Team Stacking

[chuckwagon]

I am suggesting that we should add team stacking to the rules. We should make it against the rules to undo the changes made my scrambles whether they are triggered by a vote or triggered automatically due to win streaks/frag ratio/etc.

In the past, when people team stacked in didn't really matter much because we were getting a pretty constant influx of players from quickplay.

More recently though the servers seem a lot more fragile, and I have seen groups come into servers and constantly stack teams so that their team wins over and over. Even after scrambles they would re-stack leaving players to lose over and over. But now that we aren't getting the quickplay the people that quit aren't getting replaced as quickly and sometimes the server ends up dying because when the numbers drop to low then the players that were stacking leave then the server pretty much dies.

TL;DR: We should make team stacking against the rules now because it is easier to kill servers now with the recent quickplay change.

 

[DaivdBaekr]

How would proof of this be presented? X amount of mutual friends on the same team? Because kritz-demo is enough to empty a server most of the time, and all that takes is two players.

 

[Shula]

I actually experienced this on Dustbowl tx the other day. A kritz medic/demo combo and a medic/heavy combo kept switching to each other's teams after scrambles and it actually cleared out the server after the second time. This has happened in the past and it was kinda whatever, but server didn't repopulate for a while like it would have before.

I am not sure how you would enforce this though.

 

[Ruelel]

stop being bad and kill the team stackers

 

[chuckwagon]

How would proof of this be presented? X amount of mutual friends on the same team? Because kritz-demo is enough to empty a server most of the time, and all that takes is two players.

I am not saying that people can't play with their friends. If a group if friends are on the same team but the teams remain balanced it is not a big deal.

I am talking about when people get scrambled to another team then immediately go to spectate to wait for a spot to open on the team again.

There are built in scrambles and vote scrambles to keep teams even. Players are trying to bypass this. It didn't matter as much before but now it has a much bigger affect.

stop being bad and kill the team stackers

Hey that's petty clever you can use that as a bind to spam in the Valve Server that you are playing on in six months.

 

[Phaiz]

Take away my /swap and I'll never donate again.

 

[sboles]

I don't think this is a good idea. People donate to stack teams, it's one of the reasons I love donor. Fucking about on a pub with ts regs.

 

[Blade D_Hero]

This seems like a rule that would be hard to enforce, and could cause a lot of problems by the report system because honestly, you can't really tell team stacking is an issue unless you spectate for two or more rounds.

-1 for this.

 

[Antamania]

I agree with the general idea of the suggestion. That said, still gets a -1 for one simpe reason.

People want to play with their friends, if you prevent them from playing with their friends, they are going to play elsewhere.

 

[hXcjedders]

I agree with the general idea of the suggestion. That said, still gets a -1 for one simpe reason.

People want to play with their friends, if you prevent them from playing with their friends, they are going to play elsewhere.

You're right about that, but perhaps we should consider that 6 friends rolling a pub could force 12 randoms to vacate the server because they dont want to get their shit kicked in.

But then consider that those randoms may not have come in the first place if those 6 friends who may be regs werent there in the first place.

Its a catch 22 and there is no real easy way to deal with it.

 

[sboles]

Maybe you can't change teams (including going to spec) a few rounds after a scramble? I'm not gonna give a +/- yet, because what chuck said is true, pub stompers can ruin servers.

 

[Pinker-tan]

I don't think this is a good idea. People donate to stack teams, it's one of the reasons I love donor. Fucking about on a pub with ts regs.

Well, you see, for it to be an effective team stack you have to actually be good at tf2



ily

 

[KillerZebra]

I say we make an "anti stack team" where if people report team stackers, a group of highly trained and skilled Skial members join the server on the opposite team and pub stomp the pub stompers.

They leave, server is saved.

 

[Antamania]

You're right about that, but perhaps we should consider that 6 friends rolling a pub could force 12 randoms to vacate the server because they dont want to get their shit kicked in.

But then consider that those randoms may not have come in the first place if those 6 friends who may be regs werent there in the first place.

Its a catch 22 and there is no real easy way to deal with it.

But why stop there? What if a plat sniper decides to play on one of the servers? A really good sniper could empty out a server real fast. We aren't going to ban him too are we?

 

[hXcjedders]

But why stop there? What if a plat sniper decides to play on one of the servers? A really good sniper could empty out a server real fast. We aren't going to ban him too are we?

Im not necessarily advocating for either side. Im just trying to argue that team stacking can be a server killer and doing absolutely nothing to try to curb it probably isnt the best idea. Maybe not bans but some kind of prevention factor. Scramble won't work if its a bunch of donators who will just /swap.

Until recently it was easy to ignore people who ragequit the servers but now the lines are starting to get blurred due to the quickplay changes. The issue is worthy of consideration in my opinion.

 

[staticvoid]

stop being bad and kill the team stackers

-1
Rue summed it up quite nicely

 

[Antamania]

Im not necessarily advocating for either side. Im just trying to argue that team stacking can be a server killer and doing absolutely nothing to try to curb it probably isnt the best idea. Maybe not bans but some kind of prevention factor. Scramble won't work if its a bunch of donators who will just /swap.

Until recently it was easy to ignore people who ragequit the servers but now the lines are starting to get blurred due to the quickplay changes. The issue is worthy of consideration in my opinion.

I understand the point, like I said..nobody has fun playing any team game with imbalanced teams. That said Donors just lost a fuck ton of functions, I'm sure taking away another one isn't a good way to maintain them.

 

[Party Chocobo]

This reminds me of when a Plat Heavy ane Medic combo would try their hardest on Harvest. It just took me and Void to bomb them and they quit.

Yes team stackers are terrible people and deserve to burn but it's really not hard to counter them. You could get a couple of people to stop it or just go Phlog Pyro since that counters everything.

 

[chuckwagon]

stop being bad and kill the team stackers

There are a lot of people that agree with your sentiment. The average player does not want to be told "stop being bad" they want to play on a server that they think is fair. . This is not a suggestion to protect the players that are getting wrecked. This is a suggestion to protect the servers from dying. Keeping the servers populated is definitely in Skial's best interest.

I have been in servers and seen this happen. I don't care about being on the losing end of a team stack. It is not about that. It is about the thought that I am seeing it happen and if I could warn them that it is against the rules and maybe just kick one of them with a warning then that would get the point across, or they will leave before they drive other players away. If we had a rule or precedent we could do something before the server dies instead of just helplessly watching it happen.

 

[Gwor]

Playing in the east coast servers late at night almost every day, I can say with confidence that they invariably empty permanently for the night after some team stacking/rolling. I'm sure that the late hour is a factor as well. People were probably thinking about heading out already to go to bed, but maybe this would help avoid the catalyzing event that makes them all leave at the same time. When I was running this through my mind a few days ago I was thinking about something more along the lines of modifying the plugins for forcing scrambles and switching teams rather than making a new rule, but I think either idea is worth considering.