Match Seeding feature?

TinCanTinCan Join Date: 2006-12-11 Member: 59010Members
When 316 rolled out I eagerly started up the game in hopes of finding a match seeding feature. Can anyone elaborate on the progress of this idea? Is it still moving forward? Stuck searching for a server that is not full and has players I see 15 to 20 players in the browser that apparently are also looking and I think, heck, that's a full server right there just waiting to happen.

I wonder if rookies will be treated differently?
Will we see something on the next patch?
What are the drawbacks?
What is the delay?

Comments

  • BeigeAlertBeigeAlert Texas Join Date: 2013-08-08 Member: 186657Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
    TinCan wrote: »
    When 316 rolled out I eagerly started up the game in hopes of finding a match seeding feature. Can anyone elaborate on the progress of this idea? Is it still moving forward? Stuck searching for a server that is not full and has players I see 15 to 20 players in the browser that apparently are also looking and I think, heck, that's a full server right there just waiting to happen.

    I wonder if rookies will be treated differently?
    Will we see something on the next patch?
    What are the drawbacks?
    What is the delay?

    @McGlaspie
  • MephillesMephilles Germany Join Date: 2013-08-07 Member: 186634Members, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
    @McGlaspie is the answer to everything :tongue:
  • KasharicKasharic Hull, England Join Date: 2013-03-27 Member: 184473Members, Forum Admins, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
    Ah sod it... I'll join in too.

    @McGlaspie
  • MephillesMephilles Germany Join Date: 2013-08-07 Member: 186634Members, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
    Would be great if all of that would be possible to do within 60 seconds but I have a hard time imagining that with the current playercoutn of ns2... well this kind of depends if you have a minimum amount of players in a group required. If we are talking about a group of minimum 12 players being thrown onto an empty server to play there I think this would be more what you said matchmaking would be... and tbh games like CS:GO sometimes struggle to get this done within 60 seconds
  • moultanomoultano Creator of ns_shiva. Join Date: 2002-12-14 Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
    Where do you anticipate this fitting with play now/server browser? How will people get into it?
  • McGlaspieMcGlaspie www.team156.com Join Date: 2010-07-26 Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
    Mephilles wrote: »
    Would be great if all of that would be possible to do within 60 seconds but I have a hard time imagining that with the current player count of ns2... well this kind of depends if you have a minimum amount of players in a group required. If we are talking about a group of minimum 12 players being thrown onto an empty server to play there I think this would be more what you said matchmaking would be... and tbh games like CS:GO sometimes struggle to get this done within 60 seconds

    Indeed. The reason the playtesting example I cited worked, is because everyone pressed the button at essentially the same time. So, the speed of this new system will _entirely_ depend on how many people are "in queue" at once. Which also comes right back to how many people adopt it as the primary method of finding a server to play on. We're not going to be removing the server browser or anything like that; however, and food-for-thought, any one who jumps straight to the server browser will in essence be diminishing the match-seeding system efficiency.


    moultano wrote: »
    Where do you anticipate this fitting with play now/server browser? How will people get into it?

    It will replace Quick Play entirely for the most commonly used form of it. This is the simplest method for it to be accessible. The reason being is the system has a series of failover states it'll hit when X thresholds are met. Here is a simplified example of how it works:
    1. Player clicks the Quick Play button
    2. It searches, starting with Geo-nearest for open lobbies
    3. If no lobbies are found, it extends the geo-distance and searches again (tunable failover timing)
    4. Each lobby search polls X times (tunable)
    5. If no lobbies found, create one and wait for X seconds for other players to join
    6. If no players join, or a timeout period exceeded, run the server search routine
    7. If players do join, wait an additional X seconds for more to join (small interval 3-5s, tunable)
    8. Search for and Join the best available server, and prompt all group members to join the same server

    So, as a result, it will still cover the use-cases of Quick Play for single-users, but also seamlessly fold in group-based functionality too. The only real downside to this is it will take a little bit more time for a single-user to get placed onto a server. However, considering it has the potential to massively increase the rate servers are populated, I feel this is worth the trade-off. If all else absolutely fails, we can add either modal behavior to the Quick Play button, or a second one for single-user only (although, I'm very much against this approach).

