Right my primary example in this thread is going to be Team Fortress 2, but I'm sure other games have a similar plugin.
I occasionally pop in on a Team Fortress 2 server group that uses a Source Mod scramble plugin. The goal of which is to scramble the people on each team in case one of them is "stacked." It can be triggered by popular vote, frag ratio between the teams, and total round time before a team wins. So sure on paper this sounds great, one team has a lot of good players and is absolutely rolling the other, surely there is a problem here that needs fixed, TEAMS SCRAMBLED!
I however don't buy this argument. I hate losing as much as the next guy, but a lot of times I could point out where our team went wrong. We have 3 snipers 2 spies and no medics. Our engineers were all selfish and would rather have three poorly placed level sentries then a well guarded and set up level 3. We had no communication and didn't push together. Again, Team Fortress 2, I'm sure other games have other examples.
My problem with this whole stacking mentality is that it takes all the blame off you and your team and some how puts it on the enemy team. Fundamental Attribution Error and Self Serving Bias are strong with this idea. You tend to blame outside sources for your failure and your opponent's success. This kind of idea leads to stagnation. Now instead of trying to get better or trying to rally your team you type !scramble in the chat box. It would require too much effort to get your microphone and yell at the snipers to switch classes, or attempt to coordinate with your team.
A lot of times if you take the 1 to 1 skill of the stacked team versus the losing team there isn't too much difference. The stacked team is communicating more, has a healthier class line up, and the people work together. So in effect Scramble is punishing teams for doing what they were supposed to do.
Scramble is nothing more then a crutch and an escape route. Part of the fun of a game is mastering it, let me tell you rallying a team and coming back is far funner then simply steam rolling. So I always vote no to scramble. I've actively voiced my disdain for it, yet I see the concept behind it becoming more and more popular and its popping up on more and more servers.
What are your thoughts? The most common argument I've heard against it is "Its no fun to win." Well my answer to that is you can't win every time. What if the NFL decided that one team was doing too good at half time and so they scrambled the players on each team for fairness? Multi-player games have a loser. If your that loser you A. Blame others and get nowhere or B. Do something about it and try to get better.
I occasionally pop in on a Team Fortress 2 server group that uses a Source Mod scramble plugin. The goal of which is to scramble the people on each team in case one of them is "stacked." It can be triggered by popular vote, frag ratio between the teams, and total round time before a team wins. So sure on paper this sounds great, one team has a lot of good players and is absolutely rolling the other, surely there is a problem here that needs fixed, TEAMS SCRAMBLED!
I however don't buy this argument. I hate losing as much as the next guy, but a lot of times I could point out where our team went wrong. We have 3 snipers 2 spies and no medics. Our engineers were all selfish and would rather have three poorly placed level sentries then a well guarded and set up level 3. We had no communication and didn't push together. Again, Team Fortress 2, I'm sure other games have other examples.
My problem with this whole stacking mentality is that it takes all the blame off you and your team and some how puts it on the enemy team. Fundamental Attribution Error and Self Serving Bias are strong with this idea. You tend to blame outside sources for your failure and your opponent's success. This kind of idea leads to stagnation. Now instead of trying to get better or trying to rally your team you type !scramble in the chat box. It would require too much effort to get your microphone and yell at the snipers to switch classes, or attempt to coordinate with your team.
A lot of times if you take the 1 to 1 skill of the stacked team versus the losing team there isn't too much difference. The stacked team is communicating more, has a healthier class line up, and the people work together. So in effect Scramble is punishing teams for doing what they were supposed to do.
Scramble is nothing more then a crutch and an escape route. Part of the fun of a game is mastering it, let me tell you rallying a team and coming back is far funner then simply steam rolling. So I always vote no to scramble. I've actively voiced my disdain for it, yet I see the concept behind it becoming more and more popular and its popping up on more and more servers.
What are your thoughts? The most common argument I've heard against it is "Its no fun to win." Well my answer to that is you can't win every time. What if the NFL decided that one team was doing too good at half time and so they scrambled the players on each team for fairness? Multi-player games have a loser. If your that loser you A. Blame others and get nowhere or B. Do something about it and try to get better.