Ladder Site Online...

Discussion of all aspects of multiplayer development: unit balancing, map development, server development, and so forth.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

Post Reply
Computer_Player
Multiplayer Moderator
Posts: 178
Joined: March 16th, 2008, 6:39 am

Re: Multiplayer Divisons?

Post by Computer_Player »

I vote yes,.. gives people more motivation to play ladder and not let it die down

Still governor's points are valid and bears some thinking, though it supposes that division would cause people to not battle people in a diffrent division.

But on a diffrent note,.. currently, only people who have registered in the forums can vote,.. this has to change and i propose a poll in the ladder site directly, but remember that the majority is not always right, better choose a choice that although not popularly supported, is the more reasonable and fairer.

Topics merged. Please keep the ladder stuff in one place.
Mist
User avatar
leocrotta
Posts: 69
Joined: August 10th, 2007, 10:37 pm
Location: down the dungeon

Re: Ladder Site Online...

Post by leocrotta »

To make it short: I basically agree with grrr and governor in case of devisions.
There are implicit ones already...
Another issue I (maybe you too) recognized: The waiting list starts to become useless after all.
Due to the fact that there's only one server and there's almost always at least one ladder opponent on that can be found easily by the friends-list.
I wonder if you can/want to discard this feature.

best regards.
User avatar
eyerouge
Posts: 380
Joined: June 29th, 2007, 4:37 am
Location: wtactics.org
Contact:

Re: Ladder Site Online...

Post by eyerouge »

Thanks for the input peeps.

We'll hold of the divisions until there are hundreds of players ;) , and, as leo noted, I have taken the liberty to implement a minor version of it in the profile.

About the waiting list: Yes, I've noticed it isn't really used. However, that alone is perhaps not reason to remove it (yet ; ).

Also, since when is there just one lobby for both the dev and stable versions? From what I've understood the dev / stable have separate lobbies.
AI
Developer
Posts: 2396
Joined: January 31st, 2008, 8:38 pm

Re: Ladder Site Online...

Post by AI »

1.5-svn has it's own server, but as there haven't been any releases yet, hardly anyone plays on it.
jirtan
Posts: 5
Joined: February 21st, 2008, 3:42 am

Re: Ladder Site Online...

Post by jirtan »

I'd like to see diminishing returns when it comes to points gained by facing the same player. For instance, the first time you face someone, the winner takes 20 points. The nth time, the winner takes 21-n points. This would help versus the false spam accounts scenario. The equation I suggested was very simple, and should probably be modified, but you get the picture.
tsr
Posts: 790
Joined: May 24th, 2006, 1:05 pm

Re: Ladder Site Online...

Post by tsr »

A very, very, very small request: can you pls use the title-tag of the head section in the html so that I can easily see where I am?

/tsr
User avatar
eyerouge
Posts: 380
Joined: June 29th, 2007, 4:37 am
Location: wtactics.org
Contact:

Re: Ladder Site Online...

Post by eyerouge »

jirtan wrote:I'd like to see diminishing returns when it comes to points gained by facing the same player. For instance, the first time you face someone, the winner takes 20 points. The nth time, the winner takes 21-n points. This would help versus the false spam accounts scenario.
Since it's an Elo system this is already true in a sense: Whoever you meet and win over, you'd get diminishing points won over time if you meet him and win again, depending on how huge the difference between your ratings is. It will happen. You can see this if you check out the expected won/loss points in somebodys profile - it shows you how many points you'd win or lose, and they change depending on who's profile you look at since different people have different rating in relation to your own rating.

I could of course add an additional penalty (your -n) for playing against the same player numerous times, but there is no such penalty in the game of chess for example, and it makes little reason to penalize people because they choose to play against each other more than once. Not to mention the fact that people get more skills and should not be seen as the "same person" every time they play.

I am however still open for the concept if you can show me some literature (url:s?) on it or if it gains strong support in this thread: After all, I'm trying to make the ladder something for the players of it, not myself. :) All I'm saying is that it's a pretty big decision that would had to be thought through thoroughly and justified.
tsr wrote:A very, very, very small request: can you pls use the title-tag of the head section in the html so that I can easily see where I am?
Use http://chaosrealm.net/wesnoth and all will be well if you want to see the title-tag. It's been used all the time but the frames that subversiva.org use (ladder.subversiva.org) seem to mess up the title tag for some reason.
Wumtog
Posts: 22
Joined: January 15th, 2008, 2:21 pm

Re: Ladder Site Online...

