Remove the balancer

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captainsnarf
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Remove the balancer

Post by captainsnarf »

It sucks. Please remove it. It doesn't work. Let people use the change team button.

Anybody else feel the same way?
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pooty
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Re: Remove the balancer

Post by pooty »

The balancer itself works. The problem seems to be the scoring. ONSPlus specifically it seems to be erratic and you can't get the code out of the .u file to check it. I am considering resetting the points again.

We can go back to random teams... which is even more unbalanced based on the match data collected.

Not a fan of letting the team switching thing though, it will be too hard when either you get a really good random team, or players decide they don't want to "waste" their time playing on a noob/crap team and just switch to the other, perhaps with the altruistic intention of getting the map over faster (mercy round), or just because they'd rather win.
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captainsnarf
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Re: Remove the balancer

Post by captainsnarf »

I really don't like complaining and am usually not one to complain. I'm not the best player. Happy to lose, but there have been quite a few matches lately that are one sided, good people quit, and teams command don't work. The whole map is taken, our primaries are down, but nobody on the other team is trying to get them. Just spamming ion tank into locked core until time runs out for one long, dragged out point. Repeat for two more rounds. This is when the good players quit and I honestly don't blame them. There is usually an admin on but with the balancer enabled hands are tied and not much can be done.
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pooty
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Re: Remove the balancer

Post by pooty »

So are you advocating for having one team have more players (>2) than the other to maintain the balance? Some matches, even with a good team, fall apart. We had a couple last night on Minus where we couldn't get anything going despite having many good players, it finally changed when we got a few good adds.

So lets look at two scenarios:

A. Teams are skewed from the beginning, either through the messed up balancer or random. One side easily rolls to the primaries. Should we then:
1. Make players switch to keep the balance? What if they don't want to ? (Basically the counter to "good players quit", why would a good player then intentionally want to do this?
2. Force a mid round shuffle (they balancer can do this, and it was nearly universally hated)
3. Call a mulligan and restart/reshuffle the round (balancer can do this too, the problem is its set by time....some maps this happens in 2-3 mins, other takes 5 or 6 (over half the round)..and then feels like a penalty for good effective team play. When it was on, people would often sandbag until the time limit passed...

B. Teams are balanced.
1. One team gets a few joins Xexx, FuriousRabbit, other team gets random noob1 and noob2. Now its unbalanced. To allow the switching we have to *disable* the "teams" command/number balance. It won't even let an admin switch themselves or anyone else if it forces teams to be >1 different.
2. One team just works better together, the other does not. Should a smooth running, effective team be broken up so that the disfunctional team has more of a chance?

Either people won't switch, or they will switch to make it worse (we have several of those), or they will complain they didn't want to be switched.

Not sure what the right answer is..
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Enyo
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Re: Remove the balancer

Post by Enyo »

I understand snarf's frustrations, but pooty is right, the numbers for balancer vs. random teams don't lie. Although the balancer had only a slight edge on creating balance, I'm starting to think too the screwed up ONSPlus scoring mechanisms are a primary culprit in why the balancer is sometimes so bad.

Pooty can tell you, I've never been a big fan of the balancer, but the truth is there will never really be a true sense of balance in the onslaught game mode. There's just too many variables in ONS and too often players joining/leaving completely changes the balance anyway. Carpe's HoC Freon Team Death Match server users a balancer, and it works incredibly well, but you're only balancing killing ability (and thawing of teammates) vs. healing/destroying nodes, shielding nodes, linking teammates at nodes, linking teammates' vehicles, good vs. bad players in certain vehicles, general attack/map strategy AND killing ability. That's just to name a few of the things that go into making a good team.

You also have a fairly small subset of players that are incredibly good, a small group of noobs, and the rest seem evenly split between middle-of-the-road players and those long-time players with an inability (or unwillingness) to play much better than a noob. With that type of player community, the really good node-aggressive players can and often do single-handedly make a difference.

Perhaps it's time to start a discussion on changing the match scoring so that matches don't get drawn out in the way that snarf described where one team is winning but draws it out for cheap spam points. I kinda like the CEONSS setup where they have 1 pt match wins instead of 3 pts, and their balancer reshuffles for a mulligan if the round is over too quickly, I think under 5 minutes, giving the balancer another chance to get it right. And they have a much slower overtime core drain, so there's lots of back and forth in OT and it keeps the match from feeling like it's over too fast with just one round. Just an idea... we'd get more maps in that way and those Dria matches won't feel like such a slog
“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”
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captainsnarf
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Re: Remove the balancer

Post by captainsnarf »

I agree there is no winner here. Somebody is always going to be unhappy.

