Author Topic: Whose next? (Read 2179 times)

Sturm · « **Reply #60 on:** April 12, 2001, 03:23:00 PM »

La-7 59 kills in LA7
143 kills to 44 deaths.

I am not cracking on the fact that you fly the LA7 the most. It is one the easiest planes to fly though, but then again you knew that already. At any rate I have 429 kills to 312 deaths, for those that have encountered me I am not an alt monkey I like to mix it up. I do a lot of base defense and base capturing. So is my ratio going to suffer? If I get a kill a run and die I am happy.

One last thing and then I will let this thread die, I also Like to fly all the planes in here. Lazs you assume things very quickly, not once did I say I was a great fighter pilot or a great bomber pilot. How can I spend so much time online? Very simple because I want to. I figure if I don't this month I can't next month do to a impending move and new job.

------------------
Sturm6 StaffelKapitän
JV44 Platzschutzstaffel
Airfield Defense Squadron
Campaigning for the rights of the ME-410.

Torque · « **Reply #61 on:** April 12, 2001, 10:23:00 PM »

Does this Drex guy ever stop talking.... i mean comon now..."which way to the beach"

Hangtime · « **Reply #62 on:** April 12, 2001, 10:51:00 PM »

Did someone say "Beach"?

ahhhh yess. Soft warm white sand, babes in strings, the soothing rumble of the surf against the dune; the boat slowly swings to the wind, moonlight across the bay..

..and here I sit and stare at this BBS on my laptop, whilst entirely unable to fly the sim.

I don't think anyone could come up with a more exquiste torture than the ones we devise for ourselves.

*sigh*

I do have a 12V blender though...

Hang (still thinks Hristo's a dork)

lazs · « **Reply #63 on:** April 13, 2001, 08:29:00 AM »

sturm.. if you do a little research u will find that i flew the lag for only one tour or so to get the hang of it. I mostly fly the Hog 1D. I don't find either plane that hard or easy to get kills in. I don't find the 51B that much different either. I fly em all about the same. My k/d stays about the same no matter.. when it gets too low i land some kills. No big deal. Mostly tho, I ditch when I am out of fuel or ammo. I won't fly perk planes or a D9 tho... even i have some pride.

here's the deal... You don't "earn" anything by forming a squad and giving it to yourself... Rank means very little... Pomposity piss's me off... pomposity without performance really piss's me off.

actually... I only start this score crap up every once in a while in order to give deja and sea an opportunity to brag. And to get that blowhard drex to pontificate.
lazs

lazs · « **Reply #64 on:** April 13, 2001, 08:37:00 AM »

Oh yeah.... even tho he tends to run on a bit... drex is ded on on everything he said. The gist being that the stats in no way reflect even how good a person is at that skill much less "overall" when compiled together. As he pointed out.... a higher or lower gunnery percentage may only reflect the type of guns you use or the type of shots you are willing to take. someone with a high percentage may be incapable of hitting anything past a certain deflection angle say..

The stats can be gamed. you can do well in any one or even most of em by flying a certain way... being cautious and mindfull of the stats at all times. They can also be used as a personal performance guide. Bragging about them is pretty silly tho.
lazs

AKDejaVu · « **Reply #65 on:** April 13, 2001, 09:25:00 AM »

Quote

here's the deal... You don't "earn" anything by forming a squad and giving it to yourself... Rank means very little... Pomposity piss's me off... pomposity without performance really piss's me off.

And people say I have a chip on my shoulder

It seems everyone else knows just how seriously to take Sturm in this forum lazs. Jump on board and you'll enjoy the ride alot more.

Quote

The stats can be gamed. you can do well in any one or even most of em by flying a certain way... being cautious and mindfull of the stats at all times. They can also be used as a personal performance guide. Bragging about them is pretty silly tho.

Its no sillier than someone getting upset about someone else bragging about stats. If they mean nothing to you, quit attacking him for doing it. You are a walking contradiction lazs.

AKDejaVu

Dead Man Flying · « **Reply #66 on:** April 13, 2001, 10:13:00 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by AKDejaVu:
Its no sillier than someone getting upset about someone else bragging about stats. If they mean nothing to you, quit attacking him for doing it. You are a walking contradiction lazs.

I can't help but feel that if both are wrong, at least lazs is less wrong than Sturm in his attitude toward statistics. I have yet to hear a compelling argument, given the wide variety of flying styles, plane preferences, flight time, and more, as to why rankings or statistics between players should be valid means of comparison. They are a wonderful way to measure your own improvement over time, but to use them in any other way seems to me to misapply them.

Here's a case in point: Hit percentage. As Calamari, I never bothered to change from Fighter mode in my Tiffy, and yet I'd always merrily strafe ground targets if the opportunity presented itself. The result was hit percentages that ranged, on average, between 6.5 to 7%. How could I possibly know if the players I'm comparing my hit percentage to also abuse their hit percentages in this fashion? Even if they do, how would I know the degree to which they do it relative to me so I could weight things accordingly?

-- Todd/DMF

Kieran · « **Reply #67 on:** April 13, 2001, 10:46:00 AM »

Todd-

You are right of course, and I do the same thing. The issue really is "do the stats matter to you, and if they don't, why worry about people who do follow the stats?"

I don't really care what my stats are per se, but I might look at the stats to see how others are doing within a specific context. It is just so much information to me, another tidbit of useless information we gather all the time for the enjoyment of reading it.

