We Got Ourselves A New Server Plugin! :D

[GTFO. Luckyg]

Rolling out over the next few hours across all out TF2 server will be a auto scramble, team stack and balancer plugin!

So what does this mean to our community I hear you ask.

Well, you will now have far more enjoyable experiences on our servers with teams being scrambled based on several factors which will be outlined below. Once a scramble has taken place you will be unable to swap back to the other team for an undisclosed amount of time to prevent team stacking, also don't think leaving the server and rejoining will help you either, as the servers will now log what team you was on when you left and will only let you join that team again.

We also got a lot of cries from donors who missed the auto balancer plugin which allowed them immunity to being swapped by it. So this new plugin also reinstates donors with immunity to the auto balancer across all our tf2 servers, WHOOP! Yet another reason to become a donor! You will still be scrambled and team swap blocked like everyone else though.

And now for the long list of the features of the new plugin and what it means to you guys!

Auto Balancer:

- After someone is auto balanced they cannot be swapped back by the auto balancer for another 20 minutes
- Engies with buildings are immune from the balancer
- The auto balancer kicks in if the teams are unbalenced for 30 seconds
- And the auto balancer will prevent 2 of the top players on a team from being auto balanced (not necessary the top 2 players on the leader board, but 2 of the players in the top 5 of the leader board)
- When the teams are uneven by 2 players for 10 seconds the auto balancer kicks in.
- However if the teams are unbalanced by 3 players the auto balancer kicks in straight away
- If someone captures/defends a point or intelligence then they are immune to the auto balancer for 200 seconds (3.3 minutes)

Auto Scrambler:

- The scrambler only kicks in after a full round
- If the frag ratio of a team is equal to or greater than 2.5 then the auto scrambler kicks in at the end of the full round
- The auto scrambler only takes effect when there is 8 or more players on the server
- If a team wins a full round in a map in under 2 minutes and has a frag ratio greater than 3 then the auto scrambler kicks in
- If the average score difference for all players on a team is greater than 70 then the auto scrambler is triggered
- If a team has a difference of 10 dominations than the other team then the auto scramble is triggered

Team Blocking Stuff:

- When a player swaps a team to team stack they are unable to swap back team for an undisclosed amount of time

Generic Scramble Stuff:

- If a scramble happens during the setup time, the timer of the setup is reset back to its original value
- Charged medics and engineers with buildings are immune to the auto scrambler at the beginning of rounds
- And if a medic is auto scrambled during setup time his/her uber charge will be carried over to the other team with him
- The scrambler determins who to scramble based on randomness
- And finally the scrambler will not scramble two rounds in a row.

BOOM! Enjoy Guys, leave your comments below e.t.c.

[Panromir]

Thanks, thank you!

[r3loaded]

I approve!

I take it this is done by a custom auto-balance plugin?

[GTFO. G]

Yes

[GTFO. Luckyg]

made 2 changes to the original post, I got some things in the auto balancer section muddled up, they have been corrected to this now.

- After someone is auto balanced they cannot be swapped back by the auto balancer for another 20 minutes
- If someone captures/defends a point or intelligence then they are immune to the auto balencer for 200 seconds (3.3 minutes)

[Orv]

The scrambler works great.
These 2 screenies were taken seconds after a scramble. (Don't ask me why there's a bunch of black lines, there weren't any in-game...)
You can quite clearly see, it is not working like it should.

[GTFO. G]

That sucks - made some changes... Fingers crossed.

You'll have to bare with us while we get things ironed out.

[GTFO. gungadin]

Great idea - when all the quirks are ironed out this will be a winner.

[Stripe]

Superb stuff lads!

On #01, Gravel Pit, it scrambled though after stage 2 so we started stage 3 with a totally different team. I assume it's planned/possible to hold off the scramble until all stages are done?

