Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Wishlist => Topic started by: WarTooth on August 16, 2008, 03:11:38 PM
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Hey All,
Fighter plane stats are near meaningless because players can rearm until they get a really silly number of kills per sortie. I recommend making a sortie end when a plane lands (what a concept). This may also change the way many score obsessed players fly for the better. Better piloting is a good thing.
Many (those that fly purely to artificially inflate this stat) will take a big issue with this post. I understand. I mean no disrespect. You pay your monthly fee and can fly any way you want.
For the rest of us, this might make the score aspect of the game a little more real...or maybe not.
If the game is filled with kills\"sortie" obsessed players I will be in the minority on this. I say lets find out by having AH do one for their famous polls. Should a sortie end when a plane lands? yes or no.
Thanks for your comments,
WT
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Stats will never mean anything. :aok
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I don't really care either way, but the rearm option has to be retained for FSO I think.
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Yep, good point.
I am not suggesting to do away with the rearm option in any way. Just change the definition of a "sortie" so as to make it harder to abuse.
WT
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um i dont think this is gonna get very far.
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i just like rearm in the ma to get an impressive 'coinbird has landed xx victories" message. dont really care about stats otherwise
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there are many sticks who dont need to rearm, so if you take out rearm pad, it wouldnt kill those sticks who dont rearm because they dont need to.
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Monty,
>> i just like rearm in the ma to get an impressive 'coinbird has landed xx victories" message. dont really care about stats otherwise
Here again we are basically in agreement as I am ONLY talking about having a sortie end, with respects to kills\sortie stat.
Stats are seen by many long term players as meaningless and those that win any category based on "stats" as a joke. Someone who knows how to game-the-game and NOT exhibiting any piloting skills. I guess I am proposing a change that more closely aligns stats with real pilot skills in the context of this game.
If this thread is kept alive AH must act upon it as it will reflect the features desired by the majority of their paying customers.
WT
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Honestly, I think you could remove stats/rank/name-in-lights all together and nothing would change. Not everyone is motivated by what others think, you know. I've stated before that even without the ego-stroking you get from landing kills, you'd still see me trying to land because that's just the kind of dweeb I am.
Btw, normally "game-the-game" is reserved for actions more dubious than using the re-arm pad. After all, that was explicitly put there to be used. Gaming-the-game is stuff like stick-stirring, immelmaning with 2 drones, and bailing without damage.
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I almost never rearm. Rearming is actually inherently dangerous and quite time consuming compared to just landing for a fresh plane. You are totally vulnerable during the process and it's a time-consuming pita to taxi in and out of the rearm pad. Any kill/sortie benefit gained is outweighed, score wise, by the proportional degradation of your kills/time and the increased likelihood some Lgay7 runway vulcher is going to come in and pop you on the rearm pad or while taxiing around. Kills/Sortie is the 2nd least competitive sub-stat of fighter rank only marginally more competitive than Kills/deaths. Kills/time, Hit% and points are the most competitive by far, in that order. So, sacrificing kills/time for kills/sortie is actually a losing proposition for a score potato even if he never gets whacked by runway vulchers and loses all his kills he could have otherwise landed.
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Zazen,
Very good points. :aok
In the context of those that have lives outside this game (most of us) Kills/time is erroneous. After launching a plane, I myself may need to field a tech call from home and the like. There are too many "life events" (pizza, baby crapping pants, dog getting out) for this stat to be accurate.
If we could do nothing but play this game and not be affected by any other events it might be accurate.
Zazen, would you agree that in this context that is true?
Thanks again for your comments,
WT
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Honestly, I think you could remove stats/rank/name-in-lights all together and nothing would change. Not everyone is motivated by what others think, you know. I've stated before that even without the ego-stroking you get from landing kills, you'd still see me trying to land because that's just the kind of dweeb I am.
That's incredibly true.
There is a myth that there's only two camps, those who play for score and those that don't. But, as I wrote in another post on personality's effect on your game, there is an almost infinite number of reasons and motivations for flying in certain ways. Interestingly, a lot of the reasons and motivations are subconscious, even the person doing it doesn't know exactly why they are doing it.
