Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: wulfie on November 25, 2002, 07:33:54 PM
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I think scoring, rank, and perk points should all be tied together.
As far as 'points' go for rank and scoring purposes, the rank and perk point totals of the person 'shot down' should matter.
In other words, as a rough example with purely 'off the top of my head' math included:
Shoot down an La-7 piloted by someone who has a fighter rank 2d from last while flying an La-7: .5 perk points.
Shoot down an La-7 piloted by Shane, who currently has the #2 fighter rank while flying an La-7: 10 perk points.
In addition, you'd get more 'scoring points' for shooting down someone of a higher rank.
Have the current odds in the arena affect scoring and perks as well.
Have total # of bases controlled by your side affect scoring and perks as well. If you land a 12 kill sortie when your team has 40 players and the other 2 teams have a combined 200 players, and your team is down to 2 or 3 airfields - reward for you. Lots of perk points and lots of scoring points.
Now don't get me wrong here - I in no way currently believe that 'rank' = skill. There are some guys with high ranks that are skilled in my opinion. I've also shot down guys in the top 10 or top 20 'fighter rank' list in a clean one on one and found myself thinking 'That guy sucked!'.
But this would open up alot of cool things in the future.
There's talk about SAR operations. Well, what better way to motivate people to fly SAR than to say you get perk points and score points based on the perk and score levels of the person you rescue?
Also, it would to some extent begin to instill *some* reality into a potential situation where rank has something to do with skill. A guy who shoots down 2 really high ranking 'fighters' and lands the kill will get more 'benefits' than someone who kills 9 Ju 88s on takeoff from a field with no AAA flown by someone with the lowest bomber rank in the game.
Here's anothe idea - would you all be in favor of having your perk values adjusted based on your k/d by aircraft type?
In other words, if you lost 200 of a certain type of aircraft during 1 TOD, for the next TOD you would personally have to pay perk points to fly that aircraft type. A decent k/d would offset the perk cost adjustment. The idea is to not hammer guys who love to mix it up but to dissuade the 'endless stream of suicidal fighter bombers' 'tactic', as well as the 'roll 40 times in a row from a heavily capped field' 'defensive tactic' - this would make 'vulching auto kills' less common, which would make k/d mean more, which would make rank more representative, etc.
Just ideas...
Mike/wulfie
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I think anybody that shoots down Shane should get a trophy and 6 months of free AH for flying that high and chasing him that far / long. :D
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some fly for the perks
some fly for the points
some fly the rankings
some fly to kill shane
most fly to have fun and completely ignore perks/points/rankings/and especially Shane:D
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I think that is a neat Idea. anyone that plays this game for long comes to understand its the pilot not the plane. I have watched shane tangle with 15 knights alone on the deck in an la7 and come out of it.
I think way more of getting a guy that I know knew what he was doing then getting the newest pilot in the game in his first 262. If there was a way for the score system to show that I think it would be cool.
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Originally posted by SLO
some fly for the perks
some fly for the points
some fly the rankings
some fly to kill shane
most fly to have fun and completely ignore perks/points/rankings/and especially Shane:D
(Golfers Gallery courtesy clap) Clap clap clap...
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Wouldn't work for one reason. The best pilots in this game don't care about score or ranking. Therefore, they will never present much in the line of perks.
My regards,
Widewing
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But forget about perks. They are used to balance plane usage in the arena and should continue to be used this way.
Score and ranking are another matter. Here's an idea: Add another multiplier to the points equation, like
multiplier = 500 / (Ranking of Victim in type of vehicle you killed him in)
adjusting the 500 appropriately according to total number of users.
If you score a kill on a worse ranked player (over 500), then you get a fraction of the normal points for that kill. However, if you kill the #1 ranked player in that category, you get a 500x multiplier.
Of course, this would increase the use of spies and the better players would always be flying as if they had the ultimate "perk" icon hanging over their heads - gangbang city.
Never mind - it won't work. I still like some form of the idea, though.
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I think that scoring needs to be (somehow) separated from time spent online.
As it stands now the pasty skin guys (you know who you are) have higher scores simply be spending more time online.
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Originally posted by Wlfgng
I think that scoring needs to be (somehow) separated from time spent online.
As it stands now the pasty skin guys (you know who you are) have higher scores simply be spending more time online.
Then remove total points from the rank consideration and make it so you have to fly X amount of time in a tour to qualify for ranking (gotta have a minimum amount so that one person doesn't have a great sortie or two and then doesn't play anymore and gets the top rank, sorta like baseball does for the ERA and batting avg leaders/)
K/D+1
K/S
K/T
Accuracy
would be your 4 components for fighter rank.
