About balance.... again...

[Ryz]

Yes... me again about the same subject I've been complaining about for years... Why? Cause thousands and thousands of voluntarely hours have been invested in a game that really looks nice and plays well. Every new patch we draw in fresh players and longtime Renegade-x lovers who return to check the new features and are enthousiastic about the new contents the devs have introduced... Sounds good right?

Every new patch we also lose the majority of these people quickly.... I know I am saying something which has been stated many, many, many, many times, but since no action has been taken I am doing it again also because I know a large group of the players feels like this. And yes I realize implementing balance changes takes time... But if you don't invest it, all other time invested will also be for nothing in the end. Cause in the end the game we love will not be there if it keeps scaring new people away cause a combinations of balancing issues and behaviour...

TL:DR
Without spending a fair amount of work on balancing features and a common sense by the community itself EVERY minute spent on new content will be for a small group that will never grow. Thousands of hours work for great content with a small reach...

In detail.
The main issues basicaly leads back to ONE problem:
No auto balancer (or whatever you call it)

That wouldn't be a problem if teams get randomly arranged and people stick to that team (or switch side and reconnect get disabled). You might win some, you might lose some, but in reality people switch and this tends to cause a snowball effect. 

Who tend to switch?
1) People who don't like Nod / GDI ( a few)
2) People who don't like competition / be part of a less good team. In short it turns out usually the majority of snipers move to one team...
3) Long term players who play with friends... Usually also good players
4) Players who know which side is stronger and like to join this team (a couple of players each game)
5) Players who know which side a map favours...
6) And sometimes ppl who don't like bar / hon or whatever building is down.... 

While the other team likely has they afks and the new players. This leads to the team with the bigger chance to win becoming even stronger... And it leads to games where the outcome is almost decided before it even started... 

Only this night I've seen 4 games where one team was locked in base and NEVER left the base for more then one minute... I spent at least one hour getting spawnkilled or killed in front of base while being on Nod on Reservoir and after it on Eyes... After this I suddenly was with most of the good teamplayers and 4 or 5 very good snipers. We locked GDI in base on Field within less then two minutes. If I don't count Reservoir (hard to destroy harv there) I've seen the losing team get 1(!) Harv in over one and a half hour of various games... Not to mention Nod won this Field game without any struggle (and if you ask me without any fun for both sides, but with LOADS of people leaving the game...).

Yesterday the same happened. Nomatter if it's about GDI vs Nod... Or Nod vs Nod... The faction isn't the problem, they vast majority of good players on one team is...

Now imagine there are the new players... Well you don't need to imagine. I've tested this by introducing new players to the game...

What did they do...?
Most reported that they were getting roflstomped and basesniped and never returned.. A few tried one or two more games on another day, but with all the people I've introduced ( even those who played the original Renegade) the outcome was basically that they said games were so unbalanced that it was unplayable. It is apperantly very hard to find a game which isn't either a super easy win or super har loss. The only time they touched the game again was to delete it...

Why am I saying this is not only about the game but also about behaviour? We've had a lot of discussion about 'playing with friends,'  'stacking or whatever you want to call it.' 

I am affraid we cannot change the behaviour of good snipers cause most seam to prefer joining the same team instead of having competition. What we can adress is ''playing with friends' cause this even more amplifies the problem. Even some developers with good skills always teamup. That wouldn't be a problem if there is competition on the other side, but sadly this is not always the case. I am asking everyone not to start blaming people in person (nomatter dev, sniper, or regular player) but just to consider (for yourself) how you can help with the balance and keep playing this game. With friends, maybe on the other faction... But better then soon with friends vs bots...

Also I clearly hope that someone will finally look into balancing teams. I realize this takes a lot of work. But just imagine spending thousands and thousands of hours more (with the dev team) to add more content that will likely not see a big audience... Instead of that a few hundreds (I am only guessing) hours of work to balance seams like a well worth investment. Also maybe let us know how the community can help.... 

Untill then, switch more to stack the less stacked team, play with friends on different factions & teamup with your snipers AGAINST eachother...
 

 

Edited May 27, 2020 by Ryz

[Snow.]

today Im not in mood to ad a long text, but most of the points I can agree with.

I want to add:

we have some players who are nearly on each map change AFK, from my point of view disbalance this the teams too. some important things are decided in the first few minutes, e.g. who destroys/saves harvy and pushs the other team in defence position. one suggestion I can remember to stop this (I think it was also vom Ryz), players must press a "ready for match" or something like that.

A other problem are the team switchers, even during a running game people switch, I can understand that, who wants to loose? but these people should be punished for example with loosing all the money and veterancy-rank. But please dont punish player who switch to balance teams.

[Fffreak9999]

We will be pushing for AFK kicking to resume automatically soon, we have only been lenient on it so far due to the issues we have been having with our DDoS protection. 

Expect to see aggressive AFK kicking in place within the next week on the official servers.

[scrin-124678]

2 hours ago, Ryz said:

Who tend to switch?
1) People who don't like Nod / GDI ( a few)
2) People who don't like competition / be part of a less good team. In short it turns out usually the majority of snipers move to one team...
3) Long term players who play with friends... Usually also good players
4) Players who know which side is stronger and like to join this team (a couple of players each game)
5) Players who know which side a map favours...
6) And sometimes ppl who don't like bar / hon or whatever building is down....

7) Players that use steam and dont want to have bad stats like matches lost or how many times they died.

So they just move to the team full of pro snipers.

stats w****s ...

[Xtractor]

Id never switch a team ..Playing for fun only ..Join often a team in a losing state (buildings destroyed ) idcare I play for fun !  well thats me

[Ryz]

10 hours ago, Snow said:

today Im not in mood to ad a long text, but most of the points I can agree with.

I want to add:

we have some players who are nearly on each map change AFK, from my point of view disbalance this the teams too. some important things are decided in the first few minutes, e.g. who destroys/saves harvy and pushs the other team in defence position. one suggestion I can remember to stop this (I think it was also vom Ryz), players must press a "ready for match" or something like that.

A other problem are the team switchers, even during a running game people switch, I can understand that, who wants to loose? but these people should be punished for example with loosing all the money and veterancy-rank. But please dont punish player who switch to balance teams.

I forgot this in my list but will add it. Cause (as I stated in different topics) people tend to move to one team leaving the other team (usually) with the afks. I even see people kick afks from the opposite team so they can join it. This definatly changes the favour for one team even more. 

[dtdesign]

Ryz already did a great job of laying out the issue, so I'll just try to add another perspective on this matter.

I was in that Field game yesterday and I was on GDI, with all the merits of getting roflstomped and baselocked. After some time (could be 10 mins or such) I was so annoyed that I asked myself if I really wanted to keep playing or not. I left the game, because I didn't feel running against a wall for an eternity until Nod finally puts an end to this. I play to have fun and I don't really mind losing a game, but as a player, I need a perspective. Winning must be something I can achieve in some way: Sneaking in solo, being part of a rush, repping hotwire/tech or even (as of lately) volunteering as a commander to get things organized. It's frustrating to experience that you lose, because there was nothing one could do. The outcome of that game was set in stone by factors that I as a player did not control or could even influence.

During prematch I hit tab and looked at the scoreboard and I immediately saw a huge stack of high profile players all placed in Nod. They did not switch or anything, the game just put them there. And I'm strictly not talking about poi like headshot machines, but instead a lot of players that have proben to be strong teamplayers. GDI was no match and pretty much everyone knew it.