Post by Wumtog »

Hello everybody. I Play at ladder.subservia.org

a player claimed a win over me, which he did not achieve.

What can i do about that?
User avatar
eyerouge
Posts: 380
Joined: June 29th, 2007, 4:37 am
Location: wtactics.org
Contact:

Re: Ladder Site Online...

Post by eyerouge »

Wumtog wrote:Hello everybody. I Play at ladder.subversiva.org

a player claimed a win over me, which he did not achieve.

What can i do about that?
It says in the rules/faq that you should contact me, and tell me you nickname, and the nickname of the person who claimed it, so I know which game to erase. It might also be an idea to contact that person and ask him/her in a polite manner why he/she reported the game in the first place.
morphine
Posts: 13
Joined: March 8th, 2008, 1:56 am

Re: Ladder Site Online...

Post by morphine »

Some thoughts about this ladder.

First, thanks a lot for this tool. I wouldn't be enjoying Wesnoth half as much without it. As a newcomer, I could quickly get into good games, learn a lot, meet good players and observe interesting games. The 2 weeks I played before the ladder were a lot of fun, but it wasn't as good.


About divisions. As governor said, I agree it doesn't make sense given the amount of players currently on the ladder, and even so, I don't think we would need it. If you were ranked 987th among 2500 players, then you would be competing with people around your rank, and it would already be a lot of fun and a good competition. You can already be proud of your place, because it does mean something in the ladder, and when you gain 100 places, you are glad you made it, and you have a new range of players to compete with. The only issue we have now is that the ladder is still young, so people didn't play a lot of games yet.

Also I don't see how it is any different to have 1598 rating or 1604 rating, but if your "division ranks" make some people happy, why not :)


About a 2v2 team ladder, I think it could be set up as a "random team" ladder, more than a registered team ladder, because of the time investment the players would need to actually play with registered teams. Everyone would start at 1500 rating, and a team rating would be the average rating of the 2 players.

player1 (1420) + player2 (1540) = 2v2 team1 (1480)

The rating gain would be then calculated for each player according the their own rating and the rating of the team they played against.

For example, let's say our team beats a 1520 rated team, player1 would win (1420 vs 1520) rating and player2 (1540 vs 1520) rating. I don't know the exact ELO formulas, but it would be something around +16 for player1 and +10 for player2.

Of course, people used to play together will tend to play better, but I see this as a good alternative to allow simple yet competitive team ladder play. Besides that, it should be very easy to implement given how the 1v1 ladder currently works, so it shouldn't give you any trouble PHP wise :)


I hope you will find something useful (and not already discussed) in this. Also, if you need help with PHP or dev in general, feel free to ask me by e-mail, it's my job. I'm going to be a bit busy the next weeks with my work tho, but I'll be happy to help if I can.
User avatar
eyerouge
Posts: 380
Joined: June 29th, 2007, 4:37 am
Location: wtactics.org
Contact:

moderator wanted + morphine

Post by eyerouge »

news:

Want to help maintain the ladder community and also, indirectly, help out a part of the Wesnoth multiplayer community? Ladder of Wesnoth (LoW) is in need of 1 to 2 moderators in different time zones, and we need the correct persons to apply for the positions.

As a moderator you will mainly:

- help people with questions about the ladder
- erase wrongly reported games

Keep in mind that you won't ever do any rulings.


As a moderator you should:

- Be at least 18 years old
- Have been a part of the Wesnoth community for at least 1 year and have some posts in the official forum to prove it.
- Lack a bad reputation in the Wesnoth community.
- Know fluid written English
- Around internet everyday
- Have the extra time to help people when the need arises, granted you are present.
- Know how to use a web forum like phpBB.
- Have an instant messenger running.
- Always calm. Always polite. Always objective. Always act pro. Never take sides.

Still interested? Mail me with a lengthy presentation of yourself. I'll get back to those of you I believe are fit.

*

morphine:

Thank you for the positive feedback - it's encouraging to hear.

I strongly believe the ladder becomes what the player base makes it into. I usually try to keep my magic hand from mending anything before it proves to be broken ;) and am positive that there will be plenty of good people on the ladder. That said, there are always some bad seed as well, but they can most often be spotted soon enough. I'm also thinking about implementing some kind of comment system where every player can leave a comment in the opponents profile. Will have to do some serious thinking before implementing it and it's in the future.