Personally, I don't care about rank because a) I'm not any good to begin with and b) I spend more time in the SEA than I do the MA.
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Deft's page at WB required one sortie a day during the tour to qualify. When first started it required 2 sorties a day to qualify.
In other words the "points" column was eliminated.
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WTG wulf.
If these ideas or even some of them, were implimented into the game, it would definitely help to cure some of the new & less disirable tendancies that are now previlant.
Anton
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Why not just get rid of the rank/scoring system? It's not like rank is an indicator of how well one flies.
Ack-Ack
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I agree, just dump the whole rank system. Keep the stats still available offline, but make it so that user X, can only access user X's stats, and no one else. Rank has no place in-game MA IMO. A re-worked rank system in the DA would give a better idea about who is and isn't, "rank."
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The idea has nothing to do with the fact that *some* of the most highly skilled AH players don't care about rank *all the time*.
Everyone needs to remember that a player's motivation is not the same or driven by the same factors in each and every TOD a given player takes part in.
For example, drex doesn't care about score. But I distinctly remember him working on breaking a 100 kill streak in WB (I worked on this too at one time), and I also recall him working on being awarded all of the 'medals' in WB.
Why? Not because he wanted to do these things to 'prove' anything to anyone. But it's a challenge to be completed. When you've played online flight sims for years your reason for playing them can change month to month, even week to week.
Rank does not equal skill. But there are some highly ranked players *in any given TOD* that are very skilled. They are just in the mood to try and get a good rank for that TOD.
But this isn't about the top 3% of the MA in terms of skill in any way whatsoever. It's about the 65% (?, I don't know the exact %) of the MA that has (some) of their behavior driven by rank, score, perk points, etc.
Rank, score, perk points - matter to a large group of players, and affects their 'behavior' online. Rank, score, perk points - don't matter to me (anymore...score hasn't mattered to me really since the end of my first year of WB, a long time ago) and many others but the actions of the MA in general matter to everyone flying in the MA don't they?
I've got a buddy who saw me play WB for a long time who is just now getting into AH. He can't really compete vs. the top 50% of the MA in terms of 1 on 1 skill, but he sure tracks his rank, k/d, etc. Rank, k/d, score - these things are goals to be worked towards when other goals (shooting down your nemesis, who is way way better than you, winning 1 on 1s on a regular basis, etc.) are not attainable and won't be without many more months of practice.
People complain about 40 fighter bomber suicide 'waves' to set up 'organized vulches', all enabled by one team have twice the players of another team. What do you think causes these things? People vulch for one of 2 reasons in general I think:
1. To capture an airfield, i.e. to keep any defending aircraft from taking off and interrupting the deployment of ground troops attempting to capture said airfield.
2. To rack up lots of easy and safe kills so they have a 'nice looking score'.
2A. To rack up lots of easy and safe kills and land them for lots of perk points.
Everyone needs to remember that the person they are in AH today is not the person they always were in WB, AW, etc. At a certain point in terms of skill (barring a total lack of cojones or some deep psychological problems) the biggest 'rush' for many experienced AH/WB/AW types (myself and many other long time online flight sim types that I know included) is a really really down to the wire sweat on the joystick 1 on 1 fight against a good opponent. In the MA the cheap substitute for this is anything that is far from easy and involving direct competition - fighting 3 foes with a 'new guy' and coming out of the fight with the 'new guy' alive, biting on a 4 or 5 to 1 fight and living to tell about it, etc.
But there was a point, early in WB, where landing 2 kills - any 2 kills - was a big deal for me. There was a point where killing 10 or more enemy aircraft for every aircraft I lost was a big deal.
Score, rank, perk points - they affect your online experience in the MA even if you 'don't care about them'. They affect the behavior of a large % of the MA.
I agree that eliminating score and rank would do some interesting (and probably good) things, but I don't think you'll see it happen. Too many 'new to online flight sim' players care about this - and 'jaded' 'veterans' of online flight sims need to remember that a 6 month 'veteran' of AH has zero in common motivation-wise with someone who played AW for 3 years and has played AH since beta.
And it's a bad thing to not have lots of new players coming in to a sims 'MA'. Sims and communities stagnate and become like communities of grumpy old men without new people arriving into the mix. I never flew AW. I recall actually being excited about 'meeting' (flying with) a whole community of guys I never had any contact with when I came to AH. Boy was I let down when I realized how badly they all sucked.
