MULTIbalancer [1.1.6.0] 30-MAR-2015 + BFHL

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by shadow2k1*:

 

ok i need some help here

i have the balancer settings for my TDM server set per these settings

showthread....ected-Settings*

 

the round that JUST went on, and the score was 400 to 257 and it did not swap the higher scoring players over to the other team.

so what i would like to know is, if the round is only a 50 point different what do i need to set this to, regardless of how many people are in the server. is that possible to set?

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by PapaCharlie9*:

 

ok i need some help here

i have the balancer settings for my TDM server set per these settings

showthread....ected-Settings*

 

the round that JUST went on, and the score was 400 to 257 and it did not swap the higher scoring players over to the other team.

so what i would like to know is, if the round is only a 50 point different what do i need to set this to, regardless of how many people are in the server. is that possible to set?

The TDM settings on that thread have Unstacking disabled. That's why you did not see strong players get swapped. Too many people were dropping settings into the plugin without understanding them and then complaining because things didn't work the way they expected. So, to play it safe, unstacking is disabled for the example settings.

 

You can try enabling it, but Unstacking is the most complicated feature of this plugin. You either have to master the concepts yourself or get someone to help you.

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by PapaCharlie9*:

 

Check out the result of this test:

 

[22:19:38 52] [MULTIbalancer] (AUTO) Count of matching friends for player BREMBO_PL in Hotel, found 2 matching friends (friendex = 1)

[22:19:38 52] [MULTIbalancer] (AUTO) Excluding BREMBO_PL, 2 players in squad are friends (friendex = 1)

 

using this Friends List:

 

cpm199 Thorick56 B6yHkepe JDMSasquatch thiagovalduga Triparadox Orion1Warrior JonathanBared wussypoo StaticHybrid419 BREMBO_PL ADF98 FacePainter TerroristBush

 

Squad Hotel on US: BREMBO_PL, FacePainter, NERO544

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by tygra09*:

 

Good day! We need your help! 24 players on the server, only RUSH mode. Help set up, please! And how to make sure not to touch certain players gathered together and those who are in the same platoon?

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by tarreltje*:

 

Good day! We need your help! 24 players on the server, only RUSH mode. Help set up, please! And how to make sure not to touch certain players gathered together and those who are in the same platoon?

First off al read this first;

 

showthread....er-1-0-0-0-BF3*

 

The use the following settings to begin with', but change the player count, and ticket settings

 

showthread....ll=1#post72788*

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by PapaCharlie9*:

 

First off al read this first;

 

showthread....er-1-0-0-0-BF3*

 

The use the following settings to begin with', but change the player count, and ticket settings

 

showthread....ll=1#post72788*

This is good advice.

 

An alternative is to wait for 1.0.3, since you specifically want Rush. The 1.0.3 version has major improvements for Rush, plus it has a Settings Wizard that would make it easier for you to set up Rush.

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by tarreltje*:

 

OTA 1.0.3 plsss

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Originally Posted by marrr*:

 

what debug level do I need to use to see that the scrambler is working?

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Originally Posted by dyn*:

 

I would strongly encourage everyone to turn debug logging on. I've had 3 people now come to me and say "they're being moved every round to the loosing team". If I didn't have logging turned on I would have had to take their word for what they said.

 

In once instance a player had 14 hours of game play on our server (over 3 days) and was moved to the winning side once and then to the loosing side 4 times. He kept telling me that he was being moved "every round". Each round is typically ~20 mins.

 

Then just now had another guy come to me with the same complaint. Looked into the logs and for 6 hours of game play he was moved 3 times. 2 times to the loosing side and once to the winning side. Each round is typically ~20 mins.

 

The reason I'm bringing this up is that if I've already had 3 people come and complain about being team switched every round, I'm going to guess others have as well. And before we take complaints at face value, I would advice everyone to ensure logging is enabled to double check what's going on. It would be a shame for us to quit using this plugin because people are complaining, and overestimating, the extent to which they've been moved.

