74 replies to this topic

[Mantis]

Instead, you should just be focusing on how to help the team reach the greater goal. This game has never been about personal ability and there is no reason we should start now.

Good point. I can hardly remember the outcome of various rounds or even entire wars (pertaining to how well I or my team did), rather I recall who was cool, who was a douche bag, and whether or not we had fun.

For instance, at the LCM summer tune up, I got out almost every single round, but I was happy for it because I was exhausted from running and charging all throughout the round, resulting in me getting shot more, and getting out. And that was one of the funnest wars I can think of. Run-on sentences and made up words be damned, it was a great time.

[Evil]

I guess I'm the only one defending this whole thing at this point; which is upsetting because the general consensus of the guys who tried this at DCNO was extremely positive.

I can only argue from the experience we had at DCNO. The statistics were a non-issue for those recording them (after the rounds) and those who weren't. I don't understand what "inevitable arguments" would come of this, because we're only tallying 3 #s and none of those would involve any serious arguments except for the issues we normally have when its comes to hits/kills.

I'm not trying to convince everyone to do this. I'm suggesting it for people who are interested because as far as I can tell, all this does is give you a more concrete idea of how you did. Their will be no calculator integrations if we don't allow them. This is all something we look at after the fact and I don't think any of the 5 of us at DCNO played the game any safer in order to ensure that our stat-line was improved.

This is something for the casual Nerfer to do casually, it is not intended to change how we play and I don't believe it will. I am trying to appreciate this severe criticism but it is coming from people who have not tried this experiment and people who were not at DCNO to see its first trial.

Edited by Evil, 20 June 2007 - 11:09 AM.

[Famine]

An interesting discussion. I can appreciate trying to develop objective tools for player analysis and improvement but I think the foundation of what you're proposing is seriously flawed Evil.

At the beginning of this thread you admitted to being a huge baseball fan and that their own statisitcal system is what inspired you but you really couldn't pick a worse sport to model a Nerf stat system off of. Baseball statistics work because each 'Round' of play has clear boundaries between offense & defense and each confrontation is a controlled encounter between batter and pitcher the consequences of whose actions can be clearly seen.

Nerf is much, much more dynamic. Just to point out a few of the variables:

Kills - While the # of total kills shouldn't be disregarded it really doesn't tell me much without knowing who those hits were scored against.

Hits - On paper two players might have taken the same # of hits but how many did they each dodge? How long did they last in the round. I could take all four hits in the first 5 minutes of play, Vacc could go a whole round and finally only be hit when he's outnumbered 3 to 1. On paper our stats may be very similar but in truth Vacc would far and away be a better player. Now Death might have gotten lost that round and spent the first 15 minutes sneaking through brush on the back end of the park, he finally took his 4 hits at the same time as Vacc but does that make him better than me?

Assists - What are you defining as an 'Assist', what does it really tell you about that player's skill? Vacc and I manage to corner Death who's behind a Manta Ray, one of us will hold him with supressing fire while the other flanks for the kill. Who should get credit with the Kill? Do we stop and fight over who does what? In the end is there any difference between our skill?

I'm not trying to 'omfg this iz 14mz0rz', the East Coast evaluates its Nerfers very critically, I just don't think this is the right tool.

A better suggestion? I'd look to Football. While still not as dynamic as Nerf it does have several practices that we might benefit from, the most prominent of which is the Video Review/Preview.

Rely on the same subjective measurements that we've always used but encourage more video documentation to show exactly how an encounter played out, who did it right and who did it wrong. THAT'S going to show you who the better Nerfers are.

As Evil pointed out in the DCNO thread one of THE most important skills a Nerfer can have is Battlefield Awareness. Where's the stat for that? Tell me my "Good teammate" percentage. I don't care if you scored 11 kills, if you let the rest of your team get slaughtered because you weren't watching their back you're a shitty Nerfer to me.

[Evil]

Famine thanks for the post.

I'm only trying to compile the most simple stats and I completely agree they're flawed, but I'm not sure how else to consistently and effectively critique a player with numbers. A dodge stat would be interesting but I haven't given it any thought only because I don't want people attempting to remember a dozen figures while running around, I thought 2 would be best and the maximum really.

