Greedy Goblin

Thursday, June 18, 2015

How do you evaluate a player without killboard data?

Short Burn Amarr update: on Tuesday CODE and Miniluv had a killing spree in Uedama. This isn't an unprecedented spike, but indeed a big one and can be a final fleet testing before Burn Amarr. This increases the probability that these leaks are valid and Burn Amarr will actually take place at June 19-22, despite earlier cancellation. It seems I successfully pulled an "are you chicken McFly" on them, denying them the opportunity to cancel in silence, forcing them to live up to their image, even when they can't possibly win. However for their defeat to be complete, don't forget to bring troll freighters (max insured, carrying double-wrapped troll item) and repping ships.


Back to the topic! The "ship kills are irrelevant in a ship killing game" people cling to the old doctrine of "killboard doesn't matter". However I have a simple counter-argument: how do you evaluate a player without it? I mean you can evaluate an alliance based on the amount and quality of Sov (or WH systems) they control. But what is the contribution of the individual pilot in it?

It's obvious that pilots differ in value. The total inactive who haven't logged in for months is totally useless. Science and Trade Institution has 610K pilots, yet we haven't seen their armada, as they have none. STI is an NPC corporation, full of inactives, newbies and highsec farming alts. We can also consider BRAVE, the largest player alliance in New Eden that is practically a punching bag for much smaller organizations. This has something to do with the quality of their players.

If we assume there is variance among the quality of pilots and it affects the strength of the alliance, we need to measure it somehow. I know of two measurement methods, please inform me if you know any other in usage:
  1. Paplinks: the pilot clicks a link to verify that he was present in a fleet. This measures activity only, but we know for sure that practice positively correlate with performance. The more someone flies, the better he does it.
  2. De-inflated killboard data: it shows both damage done to enemies and suffered from them.
Please note that inflated killboard data is next to useless, due to being very luck-dependent. Squatting in space during a public titan kill event in a noobship gets you more "kills" than a month of very active and proficient solo PvP. Before I started to publish de-inflated killboard data, the only way was paplinks, used by ... the Imperium. As other alliances did not evaluate their pilots by any methods, we can claim that the Imperium had the best crew among nullsec alliances, which is reflected on their performance. So we encountered another Goon lie: they yelled "fun" and "screw elite PvP", while they behaved the most elite-like kicking corps based on bad performance metrics.

Of course paplinks aren't a great method, but better than nothing. Now I'm offering a better method: de-inflated killboard data. Still, it's not perfect. For example a duo of 5B kill 4B loss PvP-er and a PvE player giving him 4B a month is causing more sustainable damage to their enemies than two 1B kill, 0.1B loss PvP-ers. But it's better than paplinks and much better than nothing. Maybe you can come up with a better measurement. But it should be obvious that pilots in an organization must be measured some way and one based on "just let's have fun and do what we want" won't fare better than STI.


Daily tear: Mirae Asset, a Goon house slave noticed that there are mission agents in 5ZXX-K (Mordus Angels home system!!!), so went there, losing no less than a dozen ships in a few days late Feb, including an 500M typhoon:
[03:16:25] mirae asset > I don't understand
[03:16:35] mirae asset > Why fucking stupid MOA fight against me
[03:16:45] mirae asset > Now time
[03:17:21] Nyx Thumper > Dont like it. You know where the gates are
[03:22:34] mirae asset > So just fuck out of here
[03:22:37] mirae asset > just do mission
[03:47:25] mirae asset > Nyx Thumper
[03:47:27] mirae asset > I told you
[03:47:31] mirae asset > get the fuck out of here
[03:47:37] mirae asset > and just do mission
[03:49:24] Nyx Thumper > This is far more fun

Don't forget to donate to MoA, so they don't have to follow the advice of Mirae and "just do missions".

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://imgur.com/SRG15Gq

Called it.

It boggles the mind that someone who tries to espouse rationality as much as you do that instead of realizing the truth of what actually happened, which is that the Imperium thought they could have a few laughs trolling everyone with reports that Burn Amarr is cancelled, you somehow claim to have "pulled" something on them.

