Why K:D, Deaths, streaks and other stats are bad, and how PS2 can evolve the genre

[Kezz]

Actually, the combination of the two is required; if your K/D is > 1 in 1v1 fights you're a better grunt than someone that has a K/D significantly less than 1.
While that's true, it's emphatically not what a K:D in PS2 will show, since there is no conceivable way to determine whether any given kill or death is in a "1v1 fight". The metric is representing something entirely different to what the people who haven't played PS will be expecting, and there is a high chance they will interpret it incorrectly in that light. This will lead to:

Players doing things that don't (and declining to do things that do) help secure the win-condition, in order to preserve/boost their K/D ratio.
Players quitting because they get killed all the time and their ratio doesn't get over unity, because even if they're a good average and 1v1 would be at unity or higher, the other sources of death simply drown out their "combat" victories.

Of course, a better KD is some measure of how good a fighter you are, but a dedicated GAL pilot (say) is gonna have a crappy K/D, and people new to the concept of the game aren't going to be able to recognise that judging people by their K/D is a suboptimal way of vetting applications for your squad.

And it remains that the metrics that are prominent will shape people's perceptions of what they're "meant" to be doing, so should be carefully selected to promote the USP of the game.




A squad of K/D 1+ is gonna be able to better take and hold points and repel forces of greater size. 1v1 K/D marks the difference between elites and zerglings.[/QUOTE]

[Mepper]

I totally agree with you, Malorn. Being usefull should be rewarded, not having a good k/d.

[Mythoclast]

An opinion is something that varies based on a personal views. Example: Apple tastes good, flower smells bad, game is unfun. A fact is truth originating from experience, observation and evidence. "Death stats discourage teamplay" is a fact.



First I'd like to say I can see you are fairly intelligent. This was a well though out post and is a good analysis. I'm not being sarcastic. However, in the absence of actual statistics and such we are left to use our experience and our own judgment which we clearly are using differently and see different outcomes. Our experience, observation, and gathered evidence lead us to different opinions, not different facts, as that is impossible.


what could deaths do? OVERALL, they could have no effect, they could promote teamplay, or they could discourage teamplay. These are the three things that could happen. These are not opinions that vary from one person to another, like whether an apple tastes good or a flower smells funny. These are actual consequences resulting in a persistent death display. An individual may be effected differently, but the overall change can only be one of these.



This is all true. It CAN only be one of these over all. Maybe a bit of variance player to player but yes, over all there can only be one.


So looking at the first option, it could have no effect on every single person. Meaning no change. We know from this thread alone that the overall effect will not be neutral.


This is an opinion. Prove it can't be neutral without using your subjective experience in this thread but by using statistics or other hard facts.



And finally, how does the death count discourage teamplay? Well the closer you get to an objective, the more likely you are to die. I've already posted my 4.8 k/d battlefield profile with minimal objective points. Objectives are meatgrinders with highly concentrated fighting often requiring a high risk of death to attempt to achieve the victory conditions or deny them from the opposing team.

1. Logically, someone avoiding deaths would avoid these situations. Also, all support roles suddenly become less attractive as well. Only repairing or healing, driver seats with no guns, transport vehicles, etc. Not much of a KDR when your role never get kills.

2. These are typically very team oriented tasks and anyone wanting a higher KDR would be wise to avoid them. In addition to this, KDR also promotes more SOLO activities that don't involve teamplay and might not help much at all.

3. Vehicle pad camping, spawn camping, sniping. In BF specifically, most mortar and MAV abuse was a direct result of people trying to pad their stats. I can go on and on with more... Spawning on a squad is a very high risk of death often with little pay off. Switching to a class that your team needs more but you're less effective with is discouraged. Playing AA or AV if your weapons are more likely to only be a deterrent rather than something that will actually get a kill.

4. Here's a very important one. If you're losing, go somewhere else. Fighting losing battles gets you killed. Fighting outnumbered gets you killed. When your team needs you the most you have the least incentive to be there. Once again, persistent death stats actively discourage teamplay. It is not an opinion. It is a fact based on observation and logic. If you disagree with this then please give some reasoning behind it, because I've heard none so far.



Indent 1:

1. Having KDR makes people only care about KDR. This is not true. It may increase the likelihood of useless self preservation but this effect is debatable and mainly where we disagree. The debatableness of this point is what makes this an opinion.

2. People care about a death stat also only care about KDR. This isn't true either. A medic may care about heals per death or an infiltrator may care about hacks per death or maybe a transport pilot would care about deaths in his vehicle per minute of piloting a vehicle.


