Malorn's Stats Thread Reborn

[Tatwi]

Hamma asked me (http://www.planetside-universe.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=839&stc=1&d=1343771513)to remake the thread and get new feedback after the topic was covered in this Totalbiscuit video (jump to Question 2 at 5:52),

► The Mailbox - July 25th, 2012 - YouTube

The original post is here (http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=39449&page=37). There's lots of great feedback in that thread and Hamma has decided to make it the topic of discussion on a future AGN show.

In a nutshell, the concept is basically that making Kill/Death ratio a prominent stat may take away from the community, objectives based game play that Planetside 2 is all about, because K/D ratio encourages people to simply kill other people rather than take part in objectives and community play.

Here is Malorn's original post on 2012-03-07, 02:48 PM,

Its been discussed before, but it was the only thing that jumped out at me as concerning in PS2's recent footage.

Why It's Bad for the Game


What the developers elevate stat-wise is what players will strive to improve.

As it is, the game looks as though it was modernized successfully to a modern FPS. However it also inherited some facets that are counter-productive to a game like planetside. Emphasis on stats, kill-streaks, and dominations/revenges are one such mechanism. It is archaic and seemingly mindlessly moved forward without careful consideration of the value it provides the game.

The game that made stats and kill-streaks prominent in FPS games is Unreal Tournament. A deathmatch-focused game where the only real measure of how successful you are in the game is....kills and deaths, and how long you could go or how many headshots you could rack up. That's where it was born. Since then players liked those stats and they found their way into future evolutions of games, even Planetside. But does that mean every FPS game should have these things? Absolutely not.

Stats and score in a game is how players measure how successful they are at the game. If the game elevates a particular stat and features it and makes it prominent in the game, like Kill-streaks or K:D ratio, then that is what players will strive to improve. These are not good in a team-based game. They aren't good in Battlefield; they weren't good in Planetside. By elevating them and even showing them the makers of PS are saying to players "This is important, you should improve this".

The worst stat of all of the stats is the "Death" stat, which also derives K:D. Deaths as a stat do not send a good teamwork-oriented message. Anything that puts you at a risk of death without providing kills will harm your deaths, and thus your K:D. Flying a galaxy is a risk to K:D. Capturing an objective is a risk to K:D. Repairing someone or healing someone else is a risk to K:D. Reviving someone is a risk to K:D. This stat does not produce anything productive whatsoever. It is a carry-over from the days when deathmatch was the purpose and kills/deaths were the only measure of "skill" in the game. Planetside is different. Planetside has teamwork and objectives. It has many paths to success - one path should not be glorified over others.

Deaths should not even be tracked - at all, ever. Players should be encouraged to do whatever activities they are good at, and not be discouraged from taking risks by penalizing them with another tally in the "D" column. The stat serves no purpose other than to harm the game by negatively affecting player behavior.

To provide some more examples:
- Do you blow up that parked galaxy (respawn point) or do you farm it? K:D is improved by farming it, it is not improved by blowing it up.
- Do you drive a galaxy and park it for your team to help take the base? Or do you hop in a tank/reaver? Piloting the galaxy does not improve your K:D and only risks making it worse.
- Do you go revive that teammate out in the line of fire? K:D is put at risk, and you might give someone another kill on you contributing to your own domination.
- Are you the first to breach a door or do you sit back and snipe? K:D says not to risk the breach, sniping better improves the stat.
- Do you capture the tower or farm the spawn room? K:D says farm.
- Do you blow the base generator and cap it, or farm the kills? K:D says farm.

In all of the examples above, the best thing to do for the team and for the empire is not what K:D encourages. Quite simply it encourages the lamest and most counter-productive behavior. It takes the path of least-risk. It doesn't encoruage support roles. It doesn't encourage taking objectives. If the game elevates and promotes these stats then PS2 will not have a lot of team play or objective-taking. It'll just be deathmatch in an open world. That's epic fail to me.

What you promote matters - so don't promote things that are counter-productive.


