AIs in ladder

Haha Imagine how much better your ais would be if the coders would know how to play the game. Maybe you should pair up with to players.

@shape-of-bennis lmao imagine if good players knew how to make AI. maybe you should pair up with ai devs

I think at least the part about having the AI play ladder to get a real strength rating for them is interesting. It would be similar to what was done with AlphaStar in StarCraft.
Would that already be possible atm, queuing up and having the AI play?

Having AI with an actual rating would be pretty useful, it would give you a consistent and always available way to gauge your own skill as a new player. There are many who are scared of starting ladder because they don't know what to expect or because they fear getting destroyed in their first games; with an AI with known rating it would help a bit with what to expect.

If you put AIs into the ladder, some people will hope for/expect an AI opponent. And then they will get anxiety whenever it's a real person. As it is now, you're guaranteed to get a real person or nothing at all.

The problem of new players being paired against 1300s is real and probably the best way to fix it is to say that a person's 5 first games they can't get anyone over 700. It's not like we have a shortage of 400-700 rated players queueing for ladder.

Well we can lower the threshold any time. It’s currently at 1600 mu (yes mu Not displayed rating) afaik, but it is easily configurable and can be done even while the server is running. New players can’t get matched randomly with any player that has higher than that mu (unless that player is also a new player)

@uveso ok cool. Maybe it was for sandbox games that it wasn’t sending results

An opt-in for AI opponents if no players within your range are available within a certain time frame would be great.
I can't imagine anyone on these forums would get much out of it. But if a new player could have an AI game (that could be preconfigured correctly as well) instead of waiting extended periods and possibly getting spanked by a much higher rated player that could be a good thing. As someone who lives in a quiet time zone knowing that I'll be waiting a LONG time to get a game after I click the button is a turn off.

Maybe you could gain rating up to 300 through those games to avoid it being abused, that way no one has to argue about what AI's are rated what. I imagine any AI no matter how good has a decreased perceived rating based on how many times you've played it.

@askaholic said in AIs in ladder:

Well we can lower the threshold any time. It’s currently at 1600 mu (yes mu Not displayed rating) afaik, but it is easily configurable and can be done even while the server is running. New players can’t get matched randomly with any player that has higher than that mu (unless that player is also a new player)

So you mean to say these things can be amended easily by using nothing more than a table edit and common sense?

The current PC always characterised any change to the matchmaker as rocket science that only he himself grasped and could undertake after year long study of true skill distribution tables.

Maybe in the future the system can make alot more sense by using a logic that can be explained by alot less words. I'm hopeful.

The problem with AI screwing up regular ladder could be solved by building an beginner-AI-matchmaker pool that is only for people below X rating, but you can farm rating and games for ladder.

Solves the negative ratings. Solves the lack of games problem. Teaches players basics of the game (assuming the AIs behave a little bit like real ladder players e.g. spam instead of turtle).

"Nerds have a really complicated relationship with change: Change is awesome when WE'RE the ones doing it. As soon as change is coming from outside of us it becomes untrustworthy and it threatens what we think of is the familiar."
– Benno Rice

One possible outcome out of this is that new player will just start bunker them self's up much like ladder gatekeepers and win that way. And at that point we just accidentally made more cancer and problems then it would be solving.

I just looking this from a different angle, I do like an idea of tools being used to motivate new players to keep on playing in both ladder and global games.

Analyze, Adapt, Overcome...

@shape-of-bennis no I’m saying this one particular value can be changed because its just a number defined in a config file.

It would be interesting if we took the winner of the AI tourney and put it on ladder for a few weeks as an experiment. It could be given a normal rating and then we'd have it queue infrequently (<5 times per day) and only when players aren't finding games.

We'd get some interesting data to see if this is a good idea long-term and players would get some matches when they otherwise would get none.

@swkoll said in AIs in ladder:

It would be interesting if we took the winner of the AI tourney and put it on ladder for a few weeks as an experiment. It could be given a normal rating and then we'd have it queue infrequently (<5 times per day) and only when players aren't finding games.

We'd get some interesting data to see if this is a good idea long-term and players would get some matches when they otherwise would get none.

Now that is an excellent idea and a good way to get some real data on the subject.

This post is deleted!

@swkoll said in AIs in ladder:

It would be interesting if we took the winner of the AI tourney and put it on ladder for a few weeks as an experiment. It could be given a normal rating and then we'd have it queue infrequently (<5 times per day) and only when players aren't finding games.

We'd get some interesting data to see if this is a good idea long-term and players would get some matches when they otherwise would get none.

one could add a post game survey to ask the player if he enjoyed the experience. a simple from 0-10 how much did you enjoy playing against the AI will give useful information quickly. if the score is below 5 just axe the whole thing. if people enjoy it then keep it. simple solutions without many words are sometimes good I think.

Those things aren't that great. Even more as people who lose will tend to give a bad rating and those who win will give it a good one. Losing ain't fun mate.

Even if i would like to see many AI games,
there should be an option where the player can decide if he wants to play against an AI in general.

I would honestly play ladder more if I could match against an AI if there are no people around. even if I got no rating from wins it would let me try out the ladder pool and learn how to play different maps without having to do all the setup myself

@chp2001 said in AIs in ladder:

I would honestly play ladder more if I could match against an AI if there are no people around. even if I got no rating from wins it would let me try out the ladder pool and learn how to play different maps without having to do all the setup myself

Perhaps best reason for ai right here

The alternative to allow one to quickly try out ladder maps against an AI is to have a button in the lobby of a custom game to quickly choose randomly from amongst the ladder pool. Still wouldn't set up AI for you though.