So, the match started and Field is notorious hard to even get enough players to defend the own harvester, let alone getting them to attack the opposing one. Our harvester died before reaching the tib field, getting hit from 3 or 4 rocket launchers from different vectors. I mean, even getting 2 players to pick a rocket launcher at start is like an achievement of its own and then this. We somehow managed to get Nod's harvester too, but I wasn't sure if it just exploded by itself as an act of solidarity, because it knew what was coming.

We absolutely need some enforced team balancing, that tries to level the playing field on a team level. These stacked matches are killing of this game, steamrolling a team might be fun at times, but if it gets the norm, it's just boring. There's no challenge, it's just point whoring on one side and getting slaughtered on the other. We should aim for games that go back and forth.

There will always be onesided games and no auto balancing can solve this, but it will prevent these things from becoming the norm. The average game needs to be balanced, outliers are perfectly fine. Please, DO SOMETHING AND DO IT SOON!

[MammothMKII]

Yup, totally agree Ryz, and yesterday I experienced that firsthand on a Lakeside game I was commanding on GDI. All the new players were on GDI and we were just getting spawn-sniped and locked in base. We did try every single rush/strategy/teamwork possible on lakeside to no avail, as dtdesign mentioned, there was no prospect of winning. Every rush was getting slaughtered, and the game ending was more of a relief (and you know there's a problem when you're just happy the game ended).

Some suggestions:

1-  Press to start ( as suggested by Snow) to avoid AFKs in the beginning of the game (where one team will have more AFKs than the other)

2-  Until autobalancing can be properly implemented, implement manual moderator balancing at peak times. I know this means a person needs to manually do that, but I think this only needs to be done at peak times.

3- In my opinion, this issue is URGENT, we're losing prospective players just so a select few can get their fun, and between this and the DDOS, it can get very frustrating for someone who wants to get into the game, which hinders the growth of this community

[Havoc89]

Totally understandable.

It is very difficult to handle auto balancing when players keep playing with different names. We've been discussing enforcing account registration for this purpose. Right now stats are either tracked to steam accounts or if no steam account then the player name. So all someone needs to do to circumvent using their account is to play without steam. Enforcing accounts alone would not be enough as it is easy to make alternate accounts as well. This is an area where a bit more foresight is needed.

There is a far bigger problem which is the core mechanics of the game. In order to "fix" that, Renegade X would need to detach from OG Ren even further and change the fundamentals of the game. At that point this would be an entirely different game. A change like that at this point is too late to do. By no means was OG Ren designed well, and a lot of those issues are inherited in Renegade X due to the nature of the project being a remake at it's core. Yes things play differently but only really on the surface level. At it's core its very much the exact same as OG Ren, and that's the part that would need to be changed in order to address a lot of these issues. The question to ask at that point is, does it make sense to do that or to do something new.

I dont believe it makes sense to change the core mechanics of the game to fix the fundamental issue. Better ramp up for new players and better auto balancer will definitely help to elevate some of the issues and concerns.

 

Edit:
My info is out of date interms of balancing. 

[Ryz]

Thanks for the reply Havoc.

I can't judge about 'Old Renegade' recently because I havent played it in years but from my perspective old Renegade had more balanced games. Sometimes they were too balanced and Field / Under (to name a few maps) could last a day or more. I remember returning to a game after sleeping to basically encounter the same situation as twelve hours before but just with other players (and some diehards still there). For me, but this is also a personal opinion, it is good that things like VP (also later introduced in OG Ren by mods) and commander powers got introduced. I don't might losing Under after 1 hour back and forth and even a base lock is fine as long as teams are sort of balanced... 24 hours Under, no thanks!

On OG Ren you could find multiple servers and change if a game didn't suite you. On Renegade-x this is rare. The catch22 is that the playerbase doesn't grow cause games aren't balanced. Because of this people cannot move to another server (were games are balanced) and you have a vicious circle. 

I am not the expert in this matter but I think something like HWID could be used for the balancing unless somebody finds a way to reset this. Even then the majority of the players wouldn't reset it so this can still balance teams out for quite a bit. If people, like the well known smurfs, still ignore any balance measures they can usually be easily tracked and warned for this.

By speaking out and confronting people about their behaviour and maybe go as far as a warning or ban as a last resort you could use force a culture change. 

Is there any way we (the community) can help out with looking options for a registration system or balancing method used in other games? Who know's if this is freely re-usable. 

Edited May 27, 2020 by Ryz

[Syntharn]

after 2 hours and 3 cups of tea, reading and pondering upon this i've come up with this piece of constructive realization.

The MMR only does something when a new match starts.
We kick AFK people AFTER a match has started, also some players are prone to leave at the start of a new match by themselfes.

I think this with the idea of hitting "ready to play" in order to join can be used to improve the MMRs effect somewhat at least, taking players that are about to leave or be kicked out of the equation, even if some of them might come back after the MMR has done its shuffling.

Freak wasn't sure but he said MMR might have an effect on ongoing matches for when a new player joins and both teams are equal in numbers, but would otherwise prioritize equal teams over balancing the MMR.
Even if it would prioritize MMR over equal player numbers it would just open up slots in the overpowered team for a WTJ player to join, so i don't think the MMR system can help much with balancing ongoing matches without drastic measures, such as disabling team switching alltogheter, but even then it might hurt just as much as help since players with good intent cant balance things for the better either.

I remember jokingly pointing out that there should be some kind of incentive to switch to an underpowered team the last time we discussed this topic.
One basic thing is that you should keep your credits, since you likely will need them if you are going to turn a tide and make a difference, instead of dropping to the "starting credits" sum.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Syntharn
hhHblarghH

[Atomsk]

The main issue here, I think, is the relatively small playerbase. 
A busy match has 64 players, so your pool of players will always at risk of being slightly or heavily skewed towards a certain team. Especially with regulars or returning regulars. In old Renegade, I usually played on a few regular servers on which my latency wasn't horrible. If I didn't like a certain match, I could switch.

Then again, there have been plenty of games in which I was on the losing side, but the team pulled together and tipped the scales. The reason I love RenX is that there's a myriad of tools to go apeshit on your enemies. I should post that one rocket rush that killed the server on Under of a while ago for reference  

Also, you win some, you lose some. Sometimes it's really just poor teamplay. I've seen a fair amount of low-population matches where getting the enemy's harv at the start of match is apparently enough to have people leave the game in despair. 

I do see merit to find a way to kick AFK's at the start of match. I've been guilty of being AFK the last few days. I'm on standby at work and sometimes have to get on a call quickly. I'd rather have the system remove me if I can't get back to my desk quickly. 

I'm iffy on having moderators or bans to enforce balance. Who will decide on what is balanced and what is not? That is entirely subjective and in a playerbase so small, this will only lead to further discontent and abuse. We often have much poorer judgement than we'd like to give ourselves credit for
 

 

Edited May 27, 2020 by Atomsk

[TheOlsenTwins]

After reading this thread and every opinion on it, the main message for me is:
People hate getting spawnkilled and sniped right in their base.
I also quit games like this, whereas i keep playing in games where i know i will lose, but where i can still achieve something. (because i dont get killed in seconds anytime I leave cover)
Especially when playing as GDI, playing baselocked against strong snipers is just not fun. (as NOD I can at least try to ambush them)

For me the obivous solution is: nerf the snipers, as they are far to powerful in comparison to other units. And you can't tell me that they have to be that strong to suppress repairs, I have played lots of games without snipers, where the repairguys were killed anyway.