Joking. :)
In short - alot of 'pack' behavior that people don't like in the MA is driven by the scoring and rank system in my opinion. Altering the system to change it sounds like a reasonable *experiment* to me.
Mike/wulfie
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Originally posted by wulfie
Mike/wulfie
Cliffnotes??
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Originally posted by wulfie
People vulch for one of 2 reasons in general I think:
1. To capture an airfield, i.e. to keep any defending aircraft from taking off and interrupting the deployment of ground troops attempting to capture said airfield.
2. To rack up lots of easy and safe kills so they have a 'nice looking score'.
2A. To rack up lots of easy and safe kills and land them for lots of perk points.
Mike/wulfie
I think you left out the most important reason why people vulch, because it's fun.
As for the rank/scoring system, I've been playing online flight sims for close to 10 years now and I can honestly say, I never played for ranking or score. To me the enjoyment I get is from the kill, doesn't matter if I fly into a horde as long as I get a couple of kills before they get me. But that's just me and I know everyone else has different motivations. I just think that way to many people place to much emphasis on having the best rank/score which leads to some very dweebish flying. Personally, I can do without the rank/scoring system and live with only having the stats offline like they are now.
As for your previous post about getting more perks/score for shooting down better pilots, that's how it used to be in AW. If you shot down someone with a higher score than you had, you got more points for the kill than you would have had if you shot down someone with less points than you.
Ack-Ack
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Okay I think it's a different way of stating the same thing Ack-Ack.
You say it's 'fun' to vulch people - for me that's 'I'm drinking and playing AH and it's fun to blow things up' type 'fun' in my book. It's akin to playing the smack the gophers with the hammer type game you see at D&Bs. There is zero challenge (for me) in shooting people attempting to takeoff.
From my point of view - the big motivation for me to try WB long ago was to fight another aircraft being flown by a human as opposed to AI. It was about the challenge of beating another person.
So vulching can be 'fun' in my book, but no more fun than shooting down guys with a PT boat, etc.
I think we need a poll (can this BBS do that?). A poll on 'why you vulch'. I think if people answered honestly 'fun' would rank below the 2 reasons I mentioned, instead of above as you think it would.
For me, for the entire time I played WB and now AH, it's always been more fun to shoot down an aircraft that was actually in a position to fight/defend itself/etc.
Mike/wulfie
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You say it's 'fun' to vulch people - for me that's 'I'm drinking and playing AH and it's fun to blow things up'
type 'fun' in my book. It's akin to playing the smack the gophers with the hammer type game you see at D&Bs.
There is zero challenge (for me) in shooting people attempting to takeoff.
That's why I enjoy this game, it is fun to blow things up. Probably the reason why I waste bullets in making the other guy blow up instead of being satisfied with just blowing his wing off.
The challenge in vulching is how you do it. I vulched someone last night by flying through their hanger to get at him and another time did it inverted. Sometimes I'll up in a Me262 and just use it to vulch at high speeds.
For me, for the entire time I played WB and now AH, it's always been more fun to shoot down an aircraft that
was actually in a position to fight/defend itself/etc.
The enjoyment I get from vulching or shooting down someone in the air is the same. To me a kill is a kill, regardless of how I got it. A lion doesn't care he killed the zebra while it was drinking water or if he had to chase it down before killing it, he's going to enjoy his meal in either case.
(http://www.hispanicvista.com/assets/479th_shield.jpg)
Ack-Ack
479th FG - Riddle's Raiders
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I have to agree with ack-ack, vulching is one of the funnest things that I can do in this game. Extended vulching can be every bit as intense as a great dogfights. The best laughs that I have had while playing AH have been during vulching. Vulching is just 1 more aspect of this game that can be enjoyed for the sake of variety, this is a biggie for me.
While air to air, fighter vs. fighter is certainly the main activity that I seek in this game, I also enjoy almost EVERY form of fighting/killing that it has to offer, including attackingbombers, GVs, boats, and vulching planes.
Vulching also promotes base defense, which can also be a blast and makes use of planes that that are ideally suited for it (A6M, Hurri, etc.).
Vulching CAN be very difficult, esp. with multiple spawners, GVs, some airborn threats, etc. It does require its own set of skills, some related to air combat.
As far as score goes, for me, seeking out a vulch is relatively dangerous. Most vulch sorties actually end up hurting my score more than help it (straffing ack, GVs, hangers, getting low under higher cons, losing control of the vulch while slow and low, etc.).
eskimo
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Wulfie,
I do agree with the original point of your thread, and have thought that for years.
