Adjustment to Scoring (idea)

[crockett]

Are you sure about this in AH?

Granted it's all a guess but I'd be willing to bet the average age of "long term" billers is over 25 in this game. I'd also be willing to bet that 80% of the 16 to 22 age group don't rebill past 6 months. (typical life span of a xbox gamer before he gets bored)

[Murdr]

It's not the score that's the obsession, it's improving gameplay.

No?  I only looked at the first 2-1/2 pages.....

I'm not much of a score tard, meaning I don't care where I rank but I do like to check my stats. It would have be nice to see who the "real" aces of AH are in regards to "real fighting".  The only way IMO to get a better idea by score of who the best pilots or GVer's are, is if vulch tards and spawn campers were taken out of the equation.

Yea but if the score more accurately reflected skill with less manipulation from no skill kills, then maybe more people would care. At the very worst it would force vulch tards and campers to actually fight if they wanted perks or score.

You're preaching to the choir here, I don't ever vulch or spawncamp, so it's all good to me. My cynical reply was the result of the experience of going down this path several times only to get <Rooster> blocked by those that exploit vulching and spawncamping to have a pretty rank and those apathetic to scoring because they either...

A) Suck so badly it wouldn't matter how scores were calculated they'd always rank badly in pure fighter mode. So, the fact that scores are currently not tamper-proof actually serves to insulate them from the harsh statistical reality of their suckage.

or

B) Have reached a state of spiritual Nirvana whereby they are above such mundane considerations and feel it is their duty as higher beings to disregard the entire concept of tamper-proof statistics on everyone else's behalf. Even if some would find it part of the 'fun factor' of the game just like reading the back of baseball cards is to that game...

No doubt, but from a frequency and sheer volume of kills stand-point vulching and spawncamping represent an exponentially greater proportion of in-valid kills scored in the MA...

That's reasonable on one condition. We separate vulches from "real" kills in the sub-stats of fighter rank. Showing the person's overall fighter stats with and without the vulches. They can keep the rank for all I care.

Others however manipulate their score because of a frail ego and are interfering with the ones who wish to use scoring for legit reasons.  For that reason I think players should only be aloud to see their own score.

[Zazen13]

No?  I only looked at the first 2-1/2 pages.....

You're quoting my personal opinions of what I think of rank/score dweebs who vulch to "augment" themselves statistically. But, this isn't my idea, it's Strafing's. Strafing doesn't have the same dream I do of being able to look at someone's scoresheet like you would the back of your favorite player(s) baseball card to get a better idea of what kind of player they might be over time. I definitely do and always have. I have admitted 10 million times just on these forums I love to analyze statistical data just for fun. I am an extremely good Thoroughbred Horse-Race Handicapper for this very same reason. So, if this change helps, as an inadvertent side-effect,  increase the integrity of in-game statistical data, I'll be one happy camper. But, that is not the purpose of Strafing's proposal, the purpose is to improve gameplay. By, inference, HiTech's acknowledgement of this idea as worthy, means there is a curiosity to explore potential ways to improve gameplay programmatically which is in need of improvement.

[Murdr]

I'll ask you this if you are so dead set about not giving uppers 30 seconds.. What if uppers still lose score if they are vulched but vulchers still don't get it for 30 seconds. So then you can't claim it inspires lazy people upping at a vulched base, because their risk would still be the same. So if the 30 seconds only affected the actual vulcher by not giving him points until after the 30 seconds was over, what would you say then?

Would your argumernt against it change at that point or would you be ok with that?

Keeping the risk factor for the uppers would make this much more palitable to me.  (ie. it does not tip the dynamics of the battlefield at a defended airfield).  If it just scored in "kills not counted toward rank" under fighter, then I'm not seeing any major side effects I dislike.  Doesn't mean I like the idea of the change, I just dislike it a lot less

[crockett]

No?  I only looked at the first 2-1/2 pages.....

You didn't answer my question..  I gave you a simple solution to your main argument aginst this idea and now you are dodging that question. If the 30 second no points rule only affected the vulcher, what would then be the problem? (edit ok you answered while I was posting this)

You are confusing the score issue here. Personally I don't give a flying flip about score other than checking it when trying to improve my own flying. The issue with score is, it's the only tool that this game has to reward or give penalty to players.  That means the only way to reward people for fighting and not doing dweeby things like vulching is to not reward them for it.

The added benifit in relation to score, is it then might be a bit more accurate based on skill, which I'd like to see. I'll admit I do compaire my stats to others that I know don't do dweebary.

