[Suggestion/Concern/Major Annoyance] Siege Team Balance

[Beaver]

That's right, this has finally bugged me enough to start a thread about it. Might be a bit late, but...

Currently siege auto-balance is done at the start of each round. And that just doesn't work. Just the other day we had 27 (defenders) vs 18 (attackers) or something equally insane. Siege auto-balance should to be changed to work like in TDM, so that the teams are kept fairly balanced throughout the round. As it is now, teams get balanced at the start of the round, just to be equally unbalanced again 30 sec later.

[rant]
People tend to join the defenders, the winning team or the Nords. When all those are the same team, we ridiculous balances like the one mentioned above. If Nords are defending there is almost certainly a 2-4 player advantage for that team, which makes attacking vs Nords tedious and boring. Not to mention that Nords defending are the scenario in a third of the sieges. Not that I have that much against Nords defending, if the teams would've been kept equal.
[/rant]

That being said, teams are often unbalanced in siege, with or without Nords. So, please, change siege auto-balance to be like in TDM.

 

[switchfoot]

I have to agree with you. I've been playing siege a lot this week and it really sucks when a good game is spoiled by unbalanced teams...

 

[Guize]

As long as khergits aren't attacking.

Khergits attacking is just sad.  Especially playing as them, they get ripped apart a good portion of the time.

 

[Archonsod]

Currently siege auto-balance is done at the start of each round. And that just doesn't work. Just the other day we had 27 (defenders) vs 18 (attackers) or something equally insane. Siege auto-balance should to be changed to work like in TDM, so that the teams are kept fairly balanced throughout the round. As it is now, teams get balanced at the start of the round, just to be equally unbalanced again 30 sec later.

People drop in and out of siege all the time. I've seen it go from 2:1 on the defenders to 2:1 on the attackers over the course of the same round with people dropping out or joining.
Autobalance won't make a difference in that situation anyway. If you watch TDM for any length of time if people get shunted onto another side via the autobalance they tend to quit or drop back to spectator until they can get in on the side they chose. I don't see how it would be any different on Siege.

Although that said it's pretty easy for the attackers to win even with inferior numbers.

 

[Seawied86]

As long as khergits aren't attacking.

Khergits attacking is just sad.  Especially playing as them, they get ripped apart a good portion of the time.

I disagree. Khergits play in siege just fine. They got a wide range of weapons, cheap armor and can horse rush.





@OP: Definitely agree!

 

[DanAngleland]

@ OP: Yes, it can be a problem sometimes, and perhaps more regular auto balance would help. On the other hand, I have frequently noticed what Archonsod observed, which is the number of players fluctuating significantly during rounds. Perhaps the devs should try and assess each castle map and set a minimum ratio of attackers to defenders. If they did that though, it would have to be a close ratio, something like 8:10, because the attackers don't have a huge problem getting into the castles if they use just a little bit of teamwork.

 

[Sgt Pepper]

As long as khergits aren't attacking.

Khergits attacking is just sad.  Especially playing as them, they get ripped apart a good portion of the time.

I disagree. Khergits play in siege just fine. They got a wide range of weapons, cheap armor and can horse rush.





@OP: Definitely agree!

Yeah, I usually like to defend and I've seen some people play Khergit attackers and give the defense a really hard time.

Sadly a lot of people always try the same ways in to a castle - not a good tactic with any faction tbh but more pronounced if it's Khergit attacking.

 

[Jack_Merchantson]

Sadly a lot of people always try the same ways in to a castle - not a good tactic with any faction tbh but more pronounced if it's Khergit attacking.

Seriously, the Khergits' whole advantage is to be able to send crowds of archers up every ladder simultaneously 30 seconds after the round starts...

 

[Archonsod]

Perhaps the devs should try and assess each castle map and set a minimum ratio of attackers to defenders.

What might be better is an auto-fill using bots rather than triggering an autobalance in the middle of a round (it'd be incredibly ****ing annoying if you were just about to take the flag and got autobalanced out ). Set a minimum of say 20 players per team, and if any team dips below 20 it spawns enough bots to make it up to 20 (and each time a player joins it removes bots to get back to 20). As an added benefit it would also mean siege was interesting with less than ten players per side.

 

[Beaver]

Good to see some intelligent discussion.

