Gameplay level

Currently the plugin “nonoobs time” (reserve slots for regular players) is inactive due to some technical issues (PS2 stats are not computed anymore) and the fact that there is maybe not enough online time for all regular players to be considered as regular visitors. Plugin is custom written so it’s possible to convert it to use PS3 data instead of PS2. Sometime in the near future (during this week?) it will be active again, hopefully.

What I’ve observed is that the gameplay really suffers because there are lots of more noobs than regular players. Now, because there are lots of noobs many good players get insane scores by killing lots of noobs. Because noobs cannot coordinate their attacks the few regular players cannot do much to get their team winning.

Pay attention to level of gameplay now and after the nonoobs plugin is enabled again.

Balancing teams

Team balancing is always a bit tricky question. Most players seem to think this as trivial but then again most players are stupid. Here are some thoughts about how team balancing can be done (either in wrong fashion or correctly).

1. Admin swaps player from other team to another

This might be the most popular method of manual balancing. This method further divides to atleast two categories.

1.1 Swap “random” player from winning team to another

Swapping “random” player is not a good solution. Consider situation where team A is winning clearly and admin then “balances” teams by swapping someone to another team. Then team B starts winning and in the end scores are even - everybody happy? No. Even though the scores are even doesn’t mean that the teams are balanced. Swapping one good player (ie. anyone in PS3 top-50) can and usually does change the balance upside down. Usually players seem happy with this option even though it is clear by the next round that team B is going to start their winning streak evening the scores till the map ends.

Swapping one (good) player to another team has kind of double-effect. First it takes one good player away from the team A and gives that extra skills to team B. Not surprisingly the player who was swapped has lots of money, good weapons and kevlars and can continue his killing streak in the team B. Then team B starts winning because team A has actually lost the skill of the swapped player and team B benefits alot of this extra skill. This is the wrong way to balance teams!

1.2 Swap worst player in the winning team

This is quite much the best balancing option. Swapping some complete noob (who are omnipresent) does not change drastically team A’s tactics but gives a bit of extra firepower to team B. In 95% of cases it is just this insignificant noob who does not realize his position in the team which can make all the difference in balancing. However swapping noob in a balanced situation is not likely to have any change in the gameplay. That is, the noob does not have enough skills to play as a member of the team and as such does not affect the whole gameplay drastically. By complete noobs I mean players who get scores like 1 - 7 after 8 rounds.

2. “Fair” player swaps himself to another team

Sometimes this works but usually not in the intended way. Any player in the top-25 makes so much difference that if such player swaps himself to another team it completely changes balance. The player himself might see that he is balancing the teamplay by going to another team and make the other team win. That is not balancing! That is going to teamwhore in the other team with all the good weapons, kevlars and lots of money. The other team doesn’t expect anyone to be against them with AWP and are used to kill people with couple shots (enemies don’t have kevlars because they don’t have money). The “fair” player who swapped himself to another team now gets lots of easy kills and can quite easily make his team winning again because the other team lost his skills and the other team gained his skills. Anyone in top-25 shouldn’t change his team during one map (unless autobalanced).

3. Autobalancing

Mani admin plugin does autobalancing quite nicely even though it is completely random. There are some balancing plugins which look at the player skills, kills or other information to do balancing. However it is very common that these plugins overbalance the teams. It really kills the concept of teamplay if every round one or couple players change sides to make teams as even as possible. It’s not teamplay anymore.

4. Conclusion

Teams are balanced when it is X vs. X (X is some number). Usually atleast. Sometimes it just happens that the other team plays better than the other. That is not reason to swap some player to another team to make game “balanced” -  by “balanced” I mean that the other team starts winning so that the scores are even at the end of map. Just like in any other sport sometimes the other team is just better. Just look any national sports league and you can observe that sometimes some good teams just play badly. That is their fault! They should be improving their play rather than getting extra players! Next month the same teams meet again and the scores can be upside down.

Don’t cry for balance - just play better.