Indent 2:

1. Caring about KDR does not necessarily mean you will value getting kills over getting objectives. Again, this effect is debatable as is KDR's causing of people to go lone wolf.

Indent 3:

1. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. Spawn camping sucks. First, blowing up vehicles is more satisfying to a lot of people than blowing up doodz. This stat should be tracked too. And again, you are only using your opinions and experience to determine what showing KDR would do, as am I. We don't have any statistics or hard evidence.


Indent 4:

1. Dying and spending time dead is the discourager to fighting losing battles, not a mounting death score in the stat screen.

Thanks for giving me something to do. And yes, I know we will never convince each other.

...UNLESS YOU CONDUCT AN EXPERIMENT. Gogogo! For the good of the nation!

[Accuser]

1. Having KDR makes people only care about KDR. This is not true. It may increase the likelihood of useless self preservation but this effect is debatable and mainly where we disagree. The debatableness of this point is what makes this an opinion.
Plenty of people won't care about KDR. But many people will only care about KDR because that's what they've been trained to do. If even just one person prioritizes KDR over the success of their empire, then teamplay has been negatively effected.

2. People care about a death stat also only care about KDR. This isn't true either. A medic may care about heals per death or an infiltrator may care about hacks per death or maybe a transport pilot would care about deaths in his vehicle per minute of piloting a vehicle.
It's also irrelevant because there are no other x per death ratios displayed as stats. Only Kills Per Death is given special treatment. Not Revives Per Death, not Hacks Per Death, and not anything else per death. Only Kills Per Death is tracked specially and that indicates to players that it is special.

[FireWater]

This is true. It's just human nature (operand conditioning in action). You're right that they are playing into a counter productive part of our nature by displaying narcissistic stats with such emphasis.

Narcissism is a pretty rough Personality Disorder, I'm not sure how displaying KDR is reflective of that honestly. It just shows how many kills deaths and assists a player gets. Combined with other stats it gives a total picture of what a player is capable of.

It's the problem with most of these computer games these days, where every player is supposed to be "the great hero" of the universe. Makes me want to puke.

Well not every player, but to address your point a lot of gamers play games to escape for a little while, to be something more than they are regularly. Like reading a book to feel like you are the main character, or watching a movie with a great story line. The only difference with video games is that the player gets to interact with the content, instead of just consume it.

I have no idea why the SOE folks would want to jeopardize the "combat on a massive scale" aspect of PS2 by slanting the emotional feedback toward antisocial killwhoring. Especially considering that without players there isn't a game to play at all. Eventually the majority of people will get bored of being farmed by the killwhores and they'll stop playing. Welcome to Planetside 1's tiny population.

Is it possible that Killwhores would exist just for the sake of Killwhoring regardless of any stats that are shown or not shown? If killing is a great way to get "score" up, would players behave in a way to maximize said score? As far as PS1s tiny pop, the game is 8 years old. Outside of Valve games, SC, and WoW, I'm not sure of a game that has still has a community from 3 years ago.

There are just too many other games (and things to do) out there to NOT emphasize community building game play over all else. Planetside 2 needs a strong community more than it needs any other aspect of its development. Period.

I agree that PS2 needs a strong community to survive, especially if its F2P. Players wont want to monetize. But I think ignoring KDR isn't going to facilitate community. I think the more stats that SOE can offer the better, since there are so many roles that are available to contribute. As with my basketball example, one would think he/she who doesn't score points is bad, if people just looked at that stat. But if you looked at the other stats, the player becomes a beast of a sudden.

I also reject the notion that because I am focused on efficiency that now I'm a "killwhore" or a "brainless monkey". With proper interpretation, high KDR might be seen as a bad thing for outfits, as they might see low objective points or other stats that contribute to their respective faction. A smart outfit would reject a player soley based on KDR, and perhaps another outfit might have value for said player.

Why?

Because 100% of the game play requires other people.

And tons of stats are a way to keep people engaged. Remember, SOE has to look at the game population as whole, and will make decisions based on that. That may mean that they will make decisions that players will disagree with said decisions from time to time. I don't think KDR is as catastrophic as some players make it out to be.

[StumpyTheOzzie]

I did read it... I just drew different conclusions. If you're paying so much attention to K/D that you fail to play aggressively or to the objectives, then you're an idiot and you will not ultimately be victorious in the grand scheme of things. If you ignore it entirely you're committing a similar error; if your K/D isn't getting better then you're not getting better and you've become a burden to your team.

You can't force players to be useful to their team by de-emphasizing K/D. They'll decide that for themselves.

