Teamstack Rage-fest

[Eightball]

Okay, I was hoping this wouldn't become too much of a problem, but it has. A bunch of you probably already know what this thread is about, and what precipitated it. For those of you that don't, allow me to paint you a familiar picture:

Coming off of our highlander match (a loss), I was feeling kinda pissy and felt like doing some open play on Red. I connect and behold that the team scores are terribly stacked in one direction. The names on the scoreboards aren't those of regulars, but their avatars or names match. Some people have joined Red server and have begun to stack one team. A few rounds in and it's pretty clear how the play is going. One team getting rolled, and a lot of players getting upset and not having fun. A votescramble is passed. Most of the offenders are split up, but they immediately began reorganizing onto one team. An rtv is called, and at the start of the next map, the same teams are formed again. You all know exactly what I'm referring to, and the fact that you have experienced it firsthand and continue to do so is a sign of failure in the conduct of server moderation. People start to voice over in-game VOIP and mumble that teamstacking is going on. After another map change, I felt that it was in the server's best interest to shake those players. A quick switch to an unpopular map and a blocked rtv attempt by Loqutus and our server had mostly regulars again. This phenomenon is nothing new, but tonight it caught me in when I was in a particularly foul mood. Allow me to stake my credibility on the proclamation that I will make it a personal fucking mission to get this problem fixed, by whatever means necessary.

That is, only if you guys agree as a community.

I know, it's bad to get involved in player and server politics. You can't dictate how people play etc. But we're at the point that most people agree that the server (and the community) is being harmed by this teamstacking. I also know that it's bad to "Name and Shame". But I can't give a fuck anymore:


Estabished offenders:
KaraBear - http://www.brbuninstalling.com/hlstats/h...ayer=68794
Yaug - http://www.brbuninstalling.com/hlstats/h...layer=6842
Romeo love - http://www.brbuninstalling.com/hlstats/h...player=352
Dbz - http://www.brbuninstalling.com/hlstats/h...ayer=27762
Pump-Action Jackson - http://www.brbuninstalling.com/hlstats/h...ayer=26538
(several players from team Target Sucks on other occasions)

First time offenders:
Dr. Salvador - http://www.brbuninstalling.com/hlstats/h...ayer=89848
Reeoooooo - http://www.brbuninstalling.com/hlstats/h...layer=5347
Purple Scented - http://www.brbuninstalling.com/hlstats/h...ayer=89845
Novice - http://www.brbuninstalling.com/hlstats/h...layer=1053
Andyzweb - http://www.brbuninstalling.com/hlstats/h...ayer=89831 (reported by Loqutus)
Lain - http://www.brbuninstalling.com/hlstats/h...ayer=57212 (reported by Loqutus)
Necromentia - http://www.brbuninstalling.com/hlstats/h...ayer=89841 (reported by Loqutus)

I hate to bitch excessively, but our server is being harmed by these players. After tonight's fiasco, I spoke with the regulars who remained to get their thoughts on what had transpired. Most of the seasoned players agreed that when these teamstacks occur, they are inclined to stop playing because they have less fun. That's it. We can value fairness and open server play, but we should value the playing experiences of our regulars above that of outsiders to the community.

I post this knowing well that it brings dissonance and potential harm to BRBu, and knowing that anyone who visits the site can see this. But this has to stop. No one has fun when this happens. We should not let it happen.

So basically, I need you guys to share your thoughts now, as to whether this is something worth pursuing, whether you know these players personally and can influence some amount of change, whether this behavior is worth tolerating ever. I'm obviously not objective right now, so if you think my view on what's been going on is skewed please speak up so that reason can prevail. With this topic being brought to light now, at the risk of starting a witch-hunt, I'd like everyone to share if they are aware of other players that exhibit similar behavior. Remember that the goal here is not to attack established community members who may be guilty from time to time, but to identify groups of teamstackers who consistently harm the community.

Loqutus [Bulletproof]: ... didn't realize there were so many
Loqutus [Bulletproof]: It's not helping anything, what's going on
Loqutus [Bulletproof]: Total domination doesn't help a community thrive

[Dr. Zaius]

This echoes my thoughts and feelings, so there really isn't much else to say.

Let's not forget Gaunt and neet (and whoever else is with them normally) from Target Sucks.

As far as (my own two cents) solutions go, we could operate on a ban-by-occasion basis (short term fix), or opt for some sort of automatic forced auto-assign upon joining and clicking "continue" (more of a long term plan)

And if you look at it, this is OUR ( and I say that as a collective term ) community server, so if it's being invaded like this, we should do no less than challenge it with an aggressive counter. Because fuck them for trying to pawn off on us for an easy win.

