ISSUE: Unbalanced team games

[qreeves]

Okay, so with the influx of players we've started to see how RE plays with a more general population present, and I have been entirely underwhelmed with the balancing of team games when playing on public servers. It is almost impossible to balance a team correctly (and have everyone cooperate in that regard), which leaves a giant gaping hole when only one competent player is up against two or three others. Presently, there is no good way around this without getting everyone to agree to a straight up FFA-deathmatch (impossible most of the time, I might add). So here, I put to you, the community: How could we fix this? New FFA modes? Better auto-balancing (but how)? Go.

[TheLastProject]

I think there would be a way to improve auto-balancing at least somewhat.

When a match is over, the server saves the scores of players. After the map switches, players get ready as normal, and when enough players joined (or after 30 seconds), the server will place users in different teams depending on their score in the previous match. This would need a variable, obviously, as not every server would want to do that.

[ZeroKnight]

I've always like the idea of a Juggernaut gamemode. At the start of the game, one player is chosen at random to be the Juggernaut. The Juggernaut would have multiple advantages like buffed damage, increased health, health regen, etc. etc. Whoever kills the Juggernaut becomes the new Juggernaut. This cycle repeats until the end of the match, the winner being the person with the highest score. As for how to calculate the score, it could be done in a number of ways...

• You only earn points by killing the Juggernaut or getting kills as the Juggernaut
• You earn points like normal (ie. fragging anyone) but receive double points for getting kills as the Juggernaut, or killing the Juggernaut
• Earn points equal to total time spent as the Juggernaut

There's probably more creative ways, but those are the most obvious.

Another idea I had was to make King of the Hill its own gamemode, as both FFA and team King of the Hill is fun. On top of that, we could also add a 'crazy' gsp for the King of the Hill mode that made the "hill" randomly move to a new location at set intervals. The only difficulty with that is balancing the flag positions.

[MandaPanda]

I like the Juggernaut gamemode a lot, sounds pretty fun.

Yesterday I brainstormed ideas and thought up a sort of "grabbag" mode. I will try to explain it to the best of my ability. Each person starts with "bag" of a certain item (i.e. player one has item one, player two has item two, etc.) The object of the game is to collect all the items, therefore you have to kill each player to get each item. (You might have to have them collect not just 1 item from each but 5 to make the game last 10 mins but that can be done with testing.) If the player is killed, they lose a random item from their inventory. Once a player gets all the items and the correct quantity of each item they win.

I also like the FFA King of the Hill mode idea.

[Dratz-_C]

Hi Quin and Other Folks,
This is my opinion on what needs to be fixed and how to accomplish it. I believe the effectiveness of the auto-balancing necessitates some remediation. This is because I believe the game should be a good experience in every mode clients pick.

I will respond on the premise that the foundational question has been settled about whether teams' scores should be immediately affected when the clients who earned them are switched to balance the score. Conversely, this factor will have to be satisfactorily considered.

First, I think we need to collect the score data with which to make a decision. We already do this step. However, it may be a consideration where roster changes occur after the match from which the data was collected that the data would have to be readily accessible to the server in the following match.

Next we need to set the number of corrective iterations per match and threshold percentage beyond which corrective actions are enforced. The number of corrective iterations per match would be a server variable "scorebali" and could effectively default to 3, allowing one additional balance within each symmetry balance.

The threshold percentage would be a server value such as "scorebalt," the lowest team score divided by the highest team score and could default to 67. As these two conditions are crossed, the highest and lowest scoring clients in these teams would swap, repeating additional swaps of other clients until the scorebalt would have been at least 67% had these clients been in those teams since the beginning of the previous corrective iteration data collection cycle.

An explanatory message would display for these clients; "Your team has been changed to balance the score." Setting "scorebali 1" would make the changes at the beginning of the next match on the condition it is a team game and when the affected clients join. Asserting that this general approach to the problem would be desirable and practical, it would then have to be integrated with the existing auto-balance framework.
Cheers

[Ulukai]

I dont have big issues with how balancing works right now, but I do like the idea of a juggernaut.

