playing to win (when its already a landslide victory)

[onesoul]

On public servers, how often do you keep playing to WIN when the score is already a landslide victory for your team?

(I keep seeing this on the Palisades map when Clan takes and holds the highest ridge.  I'm not a fan of Palisades, but that's not the point.)

Yes we play to win, but does the obviously winning side have to be dicks about it and never ease up?    It stops being fun and players bail, making the problem worse since new players start at 49K c-bills and are completely outgunned.

Try being on the other team getting slaughtered.  It sucks, but it doesn't have to.

[xDeityx]

This has been a problem with every internet pub game ever.  If you find a realistic solution, let us know.

Usually it happens because of a stacked team.  I hold that the shitty players are just as responsible for not stacking themselves on one team as the good players are responsible for not all banding together.  Everyone puts the onus on the guys at the top of the scoreboard for not stacking, but there are tons of times when all the bads have stacked one team and you have the option to watch or stack.  Eventually you can switch, but the damage has been done already because the opening part of the game is the most crucial in every game mode.

Right now you've got a few conscientious vets who will usually try and fix things by themselves, but the only way you'll ever get consistently fair games is if every single player can evaluate their own relative worth and actively try to balance the teams based on that evaluation (read: never).

And despite what the overreactionists say, this is not the reason for the low population of the mod.  There's no alternative game you can go to and get perfectly fair teams.  Go look at Global Agenda - they have an entire system in place to try and prevent team stacks (Microsoft's TrueSkill system http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/trueskill/), and they only let you queue up for pvp missions with a single friend to avoid premade teams, but games are still steamrolls on a regular basis.

Edit: Just wanted to add that most of the time, the winning team is not doing this intentionally.  They are just playing the game and using the tons of cash they have.  Very few people will ever take the time to intentionally downgrade their asset to control a stomp.  This is just human nature.  No matter how many forum posts there are about this (there have been many, and will probably be more in the future), the majority of the playerbase of any game does not visit that game's forums.

[onesoul]

Edit:  Oops!  xDeityx!

Ironically, xDietyx, pretty sure you were on the Clan team in one of two Tuesday matches I'm using as a mental reference.     (unless someone else has the 'xDietyx' moniker).

The teams weren't obviously stacked by [name] (KoS members were split and the only SJ I saw was NotSoCoolJ).

I usually see at least few vets playing in every match and most people recognize who they are.

Vets could tell their team to back off.
and
Vets could vacate strongly held positions.
and
Vets could 'y' and text help the opposing team.

Heck, it doesn't even have to be veterans.  We're a community and should act like it for the benefit of everyone.

[Armitage]

Rather than punish the good players for being good, you (or anyone on the losing team) could take it upon themselves to organize your team or offer advice to those that are playing poorly.  A well organized or even half ass organized bunch of misfits is vastly superior to a team with no communication.  As much as you want to put the blame on the vets, the introverts that just standby and don't make attempts to better themselves are just as much at fault.

On the flip side, I have often found myself swtiching from the winning team to test my skills.  I think I'm a better pilot than I would be if I would constantly stay on the winning side.

[xInVicTuSx]

I will almost always change teams if after the first battle things are very one sided. I use the cash I got from the stomp and change teams to bring out something big to stomp the bleeding.

But there are hopeless rounds too, when there are hardly any vets I know of on but one side is just roflstomping. Don't look at the guy at the top of the scoreboard, compare the K/D of each position down the line and that should tell you how things really are.

[xDeityx]

Ironically, xDietyx, pretty sure you were on the Clan team in one of two Tuesday matches I'm using as a mental reference.     (unless someone else has the 'xDietyx' moniker).

I'm not sure who xDietyx is, but it isn't me.  He sounds really skinny though. 

Whenever I join a team I either go auto if I'm there for the start of the game or I join the team with less players if I join mid-round, or the losing team if it's an equal number of players.  That's about as much effort as I'll put into balancing the game.  Occasionally I'll switch teams, but only if there's somebody in particular on the other team that I care to play with.

When I'm on the losing team and I'm in a mood where I care about the outcome, I'll do my best to organize the team.  Some of these comebacks have been my most satisfying wins.

I find it too idealistic to expect everyone to be a good samaritan though and constantly play musical teams in order to maintain a balance.

The other problem with trying to balance teams by balancing the vets is that people are inconsistent.  The assumption being made when doing this is that you not only have an accurate measure of everyone in the game's skill (including the people smurfing), but you also can predict based on previous experience how well someone will do in this game that is about to start, which is patently ridiculous.  Not everyone comes with their try-pants on every game.  You could end up stacking the teams just as easily as balancing them (law of unintended consequences is a bitch).