[Zazen13]

Keeping the risk factor for the uppers would make this much more palitable to me.  (ie. it does not tip the dynamics of the battlefield at a defended airfield).  If it just scored in "kills not counted toward rank" under fighter, then I'm not seeing any major side effects I dislike.  Doesn't mean I like the idea of the change, I just dislike it a lot less

They would still be at risk, just not from score potatoes until they got their wheels up...I fail to see how this is so terrible...Lord forbid a score potato has to wait until a defender retracts his gear before pouncing their E bankrupt arses.

[Saurdaukar]

Keeping the risk factor for the uppers would make this much more palitable to me.

I see where you're coming from, here, and I think I can get on board with it.

From my perspective, if we put the 30 second rule into effect for attacking aircraft I think the impact on gameplay would be very positive.  Without 'name in the lights' or 'score' incentive, I think we'd see a lot more furballing a quarter sector away from the base instead of wheels up poofs a quarter foot off the runway.  This is good.  As an ancillary point of interest, the top stick rankings would change almost overnight. 

By contrast, however, I agree that applying the 30 second rule to the defending aircraft, whereby getting vulched does not count against you as a kill, might have a negative impact on gameplay because the incentive proposed to be eliminated above may, in fact, have the opposite effect and players would, likely, mindlessly up defending aircraft with no consideration for survival.  The ancillary impact of this would necessitate that the base-taking crowd focus even sharper on shutting down a field almost immediately upon arrival (read: a few NOE Lancs turns into 15 NOE Lancs).

Overall, I think the idea is really fantastic.  I do see a lot of potential to return the game to an 'air combat sim' as opposed to however you wish to describe its condition today.

[crockett]

Keeping the risk factor for the uppers would make this much more palitable to me.  (ie. it does not tip the dynamics of the battlefield at a defended airfield).  If it just scored in "kills not counted toward rank" under fighter, then I'm not seeing any major side effects I dislike.  Doesn't mean I like the idea of the change, I just dislike it a lot less

Well my original idea was to just take away the score from the vulchers therefore not rewarding them for doing it, but not stopping them. The idea for giving uppers the 30 seconds on the flip side was to give them a incentive to up at a capped field. Both are incentives to get players to fight.

I mean lets get real here, the very few guys that are willing to up at capped fields face very tough odds even if they do manage to get off the runway. It's not really like they have a chance to upset the odds at a capped base but I thought giving the incentive to do so even though IMO the incentive isn't much might help to promote the actual fight vs just looking on the map for somewhere else to go and giving up.

Just to be clear, I really think the 30 seconds on the vulchers side would go a great distance toward making this game better. The 30 seconds on the uppers side doesn't bug me one way or another I just thought giving that, might help give incentive for people to up.

[Zazen13]

By contrast, however, I agree that applying the 30 second rule to the defending aircraft, whereby getting vulched does not count against you as a kill, might have a negative impact on gameplay because the incentive proposed to be eliminated above have the opposite effect and players would, likely, mindlessly up defending aircraft with no consideration for survival. 

This argument is deeply flawed. The defender who ups in the face of 12 pure vulchers today already has no consideration for survival. If he did, he would not be there in the first place, because there is an almost zero chance he will survive the vulchers. This change would not change that fact, those types will always be there. The only difference would be, they would actually have a small chance for survival. This would in turn attract people to reactionary base defense who would not otherwise be their for a futile effort. But, they will come and try to defend now because it isn't utterly futile. They may not get vulched the second they spawn by pendulum pass vulchers. So, it will attract to the fight the exact opposite types and behaviors you describe.

[Saurdaukar]

This argument is deeply flawed. The defender who ups in the face of 12 pure vulchers today already has no consideration for survival. If he did, he would not be there in the first place, because there is an almost zero chance he will survive the vulchers. This change would not change that fact, those types will always be there. The only difference would be, they would actually have a small chance for survival. This would in turn attract people to reactionary base defense who would not otherwise be their for a futile effort. But, they will come and try to defend now because it isn't utterly futile. They may not get vulched the second they spawn by pendulum pass vulchers. So, it will attract to the fight the exact opposite types and behaviors you describe.

Perhaps.  I suppose I can see it both ways... While there are those who will up at a capped field regardless of consequences, removing any penalty for being shot down, I think, would inflate the number of uppers three-fold.

That creates new problems.  For example, from the perspective of a base-taking player, what is the point of trying to capture a field if, instead of the same guy upping over and over again, you've got 15?  As I suggested, the base-taker then reacts by increasing the size of his missions by the corresponding amount and all of the sudden, we end up with even bigger hordes.  All in theory, of course.