[Dratz-_C]

Would it improve juggernaut mode if the juggernaut also gained health as they attacked other clients? I think this solo-vampire-like trait would help to encourage aggressive behavior from the juggernaut and increase other clients desires to work together to end their more formidable, mutual threat. Juggernaut mode might often be played in undesirably defensive manor with out this particular kind of buff.
Cheers

[quintux_v]

I haven't seen much of a balance issue so far, but I'm wondering if maybe team switching (as a person desires) should be disabled, we don't want all the good players switching to one team and leaving the rest behind.

[bonifarz]

we don't want all the good players switching to one team and leaving the rest behind.

Did this happen once? If I was a "good player", I would be looking for a challenge to hone my skills. Gaining high scores in unbalanced games cannot be rewarding in the long run. But maybe psychology works different here. An automatized balancing system seems complicated, I guess that only makes sense in context of a "ladder" system with stats per registered account.

Juggernaut? Killer mode!

[Jamestonjes]

I say it should only be disabled for the team with less points, if at all and when you enter a game you auto join the "bad" team or spectate unless a hypothetical new var is disabled

I was gonna suggest an escort mode but i dont think itd work... what about a zombie mode? Where its ffa deathmatch (or team) one person is a neutral zombie in team and a melee kill from him will convert others away from their team and to the zombies. in ffa the first person to die is a zombie, in onslaught drones or grunts are treated as if zombies and in multi one team are zombies except in onslaught. In this mode the rocket cures zombies only when used by players (and is a melee weapon) and then they go to that team. If you cure the alpha zombie then you either win or get a mass of points, all zombies go back to normal and either you become a super alpha zombie or the next person who dies. Hypothetically this could be combined with CTF, BB... also head shots cure non alpha zombies. zombiesc can use weapons but do less damage and are less accurate also their melee is an insta kill they are also fast and agile

FFA king of the hill sounds nice. So does grabbag id like to see how that works

[TristamK]

I dont have big issues with how balancing works right now, but I do like the idea of a juggernaut.

Lol ppls, we talk not about new game modes. If need we can create topic with about "new game modes for RE".
And yes, Iam still want see "Freeze Tag" and "Zombie mode" in RE, hehe.

The most radical seems to me create a database of players that have been stored on the server side. This database would be individual for each server. Base data must have information all data about each player who plays on this server. Data must be included players aim, IP (for example),and average points for each game mode. When server get all this information about it ,server must calculate by the formula rank of players (like ELO in QL or points in Hawken). After this server must did autobalance in accordance with the ranks of players.

[Lyberta]

For balancing, an ELO system should be good.

For gamemodes, there should be move to to a rock-paper-scissors class based modes where players can outsmart opponents without having a good aim. Right now the game is focused on aiming skills.

[TristamK]

For gamemodes, there should be move to to a rock-paper-scissors class based modes where players can outsmart opponents without having a good aim. Right now the game is focused on aiming skills.

Classes will be a good.
And yes, RE focused on aim to much. Too much time is needed to keep the enemy in crosshair.

[greaserpirate]

For balancing, an ELO system should be good.

For gamemodes, there should be move to to a rock-paper-scissors class based modes where players can outsmart opponents without having a good aim. Right now the game is focused on aiming skills.

Adding strategic elements would diversify gameplay, but you'd have to do so in a way that doesn't ruin the perfect niche RE has as a straightforward skill-based arena shooter, where there's always a way to get your opponent if you're quick and clever enough and can move along the right paths. There's just something really satisfying about a game that gives you a radar and tells you "See all these blips? If you have the skill, you can eliminate all of them, without having to say 'oh crap, I'm not the right class and I don't have the right type of ammo'."

If you can preserve this kind of environment and add more strategy though, that would make for some awesome additions.
What things were you thinking of?

