The "Alpha" label is scaring off new users from trying the game

[alre]

1 hour ago, Stan` said:

I did not mean it as a dismissal. I meant that somehow players are playing single player and seem to be gaining something out of it.

@Langbart and @SciGuy42 did a great job porting a campaign to A27, hopefully will be available through mod.io

Yes. But from what I read you seemed to mean that the player base would increase, rather than not decrease. Sorry if it wasn't what you meant.

it's pretty much the same thing, because there's a lot of people trying out the game, but not as many that stick. I'm sure a single player campaign would also show in the players number.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

7 hours ago, Stan` said:

How so? It will not create new players. 

Well it could increase the interest in multiplayer. There are plenty of players nowadays that expect some kind of quick matchmaking option to get right into gameplay. But this would be a drop in the bucket compared to the interest in single player. I think many single player users really like the art and graphics for city building.

The main benefit would be to encourage multiplayer players to try competitive play more, and develop the competitive scene. Also, matchmaking is very streamable, so this could potentially contribute to viewing interest in 0ad.

[Stan`]

10 minutes ago, alre said:

it's pretty much the same thing, because there's a lot of people trying out the game, but not as many that stick. I'm sure a single player campaign would also show in the players number.

Alright that's fair, maybe I underestimate the number of new players in the lobby.

4 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Well it could increase the interest in multiplayer. There are plenty of players nowadays that expect some kind of quick matchmaking option to get right into gameplay. But this would be a drop in the bucket compared to the interest in single player. I think many single player users really like the art and graphics for city building.

The main benefit would be to encourage multiplayer players to try competitive play more, and develop the competitive scene. Also, matchmaking is very streamable, so this could potentially contribute to viewing interest in 0ad.

What I don't get is what is different with connecting to the lobby? Is it like you go get a coffee and now you're in a game and people are waiting for you to be ready?
Also, I'm not sure how to solve the level/rank/mmr/elo issue. With the number of people doing rating fakery, wouldn't it be a cursed option? You're here waiting for a nice 1v1 and you fall against a smurf of some top level player

Agreed with the streamable part, but is the performance good enough for it? And is streaming with all options off and atomic trees really something we want to show? Those are genuine questions

[Stan`]

1 hour ago, hyperion said:

That change was done manually and after tripping enough people someone wrote a script, it would have helped it it had been the other way around. Write a script, if the output is what is desired commit the result of the script.

Well that's what we've been doing since then => https://code.wildfiregames.com/paste/

And hopefully someday here => https://git.wildfiregames.com/wildfire-games/pyrogenesis-migration-scripts

[real_tabasco_sauce]

58 minutes ago, Stan` said:

What I don't get is what is different with connecting to the lobby? Is it like you go get a coffee and now you're in a game and people are waiting for you to be ready?
Also, I'm not sure how to solve the level/rank/mmr/elo issue. With the number of people doing rating fakery, wouldn't it be a cursed option? You're here waiting for a nice 1v1 and you fall against a smurf of some top level player

Agreed with the streamable part, but is the performance good enough for it? And is streaming with all options off and atomic trees really something we want to show? Those are genuine questions

Well for me, I would rather play a mystery opponent than browse 1v1s in the lobby, some of which might be playing on imbalanced or noncompetitive maps. I might worry about balance while this pressure is taken off in a matchmaking system.

As for ratings, yes, some decisions would need to be made. I think smurfing wouldn't be any more problematic than it already is. In a matchmaking system, their rating would quickly climb to that of their original account. I think it would be good to reset rankings with the introduction of a system like this.

1v1s are much better in terms of performance than team games, even to the point that its common to do 300 population 1v1s. Although you are right that performance would need further improvement for 1v1s to be highly streamable.

[Stan`]

3 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Well for me, I would rather play a mystery opponent than browse 1v1s in the lobby, some of which might be playing on imbalanced or noncompetitive maps. I might worry about balance while this pressure is taken off in a matchmaking system.

 

Well you'd still arrive on gamesetup, have the host set up a match, and get the same issue?

3 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

s for ratings, yes, some decisions would need to be made. I think smurfing wouldn't be any more problematic than it already is. In a matchmaking system, their rating would quickly climb to that of their original account. I think it would be good to reset rankings with the introduction of a system like this.

Problem isn't so much them gaining too much points, is you losing a lot to a 1100 player when you are 1800 (while in reality they are 1800+)`

 

[alre]

2 hours ago, Stan` said:

Problem isn't so much them gaining too much points, is you losing a lot to a 1100 player when you are 1800 (while in reality they are 1800+)`

Any automatic matchmaking should avoid matching players with strong differences in rating.

