The Team Stacking Problem

[Mithos Riot]

I'm going to caveat my next post by saying that I do not play with any of my friends, I do not "Stack teams" and I do not care which team I'm on. The only time I dont random is when I feel like defending or attacking and then I go with that.

So, stacking the odds in your favor by playing with people you know versus pubs is not an issue? Now, some people believe in having a fair and level playing field and, in general, I think that should be the case in all servers. Putting the odds in your favor, regardless of whether you find that fun or not, doesn't seem like the cool thing to do, and I'm sure the pubs don't appreciate it. And, well, the pubs pretty much make these servers live...we should be trying to make an enjoyable experience for them and ourselves.

If someone plays with their friends and enjoys doing so, why should they have to switch teams? Pubs or members alike. People join our servers because they have fun here and because they have people they like playing with here. If we tell them they have to stop playing with their friends because its not "fair" is silly. Once again, if winning matters to someone, they should either play better or motivate their team to play better. I play on the losing team all the time, I just look at it as a way to better myself.

With TF2 being a team based game, there's only so much one person can do. And, even then, an organized team using a program like vent to communicate will trump that one person. So yea, having some of the people on the stacked team switch to the other team should be expected, as it helps to make that level playing field.

Is switching to the losing team to help out the nice thing to do? Yes. Should it be "expected"? No.

Regardless of whether people actually want to win or not, having a fair match is way more exciting than having one that's completely one sided, especially on Egypt of all maps.

This is an opinion. Maybe I find stomping the other team into the group to be exciting (I don't), maybe "fair" isnt what I'm looking for. Shouldnt that be my choice?

Outside of the game trying to game the teams even, we shouldn't stop people from making them uneven? That's the impression I got from this post, and I'm not so sure that would be a good thing...

I encourage people to play how they feel is fun, as long as they are not breaking server rules. I play how I want to play, always. If I am not playing in a manner I find enjoyable, then I will log off and do something else or figure out a way to make it enjoyable for me without expecting others to sacrifice their fun. THAT is what we should be striving for on eGO servers, and I believe it is what we are doing. Is it ok to encourage people to change teams? Sure, if that is what you want to do. However, the second we start FORCING people to change teams or to not play with thief friends I think we will have taken a serious misstep.

 

[freshmeathead]

All of this and more is why we don't have stupid rules against spawn camping, and the ilk. If you are not good enough to get out of spawn when being camped, you can either 1)whine about it, or 2) use it as a growth opportunity to get better at the game - go medic and take the time to uber a heavy to get out. But no, that would require teamwork and patience.

 

[Maserati]

All of this and more is why we don't have stupid rules against spawn camping, and the ilk. If you are not good enough to get out of spawn when being camped, you can either 1)whine about it, or 2) use it as a growth opportunity to get better at the game - go medic and take the time to uber a heavy to get out. But no, that would require teamwork and patience.

With all due respect, mind to explain how that applies when its 3vs 2 in 2fort for example? I apologize but seems a little unfair to suggest the other players learn to simply play, yes teamwork has to take place however at times when people are trying to increase the server population, some of these tactics are uncalled for and unnecessary and fail to see the advantage of doing that.

 

[Razberri]

For me, I see more of a problem with a team (we'll call this A) being so stacked against that they can't get out of spawn. I'm not saying that if they go out there and the team (B) is better so essentially, they can't do anything. Because (A) can still potentially organize a good push or have some sort of chance. The real problem that I'm trying to bring to light is the intense advantage of 5-8 eGO members obliterating a pub team, that has maybe 1-2 eGO members or none at all. It gives a bully name to our servers and recruits will be harder to fine.
I do, however, agree that everyone should be able to play however they want. That's why this is a thread, to be discussed. I think it might be a situation where those of us that see it as a problem will do it less and when we see it, talk to the people and learn their take on it, while others will play the way the like.

I just don't really like that what Mithos is saying is that the pubs can get over it or get better. As it's been said before, it's a team game. You can't win a round alone.
Another overlooked problem is simply the disrespect that stems from this. It inspires people to rage, and I've even seen people put people down for wanting balance. Unfortunately, I've seen it from members, too.

In the end, I think this is more of a topic of doing the right thing, whatever that might be to you. If you think it's wrong, don't do it yourself. If you don't, that's fine, too.

 

[Nix]

I didn't post in this thread before because I couldn't find anything to say that was not joking or hypocritical. I will admit, I am guilty of joining spectator and then other team because I am tired of getting killed. I do that.

Yes, this is a serious problem. But you know what? It's already been solved. Sure, teams can get stacked, but there is an autoscramble plugin for a reason. Such a thing can only go on for 4 or 5 rounds before the teams are yet again scrambled.

Another thing. Losing is part of the game. There will be winners, and there will be losers. Why do teams get stacked? Not because the players want to make the other team have a bad day (hopefully) but either because it was random, they wanted to play with their friends, or they wanted to win. The scramble plugin is there so that everyone gets a chance to win at some point if they hold out

Our problem has already been fixed as much as it can be. How would we enforce this further? Kick those who join a team because they're dying a lot? Kick someone because they chose Red team? How would we know the motives of these people? There is no way we can prevent this from happening. Honestly, it doesn't happen that much either.

 

[Sanctified Aberration]

Yes, this is a serious problem. But you know what? It's already been solved. Sure, teams can get stacked, but there is an autoscramble plugin for a reason. Such a thing can only go on for 4 or 5 rounds before the teams are yet again scrambled.

I agree with you Honorbound, except with the above. Autobalance does not work. Something about that pluggin is seriously borked, and I am concerned that it is going to negatively affect server rankings.

