Autobalance - bring your suggestions

[Belatu]

A) I love the banner balance

B) we can give a try to the Clan Tag balancem, prob you will have more clann than banners, thing that I think is good for the thing

[Leiknir]

Balanace by clan tag sounds like a good idea at first, but many clans have their trial members running without the tag, but the banner, so they can test them out without having to fear for their reputation if the trial member turns out to be a retard

[VicTheBear]

A) Banner balance is great

B) Balance by class/level somehow?

I think the only way you could make the autobalance recognize differences in class would be to have the option of assigning your character to a class on the website, like a little dropdown menu to choose your class from. Mounted, Infantry/Footman, Ranged, Mounted-Range, etc...

And maybe somehow set it up so that you can only choose a class once you have a set number of wpf points in that class (which would also allow you to change class, depending on wpf points) The wpf requirement would keep the teams from being unbalanced by not allowing peasants who claim they're archers but can't damage anything because they've got 20 wpf from being stacked on one team or the other. Kind of like class balancing people who have a certain level/wpf, and then auto balancing (however it already balances) anyone who falls below that line.

Ex- Bob the peasant just started crpg and has 40 prof points in 2h but wants to be an archer now. Until he has X amount of prof points in archery, he can't officially switch classes (he can't even use a bow worth buying yet anyway so it wouldn't make sense for him to be balanced as a ranged class)
Or, Bob the 5th gen rich-bitch has 200 prof points in 2h and wants to mess with the auto balance by switching classes, but the system prevents him from 'lying' about his class thanks to the wpf rule.

This could also combine in-game kills/deaths to decide which player of each class is on what team that way no single team has all the 'top' archers or 'top' cav, etc...
But that seems more complicated.

Kind of a vague and overly-complicated idea but it's my dream for autobalance. Lol.

[Keshian]

Answer me those 2 questions (especially b):

a) what do you think of current autobalance (either by banner or the normal one - although they work on the same principle)
b) how exactly do you think a proper autobalance for cRPG should work? you can make up any variables you want, bringing a formula doesn't hurt either.

Hard to imagine cRPG without it now, most of the fun is playing with your friends on same team and suing real strategy and coordination agaisnt other clans.  2 things to improve: make it faction based linking to strategus or make your banner set by your faction, a lot of people put our banner on to be on our team and there are so many that are really caln mates don't get on the same team with us.  Also, see some weird balances where after we win we lose one of our best clan players to other team a lot as the only person switched, would much prefer we lose the 3-4 randoms, then the one clan member.  This system works well and if we are winning as a clan you start seeing 7-10 more people on opposing team then your own which is a good way to balnce it back until othe team starts to win.

The normal autobalance is really boring now and often switch servers to where banner balance is on even if its a different clan opposing and you don't have clan members with you.  the strategy used is really fun.

Faction, Level, current generation k-d (not k/d), equipment saved on website to start with (i.e. horse, bow, etc.) in that order  (45%, 30%, 15%, 10% weighted values)

[Zisa]

team balance is fine. Occasionally get a cav team or an archer team, etc, but if it was always the same that would just be more.. plain.

[Mizuk]

I like the balance as it is, even if im on loosing team i enjoy the challenge rather then just a gold/exp grind, as long as autobalance is not abused by n00bs that change to winning team its fine.

[Punisher]

Balanace by clan tag sounds like a good idea at first, but many clans have their trial members running without the tag, but the banner, so they can test them out without having to fear for their reputation if the trial member turns out to be a retard

By clan tag we mean a tag in your cRPG character page, just like the faction in strategus, not the in-game tag. A trial member could simply be invited into the clan than kicked if necessary without anyone else knowing

[Serfonz]

Banner Balance is good, but when you're not rolling with your clan. Auto balance can seem horrendous.

The problem I have with it is in Battle only, siege is fine as it seems to balance every round.
Some players are pretty random score wise, like myself I will sometimes get some sort of super power from Jesus and kill 9 people in a round.. The effect of this is auto balance suddenly gives me a really high score.. Which means I get put with a bunch of guys who got 1 or 0 kills. and the other team gets the guys with 2-3 kills (the guys who are actually good) So what does that mean? Next round starts I think to myself "omgawd im awesome!" and I run in heroically and get killed in 1 shot by a spear.  Result? My entire team gets slaughtered for the next 5 rounds because auto balance does not seem to rebalance after the 1st round unless the teams are unfair.

The other problem: Its late night, you wake up and are thinking to yourself Ima play some crpg till 7am, so you go and join EU 1 or 2 theres 7 archers, 4 melee and 3 cav. 1st round teams are fairly balanced due to random luck.  1 melee guy goes and slaughters everything.  Result: Team 1: 6 Archers 3 Cav 1 Melee  vs  1 archer 1 cav and 3 melee..

I can only think of one way to permanently make the system better and complete, and I am not sure if its possible.
You need to make every character have a persistent auto balance score, all it needs to do is scan the players K/D ratio off the char page or make a new one from when the system is implemented, along with scanning their WPF to check what their main weapon is.

I would suggest balancing by damage like someone previously suggested but I don't think the game can check that?

That way it can balance the good killers to what weapon they are using to make hopefully even balanced teams.

[Tristan]

Placeholder for a suggestion to be detailed soon.

Summary:
Change bannerbalance to a faction balance in which you assign yourself on the cRPG char page. This may be, but does not have to, be seperated from strategus.

Each person and clan gets a value calculated on global K:D, lvl, current K:D and current value of equipment (maybe...).
The clan value is used combined with nr. of members online, to make sure that each side has as close as possible equally strong clans.

After balancing out largest and strongest clans, it then balances small clans and single players. Idea is that, at least on one server, clanmates fight together, while still facing a worthy opponent.

