AI-run tournament

[D0nSa1nt]

Hi all.. I will first introduce myself, because this is my first post on this website.

I am male, 46 years old and live in Belgium. I still play lots of video games and DOA has always been my favorite fighting game. I recently bought DOA5 LR on PS4 and when I saw the comp vs comp watch mode, I had the idea of creating computer run tournaments.

You can watch the first two tournaments I put on video here

I only use windows moviemaker for editing.

I was looking for other people interested in computer run tournaments but couldn't find anything except for some threads on neoseeker from many years ago where they also did some simple virtual betting competitions.

Thanks for any comments!

 

[Matt Ponton]

Nice idea. Similar to the idea of Amiibo tournaments I guess.

Sadly, it's all up to the character AI programming. Like I personally find Bass' AI to be insufficient, and other characters like Gen Fu have rather great AI.

 

[D0nSa1nt]

Thanks for the reply! I didn't know Amiibo. It looks awesome training your own AI character

I guess it's indeed very unlikely that the AI of all fighters is of equal value with so many different moves.

Since comp vs comp watch mode in this version of DOA doesn't feature damage or easily verifiable win conditions (at least not that I know about), I invented some rules myself which work well most of the time for giving points and that's basically counting the number of knockdowns (with some exceptions).

So far I really can't tell yet if some characters are OP versus others. The first tournament I did was won by Raidou in final vs Alpha152 and I was so impressed that I thought about removing them to make the competition not just about who gets lucky enough to avoid them as long as possible. Later however they both scored only a single win in the next three tournaments.

The last tournament, which I uploaded today, was won convincingly by a character that didn't win a single match in the previous three tournaments. Hayabusa is the current number one on total wins but he never reached the finals yet.

For me it's very exciting to run these tournaments and that's why I plan to continue doing this for quite some time. Results are unpredictable but at the same time some characters on average seem to be better than others.

I will continue posting my videos here and I want to suggest a betting competition (with fake money of course).

You start with 100$ and you may vote for one or two fighters. They can't be in the same half of the draw. For each match they win you gain the amount you bet. There's a bonus for betting on a fighter based on how few matches they won previously. Each match they previously won less than the number one ranked gives +10%. If the character you bet on wins no match, you lose the amount you bet. If ever you reach 0$, you receive again 100$ .

Example: Currently Kasumi has 9 points and the number one Hayabusa has 11 points. If you bet 10$ on Kasumi and she wins two matches, you gain 10$ + 10$ = 20$ + another 4$ (20% from 20$) = 24$ (you also keep your initial 10$).

Here's the last recorded tournament

Current number of matches won by each character are:

11: hayabusa
9: helena, kasumi
8: brad wong
7: momji
6: raidou
5: eliot, gen fu, zack, alpha152
4: pai, lisa, lei fang, honoka, rachel
3: hitomi, rig, christie, akira, sarah, jacky, jann lee
2: bayman, ayane, nyotengu, tina, mila
1: hayate, bass, leon
0: phase4, ein

I left out Kokoro and Marie Rose. Tough choice, but it had to be two females to keep gender balance and I find them the least suitable for such a violent environment The first tournament I did put them in at first (leaving out the clones Alpha152 and Phase4) and they happened to be paired off against Raidou and Bayman, which was too painful to watch.

Drawings for next tournament are as follows. The winner of hayabusa vs sarah fights against the winner of christie vs lisa. The winner of that match fights the winner of the line starting with raidou, etc. I calcute pairings partially at random. For example: the first 16 in ranking will randomly face someone from the last 16 during first round.

hayabusa vs sarah / christie vs lisa
raidou vs tina / lei fang vs jann lee

kasumi vs leon / honoka vs bayman
eliot vs jacky / akira vs rachel

brad wong vs nyotengu / ayane vs hitomi
momji vs ein / zack vs mila

helena vs bass / alpha152 vs rig
gen fu vs hayate / pai vs phase4

 

[Matt Ponton]

I updated the title to not get confused with a Tournament that is run on the Steam version.

 

[D0nSa1nt]

I guess maybe people are not so much interested in this. I still want to post my next video because I put a lot of work in it. I made big improvements especially on the transitions between rounds with some of my favorite (remixed) tunes from the game, short clips and screenshots. It took me more than two days, but luckily I can use part of the material again for next videos.

