Balancing Team | Bots & Players

[cRaZyLaDy*SIG*]

Does anyone know if EPIC has plans to fix team balancing in the next patch? I planned to run CTF along with DM when we got a UT3 server; but, until bots and/or players will balance teams properly, I'm afraid adding CTF will detract from my server population rather than adding to it. I think bots not balancing teams properly is why so many CTF/VCTF servers sit empty. I know that I, myself, don't particularly want to hop on a teamgame with no bots or only one bot available.

Also, a couple of players playing against one another along side bots acts as an attraction for other players to join while the two players are having fun themselves; but, when the bots start stacking up on one side, that turns off the core players and the server goes dead again.

I may be wrong, but I don't think that TitanTeamFix addresses this problem; but, even if it does, I prefer a BUILT-IN ability to a) mid-map vote, b) successfully run more than one gametype on the server, and c) happily play with bots in a teamgame until other players come along.

Until such is available, I will happily frag along with DM (using BiaVote for the mid-map voting); but I'm hoping EPIC has an eye toward fixing these deficiencies.

[UnrealGrrl]

ok is it me or is this a problem still?

I just set up a CTF server, installed WebAdmin and its running great with map voting but the team balance seems screwy.
now its prob me, and some setting i broke, but bots dont balance the teams and when games start i get matches like 2 players vs 1 bot? wth did i break...?
botratio is set to 1, so i assumed that means 1 bot per player? or bots even out the players... it doesnt.

even if i add bots via the management console they dont seem to add evenly between teams. is there a setting i am missing somewhere?

any help appreciated!

[{DvT}JonahHex]

On the "Change Game" page of WebAdmin, in the "Additional URL Variables" box, I have "?numplay=8". This always adds enough bots to the game so there are 8 "players": people+bots. In TDM/CTF/WAR this results in 4on4 matches as long as the people balance themselves (more or less). If there are 8 or more people on the server, there are no bots.

Since I have "players balance teams" turned off, it is possible, for example, that 5 people could be on the server and switch teams such that all 5 people are on the same team. This results in a 5on3 match...5 people vs 3 bots...if the people balance themselves, 3 red/2 blue or 4 blue/1 red, then a 4on4 match results. Turning on "players balance teams" should fix this if you regularly have llamas playing on your server who won't, or are too dumb, to balance themselves.

Every now and then (rarely) I see a glitch with the above setup where a ninth player (bot) is in the game and we have a 5on4 game. If I just let it go, it fixes itself on the next map change -- sometime it fixes itself when the extra bot gets killed in the game. If I don't let it go, I log-in as Admin, kill all the bots, and immediately add the correct number of bots to get back to 8 players and when they are added they are distributed correctly. When I see that ninth player, it seems like it occurs when someone leaves the game, is replaced by a bot, then comes back in...and the replacement bot doesn't "have an aneurysm" and leave the game, like it is supposed to do.

[UnrealGrrl]

i'll have to check my settings again and see what i have it at. i am pretty sure that i had players balance teams = true and i thought that meant that the players would be evenly distributed between teams. but even between map changes alot of times the maps starts with 2 live players on one team and a bot on the other, then i would have to add another bot to the game to even the #s and a player would have to switch so there was a live player on each team
the problem is most obvious of course with only a few ppl playing, i had 14 players last nite for a short bit and the numbers were even so maybe it is the min num of players setting that is mixed up and needs to get changed

i figure i either missed a setting or duplicated something somewhere... servers only a few days old so im sure ill get it right sooner or later

thx JHex!

[{DvT}JonahHex]

I am sure you will. You've been with us way too long to get stymied by a mere server.

I have set players balance teams = true a few times (it has been a while tho) and I seem to recall that this setting will allow 2 people on the same team, rather than forcing them onto opposite teams, but when a third person joins that person is forced onto the opposite team and cannot switch so all three people are on the same team (which is why I normally don't use this setting on our clan server).