Server #13 Auto Scramble

[manifold_curiosity]

Well I did consider that, but it sure sounds/appears to lighten the mood a bit seeing cupcakes everywhere right?

My experience with cupcakes on #13 is that they tend to be carrying flame throwers and like to chase after poor defenseless medics.

Ok, it is up and running. Although no doubt it will need some tweaking.

Thanks for getting this added. What settings have we used? Noticed a few auto-scrambles last night. Timing was a little frustrating for nightfall, where after the first two stages an auto-scramble occurred for the third stage. Will keep an eye on it and see if its working well in the coming days.

[Jez]

I think the tweak is it needs to be removed, it scrambled twice on the same map with the end result of changing the steamrolling from one team to the other. I honestly don't see why it's needed, it's a non-solution to a non-problem.

[flabcab]

I think the tweak is it needs to be removed, it scrambled twice on the same map with the end result of changing the steamrolling from one team to the other. I honestly don't see why it's needed, it's a non-solution to a non-problem.

When i've been on it seems to have been pretty good, there has been a lot fewer one sided games.

[Ralph Wiggum]

I reckon get rid of !preference. It just negates the whole point of a scramble.

[goosmurf]

I reckon get rid of !preference. It just negates the whole point of a scramble.

+1

I observe that a bunch of folks are still attempting to stack teams by gaming the "auto team" as Platform Six suggested would happen. So I'm leaning towards supporting enforced auto team.

I kinda get where Ralph was coming from when he said he resigned admin. Even as a player I'm getting weary of constantly fighting to make the games somewhat balanced. Kinda makes me not want to play anymore, or at least to find a different server.

[Mythor]

!Preference isn't supposed to be on, Bicketybam said. Pretty sure it doesn't do anything, except reveal who wants to stack.

The goal shouldn't be balanced teams, the goal should be for everyone to have fun. Sometimes that means a virtual deadlock, other times it's smashing the other team, then getting smashed back, etc. People should put less stock in winning any specific round and more on how they can win the next.
We're trying a scramble/balance solution already, all we can do now is get people in and playing and see what tweaks might work.

[manifold_curiosity]

Sometimes that means a virtual deadlock, other times it's smashing the other team, then getting smashed back, etc.

Agreed. We don't seem to get the second type anymore, as soon as one side successfully defends then an auto-scramble occurs due to frag ratio.

The general feel seems to be that auto-scramble is a bit too keen, and vote-scramble is a bit too hard.

My suggestion is to make vote-scramble require only 5 votes. And perhaps make auto-scramble call a vote instead (gscramble seems to have this option).

I also agree with removing the "preference" option.

And i'd be happy with anything that made choosing "random team" actually be random.

[Ralph Wiggum]

By too keen do you mean after two wins in a row it activates? IIRC it was after 3 wins in a row for quite some time before this discussion and that had limited success.

I feel sad it would come to this but the only true way for random teams to form would be for the server to automatically place you in a team, with no ability to choose or swap.

[goosmurf]

the goal should be for everyone to have fun. Sometimes that means a virtual deadlock, other times it's smashing the other team, then getting smashed back, etc. People should put less stock in winning any specific round and more on how they can win the next.

I can't agree more with this.

The problem though is that we let the stacking go on for too long so it is now the dominant factor in how people think about the game. "Oh I lost a round, it must be because the other team is stacked, I better join the stack next map". Whether the teams were or weren't stacked is almost irrelevant now, it's the thought pattern that that MUST be the reason for a loss that's the issue -- it leads to people making the stack true whether it was or wasn't before.

The general feel seems to be that auto-scramble is a bit too keen, and vote-scramble is a bit too hard. 

Agree on making vote-scramble ~5 votes.

I think auto-scramble is kind of at the right level. See why below.

I feel sad it would come to this but the only true way for random teams to form would be for the server to automatically place you in a team, with no ability to choose or swap.

Sad is how I feel too.

I wonder if the server needs a month or two of artificially forcing things to be exactly random/even just so that people might see that when they have no control over picking the teams the games can be randomly fun in exactly the way Mythor said above.

Just theorycrafting here, I do note that we've only had auto-scramble running for a week

THANKS to Bickety for setting it up

[manifold_curiosity]

By too keen do you mean after two wins in a row it activates? IIRC it was after 3 wins in a row for quite some time before this discussion and that had limited success.

Well it activates as soon as there's a certain frag difference, which may be after a single round. Which is fine in theory, as sometimes a stack is obvious that quick, but other times it just means the team on defence won. And that's what makes it tricky, as its probably a choice between scrambling quickly and occasionally unnecessarily, or scrambling slowly and occassionaly letting a stack go too long. It's scrambled a few times when I haven't expected it to (when I've been on both the losing and winning side).

I'm not sure there is a perfect balance, which is why i suggest making it call a vote instead. More people will contribute to a vote than will initiate one.

With that said, I think the current situation is still an improvement on what we had previously.

[Mythor]

If whatever we're using can call for a scramble vote if the frag/score ratio is too high, that'd be worth trying. I think it might end up being annoying and prone to creating arguments over whether people should've voted yes/no, etc.

[GoToadGo]

I feel sad it would come to this but the only true way for random teams to form would be for the server to automatically place you in a team, with no ability to choose or swap.

Why does EVERY game HAVE to have random teams? This all seems absurd to me.

[flabcab]

With that said, I think the current situation is still an improvement on what we had previously.

I agree.