New Ladder Features?

[VAN1SH1NG]

Is there anything you would like to see added/changed with ladder?

If there are 2x the number of players needed for a match, should two games be started and the second set of players automatically moved to a different server?

Could potentially also experiment with switching players between EU and US if there are enough for two games and a lot of high pings detected. The lower pings would get priority to be put into the game and any high pings (100+?) would get automatically moved to US if in EU or to EU if in US. Runs the risk of moving players who are not US or EU and have bad pings to both servers though. Maybe could make an exception list for these players. Probably would not start the match automatically due to this, just force the server transfer.

[StygMa]

Qeue for joining ladder, if 12+ ppl are in that queu the server will let you in.

And let other ppl read (opensource) the code for bugs etc.

[Slender]

I really don't see an issue with starting a new ladder, it sometimes happens, sometimes don't. People don't really need to be forced to play, i.e dyke is spectating 75% of the time he's around.

I like it just as it was.

[VAN1SH1NG]

Originally Posted by StygMa

Qeue for joining ladder, if 12+ ppl are in that queu the server will let you in.

And let other ppl read (opensource) the code for bugs etc.

Would have to explain a little more how the queue would work. Also a queue would only work when players are in a server running the ladder/queue parser. Can't do anything for players in other servers or not in any server.

Code will be open source.

Originally Posted by Slender

I really don't see an issue with starting a new ladder, it sometimes happens, sometimes don't. People don't really need to be forced to play, i.e dyke is spectating 75% of the time he's around.

I like it just as it was.

Of course no one is forced to play. Specs are unaffected. Server move would only occur when 2x the amount of players needed are trying to play at the same time.

[Fartface]

Instead of an automated server move I'd suggest commands such as vote_startladder4 or vote_goEU and then the specs would be moved by a passing vote

[Aki1024]

Originally Posted by VAN1SH1NG

Runs the risk of moving players who are not US or EU and have bad pings to both servers though.

Scope creep: Remember last sessions average ping on the server. Also note that there are players who refuse to play on servers on the other side of the pond. Would they get banned for refusing to play after getting switched?

Originally Posted by Fartface

Instead of an automated server move I'd suggest commands such as vote_startladder4 or vote_goEU and then the specs would be moved by a passing vote

Running a vote while players are currently playing is rude when it doesn't affect them. The voting system isn't strong enough to state only spec or only players vote on something.

I see nothing wrong with 24 players joining a US game and 12 of them get moved to another US server and two games start. The only reason why Ladder didn't do this is because that feature wasn't created. It wasn't a simple task for code that wasn't designed with that in mind in the first place.

[blarg]

here are some ideas:

- everything aki said, plus a vote to move everyone to another server when a game is not in progress
- option to start game with capts picking instead of auto balance
- a high percent vote to temporarily exclude players from being placed on a team
- vote changemap
- better auto balancing

[sunshineduck]

yeah i don't think switching them into an EU server if they're joining on a US server is really a viable option. just dump the extras into a server in the same region

[darknietzsche]

Yeah, having a vote to exclude players is the same as a vote-kick imo. Admins should be the only ones to tell players they can't play. As vanishing/carlos, it is up to them to choose people who would be active and respectable of the rules that they come up with for the server. Of course if they choose to have spectators to have that power, then that is up to them.

[sunshineduck]

oh yeah i also had a proposal for some sort of tiered system in terms of handling bans and ban lengths for consistency. i don't remember if i posted this on these forums before, but mikesol said something about maybe being able to implement it directly into the ladder code after nobo ported it to java, which obviously never happened. it would be definitely too much work to keep track of points manually, but if you could have the parser track bans and have them automatically subtract points (as well as allowing for manual adjustments) it would be much easier to give out consistent bans.

posted this in the ladderadmin private forum in february 2011, feel free to use it even if you're not going to have me as an admin in ladder2:

"Okay, so I’m a huge nerd and spent some time thinking about how we can all be on the same page and be more consistent in our bans. This is just an idea that could obviously use work, not sure how the rest of you will feel about it. Let me know if you feel like the numbers should be changed. ^_^

• Major rule violations are -100 points
• Mid-level rule violations are -50 points
• Minor rule violations are -25 points

• Tier A users have 300 suspension points
• This is the starting tier for all users.
• When a user hits 0 suspension points or less they will receive an automatic 30-day ban. Once the 30 days are up, the user will be automatically released and then they will move onto the Tier B points, listed below.