Where I think AK is right is that he is questioning those who don't believe stats mean anything about their apparent need to deny others the pleasure of touting their own stats. Let those guys tout themselves that way if they like, don't matter to me...

Dead Man Flying · « **Reply #68 on:** April 13, 2001, 11:43:00 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Kieran:
Where I think AK is right is that he is questioning those who don't believe stats mean anything about their apparent need to deny others the pleasure of touting their own stats. Let those guys tout themselves that way if they like, don't matter to me...

I wouldn't deny anyone the right to tout their own stats, though I have to admit that I think it's silly when you know the obvious shortcomings of rank/statistics. What does annoy me is when said stats/rank-touters use them as comparative measures of skill (i.e. "You can't talk, my K/D is twice what yours is!"). They're simply not a valid means of comparison, so to suggest that someone is a better pilot based on them defies reason.

-- Todd/DMF

AKDejaVu · « **Reply #69 on:** April 13, 2001, 11:54:00 AM »

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They're simply not a valid means of comparison, so to suggest that someone is a better pilot based on them defies reason.

The only thing I dislike more than "my stats make me more right" is the "you don't agree with me.. let's duel" debate.

BTW, if you read through all this drivel you'll notice that Sturm never said his score/ranking made him any better or any worse... he simply mentioned it. Only after his "rank" (LW title) came up. His score was then immediately scrutinized by somene "that doesn't care about score" and it was then used to criticize him. The silliness is quite apparent.

Nobody is trying to argue that score makes you more right on this forum, tho many seem to argue that it can make you less right.

AKDejaVu

lazs · « **Reply #70 on:** April 13, 2001, 02:20:00 PM »

dmf gets it deja doesn't. It is quite simple really. something like hit percentage is totally meaningless because it can be gamed and the best shots won't allways have the best (or even close to it) percentages. Same goes for all the stats but hit percentage is probly the worst. When you add up all these stats and try to determine overall skill or rank from em it gets ludicrous.

deja is not representing my view correctly. I did not bring up score or rank at all. sturm jumped from giving himself a squad and a tittle to mentioning his "rank". I was consistent in that I felt his "rank" was every bit as meaningless as his tittle. To prove it I had to show why using his reasoning. He was the one who used rank and stats to show how well he was doing. He opened the door not I. The fact that a person spends allmost 90 hours so far online and has about a 50/50 chance or less of beating anyone he runs into and is ranked so high simply proves my point. I fail to see where my attitude about rank, score or stats is in any way inconsitent.

every stat i see can be gamed to some extent... even K/D can depend on such mundane things as plane choice, time zone, squad affiliation, country choice, numbers etc.
lazs

Kieran · « **Reply #71 on:** April 13, 2001, 02:59:00 PM »

Let me be succinct; should we eliminate all scores, as they don't accurately reflect what conditions, mindset, whatever went into making the scores possible?

I hope not. They are there for those that enjoy them. Ignoring them does not impact the play of the people who are for them or against them in any way. In short, if you are advocating revamping the scoring system to be reflective of reality, fine. If you are railing against scores in principle then I think the problem isn't with the scores.

Drex · « **Reply #72 on:** April 13, 2001, 03:31:00 PM »

The only score that is given is Fighter Points. This fighter score means nothing in Ranking. My beef is with the insane importance of gunnery percentage.

Drex

lazs · « **Reply #73 on:** April 13, 2001, 03:39:00 PM »

kier..no, don't eliminate em. as you say, they are meaningless to me and I can just ignore em however.... don't tout them at me if you don't want your bubble burst. That goes for rank and, to a much lesser extent, strats.

As drex says.. the gunnery should be by far... the least important in making comparissons or in determining rank tho. Perhaps a new term is in order... "gunnery gamer" or some such.
lazs

Hooligan · « **Reply #74 on:** April 13, 2001, 04:06:00 PM »

Since I am basically a math geek, I will contend that a generally meaningful fighter score can be derived from a simple formula.

The basics are:

1) Kills. Either you kill enemy fighters or you don't. Performance in fighter skill quite simply means the ability to kill other fighters. Bomber engagements should not be part of the calculations.

2) Deaths. Surviving while you kill enemy fighters is obviously a measure of skill.

3) Time. Killing enemies rapidly. It takes less skill to spend hours stalking unwary enemies from 25k and killing 2 than to engage 2 fully aware enemies at low altitude and beat them.

The Avin-like formula (which is based on HTC's very old WB formula) is Kills/Deaths * Time. Obviously this can be gamed like any formula by choice of aircraft, engagements, etc.. but it is simple and much harder to game than any other formulas I've seen. Quite simply to do very well at this formula you must have a high kill-to-death ratio and a high kill-verses-time ratio. If you try to game your kill-to-death ratio (by stalking from high altitude for example) your kills-verses-time is going to suffer. Conversely it is hard to push kills-verses-time without suffering in kill-to-death.

If HTC actually gathered the statistics to allow considering some of the factors that Drex mentions (i.e. initial energy states, #'s of friendly and enemy nearbye) then a more relevant measure could be developed.

No matter what, the statistics will always be gameable. If somebody doesn't care if they rtb or if they are willing to die to help countrymen in bad situations then no statistic is going to accurately reflect their true skill.

Hooligan

[This message has been edited by Hooligan (edited 04-13-2001).]