[MandaPanda]

Would it improve juggernaut mode if the juggernaut also gained health as they attacked other clients? I think this solo-vampire-like trait would help to encourage aggressive behavior from the juggernaut and increase other clients desires to work together to end their more formidable, mutual threat. Juggernaut mode might often be played in undesirably defensive manor with out this particular kind of buff.
Cheers

I think this is a good improvement to the juggernaut mode. Either they gain health by killing other players or by damaging. I'm not sure which one is better because it hasn't been tested but I really like this idea : )

[Lyberta]

I'm not sure which one is better because it hasn't been tested but I really like this idea : )

Mutant mode in UT2004. The mutant constantly loses health and gains it by damaging other players.

Adding strategic elements would diversify gameplay, but you'd have to do so in a way that doesn't ruin the perfect niche RE has as a straightforward skill-based arena shooter, where there's always a way to get your opponent if you're quick and clever enough and can move along the right paths. There's just something really satisfying about a game that gives you a radar and tells you "See all these blips? If you have the skill, you can eliminate all of them, without having to say 'oh crap, I'm not the right class and I don't have the right type of ammo'."

If you can preserve this kind of environment and add more strategy though, that would make for some awesome additions.
What things were you thinking of?

The problem with skill based games is that there's usually a lot of.. losers and it's not fun to play when you are on the lower end of the scoreboard. I see a lot of guys which are bad and they are killed very easily. I constantly see them quit the game mid match. And right now, for example, 1 good player can win CTF against the whole team of bad players, it is way too unbalanced if we start considering "average gamer". Again, this is the problem with free software. Right now free software is written by hackers for hackers. And we, gamer hackers, usually have good aiming skills, beyond the average skill of player who is not smart enough and gives up their freedom for entertainment. When these people see, say, Vsauce is this case and dive into the game they usually are faced against us, hackers, and they get defeated easily, especially in more objective oriented game modes.

I hate to use proprietary software as a reference, but let's take a look at Team Fortress 2 (before Goldrush update which ruined it and eventually made me into software freedom activist). It has several classes which don't require good aiming skills but are invaluable to a team: engineer, medic and spy. I loved to play as engineer so I can setup a teleport in some hidden location near the enemy base and have my team do a surprise attack, I was many times at the top of the scoreboard without really killing anybody.

So let's first think of development resources. A class based mode will require a separate player model for each class, that a lot of work, so let's first consider addition to classless ones. Healing gun, damage buff gun, defense buff gun, or maybe buff fields, make them take a weapon slot so the player have to choose if he wants to have 2 weapons or a weapon and a buff. Sentry turret - there's one in onslaught mode, repurpose it as a deployable, buff it so it can't be easily killed by a single player, will make a good addition to CTF. Let's go further: force fields..., some thing to reinforce flags in Defend the Flag mode so it must be destroyed before capture.

There's lot of things we can add. However, there also should be a way to manage complexity, a memory for loadouts, so the player can setup a particular combinations of items as a slot and then quickly choose it before respawn.

I have tons of ideas, however I'm not yet willing to comply to the current coding standards for inclusion of my code to SVN. Sorry.

[greaserpirate]

(apologies if my first comment sounded overly critical; I was going for more of "If you can do this while preserving RE's core gameplay, it will be awesome!" than "change is bad".)

The systems you suggest sound pretty good, and you've put some real thought into them. Having a "buff gun" could improve teamwork without making people dependant on their supports, and buffing is already implemented with flags so it wouldn't be too different to have a gun do that as well. Being able to place turrets sounds even better, but I'm not so sure this would work well as a weapon: you'd have to have some way to stop it from being "make a turret, sit around waiting for the cooldown, repeat until you have a giant turret nest". The best way to do this IMO is to make it so that players have to rely on some resource to build turrets. In arena (normal), you could have this resource spawn where weapon pickups usually are, and in classic you could have engineers sacrifice the weapons they're carrying to create a turret. Adding force fields sounds interesting, but might result in a lot of camping with shotguns waiting for people to enter; maybe creating temporary, destroyable cover could work though.


