The Balancer system

[laboRHEinz]

Hi, soz for the delay but my router died and I didn't have internet.
The balancer remembers each players PPH. Sure, PPH is not skill and that doesn't tell the whole story, but it's at least a bit related. The balancer stores players PPH for about 2 days. So, Borg, that's what you asked for, ain't it?
It as well shuffles players due to PPH right before the matches start, in order to have balanced PPH sums on both teams. That's a very good precondition to have a balanced match.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of leaving, late joining & switching going on during a match. This can't be taken care of by the balancer but impacts the match of course. Thus I strongly endorse what Thom said: Join the LOSING team or switch to it manually, please. That's nothing but simply fair. Some time ago, I tried to explain how to be a nice player:
http://www.ceonss.net/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=66
Hope you guys act that way and matches will be nice.

[borgqueenx]

i wont switch. i still find that lame no matter what you guys say...
but for the rest i think im a "nice" player.

exept for my ultra mega super skills though...

[laboRHEinz]

i wont switch. i still find that lame no matter what you guys say...
but for the rest i think im a "nice" player.

Just to clarify one thing: Reinforcing the losing team IS nice. Reinforcing the winning team is NOT. Repeatedly stacking the winning team is a kick, sticking to it is a ban. No matter what you think, Borg.

exept for my ultra mega super skills though...

you really consider your rox spamming as skill, do you?

[borgqueenx]

i wont switch. i still find that lame no matter what you guys say...
but for the rest i think im a "nice" player.

Just to clarify one thing: Reinforcing the losing team IS nice. Reinforcing the winning team is NOT. Repeatedly stacking the winning team is a kick, sticking to it is a ban. No matter what you think, Borg.

exept for my ultra mega super skills though...

you really consider your rox spamming as skill, do you?

well i stick with the losing team or winning team. i just say i dont switch globally
nobody ever saw me switching to the winning team. because i dont do crap like that. And if someone joins my losing team, i also say to him that i dont like it....in my eyes, its desame principe.
sorry for that, unless you add switching to the losing team as a must, i wont do that.
But hey everyone got his own world of opinions and lets stick to our opinion about ut2004 globally

and to be honest, yes i do think i have some serious skill in this game, although alot of people are better then me, like 7, rottentothecore, elect is kinda on desame line as me, Zoner is better ect.
Yes i spam alot with the launcher, and no i cant snipe. but it does get me the one of the highest score, i kill and build alot of nodes and kill alot. That has to be skill. Else my score would be low as well.
Dont read that post as being proud of myself. i dont like to brag to much that i begin to bug people.

Secondly, and going ontopic again: ^^
Why not make the balancer remember like 5 days or so?

[laboRHEinz]

having the highest score doesn't mean being skilled at all.
building a node gives u 3 points and taking one down gives 5. great. what if your node is down 1 sec after u brought it up? and what if your destroyed node is up again within 5 secs? gives you score but doesnt help your team at all.
damn I wished there wasnt this kind of scoring system.
Only thing counts is the teams victory. And I've seen low-scoring players contributing far more than the high-scorers.

[borgqueenx]

Spec me one day. I dont camp alot. Although i stick and fight at nodes in the hope help arrives soon, if its a enemy node. Dont say that doesnt help at a node linked to your base for example.
Also i kill myself wich decreases score if im tofar away from a node linked my my base and i cant teleport quickly.
Spamming and camping is one thing, but i actually aim quite well with the launcher. Ask others for this. And secondly im not bad with the minigun either, wich invlolves the skill "keep aim on player".
Dont want to give you a bad impression about me.

[Zon3r]

thats the difference between us, i switch to the loosing team, i NEVER join the winning team, if i cant join the loosing team cause of the balancer, then i wont play, not camping (except deathdome, killing people with lightning is fun and to be called a cheater), and imo killing someone with a minigun-rocketlauncher-flakcannon is not a skill, just spamming, killing with instant hit weapons is. soon i should get a new wireless equipment on 5Ghz, that should solve my connection problems, and i'll be back to kill some noobs

[Cat1981England]

I'm sorry, but there is a certain level of snobbery on UT when it comes to the mini-gun and rocket launcher, at the end of the day a kill is a kill. If that's your weapon of choice, good luck to you.

