Pages: 1 2

 

Poll

What do you think of AutoBalance?

FUCK AutoBalance!!!!!55%55% - 45
I like it.16%16% - 13
I hope AutoBalance catches AIDS.28%28% - 23
Total: 81
2005-12-03 00:05:00
Cougar
Banned
+1,962|6762|Dallas
Does anyone one else think AutoBalance is the gayest invention of the 21st Century?  I get so fucking pissed when I'm playing on a team and all the sudden "bloop" now I'm on the Chinese team which incedently happens to be capped completely off the map.  Or better yet, you join a server and start playing as American, then 4 hours later your still playing as American becuase the server doesn't have the swap team option on and AB makes it all but impossible to get any kind of variety in your game.  The whole "d00d amke a squadzor an it wont switch ju back" arguement is SHIT!!  This is why:

12:01:00-Pushes the opposite team tab.
12:01:00-AutoBalance senses something is wrong.
12:01:01-Your brain tells your finger to push insert.
12:01:01-AutoBalance switches you back to the orginal team.
12:01:35-Your finger makes contact with the insert key.
12:01:45-AutoBalance has been thinking about your decision to switch and has become angry with you.
12:02:03-Your finger presses the insert key.
12:02:15-AutoBalance has started a lawsuit against you.
12:02:45-Your brain realizes you aren't on the team your supposed to be on and you have been switched back.
12:03:13-AutoBalance wins the lawsuit and you are fined 2 points.
12:04:34-Your brain makes the decision to push the team tab rapidly until you get what you want.
12:04:35-AutoBalance already knows what is happening and just goes ahead and takes 10 points for good measure and has his cousin PunkBuster to deport you from the server.

12:15:00-Your brain finally realizes WTF just happend.

FUCK PUNKBUSTER, FUCK AUTOBALANCE, AND FUCK IDLE KICK!!!
2005-12-03 01:31:15
irenicus999
Member
+0|6741
Autobalance can be annoying sometimes, but it is also useful at other times.  For instance, I was playing on a server earlier tonight and we had 14 players and the opposing team had 22.  Of course the clan guys on the other team (it was their server) didn't care and wouldn't do anything about it.  Autobalance is useful in those situations.  However, it has screwed me over a few times in the way that you mention.
2005-12-03 02:17:14
4lter_3go
Member
+1|6744|Leighton Barracks, Germany
ive had rounds were AB was on yet the teams were very, and i mean very uneven. like  3 rounds of MASH went like this > MEC 14 players, USMC 42 players. so wehn it works it does so at an inconvenient time and when it needs to work it doesnt.
2005-12-04 08:54:28
jools
Member
+-1|6806|a galaxy far, far away....
The idea BEHIND autobalance is good. It's meant to avoid fucktard lamers all joining the 'winning' team or the 'easier' side of the map. Yet, the way it actually works is utterly pansy and 100% fucked up. I hate it.

Last edited by jools (2005-12-04 08:54:48)

2005-12-04 10:32:49
Boomerjinks
Member
+301|6793|Denver, CO
Join a squad, you won't get switched.
2005-12-04 10:38:16
IlIlIlIlIl
make it funny plz
+3|6747|Netherlands
when im in a squad i still get switchetd
2005-12-04 11:03:02
Kobrakai
Weirdo
+152|6786|England
You wont get switched if your the squad leader or commander since patch 1.03
2005-12-04 11:23:27
DeadJim
Member
+19|6746|Valencia, California

Kobrakai wrote:

You wont get switched if your the squad leader or commander since patch 1.03
It's my understanding that Smart Balance (i.e. no automatic team switching for squad members) is simply a new Server Option made available with patch 1.03. 

If you join a server that does not explicitly have the Smart Balance feature turned on, the system can and will switch you irrespective of your squad status.


I found one thread elsewhere that covered this in more detail bf2cc.
2005-12-04 11:50:28
Opiate
Member
+0|6723|Ontario, Canada
I have been switched as squad leader many times. Last night it happend to me .. to the team with 1 flag after I capped them! Smart balance mentioned in the previous post should be a default autobalance feature or the only one.. Otherwise it's just silly.