Different possibilites to achieve this: (choose one or all of them)

• Remove strong sidearm (only let them keep silent pistol)
• Disallow scoping while moving.
• Less damage
• Better visibility where the sniper shot from
• More sniper reload time

Edited May 28, 2020 by TheOlsenTwins

[Tytonium]

2 hours ago, Havoc89 said:

It is very difficult to handle auto balancing when players keep playing with different names. We've been discussing enforcing account registration for this purpose. Right now stats are either tracked to steam accounts or if no steam account then the player name. So all someone needs to do to circumvent using their account is to play without steam. Enforcing accounts alone would not be enough as it is easy to make alternate accounts as well. This is an area where a bit more foresight is needed.

I say go for it. For the good of the community force accounts. There is only about 3-4 people that I think would create alternate accounts to be anonymous, but I mean they always upset the balance of matches no matter what name they take. If the majority of players use an account, then the majority of the teams will be balanced, with just a few outliers. Maybe some incentive to stay on one account can be given to players if using smurfs is a big concern for you guys. Maybe some crappy lil cosmetic changes that can be unlocked for playing enough. Not that I am calling for this game to become another hat simulator, but maybe like a badge that your infantry wears that indicates some form of rank for playing long enough. Just small things like that, maybe even some different vehicle horn sounds for players. A bunch of possibilities open themselves up if every player has an account. Don't just use it for stat tracking as that would be a waste.

[Quinc3y]

Some good points made, Ryz. Obviously, skill balance between teams is an important factor, especially infantry balance. Infantry balance is the first thing we look at in PUGs when we manually balance the teams. The infantry players who keep on stacking teams on public servers are largely responsible for the poor gameplay experience for everybody, and we all know who those people are.

At the same time, it's important to keep in mind what Havoc said about core mechanics. The game has plenty of snowball factors: veterancy, economy, and map design (choke points) are the main three. They make comebacks / getting out of base very difficult - and then there's the skill difference. Those who play in PUGs know that one-sided games can happen even if the teams are balanced skill-wise. Sometimes we have Team 1 roflstomp Team 2 in 10 minutes, only to get roflstomped back on the next map. So from that perspective, a team balancer would of course help but I don't think it would be as revolutionary as some people think, because the core design of C&C Ren / Ren X unfortunately plays a big role in this issue.

[Tommy]

Personally I'd say just enforce steam on listed servers. Would probably be a faster solution than creating a new account system for the game specifically

[kira]

Ryz got a point, 
you might not focusing the big issue but rather tiny cosmetic changes.

please reconsider adding team balance features as high priority. 

[Enigmas]

Hm, so I would agree with a few of the points made here. I was on the Field match from yesterday mentioned above and no, getting locked in your base is not fun. And if no other moves are being made, it's not particularly fun locking a team in their base either.  I tend to defend, repair, capture silos and sneak for my enjoyment in the game so I can usually find fun even in these kind of matches, but I know plenty of people are ready to throw in the towel the moment we lose the HoN/Bar or Weps/Air.

When people leave the match and we have a team discrepancy of 2 or more players, I do think there should be some kind of auto-balance kicking in, I feel that is realistic and doable. On the other side though, say teams are balanced at 25 v 25 and one team is just slaughtering the other. Well, that's part of the game, this is after all a war of attrition game-type, so better organization, better teamwork, better tactics and even dumb-luck will all snowball the match in favor of the side able to do these things best. 

Sometimes, though, it's pretty damn obvious when people are stacking teams, and that sucks, but I honestly don't know how a solution to that would work. Human overseeing the balance of a match does not seem realistic, I think it's really the AFK and unfamiliar players that can weigh an apparently balanced match down. I appreciate the AFK booting system being re-implimented.

Today I was playing a Walls match and kept getting sniped the moment I walked out of a door. Some people are ridiculously good at sniping. Base camping with snipers and tanks is an issue that can really drain the fun out of a match. As to a solution; well I'm not sure about this myself, but consider having a 3 second invincibility after buying something from the console? I'm not sure about this, but it would potentially stop people from rage quitting after buying a 1000 credit unit and getting blown away the moment the door opens. Again, I don't know how I feel about that, but I thought I'd throw it out there. Maybe you could select which building you spawn into.

As to Ryz's other point about the difficulty finding balanced matches driving new people away.. I see that, and it rings true. But this game really shines when you get a great match going and teams are organized on each side, people communicating and working together. I haven't found a game that brings as much satisfaction from being apart of a beautiful and balanced match, and I only wish new players can find matches like those more frequently.

Edited May 28, 2020 by Enigmas

[roweboat]

*warning random thoughts mixed in here lol*

Yes perhaps the core mechanics are a bit flawed (each building holds so much power, this is a huge positive and negative)

Yes players tend to not always follow the "game rules" (instead of trying to destroy enemy base, they'll simply rack up kills and never attempt to enter enemy base)

I don't think these problems can ever be truly resolved, however they can be limited. I agree Steam enforcement would help. Allow mods to balance teams or at minimum random shuffle teams at start. Improve AFK logic. Decrease awarded VP for rapid infantry kills.

 

Heck, even something like helpful EVA messages -

*Weapons Factory Destroyed* 

"EVA: Don't fret! You still have full access to infantry! Get out there, soldier!"

 

And another suggestion, if possible. Back in the day, I enjoyed being able to choose from either Marathon or AOW (Timed matches). As the player base shrunk, really now only Marathon exists.

[random thought, allow building buy back on timed matches?]

I'm wonder as a temporary measure, can Marathon and Timed matches be allowed on the same server? That could help with variety and limit issues. (You're stuck in your base being snipped? well don't worry, the match will end in 10 minutes).

 

I know it's off topic, but I always thought there was something thrilling about timed matches too... trying to do anything to get one more arty shell on a building to get enough points to win as the time ran out... =D

[dtdesign]

I guess the most important point is that we do not need the silver bullet to resolve this issue once and for all. We do not need to constantly balance out teams during a match, let alone any siginificant gameplay changes, which would cause a lot of other issues down the line. Also, I see most players using Steam, even players like poi do use fake names at times, but a `.rank <DudeWithAbsurdKdr>` will reveal the true identity. With a few notable exceptions, the significant majority of the "known" players have a steam logon and thus an associated mmr.

Right now we have a system that places people in teams at random, causing teams to be extremly imbalanced. It's like giving out wet towels to the one team and TARs to the other, you don't need to be a genius to imagine how this one ends.

From my perspective, the cheapest method we can try is to place people ON JOIN based on the mmr:

1. If there is a steam logon w/ MMR:
   1. Even teams: Put the player into the team with the lower total MMR. (Rationale: Balancing by MMR.)
   2. Uneven teams: Put the player into the team with the lower player count.
2. If there is no steam logon or no MMR:
   1. Even teams: Favor the team with the HIGHER mmr. (Rationale: Try to place less experienced players in stronger teams.)
   2. Uneven teams: Put the player into the team with the lower player count.
3. Disallow players from changing teams for the first few minutes of their playtime?

I don't know exactly how the "in flight" players on new maps are handled. Considering that I observed a lot of games with extreme differences (e.g. 10vs16 players) during the prematch phase, I assume that the server counts them in while they are still loading the map.

*IF* the server knows about the majority of players during map start:

1. Distribute players based on their MMR evenly between both teams.
2. Each team gets roughly the same number of "unknown" players (no logon/mmr) at RANDOM.

Yes, this will tear "friends" apart that like to play together. Lets call this a sacrifice to be made in an effort to create more balanced games to keep new players. There appears a constant influx of new players that we need to keep and as the playerbase grows we can start lifting those rules.