The inspiration for this was baseball definitely and I tried to explain each of the original stats in a baseball context so everyone could figure them out easily or get the idea of what I was saying.

As for an assist, if we get around to experimenting with them, it would be granted to the person that helped produce the kill. So if you and Vacc cornered Death, and you got the kill-shot, you would be given a kill, and Vacc (if you think he influenced the play enough) would be granted an assist. An assist is only allowed to be recorded if your teammate thinks you made the kill possible or directly forced it to happen.

I don't know if their is a number that might reflect a "Good Teammate" but I encourage everyone here to give it some thought and discuss.

Edited by Evil, 20 June 2007 - 11:40 AM.

[Mantis]

The more I think about this Good Teammate idea, the more I actually think this system could be useful.

Alright, I'm almost positive I'm going to be changing this idea as thoughts come to me throughout the day, but here's the basics, and its not objective at all.

Players are given a rating between 1-5 at the end of rounds by their teammates. Everyone has a score card in their pocket, with the name of each nerfer at the war on it, you rate the people who were on your team for that round, stuff it back in your pocket, and do it again after the next round. This is based on how your teammates think you helped the team out.
It will be good for 2 reasons.
One is that it will help bring people together at wars, since you will need to know the name or at least nickname of everyone there, so as to rate them. This should help contribute to positive trash talking and what have you.
Second, who could rate someone in the Good Teammate better than his own teammates?

The scoring will be based upon different things depending on who you ask. I might think it was lame as shit that someone never rushed with us, and instead stayed back. Somebody might think that a person who chose to be separate from the team for almost the entire round, even though he got some kills, was a shtity person to have on your team. So if Rob grabbed a ballgun and snuck up on the other team, wiping them out, I'd give him a 5, but someone else might give it a 3 since he didn't tell us he was planning on doing that.

At the end of the day, or whenever there's a break, you can add up some scores and see what your average was for the war.

Who knows, it could work.

But this will ruin nerf.

[Evil]

My only issue with your suggestion is that if people score consistently lower, the new kids we get might be discouraged enough to not come because they feel like they're being judged systematically. I think you're on to something but I'm not sure if something as subjective as personalized ratings for teammates is the answer to a "Good Teammate" stat.

[Mantis]

It is the answer. If the kiddies suck, it won't matter so long as they are in the fray at all times. I would grade a young gun very highly if he didn't pussy out when the rest of us were rushing. Hell, it might even make the war more fun.


I'm starting to like this.

Edit: I almost forgot to remind everyone that this will ruin nerf.

Edited by Mantis, 20 June 2007 - 12:31 PM.

[Famine]

Holy shit did that go in the wrong direction.

The point is that you CAN'T make a "Good Teammate" stat. I don't have the time to get into this and explain how flawed this is or why it will fail. My point was to abandon these numeric scores altogether, they're meaningless.

If you must spend energy on anything do it trying to document actual Nerf War encounters more thoroughly and then review it in an open group forum. What's going to be more useful?

Little Timmy signs online and sees that his Kill Rate is .75 so he thinks "Gee, I need to work on getting hit less and shooting other people more." NO FUCKING SHIT!

Little Timmy signs online and watches the video of when he and Shindig were ambushed by Groove and Talio. Beneath that is a page of discussion with Veterans chiming in on what they did right, what they did wrong, and what could be done in the future to turn the situation around.

WHAT'S GOING TO PRODUCE THE BETTER NERFER?

I tried to be nice but fuck your statistics, it IS just a dick waving contest and the last time I checked this is an Internet Forum which instantly puts all of our maturity levels between Jack and Shit. In a perfect world the people interested in this project could quitely record their stats at the end of each day and have plesant conversations with one another, sipping tea while riding their unicorns into the sunset. My real fears is that people are going to be whipping out notebooks after every round, harassing people to double check their kill count, and worst of all some green wide-eyed newbie is going to mistakenly believe that THIS is the mark of a great Nerfer. Fuck. That.

[Rambo]

It doesn't need to come to that. And if it does, fuck the people that are not being mature about it, they get ignored.

