Making Fair and Balanced Teams in FPS

I already posted my thoughts on KDR vs Kill Spread in FPS. Now I will show why Kill Spread over KDR is more important in fair team making.

To start off, this actually came up in a round of Halo: Reach over system link recently. It was 3v3, and my team got smoked pretty badly. So the other team offered to give us their worst guy (Spread of -3), saying "4v2, that'll make it fair." In real life, yeah, I'd take the extra guy even if he sucked. However, in a race to a score, it's different. Giving us the guy with a -3 spread  actually would hurt our team, as I am sure you would agree if you've read my thoughts on KDR in FPS.

Now, how do we determine a fair match? Well, let's again take a look at KDR first. I have in front of me a set of people's stats that we'll look at. We'll use these stats this whole post, so I am going to let you see them up front. I am making up their names as well, to protect the horrible players.

Person                  Avg Kills           Avg Deaths                KDR                      Avg Spread
Bob                             4                       2                            2.0                               +2
John                            4                        1                            4.0                               +3
Joe                              3                        5                            .6                                 -2
Tim                             5                        5                              1.0                               0
Kevin                          5                         2                           2.5                               +3
Bill                              6                        3                             2.0                               +3

If you were to use the KDR of these guys, and matched up the top 3 and bottom 3, it would appear as if the top 3 would win (avg KDR 2.2 vs avg KDR 1.83) pretty easily. If the players each got their average kills however, the bottom team would win by 5. And if they all got their average spread, then the bottom team would win by 3.

NOTE-At this point it must be stated that these are AVERAGE scores. It is impossible to get these scores using these teams in one match. The KDR and Kill Spread over one match will always come out even when all players are taken into account, unless there's been suicides/betrayals.

The good thing about using average spread, is that if that is my average spread, you have a concrete number upon which you can base my skill. If I have an average spread of +4, you know I am going to get 4 more kills than deaths. It doesn't  matter if I die 10 times, I'll kill 14. If I die 5, I'll kill 9. You know how many net points I am going to get the team. With KDR, if I have a KDR of 2.0, that could be 2/1, 10/5, 20/10. You don't know how many net points I am going to get. You do know that I am going to help the team, just not how much.

So, using the average kill spread method, you can balance out teams for more fun gameplay; for if you had Kevin, Bill, and Joe on a team agains the others, (avg spread of 1.33 v 1.66)and they all got their usual Kills/Deaths, then the score would be (Counting kills as points, and deaths as points for the enemy) 22 to 23.

This will be clear to some, and unclear to others. This is about as good as I can explain it without showing you in person.

   - Sapper Woody

KDR in FPS's

   I was talking to some buddies about Call of Duty: Black Ops the other day. One common question that kept coming up was, "What is your KDR?" For those of you who don't know, KDR is short for Kill Death Ratio, or the amount of kills you get per each of your own deaths. For example, if you get 15 kills, and die 5 times in a match, your KDR for that match was 3.0, as 15 divided by 5 equals 3.
   This stat has kind of become the "end all" stat. This stat has become the sole stat in showing how good of a player you are at a certain game. (At least in deathmatch modes. In objective based modes it's not as important.) However, I have come to find out differently.
   Now, the KDR is an important stat. If you have a positive (greater than 1.0) KDR, then you are helping out the team. Negative KDR means that you actually hurt the team. I would much rather have a guy with a 2.0 KDR on my team than a guy with a .95, for instance.
   Here is where it gets hairy. When looking solely at the KDR stat, it would appear that a person with a 3.0 KDR is 2 times as good a player as the person with a 1.5. But there are so many variables to look at. It's possible that the person with a 3.0 KDR killed 3 people, and died 1 time, earning the team 3points, but losing it 1point for a net gain of 2 points. And the 1.5 KDR person could have 10 kills and 4 deaths, earning the team 10points, and losing 4points for a net gain of 6points. So, who is the better player?
   This is why I like HALO's score keeping better than COD's. In HALO, it shows you your K/D spread, instead of ratio.
   On a side note, I hate when I go my usual 1.25 KDR (normally about 10/8) in COD, and then there is someone who does something like 20/20 and then he calls me bad, because he has a higher score, when in reality he didn't help the team out at all in net gains. But that is a whole different rant for a different time.
   Back to KDR. My idea is to no longer ask people, "What is your KDR?", but rather ask them, "What is your Kill Spread?" This will give a much better picture of how much they will help out your team in each game. I have a lot more anecdotal evidence and number crunching, but I think I've made my point.

   - Sapper Woody

My Hunter Solo'd Molten Core

So, I decided that my level 85 hunter should solo as much content as possible. Well, anyone can solo the level 15-60 5man dungeons, so I skipped those. I decided to start at Molten Core, the first level 60 40man raid.

I am Beastmaster specced, and used two different pets to tank for me. I used a Gorilla for most bosses, but used a Spirit Beast on a couple, so that it could heal me.

I went in and started the clock. Killed some trash, and made it to Gehennas without any problem. I sent my Gorilla in and downed him with minimal damage to myself. I had about 75k health left at the end of the fight.

