Balancer on Legacy

[slowtobi]

Hello Muppets and Friends,

its quite obvious that the balancer on ETL Server is bugged (balancing even 0 player diff on Special delivery).
The bugfiling is found here:
https://dev.timosmit.com/bugtracker/view.php?id=102

I suggest to just turn it of in wolfadmin configuration, till next release, to avoid annoyance and stunned players.

 

[MiniMuppet]

problem is if we turn it off people do not always move teams, so it could make it worse on the server instead of a little bug. up to you guys

[Bystry]

It's not doing any real harm, since it's only printing messages in chat about unbalanced teams when teams are balanced, without actually moving any players (correct me if I'm wrong here, might've not notice something). So maybe as Mini says it's better to keep it, because it really comes in handy in terms of team balance. I agree, we can't depend on players to move teams, they're usually reluctant to do that.

[Bystry]

Hmm, actually, on second thought, the balancer might've moved me today to other team when it was like 12v11 (1 player difference). I'm not 100% sure though. So that could be a problem. 

Edited March 17, 2019 by Bystry

[MiniMuppet]

i have seen it move someone when teams have 1 more player in the other team. i don't think it then moves anyone back though again i could be wrong. 

[Bystry]

2 minutes ago, MiniMuppet said:

i have seen it move someone when teams have 1 more player in the other team. i don't think it then moves anyone back though again i could be wrong. 

Yep, actually after I wrote my first post I remembered that it moved me like that today to other team (1 player difference). It's really weird that all of a sudden wolfadmin started to behave like that. 

[EliteVeteran]

55 minutes ago, MiniMuppet said:

problem is if we turn it off people do not always move teams, so it could make it worse on the server instead of a little bug. up to you guys

Isn't this why they've added the !put command for members? 

[Matu]

6 hours ago, EliteVeteran said:

Isn't this why they've added the !put command for members? 

Sadly people somehow find it as abuse/offensive/humiliating act against them if we do that.

We try to ask via pm etc first if its ok b4 we use !put but lots of times they dont even answer or dont want to.

In most cases we wont force anyone or shitstorm may break loose and thats not solve current issue and brings another one.

[slowtobi]

Maybe i didnt make the topic clear enough. The autobalancer pushes people around on Special delivery  at 0 diff. That means pushing one from allies to axis. If in Axis are 1 or 2  more it doesnt complain. That is just wrong. Turning autobalancing off does not mean that the command !balance it not working anymore, for me the outcome is somewhat inpredictable. Why this wrong autobalancing is happening i dont understand.

I absolutely agree that forcing people from one team to another is not good. But actually on Legacy there are so many TM members,  that i dont expect playernumber balancing as a problem (i believe it is better than having "Guests" pushed around by the balancer without transparent reasons) .

 

[Ctrz]

19 minutes ago, slowtobi said:

Maybe i didnt make the topic clear enough. The autobalancer pushes people around on Special delivery  at 0 diff. That means pushing one from allies to axis. If in Axis are 1 or 2  more it doesnt complain. That is just wrong. Turning autobalancing off does not mean that the command !balance it not working anymore, for me the outcome is somewhat inpredictable. Why this wrong autobalancing is happening i dont understand.

I absolutely agree that forcing people from one team to another is not good. But actually on Legacy there are so many TM members,  that i dont expect playernumber balancing as a problem (i believe it is better than having "Guests" pushed around by the balancer without transparent reasons) .

 

If members move back-and forward to fill team that has less players, then its noble way. But we cannot assume everyone watching 24/7 scoreboard and notice quick enough to swap teams.

C#

[EliteVeteran]

7 hours ago, Matu said:

Sadly people somehow find it as abuse/offensive/humiliating act against them if we do that.

We try to ask via pm etc first if its ok b4 we use !put but lots of times they dont even answer or dont want to.

In most cases we wont force anyone or shitstorm may break loose and thats not solve current issue and brings another one.

