Team Stacking - good or bad?

[TomUjain]

Having been with the community since Black Dawn no body cares more about the wellbeing of the community than me. Ren-X has made amazing strides in recent patches -- but one thing I have noticed that crops up, again and again is this:

Team stacking.

A problem that has plagued Ren-X since its inception; and continues to do so to this day. Although servers auto-balance teams at start, typically the team you are assigned to is the team you stick with throughout each game session (unless a large chunk of players leave) this can work well -- but if seasoned players all happen to end up on one team, then we have a problem and this is not uncommon.

To summarize, 'team stacking' tends to fall into the below catogries

• After Pugs - where several players will use discord and all stack to one team, resulting in very structured and planned rushes often resulting in games ending very quickly.
• Seasoned / exerienced players stacking to one team; often by chance

With a recent flux in new players recently, i've noticed a big gap between 'exerienced' and 'new' players with teams consisting of 75% new players, vs a team of 75% exerienced players, with several months / years of playing exerience. It does not take a rocket scentist to see how having a team of mostly new players will pan out vs a team with more veteran players.

My issue, however is not with the stacking; it is the lack of scramping between matches; instead when a team is steamrolled the 'server' will simply reasign the same players to the same teams -- only for that team to be steam rolled again and again. That is my issue, and that is the dilema I and several others have found themselfs in. This chain is only broken when a large chunk of players leave, or are replaced. I have been told that servers do indeed randomize players, if that is the case it is not done correctly as I have been on both sides of the 'win' / 'loose' loop, and I can confirm that many of the players end up on my team again the next session.

It is incredibly fustrating and feels cheap, to be stuck in a 'losing loop' over and over and only serves to dilute a healthy server faster. No body wants to be in a game that ends within 5 mins; regardless if you win or lose. It sends the wrong message to new players, and leads to stress, not fun. The result? People spam requesting to switch teams every session; or simply 'rage quitting' leaving the losing team with less players. A common argument I hear regarding this is to 'play as a team' -- which (as I am sure you know) does not always pan well, more so if you are stuck with a team who struggles to compile rushes or tactics.

How to fix this?

A simple feature to "randomize" teams every session to ensure teams are mixed at the start of every session, that is all it takes. When I say 'randomize' I mean a proper randomize of both teams, yes this has a chance of creating another stacked team (by chance) but the alternative, leaving things as they are, I feel will only do more damage.

The common argument I hear is that allowing teams to stay the same allows friends to be together during matches , which I totally understand. However I feel that for the overall health and wellbeing of the community it is a poor argument, considering what this system leads to, as detailed above. This isn't me talking rubbish, this issue is well documented within the community and a common complaint in game and out of game.

 

Would like to hear what you guys think about this.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 12, 2018 by TomUjain

[isupreme]

I would like to see true randomize of teams after each match.  

Thank you for clearly stating the issues.       Is allowing buds to play on the same team more important than fairness  and balance when the next game starts?    I do not think so.    I have always appreciated the fact that as each game starts all players start at the same level.    When teams are significantly unbalanced game after game   - this Essential Quality of Renegade is lost.

[Canucck]

Make a bot that moves players in Discord to the right team channel, like Blazer's TS regulator, and you might get somewhere. Until then friends will continue to prefer playing with friends, especially when they're the only few on discord out of 60 people

 

Breaking up friends isn't the way to keep the game healthy, you want to encourage more people to be on discord and hanging out with each other

[Syntharn]

I may be wrong here, but from my understanding the teams are made based on the order of which players connect.
whatever the randomiser does doesn't wait for all the players to connect to the new match, it just makes sure the teams are even in numbers.
Even if it did wait for all players to connect before it balanced teams, there are no stats other than the leaderboard for any sort of MM to work with.
i dont even use the leaderboard myself, because i think steam is bloatware.

