Back on the Hawk, we have a neat little thread depicting who we believe are the server "aces". One of my characters is on that list (I'm flattered), but here's the thing:

 

I don't believe I deserve to be on there because I don't believe I'm an Ace.

 

In Meatspace PvP, a combat aviator is considered an "ace" once they hit five confirmed kills. Now, obviously, in order to do that the pilot has to stay alive to hit five kills, so we're looking at a minimum kill/death ratio of 5:1.

 

My so-called "ace"? Has a K/D of just over 1. (Yes, he's Imperial. How'd you know?)

 

Now, there's a cat on the Republic side of the Hawk that has a K/D of almost 10:1. THAT is an ace. Without question. But the best I can manage is a 3:1 in a bomber. So clearly - at least, to me, anyway - the product of my efforts in GSF doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same class as Acey McGee.

 

I seem to be in the minority on this one, however. So, I'm asking you, the piloting community at large:

 

Just what the heck constitutes an Ace in your mind? -bp

You can farm KDR if you don't care about the objectives. Ace has been used to mean a top tier of pilot- it doesn't really have a definition. But I'd much rather have someone willing to dash themselves into a rock to get on the right ship for the job than some joker hanging out in a cave with his harem of mines, waiting for pugs to walk over and feed.

 

KDR is easy to stoke, if you are into it. I'd rather have an actual ace who wants to win the game.

We've beat this subject to death in the aces thread but in answer to your question I believe predominant thought is that an ace is "whatever you think an ace is".

An Ace, is IMO more than K/D ratio. That ratio is too easily influenced by some variables such your team and your ennemy team composition, how fast you learned to fly or started a character after have learned how to fly.

 

For example, depending on the ennemy team I can end with a 15/12/0 K/A/D ratio or a 2/1/5 ratio. If I were to wisely choose my flying times my ratio would skyrocket. And even if I'd were to do that now, my ratio has been stained once and for all.

 

So the only way to judge if someone is an ace, it's with guts. If you feel that a player is especially deadly, that he will be a major contributing pilot, you can assume he's above average.

Then whether he's an ace or not... Each one his own standards of what is good, and what is exceptional.

Just what the heck constitutes an Ace in your mind? -bp

 

Actually you should use definition from real world, which is also used in GSF. As "ACE" is recognized anyone who shot down 5 enemy planes. That´s all. So probably almost each GSF player can rightfully use title Ace

Try this on for size at least as a starting point

 

[(Kills + Assist/2) / Deaths] > 1 + Fleet Captain(Achievement) = Potential Ace

 

Now here is the key to the discussion. An "Ace' is not and "Elite" rather it's a person who:

 

- Is an asset in any match they join

- Has the experience to respond to shifting strategies

- Stands out among her teams, if the name is recognized in follow up matches and not simply because of clever name choice.

 

An Ace need not be:

- A vicious reaper of kills

- an insanely high win count

- have a presence of dread felt by her opponents

 

I feel my second list is what people are too often thinking about when they think "Ace." I would rather choose to call them "Elite" the next level higher then Ace. An "Ace" is simply a "Crack Player." the term "Crack" refers to usually teams or crews that perform at a high level of competence but there is no expectation of certain victory.

 

So if you join match and look at the other team and see a name and say "that is one to keep an eye on" that person is probably an Ace.

 

One last thing, High kill counts in almost every case are are due to a player standing on the shoulders of his team mates. The highest kill numbers are done by GS and bombers, both classes require the support of other ships to perform and are individually poor choices when there is no team support. The only exception is when facing inferior experienced opponents who do not fly intelligent at all. We saw much of this during 2xXP weekend when NonGSF players qued up to farm XP. Where I was doing some of the best scoring in GSF ever and was in a completely unmodded ship ta-boot. For this reason I do not believe inflated kill counts are an accurate measure of player quality, at least not when trying to determine ACEs.

 

Odds really are that the lists on the Aces thread should be expanded by a factor of 3-5. Also an Elites thread should be opened and have very high minimum meters based on hard numbers and achievements for players to get on it.

Try this on for size at least as a starting point

 

[(Kills + Assist/2) / Deaths] > 1 + Fleet Captain(Achievement) = Potential Ace

 

As a computer programmer, I have no idea how to interpret this.

 

If (kills + half assists)/death ratio is greater than one plus total matches played...?

