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This was intended solely to get a feel for the community opinion towards auto balance. /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> I'm slowly getting round to finishing that paper, where I'll detail the various mathods, reasons for and ramifications of AB. Once everyone has had a chance to digest that we can repeat this poll with all the options listed.

apochboi wrote:QUOTE (apochboi @ Jan 14 2008, 10:45 AM) 100% agree with this statement. Im not really against autobalance, but I'd like to pick the com/faction i wanted to play.

ditto here. AS only counts if AB is turned on.

Ahaneon wrote:QUOTE (Ahaneon @ Jan 14 2008, 04:28 PM) Don't mind autobalance... as long as we can have some influence over it:

aka:
- Do not play for list (for example some comms boot me on sight, so why ruin my day?)
- Do not play faction list (I hate belters, i really do...)

I've investigated a number of algorithms for post launch AB. My preferred version is one where the player has the option to accept or reject the auto balace assignment.

If we had accurate ranks, we wouldn't need auto balance in the first place, because people would have accurate rankings, and could join or be prevented from joining the team they want to play for due to stack. Having a working auto balance wasn't the goal in the first place, it was to have even games.



The only ranking idea that somewhat prevented major stacking was old ELO. It took points away if you WON a heavily stacked game. Not many people understood where the cut off point was, so people were a bit scared to stack.

Hey we might not ever have a perfect ranking system, but having a boogey man hiding out in the form of a vauge promise that your rank will go *down* if you stack badly somewhat keeps people in line. No I'm not saying old ELO was wonderful, but on that aspect, it got it right.

Maybe aiming low in our ranking system is the way to go. It will never be perfect, but just preventing major travesties and blatant stackage versus newbies would be good.


Also, 6 (0)'s are not worth absolutely nothing at all. Sometimes they read the academy.

ELO did not take away points if you won a heavily stacked game. Much like HELO it only rewarded players for winning.

You may be thinking of the fact that ELO would not *count* heavily stacked games if the stacked side won. However, you would never lose rank if your team won, and that in itself promoted stacking.

I like the Auto-Balance concept. I still believe though that a minimum rank of say 3-4 is needed (none of this 15x(1)'s = a rank 15 player stuff). Of course, you don't HAVE to have it visually say 3-4, it can READ (0), just be counted as a 3-4 when assigning a person to a team.

Especially since new players are magnetically attracted to one another for the most part.

I'd rather have one 12 named TheBored then 12 (0)'s.

I'll support AB if we increase the general skill of the players who dont know anything. As it is we have way too many players at the 9-13 range who don't know jack. So unless you have some way to make sure were not handing out ranks in our new system of allegskill, it will just be the same way it is now.

I voted no for making it mandatory mostly because for SGs, Vs world games and games where players are picked(Which imo, will usually better than AB).

The main reason why I would like AB is that people always use the excuse that they fly for the comm/faction that they prefer, but in a game, there's almost always a commander who will more popular than the other and the results will be a bad game because of the stack.

Forcing Autobalance is a bad idea.

Making a poll about something without giving details about the "system" is an even worse idea! /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />

Go ahead and force autobalance. Watch me mutiny!

Lets just assume that he means autobalance in the sense that a game cannot be started unless teams are within X points of each other and that a person joining late must join the team that is down (unless that person is a newb and that team is already newb stacked, in which case he should be put on the other "stacked" team). If he doesn't want to join that team then he will have to wait for an opening. This system gets my Yes vote and a even more rigorous system would get one too /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />