How we balance teams in PUGs

[Xeon Wraith]

For regular players in the PUGs, we are looking to expand the balancing team. We’re looking for individuals who regularly attend the PUGs and well versed with the game. If you’re interested and fit the bill, throw a Discord DM to either Xeon Wraith#1717 or Quinc3y#3635.

For those interested, here's a trip down memory lane:

The things we’ve tried before:

Spoiler

 

Randomly balanced teams: It was pretty chaotic. Occasionally you got lucky with well balanced teams, but the overwhelmingly large amount of times it was terrible. This didn’t stick around for long.

Commander drafts: The longest running balancing method. This involved two commanders going through the player list and picking players to join their team. This generally worked better than randomly balanced teams, but there were quite a few issues:

• Commanders had to have a similar understanding of the playerbase’s skill to get balanced teams.
•  Newer commanders struggled heavily picking against more experienced commanders.
• Team composition is heavily dependent on every commander’s individual perspective and playstyle, which pretty much never perfectly well-rounded. i.e: A commander who mostly plays vehicles tends to lack infantry player knowledge.
•  All team-picking pressure and knowledge is solely on the two commanders.
•  Rebalancing is also solely dependent the two commanders.

All of this meant there was an incredible amount of pressure on commanders, even before the game started! Eventually, players simply stopped commanding and any new player who wanted to command usually ended up having a tough time due to their picks.

 

 

What have we changed?:

Spoiler

There's been two main changes that have occurred (relatively) recently to improve PUG balance:

• PUG balance is now largely handled by a dedicated balancing team.

By having a dedicated team for balancing, commanders no longer need to worry about having the player knowledge to pick a strong team. This has (hopefully) reduced the entry barrier for new commanders. In addition, by having the same people balance teams every week, any improvements to our playerbase knowledge is for the benefit of every PUG, instead of a select few. This was an important change to make, but it only makes a meaningful improvement to balance with the second change:

• Player balance is now done by COOPERATIVELY splitting pairs of players, instead of COMPETITIVELY picking individual players.

This change to player splits means we can combine our knowledge of playerbase, instead of having to compete with each other’s knowledge. The focus to player splits from picking individual players also means we aren’t limited to two people picking teams anymore. We can have any number of helpers providing in their own perspective to decide splits. The splitting process naturally attempts to balance out playstyles, so we don’t run into the awkward scenario of having 6 snipers in one team.

This doesn't mean we've completely moved away from commander drafts. We still usually allow commanders to pick a few players they're familiar with so they aren't completely alone when they command.

How it all works: [This is the bit you’re probably reading this post for.]

We normally split players in pairs based on these roles:

• Anti-infantry (Infantry)
• Anti-tank (Infantry)
• Tankers
• Field repairs
• Defenders & Sneakers

The stronger you are in a role and the more often you play in it, the better you are considered to be in that role. We usually try to split players one-for-one in dedicated roles first. If there is an imbalance among the dedicated role players, we would try to correct it with multi-role players. Not each role is equally easy to counter, so we usually balance these roles in a specific order.

 

1. Anti-infantry (Infantry)

Players who can aim well. This is almost entirely a mechanical skill. There are little counter-play options for weaker players to use which puts this at the top of pick priority. Whenever possible, we usually try to split players based on their preferred character choice. Players who can snipe will be split with other players who can snipe. Similar process for players who mostly play Mendoza/Mobius. This isn’t always possible, so we may have to split players who prefer completely different characters. We also sometimes get exceptionally strong infantry players around who can’t be adequately split with anyone, so we have to do larger splits of 4 or 6 people. Any remaining infantry imbalances are compensated in the ”Anti-Tank” role.

 

2.  Anti-tank (Infantry)

Anti-tank players who support the main tank mass. Raveshaws, Sydneys, Gunners, LCGs. These players usually can’t aim as well as the dedicated anti-infantry players, but they’re still better than most. We normally split these players with the anti-infantry player balance in mind. Due to their field presence, we usually hold off splitting all AT players at once. It’s important that we balance them with the “Tanker” role in mind.

 

3. Tankers

The players in vehicles that hold the frontline. Every team needs solid tankers. As mentioned previously, we do use "Anti-tank" players sometimes to balance out for Tanker skill levels. On the whole we do try to split this role as evenly as possible though. There is also a bit of flexibility with balancing this role with the “Field Repair” role but we try not to use this.