For now the rationale should be to take the EASIEST approach that requires the LEAST changes. We do not need a sophisticated or otherwise over engineered solution!  Keep it simple, stupid.

 

PS: I'm sorry, I always try to write short messages and end up with a wall of text. Duh.

[Syntharn]

1 hour ago, TomUjain said:

map design favoring one side

If a map is statisticly tilted in some teams favor, perhaps that can be included into the MMR shuffle process.
Not sure how much of a difference it would make but its a thought.

[Havoc89]

Since the average time for a single round is fairly high, its under stable that some people have to leave mid match. There are also a few very high and very low skilled players in this small community. On top of that role diversity is a very broad scope in C&C mode, so any player of any skill range can end up having varied amounts of contributions in each map depending on how they wish to play that day or that round.

So I guess my question to you guy is, would you guys be okay with not being able to change teams manually and potentially moving over to the losing team mid or even late game? The last time players were prevented from changing teams it was met with a fair amount of frustration, and it will be again if the auto balancer is more aggressive.

You may be the top 5 player on your team who's winning, and suddenly get swap over to the losing team. This is obviously the worse case scenario since you would have had to put a lot of effort into bringing your team to a winning scenario and now you're forced to be on the losing team. But the upside is that in theory teams can be more evenly balanced. Again, worse case scenario. Are you all prepared for such a thing?

I also need to point out that there is a miss conception of what MMR is. It is definitely not a magic number that is 100% representative, but rather an estimation. As mentioned before, because the role diversity is very broad it allows anyone to be in a varying degrees of effectiveness. Some one with a very high MMR can be killing it one game, and the next game be chilling as a repair/defensive player.

So before anyone says that auto balance on start up can solve the team balance. I need you guys to understand why it alone cannot solve the entire problem. Start up balance can provide a decent base. But players changing their play styles can throw it out of sync, and thus a more aggressive mid game MMR would need to be employed. I'm not talking about micro-details but more broad scope macro concept. When it comes to details, everyone will have varying opinions.

So once again, are you guys prepare for such a system where you are not allowed to swap teams as freely as you'd like. And are you prepared for such a system that adapts mid game to reshuffle and re-balance the teams with as little or as many players as the system requires to make things fair?

[Cheesemonk]

I tend to agree with the main post. I think introducing an MMR teambalance is one of the best improvements the game could have right now. (imo the second best improvement would be the city flying map... but that belongs in a different thread.)

I think the rate of people smurfing, looking for workarounds, or generally abusing a rating system would be low, and any attempt to balance teams fairly is going to be more successful then the current random chance method. I have gathered from other posts that the easiest and simplest form of tracking players ranking would probably be to piggy-back it off of their steam accounts rather then implement an entirely new account system for ren-x. If so, I still think it would be worthwhile even though not all players use steam accounts. Teams selected based on half the player's skill being known are still more likely to be balanced then randomly assigning players.

As for the problems of splitting up friends, forcing people to switch sides mid game, and disabling swapping teams for personal reasons; This could easily be solved by making it a vote option.

CheeseMonk has started a vote:

Turn on MMR enforced teams and activate auto-balance (F1) Yes (F2) No

Playing on a small server and want to fix the teams with your friends? no problem. server growing and need to be balanced? just call the vote to turn it on. Server shrinking and people getting pissed off about being swapped to the losing team? vote to turn it off. people complaining about unbalanced teams after turning off auto-balance because they were unhappy they got swapped to the losing team last game? laugh at them.

Everyone wins!

[Syntharn]

I wouldn't be against turning team switching off in conjunction with forcefully moving players in order to balance, far as i see it balancing always was its intended use anyway. I don't know any particular players more so than any other, for those that do maybe this is a big deal.
But being yanked from one side to the other, that will upset some people, especially if you are invested enough into the match to have a top score.

When should it auto balance things if so i wonder, should a match derail before it kicks in or is it enough that its simply 14 vs 16 for a minute or so. New players can join at anytime (or rejoin), just as some few might leave soon as a building dies. I like the idea but some details need to be worked out, would like to discuss the possiblity further.
1 player forcefully being moved is a small price for a neutral and quick balance effort, moving several players consecutively or reshuffling a portion of each team is something else, at some point its better to just restart the map.

Edited May 29, 2020 by Syntharn
its only 04:29 in the morning

[isupreme]

I have always felt the core concept that makes the game great,

  is the feeling that each new game is a fresh and equal opportunity to raise hell.      So go ahead and mix it up.

But dont yank me during the match.   REWARD me for being a good sport when i switch to balance.

 

[Enigmas]

6 hours ago, Cheesemonk said:

As for the problems of splitting up friends, forcing people to switch sides mid game, and disabling swapping teams for personal reasons; This could easily be solved by making it a vote option.

CheeseMonk has started a vote:

Turn on MMR enforced teams and activate auto-balance (F1) Yes (F2) No

 

I like this. Vote to turn auto-balance on or off seems like the best solution.

Edited May 29, 2020 by Enigmas

[Ryz]

Not too sure about switching midgame. Did this yesterday to help balance a team that was baselocked and that team still lost after minutes.
In my initial post I forgot to add an important thing @Havoc89.

The games I mentioned which were super unbalanced were played by a group of 5 or 6 snipers together. They didn't help the winning or losing team but just kept sniping without aiding in the mission (aka destroy the enemy base while defending yours). Their sniping prevent tanks or inf rushes from enemy but didn't aid / help the others team in attacks.  The sole reason some rounds which are super unbalanced take longer is this. These people basically play another game.

Based on the fact 'the average time for a single round is fairly high'  you state that it's understandable people leave midgame. I would tend to agree if people left on both sides. In reality the team getting baselocked and even basekilled has the majority of people leaving.

Switching a high skilled tanker to balance will still not help cause even the best tanker will die if he / she cant repair get repairs or do it himself cause of the snipers.

Yesterday we played Under again and one side was indeed baselocked. The other team had the majority of snipers BUT not as much as the day before. Eventually after a lot of work GDI took field and the game started to become back and forth and, if you ask me, was fun even if we would have lost. You need the feeling you can archieve something.

Now back to these 'super unbalanced games' the day before. These had no perspective from the first minutes. People knew this, kept manually switching to 'winning team' or left. 

Would auto balancing work midgame?
- Only if snipers / people with good aim get swapped and start competing eachother, which we've seen in the past they sometimes won't. In some extreme scenarios they just ignored eachother. In less extreme scenarios they pick a place where they don't have to face eachother. 
- I can forsee another scenario where the winning team gets more tankers / teamplayers (so becomes even stronger) and is able to end the suffering for the other side. But this is not a desired solution.
- Otherwise I fail to see how balancing would work midgame

In the end I think the only options will stay:
- Indeed balance normal players, tankers, repairs, teamplayers, snipers at game start. This will help A LOT. 
- Actively moderate for good snipers / people with good aim to be on both sides (but do the same for other people).
- Maybe allow the 'less fortunate'  team to get a few more players when they join so they have two more
- In the end switch people midgame.

I said at the start of this topic I didn't want to make this topic about a few people. But if you check a ton of previous posts by many people and if I give the balancing some thought I am starting to believe the key also is in moderating these people even though it's sad it has to come this way but I am affraid some people will never change their behaviour unless forced. 

