Body count?

[kid_airsoft]

Got a question for you guys. When you play, do you keep track of the body count? Are there any bragging rights for the person who kills the most? How many guys are running with springers? I might be the only one at CQB with 2 springers.

[C-Tizzle]

Sometimes people keep track as to how many people kills they have gotten. But, mostly from what I have seen, is that people like to keep track and let it be known as to how many people they have made surrender (sneaking up on someone and getting them to call a hit without firing a shot). If you have any questions about this tactic ask-Fighting Like Charlie-AKA Tyler(he is known for doing it alot).

[jawinn]

Keeping track of kills or frags for you video gamers out there, is pretty difficult to do. There are times when you spray into a hallway and then quickly grab cover. In that case you may or may not know who you took out.

Plus if you're like me you're so pumped up on adrenaline when the game is over that you really can't remember every detail of what just happened.

[Smukatele]

I think this is one of the major things missing from Airsoft, at least in how we play it at CQB. There is no real of way of knowing who is good, who is bad, who had a good day, how many kills were yours, or any other solid stats. I proposed a couple possible ways of tracking this awhile back and it turns out that for one reason or another no here is interested in tracking kills in this fashion, at least not enough to put some effort into finding a way to do it. It especially sucks because there are some "vets" out there who really have very little skill but maintain bragging rights just due to how often they play and how well they have memorized the battlefield.
If you or anyone else comes up with a way to track kills, you have my support.

[Brazzle88]

I often find myself counting how many kills I get in one game. If you think you might be able to count the # in a night, go for it, but I always get to caught up in a game to remember how many I kill. Jawinn brings up a good point that due to certain situations such as clearing the vent or just general team rushes, you often won't know how many people you've taken down in a game. I think though, with your two springers, just the fact that you will have just pumped for the kill shot, you will easily be able to know how many you got in a game.

[Alacris]

I count how many times I was on a winning team.

But I also look at airsoft as more of a training exercise than a video game.

[mr7q]

I never really keep track of the kills I get. Stuff just happens too fast, and honestly, it doesn't matter to me that much. If my team can win the game without taking a single shot, I'm all for it. :)

The times I get killed (quite a bit), and the times I accidentally team frag (thankfully only once in a blue moon) stick out much, much more in my mind. These were mistakes I made, and I'd rather improve on them then bask in my victories. :cool:

[DAN]

for me a good day is when i had fun... that's about it...

and i remember there was the time we were defending the embassy, and this kid borrowed another kid's spring desert eagle, and left his rental m4 in the ready room... needless to say, that didn't turn out too well...

[JohnnyDime]

I think this is one of the major things missing from Airsoft, at least in how we play it at CQB. There is no real of way of knowing who is good, who is bad, who had a good day, how many kills were yours, or any other solid stats. I proposed a couple possible ways of tracking this awhile back and it turns out that for one reason or another no here is interested in tracking kills in this fashion, at least not enough to put some effort into finding a way to do it. It especially sucks because there are some "vets" out there who really have very little skill but maintain bragging rights just due to how often they play and how well they have memorized the battlefield.
If you or anyone else comes up with a way to track kills, you have my support.

I'm not sure that number of kills is the best indication of skill. This is true with FPS games as well. I've seen people rack up tons of kills, but then you see that they died twice as much. Is that skill or just kamakaze bullshit?

Ultimately, I think skill is simply a matter of how well you can execute a plan with your team to achieve the objective. In some games you can do that without ever getting a kill. For example, if your job is to hold vent, you can do that by keeping the enemy pinned down. You don't have to kill them, just keep them from killing you and rushing up.

[Smukatele]

I concur with Everything JohnnyDime said. But its not quiet that simple. Yes kills to death ratios are important. But the majority of our games only allow for me to be shot 1 or two time so the ratios don't really matter as long as you are getting at least 2 kills. Your example of holding someone in the shaft is a good example of where kills dont matter, but you dont spend every single game doing exactly the same thing. So if your overall kills are high, then that is all that matters, as in every game there are different objectives and you have different roles.
If week by week Player A has a kill:death ratio of 15:2, then we can say definitively that he is a good player. individual matches don't matter for the reasons you listed, but the overall count is still important.

[JohnnyDime]

I agree with your points.

So a summary of what makes someone a good airsoft player might be(in no particular order):

1.) Good kill:death ratio.
2.) Team player - can follow a plan
3.) Situational awareness - effectively re-position/react based on what is going on around them.

Agreed?

[Smukatele]

Agreed. Especially the "in no particular order" part as it is the sum of the parts that would define the player as a whole. In some games I may want the team player over the mass killer, just depends on the scenario.

[jawinn]

1.) Good kill:death ratio.
2.) Team player - can follow a plan
3.) Situational awareness - effectively re-position/react based on what is going on around them.


Alright, since we all seem to be in agreement that kills and winning games would be an adequate measure of how good a player is, we can easily come up with a scoring system similar to gold or bowling. I agree with JohnnyDime’s summarization but I think we can simplify the points down to hits and wins. I say wins because if you were successful with numbers two and three above, you have a very good chance of winning. The one problem here is measuring hit/kill points in games that have one hit and games that have two. Obviously they have to be equal in value. I think we could have hits be worth 1 point and wins worth 5.

