Tornade wrote:
i will agree with you to a point HeadMoid...
it does make sense to leave a battle when you are not capable of making a contribution or when you are badly over matched...the squadron quartermaster will not love you or understand how important the principal of honour if you have your lovely airplane shot to pieces and end as a flaming wreck on the ground...in the real world, leaving makes perfect sense
this is a game however...but its a game that has very little guideline in the area of victory conditions
we have to assume that the most common mission is a fighter sweeep...the object being to clear the skies of enemy aircraft...in such a case...if an aircraft is shot down or chased away...the victory is sealed and the point system should reflect that...an aircraft that has withdrawn is as good as one that has been shot down in that type of setting...that is why i would suggest the penalty of 25 points for leaving a battle...you have acknowledged the fact that you have been outfought...that you have been defeated
as for points in an individual game...its really immaterial...there is only one winner...erasing the points of a shot down player makes no difference to that player...but would act to prevent that player from winning the game on point score
you may be right with regards to league play...but i do feel that there should be some sort of penalty for withdrawing...perhaps the last man standing on a side should be able to withdraw without penalty...i am currently in a situation in a squadron game where i am the last man on my side fighting three opponents...and i am still in there banging away...common sense and tactical good thinking tells me to tuck my bushy tail tight between my legs and run like a scared rabbit for the nearest hole...but the game doesnt work that way...i still have some fuel...i have my guns and not a lot of damage...so...i fight on
HeadMoid...i will second you on those reccommendations for some changes to the system
MJC
I would say that there most definitely is a very clear set of victory conditions … or rather … A victory condition, that is, who has the most points. Individual games within this implementation of Blue Max are won by accumulating the most points while “flying”. That is not my determination, but rather it has been set by the creators of this web site. While I am not happy with the way victory is determined here, I do acknowledge that some form of victory determination is necessary. The point of playing games is, ultimately, to win.
The problem is that a point system / victory conditions must be matched to the thing for which it is scoring, and on this site, the point system is being used to do multiple, and probably incompatible, jobs. A system which works well to score a one-off game, will not typically do a good job of tracking campaign play. A brief summary of some scoring requirements include;
For individual games:
= Scoring issues; 1) a way to determine individual victory, 2) a scoring system for comparing a player’s results with those of players in other games
= Important points; 1) killing the enemy, 2) damaging the enemy, 3) surviving the fight, 4) avoiding damage
For league games (i.e., campaign play focused on the individual):
= Scoring issues; 1) a method for determining the quality of a player’s play across a number of games
= Important points; 1) surviving each engagement, 2) killing the enemy
For squadron / group games:
= Scoring issues; 1) group performance across multiple games
= Important points; 1) supporting your squadron / side, 2) surviving the engagement, 3) killing the enemy, 4) avoiding damage, 5) damaging the enemy
I don’t care for the idea of penalizing someone for leaving a battle, if it makes sense. I notice that after suggesting “the penalty of 25 points for leaving a battle” you later mentioned that you would like to leave a battle. And, I agree with you, that is makes sense in that situation to run, and in a real dog fight, it would have made even better sense to do so. So why doesn’t it?
Here are also a few more thoughts upon which people might care to comment:
1) The victory conditions (in this case the point system) should be used to encourage or discourage specific actions. For example; if you don’t want players flying off the board, penalize them for leaving.
2) Players should not be seriously attacked for playing to win, and using those tactics allowed within the game system to do so. For example; if the point system allows someone to fly to a corner of the board and do circles until the opponent runs out of gas then be careful about complaining about that behavior. The person is playing within the rules, and legally using the rules to achieve what everyone wants … victory. The fault is with the rules and the rules designer(s), not so much the player.
3) That said, there still is unsportsmanlike behavior (perhaps a better term than “dishonorable”), as described in the previous example. Such persons should not expect respect from the other players.
4) Victory conditions, and a point system, if used, should reflect the historical setting of the game as much as possible. In this case, two things mattered most to the flyers of World War I: 1) living through each fight, and 2) getting kills. The point system should primarily be concerned with reflecting this.
|
Donate
Leagues
Gonzaga
Blue Max
Cartagena
Wooden Ships...
King Me!
VampiRing
