Beta testing and balance

[Pook]

Adult: Ok, time to eat your vegetables.
Child: No! They're going to taste bad!

Adult: But you haven't even tried them yet.
Child: I know they'll taste bad!

Adult: C'mon, just try them. If you don't like them you don't have to eat them.
Child: No!

Adult: If you don't at least try them, you're going right to bed.
Child: Waaa... ok... *sniff*

*munch*

Adult: Well?
Child: Hey these are good!
Adult: And they're good for you, too!

[Raindog]

QUOTE (Shizoku @ Oct 19 2006, 05:56 PM) This system will force me to fly for shiny or sit out unless I luck out and get put on the opposition.

Again, you can't be forced to play for any comm, your worst case scenario is that you have to wait to join the comm you want, but as I have stated the wait time will be MUCH less.

[Grim_Reaper_4u]

I have to disagree with everything Shiz said in this post except for 1 thing : Autobalance with uneven comms will cause massive frustration and probably cause the system to fail.

Possible solution :

comms with higher win% get precedence over comms with lower win% (same as in BF2 where a higher rank gives you precedence over lower ranked players). This would require a column with com win % or a special number in brackets besides their rank. If you combine this with a rule that the comm win% of the 2 commanders should never be more than say 10% apart then you would get pretty even comms (and probably pretty even teams that won't complain about their comm).

results :
- even commanders --> a 55% comm can command against a 65% comm but not against a 92% comm /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />
- newbs/voobs can only command if no vet commander is willing to command ---> put up or shut up, if you don't want to fly for a voob then grab the comm seat yourself and comm against someone of equal skill, otherwise don't complain if you are too chicken to command.
- pilots will be happy in the long run once the comm win % separate the men from the boys and both teams have commanders that are matched skill wise.

problem :
- excellent comms only get to comm when there's another excellent comm around (unless you relax the comm win% spread)
- newbs don't get to comm unless NOAT thinks they deserve a break (probably a good idea, i flew over a year before i ever commed a game /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" /> )
- sucky comms don't get to comm unless they have the blessing of the peeps on NOAT (and don't complain if you end up on their team because you could have taken comm yourself)

Actually I think this whole uneven comm stuff is easier to resolve than player ELO issues if you think about it /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" /> Sucky comms have sucky win% hence they have to give up comm to comms with good win% if those comms want to command. Since even the excellent comms don't always want to command/aren't always online there is enough room for good and average comms to hone their skills.

[Pook]

Right now, there's no way to quantify commander skill because even a @#(!ty commander can win when they're stacked to hell.

(As I've done several times in the past. "Pook's Commanding?!?!" and next thing you know I had an All Pro Team)

So...

Step one, stop the stacking.
Step two, reset the commander win/loss statistics.

Now, commander win/loss will be based on the commander's skill and not the size of his stack. Once that happens there are several different possibilities on how to apply that data.

[Raindog]

I honestly think we will see a huge increase of vets willing to comm if they know they can draw a competitive team. Because of that, we will see a huge decrease in novice commanders. Sure the games where noone steps up to comm will be frustrating, but aren't they already?

When Pook did his commander poll to find out why more people don't comm the number 1 reason was they couldn't field a team. The balance system will address the number 1 issue and more vetern, competant comms will be the result.

[Raindog]

QUOTE (Pook @ Oct 19 2006, 06:41 PM) Right now, there's no way to quantify commander skill because even a @#(!ty commander can win when they're stacked to hell.

I demonstate that constantly. Honestly, I am a mediocre comm at my best, but I do have a bit of name recognition that translates to being able to field a t least a decent team vs. 95% of the other comms. Heck, I had a comm game vs. Aarm the other night and I turned on autoaccept thinking there would be no way I'd get stacked and it ended up 58-42 or so even after I had several drop after Aarms command juggernaut illustrated how much of a better comm than me he is.

[Globemaster_III]

pook wrote:

Adult: Ok, time to eat your vegetables.
Child: No! They're going to taste bad!

