Ladder Rotation/System Comments

Talk about general things concerning Forged Alliance Forever.

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Re: Ladder Rotation/System Comments

Postby Crazy Cossack » 08 Nov 2018, 00:54

Is the 1v1 ladder map pool intended to drive people away from the game? That is its current effect. What we get is a succession of absolutely humongous maps. I doubt anyone, other than perhaps plus 2000 rated players, is able to manage these maps anywhere near correctly (in terms of expansion, map control and tech-ing up). Most of the people down at my playing level (each side of 900 to 1,100) express dissatisfaction every time one of these huge maps come up. And they came up almost every game. An occasional one would be okay but to heavily load the pool with enormous 4 v 4 (and bigger maps) is excessive. The map pool is too big and the maps are too big (on average).

Some maps are absurd in size and artificial layout like Bermuda Locket. Other maps like Setons are well -designed maps but simply too big for 1v1 play. A map like Roanoke is acceptable for 1v1.

Basically, 40x40 maps are altogether too big for 1v1 play and this is recognized. There are not any in the pool so far as I know.

Some 20x20 maps can be suitable for 1v1 play. Roanoke is an example. Because mexes are concentrated on islands and navies encouraged (along with air) it is a manageable map for 1v1. Setons however is too big, even though it also a 20x20 map. What makes Setons feel and play bigger than it is, is the number of mexes, the broad expanse of land and the amount of hinterland that player has to expand backwards into to exploit. With Roanoke, expansion play, attack and defense mainly happen on and around the main islands. With Setons play can happen pretty much anywhere and everywhere (except perhaps the distant corners of the seas). A map like Bermuda Locket is absurd, both to look at and play.

A lot of 10x10 maps produce good play, especially if well designed. 5x5 maps have to be very well designed to produce good play. You will notice that most good 10x10 and 5x5 maps have central obstacles (like Syrtis Major), judicious chokes and interesting terrain without being excessively dominated by long plateaus, long canyons or even worse long, dead-end canyons.

The map pool needs to be no more than 16 maps at any one time, IMO. These need to be distributed as 4 of 5x5 maps, 8 of 10x10 maps and 4 of 20x20 maps. What's more they need to be good maps, well designed maps. It's not enough for the map to be bug free. It needs to encourage interesting play, especially some battles at each tech level. Massive amounts of expansion micro and Eco-whoring are not interesting play for the average player.

Average ability players players are the biggest cohort of players. Think of the normal distribution. If the map pool is designed only for elite players only, it drives away average players.

Final note:- Too many of the large maps put too much emphasis on air and air-drops, especially for expansion. So many of these large maps become an early race for air control and a race to execute engie air-drops. This in turn introduces a large luck element. If one transport with six engies is caught early and downed, then it's often game over right there. The player who lost the air transport is usually wasting his time after that unless he outranks the other player by at least 200 rating points.
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Re: Ladder Rotation/System Comments

Postby Platinumizer » 08 Nov 2018, 01:27

I personally would be happy to play only 20 km maps, so that might be your personal preference
P.S. one more bad word about Bermuda ...
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Re: Ladder Rotation/System Comments

Postby FtXCommando » 08 Nov 2018, 04:38

How can Bermuda be “absurd” in size when it got 10x10 playable area.

Yes, I mainly balance pools around the top tier of play. This is because lower level players don’t really have the game background to defend their opinions on how a map will play out and whether it will lead to interesting gameplay or not. That’s mainly why my team consists of players that are reputable players/mappers/both.

I recognize that ladder serves a dual purpose of allowing for competitive gameplay where a player can improve themselves while still trying to be a fun experience, and the latter part is why I made the public polls. Once I get a solid 60-80ish maps with poll results, I’ll start utilizing the poll results as part of the rating of maps. This way both the top tier and the general tier of FAF gets represented in the score of a map and therefore how often it’s seen in a pool.
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Re: Ladder Rotation/System Comments

Postby Fr0maN » 08 Nov 2018, 18:11

Map "vale of isis"(Scmp HAZ04) has different distance between mass on spawnpoint. I doubt it is for balance. The bottom player has an advantage.
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Re: Ladder Rotation/System Comments

Postby FtXCommando » 08 Nov 2018, 22:42

Thanks for the note; I’ll let the team know about the issue.
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Re: Ladder Rotation/System Comments

Postby Quant » 10 Nov 2018, 03:33

Is a map veto system being considered? I think everyone would be happy if they got to veto like 5 maps.

inb4 "ladder is supposed to measure skill on all maps" - Ladder is supposed to be fun first. Tournaments are for figuring out who is good.
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Re: Ladder Rotation/System Comments

Postby FtXCommando » 10 Nov 2018, 06:05

FtXCommando wrote:Sorry to intrude on this very active thread but it’s finally time to begin public discussion on potential ladder system replacements!