In my opinion this is one of the common duties of any member, keeping team balanced. Since there is an bug in the balancer system, there's an need for manual balancing teams. Now in my years of administration experience i never had such an issue with the !put command after you've gently questioned all the players in public to even up the teams.
If noone does and there's still some TM members in the upper team, PM your TM members to swap teams before you put any player. Otherwise put an player to the opposite team and they should understand why, it's also in their profit for the maximum fun in gaming experience.

For sure noone likes to be put but as member you are responsible for keeping this place fair and joyful. So far i've seen the !put command is only used when an member goes spectator, this i see as abuse since there are different ways to go spectator without the need of any commands. The next would be !kick to disconnect from server?
If in any case some of the members feel offended, it was never my intention to. Constructive critic is an good thing to improve the quality in and around the clan. I am just giving my opinion as player with the eye as ex-head administrator. I won't reply after this as i refuse to go too far off-topic. Take care, Team Muppets.

 

a friend of TM

[Bystry]

Moving people around by !put command is the lamest thing to do and unacceptable in my eyes. This is why the WolfAdmin balancer was introduced in the first place, to avoid situations like these. 

1 hour ago, EliteVeteran said:

So far i've seen the !put command is only used when an member goes spectator, this i see as abuse since there are different ways to go spectator without the need of any commands. The next would be !kick to disconnect from server?

Yeah, I don't like when someone's using this command to go to spectators either, but I just don't see how it could be considered as "abuse". I'd rather call it a "show-off". 

[slowtobi]

3 hours ago, Ctrz said:

If members move back-and forward to fill team that has less players, then its noble way. But we cannot assume everyone watching 24/7 scoreboard and notice quick enough to swap teams.

C#

I agree, we cannot watch 24/7 on the scoreboards. In my experience as long the server is not full, balancing works fine, public messages are read by everyone. Most of the players know each others. If server is crowded, balancing doesnt work well, nobody watches, fighting is hectic... . BUT imo the message from balancer can still remain in place, people can still complain on balance, people esp. Members can act accordingly;i just dont like this autobalancing active, as i can not explain its unpredictable actions to fellow players.

[EliteVeteran]

2 hours ago, Bystry said:

Moving people around by !put command is the lamest thing to do and unacceptable in my eyes. This is why the WolfAdmin balancer was introduced in the first place, to avoid situations like these. 

Yeah, I don't like when someone's using this command to go to spectators either, but I just don't see how it could be considered as "abuse". I'd rather call it a "show-off". 

Okay i said i wouldn't reply but to this i have to because as player i dislike and it seriously disturbs me to see the lack and laziness of members qualities. The fact that you don't understand what abuse is and how to use commands properly says enough.

An command is considered abused when it's being used for personal pleasure. The commands are implemented to manage and lead the server into good atmosphere. For example in this case the 'put' command is created to put players who are inactive to spectator, or you need to balance teams but use your sense to avoid issues.
By using this command to move yourself to spectator i see no valid reason since you don't manage the server. You are active and able to move yourself to spectator by any other methods than commands. And thus in my opinion this is abuse and not just showoff, it is both and unacceptable.

Again, i am not here to lecture anyone but i have used the put and even putteam, the older version of put, command for many years and never had any issues since the player understood the reason why. It depends how you treat the player, how the server will elapse. It's all within the quality of the member.
If you still think the put command should not be used for balancing teams, consider to train the members how to use commands properly since it's only being abused and rarely used for the purpose it was meant for. Either that or remove it completely but it would be impossible to move AFK players to spectator.

For those who have long toes, i am not here to make you hurt but instead listen carefully to a worried player who would like to see some things change for the sake of a better server. We are all players and like to have an maximum joyful gaming experience.
 

5 minutes ago, slowtobi said:

I agree, we cannot watch 24/7 on the scoreboards. In my experience as long the server is not full, balancing works fine, public messages are read by everyone. Most of the players know each others. If server is crowded, balancing doesnt work well, nobody watches, fighting is hectic... . BUT imo the message from balancer can still remain in place, people can still complain on balance, people esp. Members can act accordingly;i just dont like this autobalancing active, as i can not explain its unpredictable actions to fellow players.

