Because it's fun. Because score doesn't matter. Or because for some players, pwning in 1 move is old news. It also makes the opponents bitter more often then not. So what do they do? Return in a high picker and/or with overwhelming numbers. End result is the amount of stick and trigger time falls, overall.
Also because killing quick everytime makes you less flexible.. Just about 90% of the arena makes the same mistakes, so that you're killing them the same way over and over again. Boring and bad practice.
Also because it's hard. You raise the handicap and get the equivalent of training with weights on your wrists and ankles. It's more fun and useful to play against hard odds than breeze thru wet TP. This ties right back in with #1. Win-win for everyone involved: higest possible stick/trigger times (i.e. highest learning for the noob), highest total air combat quality, highest fun factor, lowest disgust for the loser, and lowest amount of flying around doing nothing, chasing dots.
I'm not getting something here.
I get into a fight with a guy or two guys or twelve guys. If my first lead turn results in a tracking guns solution I should not take the shot so that I may extend the fight? What do i do at that point? Make a deliberate mistake so as to give the bandit some hope of turning the tables?
Having fought in thousands of 1 v 1 fights as a trainer I make it a point of not firing until the opponent is completely out of options when training. When he is out of altitude, airspeed and ideas its time to end his misery. Of course the student is instructed that there are no rules. i never fly a 1 v 1 with rules. Extending a fight in a controlled training situation has some obvious benefits. I don't see the point in the Main.
So I know all about extended fights but its seems rather silly to artificially extend a fight in the Main Arena once you have achieved a solid tracking shot.
And we train for the opposite. Just last night I spent 2 hours on the short end of 2 v 1 with squad mates. The entire emphasis was upon killing quick using solid teamwork. A good wing pair should get a first pass kill and three passes is my personal grading standard for a functional wing pair. If a 2 v 1 goes past three guns passes there are gross mistakes being made.
Most players fly the guns or what i call Kodak Instamatic fighting style. They only point the guns. I teach that the guns are only to let the opponent know he lost. You have to out fly him first. It is quite easy to grab angles against an opponent who is pulling for a snap shot at every pass in a nose to nose (One circle) fight. He has to aim and even a split second of aiming results in an angular gain for a max performing opponent. (This is assuming there is not a gross mismatch in sustained turn performance).
I get the idea that there is a large group of players who desire the security of the controlled 1 v 1 duel but do not wish to go find it in a controlled arena for a variety of reasons.
I can get all the 1 v 1 controlled fighting I could ever want and I do. When I fly in the Main I am looking for Massively Multiplayer Situation Awareness Challenges. I want a fight where I have to divide my time between my target and the bandits who have me as the target.
We used to talk about situation awareness and developing the high level of skill required to maintain SA in a multiple bandit fight. Now if someone takes advantage of a guy so target fixated that he refuses to look around, its called a pick (Something I enjoy being called because it means I achieved my goal).
Poor SA is a lack of skill or discipline not some noble, chivalric code being upheld by virtual cartoon warriors.