And round and round the mulberry bush we go.

I deploy AMSes and Lodestars. As a driver I can't wear rexo. Without rexo I have one long holster. So, I carry a glue gun and not a weapon.

Without my AMS - usually the first on site - OUR ENTIRE EMPIRE often has no forward spawn till the rest of the support players get their shit together.

Without my Lodestar my outfit's armour (and anyone else nearby) gets shredded.

Short supply lines = win. Lots of spawning bodies = win. Without AMSes and Lodestars you have long supply lines. So you lose.

My Kills often are less than 5, most of them coming from driving over cloakers.
My deaths are often in the 50s.

Using this K/D ratio, everyone thinks I suck. If you add in my assists (often over 2000) all of a sudden you can see I'm one of the most useful people on my EMPIRE.

Not my squad. Not my outfit. My EMPIRE.


Ok, now please find for me in planetside 2 any stats at all anywhere relating to:
Armour repaired.
Ammo spawned.
Assists.
Spawns from my vehicles.
Resurrections (I'm med+ too)

Now, IF you manage to find these stats, how prominently are they displayed? Why aren't they the number one stat? Why can't I delete, remove or bury Kills and deaths because they are not important to me?
Why can't I promote myself as doing a different job to the gunmonkeys?
Why must I be measured in areas of performance that are irrelevant to winning the game?

[EisenKreutzer]

Now, IF you manage to find these stats, how prominently are they displayed? Why aren't they the number one stat? Why can't I delete, remove or bury Kills and deaths because they are not important to me?
Why can't I promote myself as doing a different job to the gunmonkeys?
Why must I be measured in areas of performance that are irrelevant to winning the game?

And, more importantly, why should there be a stat that encourages people to judge you based on criteria that are non-essential to being good at the game?

[MrKWalmsley]

Malorn, I always love your posts, but this is just your opinion. There are a ton of modern gamers that love their stats. It's like trying to make the argument that stat tracking is ruining sports. Also, every press review I've read so far about the GDC demo has touted the stat tracking as being a great thing. It's what the people want.

The game itself will encourage cooporation over stat whoring. There will always be stat whores, but since we played PS1, we know you have much more success working as a team towards a goal, whether or not stats are tracked.

TL;DR Just deal with it. The people want their stats.

If you didn't even bother to read it don't bother replying to it. At no point did he say that people hate stats, in fact his entire post relied on the opposite. And not every player is a PS1 vet, in fact I would wager that the majority of PS2 players would not have played PS1 at all. Most will be carry overs from CoD, BF3 ect, and so WILL have that mentality of caring about your K/D score.

Please, before stating your opinion on a thread make sure you actually read the fucking post you are responding to, otherwise don't waste our time with an un-informed response.

Reading through this thread I've realised most of the people disagreeing with it didn't even bother to read the whole thing. Shows a lot about them really, instant gratification for one, typical CoD kiddy mentality. And shows that they are willing to disagree with you and respond to you without even listening to you, and are therefore untrustworthy in any discussion.

[Dart]

Seriously guys, I can't put this any more plainly; stats are in the game. Get over it.

If you find their existence upsetting and they somehow devalue your own self worth within a computer game then those are issues you ought to work on privately - or perhaps give PS2 a miss?

They are currently pretty prominent - when you open the menu (from where you access every non-gameplay UI in the game - the first page you see is your 'Summary' page which will give you all sorts of interesting stats.

So in case you missed, statistical tracking of your performance is in the game; start preparing mentally.

[MrKWalmsley]

Seriously guys, I can't put this any more plainly; stats are in the game. Get over it.

If you find their existence upsetting and they somehow devalue your own self worth within a computer game then those are issues you ought to work on privately - or perhaps give PS2 a miss?

They are currently pretty prominent - when you open the menu (from where you access every non-gameplay UI in the game - the first page you see is your 'Summary' page which will give you all sorts of interesting stats.

So in case you missed, statistical tracking of your performance is in the game; start preparing mentally.

Here's another person who seems to be strawmanning! Through dishonesty or through the fact they didn't even read! Hardly anyone here is saying that we should remove stats, in fact most of us (INCLUDING THE OP) are discussing WHICH stats should be the most prominent. Once again, read the post or don't bother giving us you're misguided opinion. The bane of this world is people so arrogant they think that they should just go ahead and comment with knowledgeable authority on a subject they didn't even bother to listen to.

[Accuser]

Seriously guys, I can't put this any more plainly; stats are in the game. Get over it.