[Cliché]

Hi there - just finished badwater basin literally 10 secs ago. Teams were at 3-3 then got scrambled. A lot of unhappy players then moaned unsurprisingly


As one player pointed out we thought the idea was if one team was winning a lot then it would kick in



I've always left when admin scrambles teams as I feel it punishes a well coordinated mic team. Was willing to try it after having a chat with Luckyg in game, but that occurance seemed very wrong.
Maybe a duff parameter ?


Edit - I feel this is a different issue so am going to post a new topic. I have no issue with anti team stacking tactics otherwise

[santaclaus]

Good.

I won't go as far as to say that i hate them, although i pity them.

These 2 past days, sometimes it really was awful on the server and we did need a scrambler.

I have many pics of those who bypass the valve's autojoin on #1.

[DataStorm]

Superb stuff lads!

On #01, Gravel Pit, it scrambled though after stage 2 so we started stage 3 with a totally different team. I assume it's planned/possible to hold off the scramble until all stages are done?

Gravelpit has no stages, its a 3 CP map. Dustbowl, Goldrush have, and couple others. You might mean capping 1st and 2nd point after which it did a scramble? or do you mean another map?

Good.

I won't go as far as to say that i hate them, although i pity them.

These 2 past days, sometimes it really was awful on the server and we did need a scrambler.

I have many pics of those who bypass the valve's autojoin on #1.

I've been playing a bunch yesterday, in the morning on #01. and after bout 3 maploads and been kicked to blue every time I really didn't like it anymore. jumped spec to red, and next map again kicked on blue. Went to another server. I often like to start on defend when I first join, and then after the round been swapped do blue. I'm fine on random, but been put to blue every time was getting on my nerves. I'm almost always one of the first that gets in at map reload. I guess the first one gets put to blue, and ppl on "join" gets then either put on red or blue where less players are.

Went then on #02 2fort and later #10, was there swapped 3 times in 1 map. Not sure what time the new plugin was activated, I guess it was installed that time. While I shouldn't have been swapped according to above ruleset cos I got a reserved slot. I was fine with the swaps, cos I got out of the "bad" team.

My question about the above "ruleset" is, what do you name a "full round"? on Goldrush having both teams been on both sides ? (ie: after all 3 stages of goldrush for blue and then a teamswap, and previous red now blue had their go to get the cart as far as they could?) or is it per stage?
I see a "round" as both teams have done their best to get the cart as far as they could. As such, a round can take up most of the allotted 45 minutes. I'd say: double the time for the reload of the staged maps on single map servers (#03, #05). That should be possible now with the above system working.

And guys, I've been talking in the past bout the donor immunity for scramble, balance etc. With so many donors, my guess is that less than half the team is "allowed" to be swapped, or "scramfail" (cant speak bout scrambling anymore). But even with the res slot, I wouldn't want immunity.

Maybe time for you guys to get useful play statistics, so you can measure the effects. And be able to proactively monitor it and change things accordingly.

I'm slowly getting the feeling of a server where nobody ever can get to stage 2/3 of a map.

[santaclaus]

I've been swapped yesterday, so atm i think this (donnor immunity) feature isn't working.

I wouldn't recommend donor's immunity either, it doesn't fit with the intent of balancing.

(EDIT : ok i've read the ninja text, so it's only immunity against balancer not the scrambler.. Seem fine.)

I would recommend testing it on #1 until the right setting is found.

Can you post the content of cfg/sourcemod/plugin.gscramble.cfg , luckyg ?

[GTFO. Luckyg]

On #01, Gravel Pit, it scrambled though after stage 2 so we started stage 3 with a totally different team. I assume it's planned/possible to hold off the scramble until all stages are done?

i thinks its down to the fact that the engine see's individual stages on maps (goldrush, pipeline, dustbowl) as a full round and therefore that is what the plugin uses to determine the scramble basis. So i don't think there is any way around that, sorry

Hi there - just finished badwater basin literally 10 secs ago. Teams were at 3-3 then got scrambled. A lot of unhappy players then moaned unsurprisingly

As one player pointed out we thought the idea was if one team was winning a lot then it would kick in

