Inigo Montoya

Happy New Year, Bardamu!

I've noticed another change in the way vertical rolls work as well. It used to be that after I killed an opposing pilot, I could play a vertical roll and change altitude before discarding and drawing new cards. Now, if I play a vertical roll after the opposing pilot is shot down the card is expended, but has no effect. I don't get to change altitude. I wonder if this is related to same bug Cyrano01 is describing?

Great playing, Bardamu! It was a tough fight, but you pwned me hard! 8)

Why yes, Lake, I do believe you are correct!

I can double post because I have double pilots with 1000 Kills.

Whoops - double post

Congrats, Lake! And Sixx, until you have two pilots with over 1000 kills each, you can't post in this thread!

Loki and I were trying to get a game going with Mamba vs Hartmann. We tried Mamba as the game creator and Hartmann joining – No Joy. We tried Hartmann creating, then Mamba Joining. Again, no luck. Loki then had a mental breakdown and became belligerent. <18:28 Loki_88> du blödes dummes hasenhirn, ich hab schon 5 mal gesagt das geht nicht! My best translation is: You bloody harebrain! I’ve told you five times already! <18:28 Loki_88> MAMBA CANT JOIN ANYONE...YOUR BRAIN DOESNT RECOGINZE HTAT? <18:29 Loki_88> well you wanna try...hartmann gets up now,....check if mamaba can join <18:30 The Bride> because mamba cannot join - i created a game for you to join... but we've already tried that earlier this week and you found out you couldn't fight mamba with any of your good pilots <18:30 Loki_88> UP...with HARTMANN...check now it doesnt work? <18:30 The Bride> hartmann is lower than mamba so i don't expect it will work <18:31 Loki_88> asshole... We need to do something about this problem. It leads to friction in the community.

Black Mamba can't play high ranking pilots. She is worth about 10,700 points in the screen waiting for others to join. Erich Hartmann and other high ranking pilots can't join, but 4000 point pilots can. Why is that? It doesn't make sense that high ranking players can't fight each other.

Shooting down your own wingman is nothing to brag about, Sixx!

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.

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!

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. 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. 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 ]

Fascinating. One person assumes the one-hour effort was done for narcissism. The poster above thinks it was done out of stupidity. Another is adamant it was done for betrayal. I completely understand the varied hypotheses, but what I find bewildering is the smug certainty that each suggestion they propose is the correct one. As history has made abundantly evident, there is an inverse relationship between wisdom and certainty.

Interesting! Is this something Brian could fix? It seems like it should be easy enough to do - just give people +1 to missions along with the fatigue.

No worries! You haven't offended me at all! The only person who offended me is Loki 88, who called me a liar. If you read his post, you'll see he admits that I never said I was lucky - he did. He can't give one instance of me telling a lie. I was open that my score meant nothing and my position was HvH was broken. With you, Eric, it wasn't an issue of offense, it was an issue of misunderstanding. That's what I was trying to clear up. This post is about me thinking HvH needed to be removed, but people misunderstanding and thinking that I wanted to have the highest HvH score. If you really think about it, it wasn't *me* who cared so much about having the HvH leaderboard listing, it was really all the people who play for "fun." So you didn't offend, you just misunderstood my intention (see below). There are two reasons I posted the status reports. One is because when I first started playing, I wanted to know things like what was the highest kills achieved in a week? What was the highest kills ever achieved in a month? When I'm playing, I like to set goals for myself and see if I can reach them. One silly goal I've set for Black Mamba is to never kill a plane that's already been damaged. So my wingman never damages the planes because that would make it easier for Black Mamba. If a bomber damages a plane, my wingman kills it. It's just for fun to add some challenge. Similarly, last year April I thought it would be fun to break the one month record for kills. So I searched the entire DiF forum and there was no record of the highest kills in a week or month. I found out by word of mouth (Sixxkiller) what he thought the records might be. Now, if someone ever wants to know the record, it's in there. The second reason I posted results is joking around. Sixxkiller noted the forums were dead, so he started a post about Sadahara. That lead to a number of posts about accomplishments. Another post Sixx started pointed out that Loki 88 and I were competing fiercely for about a week. Humor online is difficult to express and I'm not sure if anyone other than Sixx thought my postings were funny. So you aren't alone in not seeing the humor in them. You aren't crazy at all! Above, I discussed how I set these arbitrary goals for myself. With the Sadahara post and then the other post about how Loki 88 was going to overtake me, I wanted to achieve something impressive. I thought holding all 18 records at the same time would be. It's hard to do because you need 2 weeks in a row or at least 8 days. I had 17 of the records, but I couldn't get 18 without flying a different pilot (and dropping the "wingman never damages rule"). So that was my "issue." For that 2 week period I had set a goal and I wanted to achieve it. Having this particular style has actually served me very well in life and I hope to instill the same sort of goal-setting in my children. I remember when I was a kid, I was pretty good at soccer. So my dad told me that in one particular game I could only score with my left foot (I'm right-footed). It made it really fun! I guess most people think it's abnormal to set goals in games. They are just playing for fun. For me, achieving challenging goals I've set *is* half the fun. In a WWII game, I wonder if I can capture Gibraltar as the Germans before 1941. In chess, can I reach **** ranking? In a game of hearts, can I not only win, but make my friend who was just teasing me a second ago take the Queen of Spades? Does that make sense? Eric, I think you are thinking I'm a megalomaniac with problems functioning in the real world -- like I have to play DiF to feel good about myself. But if you could look back over my history of demonstrating problems in the leaderboard, bringing them to the developers attention, then having those pilots deleted, I think you would agree that's not the behavior of a megalomaniac.

