Better Battle Nights

[Houdini]

While I’m sure plenty of people will remind me that Battle Nights are not the most important part of Forerunner Conflict and why winning should not be the primary factor in Battle Night participation, I still firmly believe that the staple of the community is the Battle Night.

My Perspective:
Every battle night I have participated in over the last several wars has been polluted by multiple blowouts where my team either wins by a huge margin or loses by a huge margin. Either way it isn’t fun.

Problem:
Blowouts aren’t fun for either team. Fix them.

Current Situation:
Currently, some magical force in the FC universe just matches teams up in the Google Doc. Sometimes the matches are fun and competitive (equally skilled). Most times the matches aren’t even close to fair (and usually there is a better alternative elsewhere on the rotation).

Solution:
Stop having battle nights magically arranged in rotations so everybody gets to play every other squad. Other than the fact that this type of structure is extremely easy to setup there are absolutely no benefits.

One of my favorite parts of FC is the squad/battalion/army practices. We play the same people over and over again and it is always fun because the teams are either picked by captains or carefully balanced by the leadership.

Playing every team once doesn’t make battle nights fun, playing good match ups makes battle nights fun even if it is the same team over and over again.

Instead of ranking teams in static tiers or randomly assigning match ups, each team should receive a rating as the night goes on.

Calculating Rating:
All teams start with 0 points so the first round of the battle night will have to be carefully setup to ensure (or at least try to get) optimal match ups. After the first round ratings will be determined by calculating a winning percentage and then adding a significant bonus for teams who won their most recent game.

Rating = Wins / (Wins + Losses) * 100 + Wins * 5 - Losses * 5

If the team won their last game add 75 points.

Easily put into an excel document as:
=ROUND(IF(W+ L> 0,W÷(W+L)× 100 + R× 75 + W× 5 − L× 5, 0),0)
where W = wins, L = losses, and R = 0 or 1 depending on if the team won the most recent match.

(Example Implemented in Google Docs) (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1h1nsP9aZ46Dr_Aj_JJ-FdT0wzGeBVml-e6uaavkE5P8/edit#gid=562667015)

Then rank all of the squads by ratings and match them up. If one army has more squads than the other army then select squads to exclude from the rankings until both armies have equal numbers.

The reason I weighted winning the most recent game so highly is to prevent teams from going on long losing streaks. This will effectively create two tiers of squads after each round: squads who won their last match and squads who lost their last match. Obviously the armies will have different amounts of squads in each tier, but the rating system could still be used to matchup squads between tiers since W ratios and win quantities are also factored in. In addition, ratings will reset after each battle night so squads performances in the week before don’t impact different players playing under the same name in the next week. Every battle night every squad will start fresh.

I know this will be a different from the “setup all of the rotations at the beginning of the night” approached we currently use, but setting up matches after “rounds” will also help resolve problems where squads field teams in the middle of battle nights or squads just get off in the middle of battle nights.

[Zeta Crossfire]

I like it, I enjoy how it resets after every BN as well, the only issue is its a tad on the complicated side but as long as you have Google docs or something opened in your tab whoever is doing this should be fine. Fall onto a WD during BN?

Also I like how this is a very concrete answer to the problems we are facing, to many people are using broad terms with no apparent specific fix. I like this

[Houdini]

I like it, I enjoy how it resets after every BN as well, the only issue is its a tad on the complicated side but as long as you have Google docs or something opened in your tab whoever is doing this should be fine. Fall onto a WD during BN?

If it really becomes complicated:
A) I can do it by hand (with a google doc)
B) I can write a program to do it where it just outputs team names and match ups.
C) It really isn't that complicated. We keep track of a lot more statistics that just wins and losses for each battle.

[Yehsus]

Not a terrible idea, I'm just worried about the wait times for squads that win all their games, and Armies with more squads than the other.

[Dos Eggys]

With the long peacetime ahead of us, we should have ample time to test it out and make a few tweaks if needed.

[Anarchy]

Actually a reasonable suggestion rather than specifically saying "Divinity ALWAYS plays bellator!", but there are still some flaws.


Stop having battle nights magically arranged in rotations so everybody gets to play every other squad.

The general way rotations are (supposed to be), is with everyone playing everyone once, then playing squads more towards their skill level a 2nd time. It's very difficult to tier groups, in any way, so long as there is/are 1/2 squad(s) that are just way above and beyond (VbD, sometimes Legacy with the right people). Because then, everyone is getting ran over by those people, and you're subjecting groups that are medium-high skilled to the fire in lieu of others, even though they're getting destroyed as well.

This system would do that less, but it would still be there.


At the end of the day, squads that do better will feel cheated because in doing better, they'll just get stuck playing the uber-units, and that's why I don't like this system: Getting better makes you worse off.




I still stand by, and can confirm that REDD will be making this so next war, simply making an active effort to normalize out the skill levels of each squad. The difference between FC now, and FC 3-4 years ago is NOT that we are more competitive, it's that the competitive people have began to congregate to the same corners of the universe. When I joined every squad had 3-4 heavy hitters (besides VbD, obviously), and though some squads normally did better than others, nobody was left without a good mix of players, in terms of skill. I know I pose it as some sort of perfect world, which it wasn't, but every unit really did have a few heavy hitters and a few casual people.

That changed a bit Rev3, REDD got their ass mopped by two god squads that formed, firestorm happened, lots of people left, and the skilled people who started caring less began congregating to the same groups together so they wouldn't have to care as much. It's been a similar tale sense. No offense to them, but look at legacy, that's exactly what has happened there.

If people want things to be "even", coming up with a weird system that still incentives God-Squads to overpower themselves, but doesn't incentive normal people to put in some effort, practice, recruit, and better their own unit isn't going to do anything but throw half of an army to the fire so that the other half doesn't have to take their bite of the shit sandwich. This does it in a less direct and more flexible way, but it still does that.

The real solution is not to regulate who plays who, but to just make the damn squads not so polarized. People in Legacy weren't always in this skilled unit together, and the excuse "We only play Halo 4 because of one another" doesn't really apply after this Sunday (I'm sorry guys), so some of them helping build or contribute to squads that need it would go in strides. The same should be equally, if not more true for those in VbD.

And yes, to a lesser extent, DarkSail and Zeke&Friends should contribute to that very same effort as well.

And that could, and should, also include some lower skilled unattached newer people in Marauder, Kelevra, Divinity, Animus, Bellator, being welcomed to replace those people in the higher skilled units for consistency.

Of course always volunteers. But we can't let the skilled people go to one side, and the non-skilled go to the other side.

[Guzzie]

I still stand by, and can confirm that REDD will be making this so next war, simply making an active effort to normalize out the skill levels of each squad. The difference between FC now, and FC 3-4 years ago is NOT that we are more competitive, it's that the competitive people have began to congregate to the same corners of the universe. When I joined every squad had 3-4 heavy hitters (besides VbD, obviously), and though some squads normally did better than others, nobody was left without a good mix of players, in terms of skill. I know I pose it as some sort of perfect world, which it wasn't, but every unit really did have a few heavy hitters and a few casual people.

False. FC has always had a “god squad” or a higher skilled squad, from even before you joined the community and even to the time you joined, until now. From the top of my head: Against Grain, Flatline, Ice, Beyond Reality, Zulu, 21st degree, VbD, etc. On the other end of the spectrum, there have also, always been weaker squads, as well as regular skill squads. It has always been the same and will always be the same. The reason is simple. People with similar interests tend to form cliques and tend to form relationships. They want to play together and so they do and so they should. Doing something other than that would be forcing people to play with people they don’t want to play with, or simply people they would not have as much fun playing with.


That changed a bit Rev3, REDD got their ass mopped by two god squads that formed, firestorm happened, lots of people left, and the skilled people who started caring less began congregating to the same groups together so they wouldn't have to care as much. It's been a similar tale sense. No offense to them, but look at legacy, that's exactly what has happened there.

Not sure I agree with anything in this paragraph. What you are saying is that people didn't care got together and created squads so that they couldn't care as together? And you are saying Legacy is one of those squads? when legacy was in blue, they had half of the High Command as well as many other high ranking officers of that time in their squad. How is that even close to not caring.


If people want things to be "even", coming up with a weird system that still incentives God-Squads to overpower themselves, but doesn't incentive normal people to put in some effort, practice, recruit, and better their own unit isn't going to do anything but throw half of an army to the fire so that the other half doesn't have to take their bite of the shit sandwich. This does it in a less direct and more flexible way, but it still does that.