 

 

Edited May 29, 2020 by Ryz

[kira]

4 hours ago, Enigmas said:

I like this. Vote to turn auto-balance on or off seems like the best solution.

same, i would sacrifice my option to switch sides , for a better renegade x matches,   for preventing overpowered team and for the remaining player base and hopefully many more players coming to the player base in the future.

so no more people leave the community because of this feeling of unbalanced teams.

as far as i concern, manual moderation by the moderator base knowledge of the players to equalize teams, would be best. 
so please just lets get over this , so we can look further in the future of renx expension.

 

 

[Calvin]

8 hours ago, Syntharn said:

I wouldn't be against turning team switching off in conjunction with forcefully moving players in order to balance, far as i see it balancing always was its intended use anyway. I don't know any particular players more so than any other, for those that do maybe this is a big deal.
But being yanked from one side to the other, that will upset some people, especially if you are invested enough into the match to have a top score.

this! aslong as the balance happens at the beginning of each match this should work just fine. And just watch for people constantly re-joining to be on another team. Could just make it a rule but i don't know how well that would work out, worth a try certainly 

[dtdesign]

Honestly, I don't know why you people focus so much on balancing the teams while the game is running. This is by far the most disruptive mechanic and can lead to a lot of frustration, without solving any real issues.

Matches are a lot influenced by the early game, early harvester kills are quite important on some maps and immediately give one team or the other the edge. Coupled with the absurd VP reward for killing it, a much stronger team can easily capitalize on the early game advantage and dominate the mid game.

The whole idea was to balance the teams at start and deny players from manually switching in the first few minutes. This way teams have a somewhat equal start and it is up to the individual players to make something out of it. If one team comes up on top: Good, they earned it, they worked for it!

This is the complete opposite of current games where teams are too often so ridiculously stacked on map start that the other team is extremly unlikely to come out on top regardless of what they do.

@Havoc69 MMR is not the perfect metric and has its flaws? Who cares! This isn't about finding the perfect solution for all of life problems, it's simply about trying to find a sufficient way to start with and build upon it. Balancing at start based on MMR should give us enough of an idea of where this is going and if it holds up, without disrupting the game too much.

[testman]

Personally I would be fine with not having freedom to switch teams.

In regards to mid-game switching, one way of compensating players for being moved to losing team would be to give them a lot of whatever counts towards being MVP. I assume that could help with keeping morale up.

This thread reminds me of this GIF:

[Guest]

Not to compare games, but ill compare games.. so i played CoD and while there are loads of gamemodes like domination... uuugh anyway, in modes that killing someone is the main objective you rarely see people go with snipers, since snipers in that game are so balanced that using a regular gun is much more viable. In Renegade picking a sniper is almost a no-brainer - you sit in the back of the map with 6 pixels of your head poking out and pick off every single unit in the game with headshots.. in inf area such as field tunnels, under tunnels is the same thing - sit in the back and wait for someone to poke out for that instant kill... balancing mobius and doza isnt that important as balancing that one unit that in the wrong hands makes the top 1% of the players make casual new people ragequit and never come back.

Hear me out. Make them a support class. Thats it. A headshot should never be a one shot in THIS game. 500hp lcg vs a snipey boy... like come on Renegade isnt a TDM game. Its about time to do something..

Sniper mains that only play them will defend their unit ofc, same as id would defend sydneys, but this is just rediculous.. infinite range - massive damage, split second shot and hidden instantly.

but thats just my opinion.. 2.7k hours in renx opinion.

Edit: oh my Kane.. so ive read the title and skimmed through some comments didnt notice the topic was about the base games player balance, not unit balance and i went out of topic to which i apologize. And again thats just my opinion, not here to argue with anyone who shares different views

Edited May 29, 2020 by Guest

[Tommy]

Being able to shoot someone while only a fracture of your head is visible shouldn't be a thing tbh

[roweboat]

Geez alot was written since my last reply...

I think @Ryz and @Kaunas touched on the key point. Snipers.

Like @Havoc89 mentioned, I don't think forced mid game switching would be good. That could remove all sense of accomplishment from the game...

 

But I think from a creative standpoint - if balance is the issue. Can we force teams to be "balanced"? Unlikely. However I think it's far more effective to change behavior by changing how units are used in game.

 

To wit: I rarely (literally like almost never) use snipers in this game. Why? In my mind I've always viewed the game as an RTS first, FPS 2nd. And snipers are lowest on the chain in that regard compared to all other units. They should be a defense class, a support class. But as they are now, they are the top reason a baselocked team gets frustrated.

I know other skilled players who play the game objectively like myself (take out the harvester, secure this point with units, infiltrate this building), get frustrated by those other players who more or less tend to play the game strictly as a FPS

Like @Kaunas mentioned, maybe if we look as limiting the power of snipers, that could help greatly with the "mythical" balance issue

[Madkill40]

On 5/26/2020 at 11:17 PM, Ryz said:

Yes... me again about the same subject I've been complaining about for years... Why? Cause thousands and thousands of voluntarely hours have been invested in a game that really looks nice and plays well.

Help players learn the game and improve if ye so dedicated to improving balance...

 

On 5/26/2020 at 11:17 PM, Ryz said:

many, many, many, many times, but since no action has been taken I am doing it again also because I know a large group of the players feels like this.

no need to waffle like this omg

On 5/26/2020 at 11:17 PM, Ryz said:

And yes I realize implementing balance changes takes time... But if you don't invest it, all other time invested will also be for nothing in the end. Cause in the end the game we love will not be there if it keeps scaring new people away cause a combinations of balancing issues and behaviour...

What if I told you

 

you made so little sense if you truly believe players are "scared away" by balancing issues and its not, perhaps, unsportmanlike behaviour during play that scares new players away. Balancing can put players off - but again, what happens in-game when things don't go a teams' way? "BALANCE" 

You state there's a surge of "new players" each patch, if every thing you do when you play a new game is criticized by other players by PoInTiNG OuT ThEiR fAiLuReS then that's as off-putting to play this game as your statement is nonsensical "scaring new people away cause a combinations of balancing issues and behaviour" 

 

 

On 5/26/2020 at 11:17 PM, Ryz said:

TL:DR
Without spending a fair amount of work on balancing features and a common sense by the community itself EVERY minute spent on new content will be for a small group that will never grow. Thousands of hours work for great content with a small reach...

Must. Not. Make. Dick. Pun.

 

On 5/26/2020 at 11:17 PM, Ryz said:

In detail.
The main issues basicaly leads back to ONE problem:
No auto balancer (or whatever you call it)

That wouldn't be a problem if teams get randomly arranged and people stick to that team (or switch side and reconnect get disabled). You might win some, you might lose some, but in reality people switch and this tends to cause a snowball effect. 

Or maybe we just add something more modern than the original Renegade.

When you join the server I'd like a graphic of which team I want to be on at the beginning of every game.

We never get to pick the team we want to be on at the beginning of the round and like... could we just give it a fkn try? ^^; 

 

[ Nod ]  - -  - - - - -    [UI]  - - - - -  - -  [ GDI ]

 

On 5/26/2020 at 11:17 PM, Ryz said:

Who tend to switch?
1) People who don't like Nod / GDI ( a few)
2) People who don't like competition / be part of a less good team. In short it turns out usually the majority of snipers move to one team...
3) Long term players who play with friends... Usually also good players
4) Players who know which side is stronger and like to join this team (a couple of players each game)
5) Players who know which side a map favours...
6) And sometimes ppl who don't like bar / hon or whatever building is down.... 

Remember what I said about critizing other players' failures? Though a useful observation but just teach people the good parts of being on either team. Let players learns without interruption too is also just as helpful sometimes, rather than being over-imposing.

 

On 5/26/2020 at 11:17 PM, Ryz said:

While the other team likely has they afks and the new players. This leads to the team with the bigger chance to win becoming even stronger... And it leads to games where the outcome is almost decided before it even started... 

Maybe there could be a hotkey which allows players to self-moderate AFK'ers. "Tag for AFK" - if a player is still for longer than 2 minutes another player can hit   -   to tag for AFK. This means this player will be replaced by the next player who joins this team. [If player who's tagged begins to move or is already moving, tag is invalid]

Bam. A way for a fair self-moderation. Heck, don't even need the tagging. Auto-AFK that already exist works, just add an auto-replace

 

On 5/26/2020 at 11:17 PM, Ryz said:

Only this night I've seen 4 games where one team was locked in base and NEVER left the base for more then one minute... I spent at least one hour getting spawnkilled or killed in front of base while being on Nod on Reservoir and after it on Eyes... After this I suddenly was with most of the good teamplayers and 4 or 5 very good snipers. We locked GDI in base on Field within less then two minutes. If I don't count Reservoir (hard to destroy harv there) I've seen the losing team get 1(!) Harv in over one and a half hour of various games... Not to mention Nod won this Field game without any struggle (and if you ask me without any fun for both sides, but with LOADS of people leaving the game...).

You do realise that if a team knows what to do in some majority of its team mates, no balancing in the world can prevent scenarios like this? This is more the fact of new players somehow ending up on a new team in some majority. Whereas if at the beginning of a round, players always got to choose regardless - self-moderation is then possible among the players and if they don't adhere to a 'team stack' guideline then moderators/admins are within their right to re:balance teams, because each player to some extent is responsible for the team balancing.

And Ryz, this doesn't mean you can try to dictate who should be on what team for every single public game. [That's not me saying don't, just conditioning this idea of self-moderation]

 

On 5/26/2020 at 11:17 PM, Ryz said:

I am affraid we cannot change the behaviour of good snipers cause...

Making it more difficult for snipers to base-camp seems map related in issue. Sniper-reduction range volume, perhaps? So snipers attempting to base-camp have a reduction in range? So StevieSneakerSniper at the back of the base has to be within rifleman range..? Doesn't seem right... maybe instead if a sniper in one lifespan kills the same player more than 4 times in a row , that player gets some visual hint that they CAN LOSE if they die a 5th time by this player, but will return in another 4 consecutive deaths. Could do this across the board actually, as a way of the game being nice to new and current players if they're being stomped by one particular player who hasn't died yet. Credit bonus on the revenge defence or revenge kill for the two involved parties [bear in mind, you could come back to hunt the sniper in a tank or avoid them all together] 

Obviously this, like the team-select at game-start too, are serverside options..? 

@kira mutator concept

[kira]

@Madkill40 maybe  

i still prefer human moderation by sense.

[Syntharn]

when an entire new page has been posted over night and you realise after responding to the first... lol

Edited May 29, 2020 by Syntharn
rekt

[Syntharn]

We that are here seem to agree that turning team switching off could be worth doing for balance.
The only clear argument i see against it is that it was already attempted and met with such negative feedback that it was changed back.
Would like to hear some of those voices too, if they still exist.

If ive understood this correctly this will make the initial MMR shuffle balancing at the start of a new match more durable, mid match however if the teams get unbalanced it just stops it from becoming worse/better by the hands players influence (other than new players joining).
Still need to figure out that part, some basic guidelines for when teams needs rebalancing, because scenarios for when the teams are uneven in both player numbers and MMR will still occur. (at what population should players even care? 5 vs 5 and up?)

how aggresive should the auto balancer be? we cant reasonably expect it to be balanced to the side of a coin at every turn.
first thought is that a player shouldn't be subject to an auto team change more than once per match against his/hers will, because twice will likely be a guaranteed ragequit, also to prevent high profile players from just being shuffled back and forth.
If an auto team balance is in any way announced prior to the re-shuffling players will be able to dodge it by disconnecting and rejoining.

This is all still speculating the possbility, need to be constructive or this thread will get buried and forgotten again.

Edited May 29, 2020 by Syntharn
its not like anyone has posted below me, i can just build my wall in piece lol.

[isupreme]

Quote

twice will likely be a guaranteed ragequit,

I will probably quit the first time this occurs....

And i have been known to switch teams to help balance up to 3 times in a game. ...

Edited May 29, 2020 by isupreme

[Calvin]

just nerf snipers to shit so the good players won't snipe every repair in the game anymore

problems fixed

Edited May 30, 2020 by poi

[Xtractor]

Snipers are a rage sometime but imo thats part of a game ..guys have to counter snipers ...But when Bar or HoN is destroyed and the other team has a good sniper(s) and you can't have a counter sniper.. too bad ..we have to leave with it .Original Renegade was the same when the Defender team had no way to have snipper because of building destruction  ..the other team went Fest sniping

Edited May 30, 2020 by Xtractor

[s1rdwp9h]

I find it hard to understand why it is so difficult to implement a repair score and a damage score in this game. Players with a strong repair score or damage score can be balanced evenly between teams (A team has both strong reps and strong attackers). The players who have both weak repair scores and damage scores can be balanced evenly between teams, equally distributing the liabilities for each team. Total score can then equal repair score + damage score. Repair score is a fundamentally important base data of the game and majorly impacts it, so it's bewildering, that this has not already been implemented for the players to see. Players who see a repair score can better understand what is happening in this game (for balance etc). Hiding the repair score with secret values does not help and is being counter productive to balance, we the players, cannot understand how much this hidden figure is messing up balance.

As for people switching to the winning team, lock their rank at recruit for the rest of that game, problem solved. Renx is already very different to original Ren, why is implementing such a basic system of numbers so impossible?

[Daxter]

got pm'ed and asked to give my opinion about this stuff, so here i am...

 

first of all nerfing specific classes won't do dogshit. right now the classes are extremely well balanced (better balanced than they were months ago). it wont help against stomping matches either. snipers can be anoying for the losing team, but ultimately tanks and engis will destroy ya buildings, not snipers.

the abaility to change a team should be removed and ONLY be enabled when a team has more players than the other. once both teams are even the option to change a team should be greyed out.

 

i agree with ryz here that we need an auto balancer. i thought about it for some time nad i came to the conclusion that it will be tough to implement, especially if we don't force players to choose a name and stick with it. 'cause the auto balancer needs to adress our play style and save our stats. 

here is how i think it could work:

the auto balancer checks what class you like to play the most and how much damage per minute /or repairs per minute if you play tech, you do the most. only damage that shouldn't count is building damage or else spammers will be ranked higher than they should. repairing a building however counts! the balancer will also register the damage you do with other classes and will flow into the final point result.

but to highlight the major class the damage per minute you do with a certain class will be devided with the time you played in total in percentage.

 

to make it more clear: let's say you play sak or havoc 70% of your time and do around 2000 damage per minute (the damage you do on a soldier has to be recalibrated to match the damage output you do on a lightly armored vehicle). 30% of your other time you play as a med doing 1500 damage. 2000 x 0.7 = 1400 1500 x 0.3 = 450 1400 + 450 = 1950. thats your final points. you will be classed as 70% sniper (infantry) and 30% med (tank). in this case the auto balancer will mark the player as a sniper that also plays tanks. he will balance the team by giving the other team a sniper with roughly the same percentage and damage output or at least give the other teams players that played sniper roles and then sums it up. this way it's impossible to have stacked snipers / tankers / repairs on one team.

