side switching timer modofication

[Vinkman]

I propose modifying the side switching timer so that if you are moving from a side with great than 15% more players than the side you are switching to, the timer is voided.

Switched earlier today to the side with fewer people. Left the game for three hours and when I came back the side I was on had 53 and Bish had 29. Went to switch to Bish and the timer said I had to wait 128 more minutes.  If I had wanted to switch from the 29 to the 53, I should have to wait the 128 minutes, but it seems against the idea of trying for balance to prevent the former.

Vinkman   

[Devil 505]

+1

[Oldman731]

I propose modifying the side switching timer so that if you are moving from a side with great than 15% more players than the side you are switching to, the timer is voided.

I support this.

- oldman

[RedBeard]

I like this too.

[lunatic1]

in before the lock<-- always wanted to say that this has been wished for many times already.
it was 12 hours now it is 6.

but I agree, because the currant eny system just isn't working, the side with more players(most of the time is bish) won't change, but there is no guarantee that people will switch, even if switch time was just 1 hour. people stay on the higher side for a better chance of winning. they don't care if the other 2 sides have a lot less people.

[Bruv119]

any switch to the team with lowest numbers should be instant.

[hitech]

Then team with lowest numbers can switch to the larger country and then immediately switch back.

Not going to happen.

HiTech

[haggerty]

Then team with lowest numbers can switch to the larger country and then immediately switch back.

Not going to happen.

HiTech

If you don't allow switching to the larger team when the % difference is too high you wont have that problem.

[Wiley]

Then team with lowest numbers can switch to the larger country and then immediately switch back.

Not going to happen.

HiTech

Edit: Nevermind.  Pre-coffee.

Wiley.

[Vinkman]

Then team with lowest numbers can switch to the larger country and then immediately switch back.

Not going to happen.

HiTech

there are ways to prevent that right? Modifications could say no switching back to the country you just left.  time limit is reduced to 30 minutes so doing it to spy would be useless.

If not, too bad.  I logged off rather than fight 11 v 2.   

[Wiley]

there are ways to prevent that right? Modifications could say no switching back to the country you just left.  time limit is reduced to 30 minutes so doing it to spy would be useless.

If not, too bad.  I logged off rather than fight 11 v 2.   

Hmm...  What if instead of "no changing for 6 hours" it was "no changing back to the last side you were last on for 6 hours"?

Wiley.

[Vinkman]

Hmm...  What if instead of "no changing for 6 hours" it was "no changing back to the last side you were last on for 6 hours"?

Wiley.

That would be a workable limitation that would help. 

[pembquist]

I don't understand what the problem is with enabling side switching to even out the populations. I assume that there is an experience of players abusing it somehow. It would be nice if someone could explain what the downside is to having the ability to go to the lower population side all the time, (especially when you are down to 50 players.) As it is I feel a little like this is a "why we can't have nice things" situation where the behavior of a few macaroons drives a policy that is slightly counterproductive at times. I wish there was a way to just pledge to not do whatever the problematic behavior is so we could just switch sides when it seemed like it was in the best interest of gameplay or our own search of action and pretend we are adults and not just old children playing a video game.

[Vinkman]

I don't understand what the problem is with enabling side switching to even out the populations. I assume that there is an experience of players abusing it somehow. It would be nice if someone could explain what the downside is to having the ability to go to the lower population side all the time, (especially when you are down to 50 players.) As it is I feel a little like this is a "why we can't have nice things" situation where the behavior of a few macaroons drives a policy that is slightly counterproductive at times. I wish there was a way to just pledge to not do whatever the problematic behavior is so we could just switch sides when it seemed like it was in the best interest of gameplay or our own search of action and pretend we are adults and not just old children playing a video game.

HiTech's worry above is....
  Your on Bish, they have 29 people.  You see knits have 45 people. You want to stay on Bish and kick knit butt, so you switch to knit, screen cap where all the players, Buffs, and CVs are. Now the new time limit rule allows you to move back to bish and tell everyone on Bish.

wiley's suggest helps because you can't switch back to the same team. 

[bustr]

Can any of you create a visual diagram to show the oscillation phenomenon of your ideas? Start with Hitech's as the base line diagram to compare how rapid switching develops over time.

Hitech's concern can be a team switching as a unit from country1 to country2 that has the lowest numbers causing their country1 to trigger the unlimited side switch due to having now the lowest numbers. Then the team bounces back when the switch kicks in to their original country along with how many others get in before the switch turns off. In practice a team could perform unlimited switches all night long.

They could also choose to impact ENY negatively for country2 as their reason to make the hop before hopping back when their original country triggers it's low numbers side switch. The down side for that country1 team is country3 with numbers has a team that jumps to country2 that triggers the unlimited switch to their home country3 before the first team can all get home to country1, and country3 becomes the new unlimited switch country. So the first team from country1 might decide to hop to country3 to help cause their country1 to trigger again then jump home to country1.

Oscillation of populations would screw with ENY and interfere with initiatives by groups. The individual or lone wolf doesn't really care and probably wouldn't be enough to cause the oscillation problem. No one can speak to the minds of groups of players looking to impact the game in their own favor once they understood how to manipulate the switch trigger. A variation of this oscillation concern is I suspect why Hitech won't set the Melee arena to switch at will or to a very low wait period.

In our game you rarely get side balancing out of unselfish motives to make the sides even if you have watched the AvA for the last decade and the WW1 arena. More often you get uneven sides because players want to be with friends\squadmates, they want to be on the side most likely to get them easy kills and stay alive due to numbers. In the WW1 and AvA arenas, usually a CM has to tell everyone the sides are out of balance because the high side guys don't care enough to check the roster.