The real solution is not to regulate who plays who, but to just make the damn squads not so polarized. People in Legacy weren't always in this skilled unit together, and the excuse "We only play Halo 4 because of one another" doesn't really apply after this Sunday (I'm sorry guys), so some of them helping build or contribute to squads that need it would go in strides. The same should be equally, if not more true for those in VbD. .

Why exactly does the “excuse” of people playing together because they are friends not a viable one after this Sunday? Not sure where you are going with this one. My members from VbD don’t even get on anymore, besides on Sundays. Part of the reason they don't get on is because of Halo 4 (I wont go there to avoid getting out of topic), but when they do, on Sundays, is simply to play a few games with people who we have been friends with since the very beginning of halo 3. VbD has kept the same members since its formation. The only person I have allowed to join has been Brahzerker, and the reason is because he has become a good friend, whom we have fun playing with. Other than that, the member base has been the same for years (we have even lost a few members that have gone un-replaced). I believe getting on just to play with friends is perfectly fine and perfectly acceptable/understandable.


Of course always volunteers. But we can't let the skilled people go to one side, and the non-skilled go to the other side.

Before this turns into yet another “lets get rid of the good squads because they win against the weaker squads” thread, (believe me, there have been plenty of them), I will reiterate. People play with their friends because they have more fun doing so, it really is as simple as that. People with similar interests tend to congregate and tend to play together, these people tend to be of similar skill. Separating these people would mean, in some ways, impeding squads like the old REDWATCH, squads with their own ideologies and ways of carrying themselves; though they were a part of red army in their prime, they truly had a unique thing going for them, something that a lot of people in FC respected, including myself. It would disrupt groups of friends or clans joining together with hopes of forming their own squad (wasn't this they way you joined and eventually created Sparta?). They would join only to find out they were being separated because we don't want to "polarize" squads. You would be eliminating the reason some community members get on Sunday after Sunday, to simply play with friends. FC and its WC will not separate you or disallow you to play with your friends, as you wish. It would go against its number one principle, "fun and respect", because at the end of the day, not being allowed to play with the people you have fun with would go against that fun part.

[Anarchy]

False. FC has always had a “god squad” or a higher skilled squad, from even before you joined the community and even to the time you joined, until now. From the top of my head: Against Grain, Flatline, Ice, Beyond Reality, Zulu, 21st degree, VbD, etc. On the other end of the spectrum, there have also, always been weaker squads, as well as regular skill squads. It has always been the same and will always be the same. The reason is simple. People with similar interests tend to form cliques and tend to form relationships. They want to play together and so they do and so they should. Doing something other than that would be forcing people to play with people they don’t want to play with, or simply people they would not have as much fun playing with.

Negative ghost-rider.

Yes there has always been one god squad. Yes there have always been weaker squads. But the polarization we see now is much worse.

http://fcwars.net/forums/showthread.php?4906-FC-Rev3-Battle-Results-%2801-22-12%29-02

(Only those in WC can see this link as it's in our archives. If anyone wants to see it, I'd be happy to show you if you PM/Skype me)

This was when REDD was losing really bad, Fuzzy was FM, and the main reason firestorm came to be. It was what we called imbalance in the past. But even with the army imbalance, games were much closer, through and through. I only count 4-5 games from that battle night a blow out, and 3 of those were with "Fox legion", which at the time had zero heavy hitters and zero decent/experienced players, very similar to modern day divinity.

I mean FFS, Dreadrogues, whose modern day equivalent is Marauder, only lost to VbD by 20-25 kills in a conflict game. To compare that, Divinity last Sunday lost to VbD in a conflict game by 168 kills. The polarization is real.

In the past, "lower skilled" squads have still had some heavy hitters, or at least decent players. Firesnakes had Pickle, Tgsy, Skinny, Unlucky. Dreadrouges had Sandal, hellbent. 2nd Assault had decent players in Ireland, Surrounded, Silverleek.


It would disrupt groups of friends or clans joining together with hopes of forming their own squad (wasn't this they way you joined and eventually created Sparta?). They would join only to find out they were being separated because we don't want to "polarize" squads.

In Sparta (or Zeke and Friends') case, we've accepted new members from lower skilled units all the time, such as Lloyd, Jew, James, Greycochea, Helljumper (before he became an MLG wanabe), etc. 251st also accepted outside members to their squad.


As I said in my post, no one would be forced to switch. Remember, this isn't meant to break up units and friends forcibly. But a conscious effort to normalize squad overall skill isn't something I'd think anyone would be so against.

If VbD wouldn't want to aid in that, that's fine, I assume that's why you're so controversial in this. The community can just continue to hate playing them and further drop community morale because of a refusal to play with new people in a community they've been in for 2+years, fine. Have it that way. Be "exempt" as you always are.

But at the end of the day, grouping "Skilled people over here!" and "Non-skilled over here!" is negatively impacting the community, and subconsciously we are doing that. A complicated system of matchups is pointless if we still have the same underlying problem.

And I think the community can get behind that a lot more than they can get behind what we have.

[Legendary Nova]

Off Topic


...which at the time had zero heavy hitters and zero decent/experienced players, very similar to modern day divinity

*cough* *cough* *sputter* *sputter*

You... Didn't... But... We're...


Divinity last Sunday lost to VbD in a conflict game by 168 kills.

Yeah... Ok. I'll shut up now...

;)

[KazuhLLL]

That changed a bit Rev3, REDD got their ass mopped by two god squads that formed, firestorm happened, lots of people left, and the skilled people who started caring less began congregating to the same groups together so they wouldn't have to care as much. It's been a similar tale sense. No offense to them, but look at legacy, that's exactly what has happened there.

...

The real solution is not to regulate who plays who, but to just make the damn squads not so polarized. People in Legacy weren't always in this skilled unit together, and the excuse "We only play Halo 4 because of one another" doesn't really apply after this Sunday (I'm sorry guys), so some of them helping build or contribute to squads that need it would go in strides. The same should be equally, if not more true for those in VbD.

And yes, to a lesser extent, DarkSail and Zeke&Friends should contribute to that very same effort as well.

Agreed with most of what you said, but I really wish people would stop implying that Legacy is at some sort of unattainable god-squad level. If we are, then Z&F and (probably) Envious are as well. Legacy has a K/D of somewhere in the ballpark of 1.76, compared to Z&F's 1.71 and DarkSail's 1.49 (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lbPwE0fTdJ8YFvLpIDJgjfLZ kJdOk-2k1QYOl-bQ7sI/edit?usp=sharing). Yes, Legacy's still the highest but that 1.76 is without including the currently inactive players such as Capone or Funk which would bring it down to an even more comparable level. (I know K/D isn't anywhere near a perfect indicator but I didn't want to potentially insult anyone with subjective evaluations.)



On-Topic:

Houdini, while I appreciate the thought you've put into this post, it boils down to essentially the same thing as many of the other threads like this. The two basic options for setting up Battles are a rotation system or a seeding system.

Rotation pros: Simpler, faster, more variety in match-ups
Rotation cons: Higher chance of blowout games

Seeding pros: Higher chance of close games
Seeding cons: Slower, more complicated, less variety in match-ups

Your system looks like it would be better than most of the other (seeding) suggestions as far as keeping variety, but it still has its flaws. Squads in the middle would get their closer matches, but likely at the cost of the extreme (high/low) squads getting consistent losing streaks. Whenever one army's highest/lowest-skilled squad is clearly better than the other's highest/lowest-skilled, there's gonna be somebody getting a massive helping of Anarchy's proverbial "shit sandwich". Add to that the longer wait times during BN's and the cons quickly start outweighing the pros, IMO.

Again, that's just a failing of the seeding system itself. I'd still be up for trying yours out in a Mock BN since I'm interested to see if how much different your dynamic system acts in practice than a typical static ranking system.

[Anarchy]

Agreed with most of what you said, but I really wish people would stop implying that Legacy is at some sort of unattainable god-squad level. If we are, then Z&F and (probably) Envious are as well. Legacy has a K/D of somewhere in the ballpark of 1.76, compared to Z&F's 1.71 and DarkSail's 1.49. Yes, Legacy's still the highest but that 1.76 is without including the currently inactive players such as Capone or Funk which would bring it down to an even more comparable level. (I know K/D isn't anywhere near a perfect indicator but I didn't want to potentially insult anyone with subjective evaluations.)

