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Stardock Listens, no more AI in Pantheon Tournaments

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Stardock Listens, no more AI in Pantheon Tournaments

from Demigod Forums

The community has spoken and once again Stardock has listened and taken action.  As of today we have removed the adding of AI Players to a Pantheon tournament when there are not enough players to create a match. 

We have had much internal debate on this topic over the last few months and a decision has finally been made to remove AI Players from Pantheon tournament matches.  This was largely due to the Demigod community's repeated requests for us to make this change happen. 

Now with this change, let it be noted that if there are not enough players in the queue then a match will not be created. So your wait times for a match may increase depending on how many people are (or are not) in the queue.

We hope you enjoy the change..

demigod
18,045 views 52 replies
Reply #26 from Demigod Forums Top

just something I noticed, http://www.demigodthegame.com/demigod3_1.flv

 

if you watch closely 10-15 seconds before the end of that video you can spot occulus, it is very brief, and come to think of it it might be a cleric.

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #28 from Demigod Forums Top

Good news,  I might have to try pantheon again.

Reply #29 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting T-Man, reply 17
Soon.

i think this has become my least favourite word in the english vocabulary...

Reply #30 from Demigod Forums Top

Had a 1v1 for first time in Pantheon today.  I didn't like it.  None of the citadel upgrades are affordable in a 1v1 situation so the game just dragged on for a while past war rank 10 until my opponent simply decided to concede.  I much rather that Pantheon only ran if there are at least 4 people for a game.  Either that, or come up with special 1v1 settings that cheapen citadel upgrades.

Reply #31 from Demigod Forums Top

I played today and got a 1v1.  This is an improvement IMO.  I still believe that skirmish is the way to go, but I believe Frogboy indicated that it won't be coming back... so hopefully we see something to remove the light/dark diff at some point.  We are going to be lopsided some until the latest pantheon expires.  PLEASE - be smart and try to pick an apporpiate side so we can all get matches in.  This will mitigate some against people using panth to just fight AI for EXP.  Thank you SD for making a decision and changing things up.  Some will complain.  I still hope you make panth so its like skirmish or bring back skir though.

Reply #32 from Demigod Forums Top

Oh wow. That is so awesome. Thank your T-Man and SD! ! !

 

 

The community has spoken and once again Stardock has listened and taken action.  As of today we have removed the adding of AI Players to a Pantheon tournament when there are not enough players to create a match. 

We have had much internal debate on this topic over the last few months and a decision has finally been made to remove AI Players from Pantheon tournament matches.  This was largely due to the Demigod community's repeated requests for us to make this change happen. 

Now with this change, let it be noted that if there are not enough players in the queue then a match will not be created. So your wait times for a match may increase depending on how many people are (or are not) in the queue.

We hope you enjoy the change.

Reply #33 from Demigod Forums Top

I have a suggestion for the matchmaking system. Currently a lot of 1v1 are happening because there is always a lot of people in the queue on just one side. When someone joins the queue on the other side a 1v1 is made almost instantly. Maybe the matchmaking should (also) work like this:

If any of the following match ups are possible they should only start after a certain amount of time, e.g.

5v5 - instant

4v4 -   30 seconds after it became available

3v3 -   60 seconds after it became available

2v2 -   90 seconds after it became available

1v1 - 120 seconds after it became available

This way anything above 1v1 will become more probable when there are only people stacked on one queue.

Reply #34 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting Spooky__, reply 33
I have a suggestion for the matchmaking system. Currently a lot of 1v1 are happening because there is always a lot of people in the queue on just one side. When someone joins the queue on the other side a 1v1 is made almost instantly. Maybe the matchmaking should (also) work like this:

If any of the following match ups are possible they should only start after a certain amount of time, e.g.

5v5 - instant

4v4 -   30 seconds after it became available

3v3 -   60 seconds after it became available

2v2 -   90 seconds after it became available

1v1 - 120 seconds after it became available

This way anything above 1v1 will become more probable when there are only people stacked on one queue.

I agree with that logic... but I don't really know what sort of effort is required by SD to make a change like that.  I wonder if the basic logic is in place for them to do something like that.  I assume its not there though. I'm quessing their queue timers start the moment someone clicks fight. 

Reply #35 from Demigod Forums Top

More 1v1s is a good thing. Too many players can't fight their way out of a paper bag and people need some motivation to learn a DG besides Regulus.

Also 5v5 has no place in Pantheon. Without the custom lobby interface the odds are too heavily stacked against all 10 people having good connections to each other and being happy enough with the matchup to not just quit in the first 10 seconds.

 

As for waiting 120 seconds after a 1v1 becomes possible to start, I disagree. I think it should go by the wait time of the person who's been in queue longest. If I've been in queue for 5-10 minutes and someone on the other side joins, I want to play, not wait 120 more seconds with no idea of whether a match is even possible because I don't refresh the opengames.asp or whatever site every time the queue count changes and thus I have no idea whehter they're light or dark.

Reply #36 from Demigod Forums Top

More 1v1s is a good thing. Too many players can't fight their way out of a paper bag and people need some motivation to learn a DG besides Regulus.

I agree for the most part.  So long as you are stuck playing nothing but 1v1's, I enjoy mixing things up from time to time.

I do disagree re: some of your thoughts on 1v1's.  I think it would be good for there to be at least some sort of delay, even if its not quite 120 seconds, to wait for more players to join.  All said and done, if there are 2 on light (and I'm on light and have been waiting 4 min) and 1 on dark, I'd generally rather wait a little longer for a chance at a 2v2 than have it instantly launch.  But, to each his own on this one. 

