Perks Worthy

[PFactorDave]

As for using only K/D, it still wouldn't work. While the connection between rank & skills is often quite... uhm... weak, it's even more so if just looking at a single stat like K/D. You can be a very bad pilot and have a very high K/D (by flying extremely timid at the expense off all other stats), or a very much above average pilot having a low K/D because you hurl yourself into every enemy horde.

Sure the connection is weak.  I get that.  But the lesser skilled guys with high K/D get there how?  By flying late war monsters and picking.  The system I propose would force them out of the late war monsters, balancing them back to a position that seems more appropriate to their skill level.

And the more skilled guys who have a low K/D because they fly into every horde and fight 10:1 odds...  Well, let them have the late war monsters then!  If that's the fight they want, let them have it!

Sure you can bail a few dozen times at the beginning of each tour, but the moment you stop bailing and start fighting, you will climb the ladder of ranks readjusting your perk modifier through simple use.  Sure, you will have altered your modifier to some degree, but the goal would be to structure the system so that it would take a real dedication to cheating the system to really, well, cheat the system.

Don't forget that the lesser skilled guys doing the picking and running etc, will slow find themselves in rides less and less suited to that playstyle.

This is just the beginning of the ideas though, a great deal of thought and adjusting would be required to get it into workable shape.

[Lusche]

Sure you can bail a few dozen times at the beginning of each tour, but the moment you stop bailing and start fighting, you will climb the ladder of ranks readjusting your perk modifier through simple use.  Sure, you will have altered your modifier to some degree, but the goal would be to structure the system so that it would take a real dedication to cheating the system to really, well, cheat the system..

No, the climb would be very marginal. And the effort would be hardly any at all. Spawn, bail, spawn bail. I could do that a hundred times in half an hour, giving me ample time in cheap perk rides long before I get to a K/D of 1.0 even.

If it's "easy to game score" to get a good rank / k/d (as I'm reading it here quite often), it will be always be a piece of cake to game it to get a bad one... because you don't even need a victim for that.

[PFactorDave]

No, the climb would be very marginal. And the effort would be hardly any at all. Spawn, bail, spawn bail. I could do that a hundred times in half an hour, giving me ample time in cheap perk rides long before I get to a K/D of 1.0 even.

If it's "easy to game score" to get a good rank / k/d (as I'm reading it here quite often), it will be always be a piece of cake to game it to get a bad one... because you don't even need a victim for that.

Hence, the system would require refinement.  Maybe something as simple as discounting bails from undamaged aircraft, or discount bails or undamaged crashes of aircraft within the first 2 minutes of the sortie.  Your hundreds of bails would require a real dedication, perhaps a dedication worth the reward if someone wanted to spend such an huge amount of time to game the system.

Keep in mind that the system would require a reworking, so simply looking at it from what you can do in the system right now may not be the best approach.  Just pitching creative ideas here.

Would be so much easier to sit in a room with a few guys and bounce the ideas around.  Hard to do it on the BBS...

[Lusche]

Hence, the system would require refinement.  Maybe something as simple as discounting bails from undamaged aircraft, or discount bails or undamaged crashes of aircraft within the first 2 minutes of the sortie.  Your hundreds of bails would require a real dedication, perhaps a dedication worth the reward if someone wanted to spend such an huge amount of time to game the system.

Keep in mind that the system would require a reworking, so simply looking at it from what you can do in the system right now may not be the best approach.

You see how complex and complicated that thing is starting to be even at this early point? And I still have several great ways up my sleeve to circumvent your latest 'rules'.

So in my humble opinion, the results are hardly worth the effort.

If you really want to get "better" or "score oriented" players out of low eny, late war monsters, factoring ENY into score would be a much simpler approach...

[PFactorDave]

You see how complex and complicated that thing is starting to be even at this early point? And I still have several great ways up my sleeve to circumvent your latest 'rules'.

So in my humble opinion, the results are hardly worth the effort.

Well, it's unlikely that HTC would make the effort anyway.  But the system would, of course, have to be quite complex.  Such is the nature of it.  With so many variables, it would have to be a pretty sizeable undertaking.  Whether it is worth the effort or not, well that is for someone else to decide.

First step, if I were HTC, would be to flesh out the system.  Write it up, and proceed to present it and ask for folks like you to pitch as many ways to circumvent it as possible.  Then adjust accordingly.

The perk/ENY system, as it stands now, isn't worth much.  In my opinion.  I think it might be worth the effort to explore the possibility of scrapping what exists now in favor of a new approach.

[guncrasher]

That's why the system would have to be refined for it to work.  There would have to be a system to try and prevent the sand bagging that you are talking about.  

What if the perk system only looked at K/D instead of rank.  To sand bag, you would have to allow yourself to be shot down on purpose numerous times.  Then when you started flying your free Spixteens, you would quickly climb the rank, thus putting yourself back into the perks per plane.  So sand bagging your Kills per hour and Hit % (the two easiest to intentionally blow) would do nothing but trash your rank, and not affect your perk modifier. 

I think it could work if some thought was put to it.

you going with the assumption that all players play for score.  there are many who do but most dont really care.  for example me, i love the spit8 and to a lesser the ponyd and the p47n.  I dont really care if I get points in those or perkies for that matter.  and I bet most players are happy with whatever perks/points they get as long as they fly their favorite plane dont matter if it is the jeep or the spit16.

semp

[PFactorDave]

you going with the assumption that all players play for score.  there are many who do but most dont really care.  for example me, i love the spit8 and to a lesser the ponyd and the p47n.  I dont really care if I get points in those or perkies for that matter.  and I bet most players are happy with whatever perks/points they get as long as they fly their favorite plane dont matter if it is the jeep or the spit16.