Really? Will "Revives Per Death" be prominently displayed at the top of the stats page? How about Captures Per Death? Or Vehicle Destructions Per Death? Or "Anything that actually contributes directly to teamplay" Per Death?

No?

Only Kills Per Death?
Maybe that's the point :rolleyes:

[BlazingSun]

Here's another person who seems to be strawmanning! Through dishonesty or through the fact they didn't even read! Hardly anyone here is saying that we should remove stats, in fact most of us (INCLUDING THE OP) are discussing WHICH stats should be the most prominent. Once again, read the post or don't bother giving us you're misguided opinion. The bane of this world is people so arrogant they think that they should just go ahead and comment with knowledgeable authority on a subject they didn't even bother to listen to.

Let me respond to this by quoting the OP.



Move PS2 forward. Get rid of deaths as a stat. Get rid of kill streaks.


For all I care, put your 'score' stat in a dominant position, but out of all the things that might change in beta, the kills and deaths stats are most likely here to stay.

[Katanauk]

I still fail to understand why stats in game is a bad thing? You can pretend they're not there, can you not? As for prominence, prominence of stats is entirely down to the individual.

Example, is someone who plays Planetside as a full on support guy (I know a few, they love it) gonna pay attention to their K/D? Nope. They'll look at their assists. Is someone that looks for shotgun 1v1s gonna look at their assists? Probably not, they'll go to kills with shotguns . . .

Basically . . . If a positive K/D ratio isn't important to you, you can play without it in mind.

Besides, someone mentioned self preservation, even without K/D, levels of self preservation will directly reflect the player, not whether the game has K/D or not. Some will "die for the empire" some will choose not to "die for the empire".

Oh, and slightly off topic . . . for the TL;DR mob: Don't reply to it then. Hate it when people have the audacity to argue against a post all the while saying "TL;DR".

[MrKWalmsley]

Let me respond to this by quoting the OP.




For all I care, put your 'score' stat in a dominant position, but out of all the things that might change in beta, the kills and deaths stats are most likely here to stay.

That is the removal of one specific stat, most of the people arguing against this idea seem to think that he is arguing from the total removal of stats (including the person I responded to, otherwise they would have specified like you did), that does not include you btw, I recognise you actually understand the OP's point and genuinely disagree with it.

Take for example the guy above this comment, he seems to think that the OP, or at least a noticeable amount of people think that "stats in game is a bad thing", which is counter to the actual point of this thread which is to maintain stats, just changing around which ones there are.

[Artimus]

Op: maybe they just wanted to fill the game with as much data as they could like they have been saying, personally I dont give a shit about any of my stats I just enjoy the game. thats how its been in every shooter I've ever played, I am sure most would agree.

Also I don't see how anyone elses stats will effect how you will perform. If you don't care for them then don't pay attention to them.

[Dart]

Here's another person who seems to be strawmanning! Through dishonesty or through the fact they didn't even read! Hardly anyone here is saying that we should remove stats, in fact most of us (INCLUDING THE OP) are discussing WHICH stats should be the most prominent. Once again, read the post or don't bother giving us you're misguided opinion. The bane of this world is people so arrogant they think that they should just go ahead and comment with knowledgeable authority on a subject they didn't even bother to listen to.

I'm not strawmanning my friend, I'm trying to help you guys. This one is over. I do have pretty specific knowledge of this particular issue - the NDA would obviously prohibit me from showing you the screen to which I'm referring but rest assured both K : D and kill streak notifications are in game.

This debate is no longer useful to the development of PS2 - it is strictly an ideological discussion, so who is really strawmanning here?

[Flaropri]

Really? Will "Revives Per Death" be prominently displayed at the top of the stats page? How about Captures Per Death? Or Vehicle Destructions Per Death? Or "Anything that actually contributes directly to teamplay" Per Death?

No?

Only Kills Per Death?
Maybe that's the point :rolleyes:

If it's a problem of display I'm rather confident that it can be changed, whether through optional customization, change to default stat displays, or something along those lines.


I disagree with the idea that KDR is a wholly "selfish" stat as Malorn has said, and that it can't indicate teamplay (it's neutral in my view), just as I think that Score is even less useful. However, not having Assists (at the very least) right there along with K/D is pretty bad in a game that supports dedicated support play. Whether KDR is de-emphasized or not Assists should be next to it for ease of reference.

That said, there is still little (public at least) information about stat tracking, and how much data will go out to, for example, programmers who want to make their own apps and websites aside from the official one(s). There is also plenty of time to provide feedback on improving the official website content and what stats are important to display. General Accuracy for example is not very important outside of specific weapons while Assist data gives better general information. That's one way to drastically improve those pages with minimal changes to the layout.

