harnessing the power of data in real-time multiplayer games

Time for Real-Time: Harnessing the power of data for real-time multiplayer

games

1. INTRO

Who am I?

Talk Structure

3. SOLVING PING

What is ping and why is it Important?

What did our data tell us?

What am I talking about?

4. EVOLVING MATCHMAKING

How has matchmaking evolved in our

games?

Ghosts!

2. OUR REAL-TIME STACK

Our Stack

Learning to love APIs

Why Real-Time Multiplayer?

Out Real-Time Analytics Stack

Our Real-time stack

Data Analysis

Analytics API

Real-Time Dashboards

Slice-and-Dice

Every 10 Minutes

Daily

A Look to the Future

1. INTRO

Who am I?

Talk Structure

3. SOLVING PING

What is ping and why is it Important?


What am I talking about?

4. EVOLVING MATCHMAKING

How has matchmaking evolved in our

games?

Ghosts!

2. OUR REAL-TIME STACK

Our Stack


1. What is ping and why is it important?2. What did we learn from our data?3. How did we design around high ping?

What is Ping?

What is Ping?

A Server Somewhere

50ms

A Server Somewhere

50ms 50ms

What is Ping?

What is Ping?

A Server Somewhere

50ms 50ms50ms + 50 ms = 100ms ping

A Server Somewhere

What does ping mean in multiplayer games?

50ms 50ms100ms before another player sees my input

Me

You

Me

My Phone Your Phone

500 ms delay

You You

Me Me

My Phone Your Phone

500 ms delay

You You

Me Me

My Phone Your Phone

500 ms delay

You

You

Multiplayer Ping

A Server Somewhere

50ms 50ms 500ms 500ms

A Server Somewhere

Multiplayer Ping

50ms 50ms 500ms 500ms

500ms + 50 ms = 550ms ping!

Me Me

My Phone Your Phone

500 ms delay

You

You

Network Usages For Rival Kingdoms Players

Network Usages For Rival Kingdoms Players

* China not shown - not enough data points (metrics captured from Android only)

Region Breakdown

3G RTT Distribution (All Regions)

*Probabilities done based on cumulative counts of response times within a time window. Bucketing counts mean tcp / udp variations are less visible

3G RTT Distribution (All Regions)

99% that RTT <= 2 seconds95% RTT <= 1 second

3G Usage Geo Heatmap

*Probabilities done based on cumulative counts of response times within a time window. Bucketing counts mean tcp / udp variations are less visible

4G Usage Geo Heatmap

Wifi Usage Geo Heatmap

WiFi vs 4G

WiFi 4G99% that RTT <= 900 millis 99% that RTT <= 600 millis


No-one uses 2G (although self-selecting sample)But we don’t really care about 2G players anyway!

US is almost full 4G/WiFi CoverageAsia still has a lot of 3G usersPseudo Real-time on 3G would have some issues, but is possible4G is actually better than WiFi, but both are good enough to support real-time multiplayer

Designing around high ping

Latency Sensitive

Turn based RealtimePseudo realtime

Turn Based Games

Shuffle Cats

15 seconds long turn

Turn timer starts Turn timer ends

1 second RTT (my phone -> server -> opponent’s phone)

I play my card Opponent sees my card

15 seconds long turn

Turn timer ends

1 second RTT

I play a card Opponent sees my card

Shuffle Cats

“Pseudo”-Realtime

Clash Royale

2 Second Move DelayWe both see my troop appear

1 second RTT

I drop a troop Opponent’s phone receives the troop position

Orca Rocket Collision

2 Second Rocket Delay

We both see my rocket hit.

1 second RTT

I fire a rocket Opponent’s phone finds out about the rocket

Orca Finish Line Cam

Time slooooooows down

We all see the same result.

1 second RTT

All of our last inputs

1 second RTT

1 second RTT

How has matchmaking evolved in our games?

Gen 1 -> Samurai Siege: Nexting

Gen 2 -> Rival Kingdoms: Match-Making

Gen 3 -> Transformers “Battlezones”

Ghosts!

Liquidity by Battlezone

Avg Battles per Day by Battlezone

Clash of Clouds

Send in the Ghosts

Questions?

THANKS!!

harnessing the power of data in real-time multiplayer games

Data & Analytics