Real, fair skill calculator: a proposal
Just finished messing with the gamernode skill calculator and it's basically rubbish - same general results as any other stats site, including gameslave's leaderboard.
The biggest problem with all of the ranking applications is that they consistently fail to differentiate between vehicle and infantry gameplay. If a player chooses Spec Ops, then flies around Operation Clean Sweep and goes 75-0, every single board will rate them as the top Spec Ops player - which we can all agree is nonsense.
What about choosing Medic on Karkand and then taking the tank every round? Does that make you the best Medic, infantryman, or urban map player? Nope.
What if you take lots of flags but don't kill anyone - does that make you good? Not really, you're probably just riding in a Blackhawk (which I don't care if you do, but it's not a measure of "skill"). So much for score per minute.
Don't believe me? Go add up all of the vehicle-based kills and deaths for a few of the Top 20 players, then subtract that total from their total K/D. You'll find that they're pretty mortal after all - some are even below average infantry players.
Now, I'm not saying that it doesn't take a good measure of skill to be an exceptional pilot or a tanker - no doubt it does, and people ought to be recognized for it. But we shouldn't confuse being a good pilot with being a good Medic. That's my point.
Also important to note that I'm not anti-vehicle - I've logged a good amount of helicopter time and I use the transport vehicles a lot to defend. But I ought to be ranked separately for each.
The BFHQ leaderboards have breakdowns by weapon, which is really nice, but it doesn't tell you the whole kit story - kit rankings are tied to vehicle usage, as previously mentioned, and individual weapon stats aren't reliable indicators of kit success.
For example, I could have a good assault rifle rating but actually suck as Assault class. How? Maybe I always die with my knife out, or my pistol out (so those deaths aren't added to my assault rifle K/D). Maybe I can't hit shiznizzle with the grenade launcher.
What if I want to know my success as Engineer - how do I parse out my engineer-only hand grenade kills so I can add them to my shotgun/landmine/etc. kills to get a real lithmus test about my skill as engie? You can't, really.
So, I've just reasoned myself into a corner. Conclusion? The stats tracking system sucks. Old news I suppose - sorry for the rhetoric.
The biggest problem with all of the ranking applications is that they consistently fail to differentiate between vehicle and infantry gameplay. If a player chooses Spec Ops, then flies around Operation Clean Sweep and goes 75-0, every single board will rate them as the top Spec Ops player - which we can all agree is nonsense.
What about choosing Medic on Karkand and then taking the tank every round? Does that make you the best Medic, infantryman, or urban map player? Nope.
What if you take lots of flags but don't kill anyone - does that make you good? Not really, you're probably just riding in a Blackhawk (which I don't care if you do, but it's not a measure of "skill"). So much for score per minute.
Don't believe me? Go add up all of the vehicle-based kills and deaths for a few of the Top 20 players, then subtract that total from their total K/D. You'll find that they're pretty mortal after all - some are even below average infantry players.
Now, I'm not saying that it doesn't take a good measure of skill to be an exceptional pilot or a tanker - no doubt it does, and people ought to be recognized for it. But we shouldn't confuse being a good pilot with being a good Medic. That's my point.
Also important to note that I'm not anti-vehicle - I've logged a good amount of helicopter time and I use the transport vehicles a lot to defend. But I ought to be ranked separately for each.
The BFHQ leaderboards have breakdowns by weapon, which is really nice, but it doesn't tell you the whole kit story - kit rankings are tied to vehicle usage, as previously mentioned, and individual weapon stats aren't reliable indicators of kit success.
For example, I could have a good assault rifle rating but actually suck as Assault class. How? Maybe I always die with my knife out, or my pistol out (so those deaths aren't added to my assault rifle K/D). Maybe I can't hit shiznizzle with the grenade launcher.
What if I want to know my success as Engineer - how do I parse out my engineer-only hand grenade kills so I can add them to my shotgun/landmine/etc. kills to get a real lithmus test about my skill as engie? You can't, really.
So, I've just reasoned myself into a corner. Conclusion? The stats tracking system sucks. Old news I suppose - sorry for the rhetoric.
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