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[Zarf]

Was thinking of a mod idea for TF2 - basically works like this:
You have to buy your class slot, slot prices start at 0 then 5, 10, 25, 40 etc. Medics are also 0 points for the first three slots.

You buy them with the standard points system earned during play, points reset when the map changes.

This should mean maps always start off with people choosing a variety of classes, and multiple medics. medic would always be a desirable class since it is relatively easy to earn a lot of points. The players who do best get their pick of classes, whilst minimising the number of people playing one class.

If there's no technical limitation and people think it's a good idea, I can start taking a look at coding it in the next couple of weeks (never coded any mods before).

What do you think?

[Teatime]

Hmm, not sure.

Let me see if I understand this.
Sniper 1, for example, would get the first slot for free. The second would have to "pay" 5 points. the third 10 points and so on. If a player doesn't have the points (yet), he must pick another class he can "afford". (And if a player has no points and all free slots are already used up?)
- Would perhaps work on mapstart and might influence those caring about their points (and it might still be a different question if you also could prevent those points from going in the HLStats).
- Would also mean that, for example,  "l33t Sniper" could grab the free slot and more skilled snipers would have to pay for playing a class they're good at.
- Also there are legit points in the game where massing up a class makes sense, e.g. scout rushes at the beginning or the end of a map.
- With 12 people on a server 3 people always would have to pay (or at least 1, if the other 2 take the medics slot)
- You might encourage people using a free slot of a class which might not be needed or they not good/useful in. In such a case you punish the team.

Don't want to shoot down your idea, but I think this would need a different approach (something like a careful punishment/reward system)

But as an add-on/alternative I would point out that with a mod you could probably define your own point system which might be interesting enough.

[PapaFade]

I see where ur coming from and it has merit. It's a shame that we need to devise mods to force people to create a balanced team rather than doing it of their own accord.

[Chaos]

I see where ur coming from and it has merit. It's a shame that we need to devise mods to force people to create a balanced team rather than doing it of their own accord.

+1 mate

[Zarf]

Good point's Teatime, I can't think of a practical way around it being first come first serve for slots at the start. So will have to work with it:
All I can think of atm is a mechanism whereby players have to change class if they are doing badly at it and it is stacked, say every player starts out the maps with 10 points, and lose a point when they die, and gain points in the normal way. Then instead of taking points from them they simply have to be above the threshold cost to keep playing their choice.

Example - start of map, three scouts can join. two of them get points but one of them dies. he now has 9 points and is below the 10 point threshold, so now has to choose another class with only one person or less already playing (a threshold of 5), or medic.
If all three scouts die without getting any points, only the first to die would need to change, as once he left the threshold would reduce to 5.

What do you think?

[Officer Dibble]

All I can think of atm is a mechanism whereby players have to change class if they are doing badly at it and it is stacked

But how do you define playing badly? Even if someone is dying a lot it doesn't necessarily mean that they are playing badly, they could be playing in a way which is very useful for the team but which doesn't get them many points. Kills and deaths are often a fair indicator of how well somebody is playing, but i don't think that it should be the ultimate decider. If you were to introduce a human element to it, say a voting system where the other team members vote to say whether they think a certain player is being useful if they have been flagged for going below the threshold.

Sorry to shoot you down again, but i think if you can get something that does work it would be brilliant, just this one needs a bit more attention to get it right.

[Zarf]

The problem with voting is that people won't always want to be bothered with a vote every few seconds, and out of the entire team of voters, maybe only one or two saw them going out of their way to be helpful to the team at their own expense, if anyone from your own team noticed at all.
Saying that the first one of a stacked class to die has to change is the fairest way I can think of.

[Officer Dibble]

The problem with voting is that people won't always want to be bothered with a vote every few seconds, and out of the entire team of voters, maybe only one or two saw them going out of their way to be helpful to the team at their own expense, if anyone from your own team noticed at all.

Yeah, that and it can quite easily be abused.

[Teatime]

Back to square one:
Let's define what such a mod would want to achieve.

- We want a useful distribution of classes in a team, depending on the role (O,D,O+D).
- We want to encourage the usage of medics.
- We want to discourage the usage of less useful classes beyond reasonable numbers.
Anything else?

Approaches:
- Control distribution by the class selection mechanism.
- Punish unfavourable choices and reward favourable ones (this is basically what Zarf's idea suggests)
- Increase/decrease the appeal of certain classes though the point system.
Other ideas?


One idea (unfinished and flawed) I had was along approach #1:
Define a core of classes you would want to have  (e.g. 1 soldier, 1 HWG, 1 Engy, 2 Medics, 1 Pyro). These 6 slots have have to be covered before the other classes would be available (I have this image in my head of the team selection, where you can only enter a team when the other has enough players).
This would not make a working model, of course. It's just an example of a direction one could improve upon.
 

[Teatime]

*bonk*

I still think it would be interesting to see if it was possible to adress a few of the issues regarding class distribution and - perhaps - scoring.
Anyone still up for this?

[Hzza]

I see where ur coming from and it has merit. It's a shame that we need to devise mods to force people to create a balanced team rather than doing it of their own accord.

This.

I'd rather it be left up to peoples own judgement to pick the right class for the particular situation. I wouldn't/don't like being forced to pick a different class to the one I want to play; I'll change, grugingly, but the reason I play the classes I play is because they're the ones I enjoy and they're the ones that I actually CAN play and do something useful with. I don't mind going heavy/engie/demo if needs be, but don't then moan when I suck at it!

