CMAT competition ladder re-released

Hi everyones!!!

When the first CMAT version was released and a number of people got to use it, the wider circulation enabled some balance problems with the CMAT rating system to be identified. The only reasonable response to this was to fix the design problems and re-release it as CMAT Version 2.

This new version, while in normal CMAT mode, uses the identical bot from the first version. The CMAT rating calculation, however, is what has been completely overhauled, fixing a problem with what was termed "time whoring". It was possible for players to not engage the bot fully by waiting for long periods of time between shots, which made for artificially high accuracy and AHI, and the CMAT rater would incorrectly generate a correspondingly higher rating. Ratings generated this way are incorrect because the CMAT was designed for players who are engaging the bot in a more or less normal movement and firing pattern.

The new rating system not only makes time whoring for the highest CMAT ratings impossible, but it is better balanced. It is not as likely to generate negative ratings for players who can kill it, and the ratings are generally more consistant than before.


As far as the ladders themselves go, there's the normal CMAT ladder, and a new one that most of us probably won't care for. It was found that there was no single bot and rating system that worked well for the entire skill range, including the real Doomgods among us (no I am not mentioning any names, you figure it out). The normal CMAT bot is too easy to hit, and the points spread between different performances is too small, to make the highest level people able to compete with one another on a basis aside from luck. So, there is a seperate doomgod ladder for whoever finds they can manage it, and it uses both a different bot and a different rating system that is designed to deal with that level of competition.

I personally cannot get out of the negative numbers on that bot. It is extremely evil, imo.

How exactly we're dealing with the doomgod ladder isn't decided upon yet. We have to see more people than just one person who can actually score significantly into the positive numbers to get a feel for how well the points spread represents the class. It is the intention (for now) that when this ladder is established, players who are on it will exclusively be on that ladder and not the normal one. There will be a spot where normal CMAT recordings made by those players can be downloaded, but they won't actually participate on the normal ladder.

The links to the stuff are:

Competition ladder page: http://www.doom2.net/~alliance/ladder2.html

CMAT documentation (updated): http://www.doom2.net/~alliance/cmat.html

Download new CMAT version: http://www.doom2.net/~alliance/cmat.zip

The new version includes a batch file named "runcmat.bat" that is menu driven, and makes messing with both CMAT systems easier.

--BahdKo