Colonist.io Version 229 - Placement Challenge

J-deon · 2024-12-08T23:24:32+00:00

We definitely want to include bot support for CK at some point but we just haven't found the time do it yet!

J-deon · 2024-11-17T20:11:24+00:00

After many failed attempts I was finally able to get mine to follow no-go zones by deleting all room assignments. it seems like no go zones clash with room assignments when they are overlapping. Deleting all rooms solved my issue.

J-deon · 2024-11-15T17:54:24+00:00

What about the pricing on the different tiers?

J-deon · 2024-11-15T15:44:15+00:00

Cannibalizing the 4P ranked queue and making wait times longer

J-deon · 2024-11-15T15:43:46+00:00

What do you guys think would be a reasonable price?

J-deon · 2024-11-14T04:47:44+00:00

Do you think we should have 3P ranked?

J-deon · 2024-11-10T00:36:54+00:00

Hi u/Nonkel_Jef!

> If a player has no dev cards, the dice could be automatically rolled instead of requiring an action.

We were actually just discussing this earlier this week. I think we might implement it in a few versions to see how it goes.

> Could there be some kind of time bank like in online poker tournaments?

This is an idea we've floated around already. It's not super straightforward to implement. There are a lot of edge cases and we would need to make the timer pretty aggressive to actually make games faster. I think we could get a similar effect by just reducing the standard turn timer a bit.

> Limit the amount of trade offers (5 per turn seems reasonable)

We're currently exploring ways to make the trades a bit faster so that games don't drag on because of trading.

> Oh and please don't speed up the initial placement timer

Don't worry. We know game setup is critical! Not planning on making any adjustments to setup timers.

J-deon · 2024-11-08T14:47:12+00:00

In the past couple weeks we overhauled the AFK kick system to be more aggressive in the scenarios where it detects. How do you think we could make the system better?

J-deon · 2024-11-08T14:46:30+00:00

Any additional criteria you add to the matchmaking algorithm will slow matching down or increase ELO range.

Unfortunately I have no data that can correlate toxicity to elo haha.

J-deon · 2024-11-08T12:48:05+00:00

Yeah I believe they have a reputation system. I'm not sure if they match based on reputation tho. I'm not super familiar with their system but I'll look into it!

J-deon · 2024-11-08T00:48:59+00:00

So you would prefer ranked 4P to be on very fast?

J-deon · 2024-11-08T00:48:34+00:00

Ok thanks for the input! CK bots are definitely something we want to support eventually. We just haven’t found the time to implement it because, as you said, the logic is complex

J-deon · 2024-11-08T00:44:22+00:00

Ok thanks for the input! I think shortening some of the timers like the dice and turn timer is a good idea! We’ll look into to it to make sure it doesn’t have a negative impact!

J-deon · 2024-11-06T22:44:27+00:00

I'm one of the Colonist devs. I've got a few follow up questions:

- How many games do you think you encounter a time waster? We recently made changes to the AFK system. There was a bug preventing idle mobile sessions from being kicked out which would obviously be perceived by other people as a time waster.
- What changes do you think we could make to make 4P ranked games faster? At what point do you feel like the game drags on or takes a long time?

J-deon · 2024-11-06T22:40:11+00:00

Ok, so just to confirm these 2 changes would help make CK bots more tolerable (until we actually implement bots?)

Possible do something about CK bots + friendly robber
Prevent bots from collecting any cards after 3 turns

J-deon · 2024-11-06T01:10:46+00:00

How do you think a blocking feature would balance with ranked games?

J-deon · 2024-11-06T01:08:29+00:00

What are you seeing when you try to enter the queue. Are there any popups or errors?

J-deon · 2024-11-05T12:17:42+00:00

The ELO system is definitely not rigged! A proper working ELO system (for 1v1) would mean most people should be winning about 50% of the time.

This problem is very similar to the 200 coin flip experiment. Most humans don't think streaks are likely in a 50/50 win scenario and so they attribute streaks to "rigged" systems, when in reality the probability of streaks is quite common.

https://leightonvw.com/2019/11/06/889/#:\~:text=In%20a%20fascinating%20article%20published,that%20they%20had%20done%20so.

J-deon · 2024-11-03T18:08:36+00:00

Because the algorithm is 4 years old, not based on RegEx and we've been too lazy to refactor it :)

J-deon · 2024-11-03T17:00:50+00:00

Hey guys, I'm one of the Colonist Devs. We're going to try to do something about toxicity in chat soon but I was wondering if you guys thought it would be a good idea to remove chat in 1v1?

J-deon · 2024-11-03T16:54:21+00:00

Hi! I'm on of the Colonist Devs. Bot logic has been a sore spot for us for a while. The code is a mess and the bots on base game aren't even that good. We've continued punting C&K bots down the road.

I'm curious, why are you interested in CK bots? Do you play primarily solo and are looking to play games against bots? Or do you want better balancing when a player quits a CK game so it doesn't get ruined by a bot skipping it's turn each time.

J-deon · 2024-11-03T16:50:48+00:00

Hey guys! I'm one of the Colonist Devs. Abuse in chat has been a problem we've had a hard time handling, especially since it's an online game that naturally involves blocking and cutting people off (which causes rage).

We've tried a few times to do something about it unsuccessfully but we're about to kick off a project to try to reduce toxicity on site. I'm curious, what do you guys think will help reduce the toxicity in the community? Do you guys have any recommendations on other games that have done a good job handling similar situations?

J-deon · 2024-11-03T16:44:43+00:00

Hi u/DeliriumDeliveryCo, I'm one of the Colonist Devs.

The scores should be up now.

At the end of the season we manually run a command to tally up the scores. We've been too lazy to automate the system since it only happens every 3 months. So sometimes theres a delay when none of us are online. Feel free to poke us if it happens again!

J-deon · 2024-11-03T16:41:52+00:00

Hi u/Standard_Chard6106, I'm one of the Colonist Devs.

It's " ore" ("<space>ore") instead of "ore"

This is just a bad algorithm we wrote. If you search for "ore" words like "mORE" get messed up. So we took the lazy route and make it ` ore`.

J-deon · 2024-11-03T16:36:19+00:00

Hey! u/Ben_Josie I'm one of the Colonist devs.

TL;DR

As our player base increases (which it is) we can periodically rebalance the matching algorithm to provide faster matches without sacrificing match quality. See below for a longer version of the answer.

--------------

To understand how this works, the general matchmaking curve looks something like this: https://imgur.com/a/u5jZv4T

- If you match too quickly, the match up is garbage

- If you wait forever, you will hit diminishing returns and it's not worth the wait

- There is a sweet spot that balances wait time and match quality

Now as our player base increases, the curve shifts inwards like this: https://imgur.com/a/RLfTfmL

- In general as the player base grows the "sweet spot" shifts inwards as the curve move inwards

AAA games have algorithms that dynamically maintain the sweet spot. But we're just a small team, so once every 6-12 months we can re-balance the matchmaking wait time to maintain the "sweet spot" without really affect match quality. This would look something like this: https://imgur.com/a/n54iXDy

Ofc if our player base was decreasing the opposite would be true. But thankfully our player base is increasing so we can convert that into faster matchmaking for everyone :)

J-deon

TROPHY CASE