Balancing Teams At Airsoft Events

[Bake Sale]

The following posts have been moved from the Operation: Arctic Squall After Action Report.

This thread is for the further examination and discussion of methods for balancing the seemingly never ending imbalances that occur at events.

- CantoXII


There is one simple change that can be made which will remedy at least two of the most prominent complaints that the administrators of this game have the power to fix. I've heard this mentioned before, and not just at this game; and for the life of me I can't figure out why this policy hasn't happened yet. I feel that we need to move away from "green vs tan" paradigm and institute an arm bands policy.

Simply put, in every game I've ever attended except one, green team sucks. In Arctic Squall, they were painfully unorganized, seriously lacking in leadership and also more affected by gun failure. All of these problems lie in the fact that most green teamers (seemingly universally) are noobs that could seriously benefit from having some more experienced players to fight alongside them. I know mixing up camo like this isn't necessarily very "milsimmy" but I think it's a sacrifice we need to make for the sake of fun- the reason we all attend these events in the first place.

I spent the first half of the game on tan team and then defected to green after lunch because being on tan was too boring. One tan squad of about ten guys spent the first half of the game camped in the woods just outside of firing range of the green base, picking them off as the came through the woods by us. And not once in about 30-45 minutes did they adjust their strategy one bit. If they devoted even half of their team to a full assault, I'm sure they could have pushed us back if not overrun us entirely. Or they simply could have gone around us. That example right there pretty much characterizes the entire green team. When my buddy and I switched after lunch, we were the only two greens that had working coms. We applied a bit of leadership and got green team it's first objective of the day (holding the town for a mortar strike). I think that if we mixed the more experienced players with the greener ones (no pun intended) the games would be a lot more evenly balanced and each side would have more fun. Canto did a great job of adjusting the game play on the fly to suit the massive skill gap, but unfortunately no amount of stacking can compensate for the free for all attitude that most green teamers had.

[Sharky]

Had a BLAST at the event last weekend. I was able to bring my cousin out to his first airsoft game and he had a great time as well. Many thanks to everyone who put on the show.

The problems with team balance was very apparent however. While implementing an armband team system would be a solution to the problem, I can only see it opening up more problems (Friendly fire, team switching, "spies" etc). As a community we need to realize that playing with ALL your buddies on the same team doesn't make for a well rounded day of airsoft. That is why I call out to any and all vets to take the time to read the event threads more closely, specifically the roster. If you see that the TAN team is outrageously stacked, sign up for GREEN. Stacking one team with all vets and then complaining about how the game was unbalanced is quite childish in my opinion. I know most vets in the MIA community have both TAN and GREEN camo patterns in their closet. I urge everyone to take a risk and NOT play with every single one of your buddies, I want you to shoot them instead

[Gimpalong]

Sharky makes some good points, but he also exposes one issue in particular that could be remedied.

Event postings almost always state the camouflage colors associated with each team (i.e. ACU, DCU = Tan team, while multicam, woodland = Green team). Then as people "sign up" for the event, the event host/moderator groups players into their appropriate teams based on camo color on the event roster. One result of this is that everyone can see which teams everyone else will be playing on and players then adjust their team selection to be on the same team as their friends.

The moderator could simply say "the camouflage colors for this event are: woodland, tan, acu, multicam, black." The moderator would not make any statement regarding which colors will be grouped together.

Then when people "sign up" the roster lists the players names, but not their team affiliation. That way the moderator can know that 40 people are planning to show up.

When people show up to the game, the moderator takes a look at the camouflages present and then mixes and matches the camouflage patterns to create balanced teams. So, for example, maybe the moderator groups ACU and black together against tan and woodland, etc.

This type of system avoids the arm band system and having woodland or ACU players on both teams.

That suggestions aside, Bake Sale's suggestion of the armband solution is one that should be tried out (maybe at a rec game?). Honestly, I doubt "team switching" or "spies" are really a concern so long as the moderators do a good job stating "no spies", etc. Friendly fire is certainly a possibility, but clearly "real" soldiers do not just shoot at different colored camouflage. They take the time to properly identify their targets before engaging.


In any case, I'm glad that this discussion is actually occurring.

[glassarchitect]

I actually really like your ideas, Gimpalong. That's something we might have to think about more in-depth.

