Team Stacking

[Dalsia]

Team stacking is something of which we have all been guilty of doing at one time or another. However, I can't help but notice a lack of affection among our players for the losing teams on our servers. Sure, it's very easy to join the winning team, get kills and dominate others, but have you ever thought of how the team that's getting completely rolled feels? For example, I played on our Turbine server for a very long time today. When I initially entered the server, the RED team had bested the BLU team six to one. Though the opportunity to join the RED team was readily available, I decided to help out the BLU team because I know how it feels to get destroyed by the other team over and over again. My addition to the team (an extra engineer) proved to be somewhat helpful, but as the number of players in the server grew the BLU team kept falling short by a player. What I was most concerned with was that I was on a team with all pubs (with the exception of my brother, Super88) for almost three straight hours, as our members continued to join the other team. There's obviously nothing "wrong" about joining the winning team rule-wise, but I think it's important to embrace the values for which eGO stands and help out the underdogs. Not only will doing so provide more of a challenge to those joining the losing team, but it will help to ease the frustration of those who need help with completing the designated map's mission, and ultimately provide a better gaming experience for everyone on the server.

By the end of my stay on Turbine, the RED team had accumulated a score of 18, while the BLU team only had a score of 2. Usually, though, the teams on our servers are somewhat even. I'm not asking anybody to always shoot to help the losing team, especially if that team is only losing by a few points, but rather to just take into consideration which team you're joining. I think if a few more people joined the BLU team on Turbine today many of its players would have been much less frustrated and looked into continuing to play on our server. One cannot always control which team he or she joins, and many of you use the "auto assign" choice when choosing a team. Once again, I'm only asking you to consider which team you're joining before clicking "RED" or "BLU". Maybe your addition will help a struggling team have the comeback of a lifetime, but either way it'll help to make the game much more fun for everybody to play.

 

[Dreadmaker]

Last night on Blackmesa, Red was rolling blu over and over again. Then, me and a KhaoticOrd3r (pocket medic) hopped to blu at the start of the round, and it became much more fun. I think we may have even won that round. It's a rewarding thing to do. It's amazing what some basic communication will do for a team, and we're all capable of communicating here. So, give that gift to the losing team.

 

[Korgot]

Well, Turbine is a one way, you either dominate or dominated .. But for Team Stacking, I know Tc wrote a guide some months ago, maybe it would be useful for some people to read it. ..

 

[KhaoticOrd3r]

Okay, while I agree that a team shouldn't be stacked. There are lots of things you can do to help your team, including asking other eGO members to change teams to balance them out. I know Dreadmaker and I were playing on BM and we rolled the other team 3 times in 5-10 minutes and we just switched and it was suddenly much more balanced.

Go engie, use your mic, go medic, use your mic, etc. Also, one thing a pub showed me was starting a conversation and getting people involved in it. Because if people are talking they don't have enough time to Rage.

Teams get stacked, and it sucks but there isn't much you can personally do about it...

 

[Squidward Tentacles]

it happens in Egypt sometimes, especially late nights. And that point, people would start typing "scramble" or "votescramble", which is not possible in eGO servers. I was just wondering, where did the scramble command go?

And even without the scramble commands, things will even out eventually. With more people leaving the losing team, the winning team will keep get auto-balanced and moved to the losing team.

 

[? Frisky Dingo ?]

Team stacking is something that will never ever be fixed no matter how many times I join the losing team no one helps out. If we become the new winning team all of a sudden people are crying scramble teams even though the score says 10-1 and as soon as the losing team wins 1 half the winning team rage and leave cuz they dont want to stay on the losing team. No matter what, you will never get rid of team stacking.

 

[DRaGZ]

This is why I like 2Fort. The nature of the map makes a steamroll really difficult.

 

[QuickSkope]

The thing with teams is that, everyone wants to be with your friends, and were all friends here at eGO. We play a fair bit of TF2, so were getting good at it. When Good Friends want to chat and play with their friends, and they have had experience with the game, there going to end up stacking their teams with their friends.

Ive had experience with this, I join a team whose getting rolled, I jump out there, take the middle of Turbine,and instantly its the tables are turned, then the auto balance kicks in. Im switched to the other team, but now the team that I joined has accumulated more players, its gets a lot more unfair, and im tempted to swap back to my other team.

