Ball and Ratio

[lablecd6]

Does playing good ball mean having a bad ratio?

Discuss.

[Scythrop]

Depends on the role you play on the ball team.

Good whale defenders often have ratios like 35-5 at the end of a game.

Good loopy-attackers often have ratios like 10-28 (but with goals scored).

[tyr]

Originally Posted by lablecd6

Does playing good ball mean having a bad ratio?

Discuss.

No reason for it at all.
When you can play well you kill a lot of people, don't die a lot and know where to be at the right time to receive a good pass/kill the right player to get the ball and score.

[Harmonica]

In competitive Ball games, a bad ratio is neither predestined nor good -- but a high ratio is a sign of a poor team player.

In Ball, all the roles that help the team advance -- passing, receiving, carrying/holding, clearing, shielding, interference/disruption, etc -- attract the enemy’s guns, often resulting in a quick 1-v-many death. A player who achieves a high ratio is generally not putting themselves into such "certain death" roles, even when it would help the team.

Competitive Ball requires a balance of combat, ball handling, and ball-zone management skills. Players who consistently achieve high ratios are often rather poor/unpracticed at the ball- and teamwork-oriented skills, however, and as a result they usually end up performing very poorly in smaller, competitive Ball matches.

The ideal is to have lots and lots of kills and to use your lives/deaths as a bargaining chip, such that each death either benefits your team or hurts theirs. {ball} has no interest in defenders who go 35-5 or attackers who go 10-28. ;-)

--
None of that happens when things devolve into "chase the ball and throw it a lot," though (see: 100% of pub games and ~75% of Ladder games). In those games the raw killing of a high ratio player usually balances out its the team-hurting aspects, with little net effect on the game.

[Kuja900]

A high ratio is never a de facto sign of a poor team player, a possible sign sure but not an absolute.

[gren00b]

This same idea applies to tbd as well. Last night I was playing a game and some level 15 punk was calling me a noob because I didn't even have a 1:1 ratio (I think I was at like 7 kills, 10 deaths or something)--nevermind I had hit his base three times.

If you're playing mostly 10v10 (or Satan's own 20v20) then don't try to be a "good" ball player because those games are 2v2 ball and 8v8 (or 18v18) tdm. If you're looking to play competitive then do what's best for your team--this will often lead to you dying because you chose to protect your teammate or sacrificed yourself to clear the ball away from your goal (though the 35-5 whale goalies shouldn't be instantly written off as their service is often incredibly important), but with that said don't think that dying a lot makes you a good player either.

Basically, kill people when you can but helping your team score goals and winning the game is what will make you a good ball player.

[carstairs]

A lot of you have probably seen me on the ladder, and I typically get a handful more kills than deaths and 1-2 goals (I'm a DF Loopy). Now, KDR is unimportant to me. But the actual kills and assists I use it as an indicator of if I'm helping my team or not (ratio means nothing to me; it's ball, I'm going to respawn in a second anyway). If I see that I'm going 2-11-10 in the middle of a match and I'm not helping with the handling, I'll focus on attacking a bit more. At a personal level, I find that I score more and kill more when I'm in the thick of it (hence, my KDRs are often close to 1).

KDR should be taken on an individual basis. If someone is KDR-whoring and dumping the ball to save their bars, that's bad. But if a whale goalie is going 30-5 and playing good D, I have no issues with him.

Pet peeve note: KDR is kills/deaths. It cannot be negative. Kill-death spread can be. When you say you're going negative, that's kill-death spread. If you're going 2:1, that's KDR.

[nesnl]

In my opinion a player in ball should be focusing on killing planes, not dying, and scoring goals and I think that their importance is in that order. This more often than not means you should have a KD Ratio over 1.0. Often times when players have less than a 1.0 KD Ratio they say things like "I am a goal scorer." In my opinion there are no "pure" goal scorers. Anyone who is playing Miranda and going 5-30 in a game means that they are hurting their team, even if that player scores 4 goals.

