Population balancing idea

[klushy225]

As seen with the recent DDOS attacks, the population on the RP servers managed to balance somewhat after both servers were restored. We've been searching for a solution to the population imbalance for a long while now, and perhaps a more controlled yet less harsh approach could work. People join the server with more people, and it's hard to control that.  However, if we were to implement an automated system that detects egregious population imbalances and applies round start delays, maybe we could balance the population numbers without adding a hard cap or punishing players on higher population servers.

Perhaps the round start could be delayed to upwards of five minutes or less depending on the population imbalance, encouraging people to join the other server. Of course, you could always simply wait for the round to start and play anyway. Potential issues I see with this approach would be an obvious frustration towards a longer round start time. I have a few ideas to alleviate the wait and frustration, my favorites being:
1- Apply a 'cooldown' to the round start delay so that the higher population server isn't constantly in a state of round start delay.  - Perhaps it can happen only once every four or so rounds.
2- Reduce the delay as more people join the other server.
- This would make the full five-minute wait much rarer.

There are many ways this could go wrong, and I am not married to this idea at all. Something like this may have already been proposed, I'm not too sure. Either way, if it's a stupid idea, say why it is instead of just calling it dumb, please.

Edit: These ideas aren't final, simply ideas! Further refinement would definitely be needed.

[Drunkangel]

I'm personally of the opinion that the round-start timer could be longer in general. As it is if you just finished in one round and wanted to get in on the start of another. It's a bit of a dash to get a drink, take a rest-room break, so on. With about 100 minutes, close to two hours between them. It's very easy to miss the round-start and often means I just commit to late joining the second round I play if I intend to play two in a row (or just ready up and "wake up" a after 5 minutes or so if I want a chance at antag)

I honestly think there's a chance it might encourage the reverse. A longer start time may see more people seeing the chance to get antag and rolling in for it. Maybe I just want to see what happens but I am curious what this would do and I feel asking players to wait a handful of minutes before their 2 hour game dedication is a pretty harmless thing to play around with.

[Waffleloffle]

I don't think the average player who contributes to the exorbitantly high pop that 3 sees sometimes will really be able to tell that this is a mechanic and then meaningfully influence it? this conclusion drawn by me reading the proposal, Not Getting It, trying to visualize it from the outside in, and extra Not Getting It

tying round delays to pop balance seems like it'll just be frustrating to the average player. completely ignoring latejoin pop spikes aside, this just makes it seem like players get punished for wanting to play on the server with a higher pop, and the punishment is a delay. this just seems like it'll dissuade people from playing entirely, rather than incentivizing switching servers

[klushy225]

Maybe a clear status on the pre-round screen during said delays could clear up some confusion? Perhaps something like:
"Round start delayed due to population imbalance. You can either wait out the delay, or join X server right now!"

Perhaps the delays could be much smaller? The last thing I think we should do is punish people for playing on higher-population servers, I agree. However, if the system works, the delay won't be a common thing. And even if the delay is triggered as often as it possibly can be, the delays would be sparse as to not frustrate players. You could have a full six hours or so without one of these delays, maybe more.

[Solenoid]

Honestly, a lot of players will always join the higher-pop server. It's really hard to tell anyone "go play on the server with single digit player counts, of which half of them are probably spectators/AFK in lobby, so that the servers can balance more". I say this as a 4 main, people always refused to join 4 in the past due to low playercounts, and because they refused to join, the playercounts never increased until people were forced onto 4 by the DDOS. I don't think that telling people to wait 5, 10, or even possibly up to 15 minutes would get them to swap to the lower pop server, they'd probably just go do something else until the higher pop round began. I'm not saying you proposed any of these higher times, but even with them, the result would likely be the same.

From what I've seen, the general consensus is that no RP is better than lowpop RP. Lowpop leads to a lot of antag imbalance, a lack of action, and frankly, unless you know someone to RP with, a lot less RP. You can't kill anyone or the shuttle is automatically called, you can't find anyone because there's maybe only 1 or 2 other crewmembers on the whole station who are possibly alt-tabbed for 50% of the round in their departments. It's lonely, and sort of just feels like you're wasting your time.

I don't intend to be a doomer, or shut down discussions on balancing playercounts, as I do personally want to see a more balanced playercount on both servers, but I don't think it's possible to implement systems to force or incentivize people to balance themselves. I think most people would rather leave and play something else than play on a server for an hour and a half with nothing happening, and I can't really blame them for that. Though, it does lead to this unhealthy atmosphere of one RP server being, in my opinion, overpopulated for proper RP interactions, and the other one left with basically nobody playing it and nobody wanting to play it.

Ultimately, most players just want to go where the other players are to see the chaos which emerges over the course of a round. It used to be classic, then it became 3, and now, post-DDOS, it's 4. I don't see any harm in testmerging your concept, or trying out a few different pop-balancing methods, but I also don't know if it'd do anything to fix the pop imbalance. 

