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[orange]

What Jade said!

Does the list of Lukka's kills (#1 on Battleclinic) really impress you?  I had to go to page 6 to find him killing much more than Frigates, Industrials, & T1 Cruisers in his Faction or T3 Cruiser.

By the measure of the all might killboard, this guy is king!

I have effectively no killboard stats for the past few years other than losses to local pirates.   But that is not my measure of success.  Granted, I also do not claim to be billy-bad-ass when it comes to combat.

[Misan]

I don't believe that looking at pure KB stats on its own is useful. As with any statistics it helps to look at the context of the numbers to decide if someone really would be 'dangerous' if you ran into them on your own. I'm much more likely to consider someone like (shameless plug) Namamai to be wary of rather than the random sovbloc guy with lots of kills under his belt. Of course I'm definitely biased towards people who solo, since it tends to be a stronger predictor of actual skill than fleet fights. Doesn't help that fight summaries aren't perfect at conveying exactly what happened, like fleet fights that turn into ganks because one side bails and other problems (logiblobs not being on KMs, etc).

I tend to say this a lot in other contexts, but the killboard is just a tool, use it for what it is good for (tracking activity, fits, and efficiencies) and realize like anything it has its limitations and drawbacks.

I was going to make some elaborate point about using KBs as an initial reference then doing additional research (recon, talking to pilots, and such) of your own to see if the numbers are backed up by skill...but seems that train of thought has dissapeared.

[Kaleigh Doyle]

I dunno, I'm not terribly impressed with characters that have lots of kills and post lots on killboards. It's just masturbatory, and quite frankly, dull. Good, you have lots of experience in combat, now where have you succeeded other than making a cloning company lots of money? That's ultimately what my thought process comes down to; In-character, is a person actually achieving anything or are they just blowing up ships to look cool? What do you stand for? What are your goals and what are you killing for?

[tarunik]

Frankly, Tarunik's ISK efficiency is the most meaningless killboard stat of all (it's a ridiculous 98-odd% due to the LE supercap kills he's been on).  I value much more the :goodfights: that someone can get (their war stories, in other words) than their raw stats.  Sadly, stats-worship has led to people who simply won't give you :goodfights: any longer, and just blue-ball and/or uber-blob (anything more than say 3:1 to 5:1 numbers, given fairly evenly matched fleet comps) you.

I think the main answer to that would be to rework kill statistics (ISK efficiency in particular) so that blobbing wouldn't be so productive in that regard.  Sadly, the last time this was tried (by Agony Unleashed, no less), they were forced to make their killboard private due to unceasing howls of "URDOINITWRONG".

As a side note: what would be a good place to discuss a revamped ISK efficiency calculation?

[Esna Pitoojee]

I think three important points in this arguement are:

1, scalability of actions. Actions scaled to small levels, for example "I robbed a candy store!" don't impress anyone. Actions scaled to large levels, for example "I personally overthrew the Holder of this planet and now run things" just end up running into the issue discussed here. The middle, however, tends to be good - i.e., you are performing actions large enough to provide bites for others to interact with, but not yet reaching the level where you are claiming, without evidence, to wield large amounts of authority and/or threat.

For instance, I RP'ed Esna as a Holder long before I had any major participation in FW - but, I deliberately never indicated what or where Esna is a Holder of, as I didn't want to be claiming to be the grand poobah of whatever - just a small-scale, newer Holder. IMO (and feel free to disagree, I won't be insulted) this was a good middle ground, as it allowed Esna options in RP to interact with others without claiming authority or influence over a planet or solid assets I don't really have.


2, scale of effect.

Point 1 dealt with how big your supposed action was. This deal with how many people - that is, players - it effects.

The lower limit here is less important - though if it only effects yourself, I don't see the point - but if you claim some action that only has direct pertinance to a single person, you are in much more safe territory than if you claim something that heavily effects a corp of ten, and claim is much safer than something that effects an alliance of one hundred, etc etc..

"But what about personal effects?" you ask. "Does have a small circle of effect allow you to do anything? I think not!"
Of course it doesn't. The reason a small sphere of effect is better is because it's far easier to touch base with all people involved and make sure they're alright with it. Affecting only one person is not an excuse for, to use an actual example I saw, rolling a 'toon pretending to be their ridiculous family member.