Here's the formula for points that I would reccomend:
(Victoms K/D) x (Enemies plane type K/D squared) X (Number of seconds since enemy spawned {100 second max}) /
(Your plane's K/D squared )
Here's why:
* Victoms K/D *
This shows how hard and how often the victom dies. It's a better indicator of how hard he is to kill than rank.
* Kill Fester and earn 25 times as many points as you would by killing Joe Average 1:1 K/D.
* Kill Joe Newbie (with a 0.01 K/D) and earn 1% as many points as you would by killing Joe Average 1:1 K/D.
* Enemies plane type K/D squared *
This shows how hard and how often the victom's plane type dies. Based on the aircrafts Overall MA K/D SQUARED. (If this were the case: 109F-4 = 100%, LA-7 = 144%, P-40B = 0.09 %, ME-262 = 4330 %)
* Number of seconds since enemy spawned {100 second max} *
This would give less credit to vulches. Kill a guy 5 sec after he spawns, get 5% of the points as you would have had he upped 1 min. 40 sec. or longer. Every time you kill someone who spawned more than 100 seconds ago, you get 100% of your earned points.
* Your plane's K/D squared *
You should get more credit for killing someone when your flying a turd VS. flying an ubber ride.
This would promote players to fly the lame ducks, and not spend so much time in the ubber planes.
eskimo
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LOL, with my formula, you'd have to kill Joe Newbie in his P-40B 1.2 million times to earn as many points as you would by killing Fester in his 262!
eskimo
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Originally posted by Wlfgng
I think that scoring needs to be (somehow) separated from time spent online.
As it stands now the pasty skin guys (you know who you are) have higher scores simply be spending more time online.
This is just plain wrong. Though it has been spelled out time and time again some of you still don't get it. Overall points are the only benefit of being 'online all of the time' as you put it. Even in the smallest two categories (fighters and bombers) that's only 20% of the score. You still have to be good in four other categories for fighters and bombers each, and nine other categories for the others. And, I'll point out, in fighters flying a lot doesn't mean that you will neccesarily get good points. Further, the very best in fighters can fly fewer sorties and get more points than a poor pilot might. For instance, the other categories in fighters include kills per death, kills per sortie, kills per time, and the all important gunnery. Time alone will not help any of these categories and that's 80% of the overall.
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The top 100 pilots represent a little more then 4% (I believe) of the pilots that have logged into the Main Arena this month. So, if you consider that not all of those that are after rank also do not understand fully how to achieve it, and generously extend consideration of 'those that care about rank' to the top 200 pilots, then the percentage grows to a whopping 8% (say 10%). And, some of them don't care but are instead in that position because of outstanding performance in a single category.
It helps that there are so many dweebs. :D
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Originally posted by Voss
For instance, the other categories in fighters include kills per death, kills per sortie, kills per time, and the all important gunnery. Time alone will not help any of these categories and that's 80% of the overall.
Add points per hour, and you'll have a number that will separate the crack pilots from the dweebs that rack up a high score through having no life.
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Originally posted by Shiva
Add points per hour, and you'll have a number that will separate the crack pilots from the dweebs that rack up a high score through having no life.
That would suit me, as I almost never fly anything with an ENY less than 35. Love those old clunkers!
My regards,
Widewing
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It helps that there are so many dweebs.
having been away from the game for a few months.. ok.. so an hour or three a month..
I noticed lately what seems to me to be a huge amount of, shall I say, 'targets'.. that weren't there before.
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You all mean there's actually someone who cares about Score and Rank??? :eek:
Heh...the things that turn people on are just amazing :D
Cheers,
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Originally posted by Pepe
You all mean there's actually someone who cares about Score and Rank??? :eek:
Heh...the things that turn people on are just amazing :D
Cheers,
I have learned that the people most concerned with Rank and Score are those who have it.
Some tours I fly for ranking. Some I fly for score. Others, I'll fly purely for the fun of dogfighting. This tour, I'm doing the latter, and making it even more interesting by flying mostly early-war fighters, flying bombers as fighters, and toss in some mid-war fighters for diversity. Doesn't make for good ranking, or score. But Dang, it sure is fun!
You know, if you think you're a pretty good stick running up solid scores in the hot late-war machines, spend some time in the old "clunkers".... It will make you better. Besides, adversity builds character! :D
all!
My regards,
Widewing
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Originally posted by Shiva
Add points per hour, and you'll have a number that will separate the crack pilots from the dweebs that rack up a high score through having no life.
Shiva, you obviously just don't get it. The only benefit from being 'online all the time' is being there to look for oppurtunities from the tower. Flying often won't get you rank.