Well, let's take a look. Career stats excluding "gun ship or field"...
MachNix
6202 kills
3004 deaths
2.06 gross k/d
Nice 
Murdr
26276 kills
8183 deaths
3.21 gross k/d
You changed one word here, which completely changes the subject matter from my point of view (arena to game). Those are two distinctly different things. There is much more to AH than the never ending war in the most populated LW arena in AH. Every couple months there is a different squad or conglomerate of squads crowing their prowess and innovation in winning the endless MA war. It can still be entertaining to watch after 14 years, but it's still nothing more than a rerun of the same old story. The guys that put countless hours in, making maps, organizing and running events, providing help and training, researching historical and technical documentation and sharing it with HTC. Those are people who have a lasting impact on "the game". Often at the expense of their own available time for actually playing the game. Such contributions are as far as you can get from "contempt" for the community.
Hay Murdr, thanks for pulling up the career stats but they are for the game and not for a single arena. So I don’t think you can use kill to death ratio for the game to determine someone’s impact on an arena. I was under the impression the ratio could only be used to justify bullying, abusing, insulting, or marginalizing another player.
For those who are new or have not been paying attention, there is a group of players, who I would call bullies, that think they have the right to abuse other players that are ranked lower in their pecking order. This pecking order is based on the kill to death ratio. Murdr was operating under this criterion when he used our respective stats to justify his marginalization of my comments. I believe the Bully Bylaws allow me, under the “I Only Care about the Fight, Not the Outcome” clause, to challenge him to the DA so our ACM skills can be used to determine our bully ranks. After our fights, we would post our films here on the Bully Boards for review. A panel of respected bullies would then view the films to determine the results. I may not win the match; but if I do a respectable job, I could earn the right to bully other players above my current kill to death ratio. You may remember seeing such films posted where one player claims to have “owned” another. I could also go through Murdr’s stats to see if he was killing any shade accounts to improve his ratio in order to bring a charge of “Score Potato” that would reduce the kill to death ratio he could bully. But I’m sure Murdr, being a Trainer, is a good stick and after his 14 years of play, I’m sure he knows where to find the easy kills.
Well, these kinds of people like to use the statement, “BLANKS are skill-less, they ruin the fun of others, and their style of play is bad for the game.” Over the years they have been replacing “BLANKS” with “Toolshedders,” “Mega Squads,” “Missions,” “People who fly with friends,” etc. The statement is fine but that is all it is – a statement. There is nothing there that can be discussed or debated. They don’t offer any examples because the statement is only meant to abuse and marginalize other. We then get into debates trying to defend what we enjoy doing, and the next thing we know, we start talking about Federal Rights vs. State Rights.
Well, since I complain about them not using examples, I will give this example: Player A vs Player B in a classic 1-on-1 matchup.
Let’s put them in icon range of each other at the start. Since the desire to win will get them into the fight, and the fear of losing will get them out of the fight; both players try and calculate the probability of success for committing to the fight. They consider how their respective aircraft match up with each other – turn vs zoom, cannon vs machinegun, etc. – and their relative E states. They also take into consideration their opponent’s skill level – is he circling to your six while working the calculations or his he just coming straight at you for example. If both think they have a probability of success grater then 50%, the fight is on. The fight will stay on as long as both think they have a chance to win. If one of the players feels they are losing their advantage, they will try and extend and reset the match if possible. I would say they both where having fun working up to the fight and during the fight itself. But someone is going to win and someone is going to lose. Since this is my example, I’m going to say Player A wins – after all, Player A has been playing the game longer then B. So Player A is happy with his win and Player B is disappointed. You would think the fight is over but it is really just getting started.
Player A, being the bully he is and now having a superior kill to death ratio, goes on Ch 200 and calls Player A “skill-less.” Now depending on the personality of Player B, he has three basic options.
The first option is to just ignore it and move on. The term “moving on” could mean to the next fight, or to canceling his subscription.
The second option is for Player B to respond on 200 that Player A was cheating and his style of play is bad for the game. Films would then get posted and endless debates would start about when you could or couldn’t shoot someone.
The third option is for Player B to find a buddy, Player C, to fly with incase he runs into Player A again.
So let us say Player B chooses the third option and they do meet again – Player A vs B and C. Player A manages to get C but then dies to Player B. Player A is mad because he died and his kill to death ratio went down. Player B is happy to have killed A, and C is disappointed with dying but happy his team won. Again you would think the fight is over but is far from it.
Players B and C could post something about the skill qualities of Player A but they do not because that is not their nature. Player A could get Player D to fly with and start an arms-type race to see who could build the biggest coalition, but instead he decides to make the statement, “Team BC is skill-less, they ruin the fun of others, and their style of play is bad for the game.” Films are posted, endless debates over “picking” and respecting the 1-on-1 fight, debates about the number of players it takes for a mission to become a horde, debates whether the enjoyment of one player supersedes the enjoyment of everyone else, and debates about how big a squad can be before it is consider Mega ensue. So let’s talk about squad sizes.
Let us say the any single player can only form “meaningful” relations with 20 other players. I agree that you form stronger bonds in smaller groups, but just because a squad has more than 20 members does not mean that a squad member will only associate with people inside the squad. He may only really know 15 people inside the squad and 5 outside. Everyone has their own subset of players they bond with. Those associations not only cross into other squads, they even cross country borders. I can’t imagine a squad associating only with its self. I am fairly sure you can start with any player, and within six (or seven) jumps, you will find Kevin Bacon. So even if you limit a squad to 20 members, squads are still going to work together at times – like one squad flying escort for a bomber squad. No, I think we are just spinning our wheels talking about numbers.
The real issue here is about influence and prestige. One sub-group of players feels their influence and prestige has been diminished when people started working together. It does not matter if it be in a mission, squad, mega squad or even just two buddies, people working together is bad for the game according to this sub-group. Since individual achievement is the only thing that motivates this group, they will not work together – as was shown by a certain squad’s experiment – to counter “hoards” directly in the arenas. Instead they post Wishes like this to get HTC to do their work for them.
I’m certainly interested in keeping the game interesting and enjoyable for everyone. If there is some issue with mega squads, please point it out. You just can’t point your finger and yell “Murderer” and then not produce a “body.”
MachNix
p.s. As far as the setting of the squad limits, I think Skuzzy said, “How about two to the fifth.” HiTech asked, “How many is that?” “Thirty-two” replies Skuzzy. “I agree” says HiTech. And the rest is history.
