On April 11 2020 20:05 D3AD-R3TARD wrote:
Hi, I'm the author of this script. I got tired of unbalanced BGH games and have started writing an app to auto-balance them. With time I gathered many saved games and started thinking of making something like BGH Ladder. It's still work in progress and I am aware that this system is not perfect. The balancing algorithm can be perfected for sure. Following Chosi's advice I look into using APM into setting initial MMR score. If that proves useful I'll recalculate all scores and maybe system will be more precise. Sometimes system gets winning team wrong - it's related with how the replays are saved but that's pretty rare. I usually run the hosting bot from 1400 to 2200-2300 CET. I would love to also start FS/Python ladder but now I am only able to run 1 hosting app at once so I use BGH 3x3 because that's my favorite custom game. Also 2x2 is harder to balance - only 3 options vs 10 options in 3x3.

Thanks for making it , well done

how can i know when a game start and follow the bot if i like to take a break during the games ? should i send you friend request or there is an another way ? thank you

SirGlinG

Sweden920 Posts

April 11 2020 12:38 GMT

#23

Great initiative! Let the Broodwar community solve what Blizzard would not. Now I just hope that Blizz doesn't care about sc:r, lets the community do what they want.

If this goes to 2v2 as well, I think it'll grow really quick.

Pretty much all players follows the game to some extent on TL or youtube or twitch or reddit or a discord. Word would spread, the player base is slowly growing now during corona. Lots of sc2 players coming into try. I even chatted a bit with a argentian wcg 2002 player who came back after a 15 year hiatus! We're in an interesting time.

wimpwimpwimp

137 Posts

April 11 2020 13:42 GMT

#24

On April 11 2020 21:28 Stogazull wrote:

Show nested quote +

the friend request say that he is in different region... i log in with eu region , is he in a different one ?

I still have tons of problems adding friends as well.

And the /whois command seems to only work with people that are already in my friends list, plus people that I've shared a lobby with during the current gaming session. I suspect the reason for both these problems could be that the system tries to work with both "BattleTags" and in game IDs, and somehow mixes things up.

Not to take the focus away from this bot and ladder though - they are beyond awesome. I hope that the author will have all the resources he needs for further development.

wslkgmlk

Australia38 Posts

April 11 2020 14:01 GMT

#25

On April 11 2020 20:44 D3AD-R3TARD wrote:
That's good idea for another ladder - team 2x2. The reason there is only one hosting bot running atm is that VMs are kinda slow. I cant get virtualization of graphics to be very fast. The best thing i came up with is virtual desktop (Xephyr). Also I have to rewrite bot to work with non HD version of BW cause I don't want to buy many copies of SCR to host many ladders. Another option is to create client for users so that they can host games themselves and then send replays to update ladder results. But then people might not send replays where they lose or only send replays where the lose and break this system.

So if I understand correctly, the bot right now takes the replay once the match is completed and parses the commands within the replay file to figure out who left the game first which would be the losing team. Then it awards points to the winning team and subtracts points from the losing team. Is that correct?

I had a similar idea to create an application where it scans the autoreplay folder for the current date (e.g. the Replays/AutoSave/20200411/ folder) and parse the replays there to figure out who won/lost a match. That way, the players can host the match themselves as long as the map name is a predetermined one for the ladder (e.g. "(4)Fighting Spirit 1.3.scx" or something like that). You could create a hash from the first X amount of commands in the replay file so you can determine which replays from different clients refer to the same game that has been played, since multiple players/clients might upload results for the same game.

What is the difference between the HD and non-HD version for rewriting the bot? I thought it would be the same.

Is the virtualization of graphics for creating the screenshot of the score screen at the end?

D3AD-R3TARD

Poland103 Posts

April 11 2020 15:07 GMT

#26

On April 11 2020 21:32 Stogazull wrote:
Thanks for making it , well done

how can i know when a game start and follow the bot if i like to take a break during the games ? should i send you friend request or there is an another way ? thank you

Friend request is one way. If there are new games on bghmmr.eu (not older than 30 mins) that usually means it's running. I might add status info on webpage later on.

Yeah bot works with replays (I use SCRChart v2.0 for parsing) and screenshots. Problem with replays is that they only contain player actions so I know who left the game but not always who won. I might fix this with processing results image. That's a good idea to hash first user commands to identify replays. I will have to check if that works but that might help. Thanks

[UoN]Sentinel

United States11301 Posts

April 11 2020 21:51 GMT

#27

Is there a plan to have this on West as well? It seems like a great feature.

Though it seems like all we need on West for quality high level BGH games is to have teams balanced so one team speaks English and the other team speaks Spanish

Liquid`Drone

Norway26854 Posts

April 11 2020 23:35 GMT

#28

Yea I've played in these and I've found the balancing mechanic to work pretty well, and the games have been much more entertaining as a result. Whenever I've been on EU and seen the 3VS3 BALANCED TEAMS game be up, I've joined.

