discuss: playing with stacked teams is cheating

[sasha]

This baffles me. 

How do you justify playing 7-3, or 9v5, or even 8v6?  Having extra players on your team is no different than being able to run faster, shoot more, or have more health.  it is a willfully unfair advantage, just like using aiming hacks, or god mode.  Being more skilled, however, is a fair advantage.  this is a game of skill, after all, and better players are, and should be, rewarded with victory.  I like to think of playing on a stacked team is a 'passive cheat', as opposed to an active cheat. You may not CHOOSE to end up on a stacked team, like you would CHOOSE to install hacks, but you certainly DO choose to STAY on an unfairly stacked team.  It is incumbent upon the honor of players of the unfair team to fix the situation.   Frequently, the disadvantaged team's requests to fix the situation are ignored.  It's not in the interest of the winning team to change, so why bother?  The people who are being cheated should not have to beg the cheaters for justice.

Here's how I would solve the problem.

First of all, you should retain your score statistics if you change teams.  Completely disassociate team score from personal score.  That would remove the one big negative of fixing teams: you reset your score and time back to zero.  This might solve the problem by itself, but maybe not.  In an environment with no accountability, people are, in their heart of hearts, complete assholes.  So,  I would have a second measure.  The server should track team balance.  If 'team a' is greater than 'team b+1', then the server should display a message saying something like "Teams are imbalanced! Fix it yourself, or one random player will be moved from the bigger team to the smaller team in 30 seconds."  This would give volunteers the opportunity to do the right thing, and in the frequent absence of any decency, would force them to do the right thing.  It's responsible governance.  The balancing act might require a bit more finesse, maybe a way to factor in team scores.  That way you can avoid giving a team with fewer people but higher scores an even greater advantage. Ultimately, I think that by removing the punishment for changing teams (reset score/time), you would stop good players with high scores from refusing to balance games.

What are your thoughts? 

[Cacatoes]

Number of players in teams shouldn't necessarily be the same, it mainly depends on skill of people ...
As already said several times on this forum, you can already enforce the balance on a server.

I'm not sure why scores are reset when someone goes spec.
New ways to count may be interesting, such as, keeping infos about frags done by people who left the server, frags made while being in blue/red team, and so on...

All these games are oriented towards competition, however I'm not sure competition is that rewarding for me to continue playing. I thought about some "no competitive mod", which doesn't count frags or other stats ; no reason to cheat, no reason to join the winning team, ... no reason for fighting ? I'm not sure, playing/shooting/training by itself should be entertaining enough. I'm curious about what it would give.

[kick52]

I don't think (normally) it is "cheating" exactly, but it is definitely unfair.

[pulchr]

imo it's more fun to play on a team with less or more players than the other team as long as the match is even and close. playing 4on4 in ctf with one team winning 8-0 every round is boring as hell, i would rather play that match 5on3 and the game being interesting and fun.

but many players pick the leading team even if they are more players - and that is something very strange to me.

also, points doesn't mean shit. if you would like to give some kind of info about the most important player points divided by time would mean more.

this of course only applies in team based modes ctf/tdm.

[Neon_Knight]

Talking about pub servers, IMHO the one who only joins to the winning team or the team who has the most/best players just to win, is definitively an idiot, regardless of his/her skill. He/she contributes to desbalancing and furthermore to ruin the games. It isn't too fun to lose 0-7 when the winning team has all the best players and you can't do nothing to stop them, and then you see that some joining players choose the winning team just to say "I win the match".

There should be in-game behaviour codes: (called Netiquettes) these codes hasn't nothing to do with technical aspects of the game such, but player's behaviour. That's called common sense.

There's a nice and interesting article at Capture, which was (fortunately) saved by the Internet Archive. It can be found here, and its worth the reading, despite the fact that Capture was an Unreal-based strategy & tips site. Anyways, I'll copypaste it, just remember to make sure you replace UT2003 for OpenArena ()
Netiquette

Etiquette can be defined as a set of rules that govern social interaction. Every “real world” game has some set of etiquette, be it that you replace your divots while playing a game of golf, not tackling someone who is not carrying the ball in American football, or bowing before a martial arts contest. The online gaming community is no different. It has developed its own system of etiquette (“netiquette”), and if you want to be respectful, and in return be respected, you must learn and follow these (until now) unwritten rules.