I'm very curious to see how the population with pantheon goes.  I know alot of people were simply wanting AI stomps for exp.  Wondering if those will continue to play pantheon or play custom games against ai.   

Reply #37 from Demigod Forums Top

  What do you all think of scheduled times for matches to start?  Say every 15 or 20 minutes a new round of tournament matches start up.  It might make the pool of available players larger as noone gets paired off right away.  There will still be one side having more than the other, but if there are 15 light and 10 dark around at match time there would be at least a few decent games set up.   I haven't really thought this all the way through but.....

Reply #38 from Demigod Forums Top

There are some timing events in the matchmaking code but none that involve when is it a good time to make a 1v1 or XvX match.

But  I have done the following for now to help reduce the number of 1v1 matches.

1) Increased the time interval that it tries to create a match from 4 seconds to 7 seconds.  During each match making attemp a random throw is done to determine what map is used.  By increasing this value the chances of getting the Crucible map decreases.

2) When getting a map there is a weighted value for each map that determines the frequency at which the map should be picked.  I have slightly decreased this frequency as well.  So this to will decreate the chances of getting the crucible map.

So we will wait and see how these new values work.  If we find that its taking way to long to make a 1v1 match then I will need to look at adjusting those values back towards their previous settings.

 

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Reply #39 from Demigod Forums Top

It seems pretty reasonable on matching so far, when did the most recent change go live?

Also is it possible to disable certain game type/map pairings? Currently in fortress mode dark doesn't have a valor flag on Zikurat and it's a pretty big disadvantage. The correct flags are all present on other modes on Zik.

Reply #40 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting obscenitor, reply 39
Also is it possible to disable certain game type/map pairings? Currently in fortress mode dark doesn't have a valor flag on Zikurat and it's a pretty big disadvantage. The correct flags are all present on other modes on Zik.
I am guessing this will be fixed in 1.2 :)

Reply #41 from Demigod Forums Top

The community has spoken and once again Stardock has listened and taken action.  As of today we have removed the adding of AI Players to a Pantheon tournament when there are not enough players to create a match. 

We have had much internal debate on this topic over the last few months and a decision has finally been made to remove AI Players from Pantheon tournament matches.  This was largely due to the Demigod community's repeated requests for us to make this change happen. 

Now with this change, let it be noted that if there are not enough players in the queue then a match will not be created. So your wait times for a match may increase depending on how many people are (or are not) in the queue.

We hope you enjoy the change.
Good news, just what we have been asking for. Thanks! :)

Now if we can somehow reduce the amount of players dropping just before the game starts things will really be looking up.

Reply #42 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting T-Man, reply 38
There are some timing events in the matchmaking code but none that involve when is it a good time to make a 1v1 or XvX match.

But  I have done the following for now to help reduce the number of 1v1 matches.

1) Increased the time interval that it tries to create a match from 4 seconds to 7 seconds.  During each match making attemp a random throw is done to determine what map is used.  By increasing this value the chances of getting the Crucible map decreases.

2) When getting a map there is a weighted value for each map that determines the frequency at which the map should be picked.  I have slightly decreased this frequency as well.  So this to will decreate the chances of getting the crucible map.

So we will wait and see how these new values work.  If we find that its taking way to long to make a 1v1 match then I will need to look at adjusting those values back towards their previous settings.

 

T-man = pro.  On the weekend, no less.  Thanks!

Reply #43 from Demigod Forums Top

It seems pretty reasonable on matching so far, when did the most recent change go live?

I think t-man's changes went live just before he posted.  I'm pretty sure these are some db settings they can tweak on the fly.  I work in an app coding and db coding environment myself... always nice when you don't have to change the app and can just make db changes on the fly.

 

Currently in fortress mode dark doesn't have a valor flag on Zikurat and it's a pretty big disadvantage.

Complete agreement.  T-man, can we COMPLETELY remove zik on fortress from the rotation until the valor flag is added for darkness?  Hoping that's an easy fix (and one that's covered in 1.2). 

Reply #44 from Demigod Forums Top

btw.

Quoting Frogboy,
Skirmish isn't coming back. It was barely used.

We will continue to look at ways to improve Pantheon over time.

This may not a good argument, imho. If it was the other way around, i.e. if we had only Skirmish instead of Pantheon, I think more people would play Skirmish than they would play Pantheon. When we had the choice more people played Pantheon simply because it looked more prestigious.

I am glad that Stardock has improved and will continue to improve Pantheon :). But the FoD/FoL separation will always be an issue.

Reply #46 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting Fil26, reply 45
Great, but now they are Games like 2vs3,...
That should only happen if one player drops out during the connection setup, after the successful matchmaking.

Reply #47 from Demigod Forums Top

2) When getting a map there is a weighted value for each map that determines the frequency at which the map should be picked. I have slightly decreased this frequency as well. So this to will decreate the chances of getting the crucible map.

So we will wait and see how these new values work. If we find that its taking way to long to make a 1v1 match then I will need to look at adjusting those values back towards their previous settings.
I haven't seen crucible or a 1v1 on pantheon since November 15th when you changed this!

http://pantheon.demigodthegame.com/games/player/34890/

Reply #48 from Demigod Forums Top

I haven't seen crucible or a 1v1 on pantheon since November 15th when you changed this!
Yeah, I can report the same.

Reply #49 from Demigod Forums Top

I would have your man-babies if you eliminated Prison as a map in Pantheon.  TYVM

Reply #50 from Demigod Forums Top

Yeah, I can report the same.

I pm'd t-man asking for an adjustment to that crucible might get rolled once in awhile.