You're also not including Jew, James, IMASNOT, Wolfpack, and Warewing who are all active members of the squad and around 1.1 xD

Legacy isn't as bad as VbD. But it is more "up there" than you think xD.

[Dos Eggys]

I can't speak for everyone so I will just speak for myself here. I thoroughly enjoy matchups where the game is neck and neck. It brings out the best in every player in the game, REDD and BLUE. Games where we are winning or losing by a dozen points seem like a chore in comparison.

The least we can do is set aside a night or two during this peacetime and try it out before any prejudgments are made. Houdini, W3z4b1, and myself are currently working on simulations of the system.

The system itself is hardly complicated to the user. All that needs to be done is to update Wins/Losses and the Last Win variable and the excel doc will handle the rest.

[Guzzie]

If VbD wouldn't want to aid in that, that's fine, I assume that's why you're so controversial in this. The community can just continue to hate playing them and further drop community morale because of a refusal to play with new people in a community they've been in for 2+years, fine. Have it that way. Be "exempt" as you always are.

What are you even saying lol. "Exempt" from what exactly.

Also, using Halo 4 K/D isn't a very good way of comparing/measuring skill. There are many people who have high K/Ds and are in fact low skilled, and vice versa. Thus a weak point.

[NervyDestroyer]

This was when REDD was losing really bad, Fuzzy was FM, and the main reason firestorm came to be. It was what we called imbalance in the past. But even with the army imbalance, games were much closer, through and through. I only count 4-5 games from that battle night a blow out, and 3 of those were with "Fox legion", which at the time had zero heavy hitters and zero decent/experienced players, very similar to modern day divinity.

I mean FFS, Dreadrogues, whose modern day equivalent is Marauder, only lost to VbD by 20-25 kills in a conflict game. To compare that, Divinity last Sunday lost to VbD in a conflict game by 168 kills. The polarization is real.


I'm glad SOMEONE noticed that. Divinity had 32 members before the war. Now we are down to about 10-12. Sitting here and being ignorant to the problem is just wrong. It's not an easy problem to fix, but having a poor attitude or ignoring it is just gonna cause people to leave which I'm sure no one wants to see.

[Houdini]

The general way rotations are (supposed to be), is with everyone playing everyone once, then playing squads more towards their skill level a 2nd time. It's very difficult to tier groups, in any way, so long as there is/are 1/2 squad(s) that are just way above and beyond (VbD, sometimes Legacy with the right people). Because then, everyone is getting ran over by those people, and you're subjecting groups that are medium-high skilled to the fire in lieu of others, even though they're getting destroyed as well.

This system would do that less, but it would still be there.

There is no system every that would not have people losing games. It just happens. This system isn't designed to prevent teams from losing games. It is designed to prevent teams who haven't won a game yet on battle night to play against teams who haven't lost a game yet. Everything else in between is just in between. The reason I weighted "Won Most Recent Game" so heavily is to prevent any squad who just suffered a defeat from being forced into a losing streak by another poor matchup. If you just lost a game, you should almost never have to play another squad who is going to crush you. The squads who lost should play the other squads that lost. The squads that won should play the other squads that won. Since their aren't going to be perpetual ties, factoring net win/loss records will fill in the gaps so when losing squads have to play against winning squads they are playing the worst of the winning squads vs. the best of the losing squads.


At the end of the day, squads that do better will feel cheated because in doing better, they'll just get stuck playing the uber-units, and that's why I don't like this system: Getting better makes you worse off.
I don't understand where you are getting this logic? Don't you think the squads who never win a game on battle night feel cheated that they had to play an Uber squad at all? Either way, factoring in "Most Recent Game Won" will prevent only one best squad from playing the other armies Uber-Tier squad. Effectively, once a squad loses against an uber-tier squad they will have an effective -75 rating point handicap almost assuring that they won't be playing a squad of that tier back-to-back. The only way one squad would be stuck in a loop playing the best squad of the other army over and over again would be if no squad in the entire army won a single match in a battle night round and all of the ratings where tied. Then theoretically the FM or whoever is put in charge of breaking the ties would be responsible for not having the same squads play each other over and over again.



I still stand by, and can confirm that REDD will be making this so next war, simply making an active effort to normalize out the skill levels of each squad. The difference between FC now, and FC 3-4 years ago is NOT that we are more competitive, it's that the competitive people have began to congregate to the same corners of the universe. When I joined every squad had 3-4 heavy hitters (besides VbD, obviously), and though some squads normally did better than others, nobody was left without a good mix of players, in terms of skill. I know I pose it as some sort of perfect world, which it wasn't, but every unit really did have a few heavy hitters and a few casual people.

That changed a bit Rev3, REDD got their ass mopped by two god squads that formed, firestorm happened, lots of people left, and the skilled people who started caring less began congregating to the same groups together so they wouldn't have to care as much. It's been a similar tale sense. No offense to them, but look at legacy, that's exactly what has happened there.

If people want things to be "even", coming up with a weird system that still incentives God-Squads to overpower themselves, but doesn't incentive normal people to put in some effort, practice, recruit, and better their own unit isn't going to do anything but throw half of an army to the fire so that the other half doesn't have to take their bite of the shit sandwich. This does it in a less direct and more flexible way, but it still does that.

The real solution is not to regulate who plays who, but to just make the damn squads not so polarized. People in Legacy weren't always in this skilled unit together, and the excuse "We only play Halo 4 because of one another" doesn't really apply after this Sunday (I'm sorry guys), so some of them helping build or contribute to squads that need it would go in strides. The same should be equally, if not more true for those in VbD.

And yes, to a lesser extent, DarkSail and Zeke&Friends should contribute to that very same effort as well.

And that could, and should, also include some lower skilled unattached newer people in Marauder, Kelevra, Divinity, Animus, Bellator, being welcomed to replace those people in the higher skilled units for consistency.

Of course always volunteers. But we can't let the skilled people go to one side, and the non-skilled go to the other side.

Isn't this what Firestorm was? As much as I would love to see this happen, it just doesn't work because there is a reason people congregate together. The best we can do is create some sort of weird system that does in fact just let everybody play at the level they want to play during a battle night. No matter what you do to normalize skill in one or even both armies some teams are going to be better than others. If we can at least handle this differences in skill in a more logical way than "everybody just play each other and hopefully some good games will come out" I would call the battle night a success.

[KazuhLLL]

You're also not including Jew, James, IMASNOT, Wolfpack, and Warewing who are all active members of the squad and around 1.1 xD

Legacy isn't as bad as VbD. But it is more "up there" than you think xD.

I also didn't include Capone, Renegade, Munkie & Kratos which have a K/D of around 1.15. :P

While they're not currently active, the extras we get usually fall around that same area (besides that one ill-considered night where VbD and Legacy merged).

[Houdini]

I believe getting on just to play with friends is perfectly fine and perfectly acceptable/understandable.

[Houdini]

As I said in my post, no one would be forced to switch. Remember, this isn't meant to break up units and friends forcibly. But a conscious effort to normalize squad overall skill isn't something I'd think anyone would be so against.

But at the end of the day, grouping "Skilled people over here!" and "Non-skilled over here!" is negatively impacting the community, and subconsciously we are doing that. A complicated system of matchups is pointless if we still have the same underlying problem.

And I think the community can get behind that a lot more than they can get behind what we have.

I don't like squad polarization anymore than you do, but usually there is a good reason why some squads have become so polarized. People of the same skill usually want to play together, and those squads are the majority of blue army right now. Some squads also don't like being polarized by skill. You can call my opinion bias, but look at what we have in DarkSail raiders. We have people with ranks of SR45 - SR 130, and as much as K/D isn't an indicator of skill, we have people playing together with a K/D difference of 1.65. That is not squad polarization by skill, we polarized by culture. Would you attempt to depolarize those types of squads too?

[Houdini]

Squads in the middle would get their closer matches, but likely at the cost of the extreme (high/low) squads getting consistent losing streaks. Whenever one army's highest/lowest-skilled squad is clearly better than the other's highest/lowest-skilled, there's gonna be somebody getting a massive helping of Anarchy's proverbial "shit sandwich".
The reason I weighted the "Last Won Match" so heavily is to prevent a losing streak or a winning streak for any squad. Obviously some squads may be able to achieve a winning streak and other squads may have a losing streak. I have a sample battle night written out on paper that I'm trying to upload to the internet so I can show you guys how this fear of a losing streak is unfounded for any squad and no squad would be forced to play against a god-squad over and over again.