You misunderstand.  I am assuming the original premise of this thread.  That some planes that are not currently perked, perhaps should carry a perk price.  I'm saying that perhaps, the system should allow struggling pilots to have perked planes for free and give larger perk bonuses for the skills they achieve, while the more skilled pilots pay a perk price for the better aircraft and receive fewer perks.  Pushing the more skilled pilots awy from the lower ENY aircraft and into the higher ones, where if they are truly skilled they can still succeed.  If they can't then they would naturally slide down the scale until they reach a level where they can fly an aircraft that they can succeed in...

I'm visualizing a sort of handicapping system, like in golf or bowling....  Hard to describe.

[titanic3]

An ELO system? Higher up the scale, the better you are, the better you are, the less rewarding 5.0 ENY planes are. And vice versa.

[PFactorDave]

An ELO system? Higher up the scale, the better you are, the better you are, the less rewarding 5.0 ENY planes are. And vice versa.

Ya, sort of...  And the better your K/D the more the perk planes cost, and maybe even adds perk costs to the better planes that currently are unperked...   So, Bruv might have to pay a perk price to fly the Spixteen and earn very few perks per kill in it...  But the new guy would have access to the Spixteen without a perk price and earn more perks per kill.  As the new guy improves, he will earn fewer and fewer perks per kill ni that Spit16, until he eventually reaches a level where he must pay a perk price to fly the Spit16...

Keep in mind these are just rough examples and the system would require a great deal of thought to develope.

[titanic3]

I'm taking this based off another game.

Have a scale of 1-2000. In the beginning of a tour, everyone's ELO is set at 1200. Once you start flying, your ELO drops or rises, based on kills, deaths, ditches, or landed. HTC can set up the scale based on what he thinks is right.

For example: 1-400 means 10.0 ENY and no perk price for a Spit6
401-800 means 5.0 ENY and no perk price
801-1200 means 5.0 ENY and 2 perks
1201-1600 means 3.0 ENY and 5 perks
1601-1800 means 2.0 ENY and 5 perks
1801-2000 means 1.0 ENY and 8 perks


The more lands or kills you get in a row, the lower the ELO gain you get. So if you were to die on your 2nd sortie, you would lose 10 ELO, but if you died on your 8th successful sortie, you would lose 30 ELO. And vice versa for death streaks.

[titanic3]

The only problem with this is it kinda result in more timid gameplay. But hey, if they don't kill, their ELO goes nowhere.

[Tank-Ace]

I say perk the spit 16 and the La-7.

Spitfire because..... well I just don't like them, and it would be nice to see fewer.

La-7 because its a mere 6mph slower than the tempest at sea level, and while its max speed is ~20mph slower, the tempest isn't a speed demon at altitude either, there are several perk-free planes with out preform it. The tempest is perked equal to the Me 163.

The La-7 has 1 less cannon, and carries less ord. But in exchange for that, it gets better manuverability, better roll rate, and better low speed stability.

[Daddkev]

  I think what you are wearing should increase the Perkies! 

[Butcher]

An ELO system? Higher up the scale, the better you are, the better you are, the less rewarding 5.0 ENY planes are. And vice versa.

We have a better system - the community knows who the decent sticks are, and generally most don't sit in 5 eny rides.

Some do I'm sure, I know Hymi is a crafty Spit16 pilot for example, but he will give you a very good dogfight.
I mainly fly anything above 20 Eny for kicks, what good is limiting my 5 eny rides? nothing - except when I see a horde and want to up a 262 I can't now.

This system would be to much and ultimately cause to many problems, we have an ENY system now and it works, I suggested a while back of raising the
ENY to 60 for example, which means Lower ENY aircraft score no perks - and high ones are well rewarded - and even at 40 ENY - its still pretty nice - 8 perks for nailing a P51 or Such, however I think raising the ENY a little would be better off since Its pretty tough to catch a 190D9 or 51 unless you have alt.

I suggested also re-scaling the ENY list - 5eny to 60eny - the Main rides get bumped to 5 Eny, and everything else re-vamped.

Using Lusche's ride statistic pretty much says what ENY the plane will be, more use the plane gets - the lower ENY, this would force some
who want perks to actually step out of the cheap kills, and learn.

Frankly the perk system won't matter to any veteran pilots, I have roughly above 7,000 fighter perks and 3900 GV perks, I would love to see some more perk rides to spend $$$ on.

Edit: For example a 4x hispano P-51 for lets say 40-50 perks? (just an idea)

[Tupac]

I'm taking this based off another game.

Have a scale of 1-2000. In the beginning of a tour, everyone's ELO is set at 1200. Once you start flying, your ELO drops or rises, based on kills, deaths, ditches, or landed. HTC can set up the scale based on what he thinks is right.

For example: 1-400 means 10.0 ENY and no perk price for a Spit6
401-800 means 5.0 ENY and no perk price
801-1200 means 5.0 ENY and 2 perks
1201-1600 means 3.0 ENY and 5 perks
1601-1800 means 2.0 ENY and 5 perks
1801-2000 means 1.0 ENY and 8 perks


The more lands or kills you get in a row, the lower the ELO gain you get. So if you were to die on your 2nd sortie, you would lose 10 ELO, but if you died on your 8th successful sortie, you would lose 30 ELO. And vice versa for death streaks.

is that overrall rank or fighter rank?