I can't remember if we have ever had an 'eGO stacking' problem, but I would posit that it is not an issue with the players- our behavior has not suddenly changed to make things unfair. Our pluggin is not functioning as it should, resulting in round after frustrating round. Let's get that sorted before we start suggesting anti-spawncamping measures.

 

[freshmeathead]

I have never spawn camped, but have been on the receiving end many times. On 2Fort, I stand back, get full zoom and wait until the next soldier scout rushes to their demise, and headshot the heavy, demoman or medic, when the door opens, if I can.

With all due respect, mind to explain how that applies when its 3vs 2 in 2fort for example? I apologize but seems a little unfair to suggest the other players learn to simply play, yes teamwork has to take place however at times when people are trying to increase the server population, some of these tactics are uncalled for and unnecessary and fail to see the advantage of doing that.

 

[infernocookie]

I have not made a big deal about the issue before because I completely know where both sides of the disagreement are coming from. However I want to share something someone on a server said to me earlier today.

I was playing on egypt w/ only one other =(e)= member on the server, no one else from eGO there. There was an issue of stacked teams, even though it was not at all any eGO members fault. I was trying to convince people to scramble the teams repeatedly and someone on the server said the following directed toward me. "Look someone from clan teamstack that actually cares about balance." Whether stacking teams is wrong or not, that is not as important as potential members and supporters being pushed away because they have a stigma toward us.

 

[BoinkVX]

Our pluggin is not functioning as it should, resulting in round after frustrating round.

As I stated before, this is true in my experiences. I have played games with some of my friends and have had the game scrambled up to 4 times before any of us got separated.

Also I'm not sure if it even exists on certain servers. Just earlier today (or yesterday technically) I was playing on Harvest and was getting owned, spawn camping at its finest. I want to be clear that it wasn't simply because we weren't using teamwork and communication or I wasn't good enough at the game to counter the other good players or whatever else, the enemy team just had several players on them that were just flat out better at the game then everyone else on my team. I stuck through it, although I was raging a lot on the inside, I was waiting and hoping for that auto scramble to happen. After about half an hour of getting spawned camped for 3 minutes and then losing, I tried to initiate a scramble manually since the auto one wasn't happening. After trying out !sausage and !scramble I was told that I didn't have access to such commands. It was pretty disappointed but I just kept playing the game for the sake of playing it anyway. Eventually after about another half hour the teams got a little more even after half my team rage quit and a couple of the other team's players got auto balanced. The team balance eventually returned back to normal, but it literally took over an hour to happen. I don't know if this is a Harvest exclusive thing or not, but I have never seen it on Valve Maps which happens to be my most played server. Either way it was not a pleasant experience and I really hope the scramble system is broken right now, because if it was intended to be that way then I don't see this problem ever getting any better.

 

[Silligan]

It's probably because I'm new but I actually haven't noticed this as much as you guys say. I have entered our servers maybe 5 times and noticed team stacking, but never with eGO members. I still enforce the rule of no team stacking because I assumed it was a rule here just like in CoD. Anyway, I'm proud to say that I don't team stack. I love being on the losing team, it's a challenge and there's more heads to click Losing doesn't bother me much, except those few times I get on a team that won't play the objective no matter what. I'll admit I've gotten upset at my teams and used all caps but I've actually never rage quit, only on CoD haha! I'm going all over the place with this and there's no point to what I'm saying but yeah, we should fix this.

 

[Soupy]

I usually pick the door that needs a player...I love being pocket medic for Porterrockwell, but I also like sniping his big head through the stairs.....

 

[War Rabb]

I must be pretty weird then. I usually look at the team with the most dom's and join the other team.

Maybe because I find it fun to see if my mere presence will end the lopsidedness. That's totally not egotistical right?

 

[Mr. Monday]

I must be pretty weird then. I usually look at the team with the most dom's and join the other team.

Maybe because I find it fun to see if my mere presence will end the lopsidedness. That's totally not egotistical right?

You're below rank 100. It's allowed

 

[Super-Nova]

I generally pick the team with less doms too or lower point average to the players, but that generally leads to catastrophic losses and me playing elsewhere with my small amount of time

 

[-CaptainJack-]

I usually join whatever team Main is on because he makes me (jk). If he's not there I'll join whatever team Soupy is running medic with Porterrockwell's heavy because I've been to scarred by taking on that combination too many times. Failing all of these conditions, random it is.

I think taking away the ability to choose sides would make a lot of people unhappy, at least from what I've learned from my time on 2fort. I've seen certain members stand out as ones who will always join the stacked team and switch back when they get autobalanced. I think lowering the threshold for votes needed to trigger a scramble vote would be a good start. People won't even think to scramble the teams if they're fair, right? I'm not sure if there's a way to increase the time you have to stay on a team after getting autobalanced, but they could help a player just accept that they got autobalanced and try helping their team instead of just AFKing until they can switch back.

And the autobalancing last minute thing is kind of frustrating too, I agree. I can't even count the amount of times I've run the intel back only to be teamswitched after being killed right before capping and then losing when my former team runs the intel the rest of the way. I guess this just means I gotta get better.

 

[freshmeathead]

Ugh! Math

I generally pick the team with less doms too or lower point average to the players, but that generally leads to catastrophic losses and me playing elsewhere with my small amount of time

 

[Adam]

I have posted here to resurrect this post.

This seems to be a continuous issue.

 

[Mithos Riot]

I have posted here to resurrect this post.

This seems to be a continuous issue.

I agree, resurrecting this post is for sure a continuous issue.

 

[Matz]

I have posted here to resurrect this post.

This seems to be a continuous issue.

Can someone needs to TLR the thread plzz, don't really wanna read through a pages of text and a ton of debate

 

[Caelestis]

Unless any of you have something meaningful to say about the substantive subject matter, do not use this thread as a playground for your personal entertainment.