Add to that the longer wait times during BN's and the cons quickly start outweighing the pros, IMO.
Where do the longer weight times factor in? All of the ratings could be dynamically updated as the game results come in. We already have to record scores and gametypes once a game finishes, what more work would it be to update a simple toggle to "Won Last Game" or "Did Not Win Last Game"?

[Guzzie]

wait times would result in say instead of getting the next match set up from a pool of available squads, now you have to wait to set up a match from squads that have won and/or lost their last match, and setting them up by what you have proposed (a squad that won against a squad that won and a squad that lost vs their counterpart), thus limiting your options when setting up matches.

[KazuhLLL]

Where do the longer weight times factor in? All of the ratings could be dynamically updated as the game results come in. We already have to record scores and gametypes once a game finishes, what more work would it be to update a simple toggle to "Won Last Game" or "Did Not Win Last Game"?

Updating the games would be quick enough, but since the 2nd round's rankings/match-ups are determined by the first round of games you'd have to wait until a round was complete (or nearly so) before setting up the following round. And whenever one army has more squads than the other they'd no longer be able to just be put into a game with the first squad that was done since they'd need to wait for an appropriate opponent rank-wise.

[Houdini]

Updating the games would be quick enough, but since the 2nd round's rankings/match-ups are determined by the first round of games you'd have to wait until a round was complete (or nearly so) before setting up the following round. And whenever one army has more squads than the other they'd no longer be able to just be put into a game with the first squad that was done since they'd need to wait for an appropriate opponent rank-wise.

Okay, now I understand what you are saying. Basically, you can't play a squad that is still in a match so either way you have to wait for that game to finish before you can play another game with that squad. Squads that are still playing and delaying the "Rating" would be delaying battle nights anyway.

I may be mistaken with how battle night games are started, but it seems like we work on a linear system where G1 is started before G2 which is started before G3.

Example:
G1:
RA vs. BA
G2:
RB vs. BB
G3:
RC vs. BC
G4:
RD vs. BD
G5:
?? vs. ??
G6:
?? vs. ??

These games are setup and playing. For whatever reason G2 is extremely delayed and doesn't finish on time. Instead of delaying setting up G5 just skip the squads that are still playing matches when trying to match people up by rank (just as would be done if there was an army numbers imbalance). Setup the next game based on whatever teams/rankings are available when the game needs to be setup and when G2 actually finishes they are added back into the ranking pool.

I use "rounds" as a loose term to describe the concept of how the ratings would be determined. Depending on numbers and delays between setting up games the match ups should be completed on a rolling basis. As the battle setup people are approaching the end of the currently setup rounds, they would go through and pair up the next couple of games. The rating system doesn't necessarily imply that all of the match ups need to be setup as rounds (in an ideal world that would be great). It should be more realistically be used as a tool to quantitatively prevent squads without a single win from playing squads without a single loss.

[HAVOK101]

I'm up for giving the idea a shot, I mean we are having a long peace time to work on fixing things right? Well then let's try it. I mean we won't know for a fact the flaws of the system until we try it and we don't know the full extent of the pros of the system until they are tried. Seeing something in a picture never gives the same feel as seeing it in person. Just my opinion here, not trying to butt heads.

[Houdini]

For people confused on how the calculations work I have a sample battle night here broken down into rounds.

Sample Battle Night (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IUUcmgE6gIkwYwVmI6AcwXpg 9l0EOmMzkcnsGWXYDIQ/edit?usp=sharing)

[Jam Cliché]

This might have been answered already in words, but I am better able to interpret your example stats than your post. So I have a question about a numbers imbalance.

Say BLUE outnumbers REDD 5-4 in Squads like in your example. That means BE will have a rating of 0 after the first round (not having played yet). They could potentially be a heavy hitting Squad, but their 0 rating would mean that, for Game 5, they would have to be matched against the lowest-rated team from the first round of games. In your example, however, RC, rated at 180 after their first game, played BE, rated at 0.

I assume this is due to a ruling to send a top-rated team against a total wildcard so that said wildcard doesn't get an artificially inflated rating that they might get from beating a Squad that just already lost, is this correct?

[Houdini]

This might have been answered already in words, but I am better able to interpret your example stats than your post. So I have a question about a numbers imbalance.

Say BLUE outnumbers REDD 5-4 in Squads like in your example. That means BE will have a rating of 0 after the first round (not having played yet). They could potentially be a heavy hitting Squad, but their 0 rating would mean that, for Game 5, they would have to be matched against the lowest-rated team from the first round of games. In your example, however, RC, rated at 180 after their first game, played BE, rated at 0.

I assume this is due to a ruling to send a top-rated team against a total wildcard so that said wildcard doesn't get an artificially inflated rating that they might get from beating a Squad that just already lost, is this correct?

I did not assume anything about the skill of the teams when I was setting up the sample matches (in fact, I just randomly selected a team to win without really caring about how good they would end up being).

Since Blue had 1 more squad that Redd, I setup a rotation where BE sat out the first game, then BA, then BB, then BC, etc.
After round 1, the rankings where:
RB == RC > RA == RD
BD > BE > BB == BC (BA is not going to play this round)

The reason the wildcard squad played a highly rated team is because they where the second highest rating even at 0 points.

If we wanted to make some assumption about the skill of the wildcard team to force them to play a good team, that is possible, but really I was trying to generalize the formula so that we wouldn't have to make as many assumptions about team skill.

W3z4b1 suggested a system where last weeks ratings would carry over for the initial seeding of teams so instead of starting at 0 points squads start at their last weeks ratings (unless they didn't play last week) and then after the first game the ratings would be reset to only use the current week's results.

I'm not sure if W3z4b1's idea would be a potential solution to the problem you present, but hopefully I was able to explain where the matchup came from.

[Jam Cliché]

The reason the wildcard squad played a highly rated team is because they where the second highest rating even at 0 points.

This was my error. I had thought that one of the other 180-rated teams were still in the round 2 rotation. That clears that up.

On the subject of carryovers, I do think there is a potential there. Perhaps averaging numbers at the end of the night for each of a Squad's individual teams, across both map results? It wouldn't do any harm IMO, since nothing is to be gained by intentionally losing a game just to get a low rating to win the next week (to be sure of this, do not rate exhibition matches whatsoever). In any case, any carryover rule would require people to stop using made-up names for Mixes and abide by the rules used to identify a team in the RoE.

[Anarchy]

This system is also going to mean next to shit-all if one side is still getting most of the wins.

"last game's winners" and "last games losers" will just be entire armies.

[Jam Cliché]

This system is also going to mean next to shit-all if one side is still getting most of the wins.

"last game's winners" and "last games losers" will just be entire armies.

I have to agree - we have such a limited pool that any "ranking" system may eventually fruitless. As it is, we can probably predict most game outcomes without punching numbers.

EDIT: I'm not ruling out a desire to theorycraft this topic.

[W3z4b1]

So this is the pretty version that has real teams with real ratings that are real. Or not. But it's super pretty and it updates team rankings automatically and places them with their names so you just got put in W/L right after for easy comparison! Available at your local K-Mart

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1h1nsP9aZ46Dr_Aj_JJ-FdT0wzGeBVml-e6uaavkE5P8/edit?usp=sharing

[Houdini]

This system is also going to mean next to shit-all if one side is still getting most of the wins.

"last game's winners" and "last games losers" will just be entire armies.

I thought that was what the WC was working on fixing for the next war with the squad normalization stuff you are talking about. Obviously if the armies are completely lopsided (like a 18-2-2 battle night) then it will be a terrible experience for everybody. As long as the win rate for each army is between .25 and .75 the system will be fine.

- - - Updated - - -


So this is the pretty version that has real teams with real ratings that are real. Or not. But it's super pretty and it updates team rankings automatically and places them with their names so you just got put in W/L right after for easy comparison! Available at your local K-Mart

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1h1nsP9aZ46Dr_Aj_JJ-FdT0wzGeBVml-e6uaavkE5P8/edit?usp=sharing

OP updated with this example.

[Barry Soap]

lol are the armies really going to be split based on squads at K/D level?