• Tier B users have 200 suspension points
• When a user hits 0 suspension points or less they will receive an automatic 90-day suspension. Once the 90 days are up the user will be automatically released and then they will move onto the Tier C points, listed below.

• Tier C users have 100 suspension points
• When a user hits 0 suspension points or less they will receive an automatic permaban and will not be released.

A minor rule violation could be like a warning – no ban, but you post that you warned them and that they will be losing 25 points. That would be like a warning for refusing to spec chat, spectating once mid-game for a short period of time, or not joining the game after it starts for a while. Mid-level could be a short ban such as leaving mid-game, getting ping kicked in consecutive games (playing with a known bad connection), or spectating for a long period of time. A major violation could be gamethrowing, excessive trolling, and explicitly ignoring admin requests to spectate, etc.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Mikesol expressed confusion about this part, the players in question would still receive normal short-term bans (those lengths could be standardized as well if wanted) as well as having suspension points reducted

We could set up a cookie cutter days to ban for specific violations if needed.

Thoughts?

-sunshineduck"

this would also allow us to bring back previously banned players with specific hard guidelines on behavior (i.e bringing back Pein in tier B this season) before they are gone permanently

[VAN1SH1NG]

EU/US server moves
The EU/US transfer suggestion is based on the proven fact that players do not move from EU to US on their own even when US has enough on to start their own ladder.

Their are two somewhat different issues:
1) Enough players for one match, but like 75% are now US players. Players still rarely have the sense to switch servers. In this case a vote goUSA or something would be fine (not forcing anyone to play, just move servers).

2) Enough players for two match, including plenty of US players. Again extremely rare that a US server gets started. Instead they start a second EU. My thought on this if I hosted an EU server with the current code, I would only have one EU ball ladder to encourage a US ladder to start up. However, automatically splitting off one game to US is another option. And yes I would store pings in the database to determine who should be moved and who should stay.

Administration/Bans
Personally I want to focus on ladder itself and not bans, so I am thinking that the current ladder administration would be kept if they are willing to continue handling those responsibilities.

I could add an automated system for bans if requested, but it that will be a feature done after most other work is completed.

Additional features could be possible include sub admins who might have the ability to kick a player but not other admin powers, could do a vote kick as was suggested that requires 95% yes but not sure that is necessary, report feature that could txt/e-mail me and possibly other admins to notify of a player causing problems (obviously would need to prevent this from being abused though).

But really I would leave these decisions up to the current ladder admins if they want to still be admins.

Capts
Automated capts games are planned although obviously stats from these games can't be mixed with regular ladder stats. In fact I expect to put up an automated capts server soon (with no stats collection) as this should not take much time and might help get some games going while ladder code is written.

Later on it might be possible to make it a capts ladder, but would need to figure out some kind of rating system that would work for that.

Automatically stopping game when players leave
I am expecting to code in some kind of automated system to stop games in the following scenarios:

1) A player drops before or very soon after a game starts and does not return within a reasonable amount of time.
2) Two or more players on a single team disconnect later in a match and do not return within a minute or two. If one team is winning by a lot, probably would partially count the game, meaning players would earn/lose points but not the full amount.

[sunshineduck]

captains ladder could just have straight up have the captains gain/lose points based on winning/losing and have some custom vote_captain1 and custom vote_captain2 commands to determine the captains for each side

[VAN1SH1NG]

Originally Posted by sunshineduck

captains ladder could just have straight up have the captains gain/lose points based on winning/losing and have some custom vote_captain1 and custom vote_captain2 commands to determine the captains for each side

My plan for capts is to have the server ask who wants to play and who wants to capt.

