Problem statement:
Players tend to have traits like being more offensive, economic, or defensive.
(Some players will know exactly in which category I belong, or also where others belong.)
The balancer only takes Elo rating into account, which leads to very balanced outcomes, but there can be cases in which apparently the Elos of both teams are equal, but the game is still imbalanced, fast, and not that fun.
I suspect in many cases when this happens, a lot of economic players are in one team, while the other is raiding well and fast.
Solution concept:
A rating of player traits could support the balancer to equalize the field more, additionally to Elo.
If you know games like DotA2, play style ratings are what I think of.
Each player gets
-
offensive / raiding,
-
defensive / turtle shell,
-
and economic (value)
ratings.
These ratings could be normalized from 0 - 100%.
Mabye offensive rating is 50% on doing 1/n damage in a game of n players, and of course capped on 0 damage and 100%.
Someone better with math can come with better systems here, I suppose.
Now the balancer tries to make teams with balanced traits.
Remarks:
I know this system is very complex and may never happen, I just wanted to make a post that maybe no one will read.
The system would need a silent start where player data is collected until the system can be used.
TL;DR: Additional ratings for off, def, and eco alongside with elo to assist the balancer.