AFK & Team Balance.

[Jonan]

We see it nearly every week, teams get imbalanced in terms of players.

A few things I have noticed.

(1) Observers are forced to join teams after pre-match is finished.
This can immediately skew teams if there are AFKers. When I used to play OzTF you could stay as an observer for the entire game, you'd still help populate the server. You could even move around like a spectator, or have it set to only view from player_start. So when this player was ready, they can just join a team, and start. (This was also used for clan matches for reserved players, incase of drops.)

(2) Only 1 spectator slot.
MegaTF Co-Op has it if you idle to long you just become a spectator. Really should have more that 1 spectator slot open, sometimes people just want to see what's up first.

(3) Players go AFK from time to time.
If you are AFK for X mins just move that player to observer or spectator.

(4) Teams can get uneven (2 or more extra players of a given team), sometimes through drops, but also AFKers. Once a team scores, just have the server perform a check, and let the players know that Team X has X players more than Team Y.

(5) If a player want to even-up teams, they are forced to reconnect, and doing so, lose their build.
OzTF had a 'changeteam' command, so you didn't have reconnect. Perhaps you could even retain your custom class.

[OneManClan]

Hi Jonan.
I normally respond, point by point, but in this case - I pretty much agree with everything you've said.

I'll get on to implementing this stuff as soon as I figure out the 'flag drop' bug. I might send an email in a few days asking for ppl to participate in a test session, because I'm having trouble replicating it. (I *think* it might be related to toughmap mode..)

[Jonan]

Flag dropping and tough mode is the worst.

Perhaps an alteration there too. Instead of waiting for another player to touch it, you have to stand on it for X seconds. Then can pick up again. Similar to the mercy pause.

[Jonan]

Possible work arounds for team numbers, some sort of bonus for the lesser team.

If Blue Player Count / Red Player Count > 1 Give Red Team Bonus equal to Blue Player Count / Red Player Count.
If Red Player Count / Blue Player Count > 1 Give Blue Team Bonus equal to Red Player Count / Blue Player Count.

So if it was 5 Blue vs 4 Red, Red would gain a bonus of 25%.
That bonus could just be 25% extra health and/or armor and/or move speed and/or attack speed. Or perhaps something else.

Tie the player respawn timers directly with that teams player count.

Army (Balance) Bot could just be spawned to help out, just have him always head towards the flag, no matter the team. +1 to the team for each player difference.

[Jonan]

Possible work arounds for team numbers, some sort of bonus for the lesser team.

If Blue Player Count / Red Player Count > 1 Give Red Team Bonus equal to Blue Player Count / Red Player Count.
If Red Player Count / Blue Player Count > 1 Give Blue Team Bonus equal to Red Player Count / Blue Player Count.

So if it was 5 Blue vs 4 Red, Red would gain a bonus of 25%.
That bonus could just be 25% extra health and/or armor and/or move speed and/or attack speed. Or perhaps something else.

This could make for some interesting games, if players decided to go 1 vs the Rest. Like 5 defenders vs 1 super attacker. Or just for a laugh in intermission.

[Jonan]

Army (Balance) Bot could just be spawned to help out, just have him always head towards the flag, no matter the team. +1 to the team for each player difference.

This could also lead to a sort of co-op mode, if players decided to all go 1 team, for fun.

[Jonan]

With the current +1 HP for every spare $50, perhaps we could adjust this to help balance.

First of all, no limit on extra HP, if you want all $11,000 on HP you should be able to. +220 HP to the default of 50.

When a team is not evenly matched in numbers the +1 could be adjusted. With an extra +1 per player difference.

So, for example if it was 3 vs 5, the team with 2 less players would get an addition +2 HP on top of their +1 HP from their customs. Each time they die it could be readjusted without them having to recustom, as player numbers adjust during game. They then could choose to recustom with this in mind though. You might consider having some money left over if you were getting +3 HP per $50.