Basically you would type "Play" if you want to play but not capt and "Capt" if you want to capt. Captains would be picked randomly from those who want to capt. In addition server admins would have the ability to set captains so it wouldn't always be random. Captains then pick from those who are left who said they wanted to play (or capt).

I could potentially make it so those players who did not play in the last game had to be picked over players who just played, but probably will see if the server is popular enough to justify adding this first.

If there is a capts ladder I think everyone on the team needs to be able to earn points to give them more incentive to play and try to win. Each player would have separate captain and player ratings. With ladder, one capt would be picked at random and the server would attempt to put them against a cap with a similar captain rating.

[sunshineduck]

yeah that sounds legit

[Radium]

How about 1de?

[blarg]

i'm not sure what you all have in mind for ratings, but most systems i know of would work with both auto balance and capts. generally team selection and the probabilistic estimate of which team will win are two separate stages, so captain selected teams could plug into the same rating system at the second stage and work properly. i do agree with the idea of affecting capts' rating more to encourage good picking though.

btw having a good captains mode probably obviates the need for a vote kick or whatever since we can just switch to capts if someone is trolling.

[Fartface]

Originally Posted by VAN1SH1NG

Automatically stopping game when players leave
I am expecting to code in some kind of automated system to stop games in the following scenarios:

1) A player drops before or very soon after a game starts and does not return within a reasonable amount of time.
2) Two or more players on a single team disconnect later in a match and do not return within a minute or two. If one team is winning by a lot, probably would partially count the game, meaning players would earn/lose points but not the full amount.

Need I say that this could be easily and often abused? No one would ever play ladder if every game they started to enjoy was stopped because people leave/dc. The only situation I think this would be useful in is when it's 0-0 in ball and 100-100 in tbd, though even then it's iffy.

Otherwise everything is looking great, thanks for putting so much work into it

[Clam]

Originally Posted by VAN1SH1NG

capts ladder

Forever specced ggs uninstall

Originally Posted by VAN1SH1NG;184858
[B

Automatically stopping game when players leave[/B]

I know my input really matters here guys so I'm basically obligated to say that I agree with fart about leavage. /vote stop is fine as a mildly democratic mechanism, more or less, and it probably makes more sense to adjust pass/fail percentages or work on separating spec/player votes than to implement a whole new stop-timer idea thing. Cause we all know how well automated systems work...

[VAN1SH1NG]

The automated capts server has proven more time consuming than I had anticipated due to all the different situations to account for (mostly related to players leaving before picking is finished).

I am hoping I will be able to finish it tomorrow but not sure if that will happen. I added a veto vote where those in the server can vote to replace one of the randomly selected captains if most refuse to play for them.

Not sure if enough will actually want to use the automated capts server without stat collection, but hope it fills up regularly so we can get some decent games in while waiting on ladder.

Originally Posted by Fartface

Need I say that this could be easily and often abused? No one would ever play ladder if every game they started to enjoy was stopped because people leave/dc. The only situation I think this would be useful in is when it's 0-0 in ball and 100-100 in tbd, though even then it's iffy.

Any abuse would result in a ban, so I think that would stop most abuse.

Again one player down would only be stopped automatically at the very start of a match. Too many matches are played that start with one team down a player.

Otherwise games would only be stopped if a team goes down two players. Kind of pointless to keep playing if at least one of them does not return. And points will still be awarded based on the current score.

If the majority do not like the automated stoppage, the alternative is significantly lowering the vote stop percentage in these cases to probably 40 or 50% (note: can keep specs from voting).

Originally Posted by Radium

How about 1de?

Other modes are possible, but probably not anytime soon as getting ball & tbd done take priority.

[Tekn0]

Originally Posted by blarg

- option to start game with capts picking instead of auto balance

No thanks. Capt's game is yet another epeen stroking contest in an already tiny but egotistical preteen community. The only reason I play ladder is because it doesn't have Captains.