An Ace, is IMO more than K/D ratio. That ratio is too easily influenced by some variables such your team and your ennemy team composition, how fast you learned to fly or started a character after have learned how to fly.

 

For example, depending on the ennemy team I can end with a 15/12/0 K/A/D ratio or a 2/1/5 ratio. If I were to wisely choose my flying times my ratio would skyrocket. And even if I'd were to do that now, my ratio has been stained once and for all.

 

So the only way to judge if someone is an ace, it's with guts. If you feel that a player is especially deadly, that he will be a major contributing pilot, you can assume he's above average.

Then whether he's an ace or not... Each one his own standards of what is good, and what is exceptional.

 

I had a horrendous K/D ratio the other night (for me, anyway). 0 Kills, 3 deaths. But I had 15 assists and the third highest damage of anyone, and bunch of medals. I think it's pretty important to look at more than a few numbers, like you did.

 

Personally, there are very few Aces out there, but quite a few good pilots that will give you a run for your money in any ship and be solid contributers. It's nice to have an Ace on your team, but as I've seen in more than a few rounds, a win means having a few solid players to go with an Ace... they can't do it all on their own.

I'd largely agree with mr_sim with a few additions of my own:

 

an Ace is someone who knows how to play the objective. This does not mean that they have 500 objective points at the end of the match but rather a player who knows how to identify where they are needed most on the field and regardless of ship type can and will assist the team at that location. I've seen too many supposed "aces" sit in their bomber at the team's only sat during a domination round, get 3 or less kills/assists combined, wrack up 400-500 objective points but ultimately have been a major contributor to the team's loss by not lifting a finger to help the team win.

 

An Ace also understands their ship's role. This means that when they're flying a striker they understand that their priority is taking out armored targets such as bombers. Likewise if they're in a scout they know that they should leave bombers to the strikers and focus on the escort fighters first. Ultimately it's distinguished by the pilot's ability to triage targets based on what their ship is best suited to handling and not becoming hell bent on focusing on specific ship types regardless of what ship they're flying.

*shakes his head*

 

Aces are pilots whose skills I respect, that are consistently demonstrated across matches, to the point where I remember their names.

 

The numbers don't mean much to me. There's definitely a numerical way to calculate the best pilots on a server, but that's not how I do it. The best pilots, in my estimation, are the ones who show me they're good, either by showing up consistently and performing well, knocking my socks off with a massive stat rackup, or generally being someone I can count on in a fight.

In Meatspace PvP, a combat aviator is considered an "ace" once they hit five confirmed kills. Now, obviously, in order to do that the pilot has to stay alive to hit five kills, so we're looking at a minimum kill/death ratio of 5:1.

an ace in "meatspace" is indeed someone with 5 kills, but what are they talking about when they say kills? If you shot down a single bomber in ww2 chances are you killed 5 people but that doesn't make you an ace. If you did a single bombing run as a bombardier in a b-17 chances are you killed 5 people so that's not it. if an aviator shot down 5 enemy aircraft but all his victims successfully bailed out and lived is he an ace? yep.

 

If you want to go by "meatspace" standards, anyone who has destroyed more then 5 ships over their career is an ace regardless of their K/D ratio. We need a different standard.

 

To me an ace is someone I take note of because they are always doing far better then average, someone that in a game full of otherwise unknown players you would be worried about being on the other team.

As a computer programmer, I have no idea how to interpret this.

 

If (kills + half assists)/death ratio is greater than one plus total matches played...?

 

That's because you translated the achievement into a numerical constant where as it's a statistical check stop.

 

Due to respawn the traditional definition of Ace = 5 Career kills is impractical even if it's 5 match kills. Due to team makeup the average of more then 5 per match is a ludicrously high number that is impractical to maintain.

 

If in TDM where 50 kill = end of match then 50/12 = 4.17 meaning it is statistically impossible to have a 12 man team of Aces if an average of 5 kills must be maintained. However it is realistically possible to find a team of players by non-quantifiable factors that is full of Aces. More simply put high number of kills per match does not accurately measure a players competence as the possible number of kills is limited.

 

So enter the formula.

 

if you kill more then you die(counting Assist @ 0.5)

if you have played a significant number of matches

then you are an Ace.

