DEV Community: Raven

Building an AI lineup optimizer for a Discord esports bot (the algorithm, not the hype)

Raven — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 21:32:03 +0000

Every esports team captain has done this by hand at least once: open Discord, scroll through a dozen "I can play Thursday after 8" messages, cross-reference them against who plays Tank versus DPS, remember that one of your DPS is actually a sub, and try to assemble a starting five that can actually scrim tonight. It takes fifteen minutes, you get it slightly wrong, and you do it again the next day.

I build Supatimer, a free Discord bot for competitive gaming teams, and "generate the lineup for me" was the single most requested feature. This post is about how the lineup optimizer actually works, why it is genuinely AI (and not in the marketing sense), and where a large language model fits in versus where it absolutely does not.

"AI" is doing a lot of work in this industry

Half the Discord bots on the market slapped "AI" on their landing page the week ChatGPT launched. Usually it means there is a chatbot command somewhere that proxies to an LLM. That is fine, but it is not what your team needs when it is 7:45pm and you have a scrim at 8.

There are two honest definitions of AI worth separating:

Search and optimization - the classical branch. Constraint satisfaction, combinatorial optimization, planning. This is the part of AI that solves "given these rules and these resources, find the best valid arrangement."
Machine learning / LLMs - the statistical branch. Pattern recognition, generation, extraction from unstructured text.

The lineup problem is squarely a problem for the first kind. So that is what I built first.

The lineup problem, stated precisely

Strip away the gaming context and a lineup is a constrained assignment problem:

You have N players, each with a set of roles they can fill (Tank, DPS, Support, IGL, and so on).
Each player has an availability signal for a given time block (available, maybe, unavailable).
Each player has a roster status (starter, substitute, trial).
The game defines a required composition: Overwatch 2 wants 1 Tank, 2 DPS, 2 Support. Valorant wants 5 with flexible roles. CS2 wants 5.
You want the lineup that maximizes role coverage and availability confidence, preferring starters over subs, hard "available" over "maybe."

That is a textbook constraint satisfaction problem with an objective function on top. You are not asking a model to guess. You are enumerating feasible assignments and ranking them by an explicit score.

How the optimizer works

The core loop is unglamorous and that is the point:

1. Filter the player pool to "available" + "maybe" for the target time block.
2. Generate candidate assignments that satisfy the required composition
   (every required role slot filled by a player who can play that role).
3. Prune assignments that violate hard constraints
   (a player can't occupy two slots; required roles must be covered).
4. Score each surviving candidate:
       coverage  = required roles actually filled
       confidence = sum of availability weights (available > maybe)
       priority  = starters weighted above subs above trials
   score = w1*coverage + w2*confidence + w3*priority
5. Return the top-ranked lineup, plus the next best alternatives.

For a 5-to-6 player slot out of a roster of 7-10, the candidate space is small enough to enumerate exhaustively in well under a second. There is no heuristic guessing and no "the model thinks this is good" hand-waving. If the optimizer says these five players give you full role coverage at the highest availability confidence, you can read exactly why.

The captain's job shifts from building the lineup to reviewing and overriding one. That is the whole ergonomic win. In Discord it is one command: /weekplan shows the optimal lineup for every block in the week, and /early-lineup focuses a single upcoming window.

Why not just ask an LLM?

This is the part developers tend to get wrong in 2026, so it is worth being blunt: you should not use a language model to pick a lineup.

It can violate hard constraints. An LLM will happily hand you a "lineup" with two Tanks and no Support because it pattern-matched plausible-looking output. A constraint solver cannot, by construction.
It is not auditable. When a captain asks "why is my main DPS benched?" you need a real answer ("they marked maybe, and the optimizer preferred a starter who marked available"), not a probability distribution.
It is slow and nondeterministic for something that should be instant and identical every time you run it on the same data.

The optimization problem is small, well-defined, and rule-bound. That is exactly the regime where classical AI beats a language model, and pretending otherwise just to claim "LLM-powered" would make the product worse.

Where the LLM does earn its place

There is one spot in the scrim workflow that is genuinely a language problem: the messy DM you get from the opposing team.

"yo we can run tn at 9 your time, bo3, we ban bind you ban split, our discord is ..."

That is unstructured natural language with time, format, map veto, and contact details all tangled together. Parsing it with regex is a losing battle. So Supatimer has a second, separate AI system: an LLM scrim parser (currently in beta) that extracts structured fields - time, opponent, format, map vetoes, lobby details - from any free-form scrim message and turns them into a clean confirmation.

That is the right tool for the right job: a language model for the language problem, a constraint solver for the constraint problem. Two different systems, neither one pretending to be the other.

A few things I learned

Model the domain before you model the math. Getting "roster status" and "maybe availability" into the data model was 80% of the work. The optimizer itself is short once the inputs are clean.
Determinism is a feature. Teams trust a tool they can predict. Same availability in, same lineup out, every time.
Explainability sells. Showing why a lineup was chosen converts skeptics faster than any accuracy claim.
Resist the urge to LLM everything. The interesting engineering was deciding what not to hand to a language model.

