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Data - more is better

Vaz
31 Oct 2016, 20:06 PM
#1
avatar of Vaz

Posts: 1158

I know Relic keeps a database of pretty much everything that happens in CoH2. When I say that, I mean like every "transaction" if you will. Every bullet shot, the length of every game, every unit built, etc. This game has been out for a quite a while now and it seems for the most part Relic is not very transparent with this data at all. Sometimes they will tell us about an interesting thing here or there. Sometimes they will use it to justify a balance change, without actually showing us the data. If any of you reading this (I know there is a good 1 or 2 of you!) actually have even introductory experience with databases, you know the kind of power it has to show interesting things, far more than the grains Relic has shared. Wouldn't it be nice to see the dynamics of this game and future CoH games as the meta changes?

For example, commander choices can be tracked and displayed for all users to see. It can be ordered either custom by the user or maybe even by CoH2 displaying a top 5 commanders along the side of the site. This could show a variety of percentages, such as percent of all allied players that chose the commander or even percent of all games since the last patch that the commander was used in. With visualizations of this data, you would be able to literally see the meta. Discussions could be easily and plainly backed up by the data, unbiased as it happens.

Right now, Relic tells us something about the game and we just have to take their word about it, because they don't show the data they are collecting. It would be even better if we were given an API to this database, so fan sites and individual users can query it themselves. This could be an asset not just to CoH, but to all games that Relic makes. I know of at least 1 other game company doing this, which I believe was 343 games, possibly even Bungie as well. There was a fan site I visited that took advantage of the API and could show me all kinds of crazy statistical data about the games I played in Halo. So, I think this would be amazing for Relic and CoH without being too difficult to implement.
31 Oct 2016, 21:52 PM
#2
avatar of Dangerous-Cloth

Posts: 2066

Well to be fair, we can guess most of these statistics man :snfPeter:

Good post mate!
Vaz
1 Nov 2016, 00:47 AM
#3
avatar of Vaz

Posts: 1158

You wanna guess how many lifetime bullets have been fired in coh2? No one could even verify it.
1 Nov 2016, 15:47 PM
#4
avatar of Tiger Baron

Posts: 3143 | Subs: 2

jump backJump back to quoted post1 Nov 2016, 00:47 AMVaz
You wanna guess how many lifetime bullets have been fired in coh2? No one could even verify it.


You're not serious, if the game engine did really keep track of EVERY single bullet fired by an infantry unit or a machine gun in this game they'd have to write new numbers to incorporate all of them.

Games won and lost are a whole different matter now.
Vaz
1 Nov 2016, 17:06 PM
#5
avatar of Vaz

Posts: 1158

It's very easy to keep track of every bullet fired. Not only to count it, but to even keep a record of where it landed on the map, whether it it struck it's intended target or a world target. All of that should be possible. It might even be possible to see it in the current replays. It may be something difficult to conceive in a human way of thinking, but keep in mind that this entire world exists within the program. Every single thing that happens, happens for a logical reason, and it can be recorded. When games complete the information from the game that was recorded can be placed into a well designed database to be accessed or aggregated later. Will the number be huge? Yea it will. Maybe scientific notation would be needed to display the number, but it can be done. It's been done already for other games. Halo had "heat Maps", actually I think Relic may have done something similar, which basically show you a geographical visualization on a per map basis, of where player activity occurs. This can be sorted as well, such as by specific player, deaths, weapons, etc. Colors can also be assigned to represent a specific data. Like Allied deaths in purple and axis deaths in brown. This is possible with existing technology. It just needs to implemented.
1 Nov 2016, 18:40 PM
#6
avatar of elchino7
Senior Moderator Badge

Posts: 8154 | Subs: 2

Another example: Planetside 2 API allowed for the awesome Recursion stat tracker to be made. Fan made overlay with customizable voicepack announcer on kills and different events (like screaming rage quit when someone disconnects after you killed them :P)



Regarding CoH, not the same you are asking for, but there was a project to analyse and make use of the data hold in the replays.

http://cohdb.com/

I'm sure if the game didn't struggle so much during it's lifetime + a bigger n more stable population we could might end up with something like this:

http://www.hotslogs.com/Sitewide/HeroDetails?Hero=Samuro

This is for Heroes of the Storm. People upload the replays and then you have a huge database with all the relevant information you might want.


1 Nov 2016, 20:04 PM
#7
avatar of Australian Magic

Posts: 4630 | Subs: 2

Firstly I would add all units to match-stats casue Pit, Bofors and 17P despite being units, they are not counted in match stats :foreveralone:
(their damage is counted in "total damage" but not for unit itself; even okw flak has its own match stats).

Then I would add damage made by abilities, mines, demos.
Vaz
1 Nov 2016, 21:28 PM
#8
avatar of Vaz

Posts: 1158

Another example: Planetside 2 API allowed for the awesome Recursion stat tracker to be made. Fan made overlay with customizable voicepack announcer on kills and different events (like screaming rage quit when someone disconnects after you killed them :P)



Regarding CoH, not the same you are asking for, but there was a project to analyse and make use of the data hold in the replays.

http://cohdb.com/

I'm sure if the game didn't struggle so much during it's lifetime + a bigger n more stable population we could might end up with something like this:

http://www.hotslogs.com/Sitewide/HeroDetails?Hero=Samuro

This is for Heroes of the Storm. People upload the replays and then you have a huge database with all the relevant information you might want.