 

A few ways to check and see how many times someone has been moved:

 

Open up the dated plugin log file and search for some of the following strings:

 

moving weak PlayerName

moving strong PlayerName

CHAT to PlayerName

 

Depending on how you have MB setup at least one of the strings above will display a result. If it's "moving weak" they should have been moved to the winning team. Then if it's "moving strong" they were probably moved to the loosing team.

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by xFaNtASyGiRLx*:

 

ya dyn, as you can see- I have already posted this problem a few days ago in which pc9 replied:

 

Is there a way for MB to remember who it balanced in rounds prior? It would be nice if MB balanced a person one round but won't balance them the next. I had a player who got balanced for 3 rounds, each to the losing side He got mad and ended up leaving saying it was unfair. And I did notice he did get balanced to the losing side 3 rounds in a row.

Well ... fixing that problem would introduce another.

 

MB could remember who was moved, but what if every eligible player from the previous round was moved? That means no one can be moved in the next round. That's the extreme case, but it illustrates the problem. The more people marked as exempt, the smaller the pool of eligible players the next round. What that ends up doing is that only players who joined this round get moved.

 

I know some admins like that and lots of players expect that -- let the new guys who have no time invested in this server be the victims of moving -- but I personally hate servers that move me as the new guy. I waited 20 minutes in the wait queue to join a server my friends have been playing on a few rounds, I finally get it in, then I spend another 5 minutes yelling at them in chat to make room in their squad, which they finally do, then I get autobalanced to the other team.

 

This effect is even worse for Unstacking. If all the good players are exempt because they were moved last round, there's no one left to help a losing team.

 

I'm not ruling out making this change, I just need to see a bit more discussion of the pros and cons. Some thinking needs to be put into how long a player is exempt. Move one round, exempt the next, then eligible again? Basically move on odd rounds, exempt on even? More? Less? Some kind of total?

 

It all gets very complicated.

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by dyn*:

 

My situation wasn't that it was moving people every round, it's that users were telling me (wrongly) that they were being moved every round.

 

People were just way over exaggerating how often they were being moved. One person told me he was being moved, literally, every single round... the logs proved differently. If I didn't have the logs on, I might have believed him. That's all I'm trying to say: some people are just so far off base from how often they're actually being moved. We need to double check.

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by HexaCanon*:

 

i think anything faster than 1 unstacking swap per 150 seconds is bad, this is from my experience.

 

everytime i put it to 2 swaps per group on 200 sec or 1 swap per group on less than 150 sec the losing team turns the table toward a base rape.

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by XRay206*:

 

Can i test the new MultiBalancer 1.0.3?

I have a 64Slot Rush Server with 300% Tickets

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Originally Posted by kcuestag*:

 

PC9 you have an email.

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by xFaNtASyGiRLx*:

 

Someone posted this on my forums and its been the general complaint on my aftermath server as of late:

 

With this autobalance, if you start doing good and pushing forward, all you do is get punished for it. Last game of CTF we lost two of our top players in a 0 - 0 game because we pushed up to the warehouse and onto their flag area, only to lose after the long fight because their points counted towards the enemy team at the end of the round and because we lost the players helping us PTFO so we had to sit back in the fields defending.

 

A few days ago, we had just recapped E and D on Azadi Palace against a clan stack, started making a lead of 100+ tickets, only to see our top players be balanced to the other side which came back and spend the next 400 tickets base raping because we had lost our entire defense.

 

If you're going to punish people for working with their team, there no real reason to play on your servers. =/ Not going to spend 30 minutes+ trying to win only to have it stolen from the team.

 

=U= rock servers shuffle after a hard loss and prevents moving to the other side no matter what. WcR shuffles team at the end of every match by spm, skill and whatnot. Then at least you can try as hard as you want and not worry about being moved to the losing side because you're doing good.

I do notice that the balancer does make for a strong comeback and the losing team almost always becomes the winning team. This is pretty much the nature of the chat everyday about the MB on this server. Maybe MB is working just a little bit too good? Could you offer some suggestions on what I can do to prevent this from happening too often? I am using the settings in the collected settings thread:

 

 

Aftermath maps, Conquest Large Normal, 64 players, 1200-1500 tickets

 

Version: 1.0.2.0

 

Enable Unstacking set to True.