 

or perhaps I should have written it as

 

Fleet Captain[(Kills + 0.5Assists) / Deaths] = >1 = Ace

Where Fleet Captain = 1 if you have the achievement

or Fleet Captain = 0 if you have not played enough matches

 

I'd largely agree with mr_sim with a few additions of my own:

 

an Ace is someone who knows how to play the objective. This does not mean that they have 500 objective points at the end of the match but rather a player who knows how to identify where they are needed most on the field and regardless of ship type can and will assist the team at that location. I've seen too many supposed "aces" sit in their bomber at the team's only sat during a domination round, get 3 or less kills/assists combined, wrack up 400-500 objective points but ultimately have been a major contributor to the team's loss by not lifting a finger to help the team win.

 

An Ace also understands their ship's role. This means that when they're flying a striker they understand that their priority is taking out armored targets such as bombers. Likewise if they're in a scout they know that they should leave bombers to the strikers and focus on the escort fighters first. Ultimately it's distinguished by the pilot's ability to triage targets based on what their ship is best suited to handling and not becoming hell bent on focusing on specific ship types regardless of what ship they're flying.

 

Yeah I basically had this in mind but was already too wordy as it was. I completely agree and have maintained the the same spirit as your words for myself from the get go.

an ace in "meatspace" is indeed someone with 5 kills, but what are they talking about when they say kills? If you shot down a single bomber in ww2 chances are you killed 5 people but that doesn't make you an ace. If you did a single bombing run as a bombardier in a b-17 chances are you killed 5 people so that's not it. if an aviator shot down 5 enemy aircraft but all his victims successfully bailed out and lived is he an ace? yep.

 

If you want to go by "meatspace" standards, anyone who has destroyed more then 5 ships over their career is an ace regardless of their K/D ratio. We need a different standard.

 

To me an ace is someone I take note of because they are always doing far better then average, someone that in a game full of otherwise unknown players you would be worried about being on the other team.

 

Just don't over elevate the term. The meatspace term Ace reflects more a pilots survival skills then killing skills in reality. I agree that anyone who you remember due to superior piloting abilities you see in match and not on the end score likely deserves the title of Ace.

 

Also in meatspace it is 5 aircraft shot down, no human deaths required. Not sure if it has to be 5 fighters or not though.

Also in meatspace it is 5 aircraft shot down, no human deaths required.

That was my point.

I've seen too many supposed "aces" sit in their bomber at the team's only sat during a domination round, get 3 or less kills/assists combined, wrack up 400-500 objective points but ultimately have been a major contributor to the team's loss by not lifting a finger to help the team win.

 

Gawd I can't stress this ^^ enough... but the game rewards that behavior in the form of more requisition earned. If you have 7-8 minutes of defending time and your team lost, you should have switched to offense way before that (at less than the 2 minute mark).

Gawd I can't stress this ^^ enough... but the game rewards that behavior in the form of more requisition earned. If you have 7-8 minutes of defending time and your team lost, you should have switched to offense way before that (at less than the 2 minute mark).

 

Maybe make a check where that behavior can trigger "non-contributor"? For example make defense points subject to a similar standard as sitting AFK (maybe with 30 extra seconds on the timer?). Obviously they'd need to put in a failsafe exclusive to this that sets so that you can't suicide to avoid "non-contributor" and then just keep going back to the same sat to camp it (perhaps make it so that only death at the hands of an enemy resets the non-contributor clock timer). This "non-contributor" clock functioning separate from the existing one.

 

I've seriously seen guys never once go on offense, not even at the two minute mark. Some of them are on in the "aces" list and honestly I'm positive they don't belong there as they've caused my team to lose more than once by doing the above. When we've won the fact that they contributed to the victory was purely by coincidence that the sat they decided to camp happened to be the one that got attacked most and not at all by intent to be where they could help the team most.

Here is what an ace is to me:

 

-see the name on the roster, immediately notify and warn team about them.

- say, "oh sht" when they snag a damage overcharge and hope to God I don't get focus fired.

- Pilots I know when I get into a Dogfight with, I Just Escape Because I Know It Will Tie Me Up For Several Minutes and neither of us will get anywhere for it.

- Pilots I fear actually flying head to head against and actively avoid it.

- Pilots I would gladly and preferably group with than fly against simply because it would be so much harder, but since we are usually on opposing factions, I can't.

