I saw the given starting position. Given perfect play by both parties I believe that player 2 will have a significant advantage. Are there any plans to make the generated maps more fair?
[1░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░▓░]
[░░░░░░░»░░░░▓░░░▓░░░▓]
[░░░░░░░░░▓░░░░░░░░░░░]
[2░░░░░░░░░░░░░░»░░░░░]
I’ve noticed this as well. My feeling was that the easiest fix is to make the first 100 blocks mirror images across 12 and 34
I think it can also help if you’re able to give more than one command in a turn. For example accelerate and turn left at specified x position. That would help coping with the randomness.
I would suggest something in a different vein.
These games run pretty fast. So depending on the number of entries, it might be possible to do something like this:
IMHO , fiddling with the game rules, or the maps, until everybody is satisfied that it is completely fair and balanced , will probably mean the tournament never runs.
Also, the random nature of the map past the starting states allows for situations that completely fouls up the lead bot,and allows the other one to catch up and maybe overtake.
I’ve seen this happen in multiple games now, with my currently best bot competing against itself.
All of the above is of course just my opinion.
And as we all know, opinions are like exhaust ports.
Everybody’s got one, and it usually stinks.
I’m only sitting with my first version this weekend.
Some thoughts:
For Event 1 the leading bot will always win. By lead I mean the bot manages a full screen lead.
This assumes both bots follow the same logic.
I think mirroring the match for the first few tiles will be best. That gives both bots a chance to hit their “optimum” gears.
In the attached example the top car has a very small chance to keep up with the bottom one. Event 1 is fairly simple, once you have the lead you win.
So I’m all for a start Symmetrical for x rounds.
Running 2 matches could help, but it poses its own problems. Don’t feel its needed to make the whole map symmetrical, as it will keep cars on their own sides. Which will be bad.
I like the idea of running the map twice with each bot getting a turn on each side. A possible way to approach this could be by playing each bot against each other bot, every time a bot wins on both sides they get a “win” (and possibly do this multiple times for each bot pair). If the same bot didn’t win both sides neither of the bots get a “win”. Final ranking can then be determined by the bot with the most wins overall (and draws could be resolved with cumulative scores like @demaniak suggested). This way we don’t have to change the game rules or the generation of the map (possibly fairly close to the submission deadline taking into account the turnaround time for a fix/rule-change to get released).
Hi there, thanks for raising the issue of the map not being fair and giving a bias to a bot at start. The game engine dev team will look into the issue and release a strategy/ release to fix this.
Personally I think symmetry would be boring. 2 legs with lanes swapped on the same map sounds more appealing.
My 8cents: I would be happy if the first 50 blocks are symmetrical.
I did raise this earlier as well to allow 2 matches to be run with the player positions swapped as part of the tournament.
The other alternative to add fairness would be all matches played with the same track doubt this would make a difference to a win though if the race is just run twice with player positions swapped out.
I have also noticed on some of my matches I do get a significant amount of less rounds when i swap the player positions.
I had a look at the previous year’s tournaments as well, seems like most of the maps were symmetrical so the options would be symmetrical or dual races with the different starting point.
These options seem logical as this is first to a finish line and not exactly a fight to finish the other player off especially given that the advantage of ending up on a better start impacts all your round plays going forward.