[Hamma]

As much as I agree with Malorn on this issue (I 100% agree btw) Dart is right, this is something that is here to stay and I don't see it changing. I think it would be a good topic for AGN though we can talk it out while the Devs are tuned in.

[MrKWalmsley]

I'm not strawmanning my friend, I'm trying to help you guys. This one is over. I do have pretty specific knowledge of this particular issue - the NDA would obviously prohibit me from showing you the screen to which I'm referring but rest assured both K : D and kill streak notifications are in game.

This debate is no longer useful to the development of PS2 - it is strictly an ideological discussion, so who is really strawmanning here?

I did not say that you hadn't had specific knowledge of whether or not there is K : D stat's in the game, now that is strawmanning! I said you did not have knowledge on the original post since your entire reply was not specific, and only said stats as a general term, which runs counter to the original post (i.e. you did not have knowledge of the ACTUAL point you were responding to, not that you did not have knowledge to the status of stats in game).

Also you seem to think that just because something is in-game we shouldn't bother to ask it to be changed even if it is a benefit to the game? Because that's just it, we are not asking for the removal of the entire stat system, only asking what stat should be prioritised! What is so hard to understand about that?

[EisenKreutzer]

The Straw Man Argument (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man), for anyone whos interested in learning what it really is.

[Emperor Newt]

I'm not strawmanning my friend, I'm trying to help you guys. This one is over. I do have pretty specific knowledge of this particular issue - the NDA would obviously prohibit me from showing you the screen to which I'm referring but rest assured both K : D and kill streak notifications are in game.

This debate is no longer useful to the development of PS2 - it is strictly an ideological discussion, so who is really strawmanning here?
Ah, okay. Didn't know the community has to ask you what to discuss, when to discuss and how long to discuss. Good to know.
Someone should put that into the FAQ asap.

[MrKWalmsley]

The Straw Man Argument (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man), for anyone whos interested in learning what it really is.

Thank you, and since he was attacking the position which I did not hold (the position that he is not authorised to speak about what is already ingame) and a position the OP did not hold (by making it seem as though he was talking about all stats, rather than being honest and specify what stats he is talking about) I'd say I used the word properly, based on that definition.

[Dart]

Look guys, without breaking the NDA there is only so much we can say here but Hamma is right, you aren't going to win this one. Rail against me if you like but you're just shooting the messenger. This discussion had nothing to do with PS2 development any more but if none of you have anything better to do today than discuss it; more power to you! Enjoy the ideological debate. Just expect to be confronted by a number of stats, including k/d when you receive your beta invites.

[MrKWalmsley]

Look guys, without breaking the NDA there is only so much we can say here but Hamma is right, you aren't going to win this one. Rail against me if you like but you're just shooting the messenger. This discussion had nothing to do with PS2 development any more but if none of you have anything better to do today than discuss it; more power to you! Enjoy the ideological debate. Just expect to be confronted by a number of stats, including k/d when you receive your beta invites.

That's right people! Once the game launches there is no point making suggestions to make the game better! Absolutely none. Don't bother pointing out if something is overpowered, even if there are a majority who agree with you, because once something is in-game, it cannot be tweaked.

Apparently changing something which could easily effect player behaviour and thus making gameplay to be more team oriented has absolutely nothing to do with developing PS2, and is instead an ideological debate (despite the fact that if you can bring ANY field into this, it would be psychology, nothing here is based on ideologies, once again, know what you are talking about before posting in future).

That's right people, as soon as something is in game no matter how bad or unbalanced it is, you cannot even propose a slight change to it, let alone the removal of it! Because apparently the dev's won't even try, even if it is only a small tweak in the UI, in what order something is displayed, or removing something from display. Better shut down the ideas vault, lest we make it seem that we think that the game isn't absolutely perfect in every way in either it's current or future forms!

[Mepper]

This is beta. Everything is WIP and subject to change. That is the whole meaning of it.

I would really love to see at least the option to not track my deaths.

With k/d tracked there will always be a little voice in your head telling you to be carefull, egoistic, and only focus on killing.

If someone would be constantly healing and reviving teammates in a firefight he helps his team a lot. But a focus on k/d discourages you to do so. That is just bad.

[Dart]

Let's try and keep this civil kids. Don't want to force Hamma, Goku etc to clean up any more threads than is absolutely necessary.

This is beta. Everything is WIP and subject to change. That is the whole meaning of it.

I would really love to see at least the option to not track my deaths.