On another server, the faction balance might be less strict or removed, in order to give people a chance to face off against each other and maybe better balanced teams.

[Vibe]

Imho, banner balance is fine.
What I would also do is compare KD ratios of each player and then arrange them appropriately. I've seen autobalance put several high KD players on one team and a one metric ass ton of KD of 1 and lower on the other team. Example:

(click to show/hide)

15:0	|	3:1
12:1	|	2:1
10:1	|	2:1
8:3	|	1:1
0:3	|	1:1
0:3	|	1:1
0:4	|	0:1
	|	0:2
	|	0:2
	|	0:3
	|	0:5

Now the KD comparison should make it more like:

(click to show/hide)

15:0	|	12:1
10:1	|	8:3
3:1	|	2:1
2:1	|	1:1
2:2	|	1:1
2:1	|	1:1
0:2	|	0:1

Ofcourse we can't divide by zero, so we would need to add +1 to death count for each KD calculation. Making 15:0 score 15:1.
To make this work the system would need to calculate KD ratio for each player, then sort by KD, and then allocate every player to the appropriate team (according to KD ratio sum) - comparing both KD ratio sums at each player allocation to keep them balanced. The system would start at highest KD player and end at lowest. If both KD ratios are "balanced", the system adds players first to team1, second team2, third team1, fourth team2 and so on.
Example KD ratio list:

(click to show/hide)

Player KD ratio - team

15 - allocated to team 1 (team 1 KD ratio sum: 15)
11,4 - allocated to team 2 (team 2 KD ratio sum: 11,4)
9,7 - allocated to team 1 (team 1 KD ratio sum: 24,7)
9,5 - allocated to team 2 (team 2 KD ratio sum: 20,9)
7,1 - allocated to team 1 (team 1 KD ratio sum: 31,8)
5 - allocated to team 2 (team 2 KD ratio sum: 25,9)
3,4 - because (team2_KDratio + 3,4) < team1_KDratio(29,3 < 31,8 in this case) this player is also allocated to team 2 (team 2 KD ratio sum: 29,3)
2,9 - allocated to team 1(team 1 KD ratio sum: 34,7)
2,7 - allocated to team 2(team 2 KD ratio sum: 32)
1,5 - again, (team2:KDratio + 1,5) < team1_KDratio and this player also goes to team 2 (team 2 KD ratio sum: 33,5)
1 - this one goes to team 2 too, because the sum is still lower than team 1 KD ratio (team 2 KD ratio sum: 34,5)
1 - allocated to team 1 (team 1 KD ratio sum: 35,7) .... and so on
0,9
0,5
0,7

The logic would be that at each next player the system checks both KD ratio sums, and if one of the KD ratio sums + this players KD ratio would still be below the other KD ratio sums last value, it would keep adding players to the first KD ratio sum, until the next player KD ratio addition would go over the second KD ratio sum. Even I'm not sure if I wrote that right.

Simple example (this is an extreme case and KDs are usually more balanced in practice):

(click to show/hide)

Player KD ratio - team

10 - goes to team 1, kd ratio sum is 10
6 - goes to team 2, kd ratio sum is 6
2 - should go to team 1, but because team2 kd ratio sum(currently 6) + 2 is not over team1 kd ratio (currently 10), the player goes to team 2, making team2 kd ratio sum 8
1 - goes to team 2, making team2 kd ratio 9
1 - goes to team 2, making team2 kd ratio 10 (thus balancing it)
1 - goes to team 2 (because it was team2's turn), team2 kd ratio 11
0,5 - goes to team 1, team1 kd ratio 10,5
0,3 - goes to team 1, because 10,5+0,3 < 11. team 1 kd ratio 10,8
0,3 - goes to team 2, because 10,8+0,3 > 11. team 2 kd ratio 11,3

Perhaps this wasn't well-thought out because I didn't really spend any time thinking this over and is more shit than I can see atm. Flame away.

[Quirian]

Ultimate Formula for Autobalance

If Team A's Kill/Death Ratio (Total Kills/Total Deaths)*Average Level = Team B's Kill/Death Ratio (Total Kills/Total Deaths)*Average Level ± 10 % = Balanced
If this Value is achievable with Banner balance then banner balance, if not, not

I hope you can follow my genius logics

[Leiknir]

I think the only way you could make the autobalance recognize differences in class would be to have the option of assigning your character to a class on the website, like a little dropdown menu to choose your class from. Mounted, Infantry/Footman, Ranged, Mounted-Range, etc...

Sounds like a good idea, but think about it: Why would you ever want to chose cav there, as it would lead to less other cav in your team...


But another thing I noticed: The modifier distributor should check for fair teams at the start of the round, not after. It's quite common on small servers not to get your modifier if you made some enemies GTX.

[Quirian]

Vics suggestion doesn't work because there are people that mix up classes my main is used as cav, or on foot from time to time with xbow, sometimes mounted xbow. I don't wanna choose a new class every time 

Still you are the most beautiful girl in cRPG right after Balton honey 

[Duerkos]

I'm a pub. I mostly play with a friend, and we chose the same banner as SoA (I think?) because it is similar to "La corona de aragon" (we are from spain). I didn't really noticed the autobalance was using this feature, but I thought something strange happened because I almost always ended up in the same team as my friend (I thought it was due to our low K/D similar ratio).

That said, from my perspective it works well but sometimes a team wins too much. x5 should happen rarely, not often. But also, keep in mind clan players are not all the players there -me and my friend will be screwed if the clan request thing is coded-.

However, if it is easy to create a new faction/clan, even if it's only going to be for the two of us, it would be ok. 

[Heroin]

However, if it is easy to create a new faction/clan, even if it's only going to be for the two of us, it would be ok. 

It is INCREDIBLY easy to create a new faction. As easy as clicking a button and naming it. So you're in luck.