Watching the players scoreboard is an easy thing to do. You have several moments during the map to check the scoreboard, i give you some examples:

- When you're wounded and waiting for medic or you died and waiting to respawn.
- In an 'safezone'. When you're walking around and no enemy is nearby.
- While falling back and go in cover
- As spectator

And there are more moments during the game that you've time to check the scoreboard. If more TM members would do this, you sure will find out soon enough about the unbalance in teams.
This is something i do frequently but that has become an automatic thing during my development as member to administrator. This is also quality of the member and common duty to do.

This is my opinion.

Edited March 18, 2019 by EliteVeteran

[Bystry]

6 minutes ago, EliteVeteran said:

to see the lack and laziness of members qualities

You refer to a specific player or to all of us? If you someone in particular, please specify the player and what exactly he did to consider it a lack of quality and laziness (using !put to go to spectators might be lame, but certainly it doesn't mean that a member at the same time doesn't do good stuff on the server in terms of administration).

10 minutes ago, EliteVeteran said:

The fact that you don't understand what abuse is and how to use commands properly says enough.

An command is considered abused when it's being used for personal pleasure.

Why, because you say so? Alright, we can discuss about the peculiarities and different meanings of English words, but what's the point? I still think that using !put to go to spectators by a member is not any kind of "command abuse" or "admin abuse". There are other commands, when used improperly, that can be abused and disturb gameplay on the server much more than simply putting yourself to spec that does no harm to anybody on the server - for example, !shuffle, !put for putting someone in another team, !kick, !mute, !ban... You got the idea? Putting yourself to spec by !put command is the least of violations an admin or member can commit. 

13 minutes ago, EliteVeteran said:

The commands are implemented to manage and lead the server into good atmosphere

Not exactly, there are command that serve other purposes, let alone "fun" commands which were pretty popular back in the day. 

15 minutes ago, EliteVeteran said:

If you still think the put command should not be used for balancing teams, consider to train the members how to use commands properly since it's only being abused and rarely used for the purpose it was meant for

Again, on what is your opinion based on? Personally, I hardly ever see members using this command to go to spectators, the main usage of this command from my experience is for putting inactive players to spectator. And I've been playing on that server a "little bit" more than you.

 

And I will not change my opinion about forcefully moving players to another team. This is primarily members' duty to move team if the teams are unbalanced. Besides, we have wolfadmin balancer for that, so really using !put command to move another player should be considered a "last resort" mean to balance the teams. If you've been using !put command for years on your server or wherever you gained so much administration experience (I assume it no longer exists?), to forcefully move players, well then kudos to you. We won't do it because as you can see it's considered among TM community bad and inappropriate towards regular players who come to the server to play a little bit and relax after work on whatever side they like to play. 

21 minutes ago, EliteVeteran said:

Okay i said i wouldn't reply

Why? It's discussion forum, we're meant to discuss here and share our thoughts on certain topics. We wouldn't go far if everybody wrote here with that mindset "I'm gonna complain about something, but anyway I'm not gonna reply after this". Not understandable for me. 

[EliteVeteran]

9 minutes ago, Bystry said:

Why? It's discussion forum, we're meant to discuss here and share our thoughts on certain topics. We wouldn't go far if everybody wrote here with that mindset "I'm gonna complain about something, but anyway I'm not gonna reply after this". Not understandable for me. 

You are one that seems not qualified in my opinion with multiple reasons. One is this reply above where you ask why i wouldn't want to continue this discussion is because this is not the right topic for it. Here we should discuss about the bug in WolfAdmin balancer.

This is my last words here about the members. I hope that the bug will be solved quickly so we can close this case about the bug.

[Matu]

I understand what you saying EliteVeteran.Our rule is that a admin/member need to switch teams to balance first and take neccesary measures to keep teams even.We have lots of players who change team immidiately when needed and theyre own gamefun is a bit ruined bc of that so we must thank them for that.I promise we are working that more of members would contribute to be more useful for server.

If you have any problems/suggestions/tips towards certain member,give pm to any admin so we can keep an eye on him and guide him if necccesary.