 

4. Field Repairs

Hotwires and Technicians. The unsung heroes of the battlefield. Every teams needs solid repairs. We usually try to balance these guys out numerically even as possible. This doesn’t always work out. It’s not uncommon for Tankers to switch over to Field Repairs once their vehicle dies, so the numbers in-game vary quite a bit.

 

5. Defenders & Sneakers

Not every PUG we have people willing to defend for both teams so this is a two role split. Both roles can sometimes be hugely impactful and other times they don’t do anything useful. Pretty much all players who do play in these two roles also play in different roles as well, so we normally do larger splits for this role.

 

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE:

In addition to main roles, there’s a lot of other things we keep in mind when making teams.

• Audio balance: The amount communication clutter every player provides. This is things like consistently trying to be funny with crappy jokes, calling out unimportant things and moaning about how “X killed you”. We try really hard to avoid putting too many loud individuals on one team as it can seriously dampen the PUG. We actively balance for this every PUG and this is usually done with larger multi-role splits to make sure game balance isn’t affected too much.

 

• Player attitudes: Not every player can keep their cool when they’re losing. Not every team can keep winning (otherwise we’ve probably fucked up). It’s important to make sure we balance out the players who take losing poorly so team morale doesn’t instantly crumble on a loss.

 

• Leadership presence:  For when we don’t have commanders or for newer commanders, we try balance out the players who have led in the past. We’ll actively put more experienced, vocal players on teams lacking in commander experience to help push them towards effective strategies.

 

• Playstyles: There’s a lot of ways to play a role. Occasionally we get players with similar playstyles, like players who like to spam tunnels with low tier infantry or players who ram vehicles at their enemies. We try to split same playstyles when possible.

 

• Friendship groups and synergies: People tend to have more fun when they’re with friends.  People tend to play better too. We try to keep track of this and keep friendship groups together when possible. This isn’t always possible due to balancing concerns.

 

• Player names: We try not to place players with similar names on the same team. It’s extra communication confusion for no reason. This is why you’ll never see Havoc89 and NF-Havoc on the same team for example.

[Quinc3y]

So what can go wrong?

Even though I'm fairly certain that this balancing system is better than anything we had in the past, of course it is imperfect and the games won't always feel balanced. I will give a few reasons why and share my thoughts on this.

First of all, we might be wrong in our assessments of a player's skill / playstyle. The balancing team is, 90% of the time, just me and Xeon. While, I dare say, we are experienced in balancing and have a good knowledge of the playerbase, we can of course be biased and under/over-estimate some players. Also, there's been a lot of new players recently, about whom all we know is that they're new. Obviously, most new players will be still learning so we just end up splitting them in pairs, but this isn't always optimal. New players can still add a lot of value to their team if they, for example, stick to repairing tanks instead of trying to tank or play anti-infantry. Overall, this is one of the reasons why we are looking to expand the balancing team - to get a wider perspective and knowledge on as many players as possible.

Secondly, sometimes, it is difficult to create two balanced teams out of the group of people who show up for a PUG due to vast differences in skill or playstyle. The best example is when we only have one elite infantry player. Since we can't find a pair to balance him/her out, we normally end up making a larger split, which, from my experience, doesn't always work out right. Another example is when there's only one defender with a mic. Having such a person on your team can be a ton of help. Or: only one infiltrator - his/her team will have an advantage, particularly in smaller PUGs. In such cases it is hard to find the right balance.

Let's look at the big picture though. What is this balance that we are seeking and do balanced teams always lead to balanced gameplay / close matches?

Surely not. Whether we like it or not, Ren X is a complex game and there is a number of factors which influence the course of a round and its outcome. Even if we had a sophisticated way of measuring the players' skill/usefulness,  which would take into account all their traits, and if we had a complicated algorithm to compose the teams based on it, I am 100% sure some games would end up being one-sided (although, on average, the games would be closer).

There have been quite a few PUGs in which team A would stomp team B on the first map only to get stomped back on the next map (by the way, this is why I'm not a fan of rebalancing after the first map). What does that say about balance? In my opinion, in this case it's safe to assume that the teams are relatively balanced, even though none of the maps provided balanced gameplay.