No, this post is all about how the problem has already been realized. This isn't theory - I've manipulated the system. But you don't need mule accounts! All you need is a friend who is willing to feed you kills. You can even set up an exchange so one round I'll feed your HvH ace and the next game you feed my HvH ace. You can't prove it's not happening already. Now if people want to deny this is a problem, I respect that. I will live with that decision. Personally, it makes it seem like a silly stat, but people are pretty attached to it. I'm seeing now that the leaderboard is less important to me than some others. Curiously, people *say* they don't care about the leaderboard, but when I propose removing the HvH stat, they protest. If they didn't care, why would it matter?

BvB, I respect your position, but disagree. The reason the system is broken is because there are so few players and because matches are not randomly assigned. What I have done is revealed how the system is broken. You feel I am cheating. Again, I respect your position, but disagree. If I were cheating, then why argue for HvH stats to be removed? Why would I be saying that the stat is meaningless? Look at the title of this thread. Here's where you guys are confused. Lakespeed, you allude to the stat leader as being number one in the scheme of my life. BvB you suggest I'm only interested in being on the top of the board. Try to put your assumptions to the side for a moment and hear me. I don't want HvH stats to be on the leaderboard. Get it? You think it's about getting to the top of the HvH leaderboard when it's about elminating the HvH leaderboard. Now, remember that I have a history of repeatedly doing this -- showing something on the leaderboard is broken and recommending it be fixed. Doesn't it make sense then that here I am, once again, demonstrating that something on the leaderboard is broken and recommending a fix? [ March 17, 2007, 08:31 PM: Message edited by: Inigo Montoya ]

Human vs Human *is* fun! No doubt about that. The new medals are fun too. My only request is that HvH not be included on the leaderboard since it is so easily broken that it is meaningless. The reason I do not like Loki 88 is he called me a liar. He says I said I had so many HvH kills because of luck. That is untrue. Actually, he was the one who said that I was lucky and impressive to have so many HvH kills and I told him over and over that 1) luck had nothing to do with it - there was nothing impressive about it 2) HvH leaderboard was meaningless and broken I've been very open about how easy it is to manipulate the HvH leaderboard and have requested that HvH be eliminated from the leaderboard. I have manipulated the board to show why it needs to be eliminated. At no point have I lied. I am offended that perhaps due to his difficulty with the language he does not understand that I'm trying to fix something that is broken rather than attempting to deceive. How is it deception to post it openly on the boards?!? If my goal is to have the highest HvH kills/damages, why would I request that it be removed from the leaderboard?

Brian, I don't think you understand the most important factor: Time. In about one hour this morning, I demonstrated how the HvH stat is broken. With a friend helping you out, I think you could get perhaps 10 kills per hour. To break 3000, then you would need to convince your friend to feed you for 300 hours of gameplay. If your friend were willing to meet you online to play one hour every single day, it would take you over 9 months to break the record. As far as getting perfect kills/mission records, the first thing you have to understand is that the greatest hindrance to perfect kill/mission records is the AI. The AI kills planes that you wanted to kill yourself and that messes up your record. With you playing your friend, there are two AI pairs to throw off perfection. So to game this particular stat, you would need to have 4 people colluding, not 2. It's achievable, but again, much, much harder to do. I agree with you that all stats can be gamed this way, but there is a difference between throwing out a new leaderboard statistic which is easily gamed vs throwing out stats that have been around for over a year. I have a history of pointing out flaws in the leaderboard and suggesting fixes: ----1) It used to be that we only counted 3 missions for the kills/mission and experience/mission stats. I demonstrated it was too easy to game that, so it was changed to 15 missions. Since that change, people have had a harder time gaming that stat. ---2) The other time there was a problem was when custom missions counted equally as normal. I created a pilot named Customs Only to demonstrate the problem and custom missions were nerfed. Both times in the past, I was the one who demonstrated the problem. Both times I was eventually vindicated so I'm hoping people keep an open mind that perhaps I know what I'm talking about. The bottomline is HvH rankings will never matter until we have random opponent assignments and that could only happen if we had several orders of magnitude more players. Until then, we should remove HvH rankings from the leaderboard. If people want to see HvH rankings, they can easily do so by sorting for Human Only opponent type. [ March 17, 2007, 11:45 AM: Message edited by: Inigo Montoya ]

Greetings! Loki 88 and I had a disagreement about the human vs human (HvH) leaderboard rankings. His contention is that The Bride is "lucky" to have as many HvH kills/damages as she does. He used the phrase "impressive." I disagreed with this entirely. There is nothing impressive at all about HvH scoring. It is very easily manipulated. I feel HvH scoring is meaningless and broken. If you have a friend who will feed you, you can rack up as many HvH kills and damages as you want. I vote to have this stat removed from the leaderboard.

17 Feb 07 - 16 Mar 07 Black Mamba 1168 Kills 1168 Damages 309 Missions 53,663 Experience

Black Mamba currently has the following stats: Kills - 3318 Damages - 3318 Missions - 1304 Experience - 139805

That's hilarious!

Thanks again for all the work you put into this, Sixx!!!