Scramble system
20 replies
Aug 31, 2010, 09:56 PM#1
First off: hello, this is my first time posting a topic on these forums, most people who play on Team Fortress' 2 Aprilon Payload Server probably know me as Unholy Monk.
I would like to suggest to change the scrambling system that exists on this server.
I, and judging by other peoples comments, find that the scrambling is completely unnecesarry at most times.
A lot of times the teams are fairly even but they just get scrambled because, for example, player average scores differ from Team A to Team B. While some new players might have joined the team who actually contribute more than say a player with 150 points.
It annoys me and many others that I have to play defence/offense twice in a row, or when I get scrambled away from my brother (with whom I frequently play the heavy-medic combo), or when the teams get more unfair because of the scramble.
I'm not saying to completely get rid off the system (because in some cases it is necessary), I'm saying it shouldn't scramble as often as it does now. There will always be one team that is better than the other, perfectly even teams are rarely seen, the scrambling won't help that.
Thankyou for reading.
I would like to suggest to change the scrambling system that exists on this server.
I, and judging by other peoples comments, find that the scrambling is completely unnecesarry at most times.
A lot of times the teams are fairly even but they just get scrambled because, for example, player average scores differ from Team A to Team B. While some new players might have joined the team who actually contribute more than say a player with 150 points.
It annoys me and many others that I have to play defence/offense twice in a row, or when I get scrambled away from my brother (with whom I frequently play the heavy-medic combo), or when the teams get more unfair because of the scramble.
I'm not saying to completely get rid off the system (because in some cases it is necessary), I'm saying it shouldn't scramble as often as it does now. There will always be one team that is better than the other, perfectly even teams are rarely seen, the scrambling won't help that.
Thankyou for reading.
Sep 1, 2010, 12:33 PM#2
Hey Monk! Welcome to. 
I agree that it takes a bit heavy on the point system, as the red team should always have more kills, if the teams are even on a payload map. Well.. not "Always", but still.
Also, I do believe Karl is fiddling with it, with how many times one player can be scrambled per map. Not sure how that's going though.
But yeah, the scramble system is a pain at times, but I think it's like this.. It can either be there, and be a pain at times and helpful at other times, or not there at all. And I'd rather choose the first.
I play a lot with a friend of mine, RainingShrooms, and the Scramble just hates him. He can join the server, and be scrambled before his first kill.
Looking forward to seeing you on the server again!
I agree that it takes a bit heavy on the point system, as the red team should always have more kills, if the teams are even on a payload map. Well.. not "Always", but still.
Also, I do believe Karl is fiddling with it, with how many times one player can be scrambled per map. Not sure how that's going though.
But yeah, the scramble system is a pain at times, but I think it's like this.. It can either be there, and be a pain at times and helpful at other times, or not there at all. And I'd rather choose the first.
I play a lot with a friend of mine, RainingShrooms, and the Scramble just hates him. He can join the server, and be scrambled before his first kill.
Looking forward to seeing you on the server again!
Sep 1, 2010, 01:30 PM#3
He can join the server, and be scrambled before his first kill.
Is this team balancing? Don't confuse this thread with balancing.
Sep 1, 2010, 01:36 PM#4
Being honest here. 95% of the server scrambles I have ever witnessed have caused the match to become more unbalanced than it was before. This isn't good 
Sep 1, 2010, 01:37 PM#5
He can join the server, and be scrambled before his first kill.
Is this team balancing? Don't confuse this thread with balancing.
That is true, my bad!
Rest of my post still stands though.Sep 1, 2010, 01:46 PM#6
I don't know how the scrambling in gScramble works anymore. I really don't know if there are any other plugins out there that work any different. If anything we could remove gScramble and move to Valve's balancer!!!
Sep 1, 2010, 02:08 PM#7
Allright, thanks for the replies anyway
Sep 1, 2010, 06:52 PM#8
I would like some more input if that's possible
Sep 1, 2010, 07:16 PM#9
I don't know how the scrambling in gScramble works anymore. I really don't know if there are any other plugins out there that work any different. If anything we could remove gScramble and move to Valve's balancer!!!
