Where's the #@&#&^ Goon? Dammit!!!

[Beegerite]

Westy;
Re-reading my post just to make sure that I did not in any way imply that any of my suggestions would be mandatory.  No, I didn't say that but Cobra phrased it better and now you seem to be more in agreement or at least more willing to look at the idea further.
Beeg
 

Originally posted by Westy:
Imo your on target Cobra in describing the best way one could get that type of  gameplay they want into a Main arena.
 Create the cooperation and infrastructure needed. Don't lay it down as a mandatory rule for others to follow/heed.

  -Westy

[Dead Man Flying]

Interesting thread, Beegerite.

I think it's important to point out that kills per time, like all other scoring categories, is *not* an accurate measure of skill.  Someone who artfully bounces opponents, does well in furballs, or otherwise skillfully engages the enemy may very well may have a high kill/time ratio.  However, kills per time especially favors those who vulch (I've seen twelve kills in two minutes -- $10 says it's from vulching) or otherwise attack only with massive numbers, alt, or both.

In other words, kill/time *may* measure skill, but it's an imperfect measure at best.  Like all scoring categories, it tends to favor certain flying styles over others.  Any attempt to gauge skill through score suffers from this fact, I think.

-- Todd/DMF

[funked]

"Ranks should be given in accordance to the previous tours overall fighter rankings Kills per time column. "

Are you kidding?

I can't think of any statistical measure I'd like to see used for such a purpose.  But I can think of few measures less appropriate than kills per time.

[Beegerite]

Funked and Dead Man;
Like I said in my original post.  Open to debate.  I think time over a whole month is a pretty good equalizer.  The longer you fly, the less important a single or even multiple vulchfests become as they get divided over the entire month.  The only way to make a "killing" would be to enjoy a vulchfest on day 1 and quit for the rest of the month.  I'm partial to time but would like to hear the specifics of what you think would be a better measure and why or why you would think that it wouldn't be a good idea to reward those who do well with an insignia of rank to make them stand out from the rest. Remember, this is of no benefit to me cause my present ranking sucks so it's just a question.
Thanks for replying
Beeg
 

Originally posted by funked:
"Ranks should be given in accordance to the previous tours overall fighter rankings Kills per time column. "

Are you kidding?

I can't think of any statistical measure I'd like to see used for such a purpose.  But I can think of few measures less appropriate than kills per time.

[Pongo]

I had originaly written a long reply to your post that I deleted.
I am against it. I have had bad experiances with people giving orders in this game and I am a merciless underminer of authority.
Having spent 7 years serving in the infantry I would not pay money to be ordered around again.
Cobra and others have posted the core of what makes a successful country as well as I could. Effective wingman pairs, effecitve strike teams, people that you can trust to try to bail you out-everytime.
Playing for fun and hoping you give better then you take.(I chant this while flying)
 
Leadership is not as important here as comunication. its starting to come together when the fighters at a field arnt crying for a goon, they are keeping the goon they have inbound allready updated on cons with out him asking and behaving like his life is more important than theirs.

Scores
Anything based on scores is wrong.
The only score that matters to me is the wingman lost one.(gunnery % is cool too.)
If I have had a high score it is because I play the whole game and Pyro likes that, I am sure that most of the top 100 can kick my but at 1 on 1 acm.

It feels like you are flying arround saying to yourself "I wish someone would tell me/us what to do to make the rooks more effective"
We will get more effective one new pilot at a time, one pair of friends flying well together at at time, one new guy watching a raid, trying a goon or bomb run himself and asking for feedback on his effectiveness at a time. That is the only leadership I have to offer on the matter.

BUT
If you wanted to add a feature like you are proposing to the game a good way to do it is to only show the full map to the highest ranking or whatever pilot online at that time. If he chose to relequish it he could.
Give him his own colour of text and people would turn to him naturally for direction.
That more closly approximates the control that higher military authority has over units in the field and why they have it.




