SATOTW #2: Enabling TrueSkill

[bibim]

SPADS Admin Tip Of The Week #2: Enabling TrueSkill

Since version 0.11 SPADS supports TrueSkill, which is an efficient ranking algorithm based on bayesian statistics. The TrueSkill infrastructure is implemented in SLDB (Spring Lobby DataBase), which also offers an automatic smurf detection algorithm. That's why it is highly recommended to enable TrueSkill on all your SPADS instances, so that the players benefit from better balance in their games.

To do so, you just have to set your skillMode setting to "TrueSkill" in spads.conf:

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skillMode:TrueSkill

[raaar]

I changed the skillMode to TrueSkill.

When i start SPADS, it outputs "TrueSkill service available", but when a player connects it always outputs "Unable to get skill of player (...)".

What's missing?

[bibim]

What game are you hosting?

Currently, only the following Spring games can use TrueSkill: Balanced Annihilation, Zero-K, Tech Annihilation, NOTA, XTA, Evolution RTS, Spring: 1944, and Kernel Panic. I can add other games on demand very easily though, I just need the regexp matching the gameName used in lobby protocol for this game.

[raaar]

Metal Factions

on hostingPresets.conf I have:

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modName:~Metal\ Factions\ v\d+\.\d+

is that it?

[bibim]

Yes, that should be ok now:

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<bibim_> !leaderBoard MF
<SLDB> .
<SLDB>               [ Top 20 Metal Factions players sorted by TrustedSkill ]              
<SLDB> Rank  UserId  Name             Inactivity  TrustedSkill  EstimatedSkill  Uncertainty
<SLDB> ----  ------  ---------------  ----------  ------------  --------------  -----------
<SLDB> 1     142479  raaar            0           28.17         32.51           1.45       
<SLDB> 2     189201  NeonStorm        0           24.03         28.59           1.52       
<SLDB> 3     139677  Thorgasm         0           19.67         29.51           3.28       
<SLDB> 4     948463  Mas_Loco         1           18.51         29.94           3.81       
<SLDB> 5     257100  playerO1         0           8.35          31.60           7.75       
<SLDB> 6     177977  captain_quark    0           8.35          31.60           7.75       
<SLDB> 7     969656  katerkraft       0           6.90          25.12           6.07       
<SLDB> 8     959053  lutgames         0           5.09          23.39           6.10       
<SLDB> 9     5773    s0lv3            0           3.45          23.31           6.62       
<SLDB> 10    969266  Stiffy(1)        0           3.40          18.86           5.15       
<SLDB> 11    969520  sir_shits        0           3.39          20.11           5.57       
<SLDB> 12    207032  Znack            0           2.27          23.27           7.00       
<SLDB> 13    158653  Antarac          0           2.25          23.65           7.13       
<SLDB> 14    962641  cody57838        0           2.18          21.52           6.44       
<SLDB> 15    969521  Xion1444         0           2.08          20.16           6.03       
<SLDB> 16    969533  SmartOne         0           1.31          22.07           6.92       
<SLDB> 17    877304  inuoppai         0           0.77          21.19           6.81       
<SLDB> 18    958060  LordLemmy(1)     0           -0.73         21.10           7.28       
<SLDB> 19    246263  elftor           0           -0.94         21.01           7.32       
<SLDB> 20    964849  aoTr[Islambamn1  0           -2.02         18.71           6.91       
<SLDB> ====================================================================================

[raaar]

Thanks.

Is there a website with the information? Maybe it's here somewhere.

It'd be useful to have some web service i can send HTTP requests to to get TS information and show the top 20 or something on my game's website, even if I have to resort to scraping.

How long since last game to have that inactivity attribute changed to 1?

[bibim]

Is there a website with the information? Maybe it's here somewhere.

Yes, I guess it should be listed here. You can try to contact Dansan who is responsible for this site.

It'd be useful to have some web service i can send HTTP requests to to get TS information and show the top 20 or something on my game's website, even if I have to resort to scraping.

The replay site uses the getLeaderboards XmlRpc service offered by SLDB to get this information. When Dansan adds Metal Factions to his site, the corresponding leaderboards should become available too.

How long since last game to have that inactivity attribute changed to 1?

This "inactivity" value is actually the number of inactivity penalties applied to the ranking of the corresponding player. It goes from 0 (the player played enough games in last months or already has a low ranking) to 100 (the player had a very high ranking and almost didn't play for more than 1 year):

the inactivity penalties are applied each month to all high-skill with low uncertainty players who almost didn't play in the month. These penalties are quite light however, because the goal is not to really penalize them but actualy modelize their lost of skill and the increase of their skill uncertainty. Players recovering from inactivity periods should be able to recover their original rating quite fast thanks to this uncertainty increase. This system also prevents old inactive players to stay in the top part of the leaderboards, while not playing anymore.