Like any good high-school sport-level competitor, you are expected to thank your opponents at the end of each game (at the end game screen). This is done by saying “gg” or “good game”. Even if this was your worst game ever, this is the respectful thing to do because if it weren't for your competitors, you'd be stuck playing bots offline (and you’d still be thinking you were the shizzle). At the start of more serious matches (clan matches, 1on1’s, etc.), a common saying before the start of the match is that of “gl, hf”, which means “good luck, have fun”, a kind of way of reminding everyone that no matter how intense or frustrating the match becomes, its still just a game, and the whole point is to have fun.

While online gaming is plagued with cheaters using aim bots, radars, wall hacks, and other assorted hacks designed to give them an unfair advantage, not everyone you will face will be a cheater. In fact, in UT2003, the vast majority of them will be 100% cheat free. Remember, a falling headshot on you while doing a lift jump IS possible in UT2003 without the use of a cheat, but may take more practice than what you have put into the game yourself. Just because someone keeps getting head shots doesn't mean that they are a cheater. If you begin accusing them as such, you'll most likely be categorized as an immature sore loser. If you ignore people’s requests to stop accusing, you might be kicked from the server (This is not a good thing, because there aren’t that many good servers out there to begin with!).

Instead of accusing people, compliment them on their excellent marksmanship with a simple “n1” (“nice one”). They'll appreciate this gesture, and will be more inclined to say the same kinds of things for you when you do something remarkable.

The last thing to keep in mind is that this is a GAME and is meant to be FUN. If your team is completely annihilating the other team, it would be a nice thing to switch your better players, or maybe stack the teams so that the extra guy on your team goes to other side. I find it a lot more fun to play a closer match than have one team do all the scoring. Remember, if the teams are uneven, and if your team is the one that has more players, don't just type “teams” and expect one of your teammates to swap teams. Switch yourself. It resolves the problem a lot quicker and shows more maturity on your part. Remember to help other newbies with what you know and have fun!

Written by ThRaWn70

[sasha]

Number of players in teams shouldn't necessarily be the same, it mainly depends on skill of people ...
As already said several times on this forum, you can already enforce the balance on a server.

I'm not sure why scores are reset when someone goes spec.
New ways to count may be interesting, such as, keeping infos about frags done by people who left the server, frags made while being in blue/red team, and so on...

All these games are oriented towards competition, however I'm not sure competition is that rewarding for me to continue playing. I thought about some "no competitive mod", which doesn't count frags or other stats ; no reason to cheat, no reason to join the winning team, ... no reason for fighting ? I'm not sure, playing/shooting/training by itself should be entertaining enough. I'm curious about what it would give.

the problem is that you can't measure skill (yet).  since it's not something we can quantify, it can't factor in without becoming a matter of opinion.  if you remove the disincentive to change teams (score reset), it would be unproblematic for players with higher scores to even the game out. 

besides, the problem would STILL exist of some games being unbalanced because some players can't or won't play fair.  an auto-switcher would solve that.

[sasha]

imo it's more fun to play on a team with less or more players than the other team as long as the match is even and close. playing 4on4 in ctf with one team winning 8-0 every round is boring as hell, i would rather play that match 5on3 and the game being interesting and fun.

but many players pick the leading team even if they are more players - and that is something very strange to me.

also, points doesn't mean shit. if you would like to give some kind of info about the most important player points divided by time would mean more.

this of course only applies in team based modes ctf/tdm.

this is neat.  change the scoreboard to reflect more accurate statistics, like in sports.

[JESUS SCOUSE]

I often change sides to even up teams.
I do this not just to make numbers equal but also to make game play better.
I usually join the loosing team and hope I can make a difference.
Some of the best games I have played in have been 6v2 etc and I have been on the smaller team.
I never bother calling "teams." Reason I don't play to win on flags. More in the opposite team means more to shoot.
PLEASE don't make the game auto balance it would spoil it.

Remember you can be on the loosing side and still have a good game.

[SiliciuS]

hehe @Sasha: so we meet again on the forums. I requested the same thing under dev: http://openarena.ws/board/index.php?topic=2794.0.

Anyway: I agree that that at least keeping stats might be a good incentive to get people to volunteer to change. I personally am not the best player, but I always choose the smaller or loosing team. It just isn't fun to jump onto the winning train that was crashing through everything regardless of my presence. Damn it I rather play to have a challenge than to standby and see others win on my team. I also switch teams to rebalance. But thats unfortunately not really that common. :-/

Anyway I would welcome some improvements in this area.

[sasha]

right. the same kind of people that would congregate on the forum are the same ones that care enough to make sure the game is fair.

if everyone was nice, we would have no need for laws or government.

we need to impose order on the anonymous douche bags who DON'T play by the rules and make the game unfair.

