Algorithm for even game matches online

[Xsxixmx]

in multiplayer online games you have random partners, so how about: an
'algorithm'? for matching up people based on skill level?

Gauge by : matches; wins; age; familiarity with interface {speed or whatever)

There is not a project page I know of.
I have not done any work on it so far
I am not a programer, and believe it is worth a try
Development is not underway to my knowledge, good luck

[qubodup]

Assuming the game is based on 1v1 matches where you can win or lose:

png.latex.png (1018 Bytes) Viewed 5461 times

The +25 is to avoid "/0" and to make a beginner's loss not count too much.

Also instead of giving wins = win + 1 each time a player wins, you can make it depend on the difference in player ratings:

Age plays no role (and can be lied about) and it might be hard to interpret player actions and time automatically.

[charlie]

Then you get rating whores who only play easy games to increase their rating.

What you want is a rating system that rewards high skilled players meeting high skilled players, and does not make it a big risk for a highly rated player to play a lesser rated player, yet at the same time discourages (or does not reward) picking on lowly rated players.

[oln]

The ELO system, designed for chess, is pretty common for games. It works reasonably well, but does have some issues.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/ELO_rating

[Bodsda]

Then you get rating whores who only play easy games to increase their rating.

What you want is a rating system that rewards high skilled players meeting high skilled players, and does not make it a big risk for a highly rated player to play a lesser rated player, yet at the same time discourages (or does not reward) picking on lowly rated players.

I have seen some shocking examples of rating systems that either allow stat whoring, or just plain don't work.

Dawn of War for example gets stat whored because the win/loss ratio for every player is displayed and players can pick their matches

Tekken 6 just plain doesnt work, my tenth match online was against a person with > 10k wins and > 80% ratio (my ratio was < 50%)- but players cant see this info until they are committed to the match.

I think a good system should be automated matchmaking based on games played threshholds and win/loss ratios - but I am not a good enough mathamatician to come up with the formulas.

Bodsda

[Sindwiller]

Most games simply don't need a matching system - many games have worked well without it way before consoles came into the picture as a serious online service that demanded automatic match making and hosting instead of servers.

[oberhamsi]

The ELO system, designed for chess, is pretty common for games. It works reasonably well, but does have some issues.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/ELO_rating

Seconded!

This (or variants of it) is what is used in chess and a couple of RTS games (AoE III). It's easy to implement and I enjoyed playing within it.