I think if teams are unbalanced in numbers people will naturally switch if they have the option. I always did. When teams are unbalanced due to skill some good players might change just for the challenge or because they feel bad. I don't think it needs forced. I believe people will choose a good match over a beat down.
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Tater
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Re: Remove the balancer

Post by Tater »

captainsnarf wrote: Mon Aug 30, 2021 10:49 pm It sucks. Please remove it. It doesn't work. Let people use the change team button.

Anybody else feel the same way?
Team balancing has been tricky; before we had it I would sometimes switch to a heavily losing team to try and give them some balance (at the end of the round), and not many people saw issue with this because most of us want a fair balanced game. Personally I could care less if I lost, it's just when the balancer puts me on the worst team possible because it thinks I can balance all of the noobs out.
However team switching as far as I know is strictly against the rules and Dog respectively called me out on it, so I don't do it anymore.

Have you guys tried balancing with efficiency instead of PPH? I haven't played in a while but I remember talk about that, maybe that'll result in better teams.
Is there a way for the server to hold all mid-game joins until a round completes, then collectively balance those joins? Seems like a decent idea, that way you won't get a loaded team just from lucky joins.

*Also I agree with Enyo, I've always preferred best of 3 instead of best of 5 like we have here on OMNI. Nobody wants an hour long stalemate except for the ones that sit back and click the entire game.
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infinitecat
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Re: Remove the balancer

Post by infinitecat »

There's no way Onslaught can ever be truly fair.

Differing levels of player skills times varying levels of gaming hardware times disparate connection speeds times insanely powerful weapons times divergent blood-alcohol levels equals all-too-frequent stomp-a-thons.

Maybe the last time Onslaught was at all "fair" was the base Torlan game where vehicle options were limited, so it came down to strategy and not equipment.

In the end, Onslaught is usually won when one team has one more person willing to build nodes than the other team.
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pooty
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Re: Remove the balancer

Post by pooty »

As said, never going to be fair, someone has to win, someone has to lose sometimes spectacularly. As SMOKER once said, "Sometimes you're the bug, sometimes you're the windshield".

But perhaps this:
Enyo wrote: Tue Aug 31, 2021 12:27 pm Perhaps it's time to start a discussion on changing the match scoring so that matches don't get drawn out in the way that snarf described where one team is winning but draws it out for cheap spam points. I kinda like the CEONSS setup where they have 1 pt match wins instead of 3 pts, and their balancer reshuffles for a mulligan if the round is over too quickly, I think under 5 minutes, giving the balancer another chance to get it right. And they have a much slower overtime core drain, so there's lots of back and forth in OT and it keeps the match from feeling like it's over too fast with just one round. Just an idea... we'd get more maps in that way and those Dria matches won't feel like such a slog
might be the key. So we have fairly long matches #5moarrounds that can take 1hr+ and then rounds where one team more less steamrolls but "Just not a 2 point team"... So should we have shorter rounds? Faster/slower OT? I reduced the round time a bit, and slowed OT 2.7 mins OT (vs. old server 2.0) to hopefully allow for some dramatic comebacks..which we've had....BUT when you're in say Minus and you've lost 1/5 and just getting base pounded for 5 mins to just avoid 2pt loss isn't much fun.

We need more than just a 2pt match, otherwise a single 2pt round ends it, and that doesn't feel right.
Maybe we should speed up the OT drain, then the countdown clock is really critical (like it is for 2pts), but if you're on a shitstain team, the pain ends quickly. OT becomes less important, you'd give up OT comebacks, but this would put the focus on the game clock vs. OT clock to take control of the map.

1.0 Server Round is 10 minutes. 2.01 OT (12 total, 5 rds = 1hr)
Right now round is 9 minutes. 2.7 Minutes OT (12.7 total, 5 rds = 1hr 3 mins)

Maybe go to 11 minute round, 30 second OT (11.5 min total, so shorter Rd 58 mins.). Get your shit together before OT. Longer Round time should hopefully result in more 2pt victories, and it makes OT core damage during regulation more important.
And what about a Mulligan? Maybe 5 mins? (If you get 2pts in half a round, teams are whacked do over)

Let's try it and see.
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pooty
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Re: Remove the balancer

Post by pooty »

And with respect to the Mulligan, it doesn't mulligan twice. So if you beat ass, in 2 mins, it mulligans, if you do it again next round.. you get your 2pts.

And why different than the CEONSS setup? Maps...they favor more foot/DM type maps...so I feel that those benefit from a long OT. Here I think shorter OT more emphasis on take the map, do core damage in regulation. The 2/1 pt scoring thing is FIXED as far as I know. So if you back the win to 2pts, you could have just a 1 round match (which wouldn't be very fun IMO).
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