Let me give a few reasons why even the best balanced (theoretically) teams can produce one-sided rounds:

1. The luck factor. Example: team A might take the risk and attempt an early rush. If they luck out and nobody spots it, the rush succeeds, they basically won the round. If they fail, they will likely lose the round due to having lost the first harvester / wasted too many credits early game.

2. Players not sticking to the roles which the balancing team assumed they will have. Everybody plays the way they wish to, and there are a couple of jack-of-all-trade players in our community. However, this might affect the balance a lot. Let's say a player who's normally a dedicated infantry player decides to practice playing MRLS. In that case, the enemy infantry players have free reign on the infantry path.

3. Players having better or worse days. None of us are robots and the levels at which we play vary. Performance of elite players is particularly impactful as these players can decide the course of the game.

4. Infiltration. A solo kill of a crucial building can result in a quick stomp despite the teams being balanced.

5. Snowball-ish design of the game. We all know how important early harvesters are, and how crucial some areas of certain maps are. Killing the first enemy harv while defending your own, or taking control of the hill on Whiteout / plateau on Walls first can lead to quick, one-sided games. And that is even if the fight for harvesters / crucial areas was close. Even if the teams are relatively balanced, once team A gets locked in base, it can be very difficult for them to break out, depending on the map layout. That doesn't have to mean that team A is worse skill-wise than team B. Team A is just fighting an uphill battle, because they barely lost the important early fight or didn't have their priorities right in the early game.

6. Another snowballing aspect I would like to talk about is PUG-specific. There are quite a few regular PUG players who, as Xeon put nicely, "can't keep their cool when they're losing". Combined with them being vocal, they can easily break their team's morale and affect the satisfaction of the whole team as well as the perception of balance. Let's say team A has several such players (even though we try to split them evenly across teams). The usual chain reaction is: team A loses the first map (due to whatever), these players start to complain on voice / chat, their team gets pissed and loses their focus and morale, which leads them to losing the second map. Their commander gets tilted. PUG goes to shit. Does that mean that teams were not balanced in the first place? Maybe, but maybe not. Them losing the first map could have been unrelated to team balance, see above points.

I made this list partly because it often gets on my nerve when people blame team balance whenever the gameplay was not balanced or when they do not get their satisfaction from a PUG. As you see, it is not that simple. The task of the balancing team is just to increase the chance the games will be balanced. There's no way to assure close games and a 2-2 PUG score every weekend. Of course, we can always do better and sometimes we do miss the balance. But sometimes we do our job right and that's when it would be nice if people understood and recognized that there are other factors which influence the course and score of the PUG and which could have led to them not having fun.
 

[Guest]

"Anti-tank players who support the main tank mass. Raveshaws, Sydneys, Gunners, LCGs. These players usually can’t aim as well as the dedicated anti-infantry players"

*sad miau noises* btw 2020-08-01 pug Was balanced well, even if the score was 3:0

[Mystic~]

I think having a couple of morale players is really important, they tend to be the people who are more talkative or vocal, the complete opposite to me, but they generally make jokes in between games or make commentary about things, these people are players like Yosh, MintLemonade, Madkyll, Tony, there are probably others.

I also find a properly balanced and mixed team often seems to hold its own well, even if they're against a very aggressive team with A list veteran players, many of that side aren't going to want to be doing regular and consistent repairs on either buildings or tanks and things fall down, it's like playing Brazil in football/soccer.

I do think there needs to be careful consideration of capable snipers as a sub-role of the anti-infantry category. It would be great if there were little icons to represent core strengths, but that might be beyond Discord, some people do tag roles, but I don't think its done consistently.

[Xeon Wraith]

18 minutes ago, Mystic~ said:

I do think there needs to be careful consideration of capable snipers as a sub-role of the anti-infantry category. It would be great if there were little icons to represent core strengths, but that might be beyond Discord, some people do tag roles, but I don't think its done consistently.

We do this. See here:

3 hours ago, Xeon Wraith said:

Whenever possible, we usually try to split players based on their preferred character choice. Players who can snipe will be split with other players who can snipe. Similar process for players who mostly play Mendoza/Mobius. This isn’t always possible, so we may have to split players who prefer completely different characters.