Top pilots

[Skrimskraw]

What makes some pilots definitively better than others? Is this just about competitive matches? Doesn't every experienced pilot perform amazing feats sometimes, and screw up other times? So far the most consistent mentions have been Lue and Spud, who have quite simply played the most matches out of anyone. What really makes someone a top pilot?

i dont play many pubs, so i dont get around the community as a whole, but i watch a lot of goio competitive due to also organizing it, so that is where i base my top list on. besides i also think competitive play shows skill as opposed to non competitive.

[Crafeksterty]

When I go to pubs, people fly on my ship and hate me because i "fly bad" well you better do what you are told, dont complain and fix the thing i told you to fix and follow orders because clearly you are disabling my ability to fly good.

Ofcourse my ship is useless when you miss shots
Ofcourse my ship cant turn when the side engines havent seen the light of repairs in a while
Ofcourse were gonna die because you tought about abandoning your gun to repair was a better idea
Ofcourse were gonna die because you tought about glueing yourself to a gun when you clearly heard me for you to repair

Dont play pub skrim D:

[ShadedExalt]

When I go to pubs, people fly on my ship and hate me because i "fly bad" well you better do what you are told, dont complain and fix the thing i told you to fix and follow orders because clearly you are disabling my ability to fly good.

Ofcourse my ship is useless when you miss shots
Ofcourse my ship cant turn when the side engines havent seen the light of repairs in a while
Ofcourse were gonna die because you tought about abandoning your gun to repair was a better idea
Ofcourse were gonna die because you tought about glueing yourself to a gun when you clearly heard me for you to repair

Dont play pub skrim D:

Oh man this feel.

;-;

[Spud Nick]

-Lue
-Danial
-Jub Jub
-Thomas
-Pandas
-Fiasco
-Sammy
-Frogger
-Squash
-Smollet


I have a lot of respect for the players listed above. I have learned a lot about the game and how to be a better pilot by watching all of them fly.

[Dutch Vanya]

If no one ever gives new players a chance how do they get any good? How would any of us have gotten where we are now? This game has enough problems as it is without all the hatred for new 'pubbies' and new players.

[Dementio]

-Danial

Who is dat.

If no one ever gives new players a chance how do they get any good? How would any of us have gotten where we are now? This game has enough problems as it is without all the hatred for new 'pubbies' and new players.

When I get a new player on my ship or an not as experienced ally pilot I watch how they perform and try to give them tips. The kind of new player described by crafek is the stubborn kind that does not accept tipps of any kind. Of course, if we had been like that we would never have ended up where we are now.

[Patched Wizard]

What makes some pilots definitively better than others? Is this just about competitive matches? Doesn't every experienced pilot perform amazing feats sometimes, and screw up other times? So far the most consistent mentions have been Lue and Spud, who have quite simply played the most matches out of anyone. What really makes someone a top pilot?

i dont play many pubs, so i dont get around the community as a whole, but i watch a lot of goio competitive due to also organizing it, so that is where i base my top list on. besides i also think competitive play shows skill as opposed to non competitive.

Competitive play could never illuminate the entire gamut of a person's skills. You're simply looking at a single facet of their qualities through one particular lens. You answered the question as best as you could using your collected experience, and I am by no means refuting your opinion. However, to claim that "competitive play shows skill as opposed to non competitive" is a fallacy.

In the competitive scene you have highly experienced pilots that work together and are in turn supported by an extremely experienced crew. Competitive is a fantastic show of strategy, coordination, and tactics. But when I watch competitive, I see an individual's skill level being overshadowed by the collective skills of the team. I'm not saying that a pilot's skills aren't critical, indeed they are, but they are not as predominant when the gunner makes every shot, and when the engineers have their cycles immaculately timed, and when a pilot's ally is perfectly coordinated.

I believe wholeheartedly that incredible skill can be found in the non-competitive scene. In the non-competitive scene a pilot will not always have their ideal crew or ally. They might be facing clans on a pubstomp or other pilots who are vastly more experienced than they are; they could be handicapped by AI, inexperienced team members, and in worse cases trolls. But some pilots in the non-competitive scene can and have pulled phenomenal victories from the jaws of these insurmountable odds. Non-competitive can sometimes lack the intense teamwork of competitive, but I believe that there is a greater chance to see the qualities of an individual pilot when all they have to support them is their own raw ability.

I will not name anyone, but I have observed many of the top competitive pilots, even the ones frequently mentioned on this discussion, crumble when they didn't have the well oiled machine of their competitive team supporting them. I'm not saying that they are undeserving of their recognition, all I am trying to highlight is that there is more to an person's skill than just their performance in the competitive or non-competitive scene. There are just too many facets to the vast structure of "skill" to see the compete picture of an individual's true abilities.

Competitive is a good place to see one facet of a pilot's skills, non-competitive is another good place. Only when we can observe that same person operate under a vast variety of conditions can we ever hope to have a more complete understanding of their talents and how they compare with others.

[Skrimskraw]

competitive is a collective effort, but there are no denying that a good crew with a lesser skilled pilot will lose to a better skilled pilot with a good crew. Sorry to say it but competitive is the only place to rank pilots. I understand the thought of taking distance to ranking people, but I just feel like these players are the current best pilot in competitive. There are a lot of good pilots with patience in pubs and I respect them, but its not for me. In my 2 years with this game I have only been really impressed by competitive play. Sure you can do some crazy shit in pubs, but the general level is so low compared. I can go into a pub game and beat some other 5-0 with a mobula, but I cant do that vs a competitive team, so ofcourse Im going to put more focus on pilots that take part of the competitive scene.
If there are any good pilots in pubs all i can say is sign up for our SCS event and show what you've got

Jubjub entered my top 3 for one specific reason, last week he changed up his playstyle to more mobility and outsmarting other players, with a crew that wasnt SPQR tagged. That to me is impressive to make 3 people work together on that level.

