Beta Season 3 Changes

[VAN1SH1NG]

Beta Season 3 starts today with a few significant changes:

1. The aka feature FINALLY added. Use command /@ <aka> to select a player by the names they are normally known by. They do not have to be in the server. This command also accepts vapor ids. It will take some time to build the aka database so it probably won't too useful at first. I will spend a lot of time manually adding aka names to database this weekend. Nicknames command will also list the players primary aka name.
2. /showRating <nickname> and /showNicknames <nickname> have been simplified to /rating and /nicknames (no parameters). You have to first select a player by using the new /@ or /P <nickname> commands. It may take two commands now, but overall it makes things much more powerful. Most importantly it allows selecting players not currently in the server.
3. Levels removed completely - With as much as I was reverting back to the old system it felt like there wasn't enough point in keeping them. Usage or randa and rev is still restricted - must have rating of 1300+.
4. Rating system changes - There will be a post made later with more details. The major change is you will gain far more points while your win rate is not close to 50% and will gain less points when your win rate is close to 50%. This is primarily to help players who do not play as much and keep ratings more stable after you start to reach the proper rating.
   

Some of the other changes coming this season:

1. Team balancer update - use secondary factor average goals scored to make sure both teams have capable scorers. Not bothering with it yet since we don't have any avg goal data for this season until we play some games.
2. Support for new overrideBallScore command - automatic goal removals in specific situations due to uneven teams or players with extreme lag spikes.
3. Pings controlled by parser instead of Altitude - Parser determines when players must sit (no longer kicked from server).
4. Chat channels including offline messaging - Ability to maintain chat channels, mostly for clan usage but possibly for other purposes. Limited support for leaving mail to for the channel members will be added. If you leave a message for the channel, any online members will see it immediately and offline members will see a mail notification each time they join a ladder server. There will be a command to show all unread mail.
5. Support for league stat collection - Everything already works the same in clan vs clan mode, just need to flip the switch to start uploading it and make sure it is kept separate from ladder data.

Starting Ball Ratings
If you played less than 20 games last season:
< LVL 4: 700
LVL 4-7: 1200
LVL 8+: 1500

If you played less than 20 games last season it looks back into the Beta 1 season data.
Also < 20 games in Beta 1: 700
Rating < 600: 700
Rating >= 600 but < 1300: 1200
Rating > 1300: 1500

Ratings for all other modes are starting at 1500 for everyone and no data from this season will be saved from anything except Ball. It is a short season and I know the other modes won't be played enough. It is still going to be BALL and TBD only to start with the other modes returning mid season.


Achievements
Achievements are being left in for the season, but will likely be wiped are archived after beta ends. By archive I mean your point total will reset but the old points and achievements may be viewable somewhere on the website.

To keep it simple the achievement data from last season is carrying over, meaning you still have all the achievements from last season and can only work on achievements you did not already earn.


I will have the new season live by at least by 6PM EDT. The season will end at a date which will be specified later, estimated duration is 1 to 1.5 months.

[mikesol]

random comment - not a fan of the new rating command at all. It's definitely not clear what the appropriate commands are in the server. Would it be possible to add back the old /showRating <autocomplete> on top of the other one?

[VAN1SH1NG]

Originally Posted by mikesol

random comment - not a fan of the new rating command at all. It's definitely not clear what the appropriate commands are in the server. Would it be possible to add back the old /showRating <autocomplete> on top of the other one?

Unfortunately I am very limited on the number of commands I can support. I'm sure you are aware of the relatively low space allowed for maps + custom commands. At best I could maybe add /sr if that would be better than nothing. I prefer to have a more powerful system that unfortunately requires two commands vs a simpler but less powerful single command that takes player nickname.

I think the problem though is that it is new and I don't yet have it documented on the lobby anywhere. I at least need to make it so the response to /rating and /nicknames if no player is selected includes instructions on selecting a player.

Ideally I'd be able to make a command that would auto fill nicknames but also accept '@' to use players selected by aka or vapor. But not possible.

edit:

However, I could change it to /rating <@ or partial nickname> if that would be better?

Using @ would use whoever you have selected with either /@ or P. Probably could also make it so you could combine the commands like /rating @mike to select and then give rating. If no @ tries partial nickname match with anyone in the server. Partial nickname match works as well as auto fill in most cases.

[VAN1SH1NG]

OK, /rating and /nicknames changed to:

/rating <partial nick, @, or ID>
/nicknames <partial nick, @, or ID>

Usage:

• '@' uses the currently selected player (from either /@ or /P commands)
• '@<aka>' attempts to find a player with specified aka, selects the player (@ set to this player), and then displays the results of the command
• '<partial nick>' attempts to find a player in the server matching partial nickname provided. If a single player matches nickname, selects the player (@ set to this player), and then displays the results of the command. If no match or multiple players returns error.
• Either '<id>' or '@<id>' will try to find a player in database with that vapor id and if match found will select player (@ set to this player) and display results of command.

