Suggestion: Banner balance (autobalance) based on winning percentage

[Elindor]

IIRC the current formula uses KD ratio from the last few days (or games, dunno) among other things.

That true in siege too, or just battle?
Would love to know more about how the balancer works in battle and also in siege, and how the banner balance works.
I know playing together is something to retain, but sometimes the balancer even fails to properly balance the "randoms" in around the clans that are present on the server for a good balanced gameplay.

The issue as far as I see it (and yes I play siege mostly so Im talking about the issue there), the balancer tries to balance people based off of their performance (points and kills, which should balance things, BUT the problem is that the balancer cannot move people in clans unless it moves them all together (most of the time).

If clan A has a bunch of high scoring players on, and clan B is against them with less people and less high scoring players, you'd think that the balancer would seek to give clan B whatever high scoring "randoms" it could to help balance things....but it often doesnt even do that.

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Not sure what the solution is - but I do think the balancer could use some tweaking perhaps.  It can be one of the more frustrating parts of the game currently, even for someone who gets valor a lot (this guy )

[Elindor]

The current autobalance algorithm works well when the server is a bunch of randoms, it's when a big clan shows up that things get weird. If I had a dollar for every time it put the top-performing randoms on the same team as the clan that is rolling the server...

THIS! Not sure why it does this but I see it happen all the time.
Even when the big clan rolling the server is doing well score wise as well, it still can often give them many of the high scoring randoms as well.

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Question is this.  How does it work?

If the server is all randoms (only 1 on from any clan so the server can move everyone freely instead of in groups), what does it do?  Balance based on scores of the individuals so each team has about the same number of high scorers?

How does it look at a clan?  As one block, IE one entity? - since it has to move them all together?  Or does it look at them individually?
Just curious how it all works.

[Tomas]

I think there's a place for current multiplier in the equation.  For example we could balance by:  char_level + 10*Recent_K:D + 5*Current Multiplier + 5*Riding + 5*PD + 5*PT (numbers are just to bring everything to roughly the same order of magnitude, in reality they can be adjusted according to importance.

That might also help balance archers and cav as they would automatically have a higher value than melee players and would therefore become higher priority targets to move when balancing.

I also think the banner balance threshold needs reducing a bit.  I know it sucks not to get on the same team as clan mates but right now there are just too many players in the big clans and anything to persuade players to join the smaller clans is good imo.

[Zlisch_The_Butcher]

There is a gigantic flaw in this idea, if it worked properly eventually most people would have an even winning percentage due to getting balanced based on their value which should create somewhat balanced teams, and once most people got a percentage of 50% of the time regardless of their skill this system will collapse on itself for obvious reasons.

[Tomas]

THIS! Not sure why it does this but I see it happen all the time.
Even when the big clan rolling the server is doing well score wise as well, it still can often give them many of the high scoring randoms as well.

---------------

Question is this.  How does it work?

If the server is all randoms (only 1 on from any clan so the server can move everyone freely instead of in groups), what does it do?  Balance based on scores of the individuals so each team has about the same number of high scorers?

How does it look at a clan?  As one block, IE one entity? - since it has to move them all together?  Or does it look at them individually?
Just curious how it all works.

I think it works as follows (or similar) but could be a bit out of date or plain wrong in some aspects

For a new map or newly joined player
- assign them to the team with lowest number of total levels

After round 1 - Banner Balance
- Work out the total levels of players on the server.  E.g. 10 level 30 players = 300 levels
- Group clans together according to banner but only if the total levels of the clan players does not exceed 20% of the total levels on the server.  So with 300 total levels then no more than 60 levels (3 level 30 players) will be grouped as a clan.
- Balance out the clans evenly between the teams
- Every other player is a "randomer" and fills the gaps according to their level

After every subsequent round - Normal Balance
- balance teams according to recent K:D but devaluing banner balanced players so that they are less likely to be moved.

[Spa_geh_tea]

Phew,

If your suggestion puts us on the same siege team more often.

I'm okay with this

Regards,
Oni

[Phew]

Oni, play more siege! I'm sick of having to play DTV because siege is empty. And Battle is just like the worst part of DTV (chasing those last few mounted Nomads) over and over.

The consensus that I've gotten from the feedback in this thread is that folks favor XP/gold over actual fun. Perhaps the more important change isn't the banner balance system, but rather the reward system. Valour is a step in the right direction, but too binary. I say re-work the multiplier system in favor of XP/gold scaled to the "odds". A weak team beats a bad team=big reward. Strong team steamrolls some peasants=small reward. Same thing on the individual level; beat a superior player, get a big reward (like duel). This would encourage people to seek out tough fights, as opposed to the current system that rewards people for steamrolling weak opponents.

[cmp]

The consensus that I've gotten from the feedback in this thread is that folks favor XP/gold over actual fun.

That's their problem, though.

[Phew]

That's their problem, though.

You should ad a "game mode" where people do menial chores in exchange for constant 5X. i.e. a dishwashing simulator, pairing socks, etc. Then you can implement a better banner balance system and the rest of us can enjoy it on the old servers while the XP/gold whores grind away on the new server.