 

now you will say: oiii, but if i lose hon/bar or dont have any money left i can only play with shitty soldiers and that will screw my points! yep, that's why i think it's the best to exclude simple soldiers from the point system.

all the other classes obv. need an alternation to their damage output. its a lot easier to do damage with a mobius than with a gatling gun,so the damage output registration needs to be adjusted for the auto balancer. it sounds like a lot of work, but finding the right algorith to balance the damage output isn't actually that difficult. just let the system run for a week without any adjustments, collect all the data (the damage output) for each class and calculate the avarage out of it.

the biggest problem i see would be the ability to change your names and whatnot. maybe binding the data to an ip would help, but players like akai use vpn so hm... dunno if binding the data to hardware would be a possible solution, 'cause privacy is valuable and stuff.

 

now if you think my idea is shite, feel free to do so, but also come up with a better idea and explain why idea xy is so shit. at the end of the day we are here to make things better and not to stomp over everything. we alr. have sotmping matches, no need to stomp on ideas too.

 

cheers.

Edited June 2, 2020 by Daxter

[Something.Incredible]

Balance thing is the only annoying thing left in this game for me. Assuming DDoS does not seems to be a big problem right now.
I would like to note some pros/cons about ideas in this topic.

1) "Are you ready?" (press any key to join, map switch waitroom) 
Early game actions seems have the most influence for next 10-15 mins of the game. I think that kind of mechanics is a must have feature because of map switch speed and active previous 5-10 mins of intense gameplay. Personally I might want to go smoke a cig or to make a cup of coffee after match, or any other little things. This takes literally 3-5 minute so i dont really want to disconnect and reconnect after that. I might not be alone and we can get a significant % of players in one team "smoking" somewhere. Those minutes could make a big impact on a match.
PROS:
> Better start of the match for both teams.
CONS:
> Harder to balance players after initial balance run, mostly "smokers" will press ready in sequential order in undefined time spans and
   (1) if teams are balanced by Amount of players - select team based on MMR and we are good.
   (2) if NOD.players > GDI.players having NOD.MMR < GDI.MMR then as i can guess player goes to stronger but smaller GDI team. And i think this thing will disbalance teams even worse than 5 "smokers" at the beginning.
Possible workaround: When i click Ready - put me in the pool for 20 seconds and add all people who press Ready after me within 20 seconds to this pool and balance after that. Most of players will not wait any extra time due to it will overlap with startmap lock time, when everyone is a spectator and server just waits 30(?) seconds for people to connect. Honestly i dont see any other good way.

2) Autobalancer. Indeed, should be in the game. Should be strict and brutal. Sometimes. I think it may do a check after 2 min. after someone switched team or left (because it might be a chain reaction, someone left, his friend left, or 2 friends switched teams cuz they are pissed playing GDI 4 times in a row) AND if MMR changed drastically. But it should not just take the most suitable player and put it in another team. It should be fair. Take 3-5 most suitable players. Take 1 - show a note Vote (for example) message for him - "Do you want to get [XXX extra VP / XXXX creds for switching team](based on map time)?" F1 yes, F2 no, if no - ask another one. 
Well if all rejected - pick random and switch without any extra bonuses. Yes, he might left after that but....Pretty fair, i think
PROS: 
> Fair
> No more 4-7 new players with 1/20 KD in one team, i hope so
> i tried to bring the idea of fairness and volunteering.
CONS:
> Ragequits
> Ragequits if player was forced to switch team 5 times in 10 minutes. So player needs to have a cooldown for force-switch.

3) Role-based balancing. Totally will help. But future prediction is not something people can do, only probability. Probability of me sitting with doza/mobius in cave are much higher than running with rep gun on Field, for example. Mood, etc.. Plus personal orders from commander.
So a lot of place to experiment in this area and definitely should be the very low-priority thing. But in any case could be used even in a straight way, most of players, i think, have a favorite class.

Sorry for a long wall of the text!

[Daxter]

5 hours ago, Something.Incredible said:

Balance thing is the only annoying thing left in this game for me. Assuming DDoS does not seems to be a big problem right now.
I would like to note some pros/cons about ideas in this topic.

1) "Are you ready?" (press any key to join, map switch waitroom) 
Early game actions seems have the most influence for next 10-15 mins of the game. I think that kind of mechanics is a must have feature because of map switch speed and active previous 5-10 mins of intense gameplay. Personally I might want to go smoke a cig or to make a cup of coffee after match, or any other little things. This takes literally 3-5 minute so i dont really want to disconnect and reconnect after that. I might not be alone and we can get a significant % of players in one team "smoking" somewhere. Those minutes could make a big impact on a match.
PROS:
> Better start of the match for both teams.
CONS:
> Harder to balance players after initial balance run, mostly "smokers" will press ready in sequential order in undefined time spans and
   (1) if teams are balanced by Amount of players - select team based on MMR and we are good.
   (2) if NOD.players > GDI.players having NOD.MMR < GDI.MMR then as i can guess player goes to stronger but smaller GDI team. And i think this thing will disbalance teams even worse than 5 "smokers" at the beginning.
Possible workaround: When i click Ready - put me in the pool for 20 seconds and add all people who press Ready after me within 20 seconds to this pool and balance after that. Most of players will not wait any extra time due to it will overlap with startmap lock time, when everyone is a spectator and server just waits 30(?) seconds for people to connect. Honestly i dont see any other good way.

2) Autobalancer. Indeed, should be in the game. Should be strict and brutal. Sometimes. I think it may do a check after 2 min. after someone switched team or left (because it might be a chain reaction, someone left, his friend left, or 2 friends switched teams cuz they are pissed playing GDI 4 times in a row) AND if MMR changed drastically. But it should not just take the most suitable player and put it in another team. It should be fair. Take 3-5 most suitable players. Take 1 - show a note Vote (for example) message for him - "Do you want to get [XXX extra VP / XXXX creds for switching team](based on map time)?" F1 yes, F2 no, if no - ask another one. 
Well if all rejected - pick random and switch without any extra bonuses. Yes, he might left after that but....Pretty fair, i think
PROS: 
> Fair
> No more 4-7 new players with 1/20 KD in one team, i hope so
> i tried to bring the idea of fairness and volunteering.
CONS:
> Ragequits
> Ragequits if player was forced to switch team 5 times in 10 minutes. So player needs to have a cooldown for force-switch.

3) Role-based balancing. Totally will help. But future prediction is not something people can do, only probability. Probability of me sitting with doza/mobius in cave are much higher than running with rep gun on Field, for example. Mood, etc.. Plus personal orders from commander.
So a lot of place to experiment in this area and definitely should be the very low-priority thing. But in any case could be used even in a straight way, most of players, i think, have a favorite class.

Sorry for a long wall of the text!

that caoffee pause you mentioned shouldn't be difficult to implement. during the map rotation where players can vote for a map, ya could have a button that literally says coffee pause or so. it could be matched with the auto balancer so it knows that you are taking a 5 minute break and during the game you will see a timer running down starting with 5 minutes. and once the time's over the auto balancer registers you as a player and from then on counts your damage per minute. as you said however it can impact the balancing. how should the auto balancer balance players who take a 5 minute break? should it it try to balance the teams out after the 5 minute break by putting the returning players to each team as balanced as possible (if you switch already playing players oyu would just cause ruckus) or should it balance things out right at the start, placing even the pausing players into a team? that however would cause balance issues for the first 5 minutes. i personally think it would have to do a mix of both. e.g. once you have more than 4 players using the pause  the auto balancer should place pausing players after the 5 minute mark and if it's 4 or less players it should place the pausing players right at the start into a team (cause 4 players / or 2 each team won't cause too many balance issues). i could also see the pause button used like a "map vote". if enough people vote for the pause the map rotation will go to stand by for 5 minutes. afterwards it will restart the map voting as usual.