For example, I am a perfectionist, my joy comes from "perfect" hops, where I make no mistakes, bring down as many enemy as possible and live. If I can't live, I at least want to learn something from the experience. A completely failed hop for me is one where I die, don't learn anything and fail to down the maximum possible number of enemy. You may have a totally different concept of a good and bad hop, in fact there's probably 5,000 different ideas of good/bad. Neither is more right or wrong than another.
There is no doubt some do in fact define good/bad hops in terms what effect it has on their score/rank. But, it's not as common as people believe and it's almost never the single motivation or reason for flying a certain way, especially for protracted periods of time. I flew for rank a few tours just to see if I could do it. It wasn't very fun and was not sufficiently rewarding in and of itself to merit performing the really boring chores required. It becomes like that for almost everyone over time. In the end people end up just flying in harmony with their personality, you can no more change that than you could change any other innate individual quality like intelligence or temperament.
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Zazen,
Very good points. :aok
In the context of those that have lives outside this game (most of us) Kills/time is erroneous. After launching a plane, I myself may need to field a tech call from home and the like. There are too many "life events" (pizza, baby crapping pants, dog getting out) for this stat to be accurate.
If we could do nothing but play this game and not be affected by any other events it might be accurate.
Zazen, would you agree that in this context that is true?
Thanks again for your comments,
WT
Definitely, kills/time is very competitive precisely because there is a very wide, homogenously populated span within the sub-stat. It is also unique in that it is almost entirely inversely proportional with another sub-stat, kills/deaths, which is not a competitive sub-stat at all because almost everyone is within a relatively very narrow band. So, someone who kills quickly but rarely lives is far, far better off, score potato wise, than someone who kills slowly but rarely dies. Because, you cannot "pause" the game the meaningfulness of Kills/time is diluted by any real world distraction; wife ack, phone calls, pizza guy, work etc. It is the only sub-stat that is potentially directly affected by factors outside the game other than occasionally getting popped while afk...
Kills/time is more a factor of what plane you fly, therefore how much altitude you need to get and maintain to be maximally effective, which is itself a function of climbrate. So, if you are in a poor climber that fights poorly "nose-up" your Kills/time will be much lower than an equally effective killer in a "nose-up" fighter with a super climbrate. Also, your participation in types of fights that don't require much altitude improves kills/time without requiring you to be more effective, such as CV offense/defense, base defense and vulching. Then there's the incredibly fabulous sticks that are great killers but have craptacular Kills/time because they feel it is their duty to hunt and kill high altitude buffs to try to save their field's FH's. If all they did was base/cv defense and vulch they'd have an awesome kills/time stat.
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Zazen,
I am not a PHD. Could you say that again in English?
Just kidding. Are you a scientist?
WT
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Isnt it kinda bad to rearm since there is a time flying thing in the fighter stat right?
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I don't see people landing unusually high numbers of kills. The guys who land 5-10 kills usually don't need to re-arm to do so and I can't remember seeing many more than that (except maybe in vehicles). Heck, even I landed 7 in a Spit XVI one night followed by 7 in a F6F-5 the next night without re-arming either time.
I only use the re-arm pad if I land without any kills. That just won't do. :) As long as I have one I'll tower out for a new plane.
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BaldEagl,
Very good points sir.
1. Do you think most people have your level of skill in the game?
2. Do you think those that rearm to boost their kills\sortie have your level of skill?
I guess what I am trying to determine is that for superior pilots as yourself there seems to be less of a need to rearm for boosting stats. I am proposing that it will make the game better to rearm because you have a need to rearm and not because you are trying to boost your kills\sortie stat.
Thanks for your comments,
WT
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BaldEagl,
Very good points sir.
1. Do you think most people have your level of skill in the game?
2. Do you think those that rearm to boost their kills\sortie have your level of skill?
I guess what I am trying to determine is that for superior pilots as yourself there seems to be less of a need to rearm for boosting stats. I am proposing that it will make the game better to rearm because you have a need to rearm and not because you are trying to boost your kills\sortie stat.
