Balance works by giving good players bad teammates. If Firepluk was on his own with 2 coms, he would just dominate. Try it yourself, get 3 random newbies and 1v3 them, it'll be easier than the 2v2. Because in the 2v2 you have to instruct your teammate to use his half of the metal well, while in the 1v3 you have all metal for yourself.

quote: I suspect that it's trying to balance for average elo rather than total elo, in which case nab+firepluk will be seen as "more balanced" than 2 nabs vs firepluk.

Neither of these games are balanced so success at balancing is not going to look like much. However, I think you've got to agree that firepluk with two comms and full income is a much harder opponent than firepluk with a a low level ally.

quote: Neither of these games are balanced so success at balancing is not going to look like much. However, I think you've got to agree that firepluk with two comms and full income is a much harder opponent than firepluk with a a low level ally.

Not necessarily. If it were a map with larger startboxes then a person with 2 coms stuck together is weaker than two players that can have 2 separate start positions.

Also in this case the weak players were about equal skill so hedgehogs was definitely getting screwed. If it were a high level player and a low level player then the low level player might certainly be a disadvantage more than not, but that obviously wasn't the case here.

quote: Balancing for total elo doesn't make much sense in general (in the case of uneven player-number teams, which is the only case where the distinction is relevant). Three 2k players are almost certainly going to thrash four 1.5k or six 1k players.

Balancing for total elo doesn't mean purposefully creating ridiculously imbalanced team sizes. It should still balance for equal sized or 1-off if the number of players is odd just like it does now.

Two noobs won't be able to capitalize on the minor advantage of starting in separate positions. Two minutes in sfire will have twice the income because he knows how to expand and they don't know how to raid. Of course the entire point is moot because sfire just rushes BD and kills their coms and then the game is over.

I don't think that outcome counts as "less screwed." All of the three ways to balance this are the noob team gets screwed, all you can do is make it slightly less lopsided.

Maybe it really bugs you aeonios so you keep trying to find a general solution in another balance algorithm, but some problems have no solutions.

kill his com