The game at it's heart is about killing planes. People have said in the past that they didn't want ball mode to be based around the ability to kill other planes, but I always thought that was kind of a funny attitude to have considering that is the entire basis of the game. Kill more planes than the other team and you will always have a numbers advantage, which will result in more goals.

I think that most players are too ball centric and use their afterburner waaaay too much. However, as much as I try to help people learn, it just seems like people are stuck in their ways.

[Deathblade]

The further your ratio varies from a 1:1 k/d, the more of a burden you are (with of course a bit of leeway where it is negligible).

I can't stand the people who play ball and go 3-5-21 on the losing team. What the hell are they doing?

I also can't stand the ratio whore bombers that just camp their goal and run and hide whenever more than 1 or 2 planes come their way.

Playing good ball gets you killed. Not killing in return is just being terrible.

edit: regards my first sentence, higher than a 1 k/d isn't a guarantee that you are bad (you could be good, it is dependent on other factors, though playing good ball will get you killed)...but a low k/d is always bad.

[elxir]

When I play loopy (srs loopy, not run around and shoot things for lulz loopy) I average out to just over a 1:1 ratio.

Bomber...normally around a 1.5:1

[tgleaf]

I agree with carstairs and maimer. We -- {ball} -- used to get really excited when we'd see someone who could score three goals per game in a public ball server. Those days are long gone, since we've gotten more competitive. If you aren't killing the opposing team often enough, and are dying, you're hurting your team.

In general, a strong ball player will have at least a 1:1 ratio. With the exception of kesse and maybe D4rt, there are few if any scorers who don't hurt their team with <1 ratios.

In less competitive settings, a "goal scorer" can go 5-20 with two goals and not be much of a burden on their team. That same player in a ladder match or tournament game might not score at all, and still go 5-20. And as Maimer said, even if she/he still scores two goals, that ratio is hurting the team overall.

The bottom line is that organized teams (i.e. clans) will understand the role each member plays, and will make decisions about whether a low-ratio high-scoring player can be offset by other players' ratios.

[gemigemi]

I think that the discussion above should make clear that both play styles have their places. A kill-oriented team might do well by clearing the resistance and scoring with numbers, while some bad-ass goal scorers can really help the team even with low kill counts or kd-ratios. Usually a ratio near 1 is a good minimum, but there are cases where this doesn't matter as much.

Also note that everyone can't have a ratio over 1. If someone has a ratio over 1 then someone must be below, so >1 can't be the only meter of being good or bad. In the end what counts is that your team has 6 goals and that can be achieved with both ways and/or a mixture of them. Killing is just a tool to get the goals, but it is indeed an efficient one and should always be considered.

[Deathblade]

Originally Posted by gemigemi

Killing is just a tool to get the goals, but it is indeed an efficient one and should always be considered.

If nobody on your team shoots, the other team scores every time they touch the ball.

Killing is more than "a tool to get a goal".

[gemigemi]

Originally Posted by Deathblade

If nobody on your team shoots, the other team scores every time they touch the ball.

Killing is more than "a tool to get a goal".

Picking out that single line in your quote and responding to that was the best way to continue a real discussion on the issue, don't you agree?

Yes, if you never kill anyone with your entire team you are certainly in trouble. If you read my entire post you should have noticed that I agree with killing being important. I'm however saying that there are multiple ways of winning and "super killing" is not the only real way to win. You can have ratios <1 on everyone in the team and still win. And yes, also in high level games and not just pub games.

Effectively what that line meant is: "In the end the win is determined by who has 6 goals. It doesn't matter if you have near zero kills on the entire team if you have those 6 goals." It wasn't meant to state that killing is useless or stupid.

[drunkguava]

Originally Posted by gemigemi

I'm however saying that there are multiple ways of winning and "super killing" is not the only real way to win. You can have ratios <1 on everyone in the team and still win. And yes, also in high level games and not just pub games.