Thanks for your comments,
WT
Most people I ever see re-arm do so for an entirely different reason. They're at a base with a good fight then a 30k flotilla of fun nazi's drop FHs. So, when they return to base they re-arm so they can re-up in their fighter right there and not have to fly from a sector away to get back into the scrap.
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The guys who land 5-10 kills usually don't need to re-arm to do so and I can't remember seeing many more than that (except maybe in vehicles).
There ya go. I've landed 14 and 15 back to back no re-arms or vulches (in a dora no less). 19 with no rearms seems to be my limit. I'd say well over 90% of the 7+ landings I have do not involve a rearm. The main times I do rearm it has to do with either a lack of resources available at that airfield, or the occasional poor flight that isn't worth landing yet.
I'm of the opinion that even with rearms, if someone can manage to bag 10 kills in a sortie without sustaining any damage, and can do it at a pace that gives them a competitive kills/per/time then there is no "gaming the game" involved.
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moin
i dont understand why people have problems with the rearm pads. i always try to rearm at filds with destroyed fhs hangars. or if my plane is still ok and i want to do a new run. for me its a nice feeling fliing the same bird for a few sorties and bring it home save.
why is the rearm pad a problem for some people????????????????????? :huh
cu chris3
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The last few posts did allow me to remember a couple of other situations in which I re-arm besides landing without any kills.
If I'm in attack mode and ord is down at the field I land at I'll re-arm for ord and if I'm in a low ENY plane and the ENY limiter kicks in I might re-arm so as not to have to switch rides.
As to your questions:
"1. Do you think most people have your level of skill in the game?
2. Do you think those that rearm to boost their kills\sortie have your level of skill?"
I think it's best to land any kills you have, especially if your less experienced. The risk of getting shot down after re-arming is exponentially higher the less experienced/skilled you are.
A guy who manages say 3 K/D and 2 K/S is much less likely to get shot down than a guy who manages 0.5 K/D and 0.33 K/S. Beyond that, adding even one landed kill has a much bigger positive impact for the less skilled pilot.
If you already have kills under your belt then re-arming to boost K/S is like placing a bet in Vegas; the odds are stacked against you. Those with the best chance of beating the odds are the sharks who, coincidently, play well enough that they don't need to take that extra risk.
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If you already have kills under your belt then re-arming to boost K/S is like placing a bet in Vegas; the odds are stacked against you. Those with the best chance of beating the odds are the sharks who, coincidently, play well enough that they don't need to take that extra risk.
The odds of getting shot down do not change depending on how many kills you're carrying, nor do they change if you rearm. True, if you rearm you wager the kills you already have, but you also stand to gain more. So what changes is the negative value of getting shot down; the more kills you have the worse it is to get shot down before you landed them...But, again, the positive value of landing after you rearm and get more kills goes up. It seems to be a very balanced 50/50 wager to me, far better odds than any game in Vegas where you play against the house. :aok
Perhaps an even more apt comparison is to poker, where the majority of players are so full of leaks the good player's actions actually have positive expectation.;)
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The odds of getting shot down do not change depending on how many kills you're carrying, nor do they change if you rearm. True, if you rearm you wager the kills you already have, but you also stand to gain more. So what changes is the negative value of getting shot down; the more kills you have the worse it is to get shot down before you landed them...But, again, the positive value of landing after you rearm and get more kills goes up. It seems to be a very balanced 50/50 wager to me, far better odds than any game in Vegas where you play against the house. :aok
Perhaps an even more apt comparison is to poker, where the majority of players are so full of leaks the good player's actions actually have positive expectation.;)
If you only manage 0.33 K/S and 0.50 K/D, land, re-arm and re-up for what amounts to another sortie what makes you think those numbers will suddenly change? In that case you are playing against the house. You beat the odds to land in the first place. The odds are that for every kill you get you're going to be killed twice and that you'll only get a kill every three sorties. That means you'll go up, get killed twice then finally land a kill on the third sortie. Those don't seem like 50/50 odds to me, at least not when I learned math.
At 2 K/D and 1 K/S you do reach even odds. You're as likely to get killed after the re-arm as you are to get another kill and land with two. That being the case, if it alternated, then you've gained nor lost anything in re-arming.