As the plugin says,

- If the frag ratio of a team is equal to or greater than 2.5 then the auto scrambler kicks in at the end of the full round
- If a team wins a full round in a map in under 2 minutes and has a frag ratio greater than 2.5 then the auto scrambler kicks in
- If the average score difference for all players on a team is greater than 40 then the auto scrambler is triggered
- If a team has a difference of 10 dominations than the other team then the auto scramble is triggered

Therefore the plugin may not have scrambled based on the scores, all i can suggest for now is that you grab a screenshot after a scramble so we can see what the teams look like (dominations e.t.c.) so we can tweak the plugin so that it doesnt trigger a scramble at set sequences such as 10 dominations or average score of 40.

I have gone ahead and changed the average score trigger to 70 now as I know there are many people on the servers that can get scores on the leaderboard of 120 odd. And I have also increased the frag ratio to 3 instead of 2.5. So we can see if that changes anything.

I have also changed some of the settings for the donor immunity to the auto balancer so it *should* now be working.

I'll update this post when the servers are updated with the new version of this plugin.

Also like G said, this plugin has a tonne of settings, so we are currently just trying to find the balance between team work and scrambling, so if you have any more feedback be sure to leave it in a constructive fashion

[Stripe]

Yeah it was dust I meant, i'm dumb!

[DooMeR]

I find the donners are generally the ones who team stack so granting them immuinty from blancing but not scramble seems really pointless.

2ndly On defense maps the defending team will normally get higher scores and more kills unless the attacking team steamrolls the defending team. So scramble basicly punishes you for having a good defence.

3rdly A good meidc heavy combo or any good medic attacking class combo can easily get many dominations between them does that mean the teams are unblanced? Imo no it means the medic and heavy are working together as a team again i dont think this should be punished with a scramble.

I really hate scramble, it punishes one team for having good team work and a good blance of classes. Which is what tf2 is all about. If one team has 3 useless snipers no medics, no engis doing their job, no spy checking that team deserves to get steam rolled.

[santaclaus]

I've already said it in game, and Luckyg read it.

=> Settings for autobalance isn't good atm, we can stay 16 vs 14 for some time.

[GTFO. Luckyg]

I've already said it in game, and Luckyg read it.

=> Settings for autobalance isn't good atm, we can stay 16 vs 14 for some time.

yeh i have corrected that in the next upload, and have also slightly reduced the triggers that i changed last time so it should trigger a bit more often but not so many times that it is unfair.

I have also included a new function to the auto scrambler so it now scrambles after a team wins 3 consecutive full rounds

It will probs be uploaded tomorrow when G is not so busy

[GTFO. Gash]

will that not mess up with dustbowl and other similar maps of the ilk...

[GTFO. Luckyg]

Who knows?

I think the game engine executes a mini round win command iirc which the Plugin will ignore but upon the final win it executes a full round win command which the console uses. If that is not the case then command can easily be removed or maybe configured to specific maps

[Getsuga Tensho]

Well this sucks, basically can't play with a friend on the server any more which is the most fun part about TF2 when we're both online. Ah well, I'll be having to find another server(most likely with worse map rotation) now if I'm not wanting to play alone - was fun people. =/

[GTFO. kk20]

but where is the fun for the other team who get steamrollered because everyone stacks with the "good people"?

[GTFO. Luckyg]

people are taking this the wrong way, you can still play with your friends.

If say 3 of you go on a server and join the same team, the odds are that a scramble won't happen because your 3 scores don't always reflect the whole teams score which is what the scrambler determines when the teams are unfair.

I was on Gravel Pit on #1 last night and our team kept winning each round, but because both teams had equal scores and dominations e.t.c no scrambles happened

Also I often play a lot of TF2 with admins and regs whilst chatting away on mumble, and while we enjoy playing with each other working as a team, we find it just as fun to go against each other, and having sniper battles between ourselves (coxy vs digital usually) e.t.c.

[GTFO. Jamie]

I wouldn't recommend donor's immunity either, it doesn't fit with the intent of balancing.

i agree with this, i don't think anyone should be 'above' the auto balance features. Donors and admins should get moved like anyone else would.