[RudyRailer]

This is what happens, u cannot change it.
You can only change your own behaviour.

Its respectfull to:
Always join the loosing team when teams are even.

Always join the team with less players even if its loosing (u may think its not, but thats how the crappy ballance starts of, with people thinking ,..oh that team is winning easely so i join the other team thus ending the game with e.g 4vs7 players).


Even numbered teams are always better then uneven numbered teams. It is No excuse saying" i join the other team because its loosing badly (hey its a game,  deal with loosing!)

The "better/more skilled" players in OA WILL  try to balance teams again when they are Not.
Usualy those players look how a game developes for about a few minutes before they decide to switch teams or not.
Often people shout "TEAMS TEAMS" when they are in fact fine and well balanced ,..the only problem was, they wherent balanced when the game started so the score might be as a result 7 -2.
Deu to this score, some want to change teams "to make it balanced" so the team with score 7 end up with 4 player against the other team who then have 7 players.
The game then ends up in a score e.g 7-8 for the team  with 7 players,.. Then people type gg? <---it was not a gg imo but people just dont like to loose.

Some MODS have the option to auto LOCK teams when they have an equal number of players.
Also it prevents joining the winning team because it will be unbalanced  
Therefor teams will be Mostly balanced in numbers.  (Ofcourse this doesnt prevent for example  Skilled players to be in one team against less skilled players)

This mod is called XBattle there is one coming up with some new maps.
You can also use brightskins. For more info  and mod download check http://www.q3eu.com
Ill let you know when its up again

Im curious why people dont play the mod but still complain about  unbalanced teams and so on :p
It will never changes on standard servers.

Game On!

[Case]

It's skills (tweaks/exploits?) that will throw off even teams. Teams shouldn't necessarily be even but a new vote should be added to the game to shuffle_teams as well. And the voting system should be fixed to accept that a 6 votes to pass vs 1 vote to deny is a passing vote. The most number of votes should win.

[mathieu]

80% of oa players are noobs.
On one of my server I've tried to display my rules for that server : no camping, balanced teams, don't join winning team. The result was that noob don't care!
They only want to win.

80% of oa players don't know that CTF is a TEAM based game.
Players don't care about the flag, they only want to frag. The goal of a TEAM game is that you TEAM wins. Not you!

Have you see "counter-strike" like campers on CTF? Have you see instantgib mode on CTF? Be serious, CTF is a fast paced TEAM game, if you want to frag choose FFA or TDM.

[Neon_Knight]

Well, we were noobs when we begun with games, (not only Q3/OA, I came from Unreal Tournament for example, the original UT was the first online game I played ever) so I guess the thing is not to cuss them, insult, and make them don't go back to the game, but instead try to teach them how to play and things like that.

[sasha]

I don't see why you are talking about unbalancing teams like it's a bad choice people should avoid.  it's not. it's cheating.  if you give players the option to anonymously make their weapons fire faster, or do more damage, they will take it.  unbalancing the teams is the same thing.  you are giving one side more power than the other.  it should be treated like cheating and, not punished, but prohibited by means of controlling their choice.

[JESUS SCOUSE]

I really don't see why it is cheating. It's only a cheat if you benefit from it. There is no benefit from joining the winning team.
So you end up in the winning team. So what? You points total will not be much different. You are the player you are after all.

[Case]

the benefit is you win. What's the benefit of aimboting? You win. Stacked teams is lame and should be shuffled every map.

[RudyRailer]

I see my post(s) is back from the dead ^^^^^^some posts above^^^^^^^^^^
Thanks for this!!!!

[poldie]

re: you can't measure skill

You can try.  One measure would be number of kills / minutes in game.  I think some experimentation is required, here and in other areas.    A measure of skill and auto team balancing so the skill is the same, regardless of the number of players per team.  It's boring when a team wins map after map, especially when people actively join the winning/larger team.   Points could be awarded differently too - less points for kills with rail guns.  Perhaps rail guns could come with only 1 or 2 bullets not 10, and the time between shot increased.  Rail guns are the shittest aspect of OA in my opinion.  Too many people just sit around taking no part in the game, railing people.    Some people call it camping, but to me camping is spawn camping.  If you're just up on the platforms near your flag in oasago2 for instance, it's not camping, but it IS lame.  I don't like whining about it in game (so I don't, but plenty of people do), because you can always go up and kill people, but if it could be reduced by not having rail guns 1) at all, 2) up there, 3) as powerful, it would help the game.   Or perhaps don't award points for rail gun kills. Or perhaps less points.  Maybe you get 10 points for a shot gun, 5 for lightening, 3 for rocket etc.  Maybe lose points for each second you're just faffing around by the enemy flag etc. More points for teamwork - assuming it's possible to come up with a way of awarding points for this.  I'm sure with some thought it would be possible.  Experiment, and see what works.