Why not give it a test period? Like say.. A week. And see how it does. Then we can always change back.
If you wanted, you could make the server echo somthing along the lines of: "We are trying a new ATB for this week." so people are aware.
Sep 1, 2010, 07:45 PM#10
I don't know how the scrambling in gScramble works anymore. I really don't know if there are any other plugins out there that work any different. If anything we could remove gScramble and move to Valve's balancer!!!
Why not give it a test period? Like say.. A week. And see how it does. Then we can always change back.
If you wanted, you could make the server echo somthing along the lines of: "We are trying a new ATB for this week." so people are aware.
It's not exactly new, haha. People would notice that it's the Valve one anyway. VIPs will still be able to keep their immunity on Valve's ATB of course.
Sep 1, 2010, 08:40 PM#11
I'm wondering, would it be possible for the scramble only to trigger when it's been specifically voted for (votescramble)?
So we could still scramble when the teams are very unbalanced but a little imbalance won't cause it to do so.
If not, by all means, try out valve's ATB for a week or so like Maniac said
(I have no idea how valve's ATB works but it can't be much worse than having a scramble every round)
So we could still scramble when the teams are very unbalanced but a little imbalance won't cause it to do so.
If not, by all means, try out valve's ATB for a week or so like Maniac said
(I have no idea how valve's ATB works but it can't be much worse than having a scramble every round)
Sep 1, 2010, 08:43 PM#12
I don't know how the scrambling in gScramble works anymore. I really don't know if there are any other plugins out there that work any different. If anything we could remove gScramble and move to Valve's balancer!!!
Why not give it a test period? Like say.. A week. And see how it does. Then we can always change back.
If you wanted, you could make the server echo somthing along the lines of: "We are trying a new ATB for this week." so people are aware.
It's not exactly new, haha. People would notice that it's the Valve one anyway. VIPs will still be able to keep their immunity on Valve's ATB of course.
You seem to be misunderstanding what I meant.
I meant "we are trying a New" as in, a new one, compared to the old one. You know, a different one.
Sep 1, 2010, 09:05 PM#13
I'm wondering, would it be possible for the scramble only to trigger when it's been specifically voted for (votescramble)?
So we could still scramble when the teams are very unbalanced but a little imbalance won't cause it to do so.
If not, by all means, try out valve's ATB for a week or so like Maniac said
(I have no idea how valve's ATB works but it can't be much worse than having a scramble every round)
It's absolutely possible, and is actually what I had in mind. We'll try out Valve's auto team balancer including another scramble plugin. gScramble will be removed to avoid conflict
Hopefully I'll manage to get this working before or during this coming weekend.
Edit: Got the Valve ATB immunity plugin coded now (untested).
Sep 1, 2010, 09:44 PM#14
Awesome! thanks a lot
Sep 2, 2010, 07:58 AM#15
With the current system there are a few points I'd like to throw out:
The automatically triggered voting system that triggers when there's a big difference in player scores is both disingenuous and pointless. Once the vote triggers it asks players of both teams if they want to scramble. This means that the losing team that gets the blunt end of the stick wants a scramble gets to vote yes but also that the winning team that in most cases does not want a scramble gets to vote no.
I don't have any data to back this up but I'm willing to bet that most of the scrambles that failed due to insufficient votes occurred because the dominating team voted no, i.e. "let's just keep steamrolling".
I'm also pointing out the caveat that the 'no' votes might have no effect, but this is not true because I've seen messages of "38% of players voted against scrambling".
In my opinion the scrambling should be completely automatic, in that the automatically triggered system would have no voting elements inside it. No voting yes or no, if there's grounds for a scramble, do it.
Another problem would be that the required vote count for a scramble is really high. For a 32 player match you'll need 9 votes. The problem is that the voting system is not clear, the message is only "x has voted to scramble the teams. A out of B votes needed". The system doesn't tell how to vote! If I vote for it I usually say "type 'votescramble' to vote" which feels awkward and redundant. There should be a clear message, non-chat driven which is similar to the current vote for a scramble poll, that asks each player if a scramble is necessary, with the 'no' votes being ignored.