[Master_Oki_Akai]

Armbands work in smaller games like rec or training games where you have a small number of people but the players there lack the ability to remember who is on which side. This is either due to poor memory skills or that the players involved do not have enough easily distinguishable characteristics, either in their equipment or behavior.

In a large game, they present more problems than solutions. Again, camo patterns are used to quickly group and identify players and their team affiliations. If they have half their body behind cover, you can still see their camo, though you may not at all be able to see their arm band.

Then if you have mixed camo on both sides using arm bands, then you have a distinct increase in the number of people going "who is that?" who then either wait for the target to get closer or more clear (which may not happen) or they just say "screw it" and open fire on anything and everything that moves. This sharply increases team killing and discourages teams from moving about the field in separate units.

Because it's frustrating not being able to quickly identify enemies but it's no fun at all to be regularly shot by your teammates. And those combined in a large game just gets everybody pissed off.

Nobody needs to make any sacrifices to make these games fun. New players need to learn to get better and old players need to know that they have the option to spread themselves out in the roster.


When deciding teams comes in, we do not need to reinvent the wheel. There's nothing wrong with the system itself, it comes to players' individual choices.

Let's say they write it as "here's team A and team B" everybody pick one. Well then players just sit there scratching their heads. Then as names start popping up, people are inclined to play with people they know or recognize until the limit for one team fills up. Game imbalanced again.
Then you say "how do we tell team A and team B apart". That's why we use camo. It's just the best and most efficient method for events. You don't go backward.

Now you say "well team A has all the skill while team B has all the noobs". Well sucks to be them, every player her has the right to do exactly what they want. What is needed at that point is cooperative and conscientious players who have the willingness and ability to switch over or the desire to specifically play against their friends or those teams they recognize as offering a challenge. And if they do, HEY fantastic, great and wonderful. But that does not guarantee balanced numbers or skill levels at all.

Also, let's use gimpalong's idea as an example. Here's the camo you guys can wear, show up and we'll divide you up on the spot.
Now take into account that most experienced vet teams wear tan and that most noobs wear woodland (because it's cheap and easy to find). You still have the imbalance and if some vet players try to head that off and wear green, you may have an even more extreme imbalance.

More practically, consider this. One of the most consistent complaints at any airsoft game I've been to is the late start. The late start happens because a lot of people don't show up on time (shame on you). But if you start doling out arm bands or trying to divy up players in that situation, you're slowing the process down even further. Then you also get the players going "trade me armbands I want to be here" and that's just a mess.


Now what we do for big events is what we're doing. But what is required does not come from the administration, it comes from the players. You folks need to carry spare camo to play on either team as necessary. You have to be willing to switch teams AHEAD of time if things are looking lopsided. But you would also have to agree which players/teams skill levels are greater/equal/lesser than the others. That right there is just a pissing contest waiting to happen.

But if players are not able or willing to switch, either before hand or after the fact, then there's nothing anybody can do. The best the administration can do is try to move around minor camo sets to try and compensate and there is no assurance that that will be possible or help.

Like Sharky said, this is not so much an administration issue as it is a community issue for which we are ALL responsible.

[Gimpalong]

The trouble is that nothing exists to incentivize experienced players to "do the right thing" and balance out the teams themselves.

If players choose to play with their friends and "stack" the team that they are on, no negative consequences exist for this behavior. One might say that a disincentive is that players get upset about the imbalance and then self-correct next game. We have seen, however, over the course of previous games that this does not really occur.

In fact, players are incentivized to "team stack" because they are nearly always guaranteed a game in which they can shoot up newbs, seize all the objectives and "win."

Aside from the above suggestions, moderators could rule that the "stacked team" can only fire their AEGs in semi-automatic, they could place ammo/magazine restrictions on the more experienced team or they could eliminate the experienced team's medics and lengthen the "respawn" time.

There are lots of options available to correct team imbalances. The difficulty is selecting the correct one and communicating these rules to players in an efficient method. Doing so "in game" is really just a recipe for miscommunication, confusion and player frustration.

Luckily, at Arctic Squall, Canto did a good job in adjusting "dead zone" locations, etc, etc.

[Master_Oki_Akai]

You're absolutly right. There is no good simple incentive to spread out.
Let's face it, who do you want to play with if you have the option? With your friends or against them? With of coarse.
Do you want to play with good teams or against them? Again, with them.