 

EDIT:Relax guys.You may discuss and say your opinions but please stay friendly and do not try to Win here.Everyone may have his opinion,dont force to agree with yours!

Edited March 18, 2019 by Matu

[Bystry]

13 minutes ago, EliteVeteran said:

You are one that seems not qualified in my opinion with multiple reasons. One is this reply above where you ask why i wouldn't want to continue this discussion is because this is not the right topic for it. Here we should discuss about the bug in WolfAdmin balancer.

This is my last words here about the members. I hope that the bug will be solved quickly so we can close this case about the bug.

Read this topic carefully 1 more time (together with Minimuppet's (Founder) and Tobi's post about turning off balancer and what can be done to keep the balance on the server. 

Just one quote for you from first post of this topic: 

21 hours ago, slowtobi said:

 I suggest to just turn it of in wolfadmin configuration, till next release, to avoid annoyance and stunned players.

Now think again carefully about your last msg and how ridiculous your arguments sound. This whole topic from the beginning is about the balancer bug, about turning off/ keeping the balancer and what can be done to keep the balance on the server. 

[Sammow]

Can I add something? Of course I can:

When the server is pretty full and the teams are red 9 and blue 10 players, it's not possible to join blue (and that's perfect). But when the server is filled with bots, it's perfectly possible to fill one team with 5 human players and the other team with only bots (or 1 human player). This is pretty annoying when you're in the server having a good game with 2 players and some bots on each side. But then suddenly 3 human players join and they all join 1 side. BOOM! Game completely unbalanced.

I encountered this yesterday, and I thought it's irritating. Could it be done that human players have to be equaly divided between both teams?

Not a big pain in the ass, just some thoughts

[Ctrz]

Today the balancer have been all over the place. Trying to move even players in battery map from allies to axis when allied had +1 but they were so much weaker..  :/

At the moment its constantly trying to balance teams when 1 team has +1.

C#

[Charlie]

The atb will be disabled until the next Legacy update at least.

[MiniMuppet]

On 3/18/2019 at 6:30 PM, Sammow said:

Can I add something? Of course I can:

When the server is pretty full and the teams are red 9 and blue 10 players, it's not possible to join blue (and that's perfect). But when the server is filled with bots, it's perfectly possible to fill one team with 5 human players and the other team with only bots (or 1 human player). This is pretty annoying when you're in the server having a good game with 2 players and some bots on each side. But then suddenly 3 human players join and they all join 1 side. BOOM! Game completely unbalanced.

I encountered this yesterday, and I thought it's irritating. Could it be done that human players have to be equaly divided between both teams?

Not a big pain in the ass, just some thoughts

i don't think the lua take the bots in to consideration im not even sure this is possible.

With the auto balancer turned off you guys are going to after to keep looking at teams more often. Any issue then please let us know.

[Duro]

Not really sure about this tho, but i think it wasn't possible in ETPub to join a team when it only has 2 bots vs a team that has 5 bots for example?

 

On the other hand, yesterday i joined the server and it was 5v2 without bots. I joined the 2 that made it 5v3, just one message in chat to ask if anyone would be so kind to even up the teams did the job and we played 4v4. 

Key in balancing team is to communicate with eachoter, and also, unfortunatly, sometimes you need to give up a good gameplay to switch teams. 

[Bystry]

@MiniMuppet Optionally you could try uploading separate Lua script for balancing teams until the fix is done by Timo in WolfAdmin. There's a working Lua script for balance in our etpro public server files called "balance.lua", if I recall correctly. Only difference is that it doesn't print the "warning" to switch sides before moving someone to other team.

[Eagle_cz]

13 minutes ago, Bystry said:

@MiniMuppet Optionally you could try uploading separate Lua script for balancing teams until the fix is done by Timo in WolfAdmin. There's a working Lua script for balance in our etpro public server files called "balance.lua", if I recall correctly. Only difference is that it doesn't print the "warning" to switch sides before moving someone to other team.

thats exactly the script which was removed from legacy yesterday night by me