The plan was never to cancel. The number of Catalysts and ganking ships that have been stockpiled alone speaks to how long this has been in the works. People were given the heads up to train alts for this and relocate. The *ONLY* thing your blog did was to serve as the butt of a joke that was taken perfectly.

For someone trying to make it look like your avowed enemies are scrambling to save face, you sure are scrambling to try to save face instead of doing the rational thing and saying, "Well, they got me, but nevertheless I'll continue my plans of opposing them". Instead you come off like a child thinking that if you just say something enough times, it becomes true.

Anonymous said...

There was never a cancellation. The thread was always called "Burn Amarr is cancelled", then the first line of the thread was "Yo, I'm just kidding." At no point was there even a consideration of cancelling it.

Anonymous said...

As you know, there are lots of different measurements for success in this game and they all depend on what your personal or alliance goals are. You could try to define a measure for everyone and impose it but you're really just imposing your values on them and they'll quite rightly reject your measure.

If you fancy a really challenge, measure each alliance or individual by the goals of the alliance. Perhaps Imperium alliances are measured by a weighted combination of Sov, Capital owbership and paplinks. MoA by goon kills and Brave by membership?

It's hard as you'll need to acquire the data and understand their stated goals but you'd rank players and alliances by month on month percentage swings against their own values. It can't just be about the result of a set of fleet fights.

Gevlon said...

@Anonymous: No one can have valid information about the will of Goon leaders than the leaders themselves. We can only see observable facts and interpret them. The observable facts are:
- The Mittani announcing Burn Amarr
- The cancellation tread (on Reddit)
- My post where I dared the Goons to proceed
- Confirmation thread (on EN24)
There was no cancellation or confirmation threads on TMC (which can be considered the horses mouth).

We can interpret these things as
- Burn Amarr was canceled, I called them out and they scramble to save face
- Burn Amarr was never canceled and I fell for a troll (didn't really fall, as I claimed no victory, rather expressed surprise)

Obviously I stick with the first one and you stick with the second. None of them is objectively true, as no one can reliably prove what was on the mind on the Goon leaders when they posted the cancellation thread. So everything we write about this topic is propaganda. I gladly accept that the first paragraph on this blog post is mostly propaganda.

What will objectively matter? The outcome of Burn Amarr, which will be measurable (in destroyed ships). See you there!

Anonymous said...

Maybe you take the OP thead on goonfleet.com into consideration. As the anom above said it thread title from the beginning was "Burn Amarr is canceled" and first sentence was, no its not. That is the official OP thread and shows that it was never intended to be cacneled.
Why you believe public troll forums? As you should already know that goons are perfect in trolling forums or social media.

It is just funny how you fall for that troll.
and ofcourse it is canceled!!! spread it, so more freighters will come.

Anonymous said...

"No one can have valid information about the will of Goon leaders than the leaders themselves"
Yes, we can. The thread was always there on goonfleet forums, the title was always "it's cancelled" and the first line was always "Yo, I'm just kidding". It always had a huge list of how, when and where. the post on reddit was a troll. The announcement from globby was a paragraph from the thread followed by a paragraph he presumably made up. Nothing was ever cancelled.

So yes, you fell for a troll. The thing is you didn't even fall for it that badly, most people would have just shrugged it off and continued. You however want to now put forward this idea that you somehow baited them into uncancelling, something which makes you look incredibly dumb.

Anonymous said...

"So yes, you fell for a troll. The thing is you didn't even fall for it that badly, most people would have just shrugged it off and continued. You however want to now put forward this idea that you somehow baited them into uncancelling, something which makes you look incredibly dumb."

When I see the butthurt reactions to this post, I would say its the goons who are being trolled though. "Why can't he acknowledge our troll :'''("

Ryanis said...

Paplink can't measure efficiency as most allaicne using it only ask to align and push F1 when requested... you could do it all your life and still be useless.