Folks can call it "team stacking" or "not doing the right thing" but everybody has the free right to do exactly that. And they should have that right, so it's not about to be changed or taken away.

We as players have to self moderate to acheive good balances but it's not an academic exercise, it's all timing and chemistry which makes it luck of the draw. If players want to shoot up noobs, they can. If they want to pit themselves against experienced players, they can do that to.

Now the question has to be asked, how does one come to the decision that the team is stacked? Now in the case of Arctic Squall, it was obvious. Troub made the comment ahead of time and it got even worse at the event.
But you can't do something as simple as "here's team A, we know them and we know their name" and pit them against a group made up of twice as many noobs who have not had time to prove or establish themselves and expect it to be equal. And who is going to go up to Team A and say "hey, you're against Team B and they're better than you so you get more noobs to buffer the difference".
You're not going to go up to Immortal, Black Talon, Test or the Hellfish and TELL them where they stand against each other.

However, you are still right again, that when it gets REAL bad like it was at Squall, the admins can modify some rules to attempt to tip the balance through other mechanics.
We do that by changing respawn times, medic counts, heal times, artillery strikes, objective changes...
You raelly shouldn't arbitrarily go and say "ok guys, you have to use semi-auto only now because we don't want you to hurt the noobs" no. No you give the noobs some better abilities to make up for their lower skills/numbers. But the skill or number differential can be all that it takes to cripple any team.

And you're right again about communication. We aren't a hard nosed group that yells and cuses at people to pay attention during breifings, but maybe we should. When we can't get about a quarter of the players to even come OVER to listen to the briefing and about a third of those that do come up, do not even pay attention. And that's just their own damn faults for being lazy or stupid.
But it espands the frustration like you said when people don't pay attention and miss what their roles or abilities are. Nothing worse than a medic who didn't pay attention to what they could do and so didn't know how to heal. Or a demo man who improperly handles their ordinance and blows themselves and their whole team up at a critical moment.

And that's again on the players to do, either be smart and pay attention or be stupid and try to track someone smart down and get the information from them before they make a mess.

[Guts and Glory]

Pardon my interjection into this discussion, but having seen ammo restrictions and 'Semi-modes" implemented before, I can say with confidence that those measures will not balance anything.

1.Limited ammo: Reinforces the ideal of ammo consumption and coordination. Not exactly going to make the "uber elite super experienced" players play at the same level as newcomers. If anything, it just causes more frustration to those who enjoy playing without rants about ammo.

2.Semi only: Again, leads players to act more conservative when firing. An experienced player would most likely be fine on semi. I know I personally would prefer using semi rather than full auto all the time (unless it's cold of course). Furthermore, newcomers would be easily riled up when they find out their rambo acts are getting stopped by people firing less than 20 shots a game, leading to tempers flaming. Honestly, we should all be playing in semi more often, but it's the players choice, not something to be mandated except for the accepted fps restraints.

3.Medic elimination/longer respawn time: Sure, that may sound logical in text, but on the field, this translates into people spending 10 minutes of bleedout/respawn for every 1 minute they play. Nothing aggregates me more than instant respawns except for sitting there in the respawn zone for more than half the game because the other side feels they are being overwhelmed. The current system that Canto's group has implemented is working better than in the past, and while there is always room for improvement, restricting one side vs another is a step back.


Now, I've been on both sides of the debated team formations before, as most on here have. I've been on green teams full of first timers whom get demolished all day, and I have been on the so called experienced teams, watching them control the field before I even get a shot off. My point is, I've learned to deal with it, something everyone else should do so as well. If you find the situation at hand, such as your team getting demolished, then take charge and do something about. I can't recall how many times I have volunteered to do a sacrifice charge by myself just so others can advance mere feet. Man up, take the ups and downs, and have fun for just being there.

As for the whole camo issue, just bring two sets, or three in my case (and someday growing). Some people don't even have a set of woodland, they show up in whatever they can come up with from home and have a blast.