2vs2-ratings: Yes, it wouldn't be a problem to implement it. One way would the one you suggest. If it is implemented it will however have a separate Elo rating, called 2vs2 Elo or something. That will also be viewable in the same profile. 2vs2 won't be supported in the very near future as we have our hands full with improving the regular ladder (I'm doing that, mostly behind the scenes and stuff that doesn't show for the players) and also with the probably even more important replay parser (chains is doing that one).

If you really want to see the 2vs2 system implemented soon enough you are more than welcome to code it - you'd of course get to work on the already existing php, shouldn't be hard really. The same goes if you'd rather work with the replay parser - we prioritize it more than the 2vs2 thingie, but, I still believe that coders who work for free (ehrm.. all of us?) should write whatever they most care about them self :)

I'll take the liberty to email you a copy of this in case you don't follow the thread as every coding offer is always needed.
morphine
Posts: 13
Joined: March 8th, 2008, 1:56 am

Re: Ladder Site Online...

Post by morphine »

Of course, a 2v2 ladder would have to be a separate ladder.

Most of the normal Wesnoth games (read: no survivals or others funky addons) seem to be actually team games. Maybe a 2v2 ladder would drive more people to play on the ladder, and that would be great.

If you agree with the way I described the 2v2 rating with "random" teams, I can take a look at how the site is done and tell you if I can implement it this week end. It should be really fast to do, depending on how clean and modular your website is at the moment ;) If you think team ratings should be handled in a different way, let's discuss it in this thread first.
User avatar
eyerouge
Posts: 380
Joined: June 29th, 2007, 4:37 am
Location: wtactics.org
Contact:

Re: Ladder Site Online...

Post by eyerouge »

morphine wrote:If you agree with the way I described the 2v2 rating with "random" teams, I can take a look at how the site is done and tell you if I can implement it this week end. It should be really fast to do, depending on how clean and modular your website is at the moment ;) If you think team ratings should be handled in a different way, let's discuss it in this thread first.
This is the way I believe it could work out, and I think it is along the line with your suggestion:
  • The 2vs2 ladder allows anyone to pick whatever teammate he/she wants, and to play a game against 2 others. You could pick me as team mate for one game, and another person for another game, and then maybe me again. You always play with the person you want. You could of course always play with the same person, or always play with random people you find on the server, or a mix of both: All up to you as a player.
  • Once x playes a game together with y, x & y are considered to be a unique team. They would get a team Elo, that is only affected when x & y play together. So, if eyerouge & morphine have played zero games together, that team (the "morphed eye") would have a rating of 1500 when they start playing. Whenever the team wins, it gets points. Whenever it loses, it loses points. Morphine discovers that eye sucks, so he never plays in the same team with him again. Morph starts playing together with Heroin. Again, those two are a unique team, and they have their own rating. Morphine can of course play with eye in the future: Their rating wouldn't have been touched since the last game, and all would continue as normal.
  • In additon to every combination of 2 players beeing seen as a unique team that has it's own rating, each individual player also had yet another 2vs2 rating: The one which shows how good he is in 2vs2 games. This rating would work like the current 1vs1 rating works, but would of course only be modified when you play a 2vs2 game.
  • Reason for having 2 different 2vs2 Elo:s is that they measure totally different things: One measures how well a specific team plays, the other one measures how well you play overall, in any team.
  • Summarized: If I play a game with morphine, we would 1) improve our common team rating and at the same time 2) moprhine would improve his 2vs2 rating and I would improve mine.
Does this sound okey with you?
morphine
Posts: 13
Joined: March 8th, 2008, 1:56 am

Re: Ladder Site Online...

Post by morphine »

The 2vs2 ladder allows anyone to pick whatever teammate he/she wants, and to play a game against 2 others. You could pick me as team mate for one game, and another person for another game, and then maybe me again. You always play with the person you want. You could of course always play with the same person, or always play with random people you find on the server, or a mix of both: All up to you as a player.
I think everyone will agree this is a good idea, as going for registered teams would just take to much time, both for creating the teams and then schedule the games between the teams. And as you said, nothing prevents people to play with the same teammate all the time if they want to.
Once x plays a game together with y, x & y are considered to be a unique team. They would get a team Elo, that is only affected when x & y play together. So, if eyerouge & morphine have played zero games together, that team (the "morphed eye") would have a rating of 1500 when they start playing. Whenever the team wins, it gets points. Whenever it loses, it loses points. Morphine discovers that eye sucks, so he never plays in the same team with him again. Morph starts playing together with Heroin. Again, those two are a unique team, and they have their own rating. Morphine can of course play with eye in the future: Their rating wouldn't have been touched since the last game, and all would continue as normal.
I was thinking about something like this, but I saw too many drawbacks.