Besides capts + having mutes does not work. It's a way to marginalize an already tiny set of players plus given how players keep changing their nick every 24 hours, most of the time you'll be "Who's x" or "Who's y". No thanks. Captains game is the bane of the alti community.

[wolf'j'max]

Originally Posted by Tekn0

No thanks. Capt's game is yet another epeen stroking contest in an already tiny but egotistical preteen community. The only reason I play ladder is because it doesn't have Captains.

Besides capts + having mutes does not work. It's a way to marginalize an already tiny set of players plus given how players keep changing their nick every 24 hours, most of the time you'll be "Who's x" or "Who's y". No thanks. Captains game is the bane of the alti community.

Well you don't have to play on the servers.

[darknietzsche]

I actually agree with Tekno. I think if captains ladder or something of the sort exists it must have a way to include those likely not to be picked. Captains games can be some of the best, but if the same 12 out 30 players are playing every game, not only is this practically going to tear ladder down, but eventually will become mundane and boring. If there is a way, that a player is forced not to be a captain twice in a row or even once in three games, or having players take priority during picking then that would be great.

[Fartface]

Originally Posted by VAN1SH1NG

Any abuse would result in a ban, so I think that would stop most abuse.

Again one player down would only be stopped automatically at the very start of a match. Too many matches are played that start with one team down a player.

Otherwise games would only be stopped if a team goes down two players. Kind of pointless to keep playing if at least one of them does not return. And points will still be awarded based on the current score.

If the majority do not like the automated stoppage, the alternative is significantly lowering the vote stop percentage in these cases to probably 40 or 50% (note: can keep specs from voting).

First of all, not all abuse will be conspicuous enough to warrant a ban. Faking a disconnect is no difficult thing.

I personally had no problem with the old system; I see no reason to stop games just because people disconnect. And it's not all about rating -- I certainly would not be inclined to play ladder knowing that any game I started to enjoy could be stopped in the snap of a finger. And the voting thing would be flawed as well -- say red is up some goals but then both Takusia and capt slow disconnect from the red team simultaneously (a common occurrence); then blue will have no problem stopping the game. And red would probably have preferred all their deserved points instead of half.

Dunno, maybe I'm the minority in this, but of all the things that bothered me about the old system, the consequences of disconnects was not one of them.

[darknietzsche]

Yeah, I agree with fart here as well. I am fairly sure people faked some of their disconnects before, but if they could do that and get the game to not count then there would be incentive to do so. It is hard to tell unless their ping is going out of the way whether a disconnect is legit or not. Computer crashing, power outages, and alt+f4 would show connection lost, but usually we have to trust people in what they told us happened. I prefer having the players decide when to stop, not the game itself.

It is a good idea, but I think it is way too exploitable, and I am not sure if you would be able to code a way into handling the exploits of it. I would be fine if this situation happened, and an automatic vote happened (which still ultimately gives the players the choice).

[JWhatever]

1) If you were on the loosing team, have higher priority in getting in to the next game than players who were on the winning team.

Specs > losers > winners.

2) http://altitudegame.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8637

3) If a team loses a player, that should affect the "teams chance to win" and the gained / lost rating.

Just to throw some numbers out there, if a team plays at least a fourth of the game with 5 players (or 4 in tbd), then the win % should be rerolled. The new average ratings should be formed by those 5 who played the most after the disconnect. This would also promote the other team to sit the player who is closest to the leavers rating (especially if the leaver is the highest rated player). Likewise if one of the teams looses their worst rated player, they wouldn't get such a massive boost.

4) Command to show every players rating who are currently playing.
/rating left team
/rating right team

-J

[JWhatever]

Do not have doodle on the map rotation.

-J

[Tekn0]

Originally Posted by wolf'j'max

Well you don't have to play on the servers.

Thank you for your highly informative and constructive post and confirming my point about marginalizing the community.

[VAN1SH1NG]

If you are not so sure about about stopping due to disconnects..

What is your opinion on putting on subs?