Anything over those numbers and you're likely to win by re-arming but at that point, as I've stated, you really don't need to.
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Hey WarTooth, <S>, all respect due but... In essence you want to rewrite what the definition of sortie is. So.... NO
Should a sortie end when a plane lands? yes or no.
And besides, how many of us are good enough to resup 6 times to get 23 kills? I know I'm not.
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If you only manage 0.33 K/S and 0.50 K/D, land, re-arm and re-up for what amounts to another sortie what makes you think those numbers will suddenly change? In that case you are playing against the house. You beat the odds to land in the first place. The odds are that for every kill you get you're going to be killed twice and that you'll only get a kill every three sorties. That means you'll go up, get killed twice then finally land a kill on the third sortie. Those don't seem like 50/50 odds to me, at least not when I learned math.
You didn't make it clear that you were stipulating a particular stat profile for making a general decision. I wasn't assuming pilot ability when I made the statement above.
To use your numbers: if player x lands with 2 kills (and no damage), and there's a 33% chance he can rearm and bring back 3 kills, and a 50% chance that he will die trying, he should give it a try. Why? Because if we're trying to maximize K/S (K/D takes care of itself), that's the only way to do it. Even though he beat his normal %'s, landing those 2 kills won't increase K/S as much as trying for more. The only thing it's good for is getting your name in the text buffer.
Hey WarTooth, <S>, all respect due but... In essence you want to rewrite what the definition of sortie is. So.... NO
Actually, I think "sortie" is rather ambiguous as to whether an aircraft rearming and going out again is one sortie or two. We should ask someone who is in the airforce.
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If you only manage 0.33 K/S and 0.50 K/D, land, re-arm and re-up for what amounts to another sortie what makes you think those numbers will suddenly change? In that case you are playing against the house. You beat the odds to land in the first place. The odds are that for every kill you get you're going to be killed twice and that you'll only get a kill every three sorties. That means you'll go up, get killed twice then finally land a kill on the third sortie. Those don't seem like 50/50 odds to me, at least not when I learned math.
At 2 K/D and 1 K/S you do reach even odds. You're as likely to get killed after the re-arm as you are to get another kill and land with two. That being the case, if it alternated, then you've gained nor lost anything in re-arming.
Anything over those numbers and you're likely to win by re-arming but at that point, as I've stated, you really don't need to.
That's a beautiful analysis BaldEagle..Very nicely explained and illustrated. :salute
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At 2 K/D and 1 K/S you do reach even odds. You're as likely to get killed after the re-arm as you are to get another kill and land with two. That being the case, if it alternated, then you've gained nor lost anything in re-arming.
That's a beautiful analysis BaldEagle..Very nicely explained and illustrated. :salute
No, the analysis is flawed because it commits the gambler's fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy)), that past events change future probabilities. In this case, that before getting any kills the pilot is a 2:1 favorite, and after getting a kill he is a 1:1 coin toss. If the pilot's stipulated k/d expectation is 2:1, then it remains 2:1 even after he lands a kill. Even if he gets 10 kills in a row without dying, his k/d expectation is still 2:1 for all future sorties.
A good analogy would be if you were playing cards and you made 10 flush draws in a row, even though you were a ~25% dog every time. Then, you get an 11th flush draw, the pot is offering you 2:1, but you don't put the money in because you just made 10 flush draws in a row and you couldn't possibly make 11. :rolleyes:
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No, the analysis is flawed because it commits the gambler's fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy)), that past events change future probabilities. In this case, that before getting any kills the pilot is a 2:1 favorite, and after getting a kill he is a 1:1 coin toss. If the pilot's stipulated k/d expectation is 2:1, then it remains 2:1 even after he lands a kill. Even if he gets 10 kills in a row without dying, his k/d expectation is still 2:1 for all future sorties.