[Cmdrmack]

I think that we cannot base our decision on the matter purely on A)conjecture and B)a single test. From what Evil says, DCNO was not in any way harmed by the taking of statistics by a few people. It seems to have had a positive result. There are many possibilities for why it worked, and many for why it wouldn't work in the future. I think we should allow for further testing of these statistics. If we were to record actions for review later, such as in Famine's examples, that would indeed produce a better nerfer. But we don't generally have enough people to record each encounter during a war. Either it would happen by chance or it would have to be specifically set-up in order to capture what happened.

The Kill/Hit ratio doesn't really prove anything except exactly what the statistic shows, how many kills you deal out versus how many hits you take. That's not the mark of a great nerfer. Someone who tends to rush will generally have both more kills and more deaths than someone who hangs back. Someone who hangs back might rack up a higher ratio because they took less chances, but might also have less kills because they were unwilling to play aggressively.

The win/loss ratio is an equally inaccurate statistic, because maybe some kid just got lucky and ended up on the winning team frequently. Or maybe a seasoned vet was surrounded by incompetent fools and lost a lot.

However, one war is not enough to set up any kind of trend. These statistics need to be taken over an extended number of wars against a variety of people in order to having any kind of correlation to the skill of a nerfer.

For example, at the beginning of a Baseball season, someone who generally sucks manages to get lucky and hit a home run their first pitch of the year. Now they have a really high batting average for the year. Several games later, they're likely to have a more representative average of how well they do at the plate.

Also, if we're searching for the mark of a great Nerfer, we're not going to find it. Numbers can misrepresent a persons skill, and respect is not related to how well one performs with a plastic toy. Piney and Forsaken Angel are both well respected on these forums, yet neither have made an appearance at a major war. Evil and Groove have great statistics from DCNO, but that doesn't make them better nerfers than anyone else on this site. Some people are great as soon as they walk on the field, some people spend years getting better. Only DEAL is based on the skill of a nerfer, every other war is based on fun. DEAL on the other hand, is trying to maximize the nerfing experience, and therefore chooses to invite a select group of nerfers who have proven themselves time and again. This is not to say that they are the best nerfers, or that they would have the best statistics. But they are invited because the group as a whole will benefit from their being at DEAL.

The statistics don't have any more value than the NIC gives them. I say give the stats a chance, maybe they'll be helpful, maybe they won't, but it's really easy to stop keeping score if a problem develops.

[Evil]

I would love to document our events more thoroughly, as Famine has suggested, but I think our hobby lacks the necessary time and funding to video tape wars as they might some other game. As a documented "sport", Nerf would suffer from the same drawbacks as paintball does on television, their is simply too much going on and not one thing to concentrate on. Its one thing to focus on a ball but another to watch a firefight unfold.

I think some of these stats might help players in that they can readily compare the good rounds with the bad, and try and theorize about what they did wrong and right. Compared to other players stats they might also be able to get input from them as to what they did wrong and right. I'm looking to address consistency here - not make a collection to establish a Nerf Hall of Fame.

[Rambo]

Also, if we're searching for the mark of a great Nerfer, we're not going to find it. Numbers can misrepresent a persons skill, and respect is not related to how well one performs with a plastic toy. Piney and Forsaken Angel are both well respected on these forums, yet neither have made an appearance at a major war. Evil and Groove have great statistics from DCNO, but that doesn't make them better nerfers than anyone else on this site. Some people are great as soon as they walk on the field, some people spend years getting better. Only DEAL is based on the skill of a nerfer, every other war is based on fun. DEAL on the other hand, is trying to maximize the nerfing experience, and therefore chooses to invite a select group of nerfers who have proven themselves time and again. This is not to say that they are the best nerfers, or that they would have the best statistics. But they are invited because the group as a whole will benefit from their being at DEAL.

Now, this is intended with no disrespect towards Piney and Forsaken, but they're not Nerfers of the NIC. I respect them more than most NIC Nerfers, but they aren't. The point of the stats isn't to find the best Nerfer, it's to follow your own evolution as a Nerfer and compare to those who you will never be equal to, but not in the sense that you want to brag or be the best.

