new rating system & diversification ideas for maps

[CookieNoob]

in order to save the suggestions from the slack discussion about the issue that the rating for players is not accurate when they only play one map or a limited subset of maps and are forced to stay on that map since they are overrated on all other maps at some more public place, I post this here:

in my oppinion a combination of different rating values is the way to go for the rating system (the weightening is just a suggestion):

• a global rating that is affected by all games, including modded games, ladder, restricted games (a real global rating) which contributes 30% of the displayed rating
  
• a map category rating (i.e. gap, setons, thermo, featured?, ...) which contributes another 50%. This is probably better solved by using categories for the maps and splitting the contribution evenly between different tags**
  
• a rating based on the number of players (i.e. ladder1v1, FFA, teamgames 2v2, 3v3, ..., 5v5-8v8 could be combined as they are very similar) with another 20%

in the client, the global rating and the highest map category rating should be displayed



An example would be a player that plays 100 games on gap only and has a rating of 2k there. That player has a rating of 2k (mean rating - 3* deviation) in the global rating and in the map category "gap" and in the "4v4 game mode". When he now joins another 4v4 game on a different map with other tags, he would have a rating of 30% x 2000 + 50% x 0 (map tags are not played before, so he has 1500 mean - 3x 500 deviation, this value will adjust very fast due to the high uncertainty. Approximately after 10-15 games the rating will already be in the correct range) +30% x 2000 ("4v4 game" game mode rating) = 1000 rating. If the game is 1v1 then he would have a rating of 30% * 2000 + 50%* 0 + 30% * 0 = 600 (this is not accurate at first and will take a few games to be more precise ofc). Keep in mind that these numbers are just arbitrary suggestions.




to promote non-gap games, maybe add awards to players that play featured maps (after implementation of the featured map thingy https://github.com/FAForever/client/iss ... -309060920 ). For example:

winning 2 games on featured maps on one day -> automatically get an avatar for 2 days (i.e. "diverse gameplay"-avatar or whatever)

winning 2 games on each day on 3 days in a row on a featured map -> get a nicer avatar for a week (i.e. "diverse gameplay master"-avatar)

The featured map pool can just be drawn automatically (randomly) from the featured map tab (which is planned by speed) in the vault and changes every day (excluding repetitions). Even nicer than just excluding repetitions would be to give each map a probability of 1/n at the start and when a map is picked, reduce its probability P by 90% and adjust the probabilities of the other maps accordingly factor for all other maps is just (1-0.1*P)/(1-P) . When a new map is added to the pool, it gets a probability of 1/(n+1) and all other probablilites are multiplied by n/(n+1)




**it the name of the map includes "the pass" or "thermo" -> thermo category, if the name includes "gap" -> gap category and there is only a handful of setons maps that are played. This way the category tagging can be automated reasonably well and in addition a few selected players can have a look at the newly uploaded maps and add tags for them as well (this is ~1 map /day so its not that much work). Other tags could be "survival", "adaptive map", "crazyrush"...

[Morax]

It's been years of patience for this to finally arrive. I approve as I saw the whole conversation in slack. Honestly, any attention to making the rating system improve is very much appreciated.

Thank you, cookie, and everyone working on this.

Might I be so bold as to suggest a small tax that discourages eg gap of Rohan play? Maybe limit the times it can be played at the beginning (if that's possible) so new players have to try new content? Think of it like a "trial period" where a new data entry into the statistical set needs to figure out where someone stands.

Yes I know we want choice to play what we want, but we are in an era where the setons cult are settling to get games. I strangely miss the days where the Seton elitist kept people away : )

[TheKoopa]

Why all this complication when you can introduce a matchmaker and make all rating come from that and unrank all global games? Like how every other competitive game works?

[EcoNoob]

Might I be so bold as to suggest a small tax that discourages eg gap of Rohan play? Maybe limit the times it can be played at the beginning (if that's possible) so new players have to try new content?

Gap of rohan is a great starter map, why would you discourage new players from playing that

[Morax]

Gap of rohan is a great starter map, why would you discourage new players from playing that

Overplayed: leads to becoming the only one played

[FtXCommando]

Who cares if it's overplayed. People can play what they want to play and trying to limit them in order to get them to ExPerIeNcE SuPcOm is not only hugely arrogant but also counterproductive. People bought (or pirated) their copy of FA and they should be allowed to play it in whatever way they find fun. Limiting what they find fun isn't going to make them experience some nirvana of FAF as they try to play other lobbies; it's just going to piss them off.

[biass]

Unfortunately map elitism is not going to help here, noone will play a map if they're forced to do so, you want people to host bEttER mAPs? You teach them how to host properly.

I like how you're trying to make solutions here, but i think they need more work yet.

[Morax]

So are you guys going to be upset when the "featured map" system gets implemented that discourages Gap of Rohan?

https://github.com/FAForever/client/iss ... -309060920



No one is going to tell people to not play Gap but it's seriously insane how much it outweighs every other map in the game. I am merely hoping it gets lightened up a little bit. Easy up, fellahs.

[moonbearonmeth]

I think it would be fair to say we are more interested in a positive reinforcement system. One that can be seen as encouraging and rewarding diverse gameplay rather than one that penalises games that someone, somewhere, in an ivory tower has deemed 'unsatisfactory'.

[Gorton]

Perhaps a reward system could be devised for doing a "quest" to play x number of different maps?
I don't know what would be a good reward for the standard player, who likely doesn't talk much in aeolus (avatar useless)