Stacked Team Policy

The picture below shows a clearly stacked team. There are three visible signs:
 
1) There are four players more in the Axis (7 vs 3).
2) The Axis have 870 team XP for the map, versus 330 team XP for the Allies.
3) The Axis have a combined player XP of over 800,000 while the Allies have a combined player XP of about 360,000.
 

 
 

We will define a "stacked team" as a team that has at least two of these characteristics:
 
A) A team with three or more human players than the other team (example: 8 people versus 4 people)
 
B) A team with a total personal XP of the players is at least double the total xp of the other team (example: 1,000,000 total versus 200,000 XP)
 
C) A team where the XP achieved in that map by the team is at least 50% higher than the other team's XP for the current map (example: 1200 versus 750)
 
This accounts for the situations where there are more players on a team with lower average skill. That would not be stacking.
 
If admins witness stacking, they must follow this procedure:
 
1) announce to everyone that teams are stacked and players need to move
2) use !putteam to move the best players to the weaker team, or move the player who most recently joined the stronger team
3) !kick players who restack or go to spec and wait a few minutes then join the stronger team (!kick ETPlayer stacking)

We will no longer remove admins from the clan for stacking as it is often unintentional.

I am glad something is done about stacking, however I am personally a bit sceptical about point B). To take myself as an example, I have about 16k XP at the moment. If the opposite team has someone with over a milion XP, it doesn't really matter if I have 0 XP or 16k XP when balancing teams based on XP. If a team has a bunch of players (lets say 8 players) with low XP, against one person with a milion, I would rather say that the team of 8 players is stacked instead of the team with 1 player on it.

Everyone is aware that at times xp doesn't mean a lot in general terms but in some cases it may.  This may represent it better. 
Bounce the axis against the allies and you can see the disparity. 5 on 5 is fine but.....?

OneOldMan wrote:Everyone is aware that at times xp doesn't mean a lot in general terms but in some cases it may.  This may represent it better. 
Bounce the axis against the allies and you can see the disparity. 5 on 5 is fine but.....?

I think this is where point C applies. Axis almost has 50% more xp gained then allies. At this point you could say it is on the edge of being stacked, but I remember that game. It started 2v5, so naturally the allies had some time to build up more xp then axis, however, at this point the axis were definitly getting more then double the xp of allies. So a few minutes later the 50% extra xp would have been exceeded for axis, and therefore the teams were stacked.

Koenios wrote:I am glad something is done about stacking, however I am personally a bit sceptical about point B). To take myself as an example, I have about 16k XP at the moment. If the opposite team has someone with over a milion XP, it doesn't really matter if I have 0 XP or 16k XP when balancing teams based on XP. If a team has a bunch of players (lets say 8 players) with low XP, against one person with a milion, I would rather say that the team of 8 players is stacked instead of the team with 1 player on it.

I totally get your point here, Koenios.  You and I both regularly reset our XPs, and lately it seems as my XP has been reset on its own somehow, not that I care.  Since you're almost as good of a player as me (in my ET-playing dreams) ... I understand your skepticism.  However, I think Obituary did take care of this by saying the XP is twice as high, so that would rule out those like you and me with lower XP, and to double take care of that, he did say the total XP per match.  Anyway, it's a hard thing to quantify, just doing the best they can.  And I like it that some measure is taken, something to train and teach people to even it up.  Not that life and war or even sports or other games necessarily are evenly matched--but it's more fun here when they are.

I figured the teams started different since there was no way the allies were able to get the tank out of the spawn to the first barrier with the teams as they are.  That just shows that teams change quickly, and have to be checked on.  And, whenever someone joins up this is the first thing they see not what was.

Where do you get these numbers

2) The Axis have 870 team XP for the map, versus 330 team XP for the Allies. 

Are they the Totals shown when you do /scores?

NarayanJr wrote:Where do you get these numbers

2) The Axis have 870 team XP for the map, versus 330 team XP for the Allies. 

Are they the Totals shown when you do /scores?

If you press TAB, its the number inbetween the square brackets next to 'Axis' (for Axis) and 'Allies'(for Allies), above the list of players.

Well would you look at that.  Ive never even notice that number.  Thanks.
Do you have any idea of any command that will write that to the console?

Reminder:

If admins witness stacking, they must follow this procedure:
 
1) announce to everyone that teams are stacked and players need to move

2) use !putteam to move the best players to the weaker team, or move the player who most recently joined the stronger team

3) !kick players who restack or go to spec and wait a few minutes then join the stronger team (!kick ETPlayer stacking)

Fwiw, as a non-admin, I think that this policy is fair and reasonable.  Sure, Koen and Hash are significantly better players than whatever XP they're carrying around at any given moment.  But that's just one factor.  If everyone is 1. using their good judgment and 2. maintaining some awareness to balanced teams, then this policy serves as a guideline and also a statute to which to point for dispute resolution.  Obit (and the rest of you) must be sick of dealing with this subject matter, and this seems like a wise line in the sand to me (if you're interested in a Smuck's opinion).

smuck wrote:Fwiw, as a non-admin, I think that this policy is fair and reasonable.  Sure, Koen and Hash are significantly better players than whatever XP they're carrying around at any given moment.  But that's just one factor.  If everyone is 1. using their good judgment and 2. maintaining some awareness to balanced teams, then this policy serves as a guideline and also a statute to which to point for dispute resolution.  Obit (and the rest of you) must be sick of dealing with this subject matter, and this seems like a wise line in the sand to me (if you're interested in a Smuck's opinion).

Just to be clear, I'm not even close to  being in the same category with Koenios.  I'm just a moderate, average sort of player who jumps around a lot hoping to hit someone with a stray bullet or ricochet.  Koenios is something else entirely.  The only category we share is that both of our XP's reset.  I used to reset my XP manually, something I got from Koenios actually.  I lost my XP once or twice, something with my account, got frustrated, and so the best way to not get frustrated with that was to just say, "Screw it, I don't care anymore!" and erase it all.  But then I was having some problems with connections and it was suggested that disabling Punkbuster might clear up the problems--Punkbuster isn't required for Funboy anyway.  So I did.  And so with that disabled, my XP resets every time.

That said, Obit wasn't really talking about recorded XP anyway, but game play XP, which is listed on the same list that provides the list of players.  That is a better measure of playing skills and stacking each game.

I like hearing a Smuck's opinion.  I'm not tired of the policy.  I only tire with those who refuse to not stack *after* being asked.

~Hash