Anyway, if anyone got the following 2 paragraphs, good on you, ive confused myself.

For me and everyone else, what im trying to say is team stacking is FOREVER an issue, and I think the only way we can fix it is to really try and befriend everyone, so the temptation is not there.

Either that or we can just put back the scramble feature, but id really hope this community could fix it without the scramble feature.

 

[DRaGZ]

I hate the scramble feature. It's a quick and messy short-term solution that pleases no one.

 

[QuickSkope]

I hate the scramble feature. It's a quick and messy short-term solution that pleases no one.

Like I said in my last post, I hope we can fix it without the scramble feature.

 

[ModusPwnens]

While I agree that it's good sportsmanship to switch over to the other team occasionally, I think there are other things that people take into consideration besides which team is winning/losing. I wouldn't want to switch teams, for example, if I were playing on the same team as friends and was having fun talking to them. I wouldn't really want to "miss out" on teamchat even if it meant making the game more balanced.

I personally choose to be on RED whenever I get the chance, regardless of who's on which team. Sometimes I just spectate until I can get on. I dislike playing on BLU because I literally can't see anything except the very center of my screen when I get ubered on BLU because of my visual impairment. While this is a unique problem, it does highlight the fact that there's other reasons to join a team besides which one is winning.

So I'd agree to switch when you can, but if switching means not having much fun, then maybe that's not the best solution.

 

[Passerby]

see it all the time

seen a 26 to 0 on black mesa with all ego's on the winning team all pubs on the other.

and for people who say the team scramble is useless well it needs to be there the last server i played on with out it ended up being a 16v4 because my whole team quite or switched to the winning team.

 

[K^^]

Team stacking is an illusion! (kinda)

Truth is everyone stacks or has stacked in someway.
Let us not forget this is a game, aimed at having fun. And we have fun when playing with siblings, friends, etc...

Stacking is not steamrolling! I have seen teams with the best players lose; and likewise, teams with average players win a game in a matter of minutes.

TL;DR: Random Crit > Teamwork > Individual skill

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Specificly, Dalsia, I was there today, I chose a random team and by chance landed on the RED team. I don't know what was going on the BLU's team chat, but I can say that from my view, skill wise RED team wasn't OMGWTHBBQ Stacked, we just happened to be doing great team work: ppl were warning of spies, locations of the BLU team, where the Intel was, etc...

I ,IMO, never felt that BLU was losing because of stacking but by lack of coordination, and I honestly didn't think that my changing teams would do anything for BLU.

And also, that being said, you never asked
If you feel somehow the members, and specificly admins, are acting in a way that might be prejudicial to the server, you can send them a gentle reminder. I do belive most of us are human, and truth is, when someone is winning, "Oh! Let me go lose some now." is not the first thing that comes into ones mind.

-K^^


Usual Disclaimer: This is ment as a constructive argument don't take ofense to it.

 

[Dreadmaker]

Team stacking is an illusion! (kinda)

Truth is everyone stacks or has stacked in someway.
Let us not forget this is a game, aimed at having fun. And we have fun when playing with sibling, friends, etc...

Stacking is not steamrolling! I have seen teams with the best players lose; and likewise, teams with average players win a game in a matter of minutes.

TL;DR: Random Crit > Teamwork > Individual skill

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Fully agree. I've seen a team full of people who I know are all in the top 100 on hlxstats get rolled by a team of people who are playing well and working as a team. Individual skill certainly doesn't mean cohesive teamwork, and it's the latter that wins games, not the former.

 

[Liliana]

I always join the losing team. Though, judging from how good I am at TF2, that might not be the way to help them win

I used to actually do some spying as spy, but then I switched my watch back to the normal one to get better at the normal things that spies do.

 

[stacksondeck]

Team stacking is an illusion! (kinda)

Truth is everyone stacks or has stacked in someway.
Let us not forget this is a game, aimed at having fun. And we have fun when playing with siblings, friends, etc...

Stacking is not steamrolling! I have seen teams with the best players lose; and likewise, teams with average players win a game in a matter of minutes.

