Team Stacking on the Avalanche Server

[SHiBBY927]

I have been playing here for quite awhile and I have to say when I was on the Avalanche server tonight at around 6:30pm central time I was completely disappointed in what I saw. We have a bunch of our own clan members, as well as some of the regulars stacking the teams. I joined Allies at the beginning of the game because I noticed they had something like 13 players to the Axis' 15. I found out quickly that the entire Allied team was being pinned into the alley at the first flag and that the Axis players were basically padding their stats and not going after the objectives.

Around 50% or more of the players on the Axis team had at least 2:1 K/D Ratios while everyone on the Allies had negative ratios including myself. I am a pretty consistent 1.5 to 2.0 K/D ratio player. Looking at the scores I also found that there were at least two axis players with 60-70 kills and only around 9 deaths.

This indicated to me that the teams were being stacked with skilled players. Sure, as far as number of players may go the teams may be even but it is not fair to myself or to the pub newbies when the teams are being stacked in such a manner. I piped up and stated numerous times that the teams were stacked and that the teams should be evened out only to be met with statements that the teams were fine because of the number of players and to quit complaining and to get out of the alley. When you are playing on a team comprised almost entirely of pub players who are not communicating, and can't even get out of the alley because the other team is stacked with skilled players that creates an unfair playing environment.

I know this sounds like I am complaining and I hate to complain but I am one of the quietest players there is, and this is the first time I have seen team stacking of this scale. There's no excuse for it in my book. The servers should be a fun and fair place. I have been playing Day of Defeat since it's earliest stages and almost every server I have played on regularly has a system in place or admins that try to keep the teams somewhat balanced. It would be one thing if this was a private match or a clan vs clan situation but it's quite another when it's a pub server and the more experienced players are intentionally stacking the teams so they can make themselves look better.

I am an avid paintball player. One of the things I hate the most about that sport in particular is when the experienced players with expensive equipment team up on the people who are new and renting equipment. Often you don't see those people come back because they see these experienced guys and think they are jerks. This is the same type of situation that went on in the Avalanche server tonight. You have experienced players who play all the time stacking one side, and inflating their k/d ratios so that they can feel good about themselves and you have pub players who might have turned into regulars who get turned off and leave. It's utterly and totally ridiculous. I play Avalanche and Donner exclusively. When I play on Donner the other clan members, and regulars seem to switch teams to keep things even. I don't recall ever once having to call for teams to be evened up.

People can say what they want about it. Teams were stacked... plain and simple. There is no way that a team should have two players getting 70+ kills with less than 10 deaths. Nor should a team with an obvious advantage in player skill levels be sitting back and killing instead of pushing the last flag.

 

[Quaffer]

To me, the thing that concerns me the most about this, is that the allies were not having fun. They came on our server for a good time and we were poor hosts. Avalanche is a flag map. The object is to take all five flags. Not to run up your points. When the deck is stacked against one side the more experienced players should shuffle things up.

Our EdgeGamers on the axis side missed an opportunity. A few of the better ones could have switched sides and made a push through the apartments for a breakout. Shown leadership instead of poor sportsmanship. Who will you shoot if the other side goes elsewhere to play?

EdgeGamers will not maintain server rankings if people don't have fun.

Thanks SHiBBY927 for stepping forward.

You bring back memories. Here is my first post on the eG forums, 08-14-2008:

I was on Palermo last night. I was on the axis side. I chose axis because they had fewer players, even though I prefer the BAR. I noticed one eGO on my team. I died repeatedly (not unusual for me, I'm not that good).

What was odd was that almost the entire Allied team seemed to be eGOs. They would win a round every two minutes. After about five allied wins and being killed within 30 seconds of regenerating, every time I regenerated, I switched to Flash and had a very pleasant game. It gives one pause to ask for TEAMs when the entire unbalancing force are senior administrators.

It's nice that all the eGOs had a chance to bond and kick axis buttocks but they might have had a more interesting game if they'd have mixed the teams up a bit.

If you want people to play Palermo you will want to keep things balanced.

Perhaps I stumbled into an eGO vs. everybody else game unaware. Perhaps balance is worth some consideration.

I post this here because we don't need to be talking about this in front of the =(e)=s. After all we hold ourselves to a higher standard. See you in the war!

Those with long memories may recall that Palermo, an interesting map with three distinct paths from one side to the other, did not last very long on EdgeGamers servers. How's that old saying go? "Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it."