A decent FC flying in small fleet should be able to judge fleetmates skill quite easilly (though it may be subjective).

Unknown said...

Awww...
Killboard data ONLY reflects pvp data, which is next to useless no matter what as there is now way of taking into account of the situation fights occured.
As I said before, pvp is but a tiny fraction of what EVE has to offer and it is the most trolliest one.
Bored of mining? Create an Alt, train him for 2-3 weeks for catalyst, scram and blasters, go blow up some corpmates that just don't give a fuck about tanking...

spend a while day at Jita 4-4 undock waiting for blinkies or autopiloted shuttles, t1 haulers? Hop into a Tornado, blast them away, op success...
As long as ganking is a valid form of pvpm no killboard data will ever be an able tool to evaluate achievements in EVE...
Oh... Maybe the newly introduced CCP achievement system would work... oh wait...

EVE is a sandbox game. Every single player has to gefine his own, personal, individual objectives on what he wants do to. There simply is no objective tool to measure achievements in EVE...
Example:
A person is new to EVE, tries out the game and is intrigued by its vast market opportunities. The player programs excel spreadsheets, filling in hundreds of item prices and stuff... This player stays in a station, NEVER undocks, but his wallet grows significantly larger than any eeleete peeweepee pilot'S ee-peen. Killboard activty? zero! But this pilot enjoys (for unknown reasons ^^) logging in and becoming a trade tycoon...

Example: a new player learns about industry, he wants to built stuff... trains industry, research and mass production skills... patiently, he makes some money or converts GTC... and he buys a nice collection of bpo... 2-3 years later, he starts producing big time.... He was lucky, as his POS or his Haulgu never got blown up...
killboard activity? Zero!!!

No offence meant, but in such a complex game as EVE, traing to measure performance from killboard analysis is just arbitrary. Why not take the time to run a solo icursion site? Or the time used to doe the SoE epic arc? Or any other random activity...

And by the way, it is really cheap and does not help your credibility amongst "non-goon" fans to claim that "Burn Amarr" will now happen just because you forced Mittens to do your bidding...

I am rather convinced that, as some obvious goon members pointed out that this "Burn amarr is cancelled" was just a funny way to get goonfleet forum readers' attention. It was stated that it was just a joke. The way you jumped on it might just have been some sugar on top for goon leadership, a perfect opportunity to further troll you and other people who claim that goons are going to break soon...

I can alos understand perfectly well, why you would spin it the way you did. It is flattering to think that mittens would revers his decisions because he might be afraid of what readers of your blog think... And I wouldn't back out of your position had I an ego of similar size...

So, if you really belived that Or if you just try to give goons back some of their troll medicine... It does not matter.
there are enough readers out there that will make up their own minds...



Anonymous said...

You cant measure activity only be de-whored killboard. What about logi, scouts and everything? They get kicked.

Pap-link is a good stat. you need several facts putting together to measure something. not one stat alone.

Anonymous said...

@Gevlon (First Anom Poster back) - Your logic regarding "observable facts" is flawed, and here is why.

The ONLY source of cancellation provided was the Reddit thread, as admitted by yourself. However, this was not an "official" post by any known Imperium leadership accounts, it was not announced on TMC (your own "horse's mouth), and by your own admission in previous comments Reddit is NOT a viable source of information or propoganda. The only proof provided in these threads was the Thread screencaps from Goonfleet, which many have pointed out had "Burn Amarr Is Cancelled" only for the first line to read "yo, I'm just kidding".

You are claiming somehow that as proof of BA being cancelled, the thread title is accurate, but the numerous screencaps that have popped up since (and even commented on your blog) were somehow faked in order to provide an accurate thread title but an inaccurate body.

In short, if I had posted a Reddit thread IMMEDIATELY after the original went up saying "Burn Amarr Isn't Cancelled", that would have satisfied your qualifications for a "Fact" in your above argument. It wouldn't matter if it came from the CFC leadership or not, because at no point did they EVER announce that it was cancelled.