[Eightball]

Mm, after a bit of searching, it looks as if some of the mentioned players are from team Lonely Hearts. Whether our affiliation with the UGC league has anything to do with this remains to be proven, but if so, I'd like to apologize on behalf of the Highlander team for causing damage to everyone's play experience.

[Loqutus]

As much as I play like it's serious business, there's another reason I've played on BRB:U for over 2 years. I enjoy the community of those I play with here. Some friendly ownage is what TF2 is all about. I backstab DarkChief a few times, he makes it his mission to make my job as spy as difficult as possible, taunting me with every kill. THAT is BRB:U.

When I first played here, the light-hearted voice chat, Karrde always having something to say, Negate tearing people up and making sure you knew it, Caff yelling at the incompetents, ALL JORGE, Spore, FAIL Medic, the list goes on... these people are reasons why I added the server to my favorites. A fun environment attracts fun people. A hostile or frustrating environment discourages new players.

... And that's exactly what BRB:U is. The players. A community of people who like to dick around and have fun. If the server becomes a place of frustration, not only will regulars shy away, but we won't get an influx of new players. And then BRB:U dies. Plain and simple.

On the grounds that I want BRB:U to thrive, I feel it's appropriate to take the necessary measures to promote growth in the community. Stacking cannot continue.

TLR New players are good, teamstacking makes new players ragequit. Cut it out.

[liquid108]

whether you know these players personally and can influence some amount of change, whether this behavior is worth tolerating ever.

Excluding that of Purple, novice, andyzweb and lain, I know all those players. Teamstacking is sooooooooo common from all the players in the competitive scene, it'd be completely worthless to try to talk to them about. By stacking and making people rage, you're breaking the rule of brb.u. Whenever it happens again my vote would just be temp bans for all members of the offending party cause they aren't going to change.  

[shoopfox]

I keep seeing people with liquid's SS tag stacking, but I haven't played enough recently to see most of those other people.

Autostacks are totally the best stacks though.

[Coelit]

This is a very well stated and valid point Eight, and this is also why I have been avoiding the server lately (And I barely played on it before). I try and boast myself to be a amazing player, truth is I am only decent and doing my best to work my way up the ranks... so when going against a god damned armada of completely experienced players it makes me rage just a BIT when all I am trying to do is get better but when I go to the server all I get is dominated and not one win from the team.

[[SiN] Merc]

I think more admins would be beneficial to the server. Not that I can keep track of who all has it due to my massive ineptitude at paying attention, but the more people who can team scramble, and, worse case, t-ban people, the better off we'd be. As much as I love doing Highlander, it seems to draw the "win no matter what" crowd to our happy little home. Which is a downer, because we're built on being a friendly, joking community. I don't want us to get a serious business reputation, you know?

Edit: Coelit, I love your Avatar. Berserk is such a damn good series, one of my absolute favorites.

[Eightball]

Wow, thanks for the input everyone. I admit that I was a bit hot-headed when writing this, but I'm happy to see that my feelings weren't too far off from everyone else's. Glad people could give some background--there was always some inkling that there was some relation between what's been going on, but this makes things a bit more lucid. I'll have to fess up that I didn't personally ask/command them to try and balance teams (mostly because I didn't think it'd make a difference if I did, or that it would make things worse), but probably should have asked on principle. I guess we'll just have to remember rule #1.

From now on I'll be issuing temp-bans for excessive teamstacking or other conduct harmful to the community (3day, then 7day, then permanent). Obviously I'm probably going to be subjective with how I do it. For instance, I know a lot of people don't like #ss players stacking, but I know exlo, cody and liquid obviously are all great people and are liked by the community (and moreover would switch if we asked). This has probably been made out to be a bigger deal than it is, and so I hope to just deal with this as it comes up in the future--just a little more decidedly. I'm going to get some sleep now. Thanks everyone <3

[LV15GAMER]

Just want to say thanks to Eightball for doing what needed to be done.

The whole thing was pretty blatant, specially when they have the same type avatars and hag around in the spectator list until a spot is open in the team they want to stack. Its a shame that high skilled people feel the need to pub stomp instead of trying to have balanced games. That said, stacking is not too bad when its a few people that don't dominate the game so completely do it or once in a while for lulz among regulars but complete destruction for 3+ rounds by strangers is obscene.

