You two have completely different playing styles that is all. Chalenge plays as if he were flying for real and will avoid going into a situation where he's not in complete control. Nothing really wrong with that IMO, but most of us would find that style to be boring and less rewarding.
Now Shida on the other hand IMO...likes the excitement of close, fast in your face air combat which most of the player base enjoys. A death is really no big deal as you can up rinse and repeat.
It's just 2 different approaches to the game. Neither is right or wrong.
Picking is just a term people made up for explaining away their lack of SA or their target fixation.
If our lives were actually on the line, wouldn't we all be pickers? Yes I know...our lives are not actually in danger. And that's why I play the way I do. It's just a mindset or approach to game play.
This statement…
Picking is just a term people made up for explaining away their lack of SA or their target fixation.
…stirred me to a response. So here it is.
“Picking” – Definition: To engage a bandit who is engaged with a friendly for the purpose of getting an easy kill, without being asked by friendly for assistance, and not having asked the friendly if it was OK.
“Picker” – Definition: Someone who gets 30% or more of their kills by “picking”.
This is not to be confused with…
“Clearing” – Definition: Killing a bandit engaged with a friendly at the request of the friendly.
“Furballing” – Definition: Engaged in a multi-bandit, multi-friendly dog fight with too many targets for a pilot to track and react to. Hence every plane is a potential threat, to everyone.
“Ganging” – Definition: When the Friendly vs. Bandit is equal to or greater than 2:1
“Defending” – Definition: All combat in the act of preserving a map resource. I.E. a field, CV, Port, Town, V-Base, etc...
The other acts as described are not “picking”. They may seem the same (shooting a pilot when engaged with another), but circumstances determine how the act is defined. In all other acts, shooting an engaged bandit is perfectly acceptable. Note: It’s never “Picking”, if you kill someone who is “ganging”. Ganging is never perfectly fine, but that’s a different discussion.
Picking, as defined here, is always lame. It’s unsportsmanlike to your team mates, as well as your competitors. If you want a kill, you should earn it like your team is trying do. If you fail to respect your team mates and your competitors, you are rightfully mocked as a tool. Yes, you paid your $15.00, but so did the two people whose fight you ruined. Nothing in the MA prevents bad behavior, only you can do that. Pretending that it’s not bad behavior is “rationalization”, or the act of convincing yourself that you are not a tool. Some Pickers are those dysfunctional types that psychotically enjoy other people’s unhappiness. Many are just clueless and wrapped up the moment. They see a bad guy and they are programmed to kill it, so they do. But there are some who find it the only way to compete. They are driven by the frustration of their lack of Dog fighting success, and since they feel no sense of mercy from anyone in the MA, they extend none. Everyone falls into situations where they pick someone. I’ve done it. I try to avoid it, because I respect the right of my teammates to fight their own fights. I don’t gripe about every pick. The MA is a helter-skelter kind of place, stuff happens.
I do have little respect for the
career pickers. You know the ones. 90% of their kills are picks. They cruise around the map at alt in a Pony, Dora, or Perk ride, looking for distracted targets they can steal from their teammates. If anyone turns toward them, they run. These folks are parasites, adding nothing to the game for anyone. They fail the golden rule test. The Golden Rule: “If everyone played like me, would the game be better or worse?” Imagine how terrible this game would be, if everyone spent all their time trying to climb to higher alt than everyone else, and then running away from anyone that was co-alt or higher? After you spent two nights burning tank after tank of virtual gas, only to land time after time with all your bullets, you would quit and find a fun game to play. Career pickers should be called out for their lameness, because the game is only as good as the quality of its players. Career pickers, are not quality players.
