Forged Alliance Forever

Re: Problems with the Rating system

2018-01-20T15:36:03+02:00

There will be a dev conference soon to discuss this and other issues.

Statistics: Posted by JaggedAppliance — 20 Jan 2018, 15:36

Re: Problems with the Rating system

2018-01-20T15:12:51+02:00

So lots of proposals are on the table. Who's going to make a decision?

Statistics: Posted by Brutus5000 — 20 Jan 2018, 15:12

Re: Problems with the Rating system

2018-01-19T20:10:06+02:00

remove blacks and problem solved

don't need these 5 paragraph essays

Statistics: Posted by Feather — 19 Jan 2018, 20:10

Re: Problems with the Rating system

2018-01-16T17:28:27+02:00

I think for a game with a non-massive population, matchmaking based on statistical rating isn't very useful since there's low odds someone with similar rating will be searching at the same time.

I think we need to promote a culture where you fight the opponent you get, without worrying whether the matchmaker chose a fair opponent or not. (eg. in my amateur basketball league, there's a massive difference in skill between the top and bottom teams. Yet everyone still has to play each other, try their best, be good sports, etc.)

For smaller population games, I think the most you can hope for is to protect top players from bottom / new players, and vice versa. So a system like this:

* "New" players start at average rating, but have a special flag of "new". After a certain number of matches, they are no longer new.

* Players are sorted by their Rating, and then assigned into 4 groups.

* New Players are in their own group: Group N.
* Top 33%: Group A.
* Middle 34%: Group B.
* Bottom 33%: Group C.

* The game has 4 leagues. Players choose which league they want to participate in. Players are eligible for different leagues depending on their group.

* Plat League: Group A
* Gold League: Group A, B
* Silver League: Group B, N
* Bronze League: Group C

* If a player's eligibility changes (eg. they win or lose enough to enter a different group), they can change to a different league (but their league stats reset).

* Matching within a league is completely random. There is no matching between leagues.

* Success (ie leaderboard sorting) is measured by something other than rating. So Win/Loss percentage, or some form of "Season points" or whatever.

------

So in this system, top players have the choice of only facing other top players (Plat league), or facing top and regular players (Gold).

Regular players choose who they want to avoid. They can face top players plus regular players and avoid newbies (Gold) or face regular players plus newbies and avoid top players (Silver).

Bottom players only face bottom players (Bronze).

-----------

I think a system like this would have fast match times (since it's just random in a league) and also give players a bit of choice on generally what kinds of opponents (and teammates) they want to face and who they want to avoid.

I thought up this system mostly for team based games, where it's an important tradeoff to accept new players as teammates in order to face new players as opponents, or top players as opponents in order to get top players as teammates.

For a 1v1 game the choice is less balanced. I guess some players will prefer taking more losses for the opportunity to face skilled opponents, but I imagine that's a smaller number than those who like easy wins against new players.

Statistics: Posted by AdmiralZeech — 16 Jan 2018, 17:28

Re: Problems with the Rating system

2018-01-15T23:38:17+02:00

Team

Matchmaker

Statistics: Posted by TheKoopa — 15 Jan 2018, 23:38

Re: Problems with the Rating system

2018-01-15T23:01:00+02:00

you don't need a rating system if the community is very small and non competitive
FAF is still big enough to have lots of users who could easily beat several less experienced users even if they were to team up

giving users the option to play without rating would just lead to it being abused and then we'll have to deal with more reports from frustrated players who get stomped in casual games

at some point we'll probably obfuscate rating more so people give less of a damn about it

Statistics: Posted by PhilipJFry — 15 Jan 2018, 23:01

Re: Problems with the Rating system

2018-01-15T22:49:46+02:00

well no I can't opt out I still have a rating after my name. I'm not talking about a button to opt out more a permeant option that maybe that can only be reversed by a moderator. That way don't see how people could abuse it.

I have played red alert and TA before this online, neither had a rating system neither had a problem getting good games. Personally I feel this rating system often does more harm then good but I also understand that for some it is important. all I am asking it that you consider giving people an option to opt out.

Statistics: Posted by Shamble — 15 Jan 2018, 22:49

Re: Problems with the Rating system

2018-01-15T19:40:02+02:00

you can already opt out by restricting some random unit
giving people a button to have non rated default games would just lead to people abusing it

the issue is not rating itself - people taking it too serious is

Statistics: Posted by PhilipJFry — 15 Jan 2018, 19:40

Re: Problems with the Rating system

2018-01-15T19:30:50+02:00

Maybe you should just give people a choice, Not everyone wants a rating. Let people opt out of there games being rated and just simply display there name. I'm sure I cant be the only one who couldn't care less about this crappy rating system, all it does is spoil my enjoyment of FAF.

