And the restriction to changing to an alt which is of the same level is no way near precise enough. Generation, equipment, your K/D and W/L and a lot of other things would need to be calculated, and I don't think it would help the already complicated issue of establishing a working autobalancer.
Great critiques, or they would be if I was proposing a new auto-balance system:
- Level: You're right. Restricting switching to the same level wouldn't work. I think I said 'close', and more importantly I never suggested that that was a sufficient criteria for balance.
- Generation: Generation of alts? Nope. That's not a reflection of player skill or experience, unless (maybe) you're counting the total gens of all a player's alts. If you are counting them all, then that figure doesn't change if a person chooses to switch.
- Equipment: Depends on what you mean. Equipment value wouldn't be a good metric, as a dirt-cheap Bamboo Spear can be invaluable against stacked cavalry. Equipment type is tricky, because people own many things. More on this in a bit.
- K/D: Maybe. Probably not. You'll often be switching to a lower K/D, support class to defend your teammates, which actually helps your team. I doubt there's a high correlation between K/D and usefulness when considering hard counters.
- W/L: This one wouldn't work well either. For one, if you prefer to play your main, and you're only switching to these alts when you're team is getting rolled, you'll probably continue to get rolled when on them. Will you help your team get less rolled and win slightly more often? Yes, so switching to a lower W/L alt might not be bad either.
Experience, generation, equipment, K/D, W/L and many other stats we talk about are relatively poor measures of what a main/alt can contribute on a specific map and in a specific fight. Why do we use them? They are the best that we have. Fortunately this is a topic about 'stacking', which ties in to one stat that I feel is a reasonably good measure: class (which I think is what you may have been referring to when you said 'equipment').
I followed the link you posted and read your 8 step plan for fixing auto-balance (great post by the way). I think you mostly hit the nail on the head. Balancing classes between teams can lead to fair and interesting combat. Is implementing your fourth step (the hidden classes) and balancing by the results possible? Certainly. It would be imperfect and subject to manipulation (like all systems) but would do the job, and likely do it far better than the current system.
Allowing people to switch between alts would accomplish the same thing, but in a different way. It would put the burden of proper team composition on the players and add another level of planning and strategy to the game. I for one would prefer choosing how I can best help my team, to having an algorithm take the best shot it can and sticking me with the result for four to seven rounds.
Teams don't need to be symmetrical to be fair. Does each team having exactly X infantry, Y cavalry, Z archers (and of course equal numbers of all the sub-classes you defined within) have a pleasing symmetry to it? I can see the appeal, but it seems boringly predictable.
Let people figure it out for themselves and you can have tactics that are always different, and teams that adapt to interesting maps which are fair without being
Clean out all maps that are not perfectly even.
Check out if there are "natural fortifications" (turning battles into "soft" sieges), if the distances to choke points are equal (the team spawning closer to the central bridge will lose in the majority of all cases), and if both teams spawn on the same height level (so one team doesn't need to fight uphill).
depressingly symmetrical.
Anyway, it was just an idea. Too many ideas are shot down when people only see challenges. Thanks for your response; these are good debates to have.