Making class roles into weapons is a good idea, but it has some obstacles to it. Having players being able to switch between their support weapon and the weapon they normally use means there isn't a situation where players can't do something they want to because they picked the wrong class. On the other hand people who pick "random weapons" will sometimes end up with support class weapons which they weren't intending to use, and in classic mode you'll have to prevent teammates fighting over who will pick up the buff gun or turret placer. You'd have to make a different category of weapon for them; but then again if you're doing that, why not make them different from weapons entirely? One idea would be to make them "class abilities" that they can change at any time during the battle and wouldn't take up a weapon slot so players still have more then one option to choose from when they're in a battle with another player.

This is all just speculation though; I know a bit of programming but not enough to design something like this either. Still, these are good ideas, and I'd like to hear more

[Sniper-Goth]

NO, no class things in RE please :c

[Ulukai]

NO, no class things in RE please :c

+1 thank you.
I'm still not a fan of having arena on by default, lets pls forget the idea of classes for a game like RE!

[Lyberta]

(apologies if my first comment sounded overly critical; I was going for more of "If you can do this while preserving RE's core gameplay, it will be awesome!" than "change is bad".)

The systems you suggest sound pretty good, and you've put some real thought into them. Having a "buff gun" could improve teamwork without making people dependant on their supports, and buffing is already implemented with flags so it wouldn't be too different to have a gun do that as well. Being able to place turrets sounds even better, but I'm not so sure this would work well as a weapon: you'd have to have some way to stop it from being "make a turret, sit around waiting for the cooldown, repeat until you have a giant turret nest". The best way to do this IMO is to make it so that players have to rely on some resource to build turrets. In arena (normal), you could have this resource spawn where weapon pickups usually are, and in classic you could have engineers sacrifice the weapons they're carrying to create a turret. Adding force fields sounds interesting, but might result in a lot of camping with shotguns waiting for people to enter; maybe creating temporary, destroyable cover could work though.


Making class roles into weapons is a good idea, but it has some obstacles to it. Having players being able to switch between their support weapon and the weapon they normally use means there isn't a situation where players can't do something they want to because they picked the wrong class. On the other hand people who pick "random weapons" will sometimes end up with support class weapons which they weren't intending to use, and in classic mode you'll have to prevent teammates fighting over who will pick up the buff gun or turret placer. You'd have to make a different category of weapon for them; but then again if you're doing that, why not make them different from weapons entirely? One idea would be to make them "class abilities" that they can change at any time during the battle and wouldn't take up a weapon slot so players still have more then one option to choose from when they're in a battle with another player.

This is all just speculation though; I know a bit of programming but not enough to design something like this either. Still, these are good ideas, and I'd like to hear more

I was thinking of TF2 where you can only have 1 turret at a time.

Also, having the "wrong" class is precisely what will make game deeper and allow bad players who chose the "right" class have the advantage.

I was working on another idea using Counter-Strike: Source (however, that didn't fly because I gave up on proprietary games). Basically, each players has several key characteristics: amount of health, regeneration rate, running speed, fire rate, reload speed, number of bullets in a clip, etc. Each player can lower each characteristic, for example -5% health, which will turn into points which can be used to buff other characteristics. For example, suppose you do -15% health which gives you 3 points, use can then spend those like this: 1 point for +5% regen speed and 2 points for +10% running speed. This way each player can build their own unique class which matches their preferred play style.

[ZeroKnight]

We had a class-like mutator in the past: league. it was dropped due to it being a nightmare to balance IIRC.


@FaTony
You don't need to touch the source code to create a menu that saves multiple loadouts for arena. That goes for any gui really. You use CubeScript for that. Hell, I made myself a compass that stored personal loadouts for myself. You can accomplish a fair amount with CubeScript regarding menus and shortcuts abd added accessibility.