Also, new players should be matched against new players when possible.

By the way, there is a flaw, I believe, in the way the current rating algorithm computes the updates to the ratings of players losing or winning against new players. The fact that that player is new is not taken into consideration (compare this to how the new player rating receives stronger updates instead). The opponent to the new player should receive finer updates, because the new player true ability is not known.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

9 hours ago, hyperion said:

Worst are the ones like stone -> rock, don't think @Freagarach is guilty of similar ones.

This grieved me. I did not agree with it, but at that time I was pretty exhausted by arguing against stuff.

 

And...

 

I'd like to change it back from rock to stone and ore to metal... ducks.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

7 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I think many single player users really like the art and graphics for city building.

I'd really like to implement these new modes:

City Building

• Great for hours of solo play if done right.

Historical Battles

• Solo and online.

Deathmatch

• Another ratings ladder for people who enjoy climbing

Classic Mode

• Classic RTS mode. I started a mod for it, but ran into a few problems with territories and gave up.

[Stan`]

6 minutes ago, alre said:

Any automatic matchmaking should avoid matching players with strong differences in rating.

Also, new players should be matched against new players when possible.

By the way, there is a flaw, I believe, in the way the current rating algorithm computes the updates to the ratings of players losing or winning against new players. The fact that that player is new is not taken into consideration (compare this to how the new player rating receives stronger updates instead). The opponent to the new player should receive finer updates, because the new player true ability is not known.

I suppose the issue is that every user has a default MMR of 1200 I believe @Dunedan, @Norse_Harold correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm just wondering how it would work when there are little player available, will it wait forever for someone in your ball park? So if you're like 1600, you won't get in queue unless someone 1550 -1650 is there ?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

7 hours ago, Stan` said:

Also, I'm not sure how to solve the level/rank/mmr/elo issue. With the number of people doing rating fakery, wouldn't it be a cursed option? You're here waiting for a nice 1v1 and you fall against a smurf of some top level player

 

Well, there is rating fakery regardless. At least with a quick match option you don't have to wait 20 minutes in the match setup screen only to be smurfed. :lmao

 

[Stan`]

2 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Classic RTS mode. I started a mod for it, but ran into a few problems with territories and gave up.

Reminds me I still have a patch to disable territory visibility. The AI still needs it iirc.

[Stan`]

@rossenburg @Mentula @Atrik You have some experience with the GUI I recon it shouldn't be too hard to get the list of matches from the lobby and autojoin when a match is available? I suppose trusting the host is the biggest issue?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Just now, Stan` said:

I'm just wondering how it would work when there are little player available, will it wait forever for someone in your ball park? So if you're like 1600, you won't get in queue unless someone 1550 -1650 is there ?

I'd think that players can see that there are a low number of players and will know that the matchmaking net will be wider. Can even make it explicit in the matching UI. Click the quick match button and a little popup says "Matching you with a similarly-ranked player..." Then when there's no one near your rank, it then says, "Too few matches, widening rank criteria to find a match" or something. You have the option the Cancel at any point.

2 minutes ago, Stan` said:

Reminds me I still have a patch to disable territory visibility. The AI still needs it iirc.

Nice. AI needs it as well if we ever truly decide to add nomadic civs. They seem to be desired.

[Atrik]

1 hour ago, Stan` said:

I recon it shouldn't be too hard to get the list of matches from the lobby and autojoin when a match is available?

So the idea is to have a new button in main menu "Find a multiplayer game" ? @Stan` is this a feature you for-see as a mod? Or thoughts on a implementation in later alpha?

Maybe taking the matchmaking way have a lot of cons, but I believe too that the pros will overweight the cons, in the long run.

1 hour ago, Stan` said:

I suppose trusting the host is the biggest issue?

A player probably don't want to join any kind of games anyway. Sometimes in lobby some games are just some peeps meeting up, chatting or testing sniping technics.
There are multiple ways of addressing that last point, ofc.
One could be (but is pushing the idea) further: If its possible to have some volunteers to host some games when not playing, we could just make rooms hosted by them, dedicated to "Team Games" and "Duels". So maybe it's possible to get in same time, the availability of hosted games 24/7.
Hosts could then be "vetted" by the community somehow.

It could help draw more players in 0ad, idk. We could have a lot of pieces to make this happens, @rossenburg has plenty of experiences with lobby with his bots. @seeh was working on some autocivs presets so he can maybe make a automatic/vote system in rooms to pick settings and map without host being here. A first mvp seems indeed very doable.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

3 hours ago, alre said:

5 hours ago, Stan` said:

Problem isn't so much them gaining too much points, is you losing a lot to a 1100 player when you are 1800 (while in reality they are 1800+)`

Any automatic matchmaking should avoid matching players with strong differences in rating.