 

[CragnockTheUncrunkable]

I agree with the sentiment of both posts. It's the duty of eGO members to balance teams as much as possible, help out undermanned and underskilled teams. It's all about sportsmanship and it's something that we should all be very conscious of when we are playing.

That being said, what the person stated is generally true, when there's an even number of players on a team they are generally even or will soon even out not only in terms of manpower but in terms of skill. Clearly this was not the case and teams should've been redistrubuted.

I guess what i'm saying is keep it classes eGO

 

[Faceman1725]

First off I agree with what is being communicated here. I back it 100%. The Edgegamers playing should be able to step up and make it fun for all.

However, I would like to point out that every time that I have played on the Avalanche server, it is at least 90% pubs. The Axis team had all of maybe 2 Edgegamer player on it. It was primarily composed of pubs. Its not as if the eGO players are purposefully stacking the teams solely for the purpose of boosting stats! There weren't even enough of us there to stack teams! We can't just push a button and magically have the teams shuffle. Everyone knows that the Axis side has the advantage. No doubt there. So why is it so surprising to everyone that the Axis players had better stats?

In regards to the teams, we cant purposefully all switch to Allies if the Axis are cleaning shop. The autobalance is an obvious reason that stands out to me. Yes there is always room for improvement in our organization. Not everyone ALWAYS acts as they should. I am speaking for myself as well as others. And I am sorry if some of the players had an unfavorable experience playing. I have had the same thing happen to me I dont know how many time. But its also just a game. I love Edgegamers, dont get me wrong. But I also think that there are some very insignificant things that can get blown way out of proportion in the grand scheme of things, such as a "team stack."

 

[SHiBBY927]

I will point out that there were more than a couple clan members and while I can agree that most of the players were pubs they were not the everyday random new guys. Quite a few of them were regulars that I see on the servers almost every time I am on. They know better than to stack the teams and to pad stats. I am not blowing this out of proportion I am only stating the truth. I don't believe we are representing our clan or presenting our servers as a fun and fair place to play by allowing the teams to be stacked in such a fashion. Like I said before I am probably one of the quietest players there is. I rarely talk on the servers and being that I work in corrections I definitely try to avoid disputes because I have enough stress as it is. Despite having seen this behavior before I have kept quiet. This to me was the last straw. I personally dont want to play with guys who pad their statistics by joining the team they know is winning. I absolutely hate playing as the allies and despite seeing that they were getting statistically manhandled I still joined that team. When I got fed up and left I was 13 and 15, I dont even remember the last time I left without at least breaking even.

 

[Bad Brain]

i think this can be partly contributed to the map itself, i find as soon as more than 20 people are in avalanche the axis gets a massive advantage and from then on, no matter how good the players are on allies it will be frustrating. This is the reason i rarely play avalanche, i actually really like it when theres less people. as for stat padding, do you have proof of this? i know i regularly get great scores but i really dont care for points, i only play for fun, as i hope is the case for most. Whenever i join a server and the teams are balanced i sit in spec for a bit, wait till someone leaves/joins a team or until its obvious one team has the upper hand before choosing a team to join, id like to see more admins do the same, but i know most have a team preference, especially on a map like avalanche.

 

[SHiBBY927]

Two players on the axis team were in the score ranges of 70 kills and less than 10 deaths. One of the players was BoD Main whom I have seen frequently on the server. I dont recall the other guys name. The most frustrating thing was that when I pointed out that teams were stacked an eG member on the othee team advised me that teams were fine and that they were even as far as the number of players. This was wrong because often two or three ppl from my team would leave and none of the high scoring players were coming over to my team to balance things out despite my having mentioned the balance issues. I was ganged up on by the eG guy and some pubs I didnt recognize all stating that if my team would quit "hanging" in the alley that we would be doing fine even though it was more than blatantly obvious that theaxis side was ridiculously stacked with better and more experienced players. I should probably also mention that our best player was 44-110

 

[efren]

This has long been a problem with a map like ava since it favors the axis side. So a lot of regulars tend to always play on the axis. I now mainly try to play the allies side because i know they need help most of the time. As for the people with high kdr scores I think that has more to do with their playstyle of just camping in church or one location for example and racking up kills and not really stat padding. Next time you see this happening just let an ego know.