Phanekim

United States773 Posts

April 12 2020 08:02 GMT

#29

Always leave it to a independent party to do it better than blizzard.

D3AD-R3TARD

Poland103 Posts

April 12 2020 10:20 GMT

#30

On April 12 2020 06:51 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:
Is there a plan to have this on West as well? It seems like a great feature.

Though it seems like all we need on West for quality high level BGH games is to have teams balanced so one team speaks English and the other team speaks Spanish

I would like to have those leagues on other servers as well but because of lag that might be difficult in host mode. It is possible in client mode. That would require users to host games themselves and later upload replays. This app would only provide balancing mechanism and database/webapp. The problem with this approach is that its prone to hacking/cheat so I'm not sure it is the right way to go.

BTW. I've changed mmr calculation mechanism to include player APM in setting the initial score (first 4 games). Later mmr changes are only dependent on match results. All scores were recalculated. Also listings contain now average eAPM for every player.

Chosi

Germany1254 Posts

April 12 2020 20:31 GMT

#31

On April 12 2020 19:20 D3AD-R3TARD wrote:

Show nested quote +

Love it, gotta give this a try!

Chosi

Germany1254 Posts

April 12 2020 20:32 GMT

#32

On April 12 2020 08:35 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Yea I've played in these and I've found the balancing mechanic to work pretty well, and the games have been much more entertaining as a result. Whenever I've been on EU and seen the 3VS3 BALANCED TEAMS game be up, I've joined.

Right into the top5 :-)

benno1988

18 Posts

April 13 2020 11:23 GMT

#33

Great stuff

I have a question: Can the bot host multiple bgh games at the same time? Because sometimes I am cannot play bgh autobalance because its already full.
Are certain features of the map there on purpose? ( For example: A tank cliff drop at 5 o'clock is possible. Or from 5 o'clock a tank can reach one of the gasses of 3 o'clock. Probably there are many more... Are these features a problem or not so much? )

Ah, nevermind... I just found
(Wiki)

Cliffing (BGH)

So everything is fine

D3AD-R3TARD

Poland103 Posts

April 13 2020 11:57 GMT

#34

On April 13 2020 20:23 benno1988 wrote:
Great stuff

Cliffing (BGH)

So everything is fine

Thanks. Usually there are 2 bots running at the same time (BghMmrBot_EU1 and BghMmrBot_EU2). I might be able to add more later on...

Yeah I know BGH is not balanced... Cannons behind mineral lines, cliff drops, shelling naturals and so on. Also initial positions often determine outcome of the game.

At first I used modified version of the map and tried to get rid of those issues but some players were really angry for changing map. In the end original version is the least controversial and people are used to play it the most. So it seems fair to use it.

Timebon3s

376 Posts

April 13 2020 16:54 GMT

#35

Played these games many times, always good games! Thx a lot

fLyiNgDroNe

Belgium3836 Posts

April 13 2020 19:05 GMT

#36

Hey mate, i've complimented you already on BNet EU personally, but once again, nifty script, really enjoying playing these. Well done and let us know here if you need any advice/support to keep working on it. The bot is a nice add-on too. Cheers

JiYan

United States3660 Posts

April 13 2020 19:17 GMT

#37

this would be awesome on west!

kurrrak

Poland30 Posts

April 17 2020 19:15 GMT

#38

Good work, let's hope the algorithm will get better over time. As someone already mentioned definitely take APM into consideration - just played the game which was team of 230, 220, 50 APM against 130, 50, 20 and it was terrible.

Also sometimes someone won't pick race what makes bot saying "Game won't start unless all players select race" all the time. You should implement auto kicking option after few warnings.

As to BGH imbalance in my opinion it's not about map features (after few games you learn to overcome cliff drops, cannon rush, etc.) but more about races. Zerg for 90% games is just meat unless whole team is Z and You can go ling rush all together. Protoss is definitely superior to other races since it's the most versatile on BGH.

Also is it possible to have always one obs slot opened for someone who just wants to watch?

Liquid`Drone

Norway26854 Posts

April 17 2020 21:46 GMT

#39

I'd like to see fixed turnrate, tbh. most games go down to 8 because dynamic tends to be a bit stupid with 6 players.

bmarcov

1 Post

April 18 2020 00:42 GMT

#40

@D3AD-R3TARD thanks a lot for making these bots. Auto balancing may not be perfect, but it delivers most often than not. It's been quite a while since I had so much fun playing BGH.

Keep up the good work!

A couple of features you may want to add:

1. kick users who don't select their race after a few warnings
2. keep track of users with a habit of leaving the games immediately after they start and auto ban them for a few days

EDIT:

Besides, I wonder whether replays can be made available through the website. Personally I'd love to learn from the S-rank folks, or just plainly enjoy their games.

Finally, have you considered open sourcing the project?