 

about point three. yeah that is a slight concern. but we should strive for some balanc before we go to utter perfection ^^. a map specific data collection would be needed here to get precies information what player plays what role on what map. orders of a commander aren't that big of a deal in my opinion. rushes don't take that long and let's be honest, who listens to a commander who shouts: GET TANKS ASAP? those who like to use tanks anyway, right?

[Reivax]

a topic about balance and players again? i'm too bored to do a copy/pasta (even if i love pasta so much ❤️ )

game balance is fine - i mean, characters, tanks, etc.. remove MRLS weird feature was necessary because it broke many (most?) maps which wasn't designed for these rockets. a pain it took so much time to devs to see it

nerf 1k chars is good, it forces good mobi/doza players to play snipers.
wait a min, does it mean they will be more unstoppable than before because you can't reach the range to shot them without being killed? well.. at least i hope another patch will reduce snipers damages to remove oneshot on engineers by bodyshots

about switch etc.. when i join a team w/o bar or hon, i'll try to switch to opposite side, because.. eh i don't like to be sniped in my own base
i could leave but since my game love crashes when i join a server.. meh

MMR systems will not the chloroquine not be a miracle. imagine i'm a good player, i could sometimes play srsly and sometimes play 'for memes' and try to jump on mammoths as SBH because i'm bored/drunk and i've nothing else to do.

 

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Snipers are a rage sometime but imo thats part of a game ..guys have to counter snipers ...But when Bar or HoN is destroyed and the other team has a good sniper(s) and you can't have a counter sniper.. too bad ..we have to leave with it .Original Renegade was the same when the Defender team had no way to have snipper because of building destruction  ..the other team went Fest sniping

at my opinion there are 5 horrible things in RenX :
- be killed by a sniper
- be crushed by a stank (if i roll around your corpse then it's me hehe)
- be raped by a rush in a 1v10 fight
- be killed by a sydney/rave you're supposed to kill as doza/mobi, but u can't anymore since your guns are water guns
- be killed by a random c4 thrown by a dude 30 seconds ago without real reason to throw it
(i'm sure there are more horrible deaths, as being headshotted by a tank or lose a fight against an hotwire)

usually a good way to counter the issue when you lose BAR/HoN is to stay alive
if your team have a few snipers/mobi and they manage to stay alive, nod team will not be able to push too much - or if they try, you will still be able to kill them.

also i'm not sure snipers really impact the game so much.. they can't destroy buildings, they can't destroy tanks, nor arties/apaches since a patch released.. idk, maybe one year ago.

maybe a problem is the map design - maps with horrible corners like Under or Field? the team who destroy harvesters and rushes with tanks will easily camp enemy base entrance, and in most cases it means GG.

even the gameplay is an issue, because if you lose your 2-3 first harvesters you will lose field, it means you will lose access to money while enemy team will earn more and more money, and there are many times where a team have all his buildings but can't buy anything because they have no money. i'm sure you already was in this case, you had air or bar but no money to buy what u wanted

does it mean the real key of the problem is the main gameplay, or there are several different problems ? i dunno. i'll let u post more textwalls and i hope mine wasn't so long/horrible to read ^^

Edited June 2, 2020 by Reivax
uh sorry.. indeed that's another text wall for the text-wall topic.. Dan will be pleased ;)

[DenWellingston]

I will add my own word. For many reasons: from getting "losers" to the team to stupid snipers who literally jump out and immediately leave with impunity. Either near artillery kills you close, then on MRLS you can’t destroy infantry near, but NOD art has no problems with this.

I won’t describe the problems: they did it already for me, but I’ll try to offer my ideas, which I kept in mind for a long time:

-Adjustment of the movement animation so that the fighter moves more smoothly.

-Sniper weapons, like all other firearms (non-energy), introduce features, such as the impossibility of reloading during sprints, an increased level of dispersion of bullets when shooting on the run, but without moving and sitting, the level of dispersion is close to zero.

-Also heavy weapons (Officer's Machine Gun Bullets and Humvee from Buggy, miniguns on an APC will have a “suppression” effect. When hit by infantry, the movement speed will be reduced by 40-35% for two seconds every time a bullet hits (the effect is not cumulative). That the same has the effect of a grenade launcher, flamethrower, chemical gun and Flack Canon, but for three seconds, the laser machine gun does not give the effect of suppression.

-Stealth. Stealth Infantry and Stealth Tank have a feature: in stealth mode, the first shot deals 50% more damage.

- The effect of EMP. If the equipment is affected by it, then the gun also does not work. Also, in the case of a fighter’s defeat in the impulse’s defeat zone, he is not able to use energy weapons (Railgun, Volt Rifle and the like for 10-20 seconds. The same applies to repair guns. )

Personal Ion Cannon also gives a slowing effect to tanks by 30% (not cumulative).

- Grenades Chem Soldier and McFlaera. For a chemical soldier, a tiberium grenade creates a cloud, slowing down the slightly disorienting infantry and making any unit more susceptible to damage. At McFlaera, an ordinary grenade is replaced with a stun grenade, blinding and depriving the sprint for 5-6 seconds (Some materials on the light noise grenade are in the SDK.)

-Sight of a sniper weapon using the scope now requires a few seconds to prepare. Also, if a sniper is aiming, his sight creates a glare, giving a little position to the shooter.

-Frontal armor. Armor now has its weak points. The rear is more susceptible to damage, in contrast to the frontal and side armor.

-Reset veteran status. Change ranks to ordinary, elite, hero. The maximum rank is a hero. When a soldier dies, the rank is reduced to ordinary, but it can be quickly replenished, gaining experience, as was the case in the classic version.

-Burner mode. Orca and Apache Helicopter will have another type of acceleration called Fast and Furious. The vehicle will travel three times faster, but in a collision with another object it will be possible to damage the vehicle or destroy it (warning for the most inexperienced pilots), and it will also be impossible to use weapons. Weapon reload time increased.

- The probability of death of the fighter in the equipment, if it is destroyed. Depending. from a rank, there is a chance to die in transport.
-Radovoy-70%
-Elite- 80%
-Hero-90%

-And most importantly (as a cherry on the cake) - balancing the team based on the last 10-20 fights. On it, the average score is calculated and on its basis it is determined under a more suitable command. Also, when creating a game / server, add the ability for players to choose the fraction for which they want to play if there is such a function)

I think that's all. While I have no other ideas or others have already expressed.

[Snow.]

On 5/28/2020 at 1:03 AM, Cynthia said:

Personally I'd say just enforce steam on listed servers. Would probably be a faster solution than creating a new account system for the game specifically

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to do it this way. It should generate relatively (from my perspective) little effort for implementation for a huge impact and most of the players use steam anyway.

Edited June 12, 2020 by Snow

[NodSaibot]

10 hours ago, Snow said:

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to do it this way. It should generate relatively (from my perspective) little effort for implementation for a huge impact and most of the players use steam anyway.

No implementation needed. It's a server setting already.

[Ryz]

Well but currently no server uses it...

I can see the downside of enforcing Steam because it might stop some people from joining the game. Having that said. Are there any plans of forcing steam in the (near) future?

Edited June 14, 2020 by Ryz
typo