Free Allegiance Forums

Hello!

/me waves

/me pondes the worrying lack of correspondence arriving in my inbox

For the record: We've had SUPER-EFFECTIVE pre-game autobalance working and in code since well before AllegSkill even saw the light of day. I've made a point of this every time someone asks. Post-launch algorithms are, however, far more tricky. I doubt that anyone working on such things has taken the time to think about the problems inherent therein properly.

THE PROBLEM IS THIS: Currently, ASGS doesn't pass a user's FULL rank data to the server. ASGS only passes the "lowest common denominator" single rank number. In order for any of our algorithms to work, we need at least a mu and sigma for each player to be passed to AllSrv.exe when a user is passed from the lobby to the server (or however it works). Until that happens, you're not going to see any movement in this area.

We have some post-launch balance algorithms which perform better than any system based purely on (MyRank) alone, yet I'm not absolutely happy with them. If someone were to demonstrate to me that there might be developments in this area, I'd be happy to re-engage in the research required to develop said algorithms to fruition.

Again, this requires that BOTH mu and sigma are available the the server performing the balancing operation.

B

Just to clarify:
This is NOT a pre-launch algorithm. This is a post-launch algorithm, probably the best one we have AND can use (imbal = auto/1/2 suck after all).

And, as I said before, this algorithm as its implemented does NOT use mu or sigma but only the available rank.

As baker said it might be BETTER to use an algorithm using mu and sigma but we dont have these and i doubt we get them while using ASGS as we cant change that.

Good luck!

P.S. Notice how you managed to completely ignore YEARS of research and experience in the field?

Again: Good luck!

In fact one of the reasons I can't be arsed to chase anything to do with ranking in Alleg is that EVERYONE has an idea which, according to them, is "TEH BEST TING SINCHAH ANYWUN INVENTED TEH RANKS!"

Do you even know what mu and sigma are doing? Do you know what they mean?

sgt_baker: Yes, having mu/sigma available on the server would be nice. But that's not what I was trying to do. I was trying to find something better than the existing autobalance=auto which can work in the confines of the existing codebase/ASGS implementation.

Bard: I'm managing my own open source project, and let me tell you: The sentence "Please don't code right now" is capable of killing any open source project. Be very, very careful when using it.
People contribute to open source because they think it's fun to code. Let them try out ideas, even if it's just on an experimental branch. Let them improve stuff. Coders want to code. If they can't code here, they'll move somewhere else.

We won't get a nice post-launch balancing algorithm if we don't even try to start moving in that direction. The perfect is the enemy of the good.

sgt_baker: Its just as ynik said.

I'm not ignoring years of research; as you said YOURSELF we currently can not use mu/sigma based algorithms so I thought we should go with something we CAN use.

This algorithm is better than our current autobalance=auto (post launch).
Why not use it until we can do better?

Thanks P32.

Actually, unless someone who wants to implement the mu/sigma based solution (including modifying ASGS) steps up, let's concentrate on the questions I asked in my original post:

the.ynik wrote:QUOTE (the.ynik @ Jul 22 2010, 06:02 PM) Do you think this is better than #autobalance auto, and should be implemented in R6 to replace the existing #autobalance auto implementation?
Do you think it's better than #autobalance 1 and stands a chance to actually get used?
Did you find any scenarios using the web app where it doesn't work as you would expect?

I think the answer to my first two questions is YES, this new algorithm is an improvement over the status quo. Feel free to replace it with something else later when ASGS/CSS make mu/sigma/stackrating/whatever available; but I think my algorithm (or some variant of it) is the best option we have for R6.

By the way: if my changes get implemented, server operators can still revert to the old autobalance (let users join side with less AS) by choosing:
Average AS Weight: 0
Total AS Weight: 1
Player Count Weight: 0
Flexibility: 0

I agree that the input found by Botzman is problematic; especially if no non-newbie is available on NOAT to even it out (not unusual for small games). We might have to decrease the weight on average AS a bit to avoid this scenario.
The problem here is that sometimes is impossible to really balance the game when a single player is joining; you'd need to let multiple players queue up and then balance them at once. I wanted to avoid that for the algorithm (don't ever force someone to wait). And remember that commanders and players can (and should) still watch the stack. This algorithm is NOT replacing your brain.

sgt_baker wrote:QUOTE (sgt_baker @ Jul 30 2010, 03:16 AM) THE PROBLEM IS THIS: Currently, ASGS doesn't pass a user's FULL rank data to the server. ASGS only passes the "lowest common denominator" single rank number. In order for any of our algorithms to work, we need at least a mu and sigma for each player to be passed to AllSrv.exe when a user is passed from the lobby to the server (or however it works). Until that happens, you're not going to see any movement in this area.

We have some post-launch balance algorithms which perform better than any system based purely on (MyRank) alone, yet I'm not absolutely happy with them. If someone were to demonstrate to me that there might be developments in this area, I'd be happy to re-engage in the research required to develop said algorithms to fruition.

Again, this requires that BOTH mu and sigma are available the the server performing the balancing operation.

That's pretty-much it. I'm sure one day there will be developments in this area, and we'll all need to poke you to figure out how to use them properly. In the mean time, ynik has a way to make autobalance less stupid using conservative ranks alone.

SGT_B I'm sure everyone and their mother will run back to you after sigma and mu are available, but until then shouldn't we atleast try to make use of what we have and improve the game?