With k/d tracked there will always be a little voice in your head telling you to be carefull, egoistic, and only focus on killing.

If someone would be constantly healing and reviving teammates in a firefight he helps his team a lot. But a focus on k/d discourages you to do so. That is just bad.

You gain exp from healing and reviving allies. Trust me, if a medic can heal you, he will.

[GreatMazinkaise]

You'd like to force a playstyle on people with social engineering in a sandbox game... that's not gonna work. K/D's what the public wants, and it'll remain highly visible regardless; people will make of that stat what they will and there's nothing to be done for it.

You want teamplay? You've got your outfits/zergfits for that and VOIP to coordinate your puggies. Outside of that, if someone wants to take a tower in the middle of nowhere and farm ToD kills, they can, and they will. They might even distract a bunch of other dumb pubbies from a more useful objective.

Also:
I deploy AMSes and Lodestars. As a driver I can't wear rexo. Without rexo I have one long holster. So, I carry a glue gun and not a weapon.

Where the fuck is your Sweeper in that loadout? You've got enough inventory space to swap between gluegun and shotty in an Agile loadout, and I'm pretty sure that both the AMS and Loadstar have trunks. The other support whores I know don't have as good a K/D as a pure grunt, but they still actually kill other players.

[MrKWalmsley]

You are throwing your toys out of the pram having never played the game or even experienced what you're attempting to argue with me about. Getting this worked up over a feature that you haven't even experienced yet is ridiculous. Please try to keep an open mind when you play the game; there might be some aspects to these features you have not considered yet.

What I am arguing with you specifically is your choice of wording in your comments here, and your impression that once something is in game it cannot be changed, no matter how trivial. All I need to be able to argue against that is to look at your comments.

You seem to be using your experience in game as some sort of be-all-end-all authority in something which is regarding this forum.

Also we do not need to play PS2 in order to comment on what having a K : D statistic causes, unless you are going to try and tell us that there is some drastically unique aspect about the way K : D is displayed that totally knocks all of our criticism of the psychology of having a K : D statistic in general. We all know what a K : D statistic is, that's all we really need to know for this subject to be valid.

Please stop thinking that your access to the game is a counter to every argument, no matter what it is, even if it is against a concept which everyone has first hand experience with.

And trust me, I am open minded, but having seen this mechanic in hundreds of games I think we have all had a fair bit of experience in how it works, unless, once again, it is vastly unique to the point were it is not even recognisable as a K : D statistic mechanism!

Edit: Nice to know you removed that entire section from your post. Funny how you should replace a part which is trying to divert attention to me rather than my argument with a part calling for people to be more civil.

[feuerdog]

Its a difficult subject if you look into it.

The reason why Kills:Death works is becuase it's simple to understand. It's a well established record of comparison that everyone is familiar with.

Is it important to people who understand the deeper aspects and sacrifices of cooperative teambased play, not so much, but it can still be a useful reference.

In order for it to be replaced with another stat, we would first have to establish which stats(s) are more important. Compounding the issue without even really exploring it, we can be fairly sure that each and every class and style of play can be valued in a different manner, or at least with differetn priorities.

The sheer number of potential variables for stats is staggering due to the potential combinations of what may be viewed as valueable to the individual player.

Lives, deaths, repairing, healing, destruction, distance, captures, defends, hacks, rounds fired, weapons used, assists, resources, etc.

If it were me I would present the player with a customizable interface for them to setup as they see fit and prioritze the stats that they themselves felt were most appropriate.
Will the PS2 devs institute such an interface?.....
Maybe, but I doubt it. Why?....

Because K:D is easy to understand and a well established stat.

You can never have enough stats, but they are only as relevant as you make them to be.

[Mepper]

K/d works very well for other games, where the only thing you do is killing. This game is about what you do for team, and just like what the OP says, score is representitive for how good you are at this game. K/d isn't necessarily important in PS2, not at all. Score is.

And that a lot of other games use it, and it easy to understand, is no reason to have it as most important stat in PS2. PS2 is different, and don't tell me score/minut would be hard to understand (or any better way of tracking score, this way being afk would harm your stats ofc.)

And stats give you a "Big brother is watching you" feeling. You should have a button like "don't track me" or "track me as anonymous player".

[Timithos]

This is true. It's just human nature (operand conditioning in action). You're right that they are playing into a counter productive part of our nature by displaying narcissistic stats with such emphasis.

It's the problem with most of these computer games these days, where every player is supposed to be "the great hero" of the universe. Makes me want to puke.