This time only 2 of the top 10 survived the first round and the winner only won one match in previous tournaments. So it's all very unpredictable. What this says about the actual AI strength of each character remains unclear to me. Without accurate damage info during watch mode, there will not be a precise way of knowing, I guess?

I kept thinking about alternative ways of giving points during AI combat, but I think my current system remains the best because it's not very complicated but still gives a decent impression about performance. Basic principle is one point for a knockdown. Honoka's bear hug also gives a point, as does Gen Fu carrying a falling opponent. Falling down a stage level is an extra point. The tricky part is when one knockdown follows quickly on another. I try to evaluate if the knocked opponent had time to move away. If there was no time, further knockdowns do not give extra points. The idea is that you get a point for getting through the guard of your opponent and capitalizing on that.

 

[Argentus]

I do this with friends and we place bets on the AI

 

[KING JAIMY]

This is a pretty neat idea. A.I. tournaments look like fun to watch but the A.I. still isn't that good or human-like unfortunately... I wish TN made figures for DOA which work in a similar way to Amiibo so that you can train them yourself and teach them your strats. In this way, you can see your own flaws much better as well.

 

[D0nSa1nt]

Thanks for the comments! I agree that would be awesome to have trainable DOA characters

Ordinary AI competition now means that the 'training' was programmed by the game developers This should make them theoretically more equal to each other, but how equal is very much open to debate I guess.

For anyone who likes to vote for characters, I will give a preview again for next tournament. I suggest you can vote for up to two characters in seperate halves of the draw and you start with 100$. If you would lose all, you get again 100$ for next tournament. Each match won by the character makes you gain your bet and a bonus based on the points the character had less than the number one ranked. So for example, betting on Mila now would give a 70% bonus if she wins at least one match.

Drawings for next tournament are as follows (each line starts with one of the current top 8 ranked):

Brad Wong vs Marie Rose / Phase 4 vs Pai
Momji vs Hitomi / Sarah vs Jacky

Gen Fu vs Jann Lee / Lei Fang vs Christie
Kasumi vs Hayate / Bass vs Eliot

Helena vs Kokoro / Lisa vs Mila
Leon vs Rachel / Honoka vs Ayane

Hayabusa vs Rig / Zack vs Ein
Tina vs Nyotengu / Bayman vs Akira

Due to the increased focus on the personality of characters in my last video, I decided to take out Raidou (I don't really feel like I will enjoy congratulating him for winning) and Alpha 152 (doesn't seem to have any personality at all, unlike Phase 4) and replace them with Marie Rose and Kokoro. Raidou and Alpha 152 will now be extra challenges for the winner of the tournament. The winner first gets to fight Alpha 152 and if successfull Raidou as the big bad final boss Each of those wins gives an extra point in the general rankings.

Current points for each character are:

11: Brad Wong, Hayabusa
9: Gen Fu, Helena, Kasumi
7: Momji
6: Leon
5: Tina, Akira, Sarah, Pai, Lei Fang, Honoka, Eliot, Zack
4: Mila, Hitomi, Rig, Christie, Jacky, Lisa, Rachel
3: Bass, Jann Lee
2: Bayman, Ayane, Nyotengu, Marie Rose
1: Ein, Hayate, Kokoro
0: Phase 4

I let Kokoro and Marie Rose fight 4 matches against random opponents to give them a chance to gain some points as they missed the previous tournaments. Winning a match gave them another random match. This way Marie Rose got two points and Kokoro one point.

 

[KING JAIMY]

I skimmed through your videos and they look good! However, I still don't understand one thing about the point system you are maintaining: Are points only awarded for a knockdown, or also for winning a match?

 

[D0nSa1nt]

Thanks! Well during a match, points are given primarily to knockdowns to decide the winner of that match. Starting with the second round in the tournament, I always indicate each point on screen. Winning a match gives one point for the general ranking. Currently Brad Wong has won 11 matches in all tournaments up until now, which means he has 11 points in the general ranking. Phase 4 has never won a single match yet, so she has 0 points in the general ranking.

 

[KING JAIMY]

Thanks! Well during a match, points are given primarily to knockdowns to decide the winner of that match. Starting with the second round in the tournament, I always indicate each point on screen. Winning a match gives one point for the general ranking. Currently Brad Wong has won 11 matches in all tournaments up until now, which means he has 11 points in the general ranking. Phase 4 has never won a single match yet, so she has 0 points in the general ranking.

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for explaining!