[crockett]

This argument is deeply flawed. The defender who ups in the face of 12 pure vulchers today already has no consideration for survival. If he did, he would not be there in the first place, because there is an almost zero chance he will survive the vulchers. This change would not change that fact. The only difference would be, they would actually have a small chance for survival. This would in turn attract people to reactionary base defense who would not otherwise be their for a futile effort. But, they will come and try to defend now because it isn't utterly futile. They may not get vulched the second they spawn by pendulum pass vulchers. So, it will attract to the fight the exact opposite types and behaviors you describe.

Well I can see it from both points of view on the 30 seconds for the uppers. Overall I agree with you in the fact I think it would help promote a fight vs giving into the hoard. On the flip side I could see a bit of possibly for gaming the game. I'll admit I have seen players that will up bomber formations at a vulched field just to make the vulchers run out of ammo.

Now, it's obvious they are doing this because they just want to get in the air with a fighter so that's the only tool at their disposal to break the vulch assuming the manned ack and VH are dead. So maybe some might figure it could be a easy way to break a heavy vulch by just spawning with no risk to score and letting the vulchers use up their ammo.

I really don't think it would mean the FH's would get killed any more than they do now, typically FH's are killed by people that are there to capture the base and it typically pisses off the vulchers. In short guys that vulch and even guys that fight don't want the FH's down because that means the end of easy kills so I find the argument about them killing FH's not a very reliable one. (the fastest way to end a FB is to kill FH's) It's typically just the land grabbers that do that nonsense not vulchers or furballers.

To me the biggest thing is not rewarding the vulchers for killing guys on the runway.. That in it's self could go a long way toward promoting a fight and I do agree a side affect would be the scores would change over night.    On the flip side the 30 seconds grace period would be nice IMHO but not as big of a factor one way or the other.

[Zazen13]

Perhaps.  I suppose I can see it both ways... While there are those who will up at a capped field regardless of consequences, removing any penalty for being shot down, I think, would inflate the number of uppers three-fold.

That creates new problems.  For example, from the perspective of a base-taking player, what is the point of trying to capture a field if, instead of the same guy upping over and over again, you've got 15?  As I suggested, the base-taker then reacts by increasing the size of his missions by the corresponding amount and all of the sudden, we end up with even bigger hordes.  All in theory, of course.

Land-grab Missions are already waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay overkill as it is. If there were 15 defenders instead of 1 it would just create an actual fight for the field of variable duration instead of the brief overwhelming milk-horde affair it is now. There won't be a penalty for getting vulched in the first 30 seconds on your scorecard, but it's still a waste of your time and not any fun. If the attackers let him get his wheels up it will impact his scorecard and theirs.

[WWM]

just score it separately - If they shoot a plane within 30seconds of it lifting off it shows up as a diff stat.  If you get killed in 30 seconds it shows up as a diff stat.  Then at least those interested in score would be able to read the data of themselves and others correctly - those that wanted to shoot helpless planes would be scored appropriately  - Those that try to up at capped fields trying to defend would be reflected - Those that never upped at capped fields would show - and those that never vulch would be shown.

[Zazen13]

Well I can see it from both points of view on the 30 seconds for the uppers. Overall I agree with you in the fact I think it would help promote a fight vs giving into the hoard. On the flip side I could see a bit of possibly for gaming the game. I'll admit I have seen players that will up bomber formations at a vulched field just to make the vulchers run out of ammo.

Let's be clear here on this point. Vulchers who run out of ammo gunning repeatedly upping formations of heavy's get no sympathy. These guys aren't doing it because they necessarily have a vested interest in capturing the base. They do it to pump up their score on an easy target which represents a negligible risk to base capture, usually after they dropped the FHs. If you remove the score aspect of vulching, the "ammo sponge trick" to relieve vulchers of their ammunition recedes into history. Those people would up a fighter instead as the score potato would likely let him get his wheels up.

[Zazen13]

just score it separately - If they shoot a plane within 30seconds of it lifting off it shows up as a diff stat.  If you get killed in 30 seconds it shows up as a diff stat.  Then at least those interested in score would be able to read the data of themselves and others correctly - those that wanted to shoot helpless planes would be scored appropriately  - Those that try to up at capped fields trying to defend would be reflected - Those that never upped at capped fields would show - and those that never vulch would be shown.

Yea, I already brought that up as a possible alternative or a consession to vulchers to keep a record of their vulching *cough* prowess *cough* in a separate category which would not impact their fighter rank or result in buffer candy "puff pieces" when they land them. It could be the "scorecard of shame" category...