The main issue is that new teams would always start at 1500 rating, regardless of the players skill. This is always an issue with a new ladder, when beginners get dominated by very good players, and lose a lot of rating from it. However, once enough games are played and newcomers (especially already experienced players) become a small percentage of the ladder, this issue becomes irrelevant.

The problem with Wesnoth is that the amount of ladder games played is low compared to other games using an ELO rating. Games take a while and most players aren't looking for hardcore gaming. Even on the current 1v1 ladder, we can see a lot of beginners getting trashed by experienced players. They don't stand the slightest chance, yet they have a very close rating. Of course, the more we play on the ladder, the more this issue is fading away.

However with a 2v2 ladder, there will be even less games played by the exact same teams, especially if people want to play with many different allies, which is, I think, an important part of the fun in Wesnoth.

What would be the purpose of a 2v2 ladder ? As I see it, it would be mainly 2 things:
1) Have a competitive team play (as in, your rank reflects your gaming skill).
2) Be able to play games with players of roughly the same skill level as you, both as allies and opponents

If most of the teams keep hovering around 1500 for a while, then you lose both the competitive aspect and the matching system aspect. If it takes 20 games (40+ hours? not counting the scheduling time) for a team to reach his appropriate rating, the 1500~ ratings will just be a real mess, with random players against random players. Don't get me wrong, it can be fun, but the ladder wouldn't make sense.
In additon to every combination of 2 players beeing seen as a unique team that has it's own rating, each individual player also had yet another 2vs2 rating: The one which shows how good he is in 2vs2 games. This rating would work like the current 1vs1 rating works, but would of course only be modified when you play a 2vs2 game.
Could you be more specific on how this rating would be calculated ? If I'm correct, the ELO system is a 0 sum system, for a reason, so this rating would have to be calculated in a similar way than I suggested: your team's personal ratings against the opposing team's personal ratings. The risk you would take could be completely different between your team's rating and your personal rating. Let's say you are playing 1450 (your team) vs 1550, you would risk something like -8 points for a +14 points gain. However, if your personal rating is 1650, and the opposing team's average personal rating is 1450, you would risk something like -18 points for a +4 points gain.
Reason for having 2 different 2vs2 Elo:s is that they measure totally different things: One measures how well a specific team plays, the other one measures how well you play overall, in any team.

Summarized: If I play a game with morphine, we would 1) improve our common team rating and at the same time 2) morphine would improve his 2vs2 rating and I would improve mine.
It's true that there is a difference between these 2 ratings. However, to summarize, rating specific teams against each others needs a large amount of games to make sense. What you propose is to skip the registration part for each team, but still match specific teams against each others. In itself it allows players to play "on the fly" with each others, which solves a part of the problem, but the issue with the ratings remains.

When I'm talking about a "random" team ladder, it's truly that, a rating system that would ideally match randomly chosen players against each others, according to their ratings. Of course, there is no such system in Wesnoth, and one of the purpose of a 2v2 ladder would be to play with the ally of your choice. However, I think it's a lesser evil than having a too long playing time (and large enough player base) required to make the rating system relevant.


What do you think about all this ? :)
morphine
Posts: 13
Joined: March 8th, 2008, 1:56 am

Re: Ladder Site Online...

Post by morphine »

I wanted to add a post about the drawbacks of the rating system I suggested earlier for a "random" team ladder.

First one is obvious and we talked about it already, it's the fact that 2 players used to play with each other are more likely to perform better than 2 strangers. I don't think it's a big issue tho, as people learn general strategies valid with everyone, and they have the time to talk about it in game as well. It's the "lesser evil" I was talking about in my last post.

Second one is more tricky, it's the fact someone playing with a much lower rated player will take a lot more risks than him (considering his own rating). The good side of things is that if 2 players of different ratings start playing regulary with each other, they will end up with the same rating (their own team rating somehow). I think we would need some veteran Wesnoth players opinion about it, as in how much a strong player matters in a matchup of 2 averages players vs 1 weak and 1 strong player.

However, if there is no difference between the risk a strong and a weak player take when playing together, always teaming up with weaker players would be the preferred way to increase your own rating, and it's something that should be avoided as well.
Post Reply