ESR - Dogs server settings. Team balance proposals

<< Comment #1 @ 11:14 CDT, 28 May 2017 >>

By

"Check this link for
Winning Probabilities from ELO Ratings http://www.bobnewell.net/nucleus/bnewell.php?itemid=279"

Qlstats doesn't use Elo though (it's not an akronym either), it uses Glicko, https://www.chess.com/blog/kurtgodden/elo-to-...-explained

There was a Glicko win probability calculator refferenced by this reddit article once, but unfortunately the link is dead https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/54ul...obability/

<< Comment #2 @ 12:51 CDT, 28 May 2017 >>

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By

qwih

those tiers are too narrow. They would all be empty. There are other servers which are 1600+ or 1800+. Dogs tiering is mostly fine, they just need to take off the lower rating boundary as noobs have no other place to go for CA.

1%

<< Comment #4 @ 06:18 CDT, 29 May 2017 >>

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barrybumcheeks - Reply to #2

I saw this thread http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=2813635
and realised the point I made about using 1337 as a starting Glicko point has already been covered in some detail. In view of this thread I wont pursue this point any further. I would however focus on having a reliable minumim number of games played before allowing a player to join the server. Personally I have played 2k+ games on steam and have a pretty reliable rating which never varies much above 1400 or below 1350. Most regular players woud easily have 200+ games under their belt and would therefore have no problem fulfilling the minimum number of games required to judge their strength. I use 200 as an arbitary figure.
As far as the tier widths are concerned perhaps the lower limits for all could be 1000 (except the noob server) and then just increase the upper limit of each successive server by 100. 50%+ of Dogs servers are emply at any one time. I regularly join the 5v5 HC server when its empty and its usually full within 30mins (mostly with players below 1500 Glicko. The are plenty of open servers where players can gain experience and hence rating but it would be great to have a few that had reliable ratings for players at the lower end of the spectrum.

BumCheeks

<< Comment #3 @ 15:45 CDT, 28 May 2017 >>

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By

alb '

Problem is that CA players' ego is too big and people have no class/honor 90% of the time and experience joy at the expense of others without restriction or consequences. This happens @ lowest and highest tier, with exception some invite only 2v2/4v4 crews.

There is no real solution to this other than better admining which is a pain in the ass and will result in more drama like pouring oil on fire.

Just accept Quake CA is like this and get along. Best thing you can do is to just play your best and don't sell out your team for stat-padding.

14%

<< Comment #5 @ 14:59 CDT, 9 June 2017 >>

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By

naa

Sorry if my respons seems messy, lol!:

Hi naa,

I have played on Dogs servers for a while now and generally have fun. I play mainly on the 5v5 servers as I find 8v8 too random and less enjoyable as a consequence.

The main issue I have is with team balance, however a smaller issue is that of map voting. The server setting for the minimum time between a new map being loaded (at the end of the game and in game voting) and the time allowed before a new vote is allowed is set to the default zero. This means its possible for people to call and force a map change before all players have loaded the new map. Players who are half a second behind can't participate in the vote even though they're in the teams playing in the last game! This is very annoying and needs fixing. If it was set to 30 seconds or some other reasonable value this problem would be resolved. I cant remember the name of the variable but it does exist. Back to team balance. This is the single most important factor when it comes to game enjoyment.
The bot uses Glicko/Elo to calculate team balance. This is fine if the players ratings are reliable. On the Dogs servers they are NOT reliable. The main reason being experienced players using 'new' accounts and players playing exclusivley on unranked servers so their rating never increases.

This is true and the settings is called g_voteDelay, it was previously set to 5000 millisecs (5 secs) but i will change that to 20000 millisecs (20 secs) to all servers.

Why do you not enforce a minimum number of games (for a more reliable rating) before allowing players to join?
This single change would make a massive difference to rating reliability.

Because we want to allow all players (including new players) to be able to join even if they have not ranked matches played.

Why allow a default rating of 1337 (Leet or Elite in text speak) to be assigned to 'new' players? This needs to be fixed immediatly! It wrecks team balance. This is a Minqlx balance setting please fix it. Many times players who are complete noobs (very common) or uber skilled (very annoying) join (1337 rated) and ruin any semblance of game balance.

I could not find this anywhere, please be more specific about this. Check minqlx/plugins git repos for source coude and point me to it. All i could find was this (i also searched with 1337 duh!):

sudo grep -rnw '/home/steam/steamcmd/steamapps/common/qlds/minqlx-plugins/' -e '1500'
/home/steam/steamcmd/steamapps/common/qlds/minqlx-plugins/balance.py:31:DEFAULT_RATING = 1500
/home/steam/steamcmd/steamapps/common/qlds/minqlx-plugins/mybalance.py:118:DEFAULT_RATING = 1500

Also we used to have so that the server kicked all 1337 players like this and also kicked ppl without enough ranked matches but we decided to remove these limitations, since we welcome all players, new and old.