First off, if you go by the reasoning that the game shouldn't auto-balance the teams because people move back anyway we might as well remove auto-balance all together. But yeah, I see the issues. Auto-balance can be really annoying at times, agreed. Especially if you're lowering the flag... But then again, auto-balance actually doesn't just randomly pick someone (but I haven't looked closer to what it actually picks by) so I assume it could be fixed with some intelligent coding.
The bot idea sounds interesting. I haven't played with bots on siege for a long time though and from what I can remember they didn't really work at all before. But that was many patches ago, so might've been fixed?
Oh, and you say a 20 player limit... I'd say add bots until teams are balanced. If the defenders are 27 nords and the sarranid attackers are 18 (as I said, it happened) then I highly doubt two extra bots would make any difference.

I know my solution is far from ideal, but it is a problem, and something should be done about it. The main problem is of course that the losers start to rage quit, and when teams get unbalanced more people rage quit... And if you add auto-balance in the middle of the round people would rage quit because of that. Enforcing people to stay on until the round ends might be a good solution, don't you think?

 

[Vornne]

How about only auto balancing people after they die?

 

[Beaver]

How about only auto balancing people after they die?

Wow, yes, that's a really good idea right there. Best auto-balance idea I've heard so far, should be done for tdm too...

 

[Berserker Pride]

How about only auto balancing people after they die?

I second this proposal.

 

[Mormacil]

How about forcing people to join the side with the least players? Like that better. I hate it when I'm helping my team win and then get switched 10 seconds before we win to the losing team...

 

[Beaver]

It is already like that? You can't actually join the team with more players. The problem is when people are leaving. For some reason the attackers seem to leave a lot more often, I wonder...

And it could surely be turned off when there's just a little time left of the round, as auto-balance in the very end won't make a difference anyway.

 

[DanAngleland]

Perhaps the devs should try and assess each castle map and set a minimum ratio of attackers to defenders.

What might be better is an auto-fill using bots rather than triggering an autobalance in the middle of a round (it'd be incredibly ****ing annoying if you were just about to take the flag and got autobalanced out ). Set a minimum of say 20 players per team, and if any team dips below 20 it spawns enough bots to make it up to 20 (and each time a player joins it removes bots to get back to 20). As an added benefit it would also mean siege was interesting with less than ten players per side.

Good point, I didn't think about that! And the bot idea might be good as well.

 

[Archonsod]

But then again, auto-balance actually doesn't just randomly pick someone

I'm not too sure about that. I've not seen any pattern in whom it decides to shunt across.

The bot idea sounds interesting. I haven't played with bots on siege for a long time though and from what I can remember they didn't really work at all before. But that was many patches ago, so might've been fixed?

They're not geniuses no. They can still be useful though, particularly since they can now be commanded by players. I can imagine having ten bots holding position around the flag would be quite the speed bump for the attacker, similarly sending ten bots up a siege ladder would be a nasty diversion for the defender. Left to their own devices they default to trying to kill everyone on the opposite side, which won't win the siege but isn't completely useless.

Oh, and you say a 20 player limit...

Yes. One of the other problems with siege is that it's pretty dull with less than ten players per side. If you're setting a minimum team size and backfilling with bots though even if you only have two active players you can still get an entertaining match (it's basically like a siege from the main game, except the other side has a human commander too).

 

[Beaver]

But then again, auto-balance actually doesn't just randomly pick someone

I'm not too sure about that. I've not seen any pattern in whom it decides to shunt across.

I've seen the code, and I can assure you that it's not random, but what it goes by is beyond me. It seems very random when playing.

EDIT: Seems to go by latest player joined...

Oh, and you say a 20 player limit...

Yes. One of the other problems with siege is that it's pretty dull with less than ten players per side. If you're setting a minimum team size and backfilling with bots though even if you only have two active players you can still get an entertaining match (it's basically like a siege from the main game, except the other side has a human commander too).

A minimum 20 bots limit, and if the player numbers goes above that the bots increases? So if there are 10 players on each team there will be 10 bots on each as well. But if it's 30 people on one team and 20 on the other, the latter one will get 10 bots.

How about only auto balancing people after they die?

But I still like this idea a lot

 

[Jack_Merchantson]

I'm not sure if bots on Siege would necessarily be helpful.

They're fun but they sure like to get stuck on things...