[Groove]

I am waiting for a pocket calculator integration that way you can keep track of your stats on the fly. "Oh no, I better make a shot because my kill ratio is going down!" That's pretty stupid if you ask me. If you nerf, you are a nerd. I know this from experience and how little change I need to make to the word nerf into the word nerd. This statistical means takes our nerdiness to a whole new level.

This is stupid. It will kill the fun in nerf. And I think most of the LCM would agree that if this shit gets pulled at Apoc, you won't be allowed to attend next year. I may start a coalition of war hosts to keep people out who flaunt these stats. It's one thing to measure your own worth on the battlefield and it's another thing entirely to make it a dick measuring contest.

Creative ideas and innovations are always the first to be criticised. You can take my word for it, I work in a commerical art field. However, there's a fine line between criticising and going out of your way to make someone else miserable. Banning people from wars, per use of numbers? Come on, now.

Barring any other absolute extreme nerdy comparisons and/or mentioning of pocket protectors, TI-83 calculators, and the distant delusional ravings of a pre-pubescent kid over his "stats" or "rankings," the concept is still intriuging. The system is not perfect, but I still think it's an interesting way to see how someone can develop over a period of time. I can understand where someone could obviously take this a step further and boast about his/her own stats, but you also have to take into account that we've always been a sort of self-policing group of people; whether it be enforcing rules & regulations, or even calling hits during a game. Some of us are brutally honest people, and I myself have no problem telling a teammate that he got hit, or that they're out of line and acting like a douche.

The bottom line is Nerf is what you make of it. Always has been, always will be. Who is anyone to say that you can't write some numbers down on a piece of paper at the end of the day? Like Evil said, this isn't for the Nerf Hall of Fame (there's a fucking oxymoron if I've ever heard one). If you want to write some numbers down, then write some Goddamn numbers down. If you don't, then that's fine too.


-Groove

[Famine]

The point of the stats isn't to find the best Nerfer, it's to follow your own evolution as a Nerfer and compare to those who you will never be equal to, but not in the sense that you want to brag or be the best.

Statements like this only make my unrest all the stronger.

Evil - As always, I respect your opinions and the fact that you're trying to add to and enhance the NIC. I understand that it isn't feasible to document a whole Nerf War but I do think it's possible to adequately record at least a solitary encounter, especially once you're in a more open (non-Millcreek) environment. I just feel it's a more worthwhile endeavour.

This is your thing and I hope you get what you're looking for. If you and a few others want to quietly record stats at Deal as a second test run you're more than welcome to. I'll only ask that you don't allow it to interfere with the pace or progression of rounds. In other words, once a round is done everyone has to be ready to move on to the next.

Rambo - Unfortunately I think you're the very embodiment of the disastrous effects this system could have on new/up and coming players. I hope you prove me wrong but I doubt it.

Groove - I agree that there's no reason to stop people from tracking their own success or failure. I got no problem with. However, if I ever see this system begin to A) Interfere with the pace or flow of an actual Nerf War, or Influence the progression/growth of a new Nerfer in a negative manner, a hammer will fall and HARD.

That seems to be the unified concern that I see here, none of us really care what the Vets do with their spare time or if they want to start seperate discussions dedicated to this. It's the fear that it will begin to influence new players in a negative way.

[Mantis]

I gotta wonder what some of the younger crowd thinks of all this business, so far the discussion has been dominated by us older, cooler, better looking nerfers.

As for what Famine was saying, I like the idea of filming as much as possible and then watching it later. If we had a solid 30 mintues of footage to watch (and berate), it could make for a damn good time. That's up to whoever has a videocamera though, which I certainly do not.

[Rambo]

Ok Famine, I may have mis worded myself. What I meant is that I know I'll probably never be as good a Nerfer as Evil or Goove or OMC. I simply don't have the coordination, I never have. It intrigues me because I can see just how far off I am from being that good(again, not saying anyone is the best, because that's impossible), and see what I have to work towards.

I disagree 100% with that up-and-coming bit. If I'm new and I see that it is possible to do as well as those people do, I'm gonna get my ass in gear and try my best to become that good. If that's not the reaction someone has, what does it say about them? I mean, sure, they might be a little discouraged, but I don't think this will adversely affect the attendance numbers.