Effectively what that line meant is: "In the end the win is determined by who has 6 goals. It doesn't matter if you have near zero kills on the entire team if you have those 6 goals." It wasn't meant to state that killing is useless or stupid.

I don't agree with you gemi. You'll be hard-pressed to find a team that can win with <1 ratios across the board. Technically it is the goals that matter in the end, but you cannot get those goals if you arent killing. Sure, if you the teams are close in KDR, the better passing team, or the better shooting team will win. but you need to at least keep it close if you want to win.
yes it's good to fly well and shoot the ball well, but a "superkilling" team wins 90% of the time imo. There's a reason that ACE, L*, || went 1,2,3 in the ball tourney with {ball} only placing 4th, and the rest of the ball-only teams getting knocked out early. They kill better than we do (maybe there was more to it than that, but that was the major factor). Without being able to keep the kdrs close, passing etc isn't that useful.

[D4rt]

Originally Posted by tgleaf

In general, a strong ball player will have at least a 1:1 ratio. With the exception of kesse and maybe D4rt

Thanks a bunch -.-

I think one thing to consider is the damage output that you are able to produce. If you have a lot of assists but not so many kills, one can still assume that you have been useful to the team. Ofcourse a kill is often much more valuable than making the enemy plane smoke, but a guy with good damage output isn't a burden in my opinion.

[gemigemi]

Originally Posted by drunkguava

I don't agree with you gemi. You'll be hard-pressed to find a team that can win with <1 ratios across the board. Technically it is the goals that matter in the end, but you cannot get those goals if you arent killing. Sure, if you the teams are close in KDR, the better passing team, or the better shooting team will win. but you need to at least keep it close if you want to win.
yes it's good to fly well and shoot the ball well, but a "superkilling" team wins 90% of the time imo. There's a reason that ACE, L*, || went 1,2,3 in the ball tourney with {ball} only placing 4th, and the rest of the ball-only teams getting knocked out early. They kill better than we do (maybe there was more to it than that, but that was the major factor). Without being able to keep the kdrs close, passing etc isn't that useful.

You say that you don't agree with me, but in the end you say just the same things as I do with different wordings. We agree that killing is important, but it doesn't always make the day if the kill ratios aren't 100 to 0. The only reason I chimed in was that people were saying that a goal scorer is worthless if he has no kills, while that really isn't totally true. If you can score then your team is killing enough, with or without you.

Also what D4rt said, lots of assists makes up for the kills of a specific player. Planes like acid loopy tend to get lots of assists.

[breakfastsausages]

It doesn't matter how good at ball handling every plane will encounter situations where it is more efficient or more effective to spend energy on guns rather than movement. Someone who isn't hunting for those opportunities and constantly evaluating the benefits of killing vs sprinting is just not playing to full potential.

[beast...]

depends if your playin def or playin miranada scorer or loopy etc

and u have to kill to clear out the other teams chances to score

[drunkguava]

Originally Posted by gemigemi

You say that you don't agree with me, but in the end you say just the same things as I do with different wordings. We agree that killing is important, but it doesn't always make the day if the kill ratios aren't 100 to 0. The only reason I chimed in was that people were saying that a goal scorer is worthless if he has no kills, while that really isn't totally true. If you can score then your team is killing enough, with or without you.

Also what D4rt said, lots of assists makes up for the kills of a specific player. Planes like acid loopy tend to get lots of assists.

Oh i guess i misunderstood you then, gemi.
and yeah assists can be huge, esp with acid loopys e.g. tgleaf. He makes my life as a DF loopy much easier by making kills easier to come by. I think the only planes with low ratios that i'd like on my team would be an acid loopy who racks up assists, or a good TA randa who knows how to be in the right place at the right time to score goals and assists. I do think there is a place on a team for a TA who doesn't get too many kills. Of course it'd be better if they could kill too, but that I understand that can be hard when playing aggressive offense.