Your entire construction is irrational. Either all of these things are accurate (in which case, Burn Amarr was never cancelled) or none of them are (in which case, it isn't going to happen.) Come this weekend, only one of those two things were true.

But as you say, it will be fun come this weekend to watch Amarr burn, and to what your attempts at stopping it!

Gevlon said...

Actually, there was no news on TMC that there is a Burn Amarr. Random people (who have no access to Goon leadership channels) could only see the ping, the goonfleet.com post (which say canceled) and the reddit thread.

So everything we could do is pure speculation, lies and propaganda. I've never claimed to have inside info and I always referenced my sources. There wasn't anything more I could do.

Besides I used the good practice of "hope for the best, prepare for the worst".

Anonymous said...

@Gevlon - Except the goonfleet.com post itself says that it isn't cancelled. The title says it is, the body says it isn't and the title is just a joke.

You can't claim that the title is accurate but the body is somehow lies and propaganda. As argued, either both title and body are accurate, which means Burn Amarr was never cancelled, or neither is, which means it isn't happening.

Unless you cherry-pick what you decide is and isn't accurate as a source (title but not body, ping but not what it linked to), there is no third option of "was cancelled but I pulled a 'Are you chicken McFly' on them". Full stop.

Gevlon said...

I don't accept goonfleet.com a reliable source, exactly because anyone can read it (not like it's hard to get an alt into Karmafleet).

So the completely true statement is "I cannot have reliable info about Goon plans before they happen". So I went with whatever piece of information I had, and also tried to do some propaganda. Which clearly worked as you are still arguing here, trying to convince me to admit that I was trolled instead of I pulled an "are you chicken McFly". The reason you are still here is that you afraid that many people accept my narrative (the chicken McFly) instead of yours. If you wouldn't be, you'd just ignore me.

Objectively neither narratives are true. Objectively we still don't know if there will be a Burn Amarr tomorrow. But we can have our opinions and can make propaganda.

Basil said...

How much does a max insured troll freighter (no fittings) cost, including insurance premiums and payout? How much m3 does it hold?

Gevlon said...

@Basil: I have a Charon in my hangar so I could check
Hull in Jita: 1.4B
Max insurance cost: 0.45B
Insurance payout: 1.5B
So if you lose one, you lose 0.35B. That's a fair price to keep 100+ enemies up for about half an hour (TiDi), because 50 man-hours are 2.5B even with 50M/hour ratting income.

With 3x reinforced bulkhead II, it has about 300K EHP and 400M m3 cargo space. But cargo space doesn't matter as you'll only carry a few double-wrapped troll items.

Of course Charon is the weakest freighter, you have better numbers with an Obelisk.

Basil said...

Are there other options? Charons cost 350m, what about a DST?

Gevlon said...

DSTs are cheaper but they don't gank them, exactly for that reason.

Warden of the North said...

Um, how does 'de-inflated killboard data' deal with scouts, link alts and logistics pilots?

Neither of them are on the killboard. If a logistics ship pilot would want to have their presence noted under killmail system, they'd either fit a single gun or carry combat drones. This resulted in diminished rep capacity of their ship.

"de-inflation" would make it even worse - because they'd need to deal more than 0% damage (lest they'd not be counted), it'd massively favor either gimping fits or flying DPS only. The paplink system is probably the most fair of them all.

Anonymous said...

"That's a fair price to keep 100+ enemies up for about half an hour (TiDi)"

No one waits out their timers in TiDi. Concord blaps you, you warp to an adjacent system, wait out timer in no tidi, then jump back in or self destruct to wake back up in the staging station.

Anonymous said...

"No one waits out their timers in TiDi. Concord blaps you, you warp to an adjacent system, wait out timer in no tidi, then jump back in or self destruct to wake back up in the staging station."
This.

Also any ganker worth his salt has trained up alts. I have 4 characters ready for ganking in Amarr. At least one will always be out of his timers.