How to fix uneven teams on a WARDOGS server with automatic team balance

Teams on your WARDOGS server keep ending up lopsided: players pile onto the winning side, and the losing side quits. The game has no mid-match team balance: its only setting locks a team at join time, and nothing refills a side once players leave. RCON Hub fixes it: its WARDOGS Manager balances teams by skill, stops players joining the bigger team, and keeps teams even during a match.

Why teams get uneven on WARDOGS

Players pick their own team and can switch whenever they like. Friends and clans join the same side. When a team falls behind, its players start to leave. On one live server, a losing team dropped to 3 players against 19.

The game's own "Lock overpopulated teams" setting doesn't always help either. With only some teams open, it counts the closed team too, so the open teams can lock and joiners get pushed onto the closed one.

So the manual fix looks like this:

• Watch the scoreboard all match.
• Move players one at a time over RCON.
• Ask clan members to split up, and watch them switch back.
• Do it all again when the next round starts.

You end up refereeing instead of playing.

What the game and other tools leave out

• No balance once the match starts. "Lock overpopulated teams" only stops joins to a team that's already ahead, so a side that loses players stays short. Keep teams even during a match moves a couple of players at a time to the smaller team, those who joined last first.
• Head count isn't skill. The game and plain RCON tools only see how many players each team has. WARDOGS Manager rates every player and balances team strength, not just numbers.
• Clans stack one side. The game doesn't know who's in a clan. WARDOGS Manager finds [TAG]-style names, plus any tags you add, and spreads clan members or limits them per team.
• Moves that ignore the round. A move respawns the player, and a plain RCON tool sends it even in the last minutes. When a team is close to winning, Balance and Move ask first, and "Keep teams even" waits for the next round.
• A kill feed that needs a public address. The game server posts its kills to a URL, so a PC at home would need a tunnel. WARDOGS Manager can fetch them through ClanStop's relay instead, and builds ratings, fair-play flags with evidence and Discord match recaps on them.
• The rest of the toolkit. Plain RCON tools leave player checks to you. WARDOGS Manager sets a minimum and maximum player level (how). It kicks players with high ping after a private warning, ignoring short lag spikes and players still loading in (how). And it keeps full player stats (how): K/D and headshots per round, a timeline per player, and leaderboards on your ClanStop stats page. Plus join, leave and round-end rules, seeding rewards and more.

How RCON Hub fixes it

WARDOGS Manager gives every player a rating from their recent rounds on your server (50 is average) and shows each team's strength. Then:

• It suggests moves for staff to apply, or balances automatically when a round starts.
• Stop players joining the bigger team moves new players and switchers to the smaller team.
• Keep teams even during a match steps in when one team has too many players over the other for too long.
• Clans can also play together, and keep-together groups are never split.
• Nobody is moved more than your per-hour limit. Moved players get a private message.

Step-by-step setup

1. Install RCON Hub. Download it from rconhub.gg and run the installer. It's free for Windows 10 and 11.
2. Add the WARDOGS game pack. Open RCON Hub. On Your games, click Add game, pick WARDOGS and click Install.
3. Add your server. Open the WARDOGS card and click Add server. Enter the Server IP address and RCON password, click Connect, name it, then click Add server.
4. Turn on the kill feed. Click Set up the kill feed. It walks you through it for your server. Anti-cheat, team-kill checks and player stats all need it.
5. Pick a balance mode. Open the Teams page. Under Team balance, set How should teams be balanced? to Suggest moves, staff click Apply or Balance automatically when a round starts.
6. Stop stacking. Tick Stop players joining the bigger team.
7. Refill a team that loses players. Tick Keep teams even during a match. Set how many players over the other team counts as uneven, and for how many seconds.
8. Handle clans. Under Clans, choose Spread clan members across teams or Limit clan members per team. Click Save changes.
9. Check it works. Suggested moves lists who would move and the strength gap before and after. In suggest mode, click the Apply button under the list to make the moves.

Is it safe?

Yes.

• It runs locally. RCON Hub and WARDOGS Manager run on your own Windows PC and talk to your server over the game's RCON.
• No injection. RCON Hub never touches the game client or your players' games. There's nothing for anti-cheat to flag, so it won't get anyone banned.
• Your secrets stay put. Your RCON password is kept encrypted on your PC, and your admins never see it.
• Nothing runs until you say so. "Keep teams even" is off until you turn it on.

It's beta software. Back up your server's settings before you change things.

Fair teams, every round

Close matches keep players on your server. Download RCON Hub, add the WARDOGS pack, and let the teams sort themselves out.

Download RCON Hub 0.3.13 More guides