Pickers and runners please help me understand...

[Scca]

I decided to get in a few sorties this morning.  I ran into a all to common situation that honestly confuses me.

The set up...
There was a 109-K4 orbiting the base I took off from, I was in a Spit IX.  After several blown BNZ passes, I had equalized the E states, so he decides to run away.  Not wanting to waste time, I turned back to engage a P-38.  I dispatched him, and low and behold the K4 is back.  A few more blown passes, and he's gone again.  I take care of a 190, then land.

I re-up from a further back base to get alt on the K4 trying to give him some of his medicine.  No K4 to be found, so I start playing with a co-alt spit, and much to my surprise, the K4 is back, he blows a few passes again and extends, I go back to the spit only to have the K4 land a 30 on my wing. 

Pickers and runners, please help me understand what is the fascination with this style of game play.  Maybe it's a "your $15" thing, but what possible enjoyment can someone get from only engaging cons when they are already engaged and running from a 1v1 when you have an E advantage?  To me, 90% of the fun is the fight, not the winner.  I am so confused..

[Guppy35]

He was scared he might die and not get another cartoon airplane?

That's my only guess

[ink]

because thats all they can do. and when they pick you off of someones 6, they think they helped there teammate. 

makes em feel like a man.

[Sunka]

Although i agree with a lot of what you say sometimes their is a need for it ,Like when i see 5 spits on the deck waiting to gang someone and im in a pony at 13 k im picking all day long (im not turn fighting em).But people that do nothing but pick are just scared skilless dweebs

[NoBaddy]

Pickers and runners, please help me understand what is the fascination with this style of game play.  Maybe it's a "your $15" thing, but what possible enjoyment can someone get from only engaging cons when they are already engaged and running from a 1v1 when you have an E advantage?  To me, 90% of the fun is the fight, not the winner.  I am so confused..

Hmmm, now I'm confused (not really an unusual state)....

You meet 4 opponents and dispatch 3 of them. The fourth obviously lacks the skill (or will) to give your spit a decent fight and refuses to commit. Hmm, 75% of your opponents fought and lost....and you want to come to the bbs and complain about the 1 guy that wouldn't let you kill him?

[olskool2]

It wasn't that he wouldn't let him kill him, it's the way they go about not wanting to be killed, and then come to kill a pilot, they otherwise couldn't, with a pick.

Really, I think it stems from lack of basic training now days. Newbies who see alt monkeys land kills naturally go with a run90 or pee51.

[ink]

Hmmm, now I'm confused (not really an unusual state)....

You meet 4 opponents and dispatch 3 of them. The fourth obviously lacks the skill (or will) to give your spit a decent fight and refuses to commit. Hmm, 75% of your opponents fought and lost....and you want to come to the bbs and complain about the 1 guy that wouldn't let you kill him?

i think its the fact that at first the K4 had the advantage but never stayed and only came back when he was engaged with someone else.

and besides he is not complaining he is "confused" as to why they fly like that when this is only a game and you don't really die.

i personally think its funny when people try to fly AH like its real life, i have allot of respect for Eric Hartman but his flying style has no place in AH, for here you get all the planes you want for 15 bucks a month, this game is about Aerial Combat, im sorry but exclusively picking and running is not Aerial Combat.

but, its your 15 bucks fly the way you like.

[Anaxogoras]

I have a few different thoughts here (I fly the K-4 frequently):

1.  This K-4 pilot sounds like he's still learning how to fly it and how to aim the tater.  He could easily have out-climbed you instead of the more traditional horizontal extension (not so much if you were in the ufo-like spit16).  I see lots of 51 pilots who are in the same situation: they know how to get lots of altitude and fly really fast, but can never convert their energy into a high % gun solution.  If it were agent360, pjk, or mondego they probably would have killed you on the first or second pass.

2.  It's not just his $15, but also the strengths of his aircraft.  Spitfire pilots turn and turn like like a merry-go-round, but we rarely criticize them for it like we criticize a 51 for running.  Maybe if you and the other spit pilots promise not to turn so much, we'll promise not to fly so fast.

3. Isn't it boring?  Well, yes and no.  Some of us get tired of the simple latch-on-his-6-and-don't-let-go-til-he's-dead approach that you probably call a "fight."  It's a youthful approach to air-combat, but a limited one that tends to the horizontal, and long tracking shots.  Appreciate this point: whereas you have many seconds to saddle up on a bandit and fire in your spitfire, that K-4 pilot has a firing window of about .25 seconds every time he gets to fire the tater.  If he misses, that spitfire has already turned around on his 6 to chase him!

and besides he is not complaining he is "confused" as to why they fly like that when this is only a game and you don't really die.

What double-speak.

My final point should be this: hypothetically, that K-4 pilot might have been decent in a Spitfire, but he needs time to learn something different and...more challenging.

[Sunka]

It wasn't that he wouldn't let him kill him, it's the way they go about not wanting to be killed, and then come to kill a pilot, they otherwise couldn't, with a pick.

Really, I think it stems from lack of basic training now days. Newbies who see alt monkeys land kills naturally go with a run90 or pee51.

Almost as bad as no0bs who are parrots that repeat things heard like alt monkeys and running pony's

[moot]

Read what you will into Ana's post.. If you run into him in the game, you won't get any fight out of him.
The K4 in the OP sounds just like him.

[Steve]

So the K4 did his best to use his plane's advantage to kill you but failed.  Then once E states were equal and this favored your plane he didn't "fight your fight" which would have ended in his plane being killed. In the final sequence, you know the k4 is in the area but return to the spit. You either didn't care about getting killed by the k4(which seems doubtful based on the fact that you started this thread) or your SA failed you, allowing the k4 to get a tater gun solution on you. Perhaps you should fly in the "all co-alt spit only arena."

[Steve]

I have a few different thoughts here (I fly the K-4 frequently):

 I see lots of 51 pilots who are in the same situation: they know how to get lots of altitude and fly really fast, but can never convert their energy into a high % gun solution.  

There are those 51 pilots who don't need a tone of alt or speed to get  a "high % gun solution". 51's just aren't very good planes compared to the other late war rides.  They get a bad rap becuase they are misused by many.

[Ack-Ack]

Pickers and runners, please help me understand what is the fascination with this style of game play.  Maybe it's a "your $15" thing, but what possible enjoyment can someone get from only engaging cons when they are already engaged and running from a 1v1 when you have an E advantage?  To me, 90% of the fun is the fight, not the winner.  I am so confused..

It's a waste of brain cells trying to figure out the mind of a timid pilot.  I too fail to understand their motivation, why do anything possible to avoid a fight in a dedicated PvP game?  There are are a few guys in the MW arena like Senneca and MACZ that will do whatever they can to avoid a fight unless they have overwhelming altitude advantage and even then they are still more likely to run than fight.  I personally see it as a waste of money but whatever floats their boat I guess.

ack-ack

[Anaxogoras]

Read what you will into Ana's post.. If you run into him in the game, you won't get any fight out of him.
The K4 in the OP sounds just like him.

moot, are you making stuff up again?  I don't think we fly much at the same time, because I can only recall a couple times when we fought in the arenas.

1.  You were running away in a 152 and augered as I was chasing.  Was kind of confused about that one.
2.  You were dancing the funky chicken in the 38 and called me out into the DA when I pointed that out (I declined).

P.S. that you call me "ana" shows that you don't even recognize my in game handle!

[Ghastly]

... it's the way they go about not wanting to be killed, and then come to kill a pilot, they otherwise couldn't, with a pick....

So what?  You get to jump in another plane, don't ya?

<S>