TL;DR: Random Crit > Teamwork > Individual skill

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​

Specificly, Dalsia, I was there today, I chose a random team and by chance landed on the RED team. I don't know what was going on the BLU's team chat, but I can say that from my view, skill wise RED team wasn't OMGWTHBBQ Stacked, we just happened to be doing great team work: ppl were warning of spies, locations of the BLU team, where the Intel was, etc...

I ,IMO, never felt that BLU was losing because of stacking but by lack of coordination, and I honestly didn't think that my changing teams would do anything for BLU.

And also, that being said, you never asked
If you feel somehow the members, and specificly admins, are acting in a way that might be prejudicial to the server, you can send them a gentle reminder. I do belive most of us are human, and truth is, when someone is winning, "Oh! Let me go lose some now." is not the first thing that comes into ones mind.

-K^^


Usual Disclaimer: This is ment as a constructive argument don't take ofense to it.

I was there on Red too. I thought the teams were balanced pretty well in the beginning. I mean, both you (Dalsia) and Super88 were both dominating me within my first 10 mins on connecting.

I would have gladly switched if asked.

 

[Dalsia]

I think that some of you guys are taking to heart what I said too strongly. I just wanted to make you guys aware of something that I've been witnessing. I only used the example of Turbine today because that was freshest in my memory, and I didn't want to have to ask anybody to change teams to be honest; I think it should be your choice after witnessing what's happening on the server. And I completely disagree with the "one person joining the losing team" won't make a difference thing. If everybody had that attitude nothing would change. It probably won't make a huge difference, but, like I said, your addition to the team could be game-changing, whether it be your skill level, leadership abilities, or something else.

 

[Skill/CJaZ]

Team stacking is like smoothies. Life would be less sweet without it.

 

[Lava]

Nubsia stop failing and uber everyone!

 

[K^^]

I think that some of you guys are taking to heart what I said too strongly. I just wanted to make you guys aware of something that I've been witnessing.

I don't have a heart... Thus, I never take anything too strongly

I only used the example of Turbine today because that was freshest in my memory

I definitely didn't want this to sound like a rant, because it wasn't.
I only used this because it was the example you mentioned. I'm too lazy to remember examples by myself, so figured it would only make sence to follow up on a previously used example.

and I didn't want to have to ask anybody to change teams to be honest; I think it should be your choice after witnessing what's happening on the server.

Why not? If you think stacking has become a recurring thing, then reminding people while it's actually happening seems like a good way to go

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Also, for your viewing pleasure, TcVinsky posted a while ago an interesting thread on "How to Prevent Rolling".

Hope she doesn't beat me up for copying this:

Rolling is when one team wins a round in 4 minutes or less and is constantly winning the rounds. For example, winning 4 rounds within 4 minutes.

Ever been in a server and your team is just being stomped on completely by the other team or have been on a team where you are just ripping the other team within seconds? I'm sure we have all been in these situations before, and here's a few ways you can help out.

If your team is being rolled, what should you do?

• Try to go a supportive class, like engi or medic and support your team a bit, an uber or sentry/dispenser can go a long way.

• Try asking your friends to come play on the team you're on, it's always good to have someone you know helping you out.

• Try being a leader and step up to the challenge of guiding your team to victory.

• Try communication, it really does work.

• Try not to get angry, because you'll just probably rage quit and lose your interest in playing at all for a while.

• Try not to be too aggressive when leading your team, people like calm voices, not demanding voices.

• Try to look on the bright side of things, maybe your team lasted longer that round than previous.

In the end, just at least try. Trying gives your team some chance to win.


If you team is rolling the other team, what should you do?

• Try to switch over to the team being rolled and do what was said above.

• If you are unable to switch over, try to switch to a different class and have some fun, I usually like to go Huntsman sniper and just throw jarate on people and shoot an arrow occasionally.

• I don't highly recommend this one, but you can switch to spectator for a while, and wait for a slot on the team being rolled and switch over.

We don't want our servers emptying and losing our regular pubs due to constant rolling guys. I know we all like winning, but is it really worth it? I like winning when it's a challenge, not when we win within 1 minute of the round.

So lets all try to prevent rolling, it really does make everyone a bit happier and a difference.

-K^^
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