I have no idea why the SOE folks would want to jeopardize the "combat on a massive scale" aspect of PS2 by slanting the emotional feedback toward antisocial killwhoring. Especially considering that without players there isn't a game to play at all. Eventually the majority of people will get bored of being farmed by the killwhores and they'll stop playing. Welcome to Planetside 1's tiny population.

There are just too many other games (and things to do) out there to NOT emphasize community building game play over all else. Planetside 2 needs a strong community more than it needs any other aspect of its development. Period.

Why?

Because 100% of the game play requires other people.


Well, I agree with the both of you.

I'm hoping PS2 has certain stat defaults turned on, and others like K/D turned off to set the stage for proper PS2 behavior. It'll be up to the player to open up their options and turn K/D on. Then an added touch would be that you couldn't place K/D in the #1 positon of a string of stats. It would appear on the end of the string of stats that the game devs have deemed most crucial for the class you deploy. (Of course you can turn them all off in any interface worth it's salt.)

What I did like in latest video was Braddock getting only +10 pts for a 3-streak kill, yet +100 for destroying an empty enemy vehicle! (By the way Braddock seemed a little incompetent to me, but he was getting decent kills.) I also enjoyed the sparse troops on each side in this engagement. I think there won't be as many concentrated zerg battles in PS2, because you'll have hex-sector to hex-sector conflicts all along a battle line with flanking and pincer strategies used, which we really haven't gotten to see because everyone is coraled into a couple sectors to keep the fighting together. I believe a K/D kill-whore will have a tougher time finding farming spots then they did in PS1.

[feuerdog]

Kill/death isn't specifically important in PS2, it's merely prominant.

It could be argued that score is irrelavant since there are no victory conditions set forth in PS2. We only have moment-to-moment comparsions of our stats and the changes in status quo to derive our levels of success and failure.

Kill/death IS an important stat only for the purposes of self comparison.
The basic component of all actions performed in the game is via a player character. The ONLY way to deny a player characters potential for performing actions is to kill them.

Where this topic gets tricky is when someone who is focused on only the stat of killing compares his stat to someone who is not focused on killing. And the measures of success in PS2 are varied and diverse.

Again, stats are just numbers,.....it's how people interpret them that can lead to unjustifiable/unwarranted feelings, comparsions, and obligations.

[AzureWatcher]

Since people don't want me to know my KDR, I will instead change how I play my game completely. Before I was going to go out with my squad, get kills, capture objectives, and not die.

Now, I am only going to kill Terran Republic and ignore the New Conglomerate. I am going to adopt a popular EVE Online policy of "NRDS" which stands for Not Red, Don't Shoot. Because there is a stat for knowing how many of each faction you have killed. Guess I should focus on it because I am unable to care about the objective and stats at the same time.

[maradine]

Good idea, except EVE is almost universally NBSI ("Not Blue, Shoot It"). I guess that works out pretty well for the NC . . . :D

[Malorn]

Look guys, without breaking the NDA there is only so much we can say here but Hamma is right, you aren't going to win this one. Rail against me if you like but you're just shooting the messenger. This discussion had nothing to do with PS2 development any more but if none of you have anything better to do today than discuss it; more power to you! Enjoy the ideological debate. Just expect to be confronted by a number of stats, including k/d when you receive your beta invites.

It absolutely has to do with PS2 development - the stats they promote in the game. It is a feature of the game to which we are providing feedback. This isn't an ideological debate. More precise analysis of the development problem, is in this post:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/showpost.php?p=798683&postcount=493

And this isn't about ALL stats, so stop strawmanning it that way.

This is about three things.

1) The death stat. It's a negative stat which people will avoid because it makes them look bad. As a result, the general population will be less inclined to take risks, which leads to all sorts of really lame behavior so people can pad their K/D stat and wave their epeens around.

2) The promotion of selfish and kill-related stats. K/D is prominently displayed in the stats, as I have shown in a post yesterday. It is one thing to have these stats available to players, and it is another to have these stats shoved in our faces telling us that these are the important stats in the game. Prominence of stats primes us to care about them subconsciously. If you don't believe then there isn't any harm in promoting different stats then is there?

3) Lack of teamwork stats. From what we've seen of the stat screen and stat summaries (identified in the linked post above), there are very few teamwork-oriented stats. Territory captures, captures per day, consoles hacked, facilities/territories defended, resources earned, resources denied, healing-per-whatever, repairing-per-whatever, heal assists, repair assists, revive assists, etc. I haven't seen any of those stats on the stat screens. If they want people to play the objectives in the game then the best way they can do that is not only have these stats, but also promote them.