[borgqueenx]

I'm sorry, but there is a certain level of snobbery on UT when it comes to the mini-gun and rocket launcher, at the end of the day a kill is a kill. If that's your weapon of choice, good luck to you.

yep and i seem to make more kills then other people, alot of times.

But i admit, having skills in shocks and snipers comes way better in handy in the bigger maps - wich i like. But in close combat....

[7homasito]

you gotta know, neither having the most kills nor the most points in a match depicts your level of skill!
I mean getting the most points is quite easy - grab a big tank and respawn kill at a (in the worst case locked) node over and over again, with a bit of luck you even get healed while doing those despicable shenanigans... or grab the ion on OSR-Tanks-A-Lot and spam the tunnel, getting wicked sick in just over a minute... is that skill? no. does it help your team? vice versa! all this low-skill tank camping for "defending nodes" and some might call it won't ever get you a win unless you have others in the team who actually take the risk and attack enemy nodes (being killed quite often in the process)
another example: bunny-hop and link a node that is being attacked by a vehicle (=unlimited ammo) will get you alot of points. but does it help you team? not at all!
or grab a wgs nuke and shoot it at a locked node... you might kill a dozen enemies, but.... you know what.

by the way actually you could get 20kills and another person just has 2 - but he might inflicted way more damage and you just got the fragpoint for finishing him off with the minigun... that's why the scoring system is far from perfect, but it shouldn't matter if people would recognize that it's not about having 200+ score, but being victorious and earning it...
clever isolations (maelstrom-nv) and strategically brilliant moves, all that is far more valuable.

real SKILL in UT in my opinion can be devided into 3 parts
a) mastery of movement
this not only includes dodge-moves, shieldjumps and stuff, but also being elusive and also reading the map correctly and being at the right place at the right time (e.g. seconds before a nodes becomes vulnerable) - eluding enemy fire of any kind.

b) mastery of weapons
skilled players can kill with EVERY weapon in their arsenal, even the assault rifle. I've seen guys that have sprees with shield gun only. being a rocketeer is fine, it's your choice after all, but it's mostly just spray&pray and you can't deny that.
a big part of the weapons game is to anticipate where an enemy will be/move to! with triple rox at close distance you can cover such a big angle that it's very hard dodge that - and no skill whatsoever is needed to kill the poor guy. that is also the reason why so-called "noobs" choose flak and rockets - because they actually kill guys quite easily with it! by the way a very underrated weapon is the link gun... if only more people knew its power... *sigh*
hitscan weapons are - for a reason - THE high-skilled weapons in the game, because it takes a lot of practice to master them (try to do a dodging combo compensating your ping!) but they also deal the biggest amount of damage.

C) mastery of vehicles
certain guys have wicked skills with some vehicles...
ebola for example - as much as I hate his lame-ass playing style - he has wicked skills with the manta.
bitchx and e.smellofdeath (who some of you might still know) are masters of the badger and can drive that thing almost anywhere, just to name 2 they can get it to the LG spot on tyrant or onto the buildings on MINUS - it's crazy! I mean I have done this, too - but I only get it right 1 out of like 10 times...
all flying vehicles are a whole other area.. always admired pegasus for his raptor and cicada skills, while captain'04 is just a beast with a wasp or the falcon...
a true 1on1 duell in the same vehicles (with the same amount of health) will most likely end bad for you - unless you surprise them from behind or get help by your team.
a vehicle master can kill raptors with a cicada and so on... I could go on with this for days, you see where I'm going with this.



and actually there is another part of the game - the "secret" (yet most important) fourth part TEAMWORK which I already mentioned earlier.
there are a few noble players that help out their teammates whenever they see some fellow player is in need. that is: healing vehicles, saving a guy's ass that is horrassed by 2 or 3 enemies (with minigun in the worst case), cover the back or just link up with others linkers (which is far more effective than linking individually but - again - alotta peeps just don't know the abilities of the link gun).
teamwork also means sharing vehicles and - in extreme cases - giving them to teammates they know can make better use of the vehicle.
do they get a high score or many kills? often not - but they contribute so much for the team and are an important reason for victory after all, all while gaining respect (we all like people that heal our wounded vehicle!) and more or less while making friends.

now, borg, I hope you made some notes and ideally a checklist