So, clearly I've gotten all hot and horny about this whole Arena thing I've built at spawn for you guys to use on your own time. Then I got further horny remembering all my wonderful fun times doing arenas in ye olde World of Warcraft in my day. As I lay in my bed this evening, I suddenly got the brilliant idea to try doing that very same system here on the server. Turns out I had the know-how to program it, so out of bed I jumped and straight to the coding did I go. Two hours later I have a very alpha very basic, but very working version of this rating arena system which I will heretofore explain.
The system is based off of Chess's ELO rating system. Wikipedia it if you want. Basically how it works is that everybody starts with a base rating of 1500. You play a match, and based on the rating difference of the opponents, your rating goes up or down. Whatever that rating is, the winner gains that much, the loser loses that much. What this does over time is separates out people based on skill. To ensure it's not just a flat rate gain/loss, the system awards rating change based on the circumstances of the match, like so:
-If both players are rated 1500, they rating change will be something like 18. Winner becomes 1518 rated and the loser 1482.
-If a player rated, like, 1700 plays a player rated, say 1400, the expectation is that the 1700 rated player will win. If he/she does win, she does not gain that many points since that outcome was already favored, something like 6-8 points. If, however, the 1400 rated player beats the 1700 player, that is considered an upset and that player will then gain something like 26+ points and the winner will lose that many; behooving high-rated players not to lose matches... obviously.
So, like I said, it's a very good skill-based rating system that, uninflated, does a pretty good job all by itself without much further tampering. The magic is of course in the equation. How the arena actually will work you ask? Like so:
-Players who wish to fight will /queue to fight. If there are two players in the queue, after a minute (perhaps less), they will fight each other regardless of rating. If there are more than two players in the queue, the system will attempt to pair the two closest-rated players. This ensures that you're not stuck at 1500 because you're constantly playing 1800 rated players, but, of course, the number of people queuing matters a great deal in this regard. So, the more the merrier!
Once your 'queue pops', you will have about 1 minute to /join the match. At that point you and your opponent (whom you will not know until the match begins) will be teleported to your posts and the match will (somehow) begin. Upon match completion, you will see how much the game was worth, the rating of your opponent, the server will see who beat who, and then the system will then carry on with the next match (after somehow doing some ensuring that people aren't still in the arena).
As with "The Pit" at present, matches will have both players wearing equal gear; and I've just learned how to disable dropping items when you die, so there won't be a mess of items all over the floor after a good night of slaughter. Now about half of this is already written, alls I have left to do is some of the timer-based things, building a copy of the Pit (as the rated arena will be more spartan and not feature spectators [for now]) and I should be able to implement a beta version of this Very Awesome Thing very soon!
Anyway, so I'm sure Mag's pissed cause I wasn't fixing generator bugs and all that, but I thought you (pvp) guys/gals might think this was neat. So, do ya? Shall we get some rated arenas going? Rest assured I'll manage a way to have a website that will show the rankings!
I should go to bed...
Oh yeah, and after a month or two or so of glorious pvp, a season can be called done, and the top players in the ratings will, come 1.5, be able to show off some fancy unique titles that they will wear for the duration of the next season.
-Crypt out
The system is based off of Chess's ELO rating system. Wikipedia it if you want. Basically how it works is that everybody starts with a base rating of 1500. You play a match, and based on the rating difference of the opponents, your rating goes up or down. Whatever that rating is, the winner gains that much, the loser loses that much. What this does over time is separates out people based on skill. To ensure it's not just a flat rate gain/loss, the system awards rating change based on the circumstances of the match, like so:
-If both players are rated 1500, they rating change will be something like 18. Winner becomes 1518 rated and the loser 1482.
-If a player rated, like, 1700 plays a player rated, say 1400, the expectation is that the 1700 rated player will win. If he/she does win, she does not gain that many points since that outcome was already favored, something like 6-8 points. If, however, the 1400 rated player beats the 1700 player, that is considered an upset and that player will then gain something like 26+ points and the winner will lose that many; behooving high-rated players not to lose matches... obviously.
So, like I said, it's a very good skill-based rating system that, uninflated, does a pretty good job all by itself without much further tampering. The magic is of course in the equation. How the arena actually will work you ask? Like so:
-Players who wish to fight will /queue to fight. If there are two players in the queue, after a minute (perhaps less), they will fight each other regardless of rating. If there are more than two players in the queue, the system will attempt to pair the two closest-rated players. This ensures that you're not stuck at 1500 because you're constantly playing 1800 rated players, but, of course, the number of people queuing matters a great deal in this regard. So, the more the merrier!
Once your 'queue pops', you will have about 1 minute to /join the match. At that point you and your opponent (whom you will not know until the match begins) will be teleported to your posts and the match will (somehow) begin. Upon match completion, you will see how much the game was worth, the rating of your opponent, the server will see who beat who, and then the system will then carry on with the next match (after somehow doing some ensuring that people aren't still in the arena).
As with "The Pit" at present, matches will have both players wearing equal gear; and I've just learned how to disable dropping items when you die, so there won't be a mess of items all over the floor after a good night of slaughter. Now about half of this is already written, alls I have left to do is some of the timer-based things, building a copy of the Pit (as the rated arena will be more spartan and not feature spectators [for now]) and I should be able to implement a beta version of this Very Awesome Thing very soon!
Anyway, so I'm sure Mag's pissed cause I wasn't fixing generator bugs and all that, but I thought you (pvp) guys/gals might think this was neat. So, do ya? Shall we get some rated arenas going? Rest assured I'll manage a way to have a website that will show the rankings!
I should go to bed...
Oh yeah, and after a month or two or so of glorious pvp, a season can be called done, and the top players in the ratings will, come 1.5, be able to show off some fancy unique titles that they will wear for the duration of the next season.
-Crypt out
