Human vs Human Leaderboard Rankings = Meaningless

[lakespeed]

At the risk of getting Stalin all excited don't you mean don't race a dead sheep?

[Sixxkiller]

I dont think he cares if they are dead or not. A sheep is a sheep is a sheep!

[pete67]

Hello gentlemen,

Fist of all I'm french and my english is limited so let me apologize for mistakes and for the lack of vocabulary.

I was there with other guys when the Bride made his little "exercise" or "demonstration". I read all his replies on the forum. But I'm not certain that these replies were totaly exact. At the time of this "demonstration" some players and I asked him and his "buddy" to join us in a human game. We were curious to see a such player killed so easily another one with such low level planes. We were suspecting a case of cheating.

The "buddy"'s reply and Bride's one were to tell us that they wanted to play alone.

So we all saw kills after kills from the Bride. We asked them many times how did they perform it but the Bride's told us his friend didn't know how to play and that it was easy for him. Then, after 5 minutes of questioning he admited that it was a "demonstration".

I really wonder one thing. When you want to prove something is not good in the rules you FIRST tell everybody that you think there is a problem, you tell it to the administrator THEN you publicly "demonstrate" if you want but without hide yourself when doing it. If you don't, you take the risk to be discover and appear as a cheater. So when the Bride did his "demonstration", he shows a lack of judgement or a lack of wisdom.

I saw all the process (denying first then admitting) of the Bride, My opinion is he wanted to cheat. Maybe I'm wrong but it's my opinion.

This opinion is based on another fact. The Bride never tries to fight against human. I'm connected a lot of time and never saw someone who fought the Bride and his "legendary" Black Mamba. I'm little bit surprised. The essence of the game is to play.

The essence of the game is to play against human players in 1vs1, 2vs2, or campaign! IA is here when there is no one who wants to play. So when I see someone who refuses EVERYTIME to play against human (he is to me the only one to do this), who tries to have all the records, well...then I see him as a person who is able to cheat to be "the first". When I see all his proclaiming on the forum: "black mamba shot is 5000th plane", etc... it confirms me something wrong with him.

Maybe this game is not perfect, some weak points may exist but we have FUN with it. If the Bride doesn't want to fight against human, well he's free to do it but please let us play as we want. We're not cheaters we're players.

This morning I played 3 or 4 fights (2vs2) with Sixxkiller, Bardamu and Loki. It was really FUN (even if I was shot down each times!!!). I played with my best pilots and well it was a bad day for my wings... The others players too don't hesitate to play with their best pilot. They're not afraid to be shot down there is no shame because it's a GAME.

To conclude my message I would say that before this incident I thought this little community was full of players acting like gentlemen. Now I know it isn't the case. The Bride could have all the records he wants, he will impress very few people now.

"If you win without danger, you'll triumph without glory"

[Inigo Montoya]

Pete67,

First, I very much appreciate your civil tone.

During the hour I had my friend on to play, I was writing very little in chat because I had him on the phone and was talking him through. He hadn't played for a long time. I had arranged for him to get on to prove my point that the HvH stats are easily gamed. He had no interest in playing DiF anymore and was just doing me a favor. This is why he and I weren't playing other people. With the two of us not saying much in chat and not interested in playing other people, I can see why you were suspicious.

I never denied anything. What I said over and over was that HvH stats were meaningless and there was nothing impressive about me getting HvH kills. I began composing the orginal post for this thread right after Loki said I was "lucky." I pasted a link for this post into the chat during the discussion. I respect your opinion that I was cheating and not demonstrating a problem. Fair enough.

Originally posted by pete67:

When you want to prove something is not good in the rules you FIRST tell everybody that you think there is a problem, you tell it to the administrator THEN you publicly "demonstrate" if you want but without hide yourself when doing it. If you don't, you take the risk to be discover and appear as a cheater. So when the Bride did his "demonstration", he shows a lack of judgement or a lack of wisdom.