Currently the ladder team and I have created a set of 4 potential pools that could replace the current system we have in place. Before finalizing any voting on what system we will use to replace the current one, I wanted to let people see what we came up with and whether they had any good ideas on how to improve the options on the table. I do not want to have a poll with 1000000 options so I won’t be adding additional pool sizes. The ladder team and I discussed the possibilitied and we determined these were the rough sizes that would lead to the best atmosphere for ladder. If you want to change the ratio between 5x5/10x10/20x20 I’m willing to change that, though.

So, before getting into the pools, let’s look at certain features that I’d like to include regardless of the system chosen.

ALL POOLS WILL HAVE:
- No repeat function that makes playing the same map 2 times in a row impossible.
- A veto system
- Rotations are done by the script that ladder team is currently utilizing to pick pools. Higher rated maps are more likely to get slots than lower rated ones.

I think most of this is self-explanatory and relatively uncontroversial. The goal is to improve the game variety on ladder while introducing a level of control for the individual player. Hopefully this means that people will be encouraged to play ladder rather than be intimidated or discouraged by some map choice.

So here are the systems we have decided to consider for the future:

The parenthesis are the maps from 5x5 to 20x20.

SMALL:
7 maps (2/4/1)
1 veto
Rotated every two weeks

MEDIUM:
25 maps (8/12/5)
3 vetos
Rotated every four weeks

LARGE:
45 maps (15/20/10)
7 vetos
Rotated every eight weeks

SUPERSIZE:
70 map pool (25/30/15)
10 vetos
15 maps get rotated out every eight weeks

You pick 15 maps you want to play, opponent picks 15 maps they want to play. If maps overlap, they are given quadruple weight in being picked. Otherwise, if there is no overlap, the map pool is 80% a combination of your maps + your opponent’s with equal chance of getting any map you two selected that wasn’t veto’d. The other 20% chance would be the remaining maps that weren’t veto’d in the system. A map can also act as though it was “veto’d” by the fact it can be excluded if a person just played on that map.

Some math to help you digest the concept:

WEIGHTS:
total player pool (28-30) - (vetos that affect player pools + overlap maps) = pool size

(pool size) + (overlap*4) = total weight

1/(total weight) * .8 = real weight for unpicked maps

4/(total weight) * .8 = real weight for overlap

80% decided by choice

20% decided by pool:

40 - (leftover vetos) = total maps
20/(total maps) = weight of getting a map from the overall ladder pool

SCENARIO:
2 players (A and B) match up. They both have 15 map pools. Player B vetos 2 maps in Player A’s pool and Player A vetos 5 maps in Player B’s pool. They also have 5 maps that overlap with one another.

(A) 15 maps - 13 after veto - 8 after overlap

(B) 15 maps - 10 after veto - 5 after overlap

(C) 40 maps - 27 after veto

30 map pool - (7 + 2(5)) = 13

13 + 5*4 = 33

1/33 * .8 = (2.4%) chance of getting a picked map
4/33 * .8 = (9.7%) chance of getting an overlap map
20/27 = (.74%) chance of getting an unpicked map

Keep in mind that after we decide what system to use through the vote, we will have to wait for the system to be created by the devs. Until it is created, we will use the current 30 map pool system as a transition system.

Let me know any comments or concerns.


I’m waiting for promo seat to be filled before DOIN anything about the vote.
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Re: Ladder Rotation/System Comments

Postby sasin » 15 Nov 2018, 06:56

Haven't seen if this has come up before, but I think it'd be a really good idea to restrict the map pool for newer/lower rated players. Having soo many maps when people are seeing them all for the first time, while working on basic mechanics, is a bit much. I know for heroes of the storm, and probably other ranked games, they put newer players in a smaller pool so they are less overwhelmed.

I have a friend who is trying to get into ladder and he gets really discouraged/frustrated with a so many maps, and can't get a focused experience where he feels like he's improving.

Maybe pick 3-5 maps per rotation that are the in the "new player pool" as well as the regular pool. Anyone ladder <1k has fewer maps?
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Re: Ladder Rotation/System Comments

Postby Platinumizer » 15 Nov 2018, 10:23

rating is not a measure for how long you are playing the game or how familiar you are with maps. there are probably a lot <1k player that prefer a larger pool, otherwise they wouldn't have voted for a large pool in spring.
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Re: Ladder Rotation/System Comments

Postby sasin » 15 Nov 2018, 23:06

Is that poll broken out by rating? Where can one see the results?

You could also use ladder games played or some such.
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