Statistics: Posted by Shamble — 15 Jan 2018, 19:30

Re: Problems with the Rating system

2018-01-15T16:55:50+02:00

PsychoBoB wrote:
JaggedAppliance wrote:Again my focus is on new players. How do we let people get into the community and start playing as easily as possible?

A possible solution could be to give newbies a fixed rating of e.g. 500 with a variation of 250 instead of 1500-+ with a variation of 1500. So they don't get a negative rating instantly after loosing their first game. And they won't get 1k+ rated opponents instantly at the beginning. After say 10 games or so an algorhithm can switch them to "normal" rating.

It feels to me like there is some problem with the matching system. Players start with a high deviation, (1500 mean with 500 deviation IIRC), and yet get matched within a pretty specific rating range for their first couple of games. Fixing this could be good, giving new players a lower rating than they get currently may also be a good option.

Edit: Brutus' idea might be good too. Overall though it's about making it easy to get the initial games, their rating will sort itself out pretty quickly after 5 or 10 games.

Statistics: Posted by JaggedAppliance — 15 Jan 2018, 16:55

Re: Problems with the Rating system

2018-01-15T16:52:24+02:00

I'd suggest to add a selection on registration to "choose your estimated RTS skill level":

Beginner (-> starts with Rating ~500)
Experienced (-> starts with Rating ~750)
Pro (-> starts with Rating ~1000)

Statistics: Posted by Brutus5000 — 15 Jan 2018, 16:52

Re: Problems with the Rating system

2018-01-15T16:30:43+02:00

JaggedAppliance wrote:
Again my focus is on new players. How do we let people get into the community and start playing as easily as possible?

A possible solution could be to give newbies a fixed rating of e.g. 500 with a variation of 250 instead of 1500-+ with a variation of 1500. So they don't get a negative rating instantly after loosing their first game. And they won't get 1k+ rated opponents instantly at the beginning. After say 10 games or so an algorhithm can switch them to "normal" rating.

Statistics: Posted by PsychoBoB — 15 Jan 2018, 16:30

Re: Problems with the Rating system

2018-01-15T16:06:38+02:00

why not hide ladder rating in game completely? yesterday Heaven in stream played first against 1000 rated player and then even against 700 rated ! like wtf!?

if I would get this rating against me I would leave, what is the point playing rape game? If I didnt know, I would not care

Statistics: Posted by ZeRenCZ — 15 Jan 2018, 16:06

Re: Problems with the Rating system

2018-01-15T14:53:47+02:00

If you make an intro that presents the client and explains how to play ladder or host game you probably will find that new players actually can find where to play instead of guessing and joining a 1500+ lobby because they have no idea what 1500+ is supposed to mean...
As i understand it, at first a player's rating has to be assumed to be 1000 +/-500 when starting out so we need to explore whether it is possible to give a score of 100 +/-500 for the first game and then after the first game's result shift to the 1000+/- assumption. That would avoid getting set vs 1300 at first because in my experience you get opponents generally who are +/-400 of your rating which is probably why when assumed to be 1000 rated they get 1300/1400 rated opponents.

Statistics: Posted by Evildrew — 15 Jan 2018, 14:53

Re: Problems with the Rating system

2018-01-15T12:40:16+02:00

Evildrew wrote:
What is the difference between showing low rating and low number of games and hiding it? The host will be smart enough to deduce this is a new player and probably not very good. So why would he behave differently??? How does he know which player to put vs which if he doesnt know if two players with hidden score have the same rating or 500 points difference???

Doesnt seem like sound logic, nor does your post show that you read what others have said. Seems more like you complain that some people have higher rating than what you think they should have and that you have this idea of yours already in your mind and dont care what others are saying.

All you really are saying is that ladder rating should count for global rating. In that case i think you have to give players the option to play Eq an Bh balance ladder games. Are you prepared to implement this? If not why not?

I think I made a mistake including the overrated players in this thread. Honestly they are my least concern. My focus is on new players. I would like to hide their rating just for the initial games to try and avoid them instantly getting a negative rating. I'm not worried about people trying to manually balance someone with 5 games, that's already an impossible task.

Somehow making ladder count for global rating means there needs to be ladders for balance mods? I honestly can't understand you at all here.

Again my focus is on new players. How do we let people get into the community and start playing as easily as possible? It is very difficult to get into a game if you have no global rating. It can be difficult to find your first game on the ladder matchmaker because you have to be matched with some 1300/1400 player for your first match for no good reason. If we allow players to be matched with a wide range of players initially then they can start playing ladder faster. If we allow ladder to influence global rating again then players will always have a way to get some rating so they can actually go and join custom games without nearly as much difficulty.

Anihilnine wrote:
New players could get their rating by playing Sorian Rush

I don't want to encourage anyone to play vs AI.

Statistics: Posted by JaggedAppliance — 15 Jan 2018, 12:40