[Jam Cliché]

lol are the armies really going to be split based on squads at K/D level?

Nothing in the OP has "K/D" anywhere in it.

[Barry Soap]

Nothing in the OP has "K/D" anywhere in it.

Everything in the reply section has it though. Checkmate on Jam.

[Anarchy]

Everything in the reply section has it though. Checkmate on Jam.

I've not once mentioned k/d.


I thought that was what the WC was working on fixing for the next war with the squad normalization stuff you are talking about.

Possibly. My point is that trying to equal out overall squad skill levels solves a problem this system does not xD.

If we have units that aren't "All Competitive" or "All Casual", this wont be necessary, and we wont have issues continue. IMO this change in rotation is just a bandaid, and honestly for REDD's case, it would throw Phalanx and Zeke&Friends under the bus to play Legacy and VbD for a good, large portion of their games.

It also removed variety in a lot of situations.

[Jam Cliché]

Everything in the reply section has it though. Checkmate on Jam.

That's how threads tend to work. People reply to them. Your question was not, "Does this thread contain the phrase 'K/D'?" You question was, "are the armies really going to be split based on squads at K/D level?" Find me a post where Houdini has attempted to make K/D a weighted factor in the formula for determining Squad rankings in his suggestion. That will be the answer to your actual question.

[Zeta Crossfire]

Anarchy if your going into peacetime thinking you're going to get rid of "casual" or "competitive" squads you've already failed this peacetime. I think we have to look at this with a realistic view, not what we wish would be, and in reality they, competitive and casual squads, are never going away. There are always exceptions but nearly every squad, at least since I got here, has a way which they lean. VBD and legacy are made up of very teamwork minded folks that like to dedicate a lot of time to Halo and their squads runs more on the competitive side. They also doesn't want to play with people who only get on Halo once in awhile, or don't use call outs, not interested in teamwork, set UPS, ect. Squads like Bellator and Divinity members like to take Halo in stride. Sure they play, but they don't put in the amount of hours or pre game legacy and VBD do (at least did) and people who want to put more time into the game will leave. (think HAVOK)

Even Redwatch and now dark sails leans, if only slightly, to the competitive side. You don't need to be the best skilled player but you have to be willing to use teamwork, call outs, set ups ect and we push people out that do not.


It's something that is here to stay and a system like this will balance the battles more so then anything else anyone has put forward in the past year. It's worth using, maybe even this battle night.

Unless you're thinking about players drafts but that idea is dumb.

[Anarchy]

Anarchy if your going into peacetime thinking you're going to get rid of "casual" or "competitive" squads you've already failed this peacetime. I think we have to look at this with a realistic view, not what we wish would be, and in reality they, competitive and casual squads, are never going away. There are always exceptions but nearly every squad, at least since I got here, has a way which they lean. VBD and legacy are made up of very teamwork minded folks that like to dedicate a lot of time to Halo and their squads runs more on the competitive side. They also doesn't want to play with people who only get on Halo once in awhile, or don't use call outs, not interested in teamwork, set UPS, ect. Squads like Bellator and Divinity members like to take Halo in stride. Sure they play, but they don't put in the amount of hours or pre game legacy and VBD do (at least did) and people who want to put more time into the game will leave. (think HAVOK)

Even Redwatch and now dark sails leans, if only slightly, to the competitive side. You don't need to be the best skilled player but you have to be willing to use teamwork, call outs, set ups ect and we push people out that do not.


It's something that is here to stay and a system like this will balance the battles more so then anything else anyone has put forward in the past year. It's worth using, maybe even this battle night.

Unless you're thinking about players drafts but that idea is dumb.

I played with divinity last night, I have 100% confidence they still communicate and play in the same way most competitive squads do. Regardless of skill level, a CTF game is still a race to capture the enemy flag.

The moment we just "accept" that we have squads of the most competitive people and the most casual is the moment we accept and take in every problem that everyone seems to complain about here. While this is a decent solution Houdini has suggested, it does not solve the underlying problem, and an even more strict tier system would further splinter the community and do NOTHING to solve the gap we have between squads in terms of culture, balance, skill, and viewpoint of the community.

I have talked to some people in Zeke&Friends who are more than willing to switch units next war to aid the less skilled squads in this plight.


Accepting the way things are, and essentially saying "OK, so we'll just accept that there are skilled squads, so we'll just make these 1-2 groups play them 80% of the time so we/TheRest don't have to" is really toxic to a community that should be harboring a viewpoint of accepting diversity throughout rather than accepting small groups of individualized people. Houdini's system doesn't do that directly, and it provides reasoning to such a thing as rotations in a different way, while still giving everyone some variety and a chance at playing anyone.

But at the end of the day this system will result in one of three things:
1. It will have the same effect as the rotations we already have, playing nearly every squad once and the squads around your skill twice. Which, again is what we already have.

2. It will splinter the community by effectively isolating matchups of each unit to only 1-2 other units based on their "tier".

3. It will be somewhere in-between, but still have the same underlying problem.



The general theme of most of these types of solutions (not really this one), and the mindset you're putting forth, Zeta, is that if you don't like playing someone in the community, find a system that isolates them from you. It creates a huge disconnect. And even if this solution were to aid such a problem as we already have, it will never, ever, solve the underlying problem.

And I think we'd find in a few weeks after the first war, squads like Divinity and Marauder would still be getting steamrolled 75% of their games due to the disparity in skill. And if we DON'T have that, it's because they're playing the same ONE unit over and over, which just disconnects the community more and more.


This is a REALLY good idea houdini. It's well thought out, and it actively goes against creating the disconnect a tier system would create while still aiding the problem. My only issue with it is that I'm a lot more ambitious in this pursuit, and would rather see squads themselves be more interconnected and balanced. Balance the squads, not just the armies, and then we'll solve a lot of problems and this wouldn't be necessary.

[KazuhLLL]

Even Redwatch and now dark sails leans, if only slightly, to the competitive side. You don't need to be the best skilled player but you have to be willing to use teamwork, call outs, set ups ect and we push people out that do not.

That's all Legacy has ever been.

I don't think Anarchy's suggesting an outright elimination of competitive/casual squads, just trying to make them a little less extreme.

[Anarchy]

I don't think Anarchy's suggesting an outright elimination of competitive/casual squads, just trying to make them a little less extreme.

Squads should always be as good as they possibly can be, that incentive should ALWAYS be there.

But it's also our job as leaders to not let it get out of hand so that the disparity in skill between squads is as bad as it is.

This can be achieved in numerous, NUMEROUS ways, ESPECIALLY given the boost in recruits we're bound to get with MCC.


I.e:
-Higher skilled new recruits go to lower skilled squads and vise verse. Of course, if you recruit someone they can go to whatever squad they want, but with MCC we'll get a lot of people unattached to anyone in FC looking to play Halo.

-Finding volunteers of high skilled units to join low skilled units, AND vise versa here too.

-When squads have to mix together on battle nights to make a team, mix opposite skilled people for balance.

-Interconnected squad, army, and community events that put less emphasis on skill so that those that are skilled in a less skilled squad don't feel hopeless, and allow being in one squad not to feel like you're trapped in one corner of the universe.



This, along with still trying to give extra games to close matchups, is key and ideal. There will always be squads that do well and squads that don't on battles. No one would be forced anywhere. Incentives may be thrown at the individuals we'd want to move, but never forced. But it really has gotten out of hand where it is, and I don't like the idea of just splitting the community up into different parts based on skill.

If you're in a high skilled squad and you DON'T want to be broken up, there's a solution for that too. Rather than have some of your high skilled people leave elsewhere, take in some lower skilled people. The math is looking for a mean/average, not a sum, so bring the average skill to an acceptable level.


That's all Legacy has ever been.

Once again, you have a lot more competitive people than you think >_>. Yehsus did competitive btb, you're obviously of the competitive variety, as is Barbie and HC, and as has become Nic.

[Zeta Crossfire]

I guess we look at FC differently. I see Competitive and non-competitive squads. I feel like that's a fact and we have to find a way for it to work, are there any other was besides what you posted to tone it down? Honestly I just don't see it working. If you can prove me wrong that would be great, I just feel we have to work with the reality that is given.

[Anarchy]

I guess we look at FC differently. I see Competitive and non-competitive squads. I feel like that's a fact and we have to find a way for it to work, are there any other was besides what you posted to tone it down? Honestly I just don't see it working. If you can prove me wrong that would be great, I just feel we have to work with the reality that is given.

