Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: dtango on August 18, 2004, 12:10:54 AM
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Hitech:
What are your thoughts regarding a system like this?
OVERVIEW:- The system auto-balances countries and assigns pilots to countries to balance out the numbers.
- This is applied at the start of some logical interval -e.g. each new map rotation? or tour?.
- The system does a two-stage side balance - (1) by squads, (2) by pilots unassociated with squads.
- Basis of the balancing country numbers is by dividing estimated hours online equally among the 3 countries.
ROUGH ALGORITHM FOR SIDE AUTO-BALANCING:- System tallies up total # of hours online for all squads over some interval - (e.g. 1 month, last tour, length of last map rotation, etc.). Total_hours_online is divided by 3 to get the target hours to be slotted for each country.
- Randomize association of country Bishops,Knights,Rooks to groups 1, 2, 3.
- System does a sort of squadrons by total_hours_online over interval and then applies some optimization or trisection algorithm to assign them to groups 1,2, and 3 respectively to get as close to the total_hours_online/3 target as possible.
Same algorithm is applied to non-squadron associated pilots and divied-out into random countries.
ONLINE COUNTRY-SWITCHING:
You would have to come up wth new rules for this. The easiest would be not to allow it. Another set of rules could be:- TEMPORARY country switching only allowed to the country with the lowest numbers at the time. Upon relog system puts you back into the country your were assigned.
- PERMANENT country switching for the interval only allowed as a SWAP for non-squad associated individuals or as a squad (not both). You must have someone/squad that is rated with the similar amount of time online that is willing to swap with you. Upon request the system would do this automatically by finding someone/squad who has not been on for the interval and automatically swaps you. If no match is found then you can elect to be entered into a barter system tracker that will make you available for swap. I'm thinking this wouldn't be a problem for individuals but a little more for a squad.
Hopefully the end result would be that countries are much more balanced. Obviously a key assumption is hours online correlates close enough to # of players online. Certainly there would be some localized spikes in numbers where it isn't totally even but perhaps tolerable. This is by no means a perfect solution but it may be more palatable than the plane ENY limit system.
For greater accuracy and fidelity you would need data points that allow you to factor in peak times vs. non-peak times etc. as it relates to squadrons and non-squad pilots. Not sure if that data exists but I'm guessing that it is possible given the log data that gets dumped from events in the SEA that actually show flight times for individuals. This would give enough to make some better balancing calculations based on trends of when people are actually online.
Again by no means fullproof. My brain is totally fried so I'll leave it at that for now. What are your thoughts?
Thanks!
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
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It actually sounds pretty well thought out, hard to punch a hole in it on theory. biggest question would be when various folks are online. since I haven't played since AH2 went "live" I dont know how bad things got to force the current situation. Obviously since this went from talk to implemintation (eek sp) within 48 hours the powers that be felt it was a potentially catostophic situation....so I gues they will ride it out for awhile as is...
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Have considered that dtango.
HiTech
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Wrong place.....oops ignore me.
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cc - totally discarded idea or does it still have some possibilities?
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
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dtango: It would balance the sides, not sure if it is worth the aspects of community building.
HiTech
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The desired goal is to move people around, look at the grief hitech has got for encouraging volentary switching. The howls of pain from a mass move would give some a stroke. "I GOTTA fly for brand X, it's my COUNTRY!!!!", yadda yadday yadaa.
If folks were reasonable to begin with, hitech wouldnt have been compled to do anything.
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I think it is more than reasonable that if a person or squad has been flying for one country for a while and does not wish to switch countries that they be allowed to stay with that country. That`s the kick a lot of us get out of the game. We fly with the same folks day in and day out and have no desire to do otherwise.
If a squad wishs to rotate, etc, that`s fine too, but you shouldn`t be forced to do so.
If this was going to be the case then I believe it should first of all look to the new player just signing up to be assisgned to a specific country. They have no country affilliations like some of us.
In the case of someone coming to AH in order to fly with a particular person or persons it could be dealt with, by request.
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cc HT. Just a clarification regarding the community building aspect - do you mean that a system like this would be detrimental to that? Thanks.
Zanth - So you don't think this system would move people around?
Jackal - Would the country SWAPPING feature would resolve some of the stability in staying with a particular country?
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
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Midnight had a real good idea (although other people have said it before).. I think one good idea would be to ALWAYS let people switch to the outnumbered side.
That way if a squad gets split up because different people log in and go to the outnumbered side (at different times), they could get back together again on the same side for their squad night or whatever.