A good analogy would be if you were playing cards and you made 10 flush draws in a row, even though you were a ~25% dog every time. Then, you get an 11th flush draw, the pot is offering you 2:1, but you don't put the money in because you just made 10 flush draws in a row and you couldn't possibly make 11. :rolleyes:
You're logic is based upon the assumption of random chance and the supposition that over time there will be a wide fluctuation of results eventually leading to a random distribution of all possible outcomes. AH is not a game of chance like drawing cards from a deck, it is a game of skill for the most part. When getting airborne again for the 1,000Th time it is actually very likely they will repeat past performance as chance has very little to do with it. It would be illogical to assume that a person could suddenly deviate wildly from their proven poor skill level based performance to the point it would be to their benefit statistically to rearm. An AH sortie is not a factor of random distribution making recurrence of a pattern less likely upon repetition. Random distribution making all possibilities equally probable over time does not exist in contests of skill...So, if a person sucked the previous 1,000 sorties it is extremely likely they will also suck the next 1,000, not less likely.
Take it from someone who plays pool for money, if random chance noticably influenced my results and I could not anticipate future probable outcomes based on past performance I'd be living in a cardboard box under a highway overpass.
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Stats are useless to me. Stats are manipulated.
In a furball or 1 vs 1 in the MA, I often know who I'm fighting. This is about 75% of the time too. THAT is more meaningful to me than anything else.
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Take it from someone who plays pool for money, if random chance noticably influenced my results and I could not anticipate future probable outcomes based on past performance I'd be living in a cardboard box under a highway overpass.
That's a nice appeal to authority. ;) On the flip side, I used to gamble to supplement my income, and I promise you that random chance does not mean probable future outcomes cannot be anticipated. :aok
You're logic is based upon the assumption of random chance and the supposition that over time there will be a wide fluctuation of results eventually leading to a random distribution of all possible outcomes. AH is not a game of chance like drawing cards from a deck, it is a game of skill for the most part. When getting airborne again for the 1,000Th time it is actually very likely they will repeat past performance as chance has very little to do with it. It would be illogical to assume that a person could suddenly deviate wildly from their proven poor skill level based performance to the point it would be to their benefit statistically to rearm.
Yes, it is very likely they will repeat their past performance. But if we are assuming a probabilistic approach in our decision over whether or not to rearm, then we don't change k/d probabilities simply because we landed one kill; we are not talking about large deviations. Moreover, we both know that games of skill are not immune to probabilistic analysis, e.g. Baseball, so I don't quite understand the relevance of AH being a game of skill. I'm not saying that whether or not a pilot lands a kill or dies is a matter of random chance. I'm saying that just because you landed a kill and you average 1:1 K/D, that doesn't mean you're worse than 50/50 to kill or die when you take off. Small deviations in performance happen all of the time in this game, and sometimes in ways that are totally out of our control (like the tail-less Niki that fell into my windscreen last night :lol).
It is only if landing one and only one kill takes priority over K/S that there is no benefit to rearming when your aircraft is undamaged and you landed a kill.
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That's a nice appeal to authority. ;) On the flip side, I used to gamble to supplement my income, and I promise you that random chance does not mean probable future outcomes cannot be anticipated. :aok
Gambling on games of chance is nothing like betting on games of skill where you are one of the active participants...They have totally different expectations and degrees of direct control over outcomes.
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That's a nice appeal to authority. ;) On the flip side, I used to gamble to supplement my income, and I promise you that random chance does not mean probable future outcomes cannot be anticipated. :aok
Yes, it is very likely they will repeat their past performance. But if we are assuming a probabilistic approach in our decision over whether or not to rearm, then we don't change k/d probabilities simply because we landed one kill; we are not talking about large deviations. Moreover, we both know that games of skill are not immune to probabilistic analysis, e.g. Baseball, so I don't quite understand the relevance of AH being a game of skill. I'm not saying that whether or not a pilot lands a kill or dies is a matter of random chance. I'm saying that just because you landed a kill and you average 1:1 K/D, that doesn't mean you're worse than 50/50 to kill or die when you take off. Small deviations in performance happen all of the time in this game, and sometimes in ways that are totally out of our control (like the tail-less Niki that fell into my windscreen last night :lol).
It is only if landing one and only one kill takes priority over K/S that there is no benefit to rearming when your aircraft is undamaged and you landed a kill.
