPTABLE.

Here is what I was thinking, see what you all think

Auto balance takes individuals in the following order:

1) lone wolf with lowest score first, working up to highest score lone wolf (I say lowest to highest, because chances are, the low scores are people who JUST joined and have no vested interest in the side they are on at that particular moment)

2.) If there are no lone wolfs (which imo just is prob never going to happen) then move into the squads again, taking the low scorer and working up to the high scorer in squads until the team is balanced. This could be further filtered by taking the squad with the lowest formation time (newest squad formed) then working up to the most 'mature' squad.

I think this would solve the issue of having good squads get broken up, and I don’t see it having any real adverse affects on over all game play.

Thoughts?

-java

[DanneDA]

Re: Is There A Better Way To Autobalance

Good ideas!
Additionally I'd add that the lowest scoring squad would go first before going after the higher scored squads. If you have a good teamplay you will most likely get big scores.

[PHPT]

Re: Is There A Better Way To Autobalance

Just do team shuffling at the end of the round, the way ET does it: Take the entire scoreboard, put #1, #3, #5, #7, etc. on team 1, put #2, #4, #6, #8, etc. on team 2.

Always produced the fairest team matchup, by far. Too bad 90% of servers would never do something like that, since it would prevent them from stacking 12 of their clan members on the same team. :P

[[MyIS]Spetsnaz]

Re: Is There A Better Way To Autobalance

Thoughts?

Some good points, though I think we can all agree score does not dictate usefulness.

A feasible alternative would be to take players by the amount of time they have spent in a server. Since BF2 global stats keep track of the time someone has spent playing BF2, I'm sure they keep track of how long someone has spent in a particular server via some environment variable of some sort -- which probably gets a reset when the round ends and that player is no longer ingame.

[BigPig_PW69]

Re: Is There A Better Way To Autobalance

Most servers automatically select lone wolves over squad members anyway for autobalance!!
IMHO a real problem with autobalance is the server only equals the number of players per side, not the levels of player ability/ranks.
For instance:-
Team 1 has mostly new or low rank players
Team 2 has mostly clan members (playing cohesively) and highly ranked good players

Team 2 is gonna win every round!

[javadog]

Re: Is There A Better Way To Autobalance

thank you, and i think i did address the low squad idea with taking the filter further and taking the least mature squad first, working to the most mature squad..

same basic idea, but not based on points, based on time of creation

-java

[vbl]

Re: Is There A Better Way To Autobalance

It should start from the lowest scores and go up - you're right.

[BasherTarr]

Re: Is There A Better Way To Autobalance

Yeah, it's pointless to be switched when you on the best squad in the team when there are 12 "Unassigned" people runing around in their little buggys running people over. I agree 100% with Java.

[Batausu]

Re: Is There A Better Way To Autobalance

If you ask me, any team change during the round is going to upset the person getting switched. No matter the score, fighting along side with a team and then having to kill them, has always made me just leave the server.
Why not dispatch only newcomers to the loosing team?

[redrider]

Re: Is There A Better Way To Autobalance

I think that whatever is done it should be done when the game begins and not at any other time. Say during the first minute. I would be willing to play short handed for part of a round in order to be able to remain on the same team for a complete round, every round, I think most people would. Then all you would have to do is add the new players to the short team as they come along. If none come along make adjustments at the begining of the next round, using the current system. I feel this would require the least amount of new code, and be acceptable by EA. . . . . . Red

[Batausu]

Re: Is There A Better Way To Autobalance

I think that whatever is done it should be done when the game begins and not at any other time. Say during the first minute. I would be willing to play short handed for part of a round in order to be able to remain on the same team for a complete round, every round, I think most people would. Then all you would have to do is add the new players to the short team as they come along. If none come along make adjustments at the begining of the next round, using the current system. I feel this would require the least amount of new code, and be acceptable by EA. . . . . . Red

I agree.

[javadog]

Re: Is There A Better Way To Autobalance

trying to keep this thread alive, anyone else have suggestions to the autobalance issue?

i would LOVE to hear from EA/DICE on this....any of you out there care to comment??

-java