stacks and rolls - le sigh

[trilobite]

Tonight, I think I reached my limit of tolerance for the culture of stacks and rolls that has manifested itself on TV VI here in recent months.

[black_and_blue]

Tonight, I think I reached my limit of tolerance for the culture of stacks and rolls that has manifested itself on TV VI here in recent months.

It's interesting, I'd actually say that there very definitely is not a culture of stacks and rolls. Yes, they do happen, but it's far less frequent than on many other servers.

I've played on quite a few servers where BLU team rolls RED team, then the map changes and everyone on BLU says "Join BLU next map, I like this team." I've almost never seen that happen on any Ville server.

Severe team imbalance is unfortunate, but I don't think I'd call it a "culture", and I certainly think it's pretty rare that it's because of deliberate stacking.

[Siegfried]

I've been curious: why isn't there an auto-balance script on the servers? Such as when a team rolls the other after several matches. On the CP maps on VII, a stacked team can win 5-6 rounds before the map switches and inevitably causes many a rage quit.

Otherwise, I haven't witnessed regulars siding on a stacked team. I'm not saying it doesn't occur but many regulars do try to even things out more often than not and I fancy that.

[cam]

On 7, theVille's teamstack script is basically a map change. I think maps are limited to 30-45 minutes but also change after a certain number of match rounds are won. If a team is stacked and really starts to roll another team, the map will end relatively shortly and the teams should scramble. It tends to work out ok on cp maps. payload maps are a little slower to change since the pace is set with the cart.

On 6, 90% of the time regulars will swap to unstack teams. It may take a bit because they'll generally wait for a complete match (each team plays red and blu once) before switch. Sometimes its just that neither team can defend or neither team can do offense.

Something we have to remember: we've literally played the crap out of dustbowl. Most regulars will rigorously follow the TV6 meta. People don't try new sentry spots or tactics and a lot of people refuse to play medic.

[Cat Square]

I almost never change teams, whether I'm on the team that's rolled 10 times in a row, or been rolled 10 times in a row.

Being on a losing team is an opportunity to change class to something that might be more helpful. If I'm not able to contribute enough to make the difference as my go-to class (soldier), I'll switch to heavy or demo and see if I can hand out some more damage. If I can't make the difference there, I might try medic, I might try engie, or I might just slow my pace (an always-spun-up heavy can work wonders, but it takes patience). I expect my opponents to do the same and make adjustments according to their own team's deficiencies. If someone from the rolling team switches to the rolled team, that can (and often does) change the class dynamic of both teams.

I like dustbowl because I feel like any team can win it -- it just has to be the right team. Nothing's better than going medic or engie and carrying a bunch of randoms to victory against a stack of regs.

[wedge]

The only time I've seen scrambles happen are at the very beginning of a map change, which doesn't really solve anything with 5-6 people on each team.

[Crusty Juggler]

Nothing's better than going medic or engie and carrying a bunch of randoms to victory against a stack of regs.

I've said it before, but you guys who play Medic and Engie on bad teams are saints. I can never do that.

[Soltan]

The lack of other people playing medic is a big reason behind my >3,200 hrs in the class. That and I probably have a screw loose since I really enjoy it.

[XxOtaruxX]

The lack of other people playing medic is a big reason behind my >3,200 hrs in the class. That and I probably have a screw loose since I really enjoy it.

Depending on the situation, I think Medic is a lot of fun. Sometimes I just want to play medic. It does get frustrating when I have no one to uber, or no cooperation with my team, but sometimes it just takes patience.

The problem on VI, is most of the time people don't really view it as if they're rolling. They go through the first 6 cap points, and without the other team also going through the cap points, you really don't know if one team just sucks at defense or not. I think my biggest frustration is class selection. Most of the time people don't select a good variety and you end up with 2 scouts, 2 spies, and 2 snipers, which doesn't help when you're trying hard to attack.

[Perfect Villain]

i love medic, even when im on a less then decent team i still do my best and hope it actually does some good

[wedge]

Speaking of medics, can we stop acting defeated when the team has no medics? I feel like the team has already given up when someone begins complaining about it through voice.

[The Domer]

Speaking of medics, can we stop acting defeated when the team has no medics? I feel like the team has already given up when someone begins complaining about it through voice.

Yea, medics don't even do any damage!

[Soltan]

Speaking of medics, can we stop acting defeated when the team has no medics? I feel like the team has already given up when someone begins complaining about it through voice.

Yea, medics don't even do any damage!

I've said many times that I just heal people (please ignore my Hale's Own ubersaw and Face-Melting overdose).

[esmo]

There are 3 types of rolls: "bad bot" rolls, stacking rolls, and straight up OP rolls.

"Bad bot" rolls are inevitable. I once had 5 people around me, a regular pyro (no phlog, no crit) walks in and burns me to death, the solo medic, when I'm hiding near blue spawn on stage 3. There was no one else to shoot at. It doesn't matter which class you are - if your team can't aim and you don't have any straight-up killers (like hippo, spiff, or you mad bruh), it's impossible to push out. Likewise if you have players that don't airblast to put out fires or heal each other; attacking on stage 2 or 3 is fruitless. I get mad when I can consistently bring down an overhealed heavy/demo to low and my team can't do some itty bitty damage to finish them; I did most of the work already! Trilo, I believe the instance you mentioned was a "bad bot" roll. I was medic on the other team but even if I had switched, we still wouldn't have been able to push in on stage 3; there were just too many clueless players. This is compounded by average players wanting to be on the team that's not getting rolled so all the bad people are on one team. This has happened somewhat often in recent weeks and could be fixed through an auto-scramble formula. I've seen other servers use averaged K/D ratios, although there should be a threshold so it happens only in extreme cases.

Stacking rolls happen on dustbowl, but regulars tend to switch. I tend to switch because I know most dustbowl regulars and their killing abilities. Stacks on TV7 are generally brief due to map changes and longer respawn times which make the roll even faster.

Straight up OP rolls are good players on both teams, but one team just has 2-3 killers. You can't really stop that when the people behind the lead combo are as good at aiming as you are.

I usually decide a roll depending on how much I have to participate for my team to win. If none, and I can switch to engie or some other secondary class and everyone on the team is straight-up bulldozing, then it's a roll. If it's only a couple people killing everybody, then it's possible the other team's out of position. I just played dustbowl stage 3 defense where we were absolutely annihilating them, yet I had just switched teams because that team was getting owned on stage 1 attack.

I almost never switch to medic/engie because the best defense is blowing players up into little bits so they can't do any damage and covering exits. I've always considered engie to be a handicap for good players unless there are enough good players to cover the difference; anyone can build buildings but only some can consistently kill and kill better than they would on an engie. Medic is a handicap depending on how many decent medics there already are unless you main medic like Soltan who is the 2nd coming of Mother Teresa.


Looking above, only one of the rolls can be fixed and it's questionable if people like an auto-scramble. My suggestion is allowing vote scrambles and setting it to a relatively high threshold. Also, can TV6 and TV7 have votekick for afk/voteban for hackers? We had a hacker with auto-aim, auto-kritz, and auto-name changer except all the regulars I asked didn't know any admins who were on. Votekick for afk would be nice if a vote is only allowed if the person is gone for more than 5 mins.

[Boss Llama]

Votekick and voteban are both powers available to Gold Supporters, to assist in times like that. The list of them is here, adding another 40 or so folks to the list of those who can lend a hand! Many of these players are regulars on TV6 and TV7, so they're good to know.