    Assuming it makes it into b317, Private and/or Friends-Only Groups will be a full manual process, so it'll require the Lobby owner to invite specific users. However, this doesn't exclude turning a private group into a public one (which would then lump it into the above process). Now, things get really interesting when we take a looking at group-linking. This would open the door for things like two distinct groups of players being cross-linked via an orchestrator user (mostly handled by the system), which allows for two private groups to be treated as one (i.e. clan gathers or pcw type thing). However, to really leverage linked-groups well, we'd have to modify how servers get viewed by the system, so specific servers could Opt-in to being available for this group-linking match seeding method. For the sake of clarity, I won't be adding in group-linking for b317 and possible/maybe won't add it at all. It really comes down to how much the match-seeding gets adopted by our entire playerbase. If no one uses it, even after core features are solid, well, it just won't merit any more development time. Why? Because the current team's man-hours are at a premium due to limited availability. So, we cannot afford to spend time fleshing out huge complex systems that aren't being commonly utilized.
  • MephillesMephilles Germany Join Date: 2013-08-07 Member: 186634Members, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
    Well tbh I have never used that feature because when I join a public server it is the SCC server on sunday at 21 cest for custom maptesting. I don't know if that button will accomplish that for me.

    Also (even though you said it won't be implemented yet) how do you think a system where friends would be placed on the same team work? I have the feeling the ready room will have to be skipped completely in order to achieve that. And does the lobby select their prefered side on their own?
  • The_Welsh_WizardThe_Welsh_Wizard Join Date: 2013-09-10 Member: 188101Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    @McGlaspie The core features such a system must have before I would use it would be: 1. Server whitelisting (It puts me only on the servers I have whitelisted and no other servers) 2. Server priority / ranking list that I can edit manually.
  • McGlaspieMcGlaspie www.team156.com Join Date: 2010-07-26 Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
    Mephilles wrote: »
    Well tbh I have never used that feature because when I join a public server it is the SCC server on sunday at 21 cest for custom maptesting. I don't know if that button will accomplish that for me.

    Also (even though you said it won't be implemented yet) how do you think a system where friends would be placed on the same team work? I have the feeling the ready room will have to be skipped completely in order to achieve that. And does the lobby select their prefered side on their own?

    No it would not place you on the SCC server auto-magically. It's possible it could, but unlikely, because it'll be looking at all potential servers and weighting them accordingly. So, if the SCC server was the "best match" for you, then you'd be placed there. The use-case you're describing is mostly outside the scope of match-seeding. My apologies if I came across as accusatory with my remarks about people going straight to the server browser. Nothing hostile was intended there, instead, I was just trying to illustrate part of the possible reason why click-to-InGame time could be increased.

    @McGlaspie The core features such a system must have before I would use it would be: 1. Server whitelisting (It puts me only on the servers I have whitelisted and no other servers) 2. Server priority / ranking list that I can edit manually.

    Interesting prerequisites. Possible, but not on the initial release. I do intend on ensuring the system will take server favorites into account (but not as a primary weighting factor). Your second item is unlikely to happen, sorry. Heh, props on the specificity. The match-seeding feature won't have personalization options like that. At least there are no plans for anything along those lines. Thanks for the feedback though, I've made note of them. Perhaps something along these lines could be in a Phase 3 or 4.
  • TinCanTinCan Join Date: 2006-12-11 Member: 59010Members
    TinCan wrote: »
    When 316 rolled out I eagerly started up the game in hopes of finding a match seeding feature.
    And then 317, 318 and 319 too.

    Come on 320, give me what I crave~

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