Last edited by Opiate (2005-12-04 11:54:44)

2005-12-04 12:43:43
Sud
Member
+0|6745
There are some custom balancers that will insta-switch you back if you try to switch, nulling the squadleader trick. Also a lot of times when there are "maximum squads reached"

I hate autobalance because it ruins the "squad based play" that this game advertises itself as supporting. How is it squad based play when I can't even get 4 people together on a team?
2005-12-04 13:38:06
Xombie
Red Pirate Powerup, here!
+0|6775|Sweden
Abstract: Autobalance inherently wrong. Alternative solutions better. All suggestion so far seem to discuss how to repair the broken sundial while digital watches abound.

jools wrote:

The idea BEHIND autobalance is good.
I disagree. The idea behind autobalance (as in switching players a.k.a. "smart" balance) is a product of a lazy mind. If you step away from the game for a while and consider the problem "How do we make a round of game fair", you soon realize that DICE really botched this one. Balancing teams has little to do with having equal size teams. It just happens to be the simplest and most obvious solution (or in scientific terms: the "naïve" solution).

So what do we actually want?

For one, we don't want to want to be switched to the losing team against our will, it counters the whole reason we play a game -- we want to win. (Granted, we also want to pad our stats, but that's a whole different essay...). If the game switches the best players, they are punished for helping the team. On the other hand, moving the worst players accomplishes nothing, except possibly helping the winning team.

Secondly, we don't want to play an unbalanced game. Not in the long run at least, especially when we're equally prone to find ourselves on the unfavored side.

Thirdly, we don't want constant equality and balance. It's actually that what we're trying to upset by capping flags, destroying commander assets and stealing vehicles. Creating imbalance in our favor is the means to our end -- winning.

What we want is an initial fairness and a more or less equal opportunity of winning the game. That issue is important during the beginning of the game but moot during the end-game.

Consider alternative approaches to equalizing team strength:

1. Increase the respawn time for the team with most players, proportional to the overweight, or vice versa.

2. Adjust ticket count to counter numerical imbalance. Half sized team, twice the tickets.

3. Impose a restriction on active team size (playing slots). The biggest team can't have more spawned players than the number of members in the smallest team. The other players (reserves) are waiting in a spawn queue, not entering until someone in their team dies, opening a slot.

These approaches have two positive effects, besides increasing game balance:

1, 2 and 3: The game is rather fair and interesting even with a great numerical imbalance.

1 and 3: The incitement to select the "losing" team is greater. It's up to every player to choose between the smaller team or longer wait periods.

Of course, these are only a few suggestions, but hopefully they show that smartbalance doesn't need fixing but rather complete removal. Other solutions would work better. I'm confident that the community will come up with other innovative ideas, as long as we drop the notion of smartbalance altogether.

But will EA listen? Probably not.

/Xombie
2005-12-04 13:53:58
jools
Member
+-1|6806|a galaxy far, far away....

Xombie wrote:

Abstract: Autobalance inherently wrong. Alternative solutions better. All suggestion so far seem to discuss how to repair the broken sundial while digital watches abound.

jools wrote:

The idea BEHIND autobalance is good.
I disagree. The idea behind autobalance (as in switching players a.k.a. "smart" balance) is a product of a lazy mind. If you step away from the game for a while and consider the problem "How do we make a round of game fair", you soon realize that DICE really botched this one. Balancing teams has little to do with having equal size teams. It just happens to be the simplest and most obvious solution (or in scientific terms: the "naïve" solution).
[snip]
Oh well, my fault not being compeltely clear. I didn't mean 'having equal-size teams is good', but 'balancing game automatically is good' actually (whereas some games don't even autoeven the teams).
2005-12-04 14:11:19
elmer1082
To The Front
+4|6754|Columbus, Indiana

Cougar wrote:

FUCK PUNKBUSTER, FUCK AUTOBALANCE, AND FUCK IDLE KICK!!!
I agree
2005-12-04 14:16:55
RKF77
Member
+1|6749

Boomerjinks wrote:

Join a squad, you won't get switched.
Yes, you will.

Autobalance sometimes switches Squad Members before it switches unassigned players...and I've been switched as a Squad Leader post-patch(es).