If someone drops and does not come back within 1 minute or disconnects a second time, the Server could check if there are subs in spec who could be inserted into the game who have a rating similar to whoever dropped. These players could be asked if they want to sub in and then the Server would put one of them in. If no one close in rating, then no sub occurs. Disconnecting player would likely have a rating adjustment based on score when they dropped. I suppose that both teams would have to approve of the sub as well by vote to help keep over/under rated players from drastically changing the balance of the game or a team getting someone who would hurt the team comp.

Another possible way to respond to disconnects is having the server pick who sits, picking the player on the other team who is closest in rating. Probably would wait 15 seconds before moving them to spec. Or to avoid messing up team comp, that team could vote on the two players with the closest rating to sit. Would help in cases where a top rated player disconnects and someone terrible on the other team sits.

Just throwing various ideas out there.

[JWhatever]

I could see subs work but only for equal games. Who would want to join a 0-5 game?

What I'd also want to see is some sort of a kill log on the stats page; who killed who with what perks etc. Also a text based log of the game would be nice, which would include kills and goals/base hits.

What about heatmaps? Syber has already a working piece of code for heatmaps (although still bit crude but still), the thingy thing we run on Vlix servers. I'm sure you could get it from him if you just ask nicely.

-J

[Aki1024]

A wish feature I had of ladder would be to not have a server dedicated to a mode. Instead, if a game mode had been played on that server in the last 10 minutes, it would only allow that mode to start. Otherwise it allows whatever gets voted.

This gives the benefit of easily scaling the available servers for the flavor of the day. This also allows for additional game modes to be added without requiring additional servers launched.

(I tl;dr'ed half this thread ._. my apologies)

[VAN1SH1NG]

Originally Posted by JWhatever

I could see subs work but only for equal games. Who would want to join a 0-5 game?

What I'd also want to see is some sort of a kill log on the stats page; who killed who with what perks etc. Also a text based log of the game would be nice, which would include kills and goals/base hits.

What about heatmaps? Syber has already a working piece of code for heatmaps (although still bit crude but still), the thingy thing we run on Vlix servers. I'm sure you could get it from him if you just ask nicely.

-J

If the game is 0-5 and no one wants to join that is fine. The game will just continue with no sub made. Suitable subs are always asked if they want to play.

I am sure stats will be more advanced than they were, but not sure exactly what will be added yet. It does seem like it would be a good idea to save the log for each game to the database (excluding stuff like chat messages). This would make it easy to generate more detailed statistics later on, plus allow anyone to view the server log for each match.

Heatmaps would be something to think about later on too. Definitely low priority compared to everything else that needs to get done.

Originally Posted by Aki1024

A wish feature I had of ladder would be to not have a server dedicated to a mode. Instead, if a game mode had been played on that server in the last 10 minutes, it would only allow that mode to start. Otherwise it allows whatever gets voted.

This gives the benefit of easily scaling the available servers for the flavor of the day. This also allows for additional game modes to be added without requiring additional servers launched.

(I tl;dr'ed half this thread ._. my apologies)

Initially I was thinking I would do mixed mode servers, but then had some doubts about how successful they would be. Your suggestion to add the 10 minute restriction might fix some of my concerns. Will think about it. Certainly would make it easier to add additional game modes.

[Fartface]

I agree with J that substitutions could only work when the score is even. Thinking logically no spectator will be willing to enter a game on the losing side unless they feel sure they can win anyway, thereby punishing the winning side. But if the sub's rating isn't affected then they have no incentive to try to win. Basically I think the system would result in countless situations where a vote is simply an interference in the match. And on the few occasions it passes it will inevitably result in angry players who feel cheated out of a win thy might have had.

And even when the score is even this feature could too easily abused. For instance when I'm playing with mulu on my team I have a significantly lower chance of winning. So hypothetically I could fake a disconnect, ladder could put void or radium or someone in my place, and my team would be just fine. Of course the way to counter this would be to reduce the rating of whomever disconnects, but then that would unjustly punish those who aren't faking it.

Tl;dr I think the disconnect situation should be left as is; other stuff is more important and again thanks for all your hard work!