[GTFO. vito]

Some people will like this plugin and some people won't - it is simply unavoidable.

[MissFranky]

people are taking this the wrong way, ..

The confrontational title of this thread is not helping. GTFOGaming hates teamstackers and now everyone will be subject to a scrambler. Feels a bit like you are calling all your players teamstackers.
If you want support for a new idea there are better ways to sell it.

I notice that it is always a few admins trying to get some sort of scrambler going and a few regs objecting. Just dismissing those objections by saying "some people won't like it" is unfair.
Maybe we could have an objective poll to see how much support any "scrambler" gets?

[Echelon]

I wouldn't recommend donor's immunity either, it doesn't fit with the intent of balancing.

i agree with this, i don't think anyone should be 'above' the auto balance features. Donors and admins should get moved like anyone else would.

+1

There are many donors these days, and the donors usually play most on the servers. It is likely that the balancer only get to move half the people on a server, if lucky.

The confrontational title of this thread is not helping.

I agree. Change the title, LuckyG. How 'bout "GTFO launches new scramble/balancer plugin on all servers" ?

[GTFO. vito]

people are taking this the wrong way, ..

The confrontational title of this thread is not helping. GTFOGaming hates teamstackers and now everyone will be subject to a scrambler. Feels a bit like you are calling all your players teamstackers.
If you want support for a new idea there are better ways to sell it.

I notice that it is always a few admins trying to get some sort of scrambler going and a few regs objecting. Just dismissing those objections by saying "some people won't like it" is unfair.
Maybe we could have an objective poll to see how much support any "scrambler" gets?

Some of this seems like it might be a touch presumptive and/or perhaps a touch wide of the mark. No-one is dismissing any objections or comments, in fact quite contrarily, the thread is here to accept objections and comments and try and work on them.

Additionally, given some people support/like it and some people don't support/like it then it would seem reasonable to make that comment. That said, the comment is in no way designed to close down any comment or be unfair.

We all need to try and reach a fair setup for everyone who plays - casual, admins and regulars alike. Lets assume the plugin is staying for now and get back on to making some constructive feedback on how to improve/tweak to everyones enjoyment.

All of that said, I'm inclined to side with you that perhaps the thread title could be construed as being a tad confusing for the content.

[GTFO. NachoDuck]

people are taking this the wrong way, ..

The confrontational title of this thread is not helping. GTFOGaming hates teamstackers and now everyone will be subject to a scrambler. Feels a bit like you are calling all your players teamstackers.
If you want support for a new idea there are better ways to sell it.

I notice that it is always a few admins trying to get some sort of scrambler going and a few regs objecting. Just dismissing those objections by saying "some people won't like it" is unfair.
Maybe we could have an objective poll to see how much support any "scrambler" gets?

Polls aren't fair either really, as not all players will vote on them so it doesn't really make the decision any more fair than us making the decision ourselves. This has been discussed internally, as most major changes to the servers are. You seem to think that one admin will come up with a suggestion and it is put into action straight away without any discussion, which is not the case.

If players do have a problem with the scrambler, they are more than welcome to voice their concerns to either an admin or here on the forums, where we will take them into account. The scrambler/balancer is there to ensure a better experience overall for the players on the servers and I think is a better solution than what we have tried before. We aren't trying to punish the majority of players here at all, just those who try to make the game unfair in one way or another to their advantage for some reason.

I'm not sure in what what you would try to "sell" this implementation, as the title of this thread puts it more or less the way it is. There will most likely be abit more tweaking to the plugin before it is set in stone and this is a teething period for the plugin after all.

[DataStorm]

Well, I've advocated autoscrambling in the past. And said back then already I didn't like donor immunity for any of the scramble/balance stuff, and some reasoning with it.

But the combination of random team selection (which really can prevent you playing with your friends in the same team) and the above scrambler isn't really helping of it gone too far imo. Applying ALL solutions to a single problem is making too much of a chaos, and ppl starting to dislike "the solution".

