Howdy all,
Here is my response:
Response to Endless"Do the stats include pvp kills of the same faction?"
Yes. The server saves quite a bit of info from each PvP encounter.
In fact, the PvP data may have been used for jusifying the deletion of one of the toons of an individual here. Of course, the screenie of him killing someone from his own faction alone might have been sufficient to justify punishment.
Moreover, the PvP data can tell if someone is griefing. One just looks at the time and datestamp
do NOT reward effy, self-defense kills Terrorble, I disagree with your argument here for the purpose of the Victory Ratio table. The Bounty Hunter should impress. But, the word impressive is subjective. So, while a level 40 killing a level 34 is not very impressive to QQ, it might be impressive to RR ... etc. With this lack of consensus, I do not want to set a limit, which would be, in your own words, "somewhat arbitrary."
And so, I have integrated my victory ratio formula with the EXISTING PvP rules, which declare that the limit is 5 up and 5 down. This is as objective as one can be. And as stated before, the mechanism for determining the Bounty Hunter MUST BE as objective as possible in order to preclude or at least minimize whining on the forums.
do NOT penalize for loss to an impossible There are two practical points here. First, it is probably not feasible to determine who attacked first as Ollebroc notes. Related to this problem is that there is a strong likelihood that erroneous results WILL transpire. Here, assigning the aggressor label is integral to the proposed penalty for failing to defeat an impossible against which you initiated combat. But reality and the combat log MAY NOT agree.
So for example, it is my belief that if impossible MM illegally attacks effy NN, but MM has a lower initiative (composite) roll than NN, then NN will appear in the combat log to be the aggressor since NN will be the first to have the chance to hit. So, while the combat log would suggest that NN is the attacker, the reality is that MM is the attacker. Here, NN would be wrongly penalized. Would this happen all of the time? Nno. Does the uncertainty cause concern. Yes. Is uncertainty bad when the objective is to avoid subjectivity regarding determination of the Bounty Hunter. Yes.
Equally important, I do not want to penalize toons for failing in an attempt to kill an impossible toon since this would act as an unreasonable deterrent to PvP. And like most people, I want to see more PvP on our lovely server.
Different tables have different purposes
When examining the different tables, one must keep in mind that they each serve different purposes. Accordingly, each table will consider or reject certain types of data.
And so, the tables "Top Killers" (toon and account) and "Favourite Victims" (toon and account) MERELY provide an indication of how often certain individuals partake in PvP, whether voluntary or involuntary. For the killers, it is suggestive of their pugnaciousness and for the victims, it is suggestive of the fact that they ... need to learn how to PvP more effectively. And so, for this limited objective of the "Top Killers" tables, the fact that a kill is an effy kill or an impossible kill is irrelevant. To be clear, these tables have ZERO relevance to the determination of the Bounty Hunter for the month.
In contrast, the "Top Killers: ratios" table, which will be replaced by the "Victory Ratio" table, is the table that will determine which toon is the Bounty Hunter. And since the latter should be the toon that is the "best" at PvP, one must therefore evaluate the quality of the kills. The easiest measure of quality is whether a kill is effy or impossible. Gear quality is impossible to quantify, i.e. it is subjective.
argument for the point system misses the "point"
The posited point system implies that 10 toons must be listed. In contrast, rule 1 makes clear that there is the possibility that NO ONE will be listed.
This was intentional.
I see no purpose and I have no interest in evaluating 10 toons for the "Victory Ratio" table merely for the sake of populating this table. And so, if only 5 people managed to make the 15 minimum PvP kills during the month, then only these five will be further evaluated. To put it simply, if you're not good enough, then you will not be considered merely because of a quota requirement.
victory ratio system is superior to the posited point system
I have provided an example. The victory points column determines who is the Bounty Hunter under the posited point system, while the victory ratio system looks to the victory ratio column.
wins - losses ** victory points ** victory ratio
AA: 15 - 0 ** 15 ** 100.0%
BB: 20 - 5 ** 15 ** 80.0%
CC: 30 - 10 ** 20 ** 75.0%
DD: 40 - 15 ** 25 ** 72.7%
EE: 50 - 20 ** 30 ** 71.4%
FF: 60 - 25 ** 35 ** 70.6%
GG: 70 - 30 ** 40 ** 70.0%
1. Toons AA to GG are the only toons that have made the requisite 15 non-effy PvP kills for the month.
2. For simplicity, presume that there are no effy kills and no impossible kills.
3. The average number of "wins" is 40.7. Accordingly, AA, BB, CC and DD are eliminated from further consideration because of rule five. Again, rule 5 is important because throughout the whole month, none of the players knew that they had to reach the 40.7 number, i.e. 41.
4. Having narrowed the Bounty Hunter decision to three toons, one will note two different conclusions depending on the methodology employed. Under the posited point system, GG is the Bounty Hunter because he has 40 victory points. However, under the ratio system championed by myself, EE is the Bounty Hunter since he has the highest victory ratio, i.e. 71.4%.
Now, you ask why choose the victory ratio system? The simple answer is that the victory ratio system has ratio data and not merely ordinal data. It has been a while since I studied statistics, but there are four different 'levels' of data. In increasing order of the informational complexity associated with each level, they are: nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio.
Since I am not a statistician, my layman's explanation of the superiority of the victory ratio system is that the latter provides information about how well a toon does against others
AS WELL AS information about how well that toon does against himself, in a manner of speaking. In contrast, the point system cancels out, in a manner of speaking, the information about how well a toon does against himself and thus, it merely provides information on how well he did against others. The "cancelling" occurs with the subtraction of losses from the wins. In short, the numbers in the “victory points” column above is one-dimensional, while the numbers in the “victory ratio” column provides a two-dimensional insight.
Another reason why the victory ratio system is better is that it accounts for time/effort. While some people have jobs or jobs with a spouse or jobs with a spouse and 1 kid or jobs with a spouse and 2 kids, others are one "vacation." Unlike the argument regarding farmers and their hard earned uber gear, one cannot use this time/effort logic for the Bounty Hunter determination. Bearing rule 5 in mind, being the best at PvP does not mean that you have to be online as often as others. *cough*
For example, I will admit that Rune and tonoplast are better at PvP than I am. But the former is busy with RL and the latter is busy with his crops.
Please cite rationale and do not merely make (unsupported) assertions "dumb to make all sorts of restrictive rules but yet still fall short"
dumb: subjective
restrictive rules: I disagree, but no justification has been provided for this assertion
still fall short: ibid
How about 0 points for any pvp that isnt 1 on 1?
As Ollebroc noted, this is not logistically practical. On another note, don't travel alone. Make some friends. I have always encouraged more interaction between players in this community. And banding up for the sake of protection or to attack as a wolfpack are certainly good justification for interacting with fellow players.
Or less points for those with with better items.
This argument conflicts with YOUR often repeated belief that people who dedicate themselves to farming should be rewarded with better gear and by extension, extra capability to kill opponents. To penalize people for USING the farmed gear when it comes to Bounty Hunter determination, as you have suggested, makes no sense.
Equally important, "better items" is 100% subjective.
drop the thesaurus/spellcheckers
Actually, I think the spellchecker is a useful tool that helps me to better communicate my thoughts and ideas. I've never been a big fan of the thesaurus, however, since the denotation and connotation of a word may not be in sync over time.
Thanks for reading.
Ciao,
Lief