 

[Kiwi]

Thanks SHiBBY,

I can whole heartily agree with you! And I am really sorry that an admin would just shut you down like that. I remember when I first started playing DoD I would sit in spec for 5-10min waiting for an Axis spot to open up on avalanche. Hopefully admins can try to help out with this problem now that you have brought it up in such a coherent and respectful way. With that being said I hardly ever play avalanche now, I just hate uneven teams.

I am glad that you noticed in Donner that players are more willing to change sides. Donner is my home and I think that admins on there do a great job helping even teams, Specifically Skippy. Skip often changes teams if one team win 2 in a row. There is nothing better than being on a team that is pinned down for 2 or more rounds and then somehow you breakout and win the round! I just love that . And thats why I hate Skippy.

So thanks for your great post :thumbup:.

Cheers,
Kiwi

 

[BILL CLINTON]

I LOVE allies on Ava!!! Garand!

 

[YoSpankDawg]

I LOVE allies on Ava!!! Garand!

This post by Bill (who, I assumed, was lost in the nether) was so random, it made me think of
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6z88ur-8bY&feature=related[/ame]

 

[Soup Nazi]

I can agree and I can also disagree...maybe it does favor the axis but I have also seen on various occasions where the allies aren't aggressive and steadily camp the last two flags. If it happens again, take command of the troops and move forward. Use a tactical strategy and keep pushing. I for one, do not have an issue playing against a stacked team of seasoned players. It keeps me sharp and I start looking for weak points on the other team and focus on that and exploit that weakness. Be strong and start thinking of other avenues of attack. good day.

 

[Spitfire'd]

Thanks for saying something. I've seen this happen before, heck I've been the victim of it. I'm always up for a challenge and love playing against a team with better players. It's the best way to get better in my opinion.

However, if you are rolling the other team and can switch, you should. End of story. We are hosts of the #1 DOD server and others that we want to share with the world. We need to be good stewards of that opportunity and responsibility.

I know I'm not saying anything that's already been said, but I think we would do well to remember to make sure all players are having fun.

 

[Spartacus_Legolas]

I can say as much that the map definitely favors Axis.
To say that there are stat padders on and such, it's too difficult to say. In every map there are known mg spots that people will camp. That's just part of the map. Donner has it's spots, Ava has it's spots, Flash, etc.
To say that there's a team of stat padders would imply that a bunch of guys join a team with the knowledge that they want to all stat pad. We can't prove that. And we certainly shouldn't go about accusing pubbers that they're doing such things either. That's a slap and an insult to someone playing the game.
If you take the people on the Allies side... sometimes they aren't aggressive enough and just wish to camp their last two flags... put some mgs on the rooftops and the veranda, etc.

The context can go either way, and as long as we're all speculating what players intentions are, we probably aren't going to get too far.

Avalanche is a Axis favored map. I'm not too much of a slouch on most of our maps but, when I have a team that simply only wants to camp and defend flags, etc. (Allies on Avalance at times...), there's nothing that can be done. It's stated nowhere in our motd that teams have to be reorganised because they are stacked. I would think that would have to be changed in our motd if something like that were to happen. It's not a rule I'd be willing to impose unless leadership signed off on it. I would like to think that people can join whichever team they enjoy playing with unless the teams are 'uneven' via 3 player differential or more, then and only then I would move players as such.

I was playing on Avalanche tonight and was on Allies. Everyone was contempt to camp the last two flags and stay in the apartments. Is that the Axis players fault? Can we say they're all stat padding... the ones with k/d of 2:1 or better? We can't say for sure...
I tried to rally players to move about, capture some flags... and when the Allies decided to try be a bit more aggressive, they won some rounds for themselves even though the k/d ratios of both teams were completely different. I think that kind of proves that even a weaker team that tries to be aggressive and employ different sets of tactics, can still be successful in a map that doesn't favor them terrain wise.

Another example would be Strand... the Allies can sometimes find it very difficult destroying all objects if Axis are dug in well, which they usually are...

I don't necessarily agree simply because, some things can't be proven. If proof is assuming just because they've got nice k/d ratios and are camping but, Allies players are camping too... it's an assumption. There has to be thousands of players that jump on avalanche in a day. For the ones who're on Axis getting a good k/d ratio, we can't call them all stat padders if they man good positions that probably should be manned.

It's a slippery slope that one...