Also, as it has been said at least 3 times, it did not interfere with the progression of DCNO in the slightest. Everyone remembered their numbers in their head during the game. Once they got out of the round, I asked them their numbers and put them into my Treo. Took all of 2 minutes per round. No calculations took place until the car ride home.

Edited by RAMBO, 20 June 2007 - 03:27 PM.

[Evil]

Also, as it has been said at least 3 times, it did not interfere with the progression of DCNO in the slightest. Everyone remembered their numbers in their head during the game. Once they got out of the round, I asked them their numbers and put them into my Treo. Took all of 2 minutes per round. No calculations took place until the car ride home.

To reiterate; nothing on the field is altered by this recording. It happens off the field, during the downtime, and requires all of 2 minutes to coordinate, store on Rambo's PDA, and that's that. It takes more time to make teams than it does to record the stats. I also think that one of the advantages of using this system is that we might be able to make more even teams in the future.

Interesting possibility.

Edited by Evil, 20 June 2007 - 05:00 PM.

[VACC]

Alright, I'm gonna give one serious comment than move on. I think this is a very bad idea, and I will not participate in it. Chris does not think it's dangerous because ner nerfers will get discouraged, he thinks it is dangerous because it has the potential to make new nerfers more concerned with their numbers than actually learning how to nerf the right way. I echo this concern. If a new nerfer was to ask me how many kills I'd gotten, or how many hits I'd taken I'd tell him the truth; I don't remember, and it really doesn't matter as long as I helped my team win.

That said, there is no way to stop anyone (nor is there a reason to) from remembering their stats during the course of a war. If it is purely used by the few people that want to track their improvement I see no problem with it. However, I see it being taken too far as is everything in this community.

Anyway, this shouldn't discourage you guys from testing it if you really think it's a useful practice.

VACC

[theschief]

I'd be hard pressed to find something that someone hasn't said before. All I can do is reiterate what I think the most common sense answer is. If people want to (or don't want to) calculate statistics, let them be.........
-As Groove said, we are a self-policing community and I believe that anyone who took this idea too far would be told so quite rudely and to the point. Nobody who would take this too far would be tolerated. And therefore, it simply wouldn't happen.
-As for younger kids, if you suck, you know you suck. You don't need stats or video to show that. Don't worry about the psyche of a new nerfer.

I believe that a system for measuring statistics would lead only to friendly competition and would only make nerf more fun. If you don't wish to partake, go right ahead. If you do (responsibly of course), nobody should stop you.


By the way: This reminds me of the scene from Lord of The Rings, where two of the characters (forget their names, haven't seen that movie in a while now) count their kills during one of the battles.... Sorry, but that had to be pointed out.

[Death]

Joining my fellow Horsemen in voicing my dissent, this is one of those ideas that sounds really cool, but really doesn't mean anything, when you think about it. Unfortunately, this is just the next evolution of the Optical Scope On My Crossbow debate.

The reason Stat lines work in professional sports is twofold: firstly, there's an organized standard by which to judge, and secondly, there's a diversity of competition to ensure the validity of the numbers.

Neither of these is available to us.

Let's think about it. If I play ten games at the Horsemen's usual 5/15 playstyle, while another Nerfer plays 10 games at 3/15, suddenly the Hits-Per-Round average is completely screwed. If I'm averaging 2 Hits per Round at 5/15, I'm playing a hell of a lot better than the guy who's averaging 2 Hits per Round at 3/15.

Additionally, the diversity of the opponent base is an issue. When the Horsemen went up to Massachussetts for a war last year, along with OMC and Dark Shrimp, the guys we played against simply weren't anywhere near as experienced or as skilled as we were. Over the course of the entire day, I was only hit twice by Nerfers who weren't from New Jersey. In the first exchange of the day, I had two opposing Nerfers empty a full Power Clip, each, at me without getting a hit. Hell, I didn't even have to raise my Manta Ray. Their shots were off by more than ten feet. If I'm averaging 1 Hit per Round and 20 Kills per Round against players like that, it certainly doesn't show anything over someone averaging 3 Hits per Round and 6 Kills per Round against the Horsemen.