[TomUjain]

1 hour ago, Canucck said:

Make a bot that moves players in Discord to the right team channel, like Blazer's TS regulator, and you might get somewhere. Until then friends will continue to prefer playing with friends, especially when they're the only few on discord out of 60 people

 

Breaking up friends isn't the way to keep the game healthy, you want to encourage more people to be on discord and hanging out with each other

I am inclined to agree, if we were holding a gun to their head and forcing them onto different teams, I agree that approch is brutal and uncalled for. It is not fair to forcefully break away players who wish to play together, I agree that is not healthy.

However...

Your argument about this being unhealthy is not totally true; team stacking occures when several skilled players all stack to one team - this is NOT healthy for the community or the server, as evidence supports and is well documented. You know where it leads: to one side steamrolls (not always but often) where players are caught in a losing loop, over and over.

A very simple, and easy fix is a proper team scramble each session and this problem will mostly go away. Wanting to go on a killing spree with your friend, may saint your vainty -- but it does no matter of good for the players in the game and the damage is very clear -- seeing servers empty a lot faster when it occures. The data shows that we are getting traffic (players) but are struggling to retain them and the main core for this is always the same: Fustration.

I have been stuck on a 'noob team' (as called in game) but in reailty is just a stacked team; getting steamrolled once is fine, twice maybe -- but over and over, and over, and over, and over where the server constantly reasigns the same players to the same team --just for the sake of buddies playing together only serves to empty a healthy server, and sends the wrong message to new players.

Gameplay should come above vainty and kill streaks. I am not calling for an allout ban on 'friends' playing together, nor am I asking for 'good' players to stop playing -- I am asking for a chance for sessions to be fair.

 

Edited March 13, 2018 by TomUjain

[JoeBrogan7]

I tend to agree that team stacking is overall very bad for the game. I've been unlucky enough to be on the losing end of team-stacked matches quite a few times over the last several months. Best case scenario is the losing team accepts it and does the best they can despite getting steamrolled. Worst case is the server dies because half the players are tired of getting crushed. The focus should be on growing the player base, not frustrating people into quitting.

I don't know what the solution is, other than to not allow team switching at all and randomize the teams each match. I'm not necessarily advocating for that, I just don't know what else would fix the issue. All I know is I tend to leave the server nowadays if I notice teamstacking going on. It's just not worth the frustration. I'd rather do something else with my time.

[winterfox]

I was wondering if the "auto balance" was simply keeping the numbers of players equal on each side. It would maybe be more balanced if the server used player stats from the leaderboard to balance the teams?

[OTT]

Honestly,Seasoned/Skilled/Experienced  players should know of all players the consequences of their actions when they stack together,they've been playing the game enough to know how much it hurts the game and kills the server to stack together and destroy the other team,same goes for good snipers (playing this game for some time now) stacking together while the other team has no answer,and just killing the same people again and again,and make the other team has several players less because of understandable rage quitting of new/less skillful players.

I enjoy a challenge,easy wins,easy kills doesn't intrigue me at all,I work with whatever team I have,try to do together what we can to win the match,have fun doing group rushes or whatever,no matter how much we fail,lose matches,at least we tried,at least we didn't choose the easy path of switching teams,stacking together with other veterans.

If you enjoy the win,you should also accept the defeat.

and no I'm not blaming the experienced/skillful players or anyone,just shedding light on a very important point,

Team stacking has been a thing for as long as I can remember,since I started playing this game,especially during AOW matches,where we could play 4 maps in the space of 15-20 minutes,for the simple reason of 1 team completely destroying the other team right from the start,and then few games later the server is dead.I know a lot have been done since then,like no early donating  --> apc rushing ---> destroying a couple of buildings,and other things  .. but still there are more things that can be done.As an example,we used to hang around on the ts3 server a lot,like 10 or more people,and join the pub games,no matter how the server sets us,people who end up on NOD team join the  NOD channel while people who are on GDI join the GDI channel,and we organized stuff against each other's teams,and when the map ends,we group together again(and yeah I know it could end unfair with like 8 on one team vs 2 on the other but still).

Also for the regulars on discord,when they join the pub server,they could join a voice channel on discord and invite others to it,and continuously invite people on the server ( but not on discord) who are yet to join discord or maybe unaware of that,even if one person joins then that's a very good thing,with time more people will join.It used to work before,it should work now too.

