Asch and I are currently brainstorming ideas that will allow us to "balance" the teams throughout a round (without switching any players) and would like to know what you think about our current idea.

The goal of this process is to produce a balancing system that will cause most rounds to be competitive and close, even if one team is "stacked" a bit, and make rounds where one team completely dominates the other very rare. From my own experience, I've found the most rewarding and satisfying rounds to be those where the teams have an intense tug-of-war throughout the round and it comes down to the very end before a victor is declared. Rounds of the opposite nature, where one team is not able to put up a challenge, for whatever reason, seem to end with frustration for the defeated and are forgetful for the winners. If we are successful in this idea, then we will be able to shape each round so that the vast majority are always challenging and memorable.

Our current idea is to adjust player respawn time based on how well their team is doing. A player on the leading team would have a respawn time higher than normal while a player on the trailing team would have a respawn time lower than normal. The "leading" team would be determined by a combination of flag ownership and total ticket differences. The difference in respawn times (higher or lower) would be relative to the amount that a team is leading or trailing by. Hopefully this difference in respawn times between the leading and trailing teams would allow the trailing team to have more success in gaining a foothold on the map and becoming competitive on tickets. In theory, this idea would cause most of the round to be fairly close, and the "balancing" would only be felt when there was a significant difference in the success of the two teams.

This idea would obviously be welcomed by players on the trailing team, since it will give them a better chance to be competitive in the round, but it would possibly request the personal sacrifice of players on the leading team. If you were playing on the leading team, would this sacrifice be acceptable to you, for the overall benefit and enjoyment of the entire community? And what do you think about this idea in general?