------------------
Pongo
The Wrecking Crew

[MANDOBLE]

Firts of all, yeah we rooks are barbarians.
Beegerite, I'm honored being in your list, but three points:
1 - I'm not that good.
2 - To act as a "general" or "ops. coordinator", you should be grounded (not playing), looking at map and text buffer ALL the time.
3 - As in RL, to get results, the "ops. coordinator" should think in sacrifying units (players) and no one is going to obbey these kind of commands.

So, I think that having a real command line is a too complex idea.

But to improve efectiveness the key is information. This information can relay on radar near friendly bases, but what about enemy quadrants? We need some way to "describe" what we see while flying over enemy territory, and text buffer is a slow and too temporary method to do this. If you write "I see 3 cons low 10,12,2", a lot of people simply will not read that (they are bussy at that time and text buffer scrolls quickly). The best way to describe what we see is just on the map, attaching that info to the friendly plane dot.
For example:
I'm flying over an enemy cuadrant and I see 3 low enemy fighters, two M16 (mobile acks) and one hi buff. With this visual info I write ".vis 3LF2MA1HB". After entering that command, my dot on the map changes from normal green to yellow (indicating that I have visual info). And the cuadrant itself is marked as "cuadrant with friendly information", for example, surrounding that cuadrant with yellow lines. If any friendly pilot left click on that cuadrant, the map shows a list and each row has the following information:
1 - Pilot name.
2 - Pilot relative possition on the cuadrant (num keypad relative)
3 - visual info string issued by the pilot.

In the previous case: "MANDOBLE 3 3LF2MA1HB".
I could change my visual info string as many times as necessary with the ".vis" command, or I could issue the ".novis" command to indicate I've lost any visual contact. If I issue the ".novis" command, my dot will change again to normal green and if no more pilots on the quadrant have visual information, the quadrant will be surrounded again by black lines.
With this system, the pilots will have much more information to play with, and the no DAR situations will not be as dramatical.

[Westy]

 Not so much more in agreement Beegerite with your idea but more like I am a fan of organised operatiosn when online and along the points Cobra mentioned.
 For instance. Last night. We Rooks were down to the short hairs and there was alot of verbal organistion being typed over the country channel to take A5 back. Sounded good. Seems a few guys wanted to fly the bombers there, and I along with several more liked the idea of provising escort and CAP. My interest started to wane very fast when the same bomber guys then spent more time typing "ALL fighters to 5!!" or "Oh COD I'm DEAD!!!!" than anything else. Not ONCE did they answer a sitrep request for alt and numbers of enemy near 5.
 I went lone wolfing after that for a short time and even then logged off before I was ready to due to lack of radar for us. Which is a serious handicap for any side without it in such a huge map.
  Now. If I was forced to abide by some pseudu military infrastructure when I  logged on? I'd yank my account.
 That stuff is good for and works very well in the historical based scenarios. Not well in melee/main arenas. And even in scenarios you get the goof nut who doesn't know a thing
but signed on to the staff to perhaps get a guarantees spot. In those cases you try and request a transfer to another group, help out the best you can to improve the situation or do your best and be wiser for the next scenario.

  -Westy

p.s.  But I do know now that when I see you, Beegerite, online I know there's at least one other person on who would be good to fly with in a coordinated mission. As we all "fly" more together we do find these things out about each other. Such as who are all talk and who will walk the walk  
 

[This message has been edited by Westy (edited 04-12-2000).]

[Torque]

ROFL...I'd luv that soooooooo much!  

[popeye]

Have to admit that I sometimes really enjoy organzied ops.  But, I think it works best on an ad hoc basis.  Someone gets on the radio and suggests a mission, and if the support is there, it gets going.  I join in if I think it would be (a) fun, (b) a reasonable goal, and (c) have some possiblity of success.

Outside of organized Scenarios, I would not want to see any "official" ranks.

popeye

[Dead Man Flying]

 

Originally posted by Beegerite:
I think time over a whole month is a pretty good equalizer.  The longer you fly, the less important a single or even multiple vulchfests become as they get divided over the entire month.  The only way to make a "killing" would be to enjoy a vulchfest on day 1 and quit for the rest of the month.  