Adult: But you haven't even tried them yet.
Child: I know they'll taste bad!

Adult: C'mon, just try them. If you don't like them you don't have to eat them.
Child: No!

Adult: If you don't at least try them, you're going right to bed.
Child: Waaa... ok... *sniff*

*munch*

Adult: Well?
Child: Hey these are good!
Adult: And they're good for you, too!



damn..i swear to god.. i did that to my childred too..they spit it out when i leave the room

globey

[Spunkmeyer]

It makes me happy see the developers finally produce something solid regarding team balancing/stacking.

(Probably because of my focus, "balance" to me means gameplay balance /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> )

Stacking has been perhaps the number one subject of arguments ever since Alleg came into existance and the biggest detractor from this game for many. Believe it or not Shiz, I personally hate dominating the other team as much as getting dominated by the other team. It bores me. I'd rather go do something more productive with my time, like watching TV.

Players like Shizoku won't understand this, because they treat Alleg as their personal playground, not as a competitive game. There are many like Shiz. There are also many of those who are so used to Alleg, that they will play pretty much under any condition as long as they are not made too uncomfortable by players/admins/changes, so things like stacking or gameplay balance don't mean much to them.

But the idea is making this game a good choice not only for those who are Alleg junkies but also for new players. There are many ways to fritter away time, or to satisfy your ego by dominating others. Alleg isn't anything special in that regard. What will draw new players to Alleg is good, competitive gameplay, and good gameplay is only possible through a well-balanced game design AND well-balanced sides. We have neither now, but the latter is a bigger problem. And we are closer to solving it thanks to the work of a few individuals.

So.. I don't normally do this kind of cheesiness, but let me express my thanks to Pook and the dev team for sticking with this and bringing things this far along. I really cannot help but be amazed that we actually have a working system in place, when things looked so bleak and hopeless just three years ago. Please take note of the attitude displayed by Dogbones in the OP. It's open, constructive, determined to make things work rather than dismissive, argumentative and egoistical. This stuff is in good hands guys. What we need to do is provide our support and high-quality feedback/ideas.

[Psychosis]

autobalance will lock people out unless imbal=NA, UNDENIABLE FACT. look at your algorithm, I can replicate this in tests, I can make a MOVIE of it DENYING ME.

is that what it would take to prove that its going to lock people out?

EDIT: and FYI 20 nuubs< 10 vets, so that wont work either.

[Pook]

QUOTE (_SRM_PsycHosis @ Oct 19 2006, 07:53 PM) autobalance will lock people out unless imbal=NA, UNDENIABLE FACT. look at your algorithm, I can replicate this in tests, I can make a MOVIE of it DENYING ME.

is that what it would take to prove that its going to lock people out?

EDIT: and FYI 20 nuubs< 10 vets, so that wont work either.

QUOTE (Pook, in the developer @ Oct 19 2006, 02:42 PM) In my original discussion with Tiger over messenger about the autobalance feature, one of the things that would be required would be for the auto-balancer to be able to override the player imbalance setting.

It was required to ensure that nobody ever got "locked out of the game" which it sounds like is happening... so I assume that somewhere along the line it was lost.

I think that if the auto-balance is turned on, then the player imbalance should be set N/A. This will allow the system to automatically place anyone on the proper team in order to maintain the best balance overall between the teams. It may end up with one team being up 2 or more players to the other, but otherwise the auto-balancer gets kind of crippled because it's unable to manage the sums to keep everything as even as possible.

So I'm not seeming lazy... it should allow things to work kind of like this:

A: 10, 8
B: 9, 10

A: 10, 8, 4
B: 9, 10

A: 10, 8, 4
B: 9, 10, 10

A: 10, 8, 4, 4
B: 9, 10, 10

A: 10, 8, 4, 4, 8
B: 9, 10 ,10

A: 10, 8, 4, 4, 8
B: 9, 10 ,10, 7

In short, I think that the "Player Imbalance" method and the "Skill Imbalance" method can interfere with each other and that you should only be able to pick one or the other.