Also, new players should be matched against new players when possible.

One common approach here is to let new players play 5 random matches against anyone for 'placement'. I would think these would be for no rating, just 'placement' match, but I am not super familiar with the details.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

3 hours ago, Stan` said:

@rossenburg @Mentula @Atrik You have some experience with the GUI I recon it shouldn't be too hard to get the list of matches from the lobby and autojoin when a match is available? I suppose trusting the host is the biggest issue?

Hmm yeah it might make sense to do this within the framework of the lobby. Especially since there are no dedicated servers. Perhaps then in the event there is no 1v1 available, the player in matchmaking would become the host.

I also think it would be good to restrict the available maps (those that allow a rating) to a set of more balanced maps, perhaps the 'Best for MP' maps. I have seen players insisting to play polar sea in order to gain an advantage because they always play that map.

[hyperion]

16 hours ago, Stan` said:

Well that's what we've been doing since then => https://code.wildfiregames.com/paste/

And hopefully someday here => https://git.wildfiregames.com/wildfire-games/pyrogenesis-migration-scripts

This is much better than the past no doubt, still you can't expect users to be able to fix their maps created in atlas this way. I'm not advocating to not make changes for functional reasons but cosmetic changes are hard to defend.

[Stan`]

1 hour ago, hyperion said:

This is much better than the past no doubt, still you can't expect users to be able to fix their maps created in atlas this way. I'm not advocating to not make changes for functional reasons but cosmetic changes are hard to defend.

I don't, that's why I spent countless hours fixing mods. I suppose just like feature creep, open source projects can suffer from technically correct nitpicking.
But A24 was a terrible release in lots of ways, but mostly because of the amount of changes in it.

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

6 hours ago, Stan` said:

But A24 was a terrible release in lots of ways, but mostly because of the amount of changes in it.

It's not so much the number of changes, but are those changes worthwhile 

[Norse_Harold]

18 hours ago, Stan` said:

I suppose the issue is that every user has a default MMR of 1200 I believe @Dunedan, @Norse_Harold correct me if I'm wrong.

From what I've seen, every user without a rating has a default rating of 1200. That's what is announced by the Ratings bot when a previously unrated player attains a rating after a ranked match is completed.

Matchmaking systems rely on better enforcement of the rules than we have currently. At a minimum they should be accompanied with reputation systems where misbehavior is detected and punished, essentially quarantining the misbehaving players with each other. At a maximum matchmaking systems should be accompanied with dedicated servers and anti-cheat systems.

The current state of 0ad is such that the player base is responsible for a decentralized reputation-based justice system. I see many examples of players who refuse to play with each other, temporarily or permanently. This is a good thing, as it reduces conflict and punishes bad behavior. Random matchmaking systems ignore these factors in the decisions of which host to join and which players to participate with. Matchmaking would often put incompatible players together, since the master server has no way of knowing about the details of the social interactions that lead to certain players choosing to not play in the same games together.

Edited May 25, 2023 by Norse_Harold

[Lion.Kanzen]

4 minutes ago, Norse_Harold said:

Matchmaking systems rely on better enforcement of the rules than we have currently. At a minimum they should be accompanied with reputation systems where misbehavior is detected and punished, essentially quarantining the misbehaving players with each other. At a maximum matchmaking systems should be accompanied with dedicated servers and anti-cheat systems.

It would be excellent to look for unrated games, among novices who want to practice or players who are not serious about it like me.

[borg-]

Just add a blacklist, where you can't be paired against anyone on your list. This has been around for at least 15 years in other games.

[LetswaveaBook]

On 24/05/2023 at 9:18 AM, Stan` said:

I suppose the first one is a typo and mean solo playing? 

The first one is a typo.

On 24/05/2023 at 9:18 AM, Stan` said:

I suppose competitive 1v1 is just missing the "balanced" maps?

For me, the main issue is that 0AD encourages players to boom (with skirmishers) instead of fighting. After spending your time booming, the fights aren't that epic either as you send all your infantry against all opponents infantry.

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

5 minutes ago, LetswaveaBook said:

 

For me, the main issue is that 0AD encourages players to boom (with skirmishers) instead of fighting. After spending your time booming, the fights aren't that epic either as you send all your infantry against all opponents infantry.

 

This was going to be corrected by balance mod melee.