And to the OP: judging by past incidents, you should keep in mind that playing with friends isn't an explicit right. You should play both with and against your friends and not mind scrambles. I probably need not to remind people what happened with the DB guys from 10 months ago, which was a bunch of friends playing on the same side all the time and led to unbalanced teams.
Note that I see you Monks guys playing against each other all the time, and that's good, but that's not my point. If you get scrambled away from your friend you should just live with it, because after all there's only two possibilities: 1) either the system hates you and your brother or 2) the system thinks teams would be more balanced if you were on opposing teams. Which one is more likely?
The automatically triggered voting system that triggers when there's a big difference in player scores is both disingenuous and pointless. Once the vote triggers it asks players of both teams if they want to scramble. This means that the losing team that gets the blunt end of the stick wants a scramble gets to vote yes but also that the winning team that in most cases does not want a scramble gets to vote no.
I don't have any data to back this up but I'm willing to bet that most of the scrambles that failed due to insufficient votes occurred because the dominating team voted no, i.e. "let's just keep steamrolling".
I'm also pointing out the caveat that the 'no' votes might have no effect, but this is not true because I've seen messages of "38% of players voted against scrambling".
In my opinion the scrambling should be completely automatic, in that the automatically triggered system would have no voting elements inside it. No voting yes or no, if there's grounds for a scramble, do it.
Another problem would be that the required vote count for a scramble is really high. For a 32 player match you'll need 9 votes. The problem is that the voting system is not clear, the message is only "x has voted to scramble the teams. A out of B votes needed". The system doesn't tell how to vote! If I vote for it I usually say "type 'votescramble' to vote" which feels awkward and redundant. There should be a clear message, non-chat driven which is similar to the current vote for a scramble poll, that asks each player if a scramble is necessary, with the 'no' votes being ignored.
And to the OP: judging by past incidents, you should keep in mind that playing with friends isn't an explicit right. You should play both with and against your friends and not mind scrambles. I probably need not to remind people what happened with the DB guys from 10 months ago, which was a bunch of friends playing on the same side all the time and led to unbalanced teams.
Note that I see you Monks guys playing against each other all the time, and that's good, but that's not my point. If you get scrambled away from your friend you should just live with it, because after all there's only two possibilities: 1) either the system hates you and your brother or 2) the system thinks teams would be more balanced if you were on opposing teams. Which one is more likely?
Sep 2, 2010, 11:14 AM#16
I gotta agree with Ironballs, maybe voting should be disabled and it should auto-scramble when one team is winning too much but it should do a score scramble (option 2 in gscramble i think, admin menu) so it scrambles teams by score so its kinda balanced more, while random can sometimes lead up to even bigger imbalance
Sep 2, 2010, 01:16 PM#17
The automatically triggered voting system that triggers when there's a big difference in player scores is both disingenuous and pointless. Once the vote triggers it asks players of both teams if they want to scramble. This means that the losing team that gets the blunt end of the stick wants a scramble gets to vote yes but also that the winning team that in most cases does not want a scramble gets to vote no.
Fully agree! It should be up to the losing team, wether or not to scramble, but bare in mind that there could be some winners that wants a scramble aswell.. But too few.
In my opinion the scrambling should be completely automatic, in that the automatically triggered system would have no voting elements inside it. No voting yes or no, if there's grounds for a scramble, do it.
AFAIK, Karl talked about some automatic scramble at some point? If one team won too fast or something, which could be fiddled with.. Not at all sure I remember correctly.
There should be a clear message, non-chat driven which is similar to the current vote for a scramble poll, that asks each player if a scramble is necessary, with the 'no' votes being ignored.
I'm not sure I understand. You want a poll, with only "Yes" being counted. Which should trigger a scramble when x% is reached?
Just my few cents.
Sep 2, 2010, 02:07 PM#18
Personally I hate to open and edit the gScramble source code it's over 3,000 lines
it's over 3,000 linesSep 2, 2010, 04:07 PM#19
Personally I hate to open and edit the gScramble source code
I made a Java-code today. My first. It was.. like... 34 lines. :3 With empty lines of course!
Sep 2, 2010, 04:36 PM#20
I made a batch file today with 4 lines