If people think this is a good idea I will print up Acme Kill Kards with predefined fields where players can mark down their score. What do you guys think?

[JohnnyDime]

Well, actually, I don't really think it IS a good idea to keep track. I play laser tag with my kids, and there are certain things you can do to score more points. Lots of kids just do those things, rather then "get into the spirit" of playing. Certain people might get caught up in their individual score and not play well with others.

I also agree with something mr7q said, and that is that I don't think I can pay close enough attention during a game to figure out how many hits and deaths I have. I'm not really sure I want to go through the trouble.

Plus, what if it turns out that I suck? Then I'll never get picked for the good team and that would be just plain aggravating. :D

[DAN]

i agree with johnnydime... i'm there to have fun... so you can keep track of my points for me and see how much i suck, because i'm not going to bother doing it myself...

[Gator76]

I agree with both Jawinn (about the adrenaline thing) and Mr7q about the winning tthing. I also like the idea about a good player is a well rounded player. I for one am still trying to tame the adrenaline enough to stay put and get more kills in defence rather than kamakazi a corner and get my kill as I am killed.
I also agree that a team player, in my opinion, is more important than a rack-em-up killer, thay tend to lose the game for the team (unless it is a death match game) do to there gunho I don't care about the mission attitude.

[crafty_0ne]

.

I also agree with something mr7q said, and that is that I don't think I can pay close enough attention during a game to figure out how many hits and deaths I have. I'm not really sure I want to go through the trouble.

Then dont, Let the player you just Hit do it for you =). After the game, find the person that killed you and tell them that it was you that got ya out, then you can mark it down as a "confirmed" kill. you could even have "unconfirmed" kills where you mark down that you got some newb but he didnt come tell ya that he got shot by you but someone else saw you get him instead and tells you. Then you could have two points valuse for confirmed and unconfirmed kills(with more points for confirmed kills off course).

pros-
-an easy way to tell who you have killed after every game that relys on the honor system just like our sport does.
-would work well for one and 2 hit games since you only have to remebr one or two people that hit you
-no in game distraction of trying to count youre kills as you play, lets you remain focused on the game first and foremost.

cons-
-youd have to make sure everyone knew what was going on(might work only for forum memebrs or people familar with the system, i.e, not Newbs who have trouble calling there hits, much less owning up to it after the game is over)
-wouldnt work well in respawn games, you'd have to keep track of alot of people that hit you, and then were back to the original problem.
-trying to count kills after the game might be fairly hectic, especially in CQB's small crowded wating room whjile everyones trying to reload and jump in the next game quickly

what do you guys think? I think it could be intresting to have rankings for forum members or some type of friendly competitive ladder system. But then again, I play the sport to have fun and not to win so although I think rankings could be cool I wouldnt want to see everyone get overly comeptetive about them.

[Brazzle88]

I , for one, think this is a terrible idea, in that it would turn into rediculous cheating and take away from the light-hearted way that we acme members view the game. I'm not saying that it's not a bad idea or that it wouldn't be fun, but just imagine the type of people we'll start attracting if we get some of the more competetive people from ACQB on the site once they find out that ACQB, more or less, has a ranking system.

That, and I barely have enough time to reload between games, let alone track down the *thousands* of people I killed that game,......:D

Not to attempt to slap the idea down, well actually it is, but this is just my attempt to keep our "group" laid back and not turn into tons of kids joining up and ruining the site.


*also* just imagine how bad the "!!!call your hit!!!" arguments are at ACQB, now multiply that 1000 fold when it has an actual rank behind it....

[Gator76]

Good piont I never thought of that last bit. We would have brawls at least once a night.

[itsahak]

I know entire teams whose rank is based on, of all factors, your kill count. Which of course you keep yourself. i'm a little too busy in a firefight to worry about how many I've gotten.

[jawinn]

My view on all this is that we could start this without making it a competitive thing. Think of it as a golf game. You'd be keeping score to measure yourself of yourself vs. your buddies.

I think the notion of this getting out of hand is a little extreme given that your score will certainly not determine what teams your are chosen for or win you any prizes (or more importantly respect from your fellow airsofters).

I'm not married to the idea of hosting a ranking system on Acme. I don’t see that this idea is mature or popular enough to take it to that level. I'm still probably going to print up a few score cards and those of you who'd like to try it out in practice can on Friday night.

This idea does fill in the gap for Airsoft that Paintball has conquered with all the team play; which of course we don't have given that most Airsoft events are the large scale engagement. It is blatantly obvious that this sport is about to explode here in the US. Just look at how much CQB has grown in the last year. Look at how many new Airsoft dealers there are and how they’ve grown since each of you got involved in the sport. It is inevitable that national organizations will arise. They will create standards that will evolve into league rules and such that will be used for the inevitable cash prize tournaments, etc. Think about it, there is just too much money involved to not have things like this.

