I have no problem with killboards at all. I have a personal board, simply to track my own kills and losses. The only thing I don't like about my killboard is the Kill/Loss ISK Ratio. It seems a nonsensical statistic, to me. Yet, a lot of people seem to rely on it as some sort of accurate metric of their PvP skills. I would think, when it comes to killboards, this is the feature that most people rail against. Perhaps because the statistic doesn't differentiate between scale in fights. The numbers game.
I understand taking the full brunt of any loss. It is my ship after all, and it did get blown up. The cost and loss of that ship resides squarely with myself.
But what about blowing other people's ships up? Whether I get a solo kill or whether I am part of a 30-player team, any ship killed, I get full credit for that kill when calculating the Kill/Loss ISK Ratio. I'm not quite sure how that makes rational statistical sense.
In a way, the current kill mail system, with its Kill/Loss ISK Ratio, as used by Battleclinic, EVE-Kill, and Griefwatch, encourages large fleets (or blobbing). Why challenge yourself on kills, when you get rewarded the full value of a kill no matter how many people you have in fleet? Maybe a different calculation might encourage smaller fleets, less blobbing. High Kill/Loss ISK Ratios would be more reflective of fleet size on kills.
What if, instead, killboards only gave you a proportion of a kill based on how many people were involved in the kill? For example, if 30-players kill a 30M ISK ship, seems the better metric would be to credit all those thirty people with 1/30th of the kill, or 1M ISK. This might actually create an incentive to form smaller fleets, since high value kills with fewer players would result in better Kill/Loss ISK Ratios.
Consider my October 10th stats via EVE-kill. Based on current calculations my Kill/Loss ISK Ratio is 96.6% (29:1), with 1.35579B ISK in kills, and 45.88M ISK in losses. Yet, most of those kills were gained with large groups of Fweddit-mates. Using the proportional kill calculation, I made 68.38M ISK in kills, which would result in a Kill/Loss ISK Ratio of 65% (1.5:1).
I'm not saying changing kill mail formulas will remove blobbing from the highsec/lowsec/w-space/npc nullsec (sov nullsec is a different beast), but the current crop of killboards certainly use formulas that make zero distinction between large fleets and small gang warfare. If the formula rewarded smaller gangs, then perhaps smaller fleets become more attractive to those people that value their killboard statistics (which is everyone, whether it's cool or not to admit it.)
Eve-kill and most killboards built on that architecture or its knock-offs already have a point system anyway. Two drakes kills one drake, that's ten points per pilot. One drake kills another, that's twenty pilots. Twenty drakes kills one drake, that's a point per pilot.
ReplyDeleteAlmost no one pays attention to it because they either don't care about their stats and are more concerned with "did our fleet achieve its objectives" or something, or because they consider themselves elite pvpers and a low point:kill ratio would betray the fact that no, they're actually not, really.
The sorts of groups or people that genuinely care about their killboard stats are few and far between.
Well, that point system is fairly well hidden. It's given one small area on a page, and not given any further exposure. The Kill/Loss ISK Ratio, on the other hand, is plastered nearly everywhere on each and every page.
DeleteEveryone says they don't care about their killboard stats. But they are so widely linked and used to troll, I doubt that very much. It's just what the "elite PvPers" like to say, while checking to make sure their Kill/Loss ISK Ratio is still above 95%. :)
I'll blob all day every day if it means I get more Sov. If my fleet has a 30-40% efficiency, but I still hold the system, then who cares?
ReplyDeleteSov nullsec has different dynamics than the rest of space ... there's really no getting away from blobbing in sov null.
DeleteThe only issue with what your proposing is the fact that Eve Development Killboard is so widespread and well used its a near standard. Unless you could coax someone into crafting a new killboard from scratch and get it adopted your idea, while solid and workable, would have no real value.
ReplyDeleteI think you have a very good point and it's one of the things that annoys me about the way the community plays nullsec. Not only do players judge themselves and each other on kb stats but it is used in my coalition as a measure of whether an alliance is "pulling its weight", affecting sov transfers.
ReplyDeleteThe issue I have with it is it encourages a very limited span of pvp play. Optimally you want a ship that is:
- too tanky and unimportant to bother primarying (ruling out logi and ecm boats)
- can whore on multiple kills. Needs guns or launchers because certain modules and structures can't be e-war-ed.
- as min-maxed to your SRP programme as possible. Eg if your alliance pays 15m per Tech 1 Cruiser loss you make most by flying the cheapest T1 Cruiser hull fitted with meta 1-3 junk modules.
It also means you should cherry pick your fleets. Huge Drake brawls are great as people will come out and kill drakes where they might blue ball stronger ships.
Now I don't actually think most people min-max their reward/stat gain but it's certainly an element in people's thinking and it's encouraged from the top. "Let's get our stats up chaps, we want to look like we're trying harder than the next alliance."
