Determining relative skills of players
First Claim
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1. A method comprising:
- determining an indication of the relative skill of at least a first player and a second player of a game based at least in part on the outcome of one or more such games involving those players via operations comprising;
(i) for each player, accessing statistics describing a probability distribution associated with belief about skill of that player;
(ii) receiving information about the outcome of one of the games, the information comprising, for at least one player;
ordered ranking information that indicates a relative finishing order of the players according to rules of the game and indicates performance for the player; and
an indication of a length of time that the at least one player participated in the one of the games, the length of time being less than a total game time of the one of the games, the statistics for the at least one player being updated on the basis of the indication, the one of the games triggering a single update of the relative skill of the plurality of players participating in the one of the games, the single update including an update of the ranking of the at least one player based on the updated statistics; and
(iii) forming a factor graph comprising nodes, said graph being formed using the received information about the outcome, and instantiating at least some of the nodes with the statistics; and
updating the statistics associated with each player by using message passing techniques over the factor graph such that, for each player, the probability distribution indicating the belief about the skill of the player becomes based at least in part on the outcome of the game.
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Abstract
There is a desire to provide a way to determine relative skills of players of games such as computer games, chess, tennis and any other suitable type of game. Our earlier Bayesian Scoring system is implemented in Xbox Live (trade mark) and is currently commercially available under the trade name TrueSkill (trade mark). Here we build on our earlier work and use a new method of computation to enable processing times to be significantly reduced. Message passing techniques are adapted to enable computation of updated skill beliefs to be obtained quickly even in the case of multiple teams of multiple players.
49 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method comprising:
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determining an indication of the relative skill of at least a first player and a second player of a game based at least in part on the outcome of one or more such games involving those players via operations comprising; (i) for each player, accessing statistics describing a probability distribution associated with belief about skill of that player; (ii) receiving information about the outcome of one of the games, the information comprising, for at least one player; ordered ranking information that indicates a relative finishing order of the players according to rules of the game and indicates performance for the player; and an indication of a length of time that the at least one player participated in the one of the games, the length of time being less than a total game time of the one of the games, the statistics for the at least one player being updated on the basis of the indication, the one of the games triggering a single update of the relative skill of the plurality of players participating in the one of the games, the single update including an update of the ranking of the at least one player based on the updated statistics; and (iii) forming a factor graph comprising nodes, said graph being formed using the received information about the outcome, and instantiating at least some of the nodes with the statistics; and updating the statistics associated with each player by using message passing techniques over the factor graph such that, for each player, the probability distribution indicating the belief about the skill of the player becomes based at least in part on the outcome of the game. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. An apparatus comprising:
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one or more processors arranged to determine an indication of the relative skill of at least a first player and a second player of a game based at least in part on the outcome of one or more such games involving those player via operations comprising; (i) an input arranged to access, for each player, statistics describing a probability distribution associated with belief about skill of that player; (ii) an input arranged to receive information about the outcome of one of the games, the information comprising, for at least one player, ordered ranking information that indicates a relative finishing order of the players according to rules of the game, and an indication of a length of time that the at least one player participated in the one of the games, the length of time being less than a total game time of the one of the games, the statistics for the at least one player being updated on the basis of the indication, the outcome of the one of the games being unknown for the at least one player until completion of the one of the games, the ranking of the at least one player being updated based on the updated statistics; and (iii) means for forming a factor graph comprising nodes, said graph being formed using the received information about the outcome, said means also being for instantiating at least some of the nodes with the statistics; and the one or more processors arranged to update the statistics associated with each player by using message passing techniques over the factor graph such that, for each player, the probability distribution indicating the belief about the skill of the player becomes based at least in part on the outcome of the game. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A method comprising:
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receiving information about the outcome of a game, the information comprising, for at least one player, ordered ranking information that indicates a relative finishing order of one or more players according to rules of the game and indicates players'"'"' performance and an indication of a length of time that the at least one player participated in the game, the length of time being less than a total game time of the game, the game triggering a single update of skill levels of the plurality of players participating in the game, the single update including an update of the ranking of the at least one player based on the updated statistics; forming an acyclic factor graph that includes; for each of a plurality of players of the game; a factor node that accesses a Gaussian distribution that represents a skill level of the player; a player skill variable node that stores mean and variance parameters of the Gaussian distribution; a factor node that reflects player performance by modifying the variance parameter based at least in part on the outcome of the game when the game has finished; and a player performance variable node that stores the mean and the modified variance parameter; and performance difference factor nodes for calculating performance differences between consecutive players, based at least in part on the ordered indication of players'"'"' performance; and for each of the plurality of players of the game, updating the Gaussian distribution that represents the skill level of the player, the Gaussian distribution for the at least one player being updated at least partly based on the indication. - View Dependent Claims (20)
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Specification