Example output:
/rating @
> You have no player selected yet.
/@ Van
> [VAN1SH1NG current nickname & vapor id]
/rating @
> [VAN1SH1NG rating data]
/rating @DVD
> [DVD rating data]
/nicknames @
> [DVD last 3 nicknames]
/rating van1 (player VAN1SH1NG in server)
> [VAN1SH1NG rating data]
/rating 927d5410-28a1-4332-8f42-7c926d94bd73
> [VAN1SH1NG rating data]
/rating @927d5410-28a1-4332-8f42-7c926d94bd73
> [VAN1SH1NG rating data]

[Aki1024]

Request: Multiple player matches could be more useful if it sent back a partial list of matches for us to drill down to the info we seek.

/nicknames ball
>Multiple players match partial nickname. Be more specific.

Potential responses.
"Multiple players match partial nickname. Top rated common names of list: Threevenge, {Ball}'n, Dozer, Syphun, DN"
"Multiple players match partial nickname. Most recent common names of list: Threevenge, {Ball}'n, DN, Syphun, Dozer"
"Multiple players match partial nickname. Top rated of list: {ball}Threevenge, {ball} so hard, {ball} dozer, {ball} Syphun, {ball}DN"

Bug: aka names are not used as part of a partial search.

/nicknames Aki
>No players match that partial name.

"=^.^= (aka Aki) last three nicknames used in ladder: (|^.^|), #^.^#, #cookies Aki"
(limit around 10?)

[VAN1SH1NG]

I think you may not fully understand how it was set up.

The partial nick match currently only looks at the players in the same server. I may make it so that it also considers the last 50 players that have been on a ladder server. Probably will need to list matches if considering any players not currently in the server. I don't want to search through every player in the database as the more players it looks through the more exact you will have to be.

In most cases you should easily be able to find any established player through aka. The only real need to match players from the database is for admin purposes (bans) when they are new/unknown accounts. Not hard to look at player list on website though.

Why would aka names be used as part of a partial search? 95% of players can easily be found by aka. Less than 5% have similar nicknames (Moon vs Mooncheese) or other issues that might make them harder to locate via aka. Keep in mind that the system supports multiple aka names for players (/nicknames only shows the primary aka name).

So for example I am @van, @van1sh, @van1sh1ng, @vanish, and @vanishing. I am trying to include just about any name someone might be called by, except for the very rare case like Mooncheese can't be found by @Moon.

**************************

Rating System

To provide some more info on the points awarded per game.

In beta 1 had a poor rating system broken primarily by taking too few games into account in creating a streaking bonus. In beta 2 I never had time to work on the algorithm other than reducing the streak factor by having it look at your win % across the past 40 games.

Still due to lack of time have not spent proper time on the formula, but for the start of beta 3 it is as follows:

Base rating reduced all the way down to 12 points. You can still potentially earn less than 12 if you lose to a team with a lower total rating.

The first 10 games you play are worth 5 X Base Rating adjusted some by difference in team ratings. After that your rating is heavily dependent on your win % over your last 40 games. You earn an addition 1.5 * how far you are away from 50% win rate. so if your win rate is 70% over the last 40 games you played, you get 12 + (1.5 * (70 - 50)). As you can see this can be a big bonus if you have a very high or low win rate. It also still gives a decent bonus even if your win rate is only around like 55%.

This is to help get players to the correct rating more quickly for the benefit of players who do not play as much as well as keep players ratings more stable when they are at a win rate close to 50%.

[Aki1024]

Originally Posted by VAN1SH1NG

The partial nick match currently only looks at the players in the same server.

Cool. Knowing this, it means much less to have the valid selections printed back to the user.

Originally Posted by VAN1SH1NG

Why would aka names be used as part of a partial search? [...]
So for example I am @van, @van1sh, @van1sh1ng, @vanish, and @vanishing. I am trying to include just about any name someone might be called by, except for the very rare case like Mooncheese can't be found by @Moon.

Cool. My apologies for not understanding the system.

[Moon]

Originally Posted by VAN1SH1NG

As you can see this can be a big bonus if you have a very high or low win rate.

Is the output of (70 - 50) treated as an absolute value? If the win percentage is 30 instead of 70 is the output still 20? If yes I don't see why a low win percentage should be rewarded and if not I could see someone be stuck in an inescapable hole as any gains from a win would be negative ( 12 + (1.5 * (30 - 50))) = -18 ) Or am misapprehending what you said and in fact you do not consider any win rates below 50, and the "low win rate" part of the quote is simply referring to the lower part of the 50 to 100 range, or maybe I'm missing something else..

[VAN1SH1NG]

For a player with a low win % it is:

- (12 + (1.5 * (50 - %))

So like players with a high win % can move up faster, players with a low win % will move down faster.

For comparison to previous seasons, you had to have an extremely high or low win % to see much of an affect on points earned. The new formula is designed to keep players at 50% more stable while making it easier for those with 55-60% win rates to move up a little faster.