I remember a  certain person  used to do that 3 years ago and it had great results,and a lot of people actually joined the ts3 server for the first time,and are still here now(except on discord right now) 

Edited March 13, 2018 by ObeliskTheTormentor

[Syntharn]

Team balance can't always be trusted to players to handle themselfes (especially when its an ongoing process), for several reasons.
Not everyone knows everyones strenght, players may not notice or even care that there is an inbalance, or they just wanna play in their friends team.
A team that loses a building also often loses a player, or several, a situation in which steamrolling as a concept may begin to apply.
If i feel that I have contributed hard enough to give my team the upper hand it currently has, im not gonna change team even if i notice an inbalance.
Im sure others have felt the same way.

One of two options that doesn't sound completely crazy in my head is a match maker, or a "team maker" if you will.
Implement a team maker system and some sort of player average win/lose/points stat value for it to work with when building teams.
something like the leaderboards (heck il even install steam if so).
It would work best if it had some extra time to gather the players each new match and to structure the teams based on player stats before a match actually starts.

ingame however, players are free to come and go with no string attached during ongoing matches, so the question becomes wether or not the team maker should prioratize player stats over balancing out the number of players in each team.
If Nod have 15 elites with a combined player stat value of 1500, versus GDI with 16 average players with a combiner player stat value of 1000,
do the team maker put the next connecting player in the gdi team or not? it kinda has to I think.
if no new players connect at all it won't matter though.

There's also the possiblity of having a pre-game lobby of some sort, allowing players to customize suggested teams themselfes as long as the player values don't lean too much towards one team, with a player vote of approval to start the match.
A team maker isn't even required for that if the players are responsible enough and somewhat aware of eachothers skill levels and areas of expertize.

And then there's the crazy ideas like adding weird incentives to encourage players to actually change to a losing team.
Something like being given a free veterancy level, a big wad of credits and a shiny light tank when changing to a team with -2 buildings.

Edited March 14, 2018 by Syntharn
cus i dont have perfect grammar and i like beer.

[Fffreak9999]

2 hours ago, Syntharn said:

If Nod have 15 elites with a combined player stat value of 1500, versus GDI with 16 average players with a combiner player stat value of 1000,
do the team maker put the next connecting player in the gdi team or not? it kinda has to I think.
if no new players connect at all it won't matter though.

Except what you fail to take into account with this is the fact that numbers DO matter, 17 people to 15 may mean that while in a rough 5/5/5 split for Aggressive, Defensive and Field Support, a 2 player addition to any of the groups, would be a massive swing in their favor. 7 Medium skill tank players vs 5 High skill tankers, numbers make a massive difference. (Bare in mind this is just an example) but this is something you need to take into consideration.

[Madkill40]

On 12/03/2018 at 1:45 AM, TomUjain said:

The common argument I hear is that allowing teams to stay the same allows friends to be together during matches , which I totally understand.

Most experienced players are 'friends' with each other in some capacity, so this argument is as valid as a scrotum scratch at a funeral.

In-regards to the team balancing bus of a topic, imma just throw @Agentunder it... Any news on de auto-balance for GDI and Nod teams on servers?

Edited March 14, 2018 by Madkill40

[TomUjain]

although I like the idea of a ranking system to try and tackle the issue; it has a lot of room for abuse aka - name changing / ip masking / not using steam. It is well documented players (such as Poi or Jeff) use several names to mask who they are. It also requires a bit of dev time, for something that may not be as effective as it sounds on paper.

I stand by my simple randomizer idea; it isn't the grand solution, but is a huge step in the right direction and does not require a huge amount of dev time or modifying code. Yes, the mind can run wild with ways to tackle this issue in a creative manner; but that requires time, bug tests and code. Ultimatly all we need is a simple fix.

to quote a friend of mine:

Too often it results in "people having fun at other people's expense

I have been on a stacked team, on the winning side -- and I understand the argument behind why people find this set up attractive, it is fun (atleast for a time) to feel powerful, and with this thread challenging those foundations, players who are on that side of the coin will become defensive.