Why have such a wide skill range 700-1800 elo? This causes major problems for team balance. Often you will get a player on the upper limit say 1750 in a game where the average elo is 1200-1300. These players have to carry weaker team members but they still often prevail. For them its an easy ride. Noob bashing is great fun for them. I say go play with players in your own league. Its easy to stand tall in a room full of midgets o_O

Nobody 'has to' carry weaker team members. It's not like they are forced to play on our servers with lower elo players. If someone doesn't want to play with higher or lower elo players they can play elsewhere. It's actually that simple.

A much better approach would be to set a cap of say 1000 elo for beginners/casual players and from then on use a series of servers each increasing in skill by 100 Elo/Glicko. Then have a spread of 200 for entry.
for example..

Dogs server 'A' would allow players in the range of elo 1000 Max for beginners

Dogs server 'B' would allow players in the range of 1000 to 1200
Dogs server 'C' would allow players in the range of 1100 to 1300
Dogs server 'D' would allow players in the range of 1200 to 1400
Dogs server 'E' would allow players in the range of 1300 to 1500 Dogs server 'F' would allow players in the range of 1400 to 1600
Dogs server 'G' would allow players in the range of 1500 to 1700
Dogs server 'H' would allow players in the range of 1600 to 1800
Dogs server 'I' would allow players in the range of 1800+

Dogs server 'J' No elo filtering a true 'open' server for experienced and noobs alike...
Popular servers could be duplicated to cater for increased demand. Probably in the 1200-1500 range

Problem is, ppl don't read server names (elo ranges) so this would be a mess and just add confusion.

All these servers would have a strict limit on the minimum number of games played before their rating was accepted.

DOGs server are for everybody to play on, so that's why we dont enforce min number of ranked games.

Make all mainstream servers ranked to maintain accurate elo ratings.

We could but some ppl just want to play for fun and not worry about players that are too serious about their elo. Also, since not all servers are ranked there is no point. Plenty of 'unranked' servers besides DOGs. If elo/glicko whatever would be builtin to the game then that would be great!

These tools are built into the the Minqlx balance plugins....
If all games are ranked and all players have relaible Elo them the handicap system can be removed.

HC servers are quite popular and we intend to keep them. Ppl like playing on them.

I play on the 5v5 Handicap exclusivley now as the teamsize suits me and the smurfs (elo fakers) have their wings clipped!

That sounds like a good idea for those who don't like elo fakers :)

Using these criteria players would not be confronted with players 500+ elo points above them.

As stated above, this is a choice the player can make. To play or not to play.

The maximum advantage an opponent would have would be 200 elo which translates into approximatley a 25% chance of defeating them in a 1 on 1 encounter. Check this link for
Winning Probabilities from ELO Ratings http://www.bobnewell.net/nucleus/bnewell.php?itemid=279

Another problem with team balance is when new players join a previousley balanced game. Several things can happen.
1) Game remains balanced. No problem here.
2) Game becomes unbalanced and bot recommends player A swaps with player B. Then we hear the shout !a If players swap fine.. if not then rage ensues often resulting in kick votes and nasty things said about your mother.
The single biggest reason (I suspect) for players not wanting to swap (especially in the latter stages of the match) is because they lose their score and as a result they can no longer finish top of their team. Also and perhaps the most unfair is that they are now vulnerable to being forced to spec if someone leaves on the other team.

Yes the balance is not perfect nor does it have to be. All games doesn't have to end 10-9. !balance is the best thing we currently have after just !shuffle so that is what we use here.
I actually created a poll for which i gave out the link to a few players: http://www.easypolls.net/poll.html?p=590adc61e4b0d7f5dfecd02b

The question the poll had was this: DOGs/ 2- and 3- series servers are UNRANKED but still use ELO to balance teams. What should we do about it?. 42% (out of 24votes) voted for "keep everything as it is".

This needs fixing. Im not sure if players scores can be preserved on the scoreboard but they could be preserved by modifying the Minqlx balance plugin and used as a variable when determining who goes spec in the event of a quitter. So > we may not be able to preserve a players team placing but certainly they could be protected from being unfairly put into spectator mode.

If someone decides to create a minqlx plugin for this we can implement it on our servers.

If you decide to implement any of the changes I propose and need any help then let me know. I have run servers in the past and I know my way around both Linux and Minqlx.
Also if you need server resources then I would have no problem in both financing and setting up the above system in a mid european country using the Dogs server brand.

If you want to donate to keep the dogs servers running you can do so here: https://paypal.me/HNevalainen but currently we dont "allow" none Dogs members to host servers.