While I'm suggesting stuff, what's up with the server selection?  How about fixing it so that when you click on `only humans` you only see humans, not bots.  It would be nice to see who is on a server without having to enter it.  Maybe show how many minutes a map has been on a server.  Maybe some way of finding a given user so you can meet up with people you like playing with. Perhaps a filter for 'modes' like instagib/rail/rocket only maps.  Perhaps some way of selecting maps you like playing, so when the next map is being selected it takes the wishes of the players currently on the server into account.  There's a lot of voting off of crap maps, but sometimes you get 5 votes to none and it's not enough to remove the map - so players with a clue (ie as to how to press f1) are stuck with crap because fuckwits don't know how to vote or can't be bothered to.

[JESUS SCOUSE]

F2

[chaoticsoldier]

It would be nice to see who is on a server without having to enter it.............Maybe some way of finding a given user so you can meet up with people you like playing with.

http://dpmaster.deathmask.net/?game=openarena&showplayers=1
This serves me well enough.

There's a lot of voting off of crap maps, but sometimes you get 5 votes to none and it's not enough to remove the map - so players with a clue (ie as to how to press f1) are stuck with crap because fuckwits don't know how to vote or can't be bothered to.

A lot of the time this "voting off of crap maps" leads to OASAGO2 or OA_CTF4ISH or AGGRESSOR etc, and it gets very boring very fast. As for me, I like playing a variety of different maps and don't usually vote for a change unless the current map is too small or too big. You can never expect the majority to vote the same way as you do for the same reasons as you do. You will just have to be content to spectate or something until the next map comes around.

[JESUS SCOUSE]

I do think voting for maps should be a majority decision. 5 votes to 4 should win the vote.
Voting to kick a player annoys me. Surely the player shouldn't be allowed to vote?
Whats the point if the player can veto any kick vote?

While I am having a rant.................
Unnamedplayer. There are some good players out there who use this nick. Pity they have no imagination.
Sad really.
Come on unnamedplayer give yourself a proper nickname.

[poldie]

http://dpmaster.deathmask.net/?game=openarena&showplayers=1
This serves me well enough.

That's pretty handy - cheers.

A lot of the time this "voting off of crap maps" leads to OASAGO2 or OA_CTF4ISH or AGGRESSOR etc, and it gets very boring very fast. As for me, I like playing a variety of different maps and don't usually vote for a change unless the current map is too small or too big. You can never expect the majority to vote the same way as you do for the same reasons as you do. You will just have to be content to spectate or something until the next map comes around.

Sometimes people complain about maps, but don't call a vote - I call a vote and people vote it off (usually NEXTMAP), so it's worth it.  The cost of calling a vote is pretty small in time taken/annoyance. It can be a drag if people constantly call votes which don't succeed (especially if you're happy playing the map).  It wouldn't be such a problem if there weren't so many terrible maps,,,

I agree with Scouse that Zappa is good. I also agree that majority voting should be enough.  Not sure about kicking people, though - seems to open to abuse.  The ability to ignore people would be nice, given the spam/noise some players cause. 

[dash9]

http://dpmaster.deathmask.net/?game=openarena&showplayers=1
This serves me well enough.

That's pretty handy - cheers.

You might want to check this GreaseMonkey script which hides the bots and does other useful changes to that page: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/35185

Regarding "playing with stacked teams is cheating" - no, it's not. It's just a strong team versus a weak one. If you don't like this.. you can try to stay only in defence, eventually use a bind "say_team everybody stay in defence until teams are balanced". You won't make captures, but fragging players coming to you should be fun. If they complain that you "camp", tell them to balance teams..

[3aTmE!]

well i agree whit that it not cheating but really stupid.. -.-"
well i saw that realy many times that many "newbies" are on the server.. they dont look mostimes not at the fairness, theyre look at thier favorite color..
wehn they like blue, join they blue! but if they like red.. join them red... -.-" im see that many times...
or if friends/clanmembers playing togehther on the server.. they wanna mostimes on the same side.. well there forget the mostone the fairness and are pissed of if theyre get kicked for unfair playing.. ^^
so well , more i havent to say.

many gratz: 3aT