Sure, the plugin needs some working out. exactly the reason why it shouldn't be on all servers yet.

So far for that, ppl want to play in the same server and team for a bunch of reasons. Nothing said yet about that that will happen with other ppl and their friends on the other team as well. Some will choose to be in the other team just to fight those friends. I like to half the times, and I like other times to team up with 'm and play medic to them and help each other out by playing pyro next to a engy, or medic for a soldier etc.

The issue started long time ago with that group of ppl that played as a clan on GTFO servers with bout 6-7 players... with names in capitals from a tv series, forgot wich. This was the real problem back then which needed a solution. The problem is to "balance" the solution against bigger "clan's" using coordinated play to the pleasure of small "clubs" of friends of 2-3 ppl playing together on a server.

Only when the solution is a good counter on the points that are important, like allowing small groups of 2-3 ppl being able to play together, getting bigger groups split on different teams etc then you can say the solution is a best effort. That's why I said that on single map servers the map reload time could be doubled to balance the stuff a bit out with what was introduced.

[GTFO. vito]

Data - be careful, or you might begin to start talking with a modicum of sense more often

[GTFO. Jamie]

when we say 'teamstacking' , does this mean groups of people/clans joining the same team and effecting balance AND people who purposely join the winning team?

[GTFO. gungadin]

Lucky - I forced a shuffle on #2 today after Blu won in about 5 minutes with a huge score difference. It worked pretty much as expected (nice mod ) but whilst it did swap players correctly it actually ended up unbalancing the teams (see screen shot). Maybe an integer too high somewhere in the script?

[GTFO. G]

Data, please put your posts through a spell + grammar check before hand, I find it very difficult to follow your posts.

The auto assign on team join will be disabled (should have got to it sooner).

I don't see what's wrong with balance immunity for donors and admins (NOTE: NOT scramble immunity). If people want to play with their friends that's fine - and if donors want to be with their friends or admins with admins, again fine. That doesn't necessarily mean they're going to steam roll.

But if one team really does steam roll another, then teams should be scrambled, with no exception.

[DataStorm]

Data - be careful, or you might begin to start talking with a modicum of sense more often

aww, that would be a shame, I will rambling about m000r3

/me does a party: this was my 1500th post on the forum.

[diz]

Autobalancer sound fine, but scrambling: why not just !votescramble ??

-diz

[GTFO. Unflux]

Autobalancer sound fine, but scrambling: why not just !votescramble ??

-diz

There are quite a number of moaners on the servers that instantly shout "scramble" as soon as one team appears to be stronger than another. As an example I was playing with DooMer a few weeks back and our team won all of Goldrush within 10 minutes. A number of people on the opposing team began moaning and shouting for a scramble, however as soon as their turn came around, they did exactly the same to us.

In my opinion any player initiated voting is a waste of time as people rarely use it correctly.

[santaclaus]

The auto assign on team join will be disabled (should have got to it sooner).

hum , why ?

Keep it on #1 if possible. Game is more interesting like that. i would say 80 % player on the server respect the auto join feature and have come to appreciate it, the rest are bypassing it but at least there's really less balance problem.

Autobalancer sound fine, but scrambling: why not just !votescramble ??

-diz

That's the problem with the autoscramble. Sometimes you hope that the scrambler kick in sometimes you the scramble didn't seem to be necessary. The right settings would be found after more tests although ofc the easier solution would be votescramble with a threshold of 55 % (approx ~ 17 vote).

[Cliché]

ofc the easier solution would be votescramble with a threshold of 55 % (approx ~ 17 vote).

agreed

[GTFO. Jamie]

The auto assign on team join will be disabled (should have got to it sooner).

hum , why ?

Keep it on #1 if possible. Game is more interesting like that. i would say 80 % player on the server respect the auto join feature and have come to appreciate it, the rest are bypassing it but at least there's really less balance problem.

it was removed from lazytown too which is a shame, i would also say the majority of the LT community were in favour of it, yet it was pulled overnight