[nanoduckling]

"Sorry to say it but competitive is the only place to rank pilots." - Skrim this is subjective, and Mezhu didn't really define in detail the 'skill' criterion here. Your way of ranking pilots is fine, but there is no 'right' way to do it. And Patched is correct, your method might well be superior for you (which is fine, if you learn all you want to about a pilot from watching competitive then no one can take that from you), but it is not comprehensive. Being able to position a ship so a novice crew can operate on it is a different skill to positioning it to maximize what you get out of an experienced crew, and if I'm co-captaining with a pilot in a pub game that is one of the skills I like to know they have. That is a positive for them by my criterion, I cant learn about it watching competitive matches. There are lots of other pilot skills that you wont see from the best players in a competitive match because they have support they can rely on.

Not sure I agree with Patched that non-competitive is a better place for seeing individual pilot skills though, but it depends on the skill you are looking for. For me I weight the competitive stuff highly, in part because I've only flown with the big names a few times and it is hard to get a feel from that and also in part because my standards are similar to Skrim's, I want to see what people can do when they are working with the best material. I also weight effective co-ordination, strategy and map usage highly. My pick is therefore Frogger.

Of course some of these are blending into captain skills (or even admiral skills) rather than pilot skills, but I think at higher skill levels captain and pilot are hard to separate.

[GeoRmr]

How to rank people you don't know, without any videos of them playing?

[Kestril]

Duckling has a point, I have to fly much differently when I've got an inexperienced crew versus having an experienced crew.

In pubs at least, the ability to work with and guide new players is an important captain skill.

Anyways I've only really flown against captian smollet. He gave me a run for my money in a twin-blenderfish fight.

[macmacnick]

All I know is that I fly like an asshole when I'm in my munker. Ally in the way? Mines. Ally in the way constantly? Loch mines. Trolls with no mods around, Report and then corrective punishment by mining. It teaches them to 'Mine' Their own business. Trolls on your team? Truce with enemies and then take joy in dismembering them with mines and galleon squats.. Worked better in the lobbies, however. I'm a horrible person, alright. When I fly my squid, the engineers either scream at me, jump ship, or sit in the cargo hold rocking back and forth, crying because of how much moonshine's being used. It traumatizes the weaker-hearted engineers. Enemy in pursuit? Ink them. In the face. Ally ramming you? Ink in their faces, with maybe a mine or two thrown in for good measure, not to mention hilarity. Getting a kill by killing your ally/allies? "ITS NOT MY FAULT THAT THEY RAMMED INTO MY UNSUSPICIOUSLY CLOSE AND CONVENIENTLY PLACED, JUST FIRED MINE!!"
Mines in general? Maniacal laughter, followed up by a steady dose of mine puns, of the most deviously horrible variety.

[Crafeksterty]

If a good pilot crumbles in pub because he has random pub crew, that just means his crew wasnt good enough to support it.

Like, i havent seen arguments that are FOR skill in pub games versus skill in competetive. There are more "facets" that go against why youre not that good if youre playing pub, versus facets of why youre not that good if youre playing competetive.

In pubs, you can get all sorts of crap happening. Oh that is understandable because your crews skill isnt that good. But then you should go for something easy... right? Well thats when things get neglectant. Why should i jump on a pyramideon when i wanna play spire? I can give best instructions, best easiest build on the spire yett they wont follow because, well maybe a crew doesnt talk/listen, maybe one crew is just slow. One crew never saw this ship... etc.

There is too many reasons of why Pub doesnt exactly allow skill. And that applies for the other team! (and your ally)
Imagine you have good pub crew, maybe one of them is from your own clan so your pretty sure of your ship well enough to handle pub games very well.
But now apply what i said about pub games to the enemy ships. THEY may have some really bad crew, THEY may end up having an awesome pilot but shit crew. This is the "facets" that pub has. There is just too many to example true skill across all ships in a match all togheter.

Competetive is the exact opposite.
Imagine having perfect players, enemy ship is perfect your crew is perfect. You the pilot is the only human. Now youl see exactly how good or bad you are.

But were all not perfect, were all human. Meaning we can be extremely good but still have some mistakes like chem cycle, miss prediction, miss timing etc.
Ther are just much less faults or "facets" that take away of showing skill.

[Mezhu]

If you think pilots that solely play pubs are comparable in terms of skill with the top competitive ones you're delusional.

I'm cool too

Also, how's that anyhow related to the thread?

[Mean Machine]

I agree with Crafek. It's very rare to see balanced pub games. Thing is, one single player can reduce ship effectiveness down to 50% or 25% or even lower in some cases if they are not doing their job, which means your ship is almost useless, which means you're pretty much a dead weight on your ally. Plus how many people play seriously in pub matches? I mean I usually don't mess around exactly, but I'm not playing seriously either. I am usually quite aggressive and sometimes engage even if i think it's not best idea or just do stupid stuff and not being very careful. And i don't expect my crew to do perform 100% of their ability and i won't yell at them if chem cycle or buff is missing. It's a pug game ffs.

And I don't agree with statements like "If pilot is skilled he can survive and win with bad crew" or whatever. How? How would you dodge or escape if your engineer doesn't repair engines for example? If everyone in match is experienced and you're the only one with one unexperienced engineer, it will show. Yes, you can still will, but you would still be at big disadvantage. Would you play competitive match  with one unexperienced crew member and call it fair game?

In competitive you have your crew, you trust them, everyone knows what to do, what is their job, so it's just about little things that separate good teams from great. That's skill. Everyone knows how to repair there or how to shoot, it's just someone can shoot a bit better than other guy, which simply means he's more skilled.