Teambalancer was changed not only to balance by classes but to balance for better teams. for that, teams are balanced every round to counter against one team rolling for an entire map, however, after I watched EU1 balance for 1-2 hours, it became apparent that banner stacks was hindering this balance. that is, on many occasions, the balancer would set one team to have a far higher average score than the other team. so, I decided to test out the strict autobalance mode, to see if that would result in more even teams. however I have not yet checked whether this is true or not. if teams continue to be as unbalanced as they were with banner balance, then I will revert this change.
as for switching every round, this has helped prevent one team from steamrolling for an entire map. yes, as of now getting switched from the 'winning' team is obnoxious, given the current multiplier XP system, as it causes you to lose your multiplier. however, I intend to move away from the multiplier system, and instead give out different amounts of xp solely based on whether your team lost or won. that is, instead of having the multiplier range from x1 to x5, instead I'd like to see it range from x3 to x4. of course, I'll do my best to ensure that xp gains are similar to the xp gains under the current system. by doing this, being balanced every round only has the potential to change your xp gain by 80% or so, instead of reducing it to 20%.
all of this is not to say that I don't like banner stacks, or banner balance. I very much enjoy the fact that clans are put together on the same team, and are able to work together. but, at the moment, doing this has a large negative affect on team balance as a whole, due to the underlying nature of the teambalance algorithm. the changes that I made to the algorithm just added an additional layer on top of the 'old' algorithm, it did not address the issues that the balancer has with sorting teams. if I could, I absolutely would redesign the algorithm from the ground-up to better balance teams by player score, however, that would be hideously complicated, and take up time that I need to spend getting strat reset ready. which is still on track to happen by end of month.
does the new balancer have flaws? yes. but I am certain that it is balancing by classes. each team should have an equal (1-player possible difference) in numbers of cavalry (players with more than 3 riding), ranged (players with more than 3 PD/PT, or with proficiency in xbow), and inf (everyone else). This is done by considering the base stats of players. if it looks like the classes are not balanced, then I'd bet that someone out there had points in riding, or archery, or throwing, and decided not to take their horse/bow/whatever.
in my ideal world, the balancer would manage to balance by classes, create bannerstacks, and also distribute players into even teams. maybe one day this would be possible, but for now at least classes are equally balanced between teams (if they aren't then something strange is messed up). which many of you have been complaining about.
