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This thread has covered a lot of ground.

I stuck the Shiz's comments in the sub title as this post came directly out of in game discussion with him.

I should point out a few things
-this was a beta server game
-the comments dealt with the balance feature (which is on BETA)
-open discussion on BETA features is encourage (this issue seems to be of more interest than most so I posted in general)
-I am glad Shiz was on the beta server and also glad he was providing feed back
-Shiz found a BUG that did not allow him to join either side (we are addressing that bug)
-this is our first stab at the balance feature, it will evolve

-NOT everyone is going to agree on how things should be done, not everyone likes to play together, not everyone has the same goals in a game, etc, etc. Ideally there would be enough people on so those of like mind could group together on different servers (sort of like they do now for cores but that barely works as it is). Unfortunately the fact is we DO NOT have 200 to 300 players on any given night. Thus either we learn to play together or we sit it out

-the balance button is an attempt to make pickup games better for most, is everyone going to like it? No. Just like some people think picking teams is a waste of time or won't fly if they were randomized (in the old days before it was changed to 'flush') and stuck with a com they did not like.

On the topic of creating a funtioning balance system, accurate individual ranking within the system is key. First, I'd make it so that only games run with the balance-feature on will be counted as part of a player's rank. This would prevent players from turning the feature off, setting up an unbalanced game, and artifically manipulating their rank.

Second, is it possible to include some ingame stats in the rank calculation? I don't know anything about the code which reports the data to adjust rank. If that's not possible, I understand - that's why you'd have to just go with a win/loss rank. However, if you can, I'd adjust the user's rank based on performance in-game. The game already awards points for some things, notably kills. I assume that there's some system for awarding points for non-kill achievements too, like nanning. Essentially, reward a player for achieving in-game goals. Good players will achieve more goals, thus earning more points. Finally, assign a bonus for a victory, and a penalty for a loss.

While more complicated, something like this will provide a better reflection of a player's skill, at a faster rate. I'll agree that just keeping track of wins/losses will eventually find the correct level, though. It will just take far more games before the averages become correct.

Again, this is the first stab at it.
We will add individual user data down the road (I hope).
The old Zone had stats, but when we got the code (by we I mean people before I joined the dev team) we tried to revive the stats. There were issues that were unresolvable at the time. It uses yet another application (Club) and as I understand it MGZ (microsoft gaming zone) code that we don't have access to.

Dog

From my best understanding of the system, ELO will work under the following two conditions:

1) Games which alter ELO are balanced according to the system.
2) Every player who joins a team flys to the best of their ability on that team.

I have a feeling that #2 will be more difficult to manage than anything else. As long as people are willing to play for either comm, it should work correctly over time.

Getting a balanced team is pretty easy and writing the code for it can be done pretty fast I think, however 1 item throws a spanner into the works : after-game-start-joiners. You can easily rig the autobalance button so that it creates 2 even teams (preferably with a combo of ELO and AZ type stats like kills per game/base caps/game/base kills per game/miner/con kills per game) however the @#(! really hits the fan once you have to balance late joiners. IMHO it is very hard to create a program that will NOT lock out a player occasionally AND keep teams even (in a skill based way, not ELO based way /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" /> )

Preferably if say Snack wants to join the same team as Culm (and both teams don't have any other ueber ho's) then the balance code should block him from that team. However at the same time Culm's team could be down in team ELO thus blocking Snack from joining the other team too. This creates a dilemma, had Snack joined during the autobalanced start he would have been put on different teams and everything would have been peachy /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" /> but now he can't join either team without causing either a skill or ELO imbalance. This kinda imbalance is very hard to fix unless you feel that player choice overrides balance issues (which I don't think it should). Having Snack and Culm on the same team creates an imbalance if there are no other int ho's around on the other team.

Personally I think the best balance program would take both skills and ELO into account, not just one or the other /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

Mmmmm problems /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

Grim_Reaper_4u wrote:QUOTE (Grim_Reaper_4u @ Oct 23 2006, 11:24 AM) Personally I think the best balance program would take both skills and ELO into account, not just one or the other /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

And now explain how you intend to determine "skill" objectively, as that is the main point here.

For instance, I'm positive half the population of Allegiance would rate you lower than you would rate yourself. (which probably holds for most players, which makes self-rating systems a no-go)

If you have an idea for a system that determines the value of a player objectively, bring it on.

And no, kills/ejects stats do not qualify.

Dengaroth wrote:QUOTE (Dengaroth @ Oct 23 2006, 11:48 AM) And no, kills/ejects stats do not qualify.

Now tell me why do the following stats (when collected in balanced conquest game of 10 vs 10 or higher) do not reflect a persons skill :

- kills/game (if you check the old leaderboards then you'll see a high correlation between being an int ho and having a high kill/game count)
- base kills/game (to balance the bomber pilots)
- base caps/game (to balance the cappers)
- miner kills/game (to balance the most important players in the game)
- con kills/game (nice stats but not so usefull /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" /> )
- prox kills/game if we can ever account for them (which i doubt) to distinguish scout ho's from the rest.
- turret kills/game if we can ever account for them (which i doubt) to distinguish turret ho's from the rest.

The only problem is that you can't accurately value people who nan and probe, this is bad but not using the other stats is even worse. ELO would be far better off if we used these stats to modify the balance process. The fact that i outrank Snack, Grimm, Champy, Ducky, Weed, Madacc, and BV probably means that ELO alone does not reflect my true skill /mrgreen.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="mrgreen.gif" /> /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" /> (or I am a hell of lot better than I think /owned-anim.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":owned:" border="0" alt="owned-anim.gif" /> )

Even if ELO would accurately reflect skill, those skills are of a diverse nature : we should divide int ho's, bombers, miner killers, etc, evenly across the teams in order to get the best balance. Why do you have a problem with this concept Deng?

Grim_Reaper_4u wrote:QUOTE (Grim_Reaper_4u @ Oct 23 2006, 08:40 AM) Even if ELO would accurately reflect skill, those skills are of a diverse nature : we should divide int ho's, bombers, miner killers, etc, evenly across the teams in order to get the best balance. Why do you have a problem with this concept Deng?

Because the people that can't fight in ints, kill bases, kill miners, or fly scouts need some sort of rank /huh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":huh:" border="0" alt="huh.gif" />

IMO, just bring back the AZ stats. I don't care if the nans aren't on the list, good players can do anything in this game. The nans you see in game are doing something even the AI could do. Reward people for being good at the game, not sucking.

TB

Read again Bored you are missing the point. Peeps still get an ELO rank but for balancing purposes AZ type stats should be used to supplement ELO and as such autobalance the teams in a better way than ELO can do it by itself.

Capice? /mrgreen.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="mrgreen.gif" />

_SRM_TheBored wrote:QUOTE (_SRM_TheBored @ Oct 23 2006, 09:05 AM) IMO

= In my opinion

Your point is fine and all, but I'm just sick of stats. Nice idea, but too many people want different things.

TB