Team Switching By Humans vs System

UTNL

I realize that the balancer probably needs to leave !b and !r active in order to do its job in the background (based on my understanding from a previous discussion). That being said, is there any way to add restrictions so only the system can use these commands?

I don't know about everyone else but I'm finding it more and more frustrating when players switch teams. Of course, some players are switching teams to be on the winning team, which is technically against the rules of the server, but some are also switching teams trying to be a hero when a team is losing particularly badly and the balancer seems to not have a strong opinion either way.

I, like many others, find it frustrating when the balancer can thrust you onto another team suddenly after putting in a strong effort for your starting team (heck, I've been switched AS the team is scoring and get an assist for it when I'm not even on that team anymore!) but if we're going to try and have fairly balanced games, this is going to happen and I know I'm doing my best to accept it in spite of my frustration.

But there's nothing more frustrating than a player taking it upon themselves to switch teams, even if they think they're doing so for good reasons, only to have the balancer thrust some innocent player onto another team as a result.

Thanks for reading!

VRNRon

UTNL but some are also switching teams trying to be a hero

lol are you serious? how is it about "being a hero" or even proving something?
When I had entered the server, it put me to the winning team which was already leading 4-0 and had 1 player more than the losing team.
The match would've been over in 3 minutes with me playing for the winning team, thats why I tried to switch to the other team, after trying to balance the teams.
And after playing on, as you suggested ingame, the match in fact would've been over at 7-0, I just decided to not to cap and camped with the flag in our own flagroom until someone killed me.
Idk how you can enjoy one-sided games, but I personally never enjoy them.
Especially wasting Duku, one of my favourite maps.
It has nothing to do with "being a hero" but more like making the match (ON A GREAT MAP) more balanced and interesting.
Yes, manually changing teams can screw things up but mostly it works just fine if you are doing it in a reasonable moment. And that was a reasonable moment.
Sorry to hurt your feelings

snowguy

UTNL

About 3 weeks ago, I made the !r and !b commands only work if the player is switching to the losing team by capture score AND that team also has fewer players. This is to prevent players being able to force other players to be moved and to help stop winning team switchers while still allowing volunteers to improve teams. I didn't announce this change yet because players can still use the ut menus to do the change when the command stops them and I didn't want to spotlight this loophole. I am still actively banning for team manipulation with the hope that future changes will eventually make the manipulation practically impossible.

Ooper

If you manually changes team it tends to screw things up regardless of intentions that are good or bad.

Schizazoid

Weren't Snowguy banning ppl who switched back after balancing?
Also, I wouldn't mind if manuall trigger for autobalancer was switched off: there's to many ppl who type !t every minute or so, or late joiners (that usually just spawncamp) join and type !t in hopes to get in winning team and screwing up match itself.

UTNL

VRNRon

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just offering my own opinion. To be fair, when you decide to switch teams, you are almost always forcing a player on that team to the other. The balancer SHOULD do this for us, and I know that snow_guy is hard at work making the balancer better, but even if the game goes by quickly, I still think letting the game go is better than potentially ruining it for another player, but again, that's my opinion and everyone's welcome to their own. That's why I posted it, for discussion.

I apologize for appearing frustrated in the moment, but you did not hurt my feelings, I just feel differently about it than you.

UTNL

I'm not even saying you were wrong in THAT scenario. But people often take it upon themselves to think they can balance the game, and I'm saying the system can probably do better and we should discourage our own efforts to balance.

Schizazoid

If you late joining, best course of action is just play and let game flow as it is.
Don't like one sided games? Well, wait for new match.
Plus, one-sided games are inevitable, since skill gap for average combogib enjoyers and handful of good players (that don't cheat, at least, not using bot) is just too big and no balancer gonna compensate that (unless you gonna move good player back and forth between teams each 5 min or so, but that's just won't work and is dumb af).

VRNRon

I still think it has entirely nothing to do with being a "hero".
Players who switch teams in such situations, where the team balancer isnt doing its work and it's very obvious that one team is about to erase the other one in the current match, those players are only trying to balance the game and most of the times it does work.
These players are the ones actually caring about the game or current match. And sadly there are too few of them.

As far as I know, when a player switches to the other team, another player is only forced to switch to the other team, if someone keeps spamming !teams.
But even if another player is forced to switch to the other team, its not that bad because then the balancer balances the teams, which is his work.

You are now saying that I wasn't wrong in that scenario but when I tried to switch the team in that specific match, you instantly said that people should get banned for switching teams.

jerc

I don't know what you all are on about SnowGuy fixed balancer months ago, personally all these overtime matches get a bit annoying so job to well done I say.👍

PepsiCola

snowguy

Yeah, a good compromise. Besides, I've had a game today which was one-sided and I was in a winning team and soon we were leading 4-0, I then switched (!b command) to the opposite team to balance teams, and soon I realised that now the game is one-sided for the team I switched to, and we won 7-4, but at least the game lasted longer.

jerc

Sounds like the crushing weight of massive talent.

PepsiCola

There was not so many players, 7-8, maybe that's why moving one player could have easily tipped the balance either side.