Great examples, I'll have to check them out in more detail when I get home after work. Pulling the information out of replays would be a good thing too, but I'm not sure if the replay file has every transaction. I mean I think it would, otherwise it should be impossible to recreate the game, since missing actions would be present.

Firstly I would add all units to match-stats casue Pit, Bofors and 17P despite being units, they are not counted in match stats :foreveralone:
(their damage is counted in "total damage" but not for unit itself; even okw flak has its own match stats).

Then I would add damage made by abilities, mines, demos.


They must be some kind of entity that the game transacts with. I mean if it wasn't, then it would be like units receiving some kind phantom damage, with no way to explain the destruction of their instance.

2 Nov 2016, 12:53 PM
#9
avatar of Nubb3r

Posts: 141

Wasn't there a replay analizer/tool that would even draw heatmaps based on the replay files? That thing was great. Imagine cohdb doing that, along with graphs for resource usage, vp status, territory status etc, just like those that are in the game, but more accurate and less bullshit. I can't even tell what the graphs in the after-game-stats tell, because of weird axis and units in the graphs.

I would very much like to see big data style heat maps from all the uploaded replays from, say a tourney and stuff. Right now, very valuable community members are doing a shit ton of work to record, analyze and display actually relevant and interesting stats from tourneys.

We don't even need relic to do it, just give us good APIs, (modding) tools and boom, community can take over this piece of unpolished, half assed shit.
2 Nov 2016, 13:21 PM
#10
avatar of Siphon X.
Senior Editor Badge

Posts: 1138 | Subs: 2

There are two sets of data per match that we know of and can access:

- Replays
- Match history

Re replays:
These contain the setup (players, map, loadout) and all commands issued by a player. For example, it contains commands for:

- Build a gren squad
- Upgrade the gren with an LMG
- Send gren squad to point (x,y)
- Use the ability "Panzerfaust"

It does NOT contain the result of this action, like, it doesn't contain if the gren squad ever reached the point it was sent to or if it was shot at, let alone if it hit anything or if he took damage or died. It also does not contain resources or the status of the territory. It doesn't even contain which player won (unless one player surrendered).

When watching a replay file, the program literally replays the game issuing the player commands to the game engine and the game engine figures out what the effect of those commands is like it did when the game was played. This is the reason why old replays don't work when the "rules" have changed in the meantime due to a patch.

Re "Match history":
This is available to display "Recent Matches" on the leaderboard webpage. The data package that you get contains more information that what is displayed on the webpage (e.g. info on the map), but it's not as comprehensive as you might like (there are about 30 numbers that you get back), for example as far as I can make out there is no info on the commander choice.

Relic obviously has those two data sets (the first is probably what is actually exchanged via battleservers during the game, but it also has to be stored on the server - at least temporarily - to be able to spectate a match).

Not sure, though, if they actually have a game client running on their end that also runs the replay or if the second set is produced by your client and sent to Relic after the match...
Vaz
2 Nov 2016, 14:30 PM
#11
avatar of Vaz

Posts: 1158

I wish I could cite an example but I have read comments from relic in the past, where they would reference a data store of aggregate community statistics.

What I don't understand about the replay file is how it removes the luck from the game. If in a replay a sherman shoots at a panther, it doesn't always penetrate. So the replay file has to be able to tell the game that in a particular engagement, the round did indeed penetrate. So every time the replay file is played that shot always penetrates. Same for small arms fire accuracy and where arty shells landed. These things have to be done exactly as they occured or the replay file has no integrity, rendering it useless and corrupting the outcome.
2 Nov 2016, 14:52 PM
#12
avatar of Siphon X.
Senior Editor Badge

Posts: 1138 | Subs: 2

Well, the RNG works like RNGs in computers normally do: They do spit out a (seemingly) unpredictable series of numbers, but they have to be initialized/seeded with a certain value. If that seed value is the same, the RNG will spit out exactly the same sequence of numbers.

And indeed, the replay file contains the RNG_SEED, the number with which the RNG generator is initialized for this specific match.

This means that when the replay runs and an RNG number is needed, the RNG will spit out the same number that it produced originally. So, if the shot penetrated the first time around, it will also penetrate the second time.
2 Nov 2016, 15:26 PM
#13
avatar of Raddish

Posts: 20

It's one of the things that allows replay files to be so small. It just needs the seed for the game and the timings of all the commands.

Back in the CoH1 days the replay system could sometimes end up with sync errors when you sped the game up too fast.
Vaz
2 Nov 2016, 20:55 PM
#14
avatar of Vaz

Posts: 1158

Ok that makes sense. That also makes it harder to gather some of the details of the game. Not impossible, but some system would need to play out the game and record the events, which would likely need to be a modified application.
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