 

[Skippy]

Just wanted to add some of my thoughts to the matter. The "Axis advantage on Avalanche" discussion is actually not a new one, and does seem to come up every few months or so. Here is one that came up in December, just for reference.

But I digress...

I think it's first important to clarify the difference between two concepts that are being bandied around here --

Team stacking: Purely based on the # of players on each team. As most of you (should) know, we don't admin for differences of 3 or less. Even differences of 4 or more don't last too long and typically resolve themselves naturally.

Skill stacking: This is where I believe the meat of Shibby's grief lies. The fact that the Axis team appeared to be dominating the Allies via superior skill, rather than numbers.

Around 50% or more of the players on the Axis team had at least 2:1 K/D Ratios while everyone on the Allies had negative ratios including myself. I am a pretty consistent 1.5 to 2.0 K/D ratio player. Looking at the scores I also found that there were at least two axis players with 60-70 kills and only around 9 deaths.

There is no way that a team should have two players getting 70+ kills with less than 10 deaths.

If it's one thing I learned, it's that KDRs don't always paint the whole picture. Sure, in this instance the dominating team had better KDRs, but more often than not, a mediocre team with good communication is going to come out ahead than the quiet team with 2 ringers. Even though I play primarily on Donner (and secondarily on Avalanche), I can count more than a dozen regs (eGOs and pubs) who never boast impressive KDRs, but are more invaluable to their team than that 70-5 sniper/mg because of their 1) communication skills and teamwork and 2) affinity for capping flags/objectives over racking up kills.

Nor should a team with an obvious advantage in player skill levels be sitting back and killing instead of pushing the last flag.

First of all, we don't have any rules against 'not going for the last flag'. If a player's preference is to camp like there's no tomorrow and not go for any objectives, that's completely legit. That would not be considered 'stat padding', which of course is not allowed.

Also, to me, there is another possible factor in play here, besides just assuming that the dominating team was 'sitting back' to rack up the kills. Just because a team is dominating the other and pushing them back to their first flag, doesn't mean they can win the game at will. On the contrary, often this makes it even harder to win. Why, you ask? Well, because the team being pushed back has less real estate to work with, and inevitably ends up re-spawning behind/around their first flag in greater numbers than usual. Using Donner as an example, it is often much easier to spring a victory when the opposing team are wasting 3-5 of their players minding the field. As the infamous Sudden Death would scream (almost on a daily basis), "There's no flag in field guys!!"

I don't believe we are representing our clan or presenting our servers as a fun and fair place to play by allowing the teams to be stacked in such a fashion.

While I do agree that players can empty out from a team that is constantly being dominated (thus hurting the server numbers), there is another side to the coin too. I for one sometimes loath situations where both teams are very evenly matched, for they oftentimes result in boring stalemates. I do find excitement in situations where the tide/momentum changes dramatically from one side to the other, and love the challenge of being on the team that is being dominated -- even if your team does not end up winning, there's great satisfaction to be had in knowing you managed to prevent the dominating team from getting your last flag, despite everything they threw at you.

I think the bottom line is, while it's not our job to admin an imbalance of skill level, sometimes we can do our part by volunteering to leave our bosom buddies and switch teams to help the weaker team (assuming your skill level allows you to of course!), especially if it's obvious that they are not enjoying their eGO experience.

 

[Spartacus_Legolas]

I'm with Skippy on this one.

 

[ST0RMY]

In the one thread I choose to read before I go to sleep everyone decides to write a novel but I consider that a good thing.

Shibby has brought a somewhat taboo topic into light and that topic is stacking. In the past I have seen some members I have a ton of respect for stack teams (by skill or amount) to the point of making players reagequit. One incident has stuck with me and that occurred on Anzio when she was new. Some very skilled players joined the Allies and proceeded to go straight for flag caps while there were only about 4 people on each team. It started off as an all eGO thing but when pubs can in only to be stomped into the ground with repeated cap-outs who in their right mind could blame them (or me) for finding a new server? The most frustrating part was that with most of the players being eGOs not a single eGO on the Allied team agreed to postpone cap-outs at least until the server was half full. Instead the jerkface eGOs ended up killing a server that could have otherwise become populated.