Try it

The lineup optimizer is live in Supatimer right now, free, for 21 competitive games with role presets already configured. Players mark availability by tapping buttons on a weekly calendar in Discord, and /weekplan builds the lineup. The scrim tooling handles confirmations and score tracking, and the LLM scrim parser is rolling out in beta.

If you run a competitive team and you are still building lineups by hand from scattered "I can play Thursday" messages, you do not have to.

I'm Raven, the developer behind Supatimer. I built the optimizer because I was tired of assembling Overwatch lineups by hand every night. Questions, feedback, or want to nerd out about constraint solvers? Find me on the Supatimer Discord.

Best Discord Bots for Gaming Team Scheduling (2026)

Raven — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 09:49:34 +0000

If you run a competitive gaming team on Discord, you already know the pain. Someone posts "who's free tonight?" and you get three thumbs-up emojis, two "maybe," and radio silence from the rest. Then match time comes and you're scrambling for a sub because your off-tank is at dinner and nobody remembered the timezone difference.

Scheduling is the unglamorous problem that kills more teams than bad aim ever will. Timezone mismatches, forgotten scrims, the captain manually pinging every player to build a lineup - it adds up. The good news: there are Discord bots built specifically to solve this.

I spent time setting up and testing the major scheduling bots to see which ones actually work for gaming teams - not just general-purpose event bots repurposed for scrims. Here's what I found.

Quick Comparison

Bot	Focus	Price	Best For
Apollo	General event scheduling	Free + $5/mo premium	Community events, RSVPs
sesh	General event scheduling	Free + $5/mo premium	One-off events, timezone handling
Supatimer	Gaming team scheduling	100% free	Competitive teams (weekly practice)
Raid-Helper	MMO raid signups	Free + $3.50/mo premium	WoW/FFXIV raid groups
Groupflows	Event scheduling + reminders	Free + premium	Events with timezone support
When2Meet	Web-based availability	Free (not a bot)	One-time group scheduling

Individual Reviews

1. Apollo

apollo.fyi

Apollo is probably the most widely used Discord scheduling bot, and for good reason. It handles event creation cleanly - you set a time, add a description, and members RSVP with Going/Maybe/Not Going. It supports recurring events, so you can set up a weekly game night that repeats automatically. Google Calendar sync is a nice touch for people who live in their calendar app.

Where Apollo shines is general community management. If you run a server with movie nights, study sessions, AND gaming events, it handles all of that well. The RSVP system is intuitive and the web calendar view is polished.

The limitation for gaming teams is that Apollo is event-first, not availability-first. You create an event and hope people show up. There's no way to see your team's weekly availability at a glance, no role tracking (Tank/DPS/Support), and no automatic lineup generation. You're still manually figuring out who plays. Premium runs $5/month and unlocks custom branding and advanced features.

Strengths: Polished UI, Google Calendar sync, recurring events, large user base
Limitations: No gaming-specific features, no lineup generation, no role tracking

2. sesh

sesh.fyi

sesh is another solid general-purpose event bot. Its standout feature is timezone handling - it detects each user's timezone and converts event times automatically. If half your team is in NA and the other half in EU, this matters.

Event creation is straightforward. You can set up one-off events with RSVP tracking and sesh will show who's in and who's out. The Google Calendar and iCal sync means events show up wherever your team members check their schedule.

The catch: recurring events and scheduling polls are locked behind the $5/month premium plan. On the free tier, you're creating a new event every week manually. Like Apollo, sesh is built for "come to this event" not "when is everyone free?" - so there's no weekly availability grid, no role tracking, and no lineup generation. For casual gaming communities it works fine, but competitive teams will hit its ceiling.

Strengths: Excellent timezone conversion, clean event creation, calendar sync
Limitations: Key features paywalled, no gaming-specific tools, event-first approach

3. Supatimer

supatimer.com

Supatimer takes a fundamentally different approach from the event bots above. Instead of "here's an event, RSVP yes or no," it asks "when are you free this week?" Players tap time blocks on a persistent weekly calendar right in Discord, and the bot collects everyone's availability in one place.

The weekly calendar resets automatically, so there's no event to recreate every week. Once your team gets in the habit of marking their availability, the bot handles the rest. The /early-lineup command generates an optimal lineup based on who's free and what roles are covered - Tank, DPS, Support, or whatever your game needs. There's also a dedicated /scrim command for scheduling matches against other teams with confirmations and score tracking.

The web dashboard lets you drag-and-drop availability blocks, manage multiple teams from one server, and configure role presets for 21 different games. It supports scheduling polls too - propose multiple dates, let the team vote, and the best slot wins. Everything is free with no premium tier and no ads.

The tradeoff: no Google Calendar sync, and timezone handling is per-server rather than per-user. If your team is spread across many timezones, that's worth considering. It's also Discord-only - if your group doesn't use Discord, this isn't for you.

