Autobalance is needed for lobbies

[somber sentinel]

the match should not be allowed to start like this.

[left prawn]

It shouldn't start that one... probably a bug

[somber sentinel]

says unbalanced now with balanced teams

now its unbalanced and timer continued

[somber sentinel]

match started like this

[tiny surge]

5v4 is not unbalanced enough that it should not start; it's always worked that way

it needs a difference of 2 players

[somber sentinel]

point is its odd to balance lol

[tiny surge]

i dont follow. u said 4v5 was balanced and then 5v4 was unbalanced?

[tiny surge]

this one makes sense to me, that it shouldn't say unbalanced teams when they are balanced, but i'm unclear on what is wrong in the following pic

[somber sentinel]

its wonky how the balancing works with different size ships so im saying it should be done automatically

and im just pointing out that the numbers will almost never will be even so its a good idea to have auto balance

[lyric sun]

there was something weird that i noticed last alpha where if you became shipless you can be a part of a team but not show up on any list.

this might be why this is happening

[bitter girder]

I do not think autobalance is the solution, unless there is a solid Party system, as right now parties can randomly shuffled and split up in-between rounds.
The gamechat really helps to get the lobby balanced and started, and I see such community based approached as a better solution than the automation deciding everything for everyone.

[deft geyser]

With autobalance, you'll get the TF2 autobalance memes. Might be better to just prevent joining teams that have more players than the other team, and disabling the timer if the teams are unbalanced (unless everyone on the weaker side is ready), and the underdog solution from GOI. On the other hand, there will always be people who are either too stubborn to do the right thing or are playing with friends and don't want to split, or are utterly clueless. Perhaps a vote to autobalance the lobby if more than half of the lobby agrees? But yeah, looks like something's odd with how the game figures out what is balanced and what isn't.