3, NPCs and Players in space.

First, I will voice my intense displeasure at the current state of NPC-vs-PC combat in EVE. To my knowledge, NPCs (barring Incursion/Sleeper/officer rats) have not been updated with increased damage/tank/tactics for several years, and in that interim T2 equipment has become omnipresent, faction hulls and equipment far more common, and the commonly-used combat hulls even larger. What this resulted in is a case of "NPC kill inflation". While several years ago cruiser rats were hazardous and BS rats a Big Deal, the numbers killed now make them nothing more than standard mooks while PF is still trying to tell us that 0.0 ratters and L4 mission runners are killing hundreds or thousands of people per rat, maybe tens or hundreds of thousands permission/anomaly.

So yes, anything larger than a cruiser NPC kill is a Big Deal according to PF, but not according to mechanics... and yes, it's a very  situation IMO.



EDIT: KMwhoring, bugged KB ISK values, and other things make Killboard useless as IC measures beyond actually proving you were present and involved in a specific kill.

[Misan]

Guides and Mechanics probably.

As a side note: what would be a good place to discuss a revamped ISK efficiency calculation?

Don't have time to reply to the other comments, but I do think that KBs are definitely more useful from a "record for war stories" perspective. I know I like to re-link old KMs that were from goodfights~.

[tarunik]

3, NPCs and Players in space.

First, I will voice my intense displeasure at the current state of NPC-vs-PC combat in EVE. To my knowledge, NPCs (barring Incursion/Sleeper/officer rats) have not been updated with increased damage/tank/tactics for several years, and in that interim T2 equipment has become omnipresent, faction hulls and equipment far more common, and the commonly-used combat hulls even larger. What this resulted in is a case of "NPC kill inflation". While several years ago cruiser rats were hazardous and BS rats a Big Deal, the numbers killed now make them nothing more than standard mooks while PF is still trying to tell us that 0.0 ratters and L4 mission runners are killing hundreds or thousands of people per rat, maybe tens or hundreds of thousands permission/anomaly.

So yes, anything larger than a cruiser NPC kill is a Big Deal according to PF, but not according to mechanics... and yes, it's a very  situation IMO.

Indeed, although part of the problem I think was (is?) the "gank/tank, press F1 to win" PvE mentality that has led folks to not think about how to leverage small ships in traditional PvE nearly as much as they should have been.  (Obviously, going up against Sleeper or Incursion Sansha battleships is a whole another can of worms.)

EDIT: KMwhoring, bugged KB ISK values, and other things make Killboard useless as IC measures beyond actually proving you were present and involved in a specific kill.

Agreed.  Faulty KB ISK values are a particular pet peeve of mine.

[Bacchanalian]

I am pretty bad-ass because I have been playing EVE for nine years, not done (much) Pew Pew against other players and have not gotten bored yet!

Well played.   

And Jade, I agree, killboards are a very poor yardstick.  But some of their metrics are rather undenyable.  Odds are good the guy with 3,000 kills has more experience and ability by default than the guy with 30.  Surely at some point the guy with 3,000 kills got some of them in a smaller gang environment or solo.  But perhaps not.  That said, battleclinic rankings to some degree measure this.  I know from looking at mine (I fly very little solo, and lately I don't get much <10 man gang action in) that people with 1/4 my number of kills are well above me due to the fact that their kills are solo or them upengaging substantially.  But kb metrics and the pitfalls of them are another discussion for another thread.  Ultimately even the 0.0 numpty with 4023943 killmails whored in blob warfare can claim to have been in heavy, scary combat more often than the guy who has killed 4 shuttles and 2 rifters in his thrasher. 

I don't believe that looking at pure KB stats on its own is useful. As with any statistics it helps to look at the context of the numbers to decide if someone really would be 'dangerous' if you ran into them on your own. I'm much more likely to consider someone like (shameless plug) Namamai to be wary of rather than the random sovbloc guy with lots of kills under his belt. Of course I'm definitely biased towards people who solo, since it tends to be a stronger predictor of actual skill than fleet fights.