In games of skill, all factors "out of your control" aka good/bad "luck" even out over time. Leaving only the element of skill as the sole variable that determines outcomes. While it may not necessarily be statistically harmful to rearm in that situation it is also almost certainly not going to be helpful by the same token. Therefore, it would be better to just land and be guarenteed to improve or, at the very least not make worse, your K/T, since your K/D and the K/S are going to wash in the end.
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Stats will never mean anything. :aok
LOL I would add to this... They mean EVERYTHING and NOTHING at the same time. Depends on the player.
As for lil ol me, I have worked hard in every dicipline (Fighter, Attack, Bomber, GVs), to get fairly good at them all. (under 1000). Points and Score for me has been, as stated above, a sort of, how low can I get this score. It's fun. Score potato though? Nah. Too much gaming the game and too many chores to do. Again as stated above.
At the end of the day though, with so many individuals with individual schedules and such a variance in ability to spend time on the game, I don't think you could ever get an accurate stat or a meaningful stat.
I would say meaningful stats has to be in the eye of the beholder.
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Zazen,
>> my joy comes from "perfect" hops
Your concept of a perfect hop has stuck with me deeply over the last few days. I think you are right on concerning peoples various motivations.
In observing those pilots that have "good" stats I am beginning to be able to read into them how "expert" they are in getting potent stats but perhaps are much to be desired in the piloting skills area. One "good" pilot for instance is rated as:
| - | Score | Rank |
| Kills per Death + 1 | 23.00 | 4 |
| Kills per Sortie | 1.28 | 477 |
| Kills Hit Percentage | 12.98 | 69 |
To interpret and compare a bit: So you have been playing this game years and only get 23 kills in a month yet are ranked 4th? I have 125+ kills, avg. about 1 kill\sortie, hit% .047 and have a fighter rank of 1304.
I tried mouthing off a bit, trash talking trying to get some of these "pilots" to engage me but was completely unsuccessful. As Mr. T says, enough of that Jibber Jabber! :-)
Zazen, really your concept of "the perfect sortie or hop" for me I think is the most satisfying stat.
Thanks for posting,
WT
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I should add the obvious before being flamed...
For a time I kept an Excel spreadsheet and tracked every aspect of every flight and the results. I gave this up as it made the game a chore.
What I found is that if anyone wanted to fly sterile flights they can mass the stats as the player I indicated or better. Easily. With little skill...I did. This goes back to Zazen's comment on all the differing reasons people play this game.
WT
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Wartooth, to be honest you will never be able to make the stats more meaningful. I used to fly alone into 10 on 1's and fight till I died (I still do sometimes). My K/D and K/S weren't that good, as you can imagine. On the other hand, controlling myself and the engagements I accept I've been able to get as high as 12 K/D and 3 K/S. Does that mean I suddenly turned into a better a pilot? Nope.
This camp I started over 6 K/D and 2 K/S mostly flying my beloved Spit. Now I'm barely over 2 K/D and under 1.5 K/S as I've been flying all sorts of planes (30+ so far this camp) into all types of situations. Does that mean I lost all my skills (the few I have)? Nope.
My point is that the only stat that's worthwhile is the fun stat, and that's not posted on the scores page.
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BaldEgl,
>> My point is that the only stat that's worthwhile is the fun stat, and that's not posted on the scores page.
I think I am coming to agree with this more and more. :aok
WT
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To interpret and compare a bit: So you have been playing this game years and only get 23 kills in a month yet are ranked 4th? I have 125+ kills, avg. about 1 kill\sortie, hit% .047 and have a fighter rank of 1304.
Sounds like that player doesn't have much time to fly. He's only ranked 4th in K/D, not in the general fighter category. You have to do a lot better than ~1 K/S to be ranked 4th over all in fighters.
You, on the other hand, have already spent ~60 hours in fighter sorties this tour! :O
Your stats:
Kills per Death + 1 1.00 1352
Kills per Sortie 0.57 1641
Kills per Hour of Flight 2.34 2970
Kills Hit Percentage 4.85 1421
Kill Points 26182.24 169
Most of your kills are in the P-39Q, which is impressive in itself. It's sad to say, but the easiest way to improve your rank would be to fly a more uber plane. :P Glad you're having fun.