[Tekn0]

I think leaving the disconnect situation as it is is the better approach. There can be no perfect solution because no matter what, the outcome of the game is affected to what ladder constructed with the ratings to make that game.

While trying to rebalance things based on ratings etc., seems to reduce the impact, it again assumes ladder has already properly balanced everyone involved which is often not the case.

BTW, if you need any help in C/C++/Assembly look no further :S but I suspect all this ladder stuff is Java and other web jargon thingies. Anyway, if you need help with the code I will try my best to help. Looking forward to the new ladder.

Also +1 on heatmaps but I understand it's low priority and a more 'nice-to-have' feature for now.

[General Gee]

I would love to see who my nemesis/arch rivals are based on who I have killed and who has killed me the most. Or to have a section where you could sort based on these stats. Could finally prove that I just cant touch Tomi...

[phong]

The downside to making the code open source is that nothing prevents someone from starting up their own ladder (even if the stats are on a different site), then you have 20 servers running a ladder variation and less players to actually fill the 1 true ladder. Ladder was successful because nobody (pronoun) took the time to make a comparable server in terms of stat logging etc.

People that claim they want to bugfind in the code is silly, bugs should/can be found/reported though gameplay or mechanics, code isn't needed for that.

[VAN1SH1NG]

Originally Posted by phong

The downside to making the code open source is that nothing prevents someone from starting up their own ladder (even if the stats are on a different site), then you have 20 servers running a ladder variation and less players to actually fill the 1 true ladder. Ladder was successful because nobody (pronoun) took the time to make a comparable server in terms of stat logging etc.

People that claim they want to bugfind in the code is silly, bugs should/can be found/reported though gameplay or mechanics, code isn't needed for that.

Competition is usually a good thing. We would be in a much better situation now if the code was open source. Considering how small the community is, I really don't think there will be bunch of servers using variations of the code. Even if someone else put up other servers, the community would have to pick one to play on.

I still need to talk will Carlos, but I believe the code will be open source. Worst case there will be a small trusted group who have the code. Personally I would make it open source so that others might be able to use it as a base for other types of servers. Maybe some of the ladder specific code could be stripped out from the open source code released.

Still not even sure who is going to be the primary developer behind the new ladder. Carlos wants to build it into SLP(Altitourney) which is written in Scala. I do not know Scala and would prefer to build from scratch with Python.

I have been working on a captains server in Python which would be a good code base to add ladder. Really wanted to get that up ASAP, but looking like that is not going to happen. Have family flying in this evening and won't be able to work on this much until Tuesday. Probably has another 1-2 solid days of coding left. Starting on Tuesday I will have a ton of time to put into this.

[phong]

If anything there should be a ladder development team to maintain the current ladder code, but would need good php developers and authorization from nobo on who would lead that team.

[Tekn0]

Nobo is unfortunately always too busy with other things. Just ask Aki.

Also, is the new ladder going to be written from scratch or use nobo's code? I think having it written from scratch and open sourced would be the way to go. This way one person need not be responsible for the entire thing.

This is just a suggestion though,

[VAN1SH1NG]

Originally Posted by Tekn0

Nobo is unfortunately always too busy with other things. Just ask Aki.

Also, is the new ladder going to be written from scratch or use nobo's code? I think having it written from scratch and open sourced would be the way to go. This way one person need not be responsible for the entire thing.

This is just a suggestion though,

We do not have nobo's code and even if we did, would not use it. Might pull the rating algorithm, etc out if we had it but not use the code itself.

As stated in my last post, will either be built into Carlos' SLP/Altitourney (Scala) or will be built from scratch with Python. Currently building captains server in Python.

[Tekn0]

Originally Posted by VAN1SH1NG

We do not have nobo's code and even if we did, would not use it. Might pull the rating algorithm, etc out if we had it but not use the code itself.

As stated in my last post, will either be built into Carlos' SLP/Altitourney (Scala) or will be built from scratch with Python. Currently building captains server in Python.

Great

All in favour of freedom, democracy, God bless USA etc. vote for open source!

I meant favor.