With that being said, I avoid Avalanche for two reasons:

1. It favors the Axis

2. Its dead to me

However, I can still understand the frustration players encounter because in my opinion it shouldn’t be tolerated. We all like to have fun and most of that involves people joining a team with their friends on it or the team with their favorite weapons. More experienced admins should realize when teams become favorable to one side and hopefully take the initiative to help even things up by switching or asking other admins to switch (asking pubs is the last alternative). Although this may have been an issue to you or even the entire team, eGO admins and the Day of Defeat Division in particular are well versed with a variety of scenarios.

Speaking from my experience the majority of “team stacking” evens out on its own after a few rounds. Normally a few players leave, then theres a gap when players join or when players switch teams. It can be difficult or impossible to gauge a teams skill level. Our admins are never instructed to move better players to the opposing team to even things up-- period. But as admins it is our responsibility to discuss the situation amongst ourselves and find a resolution to make gaming on our servers enjoyable for everyone.

Im blabbing on here so ill sum it up to a few sentences I should have just put at the beginning of my response:

-You cant switch players based on skill

-We try to let teams even out on their own

-Admins should try to even teams by switching as the situation requires

-It sucks to be on a losing team (always remember that…always)

-Stats padding is frowned upon.

Basically; have fun, keep things even, take the initiative, and play to win.


Then again one member already summed it up pretty darn good;

I think the bottom line is, while it's not our job to admin an imbalance of skill level, sometimes we can do our part by volunteering to leave [buddies] and switch teams to help the weaker team (assuming your skill level allows you to of course!), especially if it's obvious that they are not enjoying their eGO experience.

Sorry for the edit Skippy im not a fan of 18th century colloquialisms.


P.S. Don’t play on Avalanche.... ever.

 

[SHiBBY927]

I can't avoid Avalanche I love the map and I love the strategy of it. Yes the Axis have the advantage in the fact that they hold the high ground to start off with, and they also have more and better vantage points to snipe and mg from but the map can be enjoyable and fair. I have seen stacking plenty of times and usually players will switch to even things out but my major issue was that I was calling these guys out to help me out and even the teams a bit when we were down 2 -3 players and nobody including the admin was coming over to help.

I did try to retake apartments and in fact a couple of other guys tried to do the same with me but it's hard when a majority of the team seems to be either unskilled new players, or people who just don't seem to understand what they are doing. In those types of situations I think it is pertinent that we clan members at least make an attempt to even the teams. There have been many times where I have been playing as a sniper and I'll get up to the 3-4-5 to 1 k/d ratio range and I will actually stop and let someone else play snipers namely because I know that it has to be frustrating to the players on the other side when I am consistently taking them out over and over, and also because I feel that it's only fair to give other players a chance to use the sniper rifle. On top of that it gets boring when there isn't much of a challenge.

I love a good challenge but I don't love getting shot, grenaded, rocketed, or stabbed 30 seconds after I spawn every time. What bothers me is that I pointed out the obvious difference in the skill levels of the teams and basically got told to move out of the alley and that the teams were fine. I actually told the admin that the teams were fine if you were on his team and pointed out the difference in scores. My argument was fruitless as no one seemed to care and continued to camp it out.

I do think it was stat padding because these guys were not pushing the last flag barely at all. I think they captured it once when I was there and it was because our team was basically non-existant and if they wanted to capture it again they could have done so with little effort. I know the admins can't do much about the skill level but they can set an example for the newbies, and regulars alike by stepping up and moving to the other team.

 

[Blue Stealth]

The main problem described in this thread are caused mainly by two factors that we cannot change.

1) Avalanche is Axis favored. Axis bases are uphill from Allies so Axis naturally have better vantage points than Allies do. Not to mention nades and such roll and bounce downhill.

2) You have the thompson on the Allies team, which in this game, is a "newbie's" best friend. You will find more unskilled players on Allies simply because the thompson generally requires the least amount of net skill when compared to any other gun in the game and thus attracts newer or "casual" players.

With these two things being said, we do not admin skill imbalances across teams unless the server is being emptied out. Obviously, people are having fun on our Avalanche server and it is not clearing out, seeing as it is still ranked as the most popular DoD:S server in the world.

So while I sympathize with you regarding the dilemma from the original post, if we started forcing specific players to play on a team which they did not want to, you would find that instead of teams being more balanced, the server would lose players. Said players would simply play on a different map, or at this stage in DoD:S lifespan, a new game.

The best way to fix a skill imbalance across teams is to get on ventrilo, your steam friends list, or both, and call in some skilled backup.

-Blue

 

[Ziegenpeter]

I know what you mean SHiBBY