 

3 - |Early Phase: Ticket Percentage To Unstack: 120, 150, 150

3 - |Mid Phase: Ticket Percentage To Unstack: 140, 130, 130

3 - |Late Phase: Ticket Percentage To Unstack: 0, 0, 0

3 - |Early Phase: Balance Speed: Slow, Slow, Slow

3 - |Mid Phase: Balance Speed: Slow, Slow, Slow

3 - |Late Phase: Balance Speed: Stop, Stop, Stop

 

4 - Scrambler|Only On New Maps: True

4 - Scrambler|Only On Final Ticket Percentage >=: 120

4 - Scrambler|Scramble By: RoundSPM

4 - Scrambler|Keep Clan Tags In Same Squad: True

4 - Scrambler|Delay Seconds: 30

 

8 - |Conquest Large: Max Players: 64

8 - |Conquest Large: Check Team Stacking After First Minutes: 10

8 - |Conquest Large: Max Unstacking Swaps Per Round: 6

8 - |Conquest Large: Number Of Swaps Per Group: 1

8 - |Conquest Large: Delay Seconds Between Swap Groups: 300

8 - |Conquest Large: Determine Strong Players By: RoundSPM

8 - |Conquest Large: Percent Of Top Of Team Is Strong: 40

8 - |Conquest Large: Disperse Evenly By Rank >=: 0

8 - |Conquest Large: Enable Disperse Evenly List: True

8 - |Conquest Large: Definition Of High Population For Players >=: 48

8 - |Conquest Large: Definition Of Low Population For Players

8 - |Conquest Large: Definition Of Early Phase As Tickets From Start: 300

8 - |Conquest Large: Definition Of Late Phase As Tickets From End: 300

8 - |Conquest Large: Enable Scrambler: True

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by xFaNtASyGiRLx*:

 

He is also talking about my CTF server in which I use these settings:

 

 

Capture The Flag Normal, 64 players, 3-6 flags

 

Version: 1.0.2.0

 

Note that CTF uses team and player points (Score), rather than tickets, to determine unstacking.

 

Enable Unstacking: True

 

1 - Settings|Unlimited Team Switching During First Minutes Of Round: 5

1 - Settings|Seconds Until Adaptive Speed Becomes Fast: 180

 

2 - Exclusions|On Whitelist: True

2 - Exclusions|Top Scorers: True

2 - Exclusions|Same Clan Tags In Squad: True

2 - Exclusions|Minutes After Joining: 15

 

3 - |Early Phase: Ticket Percentage To Unstack: 120, 120, 115

3 - |Mid Phase: Ticket Percentage To Unstack: 140, 130, 130

3 - |Late Phase: Ticket Percentage To Unstack: 0, 0, 0

3 - |Early Phase: Balance Speed: Slow, Adaptive, Slow

3 - |Mid Phase: Balance Speed: Slow, Adaptive, Slow

3 - |Late Phase: Balance Speed: Stop, Stop, Stop

 

4 - Scrambler|Only On New Maps: True

4 - Scrambler|Only On Final Ticket Percentage >=: 140

4 - Scrambler|Scramble By: RoundSPM

4 - Scrambler|Keep Clan Tags In Same Squad: True

4 - Scrambler|Delay Seconds: 30

 

6 - Unswitcher|Forbid Switch After Autobalance: True

6 - Unswitcher|Forbid Switch To Winning Team: True

6 - Unswitcher|Forbid Switch To Biggest Team: True

6 - Unswitcher|Forbid Switch After Dispersal: False

6 - Unswitcher|Enable Immediate Unswitch: True

 

8 - |CTF: Max Players: 64

8 - |CTF: Check Team Stacking After First Minutes: 5

8 - |CTF: Max Unstacking Swaps Per Round: 10

8 - |CTF: Number Of Swaps Per Group: 3

8 - |CTF: Delay Seconds Between Swap Groups: 300

8 - |CTF: Determine Strong Players By: RoundSPM

8 - |CTF: Percent Of Top Of Team Is Strong: 40

8 - |CTF: Disperse Evenly By Rank >=: 0

8 - |CTF: Enable Disperse Evenly List: True

8 - |CTF: Definition Of High Population For Players >=: 48

8 - |CTF: Definition Of Low Population For Players

8 - |CTF: Definition Of Early Phase As Minutes From Start: 8

8 - |CTF: Definition Of Late Phase As Minutes From End: 6

8 - |CTF: Enable Scrambler: True

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by PapaCharlie9*:

 

Could you offer some suggestions on what I can do to prevent this from happening too often? I am using the settings in the collected settings thread:

Make sure you have the Exclusion Top Scorers set to True. That will prevent the top 1 to 4 players on each team from being moved. If you did have it set to True, see dyn's post about people exaggerating.

 

Also, in 1.0.3 I've added a new Exclusion, Minutes After Being Moved. You will be able to exclude a player from being moved again for however long you want, an hour, a day, a week, whatever. This is the "across rounds" memory that you were asking for.

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by PapaCharlie9*:

 

dyn is my hero!

 

The reason I'm bringing this up is that if I've already had 3 people come and complain about being team switched every round, I'm going to guess others have as well. And before we take complaints at face value, I would advice everyone to ensure logging is enabled to double check what's going on. It would be a shame for us to quit using this plugin because people are complaining, and overestimating, the extent to which they've been moved.

I suspected that was true, glad to see it confirmed. In the three test servers I keep constantly running with the latest test plugin, I never see players move multiple times. One move is max for regular players, two moves is max for Dispersal players. I even added a debug command, "moves" that will dump out a report for every player, how often they were moved in the current round, across all rounds, and how long ago. That should put an end to these shenanigans.

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by PapaCharlie9*:

 

Can i test the new MultiBalancer 1.0.3?

I have a 64Slot Rush Server with 300% Tickets

... and to all others on the thread that have asked to test recently. Sorry for not replying, but I have my hands full getting the next version out. I have all the testing I need covered, thanks. You'll just have to be patient and wait for 1.0.3.

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by PapaCharlie9*:

 

what debug level do I need to use to see that the scrambler is working?

Level 6.

 

Or, you can type the "scrambled" command into Show In Log. It will show you the results of the previous scramble, if any.

 

The 1.0.2 scrambler is not very good, so my advice is wait until 1.0.3. It's much better.

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by PapaCharlie9*:

 

I don't mean to be teasing you, honestly. It's just taking a long time to get every single one of your requested features crammed into the plugin. Well, not every single one, but a lot.

 

Final testing is going on now. If all goes well overnight, I'll post 1.0.3 Tuesday.

 

A LOT HAS CHANGED

 

It's going to take a while to describe all the changes. This is just a superficial summary. The post #1 document is already updated to 1.0.3 (long story about why that happened, best layed plans an all ...), so you can read through that to get more details.

 

BUG FIXES

 

* Rush stage transitions incorrect/missed - major problem in Rush is now fixed

* Rush not handling maps with 5 stages - another major problem in Rush is now fixed

* Unstacking not respecting minimum player requirement - 4 players were getting moved for unstacking!

* Autobalance never activates due to unassigned players - now respects Balance Speed of Fast

* Disperse Evenly List should not respect Same Clan Tags In Squad

* Wrong tag matched from Battlelog (rare failure)

 

Those are the major ones. Dozens of minor ones were also fixed.

 

Everyone should upgrade just to get the bug fixes, particularly the Rush mode ones.

 

NEW FEATURES

 

I implemented most of the things discussed in the forum since 1.0.2 was released. Notable exceptions are HexaCanon's Whitelist vs. Dispersal List logic and Blitz's ticket loss rate detection.

 

* Settings Wizard - type in your mode, max players, max tickets and a few other details and presto, instant setup! Only works for balance settings, though. Unstacking would require an expert system.

 

* Battlelog stats fetching for player SPM, KDR and KPM added. Either All-Time stats or Reset stats, at your option. Works with or without Battlelog Cache, of course.

 

* Friends List - as per discussion in thread, now players without tags can be kept together in squads too

 

* Total rework of the Scrambler, works much better now (HOWEVER, see note below)

 

* Keep Squads Together - for Scrambler.