Just as a Crossbow is not accurate enough to make an Optical Scope worthwhile, the numerics of Nerf are not accurate enough to make generalized Statistics worthwhile.

[Evil]

The reason Stat lines work in professional sports is twofold: firstly, there's an organized standard by which to judge, and secondly, there's a diversity of competition to ensure the validity of the numbers.

Neither of these is available to us.

I would argue that we do have these two elements in our hobby. For the most part, the east coast plays with the standard rule set of 3.15 and we do have a tremendous range of talent on our coast. While numbers would vary according to competition, I think is something that might make documenting the numbers interesting.

Let's think about it. If I play ten games at the Horsemen's usual 5/15 playstyle, while another Nerfer plays 10 games at 3/15, suddenly the Hits-Per-Round average is completely screwed. If I'm averaging 2 Hits per Round at 5/15, I'm playing a hell of a lot better than the guy who's averaging 2 Hits per Round at 3/15.

This is a totally valid point but what we've done since recording our first series of numbers at DCNO is list the important information including the size of the teams, the rule set included, and the game type so people can accurately gauge the impact of a player on a given round. This is something we came to address after we realized the numbers themselves needed context.

If I'm averaging 1 Hit per Round and 20 Kills per Round against players like that, it certainly doesn't show anything over someone averaging 3 Hits per Round and 6 Kills per Round against the Horsemen.

This is why I think a series of statistics would provide some worthwhile information. At DCNO I did very well but I'm guessing that at DEAL my numbers, along with most other people's, will be more grounded. The telling thing is going to be who is capable of sustaining good numbers while competing with some of the best talent in the hobby. This is information that would be made available for people if interested and while talent might alter the numbers significantly I don't know any game in which it wouldn't.

It's a great thought, Evil, but I don't believe it belongs in a Nerf war. Mantis is right, Nerf isn't about winning and pissing on other people's stats. It's about having a good time and shooting people with foam.

Nerf isn't about winning and pissing on other people's stats, in fact that isn't the purpose of this. This is for people interested in seeing how well they do and not necessarily comparing them with other people's, but recognizing what they did poorly or particularly well after the fact. Nerf is about having a good time and shooting people with foam and I don't think casually documenting a personal performance changes either the good times or the act of shooting people with toy guns made for children.

My example of how these stats were useful was brought on by some mediocre middle rounds for me.

In rounds 5 and 6 at DCNO, I achieved a combined 7 kills, 6 hits record. Being able to see this and being aware of how mediocre I had done, I took the time to figure out what I had done wrong and the answer had come to me almost immediately; I had played uncharacteristically overaggressive and did not use my team enough.

I probably would have figured this out at some point during the day when I felt like I was fairing poorly, but documenting my poor rounds made me consider changing how I played almost immediately.

Now changing how you play may not always affect what occurs in the game and bad days are surely to occur but consider the final three rounds I had at DCNO:

Round 7: 6 kills, 2 hits (Loss)
Round 8: 6 kills, 0 hits (Win) [pistols only]
Round 9: 9 kills, 2 hits (Win)

The last 3 rounds of the day saw me go 21/4 because I was aware of how poorly I had done and was encouraged by my weak performance, which was backed up by numbers, to figure something else out and to play smarter. Not for the sake of improving my stat-line but because I wasn't helping my team significantly.

Edited by Evil, 21 June 2007 - 10:55 AM.

[Substance Abuse]

My input is that If you want to keep stats and worry about your "score" the whole time than go play paintball... Again nerf is a hobby that shouldn't be integrated with stats and hits and accuracy. Those are for other sports. Not Nerf.

[shadowkid33]

Just my 2 cents about interupting the progression at DCNO, I didn't even KNOW that RAMBO, Evil, Monkey, etc. Were keeping score. That's how inconspicuous doing this is.

[Rambo]

My input is that If you want to keep stats and worry about your "score" the whole time than go play paintball... Again nerf is a hobby that shouldn't be integrated with stats and hits and accuracy. Those are for other sports. Not Nerf.

Uhh, what? I play a lot of paintball and I know a lot of people that play. None of us have ever tried this. Not sure why we would do this in paintball? Makes no more sense than it would for Nerfing.