Bottom line is this: The future of Ren-X is not sustainable. We are getting traffic, but the traffic is not staying -- regardless of how much advertising, promotion or recommendations you do -- nothing will change this. The current setup is not healthy. People do not play a game to be stressed out or get frustrated, and server admins (dev team) need to understand this because we are losing the community slowly over time.

Honestly? (and this is not a knock on anyone on the staff) I do not think server admins, or the dev team will pay much attention to this issue; or attempt to address it aside from a few posts in this thread, I do not think much else will happen. In truth; I posted this knowing that fact in my gut -- but wanted to see how the community generally felt about the issue, despite not everyone checks the forums I have yet to see someone agree that stacking is healthy.

 

 

Edited March 14, 2018 by TomUjain

[Ryz]

Agree with most of the above. This week I had quite some balanced games (luckily) which were won or lost by a good fight, but I've also seen a lot of games decided by  afks, very bad to zero balance, or many new people overmining and stuff. 

While I tend to 'stack' when playing together with Machete while he is here, since we are in the same room and can see eachothers screen, I don't do this in any other way. Besides I am more a tanker and he is more a 'support' person so I don't think this has much influence on the outcome of the games. I am mentioning it here to avoid being accused later :P.

I think this is different to have 2 or 3 elite snipers on one team (which happens a lot) or 5 ~10 people stacking on Discord compared to 2 or 3 regular players as friends in the same team. The problem is that it's hard to draw a line since these 2 or 3 snipers might as well be friends...

What would really help besides auto scrambling is:
-  Activity check on start of a game (press a button to join) so after a long stalemate one team doesn't start with 5 ~ 10 afks See:

- Simple track record of players by experience so one team doesn't end up with 10 new people compared to the other having 2.. 
- Divide people by a few mechanisms: 
   - assign each team at least one person who mined in the buildings the previous games
  -  assign each team at least one person who repaired during the previous games
   - divide the top (10?) players by score / killing buildings / k/d ratio over both teams
   - What I would also like to see is, but this shouldn't have the priority, that people get scrambled over the teams based on using radio commanders / q-spotting / chat so we don't get one team which doesn't communicate at all (cause 70% of them can't or is on Discord and talking while the others won't know).

I am afraid auto balance can't compensate for people stacking on purpose (by using falls names or whatever), but I at least hope people get more aware of this problem. 

Also I wonder if Nod loses waaay more often on public games lately. I've seen so many games with 5 to 15 people with an SBH and almost no score. A good SBH can make a lot of difference. But persons watching you die and not shooting the mammoth (or whatever vehicle) which needs 3 shots aren't very helpfull. Sometimes I feel people use an SBH more like a 'way of life' then an offensive unit.... Combine that with the fact that Nod needs more teamwork then GDI and it might explain Nod losing more, unless my feeling about this is completly wrong.

Edited March 14, 2018 by Ryz

[Syntharn]

I didn't go into any detail regarding strenght in numbers, but it did pass my mind.
However I know that there are quite a few players who can surpass the average performance of others, veterans that arguably hold the value of 2 newbies.
I can count on a player such as Poi to likely take out more than one person in the field before dying (understatement of the year), just as I can count on players such as Ryz or Slow to hold the defensive line better than anyone else in their mammoths, or myself when it comes to sneaking into a building with a hotty right under their noses.

Im not saying im in favor of encouraging 15 vs 20 matches, but maybe something like 15 vs 17 could be acceptable if one team clearly has superior players.
Without forcing players over to the losing team mid-game, i believe it may be overall beneficial.
Of course the function to freely change to an undermanned team wouldn't work with this,
too many scrubs who dont want to play in a losing team without a barracks or whatever.

im just throwing it out there as a crude suggestion, may very well exist better solutions.
it doesn't account for AFK players or players who use Pseudonyms after all.
Overall im more in favor of having more balanced and longer matches over the freedom of playing with your friends,
the playerbase is small enough for everyone to have friends in both teams anyways, or at least players they have played with several times before.

[swaffelen]

What about this: 

Sort based on points from previous round. All even numbers swap teams. All odd numbers stay on their old team. 