I disagree with you here.  As I said, the kills per time ratio favors certain styles of flying over others.  Those who are pack hunters tend to not only benefit from superior numbers, but these superior numbers lead to more vulching opportunities.  That's not to say that a pack hunter doesn't have skill, but he or she probably has a far greater k/t score than someone of equal skill who doesn't fly this way.  It also favors those who log when the odds are stacked against them rather than sticking around and taking their licks.

These are systematic, not random factors, and therefore they don't cancel each other out over time.

Keep in mind that I'm not denouncing one style over another.  Instead, I'm trying to show that score is *not* a good measure of skill or worthiness.  It may be, but it also may not be.  That said, I honestly don't think any of the current scoring mechanisms (kill/time, kill/death, kill/sortie, hit percentage, etc.) adequately measure skill enough to "rank" individuals.

-- Todd/DMF

[Beegerite]

Pongo;
I just like the way you've put these things, thanks.  Don't want to repeat them all but some of the highlights I really like in your reply are;

"I am against it"
Love it! Clear, no ambiguity and to the point.

"Playing for fun and hoping you give better then you take.(I chant this while flying)"
Great way to think.
 
"If I have had a high score it is because I play the whole game and Pyro likes that"

I joined in a buff raid yesterday and it helped my overall score even though I wound up being the first casualty.

"It feels like you are flying arround saying to yourself "I wish someone would tell me/us what to do to make the rooks more effective"
We will get more effective one new pilot at a time, one pair of friends flying well together at at time, one new guy watching a raid, trying a goon or bomb run himself and asking for feedback on his effectiveness at a time. That is the only leadership I have to offer on the matter."

Personally, I would like to see us do better and I believe that the input this thread has given us will make us all more aware of how to go about it.  My main problem really isn't confusion about what to do, it's keeping my ego in check because I'm used to giving orders so a system which puts me in my place around 500th is what I need, LOL.  Being the type of guy who tries to live my life a day at a time I really like the way you've put this.

"If you wanted to add a feature like you are proposing to the game a good way to do it is to only show the full map to the highest ranking or whatever pilot online at that time. If he chose to relequish it he could.
Give him his own colour of text and people would turn to him naturally for direction.
That more closly approximates the control that higher military authority has over units in the field and why they have it"

LOL, By this method, I would be back in instrument training where they put a hood over your head that only allows you to see your instruments with no visual references to the outside world or as they say in the lay world like a mushroom, keep me in the dark and feed me S*^&

Thanks
Beeg

[Beegerite]

Mandoble;
Thanks for the reply, a thought.

"I'm honored being in your list"

This is my point, it's not "my" list.  I took your name and score right off the scores page of AH.  This is "your" rating.  A reflection of your achievements during the last tour.  I'm not proposing any hard wired command structure.  I'm solely saying that when we're all in the thick of things it might be nice to at a glance know who knows the game well and perhaps could teach me something or other.  Which of the scores are used is really as I said debatable but what isn't debatable unless somebody can prove it to me is that somebody that can get twice as many kills as I can in the same amount of time must know something I don't.  

"having a real command line is a too complex idea"

Absolutely!  Plus, we would then have to argue about what kind of uniforms guys like Torque would get to wear.  Would he be allowed gold braid or would silver suffice?

"But to improve efectiveness the key is information.....etc."  

This is a good thought and maybe the HT boys are reading it.

Gracias
Beeg

[Beegerite]

Somehow, I knew that somebody like you would like this idea.  Unfortunately for you any rating system which includes somebody with your abilities has to have some kind of handicapping system.  My suggestion would be that your airplanes get modeled in a way that reflects the weight of the gold of the medals and gold braid which you would have to wear due to your exalted rank.  The net result specially during the hot summer months would be that your airplane would be so affected by weight that you would not be able to take off and would terminate each take off run in a pile at the end of the runway. This would of course result in you having the lowest rating of any pilot and would be relegated to changing the oil on the Panzers next time around  
Beeg
P.S. Why did you kill me on my very first buff mission last night meanie?

 

Originally posted by Torque:
ROFL...I'd luv that soooooooo much!