Confused by Bot Assignment in On Line Play

[Guest 134529]

This has me baffled.

I'm trying to do the daily quest.  At the start of my first game, my score was 1500.  I was assigned to play against Botanist. His score was 1553.  That seemed reasonable to me.

I lost that game and my score dropped to 1489.  It's still well above 1400.  So I figured - no problem.

In the next game I was assigned to Zombot.  His rating was 1379.  This made my game a complete waste for the quest. His rating is less than 1400 and over 100 points less than I have. 

I was still closer to Botanist at 1553 than to Zombot. 

Furthermore, when I went to look at the list, there are three other bots who are all closer to me than Zombot is.  All of them would have qualified me for the quest.
Botiful - 1429
Botox - 1485
Bot-Dog - 1492

I was only 3 points away from Bot-Dog, and 4 points away from Botox.  So why in the world was I assigned to a bot who was over 100 points away??  For that matter, why was I assigned to a bot over 50 points away in the first game when there were other bots closer to me?   

I had been under the impression that we got assigned which ever bot is closest to us.  I guess this is not the case.  So now I wonder, how are bots assigned to our games?

[Jimmy V.]

Hi,

Thanks for asking.

If we always assigned the closest bot, some players would always play the same bot. To guarantee some variety, we randomly assign a bot within a reasonable range. The closest bot is always more likely though.

For daily quests, playing bots may not be the best option. Part of the quest is to find a relevant opponent. So in case your rating is a bit too low to meet the required bots, then try to find a human opponent instead. It may be a bit tricky sometimes, but hey, it is a quest. Quests are sometimes difficult. Otherwise, how can you become a hero?

I hope this answers your questions.

[Guest 134529]

I was not too low to meet the requirement.  I was at 1500 and the quest only required 1400.  I lost one game to a 1553 bot, dropping down to 1489 (if I remember correctly).  But I was still 89 points over the required amount.  Then the computer assigned me an opponent who was 110 points lower than I was.    There were still several bots much closer to my rating, all of whom would have satisfied the requirements for the quest.

I can understand the need to provide some variety.  The 4 other bots within my range could easily provide that.  Where is the need to reach down for a bot 110 points lower??

Sincere question - Would it be too difficult to have the code check to see if the game is part of a daily quest, then check to see if bots who satisfy the requirements of the quest are available, before assigning a bot?

If other humans are available, which they are not always, I personally don't feel comfortable barging in on someone else's game.   I know that many times when I play, I do so while engaged in another task that has down time - such as cooking - but that requires me to quickly leave the computer to attend to it.   If a human joins my game, I either have to risk losing the game, or burning dinner.   I prefer the bot games, because the 10 minute timer allows me to play, and take care of other things.  If there were 10 minute games available with humans, I'd be fine with them. 

In any event, not knowing what another human's situation is like, I feel terribly rude jumping into one of their games.  Maybe I'm forcing them into a similar unpleasant situation.  Further, if it is a quest, where I am lower than the requirements, I think it unkind to make someone waste a quest game that they could not get any credit for even if they win it.

As a result, I prefer to play the bots, but would like to know that I'm not going to get assigned to a bot so far below my own rank that it does not qualify for the quest, when there are plenty of bots available who do qualify.

[Jimmy V.]

Sincere question - Would it be too difficult to have the code check to see if the game is part of a daily quest, then check to see if bots who satisfy the requirements of the quest are available, before assigning a bot?

Well, it is certainly not one line of code. So I can't say it is easy. It is doable certainly, but...

I understand what you say and can only agree with you.

This said, I think you were mostly unlucky. This cannot happen very often as there were many closer bots and they were much more likely to be drawn.

I think that the issue you had raises questions on the quests with minimum rating themselves as much as the matching system. For example, there are a variety of reasons why we prefer humans to play against humans : less CPU needed on the server (no AI), we like to promote human-human play (it is board games after all), ratings are more accurate when you play various opponents. A good solution to your issues would be to let the players choose to play a bot directly without the few seconds wait for a human opponent. But unless this is asked by everyone, we are not willing to take that route. Food for thoughts in any case.

Thanks for taking the time to let us know about your experience. Your being uncomfortable playing humans in the 2 minutes per move setting is interesting.

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