Next came Garr, with all his adds. This was simple. I sent in my Gorilla, used Bestial Wrath, Misdirected to my pet, then Multishotted as much as possible. I didn't get a scratch.

After Garr, I tried Barron Geddon. And died. So I tried again. And died. And again. And died. So I went to Lucifron. I used my cat, killed his adds, no problem.

After that, I went to Magmadar. Should've cleared the room first. While I was fighting him, I got feared into two packs of core hounds, who wouldn't die unless they all died together. This fight took forever, and about seven feign deaths. After I killed him, I looted and skinned him. Then remembered to take a picture. So here is a picture of the empty space he used to occupy.

After Magmadar, I went back to Baron Geddon. This time, I used my gorilla and cleared almost the whole room where the boss patrolled. Then I switched to my cat, pulled the boss with a serpent sting, and then got out of the area entirely. I couldn't hit the boss anymore, but he couldn't hit me either. So my cat killed him for me.

After Baron Geddon, Shazzrah was no problem. I simply stayed out of her AoE range and shot her.

Then came Sulfuron harbinger. This guy wasn't too hard, but he took forever. I didn't start off by focusing the healers, so they kept healing him. Also, mid-fight I pulled two core hounds. I also pulled three firelords, who split into about 30 little fire elementals when they died. The fight took a while, but I eventually won out.

I went to Golemagg the Incinerator. He was easy, just had to focus him and forget about his adds. They can't die if he's alive.



Once he was dead, Majordomo appeared. he wasn't too hard. You don't actually kill him, you kill the adds around him and he surrenders. There are four healers, and four casters. As long as I focused on the healers first, I was good. Since you don't actually kill him, here is a pic of him surrendering.

So we get to Ragnaros. I took a picture of him before and after. He was actually pretty easy. At this level, it was a simple "tank and spank" method.

All in all, it took me 1hr 25mins, and would have taken me less if I hadn't died three times. I left with 400 gold, and some fun items, like some pieces of my tier 1 set. Also got some blues to sell on the auction house. My plan is to do this every so often, maybe farm for Thunderfury to get my guild the achievement.

   - Sapper Woody















If You're Reading This

This is a video that I put together of military funeral pictures and me singing "If You're Reading This" by Tim McGraw. I hope you like it, and the video should speak for itself.

   - Sapper Woody

Breaking Games: World of Warcraft "Mobile Auction House"

Even though this isn't strictly "breaking" the game, this follows my same lines of thinking of using something already in the game to your advantage.

In World of Warcraft, there is a wonderful thing called the Auction House, or AH. Just like a real AH, you list items on there for sale, and other real players buy them with in game currency, and the AH takes a cut of what is made.

Well, this is all well and good, except the AHs are only located in major cities. This presents a hassle for players who are questing far away from the major hubs.

Fortunately, a simple solution exists that players can exploit. It's called a "Banking Toon", or simply "Bank". All you have to do is to make a level one character and have them walk to the nearest major city. Then, any time your main character gets an item he wants to sell on the AH, he simply mails this item to his bank. The bank then lists the item, and gets the profit. This has effectively turned any mailbox into a "Mobile Auction House".

   - Sapper Woody

WoW Parody #2

I wrote another WoW parody. This time it's to the tune of Hoobastank's "The Reason". I entitled the song "The Reason (is Loot)".

Basically, as a background to this, for people who don't know. In patch 4.1, Blizzard introduced the ability to trade honor points gained from Player Versus Player (PvP) into justice points, normally reserved for Player Versus Environment (PvE) players. This allowed casual gamers to join BattleGrounds (BGs) and play PvP games, and then get the loot that they couldn't before.

While some hardcore players are upset about this, it really (In my opinion) doesn't change much from the welfare loot system they've had in place ever since WotLK.

Enjoy the video, and leave some comments!

   - Sapper Woody

09June11 Update: Selection and Deployment

Well, for those of you who don't know, I just got back from SFAS, or "Special Forces Assessment and Selection". I didn't do so well. I didn't get selected this time. But, I plan on trying again in a year or so.

On my way out of Ft Bragg, I had to stay in a hotel off of post, due to no vacancies in the hotel on post. Because of jet lag (and possible Mountain Dew overdose!), I couldn't sleep well that night. So I took a walk. When I came back to my room, a guy came around a corner with a steak knife in one hand, and demanded I give him my wallet. I started to comply, but for some reason or another, the guy decided to try and cut me anyway. he was partially successful, and now I have a nice cut on my face that makes me look like Seifer from Final Fantasy 8. But cutting me made me mad. He didn't walk away with my wallet that night. But he did walk away with a broken nose, a dislocated elbow, and possibly a fractured rib.

I got home to talk to my unit, and as it turns out I will be deploying to Afghanistan shortly. Probably before the fall. Obviously, I can't put dates on here, due to OpSec (Operational Security). Hopefully, I will be able to continue posting threads from Afghanistan. My plan is to start a new segment about the deployment, and life in Afghanistan.

In other news, I am working on my second World of Warcraft Parody. It's recorded, and I am just waiting on some sound bits from a couple friends before I put a quick video and post it to YouTube. I found out that YouTube counts all the views from an embedded video, so I will also be embedding the video here in my blog.

   - Sapper Woody