Hi all, I've just signed up to the forum. I was prompted by this thought: I am not aware of any compensation for unbalanced teams. In an attempt to accommodate for this there sometimes being more players on one team than another might the health of the team with more players' bots be reduced - or in reverse the team with less players' bots increased? Alternatively, the frequency of their spawn could be decreased/increased - you get the picture. It might make the odds less overwhelming. As players leave and join the game this could dynamically adjust. It is no fun for players on either the winning or losing team as things stand - or at least I don't think so. - Bez
This was done early on in TF2 and later on L4D2, but it still doesn't really help out. Like at all It does help a very small amount, but unless it's to the point that a player on a team that's down a man barely has enough time to change classes before spawning and the team that's up a man(or four) has a severe spawn time it's just not going to have much of an effect. I mean a SEVERE spawn time. Like dying is a HUGE punishment for being on the team with the greater number of players. I cite TF2 and L4D2 as examples because they've both implemented the idea and it doesn't work. A team that's down players in TF2 just can't compete because the death of a single player has a much much more detrimental effect than the death of a player on a larger team. Similarly in L4D2 player infected spawn times are reduced when there are fewer players on your team, but with the incompetence of the Easy-level AI in Versus and Scavenge your quicker spawn time doesn't really help unless the team with more players is godawful since you're dependent on competent allies to get much done. I think the same goes for MNC. There are simply too many things that need to be done for a single player to carry the team and even with a lower respawn time on a smaller team, the absence of that player is still a HUGE detriment to their team. No class is an island and once they're out of their best element or doing anything that isn't juice chaining...Well, they just can't win a battle by themselves.
I don't know TM2, what's it stand for? I'm play LFD1 and 2. I agree that this suggestion will not fully resolve the problem. But perhaps tough bots will keep a member of the opposition busy defending their own base. Tougher turrets perhaps? Again their health/power reduces as extra players join the match. I'm sure the game would remain unbalanced, however this might be less unbalanced and fingers crossed, not too much to ask of the ubernet programmers.
Team Fortress 2 is basically THE Valve game...If you've got a PC that can run it. As it stands now, it's only major issues I'm aware of(having a paltry 1.6 Ghz CPU that can't really play it) at current are that of course imbalanced teams tend to stay imbalanced(join another server lol) and it's ever-increasing system requirements as the Source engine gets more and more bloated. Sure, other titles may be more famous but TF2 is Valve's big bad game. It took nine years to develop and is still getting new features and officially-supported content for free. It even has items that are unlocked for getting achievements in other games now. That's an interesting idea! Making the strength of bots vary depending on the number of players on a team may actually be pretty useful! It's going to be a little bit tougher to camp an undermanned team if they've got a Jackbot outrunning Assassins that are sprinting and topping it off with significantly better stats :3 I imagine it'd be pretty difficult to program so that the strength of bots adjust properly as soon as players leave/join the team, it'd probably be hard to avoid glitches with it though :| Regardless, I think that's a pretty good idea! Messing with turrent strength I think is a no. Stronger bots could possibly encourage players to break out of their base and push, while stronger turrents would provide incentive for teams to camp their own base: which would make it boring and also mess up the balance in Blitz mode. Crossfire mode needs to remain offense-oriented to be fun, so stronger turrents in it are bad as well.
Sorry, I read it as TM not TF in your post. I'm with you now. I've player TF2 on the orange box, but only a little. I expect that it would not significantly affect the game if new bots are back to a normal level once a player has joined and made up numbers. The remaining tougher bots would give the team that were previously a man short a bit of an advantage for a minute, but the tougher bots probably won't have adequately compensated for being a man down previously.
I think that'd depend on how often the bots are spawned and just *HOW* much stronger they get. If a team's bots are suddenly round 100 of Sudden Death Blitz caliber stronger, it's going to be pretty damn noticeable and most likely require extra attention by the then-camping team to handle ...Balancing it out would be hellish though. Bots of that strength would be game-changing. Getting the fine-tuning down would be hellish at best, but a few waves of ultra-elite Blackjacks would eat through a stronger team's juice at the very least; lest they risk being at even MORE of a disadvantage and having their moneyball drop.
When a player exits the game for whatever reason all their unspent credits, juice and maybe even a few additional pickups should appear in his teams start zone, so their former team can benefit from their absence. When a player dies, it would be great if the game could figure out if his team is seriously outgunned, If this is the case then have their sponsors drop in some extra credits and maybe a few boost pickups into the start zone, just to keep their pros in the game.
The problem with that idea is that most players don't try to work together and instead go off on their own...Which would inevitably just result in the winning team getting even more powerups to make it that teensy bit easier for them :|
You have a good point, It is a shame that many new players don't realise that winning the game requires teamwork, but I probably wasnt clear enough when explaining my point, in my idea all the dropped bonus's would appear by the Pro spawn points in the outgunned teams base, behind the shields so only the members of the outnumbered team would gain benefit and they would come out of the base with half a chance of gunning through an organised base lockdown.
