I've recently become more interested in the leader board, maybe because, much to my surprise, I'm on it.

I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but it's interesting never the less, seeing how you're doing compared to everyone else.

From what I understand it was also implemented to try and moderate some of the nasty habits some flyers are prone to exhibit and up the value of virtual lives. Whether this has happened is, to my mind, questionable.

So, if the above statement holds any water, what could be done to improve the value of virtual lives ?

Here are some (maybe already implemented ?). The numbers themselves are unimportant they are only suggestions for clarities sake.

a) Differential points for a kill. One hundred total, but only 25 awarded immediately, another 25 if you manage to land alive on your own side of the lines, another 25 for landing at an airbase on your own side and the full amount for landing at your home field. Maybe these scores could be modified if the EA is a noob or an ace (calculated by leader board position). Also how about more points for each kill if you fly unpopular aircraft and fewer if you choose the most popular.

b) Minus 50 points (or maybe more) if you get shot down by EA and say, for arguments sake -10 points if you get downed by ground fire.

c) I would also like to suggest for discussion the idea that if someone gets shot down 100 times they end up at the bottom of the heap and have to start again. This would protect against the occasional unlucky hit or collision because of noob's or lag but would tell the player that their virtual life is ultimately finite, so take care of it. Penalties could include losing your flying tag (not forum name) and having to restart with another tag or if you just wanted to start afresh, clear your stats, and start again from the bottom. It might also mean there is some variation amongst the leader board leaders and reduce the importance of hours spent flying as a primary way of climbing to the top, as it makes it very difficult, even for talented new comers, to scale the heights unless they are prepared to spend hundreds of hours playing catch up.

d) Once you get x amount of points, and are obviously pretty good, you can fly any server and shoot anything down, but you won't be awarded points, or at least greatly reduced points, if the server has easy settings or is defined as a training server for noobies. This would hopefully prevent unscrupulous members deliberately flying on servers full of noobies just to pad their stats.

Some interesting suggestions Damocles, but for my part I have to say I genuinely could care less, I find the Leaderboards to be on the whole a negative, corrosive influence on Team work (fostering and encouraging a 'me, me, me', mentality) and I really could not give a sh*t....Not to put too fine a point on it lol.

My ground breaking idea for 'improving' them is their entire abolition, I would personally be glad if they were gone tomorrow. I can appreciate that Neoqb wanted to try something different and on one hand applaud them for at least attempting to be innovative, but it has not worked out well in practice IMO, and does not 'do it' for me.

Commit them to the flames.

I'm pretty much with Biggles on this one.

At most, I would like to see some tracking of kills/victories on a 1 point per plane basis. And only if you survive and land on your side of the lines.

In Yeates' book, Winged Victory, he talks of getting 1/7th ( or some similar fraction ) of a kill awarded because all 7 in the flight took the EA down. That should be possible since I'm sure Neoqb's system tracks who puts bullets into an EA - although I think it was only done on the Entente side, Central making a decision as to who got the kill awarded ( which could be on the basis of whose bullets did the damage ( pilot/engine/structural damage ).

I don't see the point of gaining points merely for being in the air ( theoretically it means you're "doing your bit", but we're all aiming for Ace aren't we ? )

Edit: and it would make more sense for them to be linked to the server you fly on, rather than a global stat. A bit like the stats kept on some of the IL2 servers. Thus an ace on the Newbie server could be a big fish in a small pond, but it wouldn't necessarily carry across to a server with harder settings.

Stats in themselves can be admired or ignored as you please. I like to have a look every now and again, mainly to see who to avoid. I would rather help newbies who are obviously struggling to get to grips with the sim rather than just add to my ranking while at the same time potentially putting off fledgling RoF'ers by constantly giving them no chance to learn.

If they can be used, as I believe was the original intent, to modify behaviour, encourage a healthy respect for your virtual life, cooperation and teamwork rather than a bull at a gate mentality then I'm all for them.

They may never work but it's worth having a go is it not ?

The leader board was one of the key foundations that was used to sell the "you must be online at all times" to play... even if playing offline.

The hard sell came down to you could check your stats from anywhere in the world!! Wow, no I mean WOW, I cannot play but I can sit there for hours looking at my stats from nan's computer

Sadly, loads do just that, almost a pathological obsession in too many instances...

[MF] Gunloon

The leaderboard was an after thought, the real online necessity was to capture your stats and maintain them for you plus your online profile keeps what planes you have bought and are eleigible to fly. If ever you crashed your PC, or moved to a new PC your stats would be saved and the purchased planes available. That was the selling point for the online component not the leaderboard.

Back on topic though, I do think think the leaderboard is a waste of time, for me it doesn't add anything to the immersion of the sim. I think it is just a tool for the point counting online types. Don't get me wrong I like to see my kills stacking up but I prefer to think of each individual virtual pilot I create as a singular entity. Once he's dead on to the next one. Clean slate.

I'd just like 1 thing with the leaderboard:

1. to show only k/d ratio, and best streak
1. to change its name in 'leatherboard' :P (as it shows the material/skin from which the pilot is made)
1. to display a 'needs a life' quote near a pilot who flies more than 8 hours a day.
1. to be disabled every day for pilots in top 100, with a random occurrence chance increasing with pilot position.

Best leaderboard improvement would be to remove the leaderboard.

Agreed, but since that's unlikely to happen, the alternative is simply to turn stats off for the server. Up to the operators of course, but that's the first thing I'd do if I were setting up a DS. The folks who live for The Almighty Points (cue heavenly choir) could go to servers with stats on, and those of us who don't give a tinker's damn about numbers wouldn't care...and would be a lot less likely to be afflicted by those who do care and are willing to act accordingly.

Seems like that'd be a win-win situation, options for everyone.

[MF] Gunloon