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Urchin lets say I havn't switched in 6 hours. So I switch to the big country. Check out its CV's, and since I came from the low side I can switch right back.
HiTech
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Originally posted by hitech
Urchin lets say I havn't switched in 6 hours. So I switch to the big country. Check out its CV's, and since I came from the low side I can switch right back.
HiTech
For that ... you would need the "Men in Black" patch installed.
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HiTech how about offering one free Me262 ride, effective only for the next 30 minutes, for switching to the short side?
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Originally posted by hitech
Urchin lets say I havn't switched in 6 hours. So I switch to the big country. Check out its CV's, and since I came from the low side I can switch right back.
HiTech
That is a good point, however they do that anyway with "radar" accounts. Example Kongo/Kongoo (he wasn't even creative with his naming convention)
(While we are at it, should an ip address be allowed to maintain simultaneous log-ins?)
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HT - would you mind clarifying what you meant by the "not sure if its worth the aspects of community building" statement? Thanks!
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
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Originally posted by dtango
Jackal - Would the country SWAPPING feature would resolve some of the stability in staying with a particular country?
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
Sorry, I`m not sure what you mean by this.
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Originally posted by hitech
Urchin lets say I havn't switched in 6 hours. So I switch to the big country. Check out its CV's, and since I came from the low side I can switch right back.
HiTech
I honestly don't see this as a problem. First of all, people do it already with "shade" accounts or 2 week accounts. Secondly, I actually think hiding the CV is stupid, and people wouldn't be looking for it if it wasn't hidden.
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Jackal:
For the idea I've thrown out for discussion here the system makes a 1st pass at balancing countries out and assigning pilots to countries to do this.
Players still have the option to switch countries to the country of their preference. This would be allowed in 2 manners - temporary switching and permanent switching/swapping.
For the permanent country switch/swap- a player or squadron can request to be switched to a different country permanently only if there is a pilot or squadron available to SWAP countries with them (with similar ratings used by the system for determining the country balance).
A swap is done 1st with anyone/squadron that hasn't been online yet. If there are no matches then the request goes into a bartering system that takes willing requestors to find a match for a swap.
The idea is to provide the mechanism for those who like to fly with pilots in different squads etc. to hookup with them.
Did this system satisfy what you were advocating?
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
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Awww OK, got ya.
Quite frankly I think that would be opening up a whole new can of worms that would turn into a fiasco. First off, right from the get go a squad could get stuck somewhere they wish not to be.
Some squads in the higher numbers sides have allready expressed a willingness to change over to Knight or Bishop . I think given a little time the system in place just might work itself out.
Like I said earlier, I believe the key to a forced balancing, if all else fails and has to be done, can be found with the entry level players. They have made no country or squad ties at that time. If upon entry they are funneled to a country for a certain amount of time, I believe the majority will stay with that country.
As we have seen , anything drastic in nature forced upon the players that have been around for a while is not going to go over easy. I think an actual balance is going to take a while to work itself out, but in the end will be more acceptable than disrupting the established player.
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HT unfortunately we the community as whole can't even control a persons integrity. Hopefully the system wouldn't allow someone to switch to a higher side though.
Tangos idea is kinda what I was getting at in other posts but I'm frankly dumb when it comes to that kind of stuff. As I've said in the past I'll go to any side that is needed so long as I'm going with my squad.
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Tango,
wouldn't it be better to have the "non squad" pilots be allocated to the Low # country first?
Or If a squad member is online and allocatted to a L#Country then as his squad mates come online they are automatically moved to where the first guy online is.
Or have you said that? :eek:
Regards
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Kind of funny...I signed back up and "it" made me a rook:)
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JR:
wouldn't it be better to have the "non squad" pilots be allocated to the Low # country first?
What I was proposing really was a system static balancing done by not looking at actual numbers of players but total number of hours online divided equally between 3 countries. What that means is actual player numbers doesn't count - it's hours online they fly that count.
The aim is to achieve balance by grouping pilots using a form of equalizing the probabilities for amount of time pilots spend online across the 3 countries.
This method means you divy pilots by the number of hours online they fly therefore there isn't a "lowest" country during the static balance run. Instead individual pilots are divied out so that there are roughly the same amount of total hours online for all 3 countries.
Or If a squad member is online and allocatted to a L#Country then as his squad mates come online they are automatically moved to where the first guy online is.
This could be done and I said something like this in another thread but for specifically for the system described above it's not defined as such though you could implement it.
The dynamic balancing here is not system but pilot initiated through temporary switching or permanent swapping.
Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
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Understood :aok