Pub games are a crap shoot for balanced teams.  It's their nature.  DWI.

[Artemis Dragmire]

Part of the problem with blaming it on stacked teams and then blaming the players is that a lot of the vets "always choose clan" and have admitted to doing so. And the autojoin is bugged, and always puts you on inner sphere.

So really, we need to fix the autojoin more than anything else I think.

[Brainwright]

So really, we need to fix the autojoin more than anything else I think.

It was fixed...

To start stacking the IS side instead.   

[onesoul]

Rather than punish the good players for being good, you (or anyone on the losing team) could take it upon themselves to organize your team or offer advice to those that are playing poorly.  A well organized or even half ass organized bunch of misfits is vastly superior to a team with no communication.  As much as you want to put the blame on the vets, the introverts that just standby and don't make attempts to better themselves are just as much at fault.

On the flip side, I have often found myself swtiching from the winning team to test my skills.  I think I'm a better pilot than I would be if I would constantly stay on the winning side.

You're missing my point.  I'm not blaming anyone.
I haven't asked for team jumping.
I haven't asked for the unrealistic expectation of public team balance.

I am asking for players to get their team to BACK OFF when they're clearly going to win and stop the stomping.

I've been playing this game for 2 months.  Read that again.  2 months.  I provide C3 spotter info and scoring (ex: TSA target heavies) when possible, but I don't know enough mixed arms to lead with any measurable effect.

Some people have been playing for years.

[xDeityx]

People already do what you are asking.

[Taemien]

Don't blame Vets for not easing up. Sometimes... they just make bad decisions. There was a game I played about 2 weeks ago where it was stacked against us. Fortunately they decided to go all Air in a 10v10. Seriously, they thought it would be cool to use 6-7 air and only 2-3 ground.

Their ground forces got overrun (what the hell could the air do to stop it? lol) which meant their air couldn't resupply. Wasn't that we were shooting them on the runway, but shooting them if they descended past 700+ meter altitude. Course they started losing tickets fast and their 20pt lead went to a 200pt trailing real quick. They claimed server issues (in a 10v10, even the low ping 30man server doesn't have issues with only 20) and bailed.

Should a winning team let up? No, why should they? What does the losing team learn if the winning team gives them an edge? Nadda.

If someone quits the mod because they lost one game like this. This is not a BETA TESTER we want. We need players that are committed and willing to learn in the face of fire. This mod attracts people on its own merits. The community doesn't need to be coddling. The community needs to be focused on helping the mod get to 1.0

Playing to win does help the mod development more then not doing so. If you win by a landslide, record WHY. Then post that why into a post to the devs. This way they can look at it and see if thats within what they believe should be a winning method. Part of mod development is balancing assets. If you won by a landslide you might have done so by a previously unknown imbalanced asset or group of assets. Post about what you did to do it, and see if it can be reproduced.

Welcome to being a Beta Tester instead of a player. You can play and enjoy the mod as normal when 1.0 comes out.

[-SM-SUCKER]

When one side is really much better than the other, it is usually a result of teamwork. And leaving such a team, where playing is also great fun, because of teamwork... well it will give you a worse gaming experience.
At least in most cases.
I like to bank, many know this already. And switching teams beeing the bank could actually help. But guess what: Those teams would not ask for money, they would not take it even when given. That is the reason they loose, absolute silence, no teamwork at all.
They will just rush out of the hangar, one by one.
In German, we call those people "Beratungsresistent" which means they have a natural resistance against good advice.

[Squibby]

Teams rarely win when graced with my presence,
So I like swapping to the winning team to even things up

In the end there will always be a winner and a loser in a match. It's just a game stop worrying so much,  next round you may be on the winning side.

[Leetskeet]

I always just play for fun, there's no point in being serious and "playing to win" unless you're in some sort of actual clan match.

Most of the time I'm just picking random mechs that I enjoy, and most of the time they're really not anywhere near as effective as those typical 4 or 5 "top tier" variants. I stroll out in Warhammer Primes, different Thanatos variants, Loki's, Uziels, and on occasion an Atlas for epic MaC fun. I tend to like using the stuff and most people don't use, simply because it's fun to get some variety out there.

So really at no point do I ever just go RRRAAAAAWWWWRRRRGARBL MUST WIN NO MERCY BASE CAMP GO, but I don't control the rest of my team.

[xDeityx]

...the autojoin is bugged, and always puts you on inner sphere.

I've been put on clan before with autojoin.  Do you mean if the teams are even it will favor IS?  Without some actual evidence to back this up I have a hard time believing it, because I'm pretty sure I've been put on clan when autojoining with even teams as well.  I always thought it put you on the team with the lowest score when the teams were even, but that's just an assumption.