Strengths: Weekly availability grid, auto-lineups, role tracking, scrim management, 21 game presets, completely free
Limitations: No calendar sync, per-server timezone only, requires Discord

4. Raid-Helper

raid-helper.dev

If you run a WoW or FFXIV raid group, Raid-Helper is probably already in your server. It's the standard for MMO content and it earned that position. The signup system understands classes and roles natively - your warriors, mages, and healers sign up with their class, and the raid leader can see composition at a glance. Bench management, absence tracking, and event templates with custom class limits all come built in.

Raid-Helper works well for the structured, large-group format that MMOs demand (20-40 player raids with strict comp requirements). It also supports recurring events for weekly raid nights.

Where it falls short is anything outside the MMO paradigm. If you're running a 5-player Valorant team or a 6-player Overwatch roster, the raid-centric templates feel like overkill. There's no weekly availability calendar - it's still event-based signups. And there's no automatic lineup generation for small competitive teams. Premium is $3.50/month for advanced features.

Strengths: Best-in-class MMO support, class/role templates, bench management, absence tracking
Limitations: MMO-centric, no weekly availability, no small-team lineup generation

5. Groupflows

Groupflows is a newer entry in the Discord scheduling space, offering event creation with solid timezone support. It converts times per-user automatically and includes built-in reminders before events start - handy for teams that forget to check Discord.

It handles recurring events and RSVP tracking competently. The web interface is clean, and event management is simple enough that non-technical server members can use it without help.

Like Apollo and sesh, Groupflows is a general-purpose event tool. No gaming roles, no lineup generation, no scrim features. It fills the "create an event and track who's coming" role well, but if you need the availability-first workflow that competitive teams benefit from, you'll be looking elsewhere.

Strengths: Good timezone handling, event reminders, clean interface
Limitations: General-purpose only, no gaming features, no availability tracking

Honorable Mention: When2Meet

when2meet.com

When2Meet isn't a Discord bot - it's a web tool. You create a grid, share a link, and people paint when they're free. It's been around for years and it's dead simple.

The problem for gaming teams: it requires everyone to leave Discord, open a browser, and fill in a grid. Every week. The mobile experience is rough. There's no persistence - you make a new poll each time. And there's zero integration with Discord roles, lineups, or anything game-related.

When2Meet is fine for finding a one-off meeting time. For recurring team scheduling, it creates more friction than it solves.

Best Bot by Use Case

Best for FPS/MOBA teams (Valorant, Overwatch, CS2, League, Apex)

Supatimer. These games have small, fixed rosters (5-6 players) with specific role requirements. Weekly practice schedules, role-aware lineups, and scrim scheduling are exactly what a competitive FPS/MOBA team needs. The fact that it supports 21 game presets means the role configuration is already done for you.

Best for MMO guilds (WoW, FFXIV, ESO)

Raid-Helper. Large-scale raids with class compositions, bench slots, and 20+ player signups are what Raid-Helper was built for. No other bot handles MMO roster management as well.

Best for casual gaming communities

sesh or Apollo. If your server hosts a mix of game nights, movie streams, and the occasional tournament, a general event bot with RSVP tracking is the right tool. You don't need lineup generation for a casual Among Us night.

Best free option with no paywalls

Supatimer. No premium tier, no feature gates, no ads. Every feature is available to every server. Apollo and sesh both lock useful features behind $5/month. Raid-Helper's premium is $3.50/month.

How to Choose

Ask yourself these questions:

Do you have a fixed roster that practices weekly? If yes, you want availability tracking (Supatimer), not event RSVPs (Apollo/sesh).
What game genre? MMO raids need Raid-Helper's class system. FPS/MOBA teams need Supatimer's role tracking and lineup generation. Casual groups just need RSVPs.
How important is Google Calendar sync? If your team lives in Google Calendar, sesh or Apollo integrate directly. Supatimer and Raid-Helper are Discord-first.
What's your budget? If you want everything free with no catches, Supatimer is the only option that doesn't gate features behind a subscription.
How big is your group? Small competitive team (5-10)? Supatimer. Large MMO guild (20-40)? Raid-Helper. Mixed community server? Apollo or sesh.
Do you need lineup automation? Only Supatimer auto-generates lineups from availability data. Every other bot leaves that to you.

Conclusion

There's no single "best" Discord scheduling bot - it depends on what your team actually needs. Apollo and sesh are excellent general-purpose event bots that serve most communities well. Raid-Helper is the clear choice for MMO groups. Supatimer fills a niche that the others don't touch: automated weekly scheduling with lineup generation for competitive gaming teams.

The good news is that these bots don't conflict with each other. Plenty of servers run Apollo for community events alongside Supatimer for competitive scheduling. Try the one that matches your use case and see if it sticks.

I'm Raven, the developer behind Supatimer. I built it because I was tired of manually building Overwatch lineups from scattered "I can play Thursday" messages. If you have questions or feedback, find me on the Supatimer Discord.