Am I the only one who thinks that autobalance should be based on the invidivual player skill levels, rather than the number of players?
The autobalance system should be scrapped for a more intelligent design, one that can balance the game, and allow people who like to play as a squad to actually do so, and not be interfered on by server switches or team blockades.
Some kind of formula, call it effective skill level, or whatnot, should be assigned to each player, populated by their statistics. It may be necessary to have these populated on a per-class basis - since it's feasable that you can suck as one class and do well as another. Whatever class you choose, however, you should be assigned some type of value.
When people enter a game with autobalance on, the game thus attempts to delegate people to teams based on their overall value as a player, rather than just being a generic body. The current autobalance assumes that all people are equal - they are not.
This system would strive to mesh the players of differing skills, attempting to stagger the good players with the bad, so that each team has a seeding of each.
Now to the second part - supporting squad play with autobalance adds a bit of complexity. If you get a squad of very good people, it could upset the balance of the game quite considerably. To allow them to play together, the autobalance system should then attempt to balance by giving the other team a numbers advantage. So if you have 6 very good players in a squad on one team, the game may send 4 very good players and 4 average/mediocre players to the other team so that they have a numbers advantage.
For this, we need one caveat - "clan" or "organized" squads (as opposed to random squads in a game which is nothing really more than just random players in a category) should be pre-registered (the same way an account name is) and should have a password to join. The game's ability to let them in the squad should only be based off the pre-registered squad, so that only people who have an actual intent to play together can specifically make it happen. Additionally, people should be added to the squad "roster" so that random people couldn't be simply invited to stack a team.
The autobalance system should be scrapped for a more intelligent design, one that can balance the game, and allow people who like to play as a squad to actually do so, and not be interfered on by server switches or team blockades.
Some kind of formula, call it effective skill level, or whatnot, should be assigned to each player, populated by their statistics. It may be necessary to have these populated on a per-class basis - since it's feasable that you can suck as one class and do well as another. Whatever class you choose, however, you should be assigned some type of value.
When people enter a game with autobalance on, the game thus attempts to delegate people to teams based on their overall value as a player, rather than just being a generic body. The current autobalance assumes that all people are equal - they are not.
This system would strive to mesh the players of differing skills, attempting to stagger the good players with the bad, so that each team has a seeding of each.
Now to the second part - supporting squad play with autobalance adds a bit of complexity. If you get a squad of very good people, it could upset the balance of the game quite considerably. To allow them to play together, the autobalance system should then attempt to balance by giving the other team a numbers advantage. So if you have 6 very good players in a squad on one team, the game may send 4 very good players and 4 average/mediocre players to the other team so that they have a numbers advantage.
For this, we need one caveat - "clan" or "organized" squads (as opposed to random squads in a game which is nothing really more than just random players in a category) should be pre-registered (the same way an account name is) and should have a password to join. The game's ability to let them in the squad should only be based off the pre-registered squad, so that only people who have an actual intent to play together can specifically make it happen. Additionally, people should be added to the squad "roster" so that random people couldn't be simply invited to stack a team.