If you want an entire 5 page written plan, feel free to PM me, but it's not really in anyone's best interest for us to "settle" for less when we take such a huge stride as we're taking.

[KazuhLLL]

Once again, you have a lot more competitive people than you think >_>. Yehsus did competitive btb, you're obviously of the competitive variety, as is Barbie and HC, and as has become Nic.

I know quite well how many competitive people we have. Of course we have a lot since on we look for people "willing to use teamwork, call outs, set ups ect".

Remember:

The math is looking for a mean/average, not a sum, so bring the average skill to an acceptable level.


We have Yehsus/Munkie , Barbie/Capone , Theory/Renegade , Nick/Kratos, me/Gunny. And quite a few people somewhere in between. Granted most of those less-competitive people have been inactive as of late, but so have some of our most competitive. Even with those people gone, Legacy rarely gets blowout games against people like Z&F or Phalanx.

Regardless,


-Higher skilled new recruits go to lower skilled squads and vise verse. Of course, if you recruit someone they can go to whatever squad they want, but with MCC we'll get a lot of people unattached to anyone in FC looking to play Halo.

-Finding volunteers of high skilled units to join low skilled units, AND vise versa here too.

-When squads have to mix together on battle nights to make a team, mix opposite skilled people for balance.

-Interconnected squad, army, and community events that put less emphasis on skill so that those that are skilled in a less skilled squad don't feel hopeless, and allow being in one squad not to feel like you're trapped in one corner of the universe.


I agree with those, especially the first one. I feel like ever since I came back at the start of H4 it's been like, "Oh you're competitive with no squad preference? You should go to the most competitive squad!"

While that's great for the squad and that member in the short term, in the long term it definitely hurts the community as a whole (and by extension, that squad and recruit as well). I don't think anyone realized that until the damage was already done.

[Anarchy]

We have Yehsus/Munkie , Barbie/Capone , Theory/Renegade , Nick/Kratos, me/Gunny. And quite a few people somewhere in between. Granted most of those less-competitive people have been inactive as of late, but so have some of our most competitive. Even with those people gone, Legacy rarely gets blowout games against people like Z&F or Phalanx.

Activity scales with how powerful one's skill is representative of their squad.

[Houdini]

If we have units that aren't "All Competitive" or "All Casual", this wont be necessary, and we wont have issues continue. IMO this change in rotation is just a bandaid, and honestly for REDD's case, it would throw Phalanx and Zeke&Friends under the bus to play Legacy and VbD for a good, large portion of their games.

Not having Phalanx of ZaF playing VbD and Legacy for a large portion of their games would through squads like Divinity under the bus. I know last week is a terrible battle night to base examples off, but...

Phalanx was not present, and ZaF played 4 games against Legacy/VbD people. Two of those games where more or less blowouts, while two others where lost by 1 kill/score. When Divinity played VbD they lost by 168 kills. It may suck to get stuck playing the best teams in the other army for the majority of your battle night (which I'm not convinced my proposed system will do), but I'm pretty sure it is much worse for a team that isn't even close in skill level to have to suffer through playing an undefeated team.

I don't think you are ever going to be able to get the entire community to willingly submit to the dissolution of squads that are all competitive or all casual. Many people may be willing to try and see what happens when you start adding new recruits with quantitatively or subjectively low skill to VbD, but when a squad has 8 people for a 4v4 do you really think they are going to play without their friends? Most likely it will be VbD 1 which will still be very good and VbD 2 which will have all of the new recruits. I don't see how this solves the squad polarization other than frustrating people when the more serious players are trying to go over strategies for a map during practice while less serious players are running around picking up weapons and driving vehicles.

From experience, I can tell you that when you throw people into practice together who don't all share the same common goals or the same idea on how to achieve that goal people will get frustrated with each other. That is why most of the squads are polarized. Example: when Legacy wants to get on Halo they don't want to deal with baby sitting people who don't share their same mentality to Halo, all polarized squads are like this.


It also removed variety in a lot of situations.

I guess this is where our opinions differ the most. I would much rather have quality of match ups over variety. It doesn't make sense to me that we justify having a static rotation system for the sake of having variety in match ups when variety has so far led to many poor match ups that ultimately just break the morale of a suffering unit.

Maybe you will be able to convince me with a specific wording or example why variety is more important than the quality of the experience, but for now variety just seems like a cop-out for forcing weaker squads to play against strong squads for the sake of giving more average squads a break.

If we are trying to retain more casual players in the community to help with balancing, shouldn't we be providing every incentive to those causal players to stick around?

[Houdini]

I played with divinity last night, I have 100% confidence they still communicate and play in the same way most competitive squads do. Regardless of skill level, a CTF game is still a race to capture the enemy flag.

We shouldn't be basing this discussion around Divinity. Consider the broader picture of the potential new recruits who would have come from a more casual background. All of these truly casual gamers who once would have been in FC have left because we keep leaning more and more towards a competitive community with our gametypes. When the new casual players join the community they aren't going to have the same communication skills and teamwork intentions that our current casual players do. Having these new people join a more competitive squad is either going to make that squad frustrated and become inactive (bad experience for the new recruit) or frustrate the new recruit so they become inactive (bad experience for the new recruit). The reason we keep assigning players to squads based on their skill, activity level, and competitive/casual background is because it is a lot easier to retain a recruit when they are actually playing with other people who share the same fundamental Halo abilities and interests.


further splinter the community and do NOTHING to solve the gap we have between squads in terms of culture, balance, skill, and viewpoint of the community.

is that if you don't like playing someone in the community, find a system that isolates them from you. It creates a huge disconnect. And even if this solution were to aid such a problem as we already have, it will never, ever, solve the underlying problem.

And if we DON'T have that, it's because they're playing the same ONE unit over and over, which just disconnects the community more and more.

Yes, not playing with everybody in the community means that there are fragments that you don't interact with as much (except on all of the community wide game nights and fun things the WC has planned), but what splitters the community the most is when a weaker squad faces a stronger squad and gets utterly decimated. I've been on both sides and in the middle. When the game is close everybody is happy and has nice things to say in the lobby afterwards. When the games aren't close you either get silence because people are too frustrated to say something polite or you actually have people venting their frustration (hopefully only with the other team muted).

By trying to solve the problem of squads sharing different interests, cultures, skill, etc. we are deciding that it is in fact a problem for squads to have those traits. For match ups and balance it would make it so much easier if all of the players and all of the squads where the same, but that never has been the case and never will be the case. People like playing with other people like themselves. We can't change that.


I have talked to some people in Zeke&Friends who are more than willing to switch units next war to aid the less skilled squads in this plight.

That is great, but if only one squad (or worse one army) is willing to make this switch, is your system of depolarization really going to work? How many squads do you need to be depolarized to remove the balance issues?



1. It will have the same effect as the rotations we already have, playing nearly every squad once and the squads around your skill twice. Which, again is what we already have.

We actually do not have this because the armies are so unbalance that each army really lacks a squad that is around each others skill level...


This is a REALLY good idea houdini. It's well thought out, and it actively goes against creating the disconnect a tier system would create while still aiding the problem. My only issue with it is that I'm a lot more ambitious in this pursuit, and would rather see squads themselves be more interconnected and balanced. Balance the squads, not just the armies, and then we'll solve a lot of problems and this wouldn't be necessary.

I completely understand where you want to take this and personally would not mind a squad/player draft to fix the problem (I've even suggested things like that to fix the problem in the past only to be shot down). I just don't see a squad balancing program working unless you actually force all of the squads to participate. As soon as one squad becomes exempt or just doesn't participate in the balancing program, the entire system is flawed because there will still be one squad that will not just dominate a few weak squads but all of the middle skilled "balanced" squads.

[Houdini]

Squads should always be as good as they possibly can be, that incentive should ALWAYS be there.

What will happen when a squad grows and becomes a over skilled unit? A perfect example of this would be DarkSails. Our first battle night we had 3 people show up (mostly late) and lost our only game. The week after we had a better turnout and went 3-3. The trend kept continuing until as we have slowly worked together to get better. How frequently would you have to depolarize squads who get "too good"?