[mr7q]

Instead of making this for every game, why not have small "challenge" games that we can keep track of? It wouldn't be hard between large games (in the half hour of turnaround) to do small scenarios of three vs. three in situations like confined to A building, half field, hallway, etc... That way we can keep things lighthearted, out of the regular games, and see who is consistently shooting who, just for the hell of it. I think the majority of players on this forum (kid_airsoft aside) are mature enough to be able to have fun with this, and keep any taunting and the like at the level of gentle ribbing, and not full-on insults. It'd also be great training for small team tactics within Acme, which would make us better players in the big games.

The main problem I have with keeping a kill count in normal games is the fact that one's individual performance is directly tied to the performance of the team. There's been a number of times that I've done well, but then been eliminated because the noobs holding main hallway left and allowed the enemy to get a flanking position on me. I got owned, but not because any fault of my own, and I'd hate for this to negatively impact any "reputation" I may have.

[crafty_0ne]

I like mr7's idea, seems like its a good way to measure yourself against other players, while keeping the competitvness out of the main games.

[M3 guy]

Agreed on that!

[matshark]

i think a ratio would be the best way to keep track of it...

somebody once said you didnt win anything by dying for your country...you did it by making the other guy die for his...

obviously superior team tactics/game play and individual skill would lead to a higher kill ratio than somebody with out them... and i think if they were to be tracked, it should be tracked over a several game period... many times somebody just happens to take an unlucky shot but it doesnt mean they are a bad player... quite honestly, its hard to remember everything that happens in a game...

they way i mark a good game is if:

A. My team achieved its objective
B. I did the job i was assigned to do for my team
C. I learned from any mistakes and became a better player

[bishop]

I personally don't keep track of my kills, as I don't see the point, especially if the game has respawns...you can keep shooting the same less experienced players. My whole mindset when playing is mission accomplishment. Some of the guys I know who count kills do it for their ego's, and frankly, it's annoying. Especially when the mission objective wasn't even reached. Some of the best teams are the ones who can reach the objective without being seen or firing a shot.

[itsahak]

Bishop,
You mean like the one I asked how his PDW performed and he quoted me a kill count? That was a little annoying.

[bishop]

Bishop,
You mean like the one I asked how his PDW performed and he quoted me a kill count? That was a little annoying.


That would be the one. :)

[Smukatele]

The thing about caring for your teams accomplishments above all else is that we don't have Teams at CQB, We have teams (small t). They are picked on a per game basis and what that means is that you are frequently paired with people you've never met and/or people who have very little skill, can't follow directions, etc. If we had Teams, such as Team ACME, and we played as a Team, then worrying about your Team above all else would be a great thing. When you are playing with unstructured teams with NO real training or planning, or anything else, just randomness, then the concept of team play is somewhat diluted. What happens then is you start needing to think about yourself far more because you can have little faith in your fellow team members and have to act much more on your own.

If you are playing with a Team, self-sacrifice is a noble thing. If you are playing with a team, you should obviously still be a team player and focus on accomplishing your sub-mission first, but you will have much more of a need to focus on yourself since their is much less teamwork occuring.

What this all means is that the current CQB environment is not conducive to any real sense of growth or accomplishment. You don't have a Team to be proud of, you only have yourself. So having the occasional Kill Match is a healthy way of having some way of measuring your accomplsihments and growth. As soon as we start playing as a Team, consistently, then we can start taking pride in that Team and focus less on individual stats.

[Kyle]

I'm sure if you said that to your team before each game, and no strategy, it will not be fun.

[chick]

Do you think it's bad that I count my kills? Cuz ya know... I totally have three....:D

[afroman794]

no counting kills can be a good thing but when u run out of fingers it just kinda blends together into one slaughter

lol i love that feeling

[Zxylos]

Instead of making this for every game, why not have small "challenge" games that we can keep track of?

I would like to see some pistol duels happen between games and while we are standing around waiting for the next one to start. This would be a good judge of marksmanship under pressure.

[DevilManDes]

Honestly, I couldn't care less about statistics. I used to play Halo2 on XBOX live and they had a ranking of 1-50. I was level 10 beating level 30s and 40s. You can't achieve greatness through numbers.

People don't remember the number of people Achilles killed at Troy. They remember his courage, his actions, and most of all his insanity >>;...

Honeslty though, the good players are the ones you hear about that people have a vendetta against lol.

"Oh, did you see John Doe? Damn him! I can never get him"
"Oh crap, John Doe is on the other team"

Of when people begin to make strategies to counter that player.

An example, also from Halo2, would be a player named Car(I can't remember the real name) who was a beta tester. He killed so many people and became such a legend bungie themselves actually came out with a contest for the beta testers called something along the lines of "Who Can Kill Car". Bungie kept track of everyone that killed Car while the Beta version was being played and presented a prize to the player that had killed him the most.

I've never even seen the guy play but I'd be intimidated to play against him? lol ^^;

There are newbs (obviouse lol), the experiences (the non newbs), and the legends.

[random quote inserted here]
"I'd rather have a hollow victory than a solid defeat" -Des