Ranked map randomness.

[Ze_PilOt]

Hi,

I was thinking of bringing more diversity to some ladders maps by making both spawn point random for maps that can handle it, like ranaoke, Blasted Rock, Eye of the Storm, The Bermuda Locket,...

Obviously, for maps like bermuda locket, it will avoid to place both players next to each other. But you can't know for sure where your enemy is. What do you think ?

[X-Peri-MENTAL]

I personally would say it is not worth the coding effort, the selected map you play is random enough for me. The fact you would not choose the next adjacent slot for an opponent would certainly make your opponents position obvious for all but 5 player maps and upwards and on those maps the first air unit out would reveal the spawn location.

What I would love though is the ability to bias the selected map like the ‘Thumbs Up’ and ‘Thumbs Down’ feature with GPGnet. Maybe the feature could be expanded as the map pool is much larger here on FAF, a player would have the option to order their map preference, this with your opponents map preferences and a random factor would decide the map. This would be my number one improvement to 1v1 matched games.

[noobymcnoobcake]

While it could be a nice little feature it will probably not add all that much to the game. I have to agree with X-Peri-MENTAL here.

What I would love though is the ability to bias the selected map like the ‘Thumbs Up’ and ‘Thumbs Down’ feature with GPGnet. Maybe the feature could be expanded as the map pool is much larger here on FAF, a player would have the option to order their map preference, this with your opponents map preferences and a random factor would decide the map. This would be my number one improvement to 1v1 matched games.

[Ze_PilOt]

I've said for map like bermuda locket. Others would be totally random.

Don't think of coding effort. Coding a thumb up/down is far more difficult, and probably will never come. (at least it's not planned for a near or far future).

The reason for this is that it doesn't make sense. On GPGNET, the map pool was small, not often renewed, and with only vanilla maps.
That's not the case with FAF, and it will need to allow at least 2 thumbs up/down to be statistically relevant.

And it wasn't even working great on GPGNET. I remember having Daroza on thumb down, and I've played it a lot.

At that point, just host a custom game with the map you want to play, it would be easier.

[Ze_PilOt]

If you need a math proof :

with 10 maps and one thumb down/up per player :

You double each map, so you have 20 maps. You add one more for each thumb up, and one less for each thumb down.

That mean (more or less) that you have 1 chance out of 20 to get your thumb down, and one chance out of 6 to get your thumb up and 1 chance out of 10 to have any other map (same for the other player).

Double that for FAF. While the chances of getting your thumb down is relatively low, the chances of having your thumb up are not that high either.

And more map you add, the less it have any statistical relevance.

[Zock]

I like the idea, but it might benefit the first bomber even more.

On maps like forbidden pass, you couldn't do random, but you could have 50% chance to use spot 1 and 2, and 50% for spot 3 ande 4 instead.

[noobymcnoobcake]

If you need a math proof :

with 10 maps and one thumb down/up per player :

You double each map, so you have 20 maps. You add one more for each thumb up, and one less for each thumb down.

That mean (more or less) that you have 1 chance out of 20 to get your thumb down, and one chance out of 6 to get your thumb up and 1 chance out of 10 to have any other map (same for the other player).

Double that for FAF. While the chances of getting your thumb down is relatively low, the chances of having your thumb up are not that high either.

And more map you add, the less it have any statistical relevance.

This is true. But how about we get an option to order all of our maps in how much we like them. This would statistically improve your chances of getting maps you liked a lot more.

[Ze_PilOt]

Why do a random at all if you want to play some specific maps ? That's why the custom is there.

Later, you will be able to host a mini-tourney (even for two players) with extended map selection options (random from map pool, random from selection, specifics).

[X-Peri-MENTAL]

Why do a random at all if you want to play some specific maps ? That's why the custom is there.

I don’t play Automatch for the random maps I play it for its ability to match me against close rated players, for the high match quality and the 1v1 leader board.

If you need a math proof :

with 10 maps and one thumb down/up per player :

You double each map, so you have 20 maps. You add one more for each thumb up, and one less for each thumb down.

That mean (more or less) that you have 1 chance out of 20 to get your thumb down, and one chance out of 6 to get your thumb up and 1 chance out of 10 to have any other map (same for the other player).

Double that for FAF. While the chances of getting your thumb down is relatively low, the chances of having your thumb up are not that high either.

And more map you add, the less it have any statistical relevance.

I don’t think the math proof you stated is an issue as a ‘thumbs up’ can be weighted. If I wanted to implement code that would only allow a player to assign one thumbs up and if both players selected the same map and I wanted to assign a 50% probability that map would be selected (let’s keep some randomness). Then for 21 maps the probability of map selection would be:

2 x ’Thumbs Up’ (one from each player for same map): 50%.
There is a 50:50 chance the players get the map they both selected or one from the remaining 20 in the pool.

1 x ’Thumbs Up’: 26.25%.
Each player gets a 26.25% chance their map will be played, there is a 52.5% chance one of the players maps will be selected and a 47.3% chance one of the other 19 maps in the pool will be selected.

This was only an example and the weightings in my equation might be considered to be too heavy but the point is the ‘Thumbs Up’ ‘Thumbs Down’ assignments can be made to be relevant.

I was thinking a player could assign four options: ‘Thumbs Up’, ‘Thumbs Down’ (like GPGnet) plus ‘Double Thumbs Up’ and ‘Double Thumbs Down’ due to FAF’s much larger map pool.

I might have derailed this thread a little but just wanted to a respond to your statement that the probability of making a selection would be insignificant.

Please don’t misunderstand me I really appreciate the work you and others have done with FAF otherwise I wouldn’t be playing this game anymore, I just think this feature does work with the larger map pool, but also accept I wouldn’t be doing the coding, my specialist language is VHDL.

[Ze_PilOt]

You can find a good way to do it, but it's still not planned.

It's not there in supcom 2, it's not there is starcraft 2, and nobody complain about the lack of it there.