[Teatime]

I'd rather it be left up to peoples own judgement to pick the right class for the particular situation. I wouldn't/don't like being forced to pick a different class to the one I want to play; I'll change, grugingly, but the reason I play the classes I play is because they're the ones I enjoy and they're the ones that I actually CAN play and do something useful with. I don't mind going heavy/engie/demo if needs be, but don't then moan when I suck at it!

You're missing the point (well, perhaps not, but you are not addressing it).

There are two major problems with (what I call) class distribution: You can have too many people playing a certain class and you can have too few people playing a certain class.
Both can be the case with every single class, though you usually see this predominantly with a few particular classes (too many: snipers, scouts, engies, pyros. too few: medics, pyros, engies, spies).
BTW: In the last couple of weeks this has happened with increasing numbers on the WDG server, which - to some extent - I attribute to the high number of visitors we're having lately (who are very much welcome, but it's a mixed bag).

You can restrict the number of people playing a class, but this tool is inflexible, arbitrary and in fact not helpful (why not a scout rush on the beginning of badlands?).
You have no means to force soembody to play a certain class (and nobody would want that!)

So the interesting question is how to persuade people to consider the existing class distribution and choose a class to complement it instead of being the 3rd sniper or the 4th engy while there is no medic.
I could think of a few subtle things to address this without forcing anybody to play a class they don't want to.

PS: People might argue that it might impact the fun to have to play a class you don't (initially) want to. Fair enough, but how much fun is it to play that class when consequently the team suffers, performs badly and loses?

PPS: And yes, I realize I'm preaching to the choir here

[Hzza]

My last post was slightly tangent-tastic, but there you go, you should expect it by now! On the topic of how to implement a reward system for picking "useful" classes and balanced teams there is one in place already isn't there? It's called winning. The game is designed so that, yes, you can have 8 snipers and a spy but theres not a great chance your going to get anywhere, whereas a finely balanced team with good class choices is more likely to be the winnar.

I don't buy into the whole make a mod to get team selection right; leading by example and generally asking people to change over voice chat is the best way I've found. Sure some people are always going to be douchebags and not change but putting a mod in place to force them isn't really going to help is it? If you run a points based system that rewards kills/punishes deaths* you're just going to get people playing the classes they're forced to until they get enough points to switch to the "less useful" classes. All you'll do is get someone playing a class they don't want to just so they can play the class they DO want to play and if they can't get to be the class they want, they'll leave and you end up back in the same situation with an unbalanced team!
(*As Dibble said previously and you yourself have said on numerous occasions Tea, stats don't properly reflect on contribution, so what would the points system be based on?)

As for having a "core" of classes, you're just basically imposing class limits on people in a different way by basically restricting all the classes you don't want people to play until you get the ones you THINK are going to be useful; with the fluid nature of the game, and differences in peoples play styles all classes are useful and benificial in the hands of someone that knows what they're doing in different situations; if you restrict this, you change the game. I know its a bit extreme, but if you NEEDED to have a core group of players that was the same on each team you might as well get rid of the classes that were deamed less useful.

Sorry to keep shooting this down, but I don't think there is a way of totally balancing teams, unless you get into the realms of enforcing max 2 spy/sniper/engie/pyro/scout, which turns people away, or makes people go spec until they can play the class they want.

[Teatime]

On the topic of how to implement a reward system for picking "useful" classes and balanced teams there is one in place already isn't there? It's called winning.

Hmm, sadly there are a lot of people who don't realize that making wrong choices during the first half of the map might very well make success almost impossible.
But of course we all know that and it's rather futile to discuss that point.

The question I ask myself is if it was possible to create a system (e.g. mod) not to force people to anything, but to persuade them.
One apporach would be to use a reward/punishment system similar to what Zarf suggested: Allow people to make choices, but let wise/unwise choices have consequences (e.g. points). IMHO problematic and very difficult to implement, though.

I'm pondering about a different approach, which would be more subtle: I think there are many false decisions based on lack of awareness and ignorance. A lot of people don't look at the class distribution when choosing a class because they're focused on their choices.
How about a mod which would feature informational overlays. E.g., if a team doesn't has a medic it shows a sign on the hud with a medic-symbol crossed. You could do something like that for essential classes (and could vary it for teams and maps). Or you could have an overlay pop up when you select to be the 3rd sniper which would actually point out: "You will be the 3rd sniper. Still proceed?".
So basically you could offer an additional set of information to make people aware of potential problems without interfering with their choices. This would probably not impress the ignorant idiots, but might increase the awareness for those who are open for it.
As a matter of fact it might even help on better games as we have most of the times, since even we more team-oriented players sometimes miss tilts in the class distribution.

On other servers I get spammed with silly sounds and such. Why not spam people with useful informations?

But of course there might be different, better approaches.

[claws]

Well, it returns to the same problem - a) this 'mod' doesn't have the information to judge what the team needs correctly and b) even if it did, many people don't care.

Take the third sniper example. If the third sniper is Zarf or somebody, he may well suppress the enemy sniper and the other two may then change classes. Then you'll be saying 'ah, experienced players need to know to ignore the prompts', at which point the whole system kinda falls apart a bit. I'm totally in agreement with Hzza on the best way to solve this.

I'm going to be controversial for a second and suggest that most people actually do a pretty good job of picking classes. The system works surprisingly well. Yeah, you get 4 scouts and 2 engies on attack sometimes - but often, those guys wouldn't do particularly well as other classes either. You have to do what you can with the players you have. Everyone here is probably considerably above the 'average' TF2 player, so maybe we have a few more options sometimes.