Implement Map voting

[evanpelle]

In the public lobby have a button to upvote/downvote upcoming map. we can use that info to determine map frequency

[Aotumuri]

Could you assign this to me?

[FloPinguin]

@Aotumuri I assigned it to you, thanks for your engagement :)

I have an idea for this feature (open to discussion):

• Offer a little voting icon next to the "current public lobby" UI element
• On click, a modal opens, it lists all maps. You can select as many as you want. Save it to localstorage.
• We are connected to a websocket on the main page. Can we use it to send our map selection to the server?
• The server knows all votings of all players who are connected to the server (currently waiting for a game). The next map is selected randomly, but the maps with more votes have a higher chance of getting selected (get rid of frequency in MapPlaylist.ts)
• Only allow map voting for logged in players (so you can't easily open a bunch of browsers to have multiple votes)
• If a logged-in player has multiple WebSocket connections (multiple tabs open), their vote should be counted only once.

By only counting the votes of people who are currently connected to the websocket, the system is very dynamic (=> fun!). Only votes of people who actually want to play are counted, not the votes of people who played a week ago.

[FloPinguin]

Evans idea "have a button to upvote/downvote upcoming map" would work too, but then you couldn't upvote maps that many other people have downvoted (because of the downvotes the map will show up rarely => voting buttons show up rarely)?

[Aotumuri]

@Aotumuri I assigned it to you, thanks for your engagement :)

I have an idea for this feature (open to discussion):

• Offer a little voting icon next to the "current public lobby" UI element
• On click, a modal opens, it lists all maps. You can select as many as you want.
• We are connected to a websocket on the main page. Can we use it to send our map selection to the server?
• The server knows all votings of all players who are connected to the server (currently waiting for a game). The next map is selected randomly, but the maps with more votes have a higher chance of getting selected (get rid of frequency in MapPlaylist.ts)
• Only allow map voting for logged in players (so you can't easily open a bunch of browsers to have multiple votes)
• If a logged-in player has multiple WebSocket connections (multiple tabs open), their vote should be counted only once.

By only counting the votes of people who are currently connected to the websocket, the system is very dynamic (=> fun!). Only votes of people who actually want to play are counted, not the votes of people who played a week ago.

I also have a few thoughts and would like to get your opinion, so I’ll write them here to keep the context in one place.

Regarding the voting flow itself, it’s very close to what I had in mind as well, so I won’t repeat that part. One question though: would it make sense to limit each player to selecting up to around 3 maps? Allowing unlimited selections might make the votes too flat.

For how votes affect map selection, I was imagining keeping the existing base weights for maps (roughly the current 1–7 range), and then adding extra weight based on the number of votes. In other words, votes would increase the probability rather than completely overriding the default distribution.

As for vote validity, my initial assumption was that votes would only apply until the next game starts. However, after reading your proposal, I’m wondering whether it would make more sense to keep votes valid for a bit longer (for example, a few hours). Do you think that would work better?

I also agree that restricting voting to logged-in players only is a good idea.

[Aotumuri]

Evans idea "have a button to upvote/downvote upcoming map" would work too, but then you couldn't upvote maps that many other people have downvoted (because of the downvotes the map will show up rarely => voting buttons show up rarely)?

I think downvotes could be problematic. It feels like it would create a strong bias toward a small set of “popular” maps, and the rotation could collapse pretty quickly. At that point it starts to feel like “if you want full control, just play private.”

Personally I think we still need some randomness in the public lobby, so the map pool doesn’t get too repetitive. Maybe upvotes-only (as a soft weight boost) would be a safer starting point, and we can revisit downvotes later if there’s a clear need.

(If this was already discussed in depth during the v30 meeting, sorry for bringing it up again.)

[FloPinguin]

I also have a few thoughts and would like to get your opinion, so I’ll write them here to keep the context in one place.

Regarding the voting flow itself, it’s very close to what I had in mind as well, so I won’t repeat that part. One question though: would it make sense to limit each player to selecting up to around 3 maps? Allowing unlimited selections might make the votes too flat.

For how votes affect map selection, I was imagining keeping the existing base weights for maps (roughly the current 1–7 range), and then adding extra weight based on the number of votes. In other words, votes would increase the probability rather than completely overriding the default distribution.

As for vote validity, my initial assumption was that votes would only apply until the next game starts. However, after reading your proposal, I’m wondering whether it would make more sense to keep votes valid for a bit longer (for example, a few hours). Do you think that would work better?

I also agree that restricting voting to logged-in players only is a good idea.

Yeah we could limit the map selection... I was just thinking that the player should be able to select all maps they like. So they don't have to adjust their selection every time they want to play. What if I like all maps with rivers but I can only select 3?

After reading your comment I think you are right with keeping some low base weights. Evan reccently increased the chance of the "Didier" map extremely (for a short period of time) because a youtuber was recording a video. We need to keep that option somehow. My idea of scrapping the hardcoded frequencies altogeher came from @Duwibi saying that they are kind of random / unbalanced at the moment.

Keeping the registered votes on the server valid for a bit longer might be a good idea.
The map selection of the user should be kept in the localStorage (and never get deleted).

[Aotumuri]

You’re right, limiting it to 3 might be inconvenient.
After your example, I agree that allowing players to select all the maps they like makes more sense.

I’m glad we’re aligned on keeping the base weights as well.

I also really like the idea of persisting the user’s map selection.(of course, the server-side state should still be reset periodically.)
I’ll work on this over the next day or two. ’w’

[kirinningen]

You’re right, limiting it to 3 might be inconvenient. After your example, I agree that allowing players to select all the maps they like makes more sense.

I’m glad we’re aligned on keeping the base weights as well.

I also really like the idea of persisting the user’s map selection.(of course, the server-side state should still be reset periodically.) I’ll work on this over the next day or two. ’w’

Please do your best (I can only translate, so I'll just cheer you on...)