[Megathread] Team Balance Feedback/Discussion

Personally I don't have much of an issue with how games are balanced on PS4.

Yes, there are times where the opposing team can have twice as many players, but usually the matches fill up quickly enough. Can it be better? Yes, of course, but I'm not at the point where my world is falling apart; there will always be other lobbies for me to choose from and/or other games to play.

TEAM BALANCE:

I have played for several hours straight many times and lost every round and sometimes very badly. 500 to 0. If I remember correctly BF4 would switch players, but break squads apart.

BALANCE SERVERS BY MOVING SQUADS.... Please don't break them up. 

QUEUE: While in queue, it would be nice to see the scoreboard for players, tickets and scores AND include the server number!

Hey @CodeRedDewdAZ , I was hoping to combine all these sorts of posts into one over in https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion/Megathread-Team-Balance-Feedback-Discussion/m-p/8816425#M13231; maybe you could share your story there?

When you say squads do you mean a squad of all platoon members or just a good group of random players? AFAIK, the game prioritizes friends so splitting randoms would be the more equitable option.

I like the queue idea but remember a long time ago someone on the dev team saying they were concerned that by knowing the scores and stuff of modes, it would deter a lot of people from joining

By SQUADS I mean the groups that are playing together in the four person squads, either random or by choosing. Before I joined AOD, I would find enjoyable players, then lose them after the round on previous versions. Now I join from friend's lists and we choose to play together. By doing the "fairer" thing it would break us up and mix us with random players. We would have to spend time regrouping into SQUADS. 

To balance the team's, I was thinking to have different alorgorithms. If a team is shut out and its 600 to 0, maybe switch the top squad on the best, for the worst on the other, and account for newly joined, so maybe time in the round as well. If the round is 400 to 0, maybe switch the second best with the second worst squad. The top of the team is not always comprised of the top squad. 

As it is, there is no switching and relies on attrition, which increases when people get mad at the imbalance and leave. 

Tonight I played and lost every round. TaveracoTTV was playing on the same team as other great players. Don't think they were in the same squad. It was brutal. I came back later and was on his team. I just pittled around and didn't do much because all the flags were quickly taken, round after round. We ALL hate and talk about the imbalance, even on Teamspeak. We even try to rejoin on the other team through friends to create balance. We decide to move back and let them cap a couple flags. We need balance badly.

We as a clan join by server number. If on a friend, we don't know what server they're on until we are in and can see the info. Sometimes they're not on the right one and I leave, to find the right one. There is absolutely no server info while in the queue. What would be very helpful is to have the server number by the name in origin or in the game next to the friend. Sometimes a friend is in a quiet channel on Teamspeak and can't be asked their server number.

So BALANCE and JOINING are rough. 

It would be nice to be able to attach assignments during the game, without having to leave and lose the squad we are playing with.

Hackers aren't the biggest issue for me. Why? Because I don't play much any more. I'm just tired of spending a half hour to an hour every time I want to play logging into one server after another where the teams are stacked, the game is already lost and I'm on the team destined to lose. Over and over and over. The actual figure is 75% of the time. I started keeping track. And if you lose one game you're going to lose game after game after game because there's no balancing between games and the server stays stacked for hours. Eventually I log in to a 2-400 score and lose the game before I can escape. Or worse I log into a defeat screen without ever getting to play. It's even possible to get a loss in a game where you never see any portion of the game even the defeat screen. Isn't there something you can do to improve the situation? It's just a big waste of time and the outcome is me coming here to post this instead of being able to play the game with any chance of a balanced fun experience. This was never a problem in your earlier titles. When did you lose control of the situation? Just curious if this mirrors the typical experience of other would be players. Anyway, I'm off to play a game where I don't get screwed 75% of the time before I even get to play.  For the record I play on PC.

As I have written in another thread previously:

"

1. BALANCING
Again and again it happens that teams only grow unilaterally. Even a team that is understaffed before the start of the game will not get any new players, but the opposing side, which is already over-represented, will. The balancing needs to be refined urgently. Possibly through autobalancing right at the start of the round.

2. HIGH PING
Some users play with a connection that is too slow, which completely breaks the gameplay. Therefore you should integrate an average ping monitoring. If a player with a high ping wants to join a game, a warning message should appear, which on the one hand indicates the connection problems and on the other hand warns that you can fly from the server for this.

My experience shows that a ping over 150 can significantly reduce the flow of play for all players. Especially when the ping is massive over 150 or the high pingers are piling up. That's why I find a kick with a message from an average ping of 150 ms over a period of three minutes to be appropriate and fair.

"

So I would say Autobalance at the start of a match would make sense.

And Squads should organize them in the match, not before the match. So you don't get suddenly +4 players (or even worse) on the enemies team.

In regards to unilateral balancing, the game does take a player's 'skill level' into account. Personally I hate this method because there are just too many factors that go into calculating skill, most of which mean nothing.

A player can sit in a tank for weeks and have over 3000 vehicle skill, but 0 soldier skill and the game will still think of them as a prized player on a map that doesn't even have vehicles for example.

150+ ping has always been a problem in the Battlefield franchise. It affects both sides though so I don't think we should be that fast to boot someone. Some people can afford better connections, some can't, and some people love to intentionally troll people - there has to be a happy medium that doesn't involve booting people though.

For example, I always join my European friends in events both for fun and in a competitive nature; even Friday Night Battlefield has people join together from all over. I'm no technical genius but there has to be a way servers and/or hit reg can be better for 150-180ping players... there's just gotta be.

Depending on how many people leave towards the end of a round, you could very well end up switching two good teams with one another. One squad (heck, even a single person) is enough to completely chance the outcome of a game but ai understand what you're getting at.

For a game mode like Breakthrough, people could take being forced to the same side twice the wrong way and quit, further complicating things.

PC has so many tools i'm kind of surprised something as simple as server number isn't readily available. Might be worth just making your own room via community games- AOD is a respected clan/platoon so it should fill quick. The team did recently say they are aware joining friends can be difficult so finger's crossed on a quick fix

It is more. 

Here an example about the match i'm in now. Just alt tabbed as I remembered this topic. Why not when there is no enemy. 

This says it all. When there was auto balance like in BF1 nobody would have left. As well the game just continues without enemy.  

I feel this situation very often. Especially in 16 vs 16 matches.

We need a fix.

Maybe it would be better if we choose a SQUAD after joining the match and after the team allocation - not before.