Team Selection and Pregame feedback

While the option to have a preferred team is nice, the current implementation seems to have some negative effects and heavily encourage impromptu team stacking by randoms. For example if I enter a game with 1 friend and we want to play on the same team, we both have select a team. However, once we select a team, often times other players we have no affiliation with will attempt to follow us. If one player has a high level and selects a team, a large number of players will attempt to follow him resulting in 4-5 people picking one team color. The current method is good for quickly getting teams set for an organized 6v6, but not ideal for pubs.

I think an option to flag preferred teammates would be a good option. I click a box next to a players name to mark him as a preferred teammate. If he also marks me as a preferred teammate we become a group. However, unlike color selection, this group is independent of team color and random players cannot attempt to jump on a bandwagon.

Additionally, the game needs a bit more time to configure custom classes between matches or a quicker custom class interface. The reduced time spans make it tricky to reconfigure classes. An extra 10 seconds would go a long way.

it works for me, or at least for now.

You can only have 4 other people "follow" you onto the team you choose, so it can't be gamebreaking really. Unless it's like 6 lvl 70 players vs 6 lvl 0's on one team.

Anyway, I just can't see it being more of a problem than it already is. you do realize that random or otherwise would be the same. You cannot decide which players is actually better in skill.

So, for now... I like this method, though not the best, it does allow people to join their friend(s).

edit: Actually, if you have 4-6 friends with you in one server, just tell them to all hurry and pick icemen or something. That would prevent unbalanced players being on ur team, however, the other team just has to do what they can . It's an improvement, or that's how i see it.

Mibu I could be wrong, but I believe it doesn't stop them at half - everybody in the lobby can team up blue, I think. Some of them just don't get their preference, then.

I say that because I experienced the described issue last night. Tried to play with a friend, we were like "go blue" "ok" - so I go blue, he goes blue. 2 seconds later 5 more people went blue, and I was the one guy punted to the red team. This friend had time for 4 games and because this kept happening, we failed to team up 3 of the 4 times.

I think the "preferred teammates flag" option is pretty clever. But on the other hand, the current system lets me counter-pick the stack, since honestly I would rather be on the losing team if it's going to be one-sided.

I did it today a lot with 3 others, so 4 people total. We were rarely split.

We just didn't pick a certain team like red or blue until after about... 5 seconds?

That way people dont have time to spam blue or red based on what we choose. However, you are right, if people all choose the same color it doesnt work.

Or, what we also did was pick team blue then everyone else did... and 4 seconds laterrrrr TEAM RED!!! :lol:

Ekanaut said there is or will be a server option to allow or disallow team preferences.

I would probably try to play on servers that disallow it

yep 6v4 and 6v3 all day long and noone is able to input changeteam into console to even up teams.

they can just rush and overpower you then spawncamp while 1 escorts bots.

You fail to understand the problem. Say I join a server with 1 friend, we both pick icemen, no one else on the server knows each other. At least one other player will always jump to icemen to attempt to stack teams. Once the realize someone knows how to play 3-4 people try to stack that team. The current system encourages randoms to attempt team stacking.

What the game needs is some way for me and my friend to indicate we want to play on the same team together (but don't care which one) without a bunch of randoms trying to follow us and team stack.

A high level player picks a team, a bunch of mid level players will try to join the same team.

Oh, the irony in this is hilarious. You want to stack teams with your buddy against a bunch of randoms, but when the randoms try to stack with both of you it becomes a problem, hahaha.

It actually isn't ironic. The idea is to stop impromptu run-away team stacking. Two players picking the same team has some influence, but can be balanced out. A bunch of randoms trying to follow them makes it even harder for the game to balance out the 2 players who actually know each other. You also forget that sometimes those friends aren't very good. It is actually trying to minimize how badly we stomp your face.

If you don't have friends and people with friends offend you, you can always host a no grouping server... or try making friends. Really, try it, friends are nice.

Seriously.

Wanting to play with a friend is not the same thing as stacking teams.

Yes, but any mechanism that enables playing with friends will ALSO unfortunately lead to team stacking.

I'm not against the idea of being able to play the game with (actual) friends, I just think that in practice the bad effects would outweigh the good.