Rated Multiplayer

[Dullahan10]

Hi everyone,

This is my first time writing to this forum, so thanks to everyone that makes this awesome game possible!

Now, to the topic. I've searched and I found nothing about the topic hence I created a new one.

We often see players having lower or no ranking when in reality they are very good ones. This not only makes it hard to balance multiplayer games but also usually makes them very "unfair" and not fun at all (for both teams I guess). My question here is: would it be a possibility to add support for rated multiplayer games instead of only 1-on-1s? I understand that the adjustment to the rankings is not as simple, but a fair logic shouldn't be hard to find (maybe something that takes into account the current ranking of each player and also their points in the game when compared to the total points of all players in the game as well). I believe that this would make the ranking fairer and closer to reality. Thanks for your time and waiting on your feedback.

Best regards,

Dullahan10

[alre]

it shouldn't be hard. i remember @edoput and friends (ping @Mentula) tried that already maybe a year ago, I could definitely edit the ranking algorithm to include team games (multiplayer is not the correct word btw). we have mainly two problems:

- this could multiply the cases of ranking offence claims

- everytime a change to the ranking system is discussed, it never gets out the bog of discussions. I'm not sure how or if the lobby code is maintained.

[Stan`]

@Dunedan @user1 @rossenburg

[Player of 0AD]

5 hours ago, alre said:

 

- this could multiply the cases of ranking offence claims

 

It could also reduce them: Only the host can be a "quitter". People will prefer playing with trusted hosts. Hosts will have a big audience so its not good for the reputation to quit such a match.

[rossenburg]

It's basically possible but as @Player of 0AD said, when the game host lost connection or quits the game how do we handle such a case? Maybe it can be worked around , only if a game session can remain active for atleast 10mins when the host leaves ( which is not possible so far ), then in that case the remaining players can decide if it was a rage quit or a connection lost and if within that 10mins the host manage  to rejoin the game then maybe the game continues just like how it does in 1v1, and about how the rating will be calculated, just like 1v1, in 4v4 TG each player matches the opponent accordingly but it will be a little bias if a player has 1800 ratings and looses 40points to a player who has 1200, whiles a player who has 1200 loose 14 points to 1800+ player, or well maybe we can set a constant point, example 20 rating points from each teams, and the winning team gets 40 points shared among them considering the initial ratings they deposited will be returned to them and then they can share the bonus 20points earned ( 5 each)

Edited June 29, 2022 by rossenburg

[edoput]

Hello all. I sympathize with the idea of better matchmaking but as of now rating is meaningless for matchmaking and devising an "updated" rating would provide little benefit.

The lobby community is capable of doing balanced and imbalanced matches already but I am speaking with my experience. I am allowed to play with the cool kids and I remember usernames of good players. There is always some uncertainty in a game but I see no difficulty in matchmaking in the games I play in.

On 28/06/2022 at 5:23 PM, Dullahan10 said:

We often see players having lower or no ranking when in reality they are very good ones.

You can never solve this problem. Good players with new accounts are effectively new players to any matchmaking unless they share this info.

On 28/06/2022 at 5:23 PM, Dullahan10 said:

My question here is: would it be a possibility to add support for rated multiplayer games instead of only 1-on-1s?

Yes and no. Online games like HALO (and many others) use the game data to give a skill level to players. This skill level can then be used for balanced matchmaking. There is plenty of literature on this topic and I recommend people read some at least to discover what problems are there. E,g. accurate skill estimation, game balance, resilience to skill manipulation, etc.

I have worked on giving players a skill level already. I have published the data here but is terribly outdated. The skill level was computed using a system called trueskill that I like but requires me to give an order to the players in a game to update their skill level. I chose to order the winning team first and the losing team second. Obviously this could be done better, e.g. give each player its own position in the order by only looking at the score.

This work was focused on providing a better matchmaking for my group when we were starting but I have little interest to continue it right now. I am available for questions if people are interested but I am not working on this.

To recap my post:

I would like to see good matchmaking capabilities on the lobby. All the work I have seen on this topic also hides the computed skill level to the players. I guess people would like to have it public but I think the current 1v1 rating is the only way to give a player a public known good rating.

I would also like to see a proposal for improvements to the current 1v1 rating. I think the lobby uses a ELO variation and there is definitely space for improvement here. I am in favor of at adding a "last 1v1 match" date to players profile or have the rating decay over time mostly because I noticed that 1v1 skill worsen over time (personal experience here).

If the lobby is interested in matchmaking instead (and they should be in my opinion) there is plenty of work that could be done even with something as crude as what I was doing.

That said there are bigger fish to fry for improving the game experience, e.g. reducing game latency (both networking latency and player input latency).

Have a nice day you all!

edoput

[alre]

what me and my friends did to balance team games back in the time, was to use fgod to access game replays list without exiting the pregame page, and then search for the names of the players we didn't know, if we had any previous encounter with them, and look at games summaries for clues about how they played. that was the best!