It's an often heard statement that there are these elite pvp organisations that care about killboard efficiency. But beyond the niche of merc corps that use it as promotion/proof that they can do what they get paid for, I've yet to hear of a corp that actually cares.
ReplyDeleteDo they even exist? It always sounds like such incompatible notion to me. I mean if you care about pvp then surely you want to become better at it, and if you want to become better you have to challenge yourself, And if you challenge yourself you are going to have shit statistics.
Now perhaps that's just a "no true scotsman" kind of idea I have going there. But I dunno, always sounds so pointless to me.
^^ lol.
Deletehttps://a-killed.me/ <--- say hi to -A-. "l337 PvP all the time, every time." You should hear Maka raeg! about losses... oh wait, go to www.soundcloud.com and look up "Makalu Cries", and you can! ;-)
Can't say that I ever thought, "I'll join a fleet becuase my ISK ratio will be better and easier to improve."
ReplyDeleteIt would be more subliminal than that.
DeleteIf a group (pilot, corp, alliance) flies mostly 'solo' and without help, the isk win/loss ratio will be a (decent) indicator of how they're doing in pvp. Another indicator is whether or not they're achieve their strategic goals. But that's hard for someone not in the corp to measure.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, it is annoying how that number is calculated. That said, I think most people understand how meaningless it is.
You'd think people wouldn't take the ISK Ratio seriously ... but I know that Kelduum would create killmail losses for his enemies simply to add in their cost to wardec the Uni. And he's deleted kills before. He's always cared about the ISK ratio, and it's published fairly prominently on their big win/loss wardec wiki page. Unistas come out of the University thinking it's important, because their CEO considers it important.
DeleteI believe -A- have done similar things in massaging their killboards.
And I've seen it mentioned elsewhere, in tweets and blogposts, when comparing specific battles and as a comparison between alliances.
Kill boards don't encourage blobbing, Eve does. And in reality, any PvP game with no rules on maximum players involved in a fight does.
ReplyDeleteYes, the forumla is silly, but there's not really any other good alternative.
I fully support your idea, this metric should really be changed.
ReplyDeleteSome people are boasting with there thousand kills a month and all they did was throwing some bombs into large blob fights so they get on kill mail.
ReplyDeleteIf there are fighting 300 vs 300 you get 200 kills but only one loss.
Your fleet looses 100 your enemy looses 200, on an average killmail of your side there are 150 shooters, that means 150*200 kills because the single pilot gets credit for everyone he is on. And the pilot him self can only fall victim to one kill mail.
Maybe a second stat like in soccer with "assisted kills" would help, many assist but only one gets the final.
"In a way, the current kill mail system, with its Kill/Loss ISK Ratio, as used by Battleclinic, EVE-Kill, and Griefwatch"
ReplyDeleteBattleClinic rates based upon a scoring mechanism, not kill/loss ISK ratio. The point system takes into account the # of attackers. Kill a drake, earn points. Kill a drake with a 100-man fleet, you earn fractions of a point. Kill a drake with a rifter in 1v1, point heaven.
To answer the question in this blog. "Could Killboards Disincentivise Blobbing?", the answer is yes. BattleClinic has been doing that already.
Killboards, and the stats they generate, truly are meaningless. They are not a true indicator of ability, nor are they an indicator of participation. For example, when I was in null, I racked up a decent amount of kills, but I still suck at PvP, truth be told. But that didn't stop my corp and my alliance from thinking different. Or other corp recruiters I've talked to, where those corps judge how active a person is by the number of KMs they get, even to the point of requiring logi pilots to get on KMs or be kicked.
ReplyDeletePoetic, sadly, is correct about killboards being here to stay. I just don't think there's any way to fix them.
Why not use the % of damage done in a kill, that way it would show if the player did not whore the kill and actually did something to actually get the kill mail.
ReplyDeleteBecause you screw over your tackle and Blackbirds and Falcons and such ... who were equally instrumental in the kill.
DeleteFor the record, I am all about screwing Blackbird and Falcon pilots. As for Logis, there's other ways to motivate people to fly a certain ship besides just :KB stats:... just nobody wants to offer those perks cause that might put a minor scratch in the clearcoat of their trillion+ ISK corp/alliance wallets.
DeleteI see your point Poetic, so the only way is to come up with a new statistic, depending you the tip of ship you are flying, dps get points for dpsing, tackles for tacking and logi for loging... and so on.
DeleteSome kind of "activity point", for usefulnesses in a kill.
I actually had a blog today on the same topic, and have come up with a few different ways to improve perceived KB efficiency without affecting true efficiency. (To make your numbers look better, without making you better). The funny thing is, I thought up my blog before reading Poetic's, perhaps we are psychically linked?
ReplyDeletehttp://imetelstat.blogspot.com
If you're DurrHurrDurr the thought of being psychically linked with you should make a grown man quail.
Delete<3
"If you aren't whoring, you aren't trying..."
ReplyDeleteThat's all I have to say about killboards.