Kill to Killed ratio

[Guppy35]

I have no doubt that you're insight into those motivated purely, or at least mostly, by the "winning the war" is superior to mine. I am a circa '90 AW refugee. I played on the same map or two for over a decade. Give me a map that encourages , rather than discourages, air combat and you can leave it up until the end of time as far as I am concerned. Put a map up and/or a ruleset in place that seems to be designed specifically to make actual combat less likely and I'll just go play another game...I simply don't have the time to spend what little of of it that is discretionary in a vain attempt to coax the shy lil' capture bunnies into persevering long enough to create real air combat.

I knew it was cold, but I think something just froze over.  I'm going to agree with Zazen

I could care less what the map is and as long as folks fight on it, the map could stay up forever.  It's just cartoon sky in the end, it's what we do in it good or bad that matters.

[oTRALFZo]

The fact that they put the town to EZ mode still doesnt supress the hordes.
Ive gotten to think if HTC impliments a 1 building down, breathe on the town and you get a capture, your still going to get hordes coming in. True the 100% town take was much more difficult and only increased the hordes, you would find that if they steamroll bases, it wouldnt last for a long period of time. The hordes will just naturally diminish from lack of interest.

They should of kept the 100% rule/no flag IMO. Lemmings now a days would rather spend countless hours studying strategies on how to manipulate things like extended dar rings etc..and take what they want using the easiest method rather than use that time training and getting better, which is pretty sad.

Instead of waiting things out until everyone got used to a new system, it created nothing but drama by all the "I quit" threats and this game is only appeasing to furballers.

[Plawranc]

The best sticks are the guys who have fun every time up and give any and all comers a fight regardless of the odds

You can talk numbers all you want, but there are too many other things that go into it as well.  In the end as long as you are having fun, who the heck cares.

One of the things you notice if you last long enough is there are waves of the latest and greatest cartoon fighter pilots.  They come in, work their tails off to be the bestest, tell everyone about it, burn out and move on.  Those that stick around figure out sooner then later it's gotta remain fun, or they burn out too.

This man just backed up my point 

[BnZs]

I have done a few analysis based on flight time, # of sorties and so on. But this has relatively little impact on the total numbers, because if you only take the top 50% in time flown, you will get rid of a lot of 2-weekers, but also on a lot of "top scores" that happen to fly most of their sorties in attack mode.

Which again shows that score itself only tells so much.... or little

Go ahead and judge me by what my attack mode looks like. I (T.I.N.S) fly in attack mode most of the time for superstitious reasons. 

[BnZs]

If captures are so fast that the only possibility of mounting a defense is to lift from the base under direct attack, the hoarders are rewarded with not only a quick steamroll capture , but several>many vulch kills to boot. The vulch kills encourages "tag-a-longs" not directly interested in the capture itself, but the score padding of vulching.

This may explain the lack of interdiction and fights in the "middle ground" nowadays.

[Dadsguns]

....... I might add that we still don't have as many base captures as we used to have over the years, mostly due to the changed arena format.

and.................... Another view point we must keep in mind along with these changes has also come player mindsets:
A key word here is successful base captures and attempts.  I am sure you know how many captures were successful, but you will not know how many were attempted and were thwarted.
 
IMO there are more like myself that are willing to defend against base captures and this will have a profound effect on how many town captures will be successful and how many will not.

Base capture is easier than before we can all agree on that, the only other factor that will prevent more base captures as before is the increase in defense.  

Actually, I see the exact opposite is the case. The harder a base is to take the longer it takes. If a base capture takes sufficiently long that defensive support can arrive from an adjacent base then a real fight may become a real possibility. If captures are so fast that the only possibility of mounting a defense is to lift from the base under direct attack, the hoarders are rewarded with not only a quick steamroll capture , but several>many vulch kills to boot. The vulch kills encourages "tag-a-longs" not directly interested in the capture itself, but the score padding of vulching. This increases both the size of the offending horde and the general "lameness" of the gameplay experience for all involved.

I do agree however on HUGE maps, that regardless of the difficulty of captures globally, there is very little incentive to push the attack or defense for that matter. When there are 300 other bases on the map with no vigorous defense, it's logical, albeit excruciatingly boring and tedious, to just reload and pick another base for yourself and your 40 closest friends to steamroll.

Hordes per se aren't the problem...lopsided hordes are the problem...

The beauty of the small maps is every field is valuable and worthy of vigorous attack and defense, on huge maps, that is almost never the case.

Agreed. Very good point.

[W7LPNRICK]

I have seen many times when resistance is firm the horde will give up and log off or pick a base way out on the rim which no-one is watching, then start another horde, possibly leaving a few behind to draw the attention on the base they just hit. What true skill is involved in a horde of 20+ atacking an undefended base? Oh well, it is what it is.... 

[Yossarian]

Fly the B-25...you'll wind up not caring about score.

[perdue3]

If you want to know what a good K/D is look at DrBone's. He is the best