So if not deaths and K:D, then what?

Fortunately Planetside has something much better than K:D - it has Score. Score is beautiful. Score is awesome. Because Score can be generated from just about anything. "Experience points" is effectively the same as score for all intents and purposes. Assists, captures, heals, spawns, defenses, kills, revives, etc.

Because score is awarded for any activity it becomes a universal stat capable of equalizing every type of play and encouraging team play. Someone spawns at your Galaxy spawn? More score for you! Get an assist-kill? More score for you! Capture an objective? Huge score bonus for you! Revive a teammate? More score! Repair a tank or max - yep, more score.

Score is purely results-based. That's why it must be the primary measurement in Planetside 2 for success. When I open up stats, that should be the stat bolded in large font that is shoved in my face. When I go to the leaderboard, the default and primary leader board should display score, score/min, score/day, score/session, etc. It's all about score.

Secondary leaderboards should exist for kills, revives, captures, repairs, assists, etc. People good at those things should be recognized too, but the one equalizing stat is score.

A player will ask the universal question "Am I doing well?" Score gives the best answer. Score is tweakable, giving the development team the ability to fine-tune and encourage specific behaviors over others. If some type of lame behavior awards a lot of score and you want to discourage it, it can be tweaked to award less score or have diminishing returns, etc. Score gives the developers power to incent players to do specific behaviors.

Instead of kill-streaks and dominations, award people for score milestones or support activities like having 50 people spawn out of your galaxy, or capturing 10 territories or other such things. Bounties for such activities are another great way to utilize score as the universal measurement of Planetside success. You could also use score to balance out things like teamkilling/wounding by providing a debuff of sorts that reduces your score generation. So many options here to utilize this universal stat to shape player behavior.


Evolve the Genre

Planetside is a game-changer, and one of the best ways it can change the game is to improve the genre - get rid of that archaic 1990's stats and move to something better. Make a better game. Encourage better behaviors.

Removing deaths as a stat and promoting Score will not cost you players. Nobody will stop playing Planetside 2 because they dont' get to see a stat with their deaths being tracked. What they will see will encourage success of their empire.

Move PS2 forward. Get rid of deaths as a stat. Get rid of kill streaks. Just take it out and see how it plays. Bury kill whore stats and put them at the same level of importance as any other activity, like heals, revives, captures, etc. You won't miss them and you'll see people doing new behaviors they might never have tried before. Evolve the Genre.

[Harasus]

Fully agreed. K/D is not the objective, why should you be rewarded for it?

[Landtank]

I say keep it in, it's not my goal but I like to know. They should keep it.

Plus, if you kill enough people it WILL have an impact :D

[Eyeklops]

looks like I will have to go find my posts in the other thread and cut'n'paste here when I get home.

[Harasus]

I say keep it in, it's not my goal but I like to know. They should keep it.

Plus, if you kill enough people it WILL have an impact :D

Right, and let us throw in a "meters run" stat too, which pops up on the screen in capital letters:

"1 000 METERS!"

"DOMINATION: 10 000 METERS!"

"REVENGE: YOU OUTRAN A GUY!"

"RUNNING SPREE: 1337 METERS!"

It is not my goal either, but heck, I would like to know. Plus, if you run enough it WILL have an impact.

[Eyeklops]

Right, and let us throw in a "meters run" stat too, which pops up on the screen in capital letters:

"1 000 METERS!"

"DOMINATION: 10 000 METERS!"

"REVENGE: YOU OUTRAN A GUY!"

"RUNNING SPREE: 1337 METERS!"

It is not my goal either, but heck, I would like to know. Plus, if you run enough it WILL have an impact.

I want to know anytime one of my stats == 1337, just saying

[vVRedOctoberVv]

Who?

j/k :)

It's definitely an interesting topic of discussion. It's hard to make a definitive decision, really. It certainly CAN influence people, but asshats will be asshats, so... It's hard to say exactly HOW much influence it has.

I used to play KZ2 a lot, and while it included prominent K/D stats