The danger of not taking stats seriously and respecting their power is that it will shape PS2 into nothing more than a session shooter in a bigger world. The sense of persistence, the sense of conquest, the rich gameplay that evolves from that will be discouraged and the game will not be nearly as good as it could be, simply because the developers chose to encourage selfish killwhore stats over teamwork stats. It looks like they half-assed it and copied battle log without consideration for the impact that their stat choices will have on the game.

[Dart]

The danger of not taking stats seriously and respecting their power is that it will shape PS2 into nothing more than a session shooter in a bigger world. The sense of persistence, the sense of conquest, the rich gameplay that evolves from that will be discouraged and the game will not be nearly as good as it could be, simply because the developers chose to encourage selfish killwhore stats over teamwork stats. It looks like they half-assed it and copied battle log without consideration for the impact that their stat choices will have on the game.

The game doesn't feel that way to me right now. I'll be interested to see your opinion when you get hands on it with. Personally my 'stats' would never stop me doing anything to help my Empire in game. But as I say, this is academic until all of the stat-tracking (and all of the players who feel so strongly about this) are included in testing.

Edit: I also feel a little like this entire concept is rather condescending. I'd rather give all players access to all stats and allow them to prioritize whichever ones they feel. To offer an analogy to PS1 vets - this feels rather like early PS1 when certain CR5s used to go around TKing friendly Generators to force their Empire to move to bases which they felt were more tactically valuable.

[Malorn]

Don't go there Dart. Enough has been revealed that we can comment on it and give feedback without hands-on, as I demonstrated in the post I linked.

You'd like to force a playstyle on people with social engineering in a sandbox game... that's not gonna work.

OK, there's two ways to look at it.

1) You don't believe that stats influence behavior. If that is true, then you have nothing to fear from this discussion or any "forced gamplay" that would result from removing some stats from prominence and replacing them with other stats. Because it doesn't matter, right?

OR

2) You do believe that stats influence behavior, in which case a playstyle is already being forced on people - the playstyle of a killwhore with no emphasis on objectives and team play.

So which is it? Do you believe stats presented to players regularly influence player behavior or do you not?

[Dart]

Don't go there Dart. Enough has been revealed that we can comment on it and give feedback without hands-on, as I demonstrated in the post I linked.

Sorry Malorn but stat tracking isn't even in the game yet! There is no way you can give an objective opinion on what SOE are doing with the game. All you can do is reiterate what you don't want which, after 33 pages, I think has been done fairly effectively.

There is also a third option to your slightly disingenuous question above; players should be able to view whatever stats THEY believe are important and it should be left to the individual to choose the ones they wish to prioritize. Or put another way, everything possible to track should be tracked. Personally that's what I'd like to see. Freedom of information.

[Purple]

i would like there to be the option to take a look at you stats when your playing solo or in a squad. it would be fun to see how your stats change.

[Sirro]

Stats are different for everyone, I try to make sure i have a positive overall KDR but it's not priority. I care more about SPM and my Score for any given period, that's what I shoot for in TF2 and BF3.

I don't care whether I have 2 kills, 40 revives, 5 caps, or 15 kills 10 caps etc as long as I think I am doing good the round.

[MrKWalmsley]

Sorry Malorn but stat tracking isn't even in the game yet!

Woah wait, so stat tracking isn't even in game yet? What happened to:

Seriously guys, I can't put this any more plainly; stats are in the game. Get over it.

and

I do have pretty specific knowledge of this particular issue

Wow. So not only are you a person who removes your own insulting posts with "let's keep this civil", but now you're contradicting yourself. If you simply mean they are in game and not working, then why the hell were you trying to use your experience as authority when it's not even functional, and therefore the "authority" is null?

Wow. Just, wow.

[Dart]

Woah wait, so stat tracking isn't even in game yet? What happened to:



and



Wow. So not only are you a person who removes your own insulting posts with "let's keep this civil", but now you're contradicting yourself. If you simply mean they are in game and not working, then why the hell were you trying to use your experience as authority when it's not even functional, and therefore the "authority" is null?

Wow. Just, wow.

You're still trolling this thread huh? Good stuff!

[MrKWalmsley]

You're still trolling this thread huh? Good stuff!
Still avoiding directly responding to points? Good stuff! Keep up the dishonesty. I'll leave it here actually, if you're going to be this childish, good luck!

[Goku]

I think this topic has been beat enough nearing 40 pages. If the devs actually comment on this at all in say AGN or another interview we can open this back up.

[Hamma]

Additionally I have confirmed this as a topic on our next AGN so be sure to tune in, or join in if it interests you.