- Pilots who force players on the opposing team to just exit battle before the Round even begins because they already know how it will end up.

Do we have to do this? Really?

 

Predictably this thread, just like the Aces thread, has kicked up a myriad of different criteria for what an "Ace" is. There will never be a consensus, and more importantly, why do we care?

 

Have fun, play the game, win the matches you can and blow pixels up. Its really that simple.

I think there are definitely two tiers.

 

An Ace is a competent and skilled pilot who will routinely get 5-10 kills (20-40k damage) and will easily handle new pilots.

 

A Top Ace (or "Elite") is a pilot who, if not countered, will single handedly win a Deathmatch (with 20+ kills, 60-120k damage) or, in the case of Domination, single handedly take and defend a node against many enemy defenders.

 

To counter a Top Ace usually requires devoted attention from 2-4 Aces or another Top Ace. And usually "countering" just involves chasing them such that they have to spend most of their time evading.

I think there are definitely two tiers.

 

An Ace is a competent and skilled pilot who will routinely get 5-10 kills (20-40k damage) and will easily handle new pilots.

 

A Top Ace (or "Elite") is a pilot who, if not countered, will single handedly win a Deathmatch (with 20+ kills, 60-120k damage) or, in the case of Domination, single handedly take and defend a node against many enemy defenders.

 

To counter a Top Ace usually requires devoted attention from 2-4 Aces or another Top Ace. And usually "countering" just involves chasing them such that they have to spend most of their time evading.

 

Your expectations are too high for the numbers, 5-10 kills is way too high. You need to think relativistically any player averaging 5-10 kills is only doing so by being built up to that level by the competency of their team. Meaning your criteria too heavily favors premades and disfavors solo ques. No it must actively reflect superior performance even in the worst matchmaking.

 

For example I once scored ~40% of all kills in one match, I only did this because we lost 6 - 50 and I had 2 kills 1 assist. If such odds were repeated in a fictional scenario where no player knew to begin focusing certain players, I would expect to see my personal score rise slightly as I adjusted for such uphill battling, yet I do not believe I would ever achieve 5-10 kills in such a battle.

 

My point being that team is too large a factor in performance, any player who can bag 2 kills in such a lopsided match is already something special. Which is why I maintain an Ace to only require a KTD of greater then 1, and must have completed a significant number of battles. At this point I would consider someone a potential Ace. The other factor is they must be a recognized name, recognized for their flying and association to progress for their team.

Having a K/D ratio higher than 5. Done.

Having some kind of base statistic criteria is good to show competency, but to me the Ace (or even Elite - I like the two tiers) title is something that needs to be given by those you fly with or against.

 

Maybe that's how it should work out, where an Ace is the more stats focused recognition and an Elite pilot is recognized by the community. Those can be two very different things.

Having a K/D ratio higher than 5. Done.

 

No good, too team dependent. Also there are only so many kills to go around, so if a player is killed 3 times they must gain 15 kills, that's 30% of your teams kills in TDM and even then that assumes 0 opponent self destructs.

 

No 5 KDR is Elite territory. If we are adapting the Ace term to GSF it should reflect practical numbers.

 

Here's a good check to know if your proposed K/D ratio is too high. In TDM there are 50 available kills, these kills are distributed over all 12 players on that team. As well some kills will be lost to self destructs. Also we can factor assists at a value of 0.5. Taking these numbers if your K/D ratio makes it impossible to have a team of 12 aces then it is too high. It is certainly possible to have a team of 12 aces

 

Again I propose Ace to be equal to KDR > 1 where a player must also have Fleet Captain Achievement to ensure a large enough sample size. This IMO is a standard that will as best as possible to declare a player competent and an asset in any match they play. It also weeds out most team bias, as Ace is a reflection of individual players and solo ques will be recognized appropriately for their skills.

 

I stress once more, Do not confuse Aces and Elites anyone should be able with enough work to achieve Ace status that's how the RL title certainly works.

I don't fully understand the purpose of standardization of terms for this. Now you want to create two categories? What about creating lowly status as well? Man, I was flying against a bunch of Trash Mobs Yesterday and got 28 kills! This has gotten a bit ridiculous ... we will then get back to people posting screenies and self nominating because they met criterion. There was a purpose to the aces thread which was quickly lost because of player arrogance and epeening.

I ment 5 or greater battle record kills not individual match K/D