Generate Teams Randomly

[innerlyte]

So it looks like the Ladder System has really taken off in the past few days. One of the biggest issues with it (and any other informal 1-game tournament) is forming teams. The captains approach has worked to some extent, but the teams formed are not always balanced. More importantly, some people have a lesser chance of getting to play, because they are less experienced or unknown to the caps. Personally, I like the system currently being used in the Ladder servers where 10 people join the game and then call a vote to balance teams. This method still leaves spectators who don't make it in during the mad rush.

Overall, the current system is a mess. When it's a captains game, no one wants to be the fat kid at recess. And regardless of the team formation method, there are always people yelling at someone to get out of the game. Of course, a prompt votekick generally follows suit. I don't think this is a particularly considerate approach and doesn't reflect well on the community.

My request/suggestion is that a new function be written that will randomly generate teams using the pool of people who want to play (e.g., those who have pressed 'f' and do not intend to spec the match). I think a lot of people would appreciate something like this.

[Snowsickle]

I've long desired a simple /teamshuffle command. Shuffles the people currently playing in a completely random manner. For a lot of the games I'm involved in, I would vastly prefer this to /balanceteams. Half of the fun of 1dm is playing with varied teammates against various odds, and the matches end quickly enough that being stuck with a bad team isn't quite as annoying as tbd.

What I think is more or less ideal for the ladder, however, would be a server admin command to force teams. (Ex: /assign "redshift" "left|right"). Combined with something to lock the teams ( /lockteams : simple enough, right?). All of this combined with support for scripting/interacting with the console remotely would be a godsend for the ladder.

[spc]

i totally agree. personally i have never played a 5v5 ladder game in the server just because the captains dont rly know me and dont get picked which sucks. ive also heard of other players with the same complaint. this totally needs to be fixed.

[nesnl]

Hopefully there will be some system in the near future that address this very issue. We are aware of the issue and are definitely pursuing all avenues to address it. The ladder is like 3 days old now Give us a little time to figure all the kinks out! I promise by the end it will be a much better system for all of these things mentioned plus a few more things.

[eth]

Yeah like Maimer said a form of autobalance is in the works. I definitely wouldn't complain if we could interact with the server via scripting though, or get the ability to force teams.

[innerlyte]

Thanks for the responses, guys. Let me just clarify quickly though. This phenomenon is not necessarily specific to the Ladder servers; it was merely amplified by them. That being the case, my suggestion was aimed more toward the devs in writing something like a server command that could be used in all servers, as Snow suggested. And don't worry, Maimer -- you know I wouldn't expect you guys to be fully functional and bug free after only a few days (Is it even worth mentioning??). Anyway, great work with the Ladder. Glad it's taking off!