 

* Scrambler can be set to Divide By dispersal groups - as per discussion in thread, so you can have GUYS sent to one team and GALS sent to the other (those are clan tags). (Only lightly tested, might have problems).

 

* Scrambler can be set to Divide By clan tag - as per discussion in the thread, so you can choose one clan tag, CMW, and have players with that tag divided evenly between the two teams during scrambling. (Only lightly tested, might have problems).

 

* Exclusion for Minutes After Being Moved - spans multiple rounds, works as long as the plugin and Procon keep running

 

* Dispersal group numbers added to Disperse Evenly List - as per discussion in thread

 

* Changed Unswitcher settings from True/False to Always/Never/LatePhaseOnly - you can have more control over when unswitching moves happen. For example, Forbid Switching To Winning Team can be set to LatePhaseOnly, so switching is allowed earlier in the round.

 

* Each list can be loaded and merged from an external file - great if you have several servers on the same layer and you want your Whitelist, etc., to be the same

 

* Enable Metro Adjustments - for Conquest Small and Large, so you can have Metro in your map rotation without having to compromise.

 

* Don't enable unstacking until a load level is seen - this prevents weirdness when you enable the plugin in the middle of a round and you have unstacking enabled.

 

* Don't do dispersal moves if Balance Speed is Stop or Phase is Late - save those Colonel 100's from being moved during the last 10 tickets of the round.

 

* Same Clan Tags For Rank Dispersal - Exclusion, keep those Colonel 100's together if they have the same tag

 

* External file logging - you can log to another file that you specify as well as to plugin.log.

 

* New Show In Log commands - moved, a report on players who have been moved by the plugin, and lists, writes all the lists, including merges from external files, dispersal groups, friends lists, etc. Also, Show In Log has been renamed Show Command In Log, a bit clearer.

 

 

 

NOTE ABOUT THE SCRAMBLER: While it works much better now, it is impossible to get it to work perfectly. Since it is a very dynamic situation, with players rapidly leaving, some joining, and the game server itself moving players out from under the plugin, usually to another squad, it's impossible to get it right every time. It works pretty well, particularly if you have the Delay Seconds set to just the right amount to get past all the players leaving, but not so long that the game server starts screwing things up. Just understand that if every now and then you get split up from your squad mates, it ain't my fault! There's not anything I can do to prevent the game server from moving players after the plugin has done it's moves, so unless you want me to admin.kill everyone when they spawn and sort them out then, this is the best that can be expected.

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by tarreltje*:

 

Looks promising

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Originally Posted by HexaCanon*:

 

the description for "Ticket Percentage To Unstack" in "3 - Round Phase and Population Settings" can you add an example of how to calculate it ?

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Originally Posted by xFaNtASyGiRLx*:

 

Make sure you have the Exclusion Top Scorers set to True. That will prevent the top 1 to 4 players on each team from being moved. If you did have it set to True, see dyn's post about people exaggerating.

 

Also, in 1.0.3 I've added a new Exclusion, Minutes After Being Moved. You will be able to exclude a player from being moved again for however long you want, an hour, a day, a week, whatever. This is the "across rounds" memory that you were asking for.

It is set to true. I don't think there's exaggeration based on what I'm reading in chat and new people coming to my forums to post the same thing.

 

The complaints I'm seeing isn't being moved more than once but being moved after working hard to win and then the losing side becoming the winning side, more times than not.

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by kcuestag*:

 

New version looks promising, personally I love the following new features:

 

- Keep Squads Together - for Scrambler (This was my major complaint here, thank you PC9!)

- Minutes After Being Moved - This is awesome so you can set it to not move someone more than once per hour or so!

 

 

 

Thanks for your hard work PC9!

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by shadow2k1*:

 

The TDM settings on that thread have Unstacking disabled. That's why you did not see strong players get swapped. Too many people were dropping settings into the plugin without understanding them and then complaining because things didn't work the way they expected. So, to play it safe, unstacking is disabled for the example settings.

 

You can try enabling it, but Unstacking is the most complicated feature of this plugin. You either have to master the concepts yourself or get someone to help you.

is there anyone that can assist how to properly configure the unstacking feature?

