Only YOU can prevent teamstacking!

[therealrictuar]

Enable votescramble on the rotation server and others for pubs!

[Supreveio]

TeamScramble can be a double edged sword.

On one hand, you can scramble the teams when one is clearly rolling the other.

On the other hand, what's stopping random pubs from starting a vote when their team loses one single round?

[Peahats]

TeamScramble can be a double edged sword.

On one hand, you can scramble the teams when one is clearly rolling the other.

On the other hand, what's stopping random pubs from starting a vote when their team loses one single round?

I would think that if the majority wins then a scramble in necessary. Besides if we know that a team scramble is needed we should vote yes.

[TheCarpe]

It's something that's been brought up before. Vote-scramble, like all the other vote- commands, are prone to abuse. Can't count the number of times a game has ended after a long, hard fight and someone types "votescramble" because they lost.

[Fano]

Scrambles are hardly ever necessary and as Carpe pointed out, they are usually abused simply because a player happened to be on the losing team.

Not to mention scrambles usually reset the map time, and TheVille's map timers are already incredibly long. I usually leave the server if, after playing a half hour of dustbowl, somebody decides to scramble and force to be on that crappy map for another 45 minutes (which raises the question why did I bother playing the first 30 minutes in the first place, idk).

[Bronze Fox]

My only recent TF2 experience has been on arena servers (So, not Ville) and it's not unusual for a votescramble to come up after the first loss. However, if it's not bad it usually doesn't pass; if it is bad then it does usually pass. I think the Ville has a smart and respectable playerbase that would vote honest and keep bad votescrambles from happening.

I doubt this would happen, but you could always try it for a week?

[black_and_blue]

How about, instead of allowing votescramble, enabling the auto-scramble feature if a team wins two or three in a row? If I recall correctly, it doesn't reset the map timer.

I realise that it often doesn't fix the problem, but sometimes it does, and at least it doesn't usually make it worse.

[Earthworm James]

It is much more effective if each of us as individuals holds ourselves accountable to team stacking. Notice the imbalance? Switch.

[Bronze Fox]

How about, instead of allowing votescramble, enabling the auto-scramble feature if a team wins two or three in a row? If I recall correctly, it doesn't reset the map timer.

Such a thing exists? Again, I have not played much TF2 recently, but if TV3 was big on rolls, man.
If it was set two wins in a roll to scramble the teams that would be pretty awesome.

[Zork Nemesis]

Such a thing exists? Again, I have not played much TF2 recently, but if TV3 was big on rolls, man.
If it was set two wins in a roll to scramble the teams that would be pretty awesome.

Valve servers have this in place. It's a non-sourcemod command that was added to the game I think around the Uber or Replay update that will automatically scramble teams based on current scores if one team wins a game x times in a row. It doesn't really help and often times it hardly scrambles anything. The trend I see when I play on Valve servers, whatever team i'm on, they win (usually because of me, having something like twice or even three times the points of my team's next best and the enemy team's best). Situations like that, while they don't happen here often, can't be solved with a scramble unfortunetly.

Should be noted that whenever scramble or map votes come up on valve servers, usually it cancels the votes, saying that "not enough people voted", meaning that Valve's implementation of what sourcemod already does seems very flawed.

[trilobite]

I am an advocate for voluntary policing of the stacking issue.

I am NOT a fan of implementing server-imposed random reassortments of players.
I think they can be easily gamed by the very players that are causing the problem, and actually give moral cover for continued team stacking.

For example, There's a heavy medic combo on one team that works the map with exquisite precision -- killing everything while advancing the team's strategic goals with great success. Then, let's say there's a complaint and a vote is called, followed by an enforced team scramble. The same two could end up on the same team again. Or they could be separated by the scramble and the one superior player can just find a new experienced player to pair up with on his new team and off you go again... team stack. If the system scrambles by popular vote, then this action gives moral cover to the "stackers" to continue their rampage -- "Hey, quit complainin'! The team's just scrambled and you're losing cuz you SUCK!" Server-side scrambling releases all players from the anti-stacking responsibility. Server-side scrambling defeats the community-based spirit of the servers here -- which is extraordinary.

When there is no vote/scramble system, there can be a time of pain as the opposing team tends to be populated by a powerful mix of players. In my experience here, what usually happens is this:

1. After a few rounds, all teams are reconstituted as players on both sides have left, and are replaced by new players. At which point the dynamics are completely different.
2. Often times, the top player(s) on the dominating team switch to the other team. Sometimes this balances things out. Sometimes it just reverses the polarity of the stacked situation.
3. Players on the stacked teams will switch classes or otherwise change their play style, to soften the team's strength and make the battle more balanced. Like going from heavy/medic combo to engie and scout, for example. When I am on a stacked team, sometimes I go scout and just use bonk and the holy mackerel. It breaks things up a bit as the other team really loves killing that annoying scout and his stupid fish.
4. Some players on the dominated team start to communicate more and reconfigure their mix of classes... maybe more medics and heavies, and fewer scouts and snipers.
5. If I am on a team getting rolled, and none of the above is giving relief, I try to wait it out by concentrating on some skill, like reflecting rockets, or hitting that distant sniper with a flare.

At any rate, as many, many players have said over and over since this game first came out, it eventually resolves itself. In the meantime, play your best game despite the troubling imbalance.

[YoullNeverWalkAlone]

I'd rather not see a votescramble. While getting rolled last night, it was nice to see a few top players switch over (there was little raindrop could do to help us however) which is one of the things I like about the Ville servers, why and how people play here. I can't say I've been in a position to switch, since my move isnt likely to swing things in the other teams favor.

About the only time it might come in handy would be during those times when there are few to none Villuns on a server who would make the change.

[Boss Llama]

It's something that's been brought up before. Vote-scramble, like all the other vote- commands, are prone to abuse. Can't count the number of times a game has ended after a long, hard fight and someone types "votescramble" because they lost.

It is much more effective if each of us as individuals holds ourselves accountable to team stacking. Notice the imbalance? Switch.

[Plinko]

TV3 is the only place any kind of automatic scrambling would be appropriate, IMHO.

The fact is that one team is going to win pretty much every round, thats not evidence of a problem. If the team sorts out to be better, they might win a couple of times, then the map will change and new teams will sort out. In my experience, far more rolls happen because the rolled team has poor cooperation and balance than that the rolling team is so overwhelmingly talented.

If you see deliberate teamstacking in a server, please file a complaint ticket with the helpdesk so we can investigate and possibly take action if it's warranted.

[Maj.GHOB]

The original headline for this post is correct, while the actual post is not Only the players can prevent team stacking by evening the teams when needed and taking individual responsibility in order to have a balanced game. Voting to team scramble will not work and will be abused. In fact I can see that happening a lot on the Dustbowl server if vote scramble is allowed on the server.