-Higher skilled new recruits go to lower skilled squads and vise verse. Of course, if you recruit someone they can go to whatever squad they want, but with MCC we'll get a lot of people unattached to anyone in FC looking to play Halo.
Would this not create bad experiences for the new recruits when they get assigned to a squad as a good player and find out that practices are fun custom games and just exploring around playing games on the battle night maps (don't say this doesn't happen because I have been in practices like this example). And what about the player who is just looking to have fun playing halo and gets assigned to a squad that wants him to strictly follow a predetermined role?


-Finding volunteers of high skilled units to join low skilled units, AND vise versa here too.

I don't know what the whole plan is for this voluntary depolarization, but how many players/units would need to be depolarized for your system to work?


-Interconnected squad, army, and community events that put less emphasis on skill so that those that are skilled in a less skilled squad don't feel hopeless, and allow being in one squad not to feel like you're trapped in one corner of the universe.
Maybe we should extend this idea to the actual war, Fiesta Slayer?


If you're in a high skilled squad and you DON'T want to be broken up, there's a solution for that too. Rather than have some of your high skilled people leave elsewhere, take in some lower skilled people. The math is looking for a mean/average, not a sum, so bring the average skill to an acceptable level.
I kinda addressed this in a earlier reply, but how does this mean/average logic hold when squads have more players than the minimum for team? How do we enforce that the average of both sub-units is the same and is balanced?

- - - Updated - - -


If you want an entire 5 page written plan, feel free to PM me, but it's not really in anyone's best interest for us to "settle" for less when we take such a huge stride as we're taking.

Where are you seeing these huge strides in balance? Over the last several wars I've only seen us going backwards into more bad match ups and squad polarization/tiering by skill.

[Anarchy]

I don't think you are ever going to be able to get the entire community to willingly submit to the dissolution of squads that are all competitive or all casual. Many people may be willing to try and see what happens when you start adding new recruits with quantitatively or subjectively low skill to VbD, but when a squad has 8 people for a 4v4 do you really think they are going to play without their friends? Most likely it will be VbD 1 which will still be very good and VbD 2 which will have all of the new recruits. I don't see how this solves the squad polarization other than frustrating people when the more serious players are trying to go over strategies for a map during practice while less serious players are running around picking up weapons and driving vehicles.

I've highlighted the fundamental misconception that is seen as a flaw in my system.

No squad would be dissolved. No one would be forced anywhere. It doesn't take the "entire community" to "submit" to anything, it only takes a few souls volunteering to enjoy a different unit, and the skilled units being willing to take in recruits regardless of skill (WHICH btw, should be a requirement of being a squad in this community, this shouldn't even be negotiable from the beginning).


I guess this is where our opinions differ the most. I would much rather have quality of match ups over variety. It doesn't make sense to me that we justify having a static rotation system for the sake of having variety in match ups when variety has so far led to many poor match ups that ultimately just break the morale of a suffering unit.

Maybe you will be able to convince me with a specific wording or example why variety is more important than the quality of the experience, but for now variety just seems like a cop-out for forcing weaker squads to play against strong squads for the sake of giving more average squads a break.

If we are trying to retain more casual players in the community to help with balancing, shouldn't we be providing every incentive to those causal players to stick around?

Throwing them into "this bucket over here" doesn't make them feel welcome.

Half the issue is that Divinity, Marauder, Kelevra, and to a lesser extent Bellator as well, feel completely left out because they're given such low-skilled people and really have had little opportunity to gain skill in their unit. Further isolating them isn't going to do anything, I don't get on every Sunday just to play the same team 6 times straight, that's not a war that's a weekly grudge match for zero reason.


We shouldn't be basing this discussion around Divinity. Consider the broader picture of the potential new recruits who would have come from a more casual background. All of these truly casual gamers who once would have been in FC have left because we keep leaning more and more towards a competitive community with our gametypes. When the new casual players join the community they aren't going to have the same communication skills and teamwork intentions that our current casual players do. Having these new people join a more competitive squad is either going to make that squad frustrated and become inactive (bad experience for the new recruit) or frustrate the new recruit so they become inactive (bad experience for the new recruit). The reason we keep assigning players to squads based on their skill, activity level, and competitive/casual background is because it is a lot easier to retain a recruit when they are actually playing with other people who share the same fundamental Halo abilities and interests.

This response also hits the first quote above.

I've played with Bellator. I've played with Divinity. I've played with Kelevra. I've played with Marauder. To think that they try any less hard to win a game of Halo is not seeing the true image. They still practice, they still kill ingame, they still come up with strategies. I utterly refuse to put someone in a competitive unit because they're also competitive just to FURTHER feed the idea that we are a community that further promoted competitive groups like that, and partitioning off one part of the community as competitive is freakin' ludicrous. The culture we should be trying to promote should be one of Halo, FC, and a WARSIM. Your squad's primary purpose should be a social group to enjoy halo. Not to group people you purely want to win with. A competitive person refusing to play with animus, divinity, bellator, shouldn't even pass a goddamn bootcamp, because that's not the culture we should be promoting here.

Also, gametypes have zero to do with anything. If people quit because they had to play one game of Legendary Slayer, they weren't going to stay no matter what we do anyway. And stickies+PPs in BTB games aren't a competitive issue, actually those two loadout weapons further promote infantry competitive BR play and discourage vehicles which casual players use.


Yes, not playing with everybody in the community means that there are fragments that you don't interact with as much (except on all of the community wide game nights and fun things the WC has planned), but what splitters the community the most is when a weaker squad faces a stronger squad and gets utterly decimated. I've been on both sides and in the middle. When the game is close everybody is happy and has nice things to say in the lobby afterwards. When the games aren't close you either get silence because people are too frustrated to say something polite or you actually have people venting their frustration (hopefully only with the other team muted).

By trying to solve the problem of squads sharing different interests, cultures, skill, etc. we are deciding that it is in fact a problem for squads to have those traits. For match ups and balance it would make it so much easier if all of the players and all of the squads where the same, but that never has been the case and never will be the case. People like playing with other people like themselves. We can't change that.

We're both aiming to solve the issue of some squads being super strong and others being weak. Your system does nothing to actually solve that, those matchups will still happen. Both situations of what we have now, and your system, will divide us all.

As for, again, combining skilled people into low skilled squads, we CANNOT condone higher skilled people to whine their way into a group with more high skilled people in a friggin' community like this. ANY system that allows that is continuing the problem we have and the problem you're stating. We have plenty of higher skilled people who don't give two shits what their squad's skill level is: You, W3z, Zeke, Dark Remalf, Raptor, Barry, Fernando. If we have people who are so culturally different than us that they cannot stand playing in a lower skilled unit, chances are they're assholes anyway. I've yet to meet anyone who will ONLY play with high skilled people, but still loved FC the way we do. It goes against our principals. Why even allow it? Isolating them in any way is... seriously, not getting to the point at all.


That is great, but if only one squad (or worse one army) is willing to make this switch, is your system of depolarization really going to work? How many squads do you need to be depolarized to remove the balance issues?

Only takes a few heavy hitters to change a squad's morale, and their performance. Look at what happened to Marauder when they lost Barry.

Only a few individuals have to volunteer. That's it. All the squads themselves have to do is open other members with open arms, and if they can't do that, I give up.


We actually do not have this because the armies are so unbalance that each army really lacks a squad that is around each others skill level...

This basically confirms my whole argument.


I completely understand where you want to take this and personally would not mind a squad/player draft to fix the problem (I've even suggested things like that to fix the problem in the past only to be shot down). I just don't see a squad balancing program working unless you actually force all of the squads to participate. As soon as one squad becomes exempt or just doesn't participate in the balancing program, the entire system is flawed because there will still be one squad that will not just dominate a few weak squads but all of the middle skilled "balanced" squads.

HOLY SHIT THERE WILL BE NO DRAFT, NO FORCED TRANSFERS. EVER. A few volunteers is all it takes. If squads aren't welcoming of new people, we've got a whole new problem, because that's all it takes at the squad level.

And if one squad wants to be dicks and exempt themselves, they can feel free, but the other 90% of us will be balanced.


What will happen when a squad grows and becomes a over skilled unit? A perfect example of this would be DarkSails.

I said this before... Higher skilled squads get lower skilled recruits and vice versa. Not exclusively of course, but the idea is not to let the polarization run rampant. Maybe you get 2 new guys who wanted to transfer from divinity. Idfk, the possibilities are endless, I wont sit here and explain the 50+ ways it would be solved, but I will say that NOTHING would be forced, ever.


