29 replies to this topic

[PigmonkeY]

I've been having a lot of fun playing Hawken over the last few hours!   The only really glaring omission I see is some kind of auto balance.  I watch the team stacks get up to 3v6, etc.  People either don't/can't change teams or just keep joining in on the more full team and refusing to even teams up.  

Is this already in there and I'm just not seeing it_

[Rooslin]

currently as far as i know you cant switch teams and joining the game you cant join the team with 5 players if the other team has 2 so i think what your experiencing is players leaving in the middle of the match leaving your team handicapped and since there is no team switch function it ends up being an imba match

[PigmonkeY]

Yeah, seems to be, just played 3 games in a row, people quit after they get killed 3 times and the game ends up 2 to 6.  This happened to me three times in a row.  Kind of sucks the fun out of it.

[MistaLemur]

It's highly frustrating to be slightly behind in a game, and then your team starts to ragequit. It kind of snowballs and it gets so severe that even up to 80% of a team can end up leaving in this manner. It ruins the game and it's giving newbies a really really bad impression of the game.

I was hoping that the developers would add autobalance and custom lobbies by the time CBT2 went up, but I guess not...

[DarkPulse]

Auto-balance has its own problems. In UT3 when this happened, it would almost always switch one of the leading players, who would then swap out to spectator mode because they did not want to be sunk with a loss - making the auto-balance moot.

I would say what would be better would be for the game to keep track of how the players are doing in terms of XP, and then shuffle the teams accordingly to get as even a balance of XP as possible on both sides - but it only does that kind of balancing in the intermission between matches (i.e; when it loads the next map).

Of course, if one side all ragequit, that's a bit harder...

Edited by DarkPulse, November 09 2012 - 01:39 PM.

[Immie]

Yeah, auto-balance can be quite annoying if it's not done very well... Story time:

The game: Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, also on the Unreal Engine, with its auto balance just recently implemented. My team was doing very well, so after 2 rounds, it swapped me. Alright, cool, I continue playing until my new team is in the lead, when it promptly swapped me again. Ok... So I keep going until the original team only needs one more round to win, when it switches me a third freaking time, right back to the weaker team so I can finally lose. As you can imagine, I was downright pissed off.

Another possible folly of auto balancing is when exactly the game chooses to switch you. I was playing TF2 just recently, and the auto balancer thought it to be a good time to swap me not just while I was alive, not just while I was on a decent kill streak(which it cut short), but right smack in the middle of an intense duel for a control point.


Basically, stacked teams are bad, but an over-zealous balance system is also bad.

Edited by Immie, November 09 2012 - 05:24 PM.

[BeefC4ke]

I don't really care for auto balance but I really want to see the ability to switch teams when the team you're on has too many people. I was in a game earlier today with someone from adhesive where this problem occurred so I assume it's on their list of things to do.

[Nitris]

Like I said in my thread here on Team switching midgame:

Quote

I would be really against this kind of [auto] team [switch] thing happening mid match. It is infuriating to be shoved onto the team you were just beating, after all your hard work.
The simple fact is, one team has to win, and the other has to lose.

However, I still want to be given the choice to switch if the game is unbalanced. Just don't force people into it.
I am one of those that will swap to spectate, or just straight up leave the match. I end up not wanting to play the game anymore and I know I'm not the only one that feels this way.

Needless to say having people not wanting to play your game is a bad thing.

On the flip side of this, of course, is what about the players who had left the team to make auto switch happen in the first place_ Clearly they didn't want to carry on playing your game. I think this needs to be looked at as well. (Though really, it is mainly gamer rage, and butthurt at being outclassed, which the match maker should help avoid...)

[D3thpool]

Autobalance is problematic in most Games afaik.
A better Solution would be to make joinable Matches Tier-based, like Matches for 1-5 Level Mechs etc.

[Lithium03]

Have they disabled the SwitchTeam command since...whenever it last worked_

[c0mad0r]

Lithium03, on November 09 2012 - 09:32 PM, said:

Have they disabled the SwitchTeam command since...whenever it last worked_

Yes, no console abilities to do such now.

[Aelieth]

I just want to see very well matched games if this game is going to be based on levels for your mechs, and putting points into parts. The game seems to be trying to be a mix between a ranked / leveled game and a FPS. A pure FPS probably won't have levels, but throwing in bonuses for levels makes it unbalanced - especially when the players also have skill and experience as well. Need to sort them out, else you end up with a slaughter fest which isn't fun for either side.

[EmFire]

I've experienced far too many matches with imbalanced teams. Several matches where team X was atleast +2 players over team Y, in which an autobalance or gracious live team-switch from team X could occur to alleviate the frustration.

This game requires autobalance and/or manual team switch function during matches. Switch Function could only be allowed for the team with more numerous players to move to the deficient team. If autobalance is implemented, then the selection could be entirely random. The game could also make sure to do a balance check at the beginning and end of every match, to make up for drops. Having a visual warning to the player that an autobalance is about to occur or that that specific player will be switched would be nice.

Edited by EmFire, November 10 2012 - 10:53 PM.

[Juodvarnis]

I played siege 3vs5 and still won


Anyway,  yeah it really needs Auto-balance, even though i hate winning for one team and get thrown to the other team and lose

[Ant_Monster]

PigmonkeY, on November 09 2012 - 07:54 AM, said:

I've been having a lot of fun playing Hawken over the last few hours!   The only really glaring omission I see is some kind of auto balance.  I watch the team stacks get up to 3v6, etc.  People either don't/can't change teams or just keep joining in on the more full team and refusing to even teams up.  

Is this already in there and I'm just not seeing it_

Agreed. I noticed this once and tried to see if I was able to switch teams. There's no suicide button so we can switch teams. But yeah, this is definitely needed.

[Beemann]

I hate autobalance. Too many instances of it swapping me from a team I carried to the team I just secured victory against in other games
If there's a discrepancy mid-match, and nobody's willing or able to switch, there's always the next round
I'd love for a way to quickly and conveniently switch teams though
I take no issue with the prospect of killing former allies

[PigmonkeY]

Yeah, there's always next round, but what fun is it when you're 5 minutes into the match, and you have to slog around for 15 minutes with one other person, while the other team of 5 or 6 people hunts you down_

[D3thpool]

PigmonkeY, on November 11 2012 - 08:31 AM, said:

Yeah, there's always next round, but what fun is it when you're 5 minutes into the match, and you have to slog around for 15 minutes with one other person, while the other team of 5 or 6 people hunts you down_

totally agreed on that.
needs to be some kind of mixup with the teams, its just not fun anymore if this happens (and it happened 6 times for me today)

what grinds my gears mostly about the autobalance is getting into a match with atleast 2 enemys that have max level mechs & mop the floor with low level players.

[Crabbit]

Autobalance or team switching is a must mid match. This should be implemented asap. I've seen way too many people leave mid match or join and leave because the teams are heavily stacked or they are discouraged because it is 5 v 1. This is not going to attract newcomers to the game, especially if senior people can not switch teams to help them out.

[Beemann]

PigmonkeY, on November 11 2012 - 08:31 AM, said:

Yeah, there's always next round, but what fun is it when you're 5 minutes into the match, and you have to slog around for 15 minutes with one other person, while the other team of 5 or 6 people hunts you down_

You mean like how it's not fun to secure victory for your team and then get swapped to the other team_
Again, no issue with mid-match swapping. Sometimes Asian and I see a team we'd prefer to help, but we can't swap sides
Autobalance is pants though. Why should my fun be sacrificed because some people on the other team couldn't handle losing_

Edited by Beemann, November 11 2012 - 03:30 PM.