Like a lot of other things with BF2, it only sort of works.
2005-12-04 14:29:21
=ST6=SewerMaster
AK Whore
+152|6794|Barrington, RI
I was in a squad last night on the Chinese side when playing Wake Island.  I was in a jet and was bombing the SUMC as they came over in the RIB's. well I had about six kills to my credit and I was lining up for number 7 when I got a lag spike and hit a tree.  I died and idiot Autobalance moved me to the USMC side which is fucked up because the CHinese side was winning and I wasn't the first player on the chinese side that died. so yeah Autobalance can be a bitch sometimes.
2005-12-04 21:24:34
kilroy0097
Kilroy Is Here!
+81|6841|Bryan/College Station, TX

Xombie wrote:

1 and 3: The incitement to select the "losing" team is greater. It's up to every player to choose between the smaller team or longer wait periods.
/Xombie
I quite like your ideas on alternatives to the Auto Balance. I also believe of those things that you have covered that a combo of 1 and 3 would entice those on the larger team to switch to the smaller team in hopes of more play time. No one wants to be stuck in a queue, though the Brits do like lines and are expert queuers. But for the rest of us waiting time often sucks.

On your number 2 suggestion.  If the tickets are represented by the number on your team and they change, you may have an issue with the tickets being unbalanced by a team starting small and then filling up and yet still have the tickets of the smaller team. Unless you implement a certain number of tickets dependent upon the team numbers constantly. For example if Team A has 200 tickets and has only 10 players, each player is worth 20 points. On the other team you have Team B with 20 players and only 100 tickets. Each player is worth 5 points. If then someone from Team B switches to Team A you would then have to make certain that the points show this switch. Hence there would be less points possibily for team A while Team B might increase slightly. I don't know the exact mathematical equation that could be used in this instance but you can see how it might be rather confusing and potentially unbalancing for a group of players that some can barely remember to eat and breathe much less do complicated math equations and understand the reasoning behind a complex balancing system. Hence suggest 2 might be bad.

Cheers.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." - Sinclair Lewis
2005-12-04 23:15:48
Mobius_One1021
Member
+3|6717
I swear, my win:loss ratio would be somewhere around .9 instead of .5 if it weren't for auto-balance.  I've been getting a lot better lately.  I was in the top 3 on my team in a 64 person server the other day and was switched 3 ROUNDS IN A ROW to the losing team, only to lose about a minute later when the round ended.  It's complete BS for the most part.
2005-12-05 00:53:55
Xombie
Red Pirate Powerup, here!
+0|6775|Sweden

kilroy0097 wrote:

On your number 2 suggestion.  If the tickets are represented by the number on your team and they change, you may have an issue with the tickets being unbalanced by a team starting small and then filling up and yet still have the tickets of the smaller team.

...

Hence suggest 2 might be bad.
I agree, suggestion 2 need refinement to be feasible. You are on track to a solution: Instead of increasing the ticket count for a team you could decrease the ticket cost for dying. A team loses only half a ticket per kill if their team size is half that of the oppsition. Similarily, the ticket bleed for objective loss (eg spawn point minority) could be adjusted.

This way we don't need to change the ticket count in-game. Easy to explain as well: If your team is twice the size, you have to perform twice as well.

/Xombie
2005-12-05 09:24:19
warco3
Member
+1|6727|Orlando, FL
Very nice suggestions posted. I would have never though of them. All I have to say is, just like TK punishing, Autobalance is a double-edged sword. It can work well sometimes and keep the match even, but instead it usually ends up switching the WRONG people over, not to mention getting friends together in the same team is very hard. Now TK punishing is WORSE, by far. I think it accomplishes the intended purpose maybe ONCE out of 100 times. It JUST DOESNT WORK. GUESS WHAT PEOPLE, a person who PURPOSLY TEAMKILLS DOESN'T CARE ABOUT HIS POINTS ANYWAY! AMAZING! Doesn't take a freakin genious to figure that one out. REMOVE TK PUNISHING. All it's used for is to grief innocent players. ITS RETARDED. That is all.
2005-12-15 10:07:02
Agent_Dung_Bomb
Member
+302|6734|Salt Lake City

I have a question on this subject.  Will AB move you more than once in a single round?  I was on playing a round on Gulf of Oman and when I got in I was on the USMC team.  I'm in the process of selecting my kit and joining a squad when AB kicks me to the MEC team.  Okay, no big deal.  About half way into the round we are winning, and doing so by a fair margin when I get bumped back to USMC.  The tides begin to turn and the USMC side comes back from a pretty substantial deficit to winning.  By the time the USMC had taken back the lead it was very near the end of the game, say 20-25 tickets left, when AB kicks me back to the MEC team.