Oh, I agree! And my actions demonstrate that I too would choose to do things this way. Here's some DiF history you may be unaware of. It used to be that the Kills/Mission and Experience/Mission stats were based on only 3 missions. I emailed the developers about my concern that the stats could be gamed. Nothing happened. So I strove to get 4 perfect missions in a row and eventually I did it - 12 kills in 3 missions. At that point, the developers made a change to 15 missions as a minimum. Last fall, before the expansion was released, I emailed the developers and beta testers that I was concerned about the experience one could earn flying custom missions. By flying a custom mission, you could game the system and earn about twice as much experience as normal missions. I posted about this. Nothing happened and the expansion was released with custom missions counting for normal experience. Some people began flying lots of custom missions because that was the smart thing to do. So I created a pilot and demonstrated you could get ridiculous amounts of experience. At that point, the developers made a change. So I'm with you, Pete67. I did contact the developers in the past and try to convince people there was a problem, but what experience has shown me is demonstrating a problem is more convincing than arguing there is a problem. Look at Lakespeed's earlier point about the problem he found. It's in this very thread! I posted a solution, but I ask you, Pete67, has anything been done to fix the problem Lakespeed posted on? If anyone can help me think up a demonstration so that problem gets fixed, please let me know.

Originally posted by pete67:

The Bride never tries to fight against human. I'm connected a lot of time and never saw someone who fought the Bride and his "legendary" Black Mamba. I'm little bit surprised.

The reason Black Mamba had only flown 1 HvH mission (her 2000th kill) is I never wanted people to question the legitimacy of her record. When people play verus humans, it could be questioned if kills were easy or against incompetent people. There is no questioning AI games. You and I have a fundamental difference on what kind of games involve risk. Take a look at your clan website and you will see there is zero chance that your pilot will ever die in a HvH game. I had to laugh that you somehow try to suggest that HvH games are where danger is! "If you win without danger, you'll triumph without glory." Go and read your own clan website (http://downinflamesonline.com/DiFPortal/Default.aspx?tabid=116) where Loki writes, "RULES:

If you meet one of our squadron pilots in a human dogfight we fly within the following rules:

...- If you make the misstake to join a human fight with one of your pilots who has no escape death left you can ask for stopping the fight and cease the fire, we will do it and don´t attack you anymore. We just want your pilot as a human kill...not your pilot´s life." Under your own clan's rules, by flying HvH missions you can respawn your Escape Death without risk. Your clan doesn't even try to hide that there is no danger. It's only in AI games that you truly face the potential you will lose your pilot. I've lost 36 pilots to the AI. So please do not suggest somehow I am the coward. I do not mean to insult you or call you a coward, but I've lost far more pilots that you have and that demonstrates that I've faced much more risk than you have.

EDIT:

[i thought I couldn't fly HvH with Black Mamba, but I see a change has been made and she is eligible. I will now fly as many HvH missions as people want. ]

You seem to think I am afraid to play HvH games. I've flown 173 HvH missions. How many have your pilots flown, Pete67? Does 173 missions seem like someone who is afraid?

With Respect,

The Bride

[ March 24, 2007, 10:30 AM: Message edited by: Inigo Montoya ]

[Inigo Montoya]

Well, I have to eat crow! Pete67 just showed me that people *can* join games with Black Mamba now.

She will be happy to fly HvH missions. This is wonderful!

[Guest Mike]

Inigo many people had "perfect 4.00" scores before they changed it to a 15 mission average - you're not the only person who pushed for that.

Edit - An early mention of just flying 3 missions to get a perfect 4.00 record for a week

[ March 25, 2007, 05:41 PM: Message edited by: Stalin's Organist ]

[Sixxkiller]

Ya Stalin and Mistura were the originators of the 4 kills per mission race. I didn't enter the race till later, but I did bring the sexy level WAY UP.

[Inigo Montoya]

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

Inigo many people had "perfect 4.00" scores before they changed it to a 15 mission average - you're not the only person who pushed for that.

Stalin's O, I'm sorry for the confusion. I don't think I did a very good job of making myself clear. I'm not talking about a perfect 12 kills in 3 missions per week. Certainly many people have done that. What I'm talking about is quite a bit more difficult. What I did was create a new 1944 pilot. I then flew 3 escort missions and attempted to achieved 12 kills. If I failed, the pilot was deleted and I started again. When I did achieve a perfect score from scratch, my pilot was listed with a perfect 4.0 record on the All-Time section for kills/mission. (Something not done before or since.) That was the point where the number of missions was increased to 15 missions.

[Guest Mike]

Ah - gotcha