Would this not create bad experiences for the new recruits when they get assigned to a squad as a good player and find out that practices are fun custom games and just exploring around playing games on the battle night maps (don't say this doesn't happen because I have been in practices like this example). And what about the player who is just looking to have fun playing halo and gets assigned to a squad that wants him to strictly follow a predetermined role?

Zeke&Friends has practices that consist of fun custom games sometimes.

I've rarely been in a situation where practices have been entirely fun custom games.

Ideally there is a balance. Work hard, play hard. It's the squad leader's responsibility to provide a welcoming environment to anyone in the squad. After all, they're a squad in FC, they aren't an independent entity. Every squad should be practicing in some way, and every squad should have periods where they tone it down and do something fun/casual matchmaking. I don't see a unit right now that doesn't fit that.


I don't know what the whole plan is for this voluntary depolarization, but how many players/units would need to be depolarized for your system to work?

3 Decent Players to Marauder, Bellator, and Divinity. 2-3 more casual players to the higher skilled units to replace them. That would work enough wonders. No one would be forced to leave their unit, but if no unit would be willing to take in new members, then again, that's a D move.


Maybe we should extend this idea to the actual war, Fiesta Slayer?

No >_>


I kinda addressed this in a earlier reply, but how does this mean/average logic hold when squads have more players than the minimum for team? How do we enforce that the average of both sub-units is the same and is balanced?

Proper leadership. FM should be looking at this and making sure teams are balanced and everyone is getting equal playing time. FMs sit out of playing on battles for these such reasons. If FMs can't do that, we're already fucked for leadership anyway. It's an FM-Squad Leader dynamic that need be kept in check. As with everything else, it's leadership's responsibility to ensure stability, balance, and growth. This falls under that umbrella.


Sorry if I got mad at some of these things, if I did it's probably because it was already answered.

[Fernando Naranj]

We have plenty of higher skilled people who don't give two shits what their squad's skill level is: You, W3z, Zeke, Dark Remalf, Raptor, Barry, Fernando.

Love you too <3

[Anarchy]

Love you too <3

Jk, you're not high skilled.

[Barry Soap]

We have plenty of higher skilled people who don't give two shits what their squad's skill level is: You, W3z, Zeke, Dark Remalf, Raptor, Barry, Fernando.

Love you too <3

Jk, you're not high skilled.

I'm gonna print that out and frame it on my wall

[Fernando Naranj]

Jk, you're not high skilled.



Pfft 1v1 me on yolo sweg BK

[Anarchy]

This is being used tonight on a trial basis

[Yehsus]

Jk, you're not high skilled.

Yeah, he's high Scottish.

[Fernando Naranj]

Yeah, he's high Scottish.

So, many things i could say, however I'll let you figure it out Yehsus
.

[Yehsus]

So, many things i could say, however I'll let you figure it out Yehsus
.

THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE HIGHLAAAAAAAANNNNDERRR

[Nicholas Sapien]

THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE HIGHLAAAAAAAANNNNDERRR

lol

[Houdini]

No squad would be dissolved. No one would be forced anywhere. It doesn't take the "entire community" to "submit" to anything, it only takes a few souls volunteering to enjoy a different unit, and the skilled units being willing to take in recruits regardless of skill (WHICH btw, should be a requirement of being a squad in this community, this shouldn't even be negotiable from the beginning).

Only takes a few heavy hitters to change a squad's morale, and their performance. Look at what happened to Marauder when they lost Barry.

Only a few individuals have to volunteer. That's it. All the squads themselves have to do is open other members with open arms, and if they can't do that, I give up.

If it doesn't take the entire community to consent, why don't you just do it with the volunteers you already have and why make a big deal out of it? If it seems like this idea shouldn't even be discussed if all it takes is a few volunteers (which it seems like you already have with Zeke and Friends). Just have the volunteers divide up and let's see how it goes.



I don't get on every Sunday just to play the same team 6 times straight, that's not a war that's a weekly grudge match for zero reason.
This is where we really differ on opinions. I want a system like this as long as my opponent is about the same skill level and I have a shot at winning every time we play.


As for, again, combining skilled people into low skilled squads, we CANNOT condone higher skilled people to whine their way into a group with more high skilled people in a friggin' community like this. ANY system that allows that is continuing the problem we have and the problem you're stating. We have plenty of higher skilled people who don't give two shits what their squad's skill level is: You, W3z, Zeke, Dark Remalf, Raptor, Barry, Fernando. If we have people who are so culturally different than us that they cannot stand playing in a lower skilled unit, chances are they're assholes anyway. I've yet to meet anyone who will ONLY play with high skilled people, but still loved FC the way we do. It goes against our principals. Why even allow it? Isolating them in any way is... seriously, not getting to the point at all.

I completely agree here, but what are you going to do with the people who still feel like it is okay to play only with their other high skilled friends? Kick them out of FC? You just listed off several people who don't care, but I'm sure there are many more people that you would consider high skilled that do care who they play with.


And if one squad wants to be dicks and exempt themselves, they can feel free, but the other 90% of us will be balanced.

This is the one problem I have with you system. What are you going to do to "punish" the squad(s) that don't want to participate in this depolarization? Leaving one or two squads as is will just let all of the changes go to waste because we still will have terrible match ups that people don't enjoy playing. The only difference will be now there isn't a single team that can at least be competitive because everybody else has been balanced out to a much lower level.


I said this before... Higher skilled squads get lower skilled recruits and vice versa. Not exclusively of course, but the idea is not to let the polarization run rampant. Maybe you get 2 new guys who wanted to transfer from divinity. Idfk, the possibilities are endless, I wont sit here and explain the 50+ ways it would be solved, but I will say that NOTHING would be forced, ever.

I understand that high skilled squads get lower skilled recruits, I'm saying what happens when a squad has matured to 16-20 players and has trained and grown over time to become more skilled than the general average? You can't just keep adding more players to an already large squad because there still will be fire teams that want to stick together with their friends who they have been training with. I feel like there have been several situations where squads that were able to grow significantly in skill due to practice and effort. Maybe the solution is just to keep adding players to a squad with no upper bounds on squad size? I'm just wondering how this very real situation would be addressed because it most likely will happen and I'd rather not just get stuck back where we started if we make tons of progress at the start of the next war.


Proper leadership. FM should be looking at this and making sure teams are balanced and everyone is getting equal playing time. FMs sit out of playing on battles for these such reasons. If FMs can't do that, we're already fucked for leadership anyway. It's an FM-Squad Leader dynamic that need be kept in check. As with everything else, it's leadership's responsibility to ensure stability, balance, and growth. This falls under that umbrella.

Then fingers crossed we get some good leadership.

[Anarchy]

I completely agree here, but what are you going to do with the people who still feel like it is okay to play only with their other high skilled friends? Kick them out of FC? You just listed off several people who don't care, but I'm sure there are many more people that you would consider high skilled that do care who they play with.

"The right leadership can move mountains from Antarctica to the North Pole."


I understand that high skilled squads get lower skilled recruits, I'm saying what happens when a squad has matured to 16-20 players and has trained and grown over time to become more skilled than the general average?

New recruits of a lower skill. We'll never reach perfect balance. A squad that has succeeded to be above average =/= extreme polarity that ruins enjoyment for others.


Then fingers crossed we get some good leadership.

Prepare thyself.

[Houdini]

New recruits of a lower skill. We'll never reach perfect balance. A squad that has succeeded to be above average =/= extreme polarity that ruins enjoyment for others.

This is exactly why I suggested my system. No matter what we do with balancing we won't have perfect match ups. Instead of just forcing a rotation we can have some form of quantitative merit to determine who actually plays who based on a nightly performance metric. If the lots of people do join with MCC then we hopefully will have enough people that all squads don't actually have to play every other squad in the army.


Prepare thyself.
DarkSail is prepared. We've been forming our voting coalition.

[VerbotenDonkey]

Yeah, he's high Scottish.

Did someone say Scottish?!

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/v/t1.0-9/10620520_723968861009801_ 2538884525655322872_n.png ?oh=39bf66f20e0d53d09287c c18acabdbbf&oe=546094B8&__gda__=1415440228_ce47a6 0aed60a7c9b3c078f2e54169f a


DarkSail is prepared. We've been forming our voting coalition.

We're all Democrats. I hope you get the joke.