I know that Skuzzy is in the process of rewriting the web scores "stuff", and that HTC will do whatever they think is best, but given all the recent discussion where scoring has been a factor in the topic under discussion, thought I throw this one up for discussion. What particular information would you find useful to have in scoring, ranking and stats?
I'll start....
I tend to fly fighter combat, and pretty much that only. The ground war doesn't really interest me, GV's don't interest me, and what does interest me is relative skill level in air to air combat. Note I don't say "dogfighting skills", because to me the guy who picks his engagements wisely is a much "better" player than someone who can outfly him 1v1 but dies every sortie.
Because of how I play the game at this point:
Scoring (the accumulation of scoring points ) doesn't really impact me, as far as I'm concerned it's a way for the game designer to provide another avenue of interest for some players beyond the actual mechanics of game play. To the extent that it accomplishes that goal - draws or increases interest in the game from players so that more play, and that those play, play more - whatever makes sense to the developer is fine with me and makes it a "success".
Ranking is almost the same as well. Especially in a "mixed arm" sim, it provides little insight (to me at least, your opinion may differ) into relative skill levels, so in the same way as scoring it doesn't really impact me either, and once again I see it also primarily as a way for the game designer to provide another avenue of interest in playing for some players.
The exception being that in AH the higher ranked player can take control of the CV, which is of potentially arguable merit. If it wern't subject to gaming, a higher ranking given how HTC calculates it would tend to indicate who is probably a "better" overall player (again, setting aside the issues of gaming rank), so to my way of thinking it has merit, but I know others disagree.
Stats is what I like, and ideally, the more information the better. I like to know who I killed and what they were flying when I did so and what I was flying. Same when I died. I like most of the current scoring and extended scoring stats, and I like the totals for kills and deaths in aircraft on a per player basis, although I'd like to see every death shown - not just those where an enemy damaged your aircraft. Given the incorporation of aircraft ENY into the game, I'd be very much interested in seeing an ENY adjusted K/d ratio, as well as perhaps kills/hour and kills/sortie if a sensible adjustment were to be devised. This is something that's always been difficult to judge everywhere else - a player who consistently does well in the "lesser" rides may appear to be a poorer pilot than someone who never flies anything but the best available, and yet in reality be a much more formidable opponent. AH has a builtin mechanism already in place that might make it easier to "drill down" past that limitation.
I like to feel that I'm constantly improving my skill in the niche where I enjoy playing, and to the extent that I can confirm - or deny - that I'm doing so, I find the stats and scoring to be one of the useful tools.