[Frank_Stein]

"Join this round about to start soon and get a free hat for your character"

[Cal]

tying round delays to pop balance seems like it'll just be frustrating to the average player. completely ignoring latejoin pop spikes aside, this just makes it seem like players get punished for wanting to play on the server with a higher pop, and the punishment is a delay. this just seems like it'll dissuade people from playing entirely, rather than incentivizing switching servers

got it in one. making people wait to play will please no one and just cause frustration

[Kotlol]

I don't see this work. The only thing you do is add frustration....

As someone said: Some might just be afking/spectating. ON higher pop I have cryo'd double digit people before in shifts and it's getting more common.
These are leavers of course but they are still TAKING A SLOT AWAY.
Actual afkers are unfreezable and I seen people do "locker naps" too much and are afk. As antagonists I see them as a free kills (even as RP), since sorry but... if you afk longer then 5 minutes ina locker.. you should have cryo'd. No Zzz = free gain.

If anything... we should just be more harsh towards afkers.
Not players who are playing the rounds and want to play.
If people are online, taking a slot and then go afk for 5+ mins. I think at that point you should just cryo.
I do feel bad for AI's who afk for 5+ and can't cryo or... have to go offline and now there is no AI core.

Eitherway.... I think we need to have afk checks to kick off players who afk too long in an active round. So they get Zzz'd and can be cryo'd.
As for afking as a spirit is free game. As you aren't taking up a slot in an active round.

[freedo5]

While the tomato tide was going on sometimes admins would pop by and tell people that they could switch servers during the round timer and I believe it did help even out the pop.

While we can't have an admin saying that every round we could have an automated message pop up (a very visible one probably similar to bridge announcements) after a certain pop threshold, something like:

"Is this server too crowded for you? Try out these others!"

---

"Join this round about to start soon and get a free hat for your character"

A reward could be interesting too, something cosmetic like the spacebux purchases

[Glamurio]

"Join this round about to start soon and get a free hat for your character"

A reward could be interesting too, something cosmetic like the spacebux purchases

"The carrot is better than the stick", people are more likely to swap if you offer them rewards rather than punishing them.

That being said, I have serious doubts that cosmetics will be much of an incentivizer on RP servers where appearance is 80% of recognizability, and anything you cannot consistently have at or near round-start is not worth making your default appearance.

What would move the needle however, are events, special occasions or even the illusory "antag tokens". A tangible incentive to make people want to equalize population. This would require automated systems or admins, though, and it can't just be "switch now" or else all you'll do is make 80 people from one server to the other, it needs to be a reward for averaging populations.

[klushy225]

I don't see this work. The only thing you do is add frustration....

As someone said: Some might just be afking/spectating. ON higher pop I have cryo'd double digit people before in shifts and it's getting more common.
These are leavers of course but they are still TAKING A SLOT AWAY.
Actual afkers are unfreezable and I seen people do "locker naps" too much and are afk. As antagonists I see them as a free kills (even as RP), since sorry but... if you afk longer then 5 minutes ina  locker.. you should have cryo'd. No Zzz = free gain.

If anything... we should just be more harsh towards afkers.
Not players who are playing the rounds and want to play.
If people are online, taking a slot and then go afk for 5+ mins. I think at that point you should just cryo.
I do feel bad for AI's who afk for 5+ and can't cryo or... have to go offline and now there is no AI core.

Eitherway.... I think we need to have afk checks to kick off players who afk too long in an active round. So they get Zzz'd and can be cryo'd.
As for afking as a spirit is free game. As you aren't taking up a slot in an active round.

I'm sorry but everything about this seems wrong to me- real life is more important than a video game, and sometimes you don't have time to walk all the way to cryo and need to go NOW. Killing afk players is- icky to me, I suppose?  They're completely defenseless. I don't think AFK people are the problem here, given the amount of chaos that prompts this discussion in the first place.

[Kotlol]

Yea it is, but if you are in a maintance shaft, inside a locker, away from prying eyes. That means you purposely parked yourself there and I am like: "Welp you could have done it anywhere else not isolated"

Heck I had someone do it once in a maintance shaft NEXT TO THE CRYO! Like.. bruh! I tried cryoing them but they weren't there.. so I left them. (wasn't an antag)
10 mins later they were still there...

Eitherway if you got Zzz above your head, I will leave you be or cryo you. If you aren't... and are locker napping and I find you as an antag. No "Zzz" = you left your fate to others.

But most of the AFK and Zzz's stay away for the rest of the shift and all they do is eat up a slot.

[klushy225]

What is the point to murdering someone who's AFK though? It's a very low blow. Cryo only lets you come back after five minutes, and someone might have just needed to run something to the kitchen but got distracted or otherwise. Anyways, yeah afk players are sometimes an issue when it comes to population imbalances, but not large enough of one to really consider when drafting up a solution. Of course there is always the option of simply leaving the population be, however, I think simply giving up on the population issue isn't great for the wellbeing and future of the community.

[Waffleloffle]

honestly I'm not sure that pop imbalances are necessarily an issue. sure, when one server has like 90 pop and the other two only have like 10-20, that's an issue, especially when the server that does is RP and the people joining from the server list treat it like classic. but when highpop has 70ish and lowpop has 30-40ish, that's a healthy divide in my eyes that doesn't need to be Fixed

[klushy225]

in my mind, the system would only be triggered in extreme cases such as a 5/100 pop split(which we've all seen before).