Please don't think I'm insinuating that I was the sole reason for the winning and turnaround (that's team effort), I was in first place on the MEC team.  As such when I was switched to the USMC I also had the highest score there. Upon being returned to the MEC at the end I just left the game.

My question is this.  Was this AB doing this to me, or did I join a server with an asshat admin?
2005-12-15 10:09:58
*ToRRo*cT|
Spanish Sniper-Wh0re
+199|6741|Malaga, España
auto balance sucks

but i like the idea about switching the whole teams after the rounds this is a good balance
2005-12-15 10:19:33
RDMC_old
Member
+0|6734|Almere, Holland

Cougar wrote:

Does anyone one else think AutoBalance is the gayest invention of the 21st Century?  I get so fucking pissed when I'm playing on a team and all the sudden "bloop" now I'm on the Chinese team which incedently happens to be capped completely off the map.  Or better yet, you join a server and start playing as American, then 4 hours later your still playing as American becuase the server doesn't have the swap team option on and AB makes it all but impossible to get any kind of variety in your game.  The whole "d00d amke a squadzor an it wont switch ju back" arguement is SHIT!!  This is why:

12:01:00-Pushes the opposite team tab.
12:01:00-AutoBalance senses something is wrong.
12:01:01-Your brain tells your finger to push insert.
12:01:01-AutoBalance switches you back to the orginal team.
12:01:35-Your finger makes contact with the insert key.
12:01:45-AutoBalance has been thinking about your decision to switch and has become angry with you.
12:02:03-Your finger presses the insert key.
12:02:15-AutoBalance has started a lawsuit against you.
12:02:45-Your brain realizes you aren't on the team your supposed to be on and you have been switched back.
12:03:13-AutoBalance wins the lawsuit and you are fined 2 points.
12:04:34-Your brain makes the decision to push the team tab rapidly until you get what you want.
12:04:35-AutoBalance already knows what is happening and just goes ahead and takes 10 points for good measure and has his cousin PunkBuster to deport you from the server.

12:15:00-Your brain finally realizes WTF just happend.

FUCK PUNKBUSTER, FUCK AUTOBALANCE, AND FUCK IDLE KICK!!!
yeah 2 things about switching while the game is running do this when ur killed.. not when ur like criticilly wounded orso but when ur dead and i always switch after the round has finished never get transfered back
2005-12-15 10:21:55
Sud
Member
+0|6745
Sounds like a combination of bad luck and autobalance. But to keep in mind:

Squad Leaders never are moved
Commander is never moved

Thus you may have been juggled around because a lot of people were on 1 man squads. If they die, they don't move, so the game waits for the first unleader/commander death and punts you over, which happened to be you in all those situations.

Yes, autobalance sucks.

Please don't think I'm insinuating that I was the sole reason for the winning and turnaround (that's team effort)
Don't sell short the individual contribution to a game. Team effort is something you see in clan matches, not so much in public games. A very good individual can more than turn the tide, even carry his team, if he's particularly good (especially if he's a nasty force in armor and more than makes up for what could be an overall weaker team).
2005-12-15 10:33:53
wannabe_tank_whore
Member
+5|6775
Autobalance is the reason the War College Ribbon is not easily obtainable.  More especially before 1.03.  Plenty of times I was switched as commander to the losing team before the patch.  I worked my ass off to secure the map for my team and then we're pushing their last flag and i die then next thing i see "you're not longer the commander of xxx".  Good job n00b coders.  People complain about Microsoft being crap code... they should play video games.
2005-12-15 10:50:37
Kobrakai
Weirdo
+152|6786|England
I purposly look for servers with auto blalance turned off.

 

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