 

 

what would happen if the balancer and unstacking are enabled?

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by tarreltje*:

 

is there anyone that can assist how to properly configure the unstacking feature?

 

 

what would happen if the balancer and unstacking are enabled?

Use the Standard Preset, and turn unstacking on!

 

begin with 1 unstacking swap and 1 swap per group. So with this setting you only will do unstacking 1 time in a round and only 2 people will be changed of team.

 

Also look at your server what a good time is to start with unstacking, maby its after 5 minutes or maby after 10.

 

If this doesnt help much try 2 swaps per group, so then you switch 4 people. 2 from winning -> loosing team, and 2 from loosing -> winning!

 

 

Try this for serveral rounds. if the unstacking wont make the tickets balance more, tweak up a bit the unstacking, and try again for some rounds

 

Keep in mind its just trial and error!!!!!!!!!

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by PapaCharlie9*:

 

the description for "Ticket Percentage To Unstack" in "3 - Round Phase and Population Settings" can you add an example of how to calculate it ?

You mean like this one in post #1/Plugin Details?

 

Ticket Percentage (Ratio)

 

The ticket percentage ratio is calculated by taking the tickets of the winning team and dividing them by the tickets of the losing team, expressed as a percentage. For example, if the winning team has 550 tickets and the losing team has 500 tickets, the ticket percentage ratio is 110. This ratio is used to determine when teams are stacked. If the ticket percentage ratio exceeds the level that you set, unstacking swaps will begin.

Or this one?

For any other combination, such as Mid Phase with High population, teams will be unstacked when the ratio of winning tickets to losing tickets is 120% or more.

Or this one?

Only On Final Ticket Percentage >=: Number greater than 100 or equal to 0, default 120. This is the ratio between the winning and losing teams final ticket counts at the end of the round. In count-down modes like Conquest, this is the ratio of the difference between the maximum starting tickets and the final ticket count. For example, on a 1000 ticket server, if the final ticket counts are 0/250, the ratio is (1000-0)/(1000-250)=1000/750=133%. Since that is greater than 120, scrambling would be done. For count-up modes like TDM, the ratio is final ticket values. If this value is set to 0, scrambling will occur regardless of final ticket counts.

Sorry, I couldn't resist the needling. I added the Ticket Percentage (Ratio) section precisely because I knew people would want an example.

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by PapaCharlie9*:

 

It is set to true. I don't think there's exaggeration based on what I'm reading in chat and new people coming to my forums to post the same thing.

I meant the quote you posted from a player in your forum, "Last game of CTF we lost two of our top players." Very likely an exaggeration, unless they were on the Disperse Evenly List, which I see you have enabled to True.

 

The complaints I'm seeing isn't being moved more than once but being moved after working hard to win and then the losing side becoming the winning side, more times than not.

1.0.3 gives you a setting to deal with that, the Exclusion Minutes After Being Moved.

[ImportBot]

Originally Posted by PapaCharlie9*:

 

Use the Standard Preset, and turn unstacking on!

 

begin with 1 unstacking swap and 1 swap per group. So with this setting you only will do unstacking 1 time in a round and only 2 people will be changed of team.

 

Also look at your server what a good time is to start with unstacking, maby its after 5 minutes or maby after 10.

 

If this doesnt help much try 2 swaps per group, so then you switch 4 people. 2 from winning -> loosing team, and 2 from loosing -> winning!

 

 

Try this for serveral rounds. if the unstacking wont make the tickets balance more, tweak up a bit the unstacking, and try again for some rounds

 

Keep in mind its just trial and error!!!!!!!!!

This is good advice for someone just starting to learn about unstacking. Some patience and experimentation will pay off.

 

I would actually recommend starting with 2 swaps with 2 per group and then double to 4 swaps, still 2 per group if that isn't enough. For Conquest, it usually takes about 2 swaps per 300 tickets to affect a difference. The swaps also have to happen in the first half, so make sure your Mid Phase covers the first 50% or so of tickets, less Early Phase.

 

I have in fact changed the defaults to match that starting point.