In the end, I know how some of you feel about the cost of playing versus the end results. I've been to several events that end up bogging down to just pelting each other with bb's. You know what, I still have fun. Teams will always be imbalanced, it is just something that a player has to address, by taking out more than one player at a time per spawn. ;D

[Bake Sale]

Here's a thought. What if to start we're first able to transplant even 3-5 tan players, just to give green a dash of leadership and experience so they know what to do with their numbers. Then when the remaining tan divides up into squads, the squads are forbidden from combining and attacking together. Experienced players still get to play with their buddies and noobs don't have to face an onslaught of 20+ vets with superior weaponry. Tan still has a good chance to win if they coordinate well, as does green for the same reason. No medic/ammo/fire mode restrictions and everybody gets to be on the team of their choice.

[Master_Oki_Akai]

So you force several players off tan, probably someone we recognise as skilled. So that takes a known player and kind of pisses on their day.

Then you say the rest of tan can combine and attack together. How do you regulate that? How to you qualify that? Do you go and tell the squads "hey, you guys can't get within 100ft of each other and don't fire on any targets the other group is firing on". Experienced players or not, there's no way that's going to work out. And again, it's nick-nacky rules that just become an annoyance, not a help.

It was kind of like when we had the limb wound system in the medic cards. To keep you from running or make you fire off handed. Those results couldn't be regulated so folks just ignored them. Made them count for nothing at all.

--
What this is effectively doing is punishing tan team for being made up of good players. You don't do that. Then it tries to make you think that the noobs problems are going to be solved by more experienced leadership. That's not how it works. Noobs have way way more working against them than that. You don't give noobs special treatment or try to "go easy on them". No, the only thing to do for noobs is for them to get better on their own. Until they do that, they are going to get rolled again and again and that's just the reality of the situation.

I train up new players whenever I get the opportunity, so understand where I'm coming from when I say that the best thing you can do for weak players is to not be one of them.

[Mirage]

When it comes to balancing teams, it doesn't always have to be the event coordinators decision. If teams are signing up for an event and they see that teams are imbalanced, have your team pull out their other set of camo and sign up for the slacking team. The luxury of signing up for an event early is that it tends to follow first come-first serve, so it depends on the later joining teams to pull out their woodlands instead of their brand new ACU's occasionally. I've also seen in some event threads a late joining team say that they only have tan, so if another team on tan wouldn't mind pulling out their greens to help balance the teams, that would be great... and teams make the switch for the benefit of gameplay.

Now when it comes to late arrivals/no shows, i've had this situation happen while I was hosting once. We had an overwhelming amount of Tan to Green, probably 2-3 to 1, but luckily the majority of the tan was in ACU's. I simply made it every camo against ACU, the teams were more balanced and it was a good day.

So all in all, there are ways of making the teams more balanced, but it also helps when the players signing up realize the imbalance and try and help by joining the slacking team.

[Gunny87]

Feb 2, 2011 7:14:17 GMT -5 Bake Sale said:

Then when the remaining tan divides up into squads, the squads are forbidden from combining and attacking together.

There's really no way that can be enforced. The mods really can't go over and say hey all you guys you can't play together?

Like it's been said over and over again it's up to the players to even out the teams. The most the event hosts can do is adjust the objectives to even out the game-play a little but that's the most they can do.

Normally when Immortal shows up in force, we have numerous times switched teams to help balance out the game. And other teams do that as well.

But there's been a lot of good ideas coming out of this thread.

I'm with Master Oki Akai on being against the "blind" rosters. Some way or another players are going to collude with eachother and find out before the game who's playing on which side so that they can still play together. You can't really get around that.

But the switching ACU to green (if enough players are wearing that camo) would definitely work.

And NO armbands!!! We're playing airsoft not freaking paintball here...

Oh and locking sides which Canto has done for the most part has seemed to work out pretty well in the past too. Not soo much at the last two Charlotte games because attendence was lower.

[Bake Sale]

I'm not trying to overregulate or piss on anybody's day or force anybody to do anything. It's pretty obvious that when there's such a large skill gap the game's not fun for anybody. I've heard multiple tan players complain about a lack of a challenge and I'm sure the green team doesn't appreciate getting steam rolled. I think two smaller tan teams might even things out a bit.

[Alex-(BM_5)]

Why dont we just use a different way of splitting up teams. For example use guns to split the teams. Guns historically used by U.S.A v. Guns historically not used by U.S.A.

[Bake Sale]

or split up desert and acu, those are the two types most often used by vets right?