[greaserpirate]

The customization you mentioned seems pretty interesting and could add a ton of diversity to Red Eclipse, but it might be a bit hard to balance. (I don't know though since I haven't tried balancing it; it might end up with a sort of perfect imbalance if done right)

But the thing about customizations and classes that you select before you spawn is that you can get into situations where you need a different set of attributes to do something you want to do, and when that happens you only have three options: commit suicide, ignore it and do what your class demands of you (blah ) or try to do the thing you want and be bogged down by your lack of necessary abilities. The first one puts a damper on the action and the thing you're trying to do will probably not be there when you get back, the second makes the game a lot less engaging mentally by limiting your decision making and just makes is feel less free, and the third may be possible if you are still able to do what you want, it's only harder. (For example, in TF2 the medics can still kill people, they just need to skilled with the syringe gun, which is harder to use effectively than most other guns).

This was partly why league failed, because all it really did was restrict you to one gun and prevented you from doing parkour in some classes. If you saw an opportunity for something you could do with a different weapon or using different skills, too bad.

I also hear a lot of people objecting to having class-based mechanics, but I have to say, if you can make them work while keeping the same straightforward feel of Red Eclipse, where anything is possible (but it takes skill), then that would be something truly amazing . If it doesn't, but it's good in a different way, that's great as well, but it might fit better as a mod or a fork than as something included in the game. (A jack-of-all-trades game might be interesting but you will get a divide between fans and non-fans of the mode when it comes time to vote at the end of a match)

Also, the fact that newcomers are ragequitting because of the difficulty to aim might mean we should do something about the constantly abused trend (at least by newer players) of standing in one place, tapping A and D in a random order, and being very annoying to hit without using the environment at all. But besides that, why worry? If people don't like our game because it's too hard, then the thing we should be doing is being more inviting to them and making them feel welcome (telling them about the forum, asking if they want to learn the map editor, just generally being friendly). The ones who stay will end up adding to the community, and the ones who leave we shouldn't worry about.

[TristamK]

NO, no class things in RE please :c

Lol why ?

We had a class-like mutator in the past: league. it was dropped due to it being a nightmare to balance IIRC.

RIP league.
About balance - i saw once on the old WASU's server a fixed and well balanced variables for league.

I was working on another idea using Counter-Strike: Source (however, that didn't fly because I gave up on proprietary games). Basically, each players has several key characteristics: amount of health, regeneration rate, running speed, fire rate, reload speed, number of bullets in a clip, etc. Each player can lower each characteristic, for example -5% health, which will turn into points which can be used to buff other characteristics. For example, suppose you do -15% health which gives you 3 points, use can then spend those like this: 1 point for +5% regen speed and 2 points for +10% running speed. This way each player can build their own unique class which matches their preferred play style.

Good idea. I like them

[TheLastProject]

This is one of the days where I feel I am the only one who likes playing a shooter to shoot stuff up, instead of to play an RPG.

Honestly, I don't feel that classes would improve the game in any way. It even kills a base thought of the game: Simple, casual fun. If I need to think exactly of what stats to use on my character, all the fun is drained out of the game, and I will lose just because I clicked a wrong button in the character creation screen, instead of meeting a stronger opponent.

I play shooters to shoot at things. If I would like to spend huge amounts of time thinking of the perfect balance of my character, I wouldn't play a shooter, I would play an RPG.

[Ulukai]

This is one of the days where I feel I am the only one who likes playing a shooter to shoot stuff up, instead of to play an RPG.

Honestly, I don't feel that classes would improve the game in any way. It even kills a base thought of the game: Simple, casual fun. If I need to think exactly of what stats to use on my character, all the fun is drained out of the game, and I will lose just because I clicked a wrong button in the character creation screen, instead of meeting a stronger opponent.

I play shooters to shoot at things. If I would like to spend huge amounts of time thinking of the perfect balance of my character, I wouldn't play a shooter, I would play an RPG.

Thank you for putting my thoughts into words!