Ranking system and balacing gameplay

[svenskmand]

I was just playing StarCraft 2 and saw this news in the game. It is about how they compensate for/use their ranking system when they balance the game. It is not technical but gives some good ideas, for what to take into account, I think we should use the Elo (or some variant) ranking system in OpenDungeons when we get there. This post is primary a reminder of SC2 news above, when we need to consider ranking and finer balancing, and when we have the player base for this to make sense.

[Skorpio]

I'm against the implementation of an open Elo or other ranking system. I've played other games with an Elo system and it caused some players to hunt noobs to get their Elo up or to refuse games against high skilled players. I think it kills the fun if you play only for rating and stats.
If we want to get such a system for matchmaking then it should be hidden or similar to the Quake Live system, where you can see if players are better, worse or equal and that disallows you to play against much lower skilled players.

[Bodsda]

I don't remember what game brought this to my mind, but I vaguely remember a system where you are only allowed to initiate a fight with same or higher level opponents. 1 point was awarded for a victory against a same level enmy, and 2 points for a higher level. If you lost against a same level enemy, you lost 2 points and therefore they gained one point, but if you lost against a higher level you lost 1 point, but they did not gain anything.

This encouraged newer players to challenge skilled players, and discouraged skilled players fighting newer players. The only downsie is that a higher level player would often refuse a match against a low level player due to there being no benefit for him.

Bodsda

[svenskmand]

StarCraft 2 uses a variant of the Elo system for matchmaking, which is what I want to use it for. And it works very well, I have a win/lose ration of 50% and so does almost everybody else playing the game. We can hide the rank completely or until you have played a certain amount of games, given that your fear that people will try to abuse the ranking information is correct, but I doubt that they will. Skorpio: do you play StarCraf 2? What do you think about the matchmaing system?

Also the Elo system takes the opponents skill level into account when raising/lowering your skill level, meaning that if you as a high ranked player wins agains a low ranked you will not get a higher rank as your where expected to win in the first place, so hunting noobs will not be beneficial. Also you should not yourself be allowed to choose you opponents, the matchmaking system does that for your based on your rank, so there will be no noob hunting problem at all.

[Skorpio]

No, I don't play Starcraft 2. Nowadays I hardly ever play RTS games. I mostly play shooters, board and card games.

[riidom]

I am not much of a chess player, but doesnt ELO mean, that a skilled player who plays against a new player can only gain very little from a win but loose much if he losses?

[oln]

Elo isn't ideal, especially not for a game with presumably free accounts, easy to abuse the system.

[svenskmand]

No one says that the player should be able to see the ranking of their opponent. We can just use the system for matchmaking, we of course need a server to keep track of each players score.

Many seem to not like the Elo system, so I just want to hear how many have played StarCraft 2 on Battle.net, it uses a variant of the Elo system, so I want to hear you experience with that system. I have only had good experiences with StarCraft 2, I have a win/lose ration of 50% which is the optimal we can hope for.

[MyEmail]

I lol'ed when I read this line: "While the math behind calculating an adjusted win percentage is extremely complex...". Its actually quite rudimentary, silly blizzard.

Anyway, some form of ranking system is needed for a good RTS game. Battle.net's is quite versatile, and the only things people ever complain about are dumb features which are completely unrelated to the ranking system. If players don't like the ladder (the ranked games), then they have the option of playing non-ranked custom games.

The ranking system provides a way that you are always matched with a ruffly equal opponent, which means games are challenging but not overwhelmingly difficult. It also gives players a sense of pride and/or skill level, as being ranked in higher leagues is definitely a badge of honor to some.

Implementing such a ranking system to OD would be very beneficial, and for the players who don't like it you can add support for un-ranked custom games like Battle.net did. Players who create spam accounts wouldn't affect anything (not even Battle.net stops multi-accounts), as it would simply mean that those who keep re-creating accounts never get the benefits of the ranking system, which is too bad for them :P. You would probably have to add a pruning feature, to delete accounts with no activity after 6months (Battle.net does this with "seasons").

svenskmand: I have a logic challenge for you. Theoretically Sc2's ranking system should rank you such that your win/loss ratio is 50%. I am a z player and my 1v1 is constantly ~60% wins and ~40% losses. What league am I in?

No one says that the player should be able to see the ranking of their opponent. We can just use the system for matchmaking, we of course need a server to keep track of each players score.

Many seem to not like the Elo system, so I just want to hear how many have played StarCraft 2 on Battle.net, it uses a variant of the Elo system, so I want to hear you experience with that system. I have only had good experiences with StarCraft 2, I have a win/lose ration of 50% which is the optimal we can hope for.

Starcraft 2 is an astronomically, extremely, absurdly, incomprehensibly, immeasurably great success. No doubt its rich online game-play is its key feature, the main gem being the ladder. Every time I am on the US server there are at-least 250,000 (if not 500,000 or a million) people online (I don't know the exact number using the ladder, but you can be sure it is a huge amount). By merely glancing at how successful Sc2's ranking system is one should instantly derive that it should be a priority feature in any other RTS games.

[Skasi]

Oi, Zero-K's using elo for ranking, pre game win/loss prediction and for automated balance. Statistics show the prediction is pretty accurate and from my personal experience I can say that Elo is very good at describing a player's abilities - mostly because first timers start with an effective Elo "penalty" of 250 that decreases as they play games and their actual skill value becomes more reliable. Of course that is only used for balance, not for the calculation of new Elo after the game.

We don't have a problem with players "abusing the system". I don't know how or why they would. Creating new accounts for low Elo doesn't really happen - maybe 'cause there's a lot of things linked to the account - and would make the game boring anyway.

If you feel like it you could even delete inactive accounts every now and then to keep average Elo at 1500. That's probably not needed though and might be annoying for people who take a long break.

The only big problem is the fact that the best player will always be teamed up with all the first timers, etc. and runs the risk of getting mad due to allies suffering from Dunning-Kruger effect.

[svenskmand]

I agree that an Elo system would be a nice starting point Unfortunately we currently have no active coders

[xahodo]

Well, there is a ranking system which encourages fairness.

What it basically does is look at the difference in points. When a player wins from a higher ranked player, he gains some points, depending on the rating difference.

When a player wins from a lower ranked player, it could mean that he simply doesn't get any points from it.

The fun increases when you keep an eye on how long the game took and some other stats. Bye bye cheaters, because they would simply not get many points for cheating their rank or taking on a lower rank player.

[svenskmand]

Some of my friends at university have been using the TrueSkill system that is used on the Xbox. They have applied it to fussball tournaments, but the benefit of the TrueSkill system is that it works for any gametype, as it supports teams against teams (of any size) and it also supports draws. And you can take allot of other factiors into account, i.e. match length, how long each player actually played in the match and so on.