Alternatively, go by KDR or total kills instead of points. Snipers and successful tankers usually have many kills. 

Edited March 15, 2018 by swaffelen

[vnorr]

15 hours ago, Ryz said:

Also I wonder if Nod loses waaay more often on public games lately. I've seen so many games with 5 to 15 people with an SBH and almost no score. A good SBH can make a lot of difference. But persons watching you die and not shooting the mammoth (or whatever vehicle) which needs 3 shots aren't very helpfull. Sometimes I feel people use an SBH more like a 'way of life' then an offensive unit.... Combine that with the fact that Nod needs more teamwork then GDI and it might explain Nod losing more, unless my feeling about this is completly wrong.

This is so annoying to look at in game.. SBH is by far the most useful class for Nod if done right. I love picking those Hotwires of one by one with the silenced sub machine-gun . But as you're saying it seems like some people use it as a hide-and-seek class "if i'm unnoticed all game i win!".

And its hard to tell/inform people how to play, figure that many new players come from games where you're playing a multiplayer game singleplayer.

Maybe some day we could have a Tutorial with the basics

[JoeBrogan7]

20 hours ago, Ryz said:

Also I wonder if Nod loses waaay more often on public games lately. I've seen so many games with 5 to 15 people with an SBH and almost no score. A good SBH can make a lot of difference. But persons watching you die and not shooting the mammoth (or whatever vehicle) which needs 3 shots aren't very helpfull. Sometimes I feel people use an SBH more like a 'way of life' then an offensive unit.... Combine that with the fact that Nod needs more teamwork then GDI and it might explain Nod losing more, unless my feeling about this is completly wrong.

I'd be interested in seeing Nod's win v loss ratio in the AGN server vs the other servers. I feel like Nod wins more often on AGN because of the availability of Tick Tanks, as well as GDI's tendency to buy Titans which are hugely expensive and pretty terrible. I think those two things can have a big effect on the outcome of the typical game.

[NodSaibot]

15 hours ago, ps212 said:

I'd be interested in seeing Nod's win v loss ratio in the AGN server vs the other servers. I feel like Nod wins more often on AGN because of the availability of Tick Tanks, as well as GDI's tendency to buy Titans which are hugely expensive and pretty terrible. I think those two things can have a big effect on the outcome of the typical game.

When I get home I can compare the 2 from my logs, but I can provide anything from this month as I am no longer in the admin channel. And titans are unique... their pro is also their con. The height gives you access to spots which are unusable by other tanks. 

 

In regards to the actual topic, I think it should be called, "why is stacking not against the rules" or something like that. I think it's pretty clear it doesn't help the game and I'm glad you brought it up.

 

[Interval]

Why do you complicate the gameplay? 

Just balance the players in the gaming experience.
http://leaderboard.renegade-x.com/
 

[Fffreak9999]

The leaderboard does not include users who don't use Steam.

[Interval]

The server has its own table.

[Fffreak9999]

It doesn't work like that, its all hosted by Jupiter, not the server.

 

Jupiter is the IRC bot that most of the servers use, to help moderate the servers.

[Interval]

37 minutes ago, Fffreak9999 said:

It doesn't work like that, its all hosted by Jupiter, not the server.

 

Jupiter is the IRC bot that most of the servers use, to help moderate the servers.

and what? use this bot for balansing teams. Nonsteam.

[Fffreak9999]

Any solution should be a part of the game, not an optional download. 

Especially since Jupiter is not the only bot out there that is capable of interfacing on to Renegade X servers. 

[NodSaibot]

On 3/17/2018 at 3:57 PM, Fffreak9999 said:

Any solution should be a part of the game, not an optional download. 

Especially since Jupiter is not the only bot out there that is capable of interfacing on to Renegade X servers. 

However, it is currently the only practical one to use. It is modular though, so if someone really wanted to, they could extend the current features of it.

[Interval]

The best ways - do not do it at all, did I understand you correctly?

We will compose the "Purchase of buildings," instead of correcting existing shortcomings. Make everyone immortal and you will have a balance.

Edited March 19, 2018 by Interval