It's a fair bias.  The example you chose, Namamai, is fucking badass and can kill damned near anything in damned near anything.  His combat covops video is a testament to that.  And it also points out the pitfalls of killboards.  He's ranked below me on Battleclinic despite having 3/4 as many kills as I do, but I wouldn't dare take him on in a 1v1 and expect to come away with a win unless I went in with the upper hand from the start (which, to be fair, is usually the key factor in winning your typical non-arranged 1v1).

And tarunik, your point on gank/tank F1 to win in PvE is valid, but it also extends, as Jade noted, to a lot of the 0.0 blob warfare.  It's very similar in that sense, with the only difference really being that you can actually die quite a bit in the blob scenario.  Besides that though, fights are generally determined by numbers and firepower rather than skill at those levels.

Anyway, happy this turned into a productive discussion and there are some good insights into it.

Incidentally, as far as approaching people like this IC and calling them out--for one, it's not something Bacch would do.  For another, my sense is that most of them would simply ignore it and ignore you.  v0v

[tarunik]

And tarunik, your point on gank/tank F1 to win in PvE is valid, but it also extends, as Jade noted, to a lot of the 0.0 blob warfare.  It's very similar in that sense, with the only difference really being that you can actually die quite a bit in the blob scenario.  Besides that though, fights are generally determined by numbers and firepower rather than skill at those levels.

Agreed, for all those :nullbears: out there.  I honestly think more 0.0 alliances need to run regular small-to-medium-gang roams (10-20 people would be reasonable whether you wanted to do frig or AF wolfpax, AHAC or skirmHAC gang work, BCs, or cloaky roams) in neutral/hostile space, 'twould do a lot more for them when it comes to keeping their swords sharp, so to speak.  In fact, I bet -A-'s roams are part of the reason they've been able to survive being bashed over the head with :giantblobs: the way they have been through their history.

[Bong-cha Jones]

the Jita 4-4 chronicle, mentions how station police pretty much can kill any capsuleer they find outside the capsuleer section of the station, without any justification needed, because capsuleers = trouble more or less.

Tangent:  I've said it before, but I'll reiterate that I'm not sure we can extrapolate the behavior of Jita 4-4 to every other station in Eve.

On Topic:  I don't know.  I mean, I've always rp'd Simon as being a terrible soldier who prefers to avoid pod vs. pod conflicts.  But I did get into some channel rp (not with Simon) with an acquaintance (who has since left the game) and it involved getting into a fight and podded.  And at the end I was like 'if we wanted to get into a fight, why didn't we go get into a fight?'

I think people sometimes feel they need kills to be taken seriously, but don't know how/have the ability to get them, and don't want to not be taken seriously. 

[Hamish Grayson]

I was once working a totally legit business deal ICly with a well known minmatar character who started threatening Hamish if he didn't meet his side of the deal, giving him a "wickedly evil smile revealing sharpened canines."    etc.

It was hard not to laugh in her face when everyone sitting on my side of the table was at least a five year old toon and had gotten more kills that week than her entire corp had gotten during it's life time.

[Silas Vitalia]

Bacchanalian is correct. Good post Jade.

This subject comes up from time to time, but I think it's worth it to occasionally revisit, as every new generation of RPers has their share of this behavior.

It's been my number one guiding principal for all RP activity, or IC Amarrian hubris for my entire time in EVE.  Back it up, or be prepared to back it up, or STFU.  Actions have consequences, you can and should be called out on any and all blowing smoke IC. 

[Kyoko Sakoda]

Kill/death ratios totally correlate with actual pilot intelligence. Etc.

PS. No I didn't actually read this thread.

[Gottii]

I am pretty bad-ass because I have been playing EVE for nine years, not done (much) Pew Pew against other players and have not gotten bored yet!

Truthfully; it is not that easy to build up a character identity around non-violent activities in New Eden and still have engaging game play.

Well played indeed.  EVE-RP needs less fighter jocks and wanna be action heroes, and more human beings and well rounded characters.

[Kyoko Sakoda]

Sometimes I RP Chuck Norris in real life.