Optimizing defensive player positioning with collaboration in digital soccer simulation

In real-time multi-player digital sport games such as soccer simulation, player positioning and team collaboration are critical factors in determining a team’s success. Existing approaches for player positioning are mainly rule-based and heuristic-driven. These methods present two disadvantages: they unsystematically address the game dynamics and they leave behind some potentially good positions without consideration. More frequently, positions are selected without considering team collaboration. This research proposes a computational approach using task allocation to achieve better team collaboration in defensive positioning. To deal with game dynamics, we determine the available time horizon and locate a feasible area with potential good positions. Then, we use Pareto optimality principle to evaluate all the alternatives and select the most appropriate position. The results from the proposed Pareto-optimal method show improvements in the team performance and can be used to create a benchmark for simplified positioning methods for general digital sports games.