IMO, team scramble [however unreliable it is] and rtv are more than enough warning to stop being team-stacking dick dick dicks and as soon as they began to undermine those any admin is well within their right to do whatever they see fit to the offenders.

[Coelit]

Merc link=topic=5549.msg201632#msg201632 date=1301897359]
I think more admins would be beneficial to the server. Not that I can keep track of who all has it due to my massive ineptitude at paying attention, but the more people who can team scramble, and, worse case, t-ban people, the better off we'd be. As much as I love doing Highlander, it seems to draw the "win no matter what" crowd to our happy little home. Which is a downer, because we're built on being a friendly, joking community. I don't want us to get a serious business reputation, you know?

Edit: Coelit, I love your Avatar. Berserk is such a damn good series, one of my absolute favorites.

Thank you very much. I love Judeau and his personality as a whole, I plan on cosplaying as him in the future. Also yeah it is an amazing ass series.

[Didzo]

This sort of team stacking not only makes the other team ragequit, but it also pisses me off when I'm on the same team as the team stackers, since they tend to stick together and do what they want regardless of what the team needs.

My very specific, and very biased gripe: Medics. I don't mean simply pocketing a player (which is fine by my standards), but exclusively healing only a single player without regard to the rest of the team. Meaning, not even turning to heal a low health heavy who is on fire and who has been spamming "MEDIK!" and yelling into the mic for heals for the past 10 seconds. That sort of shit makes me ragequit, especially when I can clearly see that this isn't some noob medic I'm dealing with.

----------------

I support the idea that there should be more admins with highly limited powers to monitor and control general asshattery of the teamstacking sort. Forced team scramble, RTV, kicks, and temp ban. This would also provide additional order when the server is filled by mostly pubs (who can get quite spammy and trollish at times). These "lesser" admins should also provide some sort of incident report when they resort to a kick or temp ban in order to maintain both a greater degree of accountability and a database of offenders.

[CaffeinePowered]

I wholeheartedly agree with all of the above so I'm not going to put out a long winded reply, you get one warning, then you get banned for a week. If it happens again, permanently.

About the only way you are going to effectively deal with this is a temp ban, you've seen how badly scramble works, and even if you RTV or I put in a win limit for all the maps (which I will do sometime this week I hope). That doesn't necessarily solve the problem, and given what others have said if they are determined to do it and have a reputation for doing so, us asking nicely isn't necessarily going to change anything.

(might edit this later when I have more time for more long-windedness)

[ZargonX]

I'm all in favor of whatever steps you guys can take to get the problem stopped. The teamstacks kill the server super quick, and it's not very much fun for those who stick it out. So kudos to Eightball for getting the ball rolling.

[EarthlingJohn]

I agree, but no banning of #ss stacks. Team VS snipers is fun, especially when it turns into sniper vs sniper  ;D

[Versus]

lol

[sk8mystery23]

I agree, but no banning of #ss stacks. Team VS snipers is fun, especially when it turns into sniper vs sniper  ;D

You know, I haven't been very active for the last two weeks, but I there was some #ss stacking going on last night. I didn't see anyone having fun.

[Versus]

i did

i did by not playing tf2

[Negate]

Wow, thanks for the input everyone. I admit that I was a bit hot-headed when writing this, but I'm happy to see that my feelings weren't too far off from everyone else's. Glad people could give some background--there was always some inkling that there was some relation between what's been going on, but this makes things a bit more lucid. I'll have to fess up that I didn't personally ask/command them to try and balance teams (mostly because I didn't think it'd make a difference if I did, or that it would make things worse), but probably should have asked on principle. I guess we'll just have to remember rule #1.

From now on I'll be issuing temp-bans for excessive teamstacking or other conduct harmful to the community (3day, then 7day, then permanent). Obviously I'm probably going to be subjective with how I do it. For instance, I know a lot of people don't like #ss players stacking, but I know exlo, cody and liquid obviously are all great people and are liked by the community (and moreover would switch if we asked). This has probably been made out to be a bigger deal than it is, and so I hope to just deal with this as it comes up in the future--just a little more decidedly. I'm going to get some sleep now. Thanks everyone <3

I'm gonna stop you right there so basically what your saying is its totally fine to fuck up the server with a teamstack as long as your a regular and should theoretically know better. But if your from one of those evil comp teams then it instantly becomes bad. Sick shotz is a problem when you've got 3 really great sniperz on one team or when you see all your friends playing on one side wiping the fuck out of the other side. If your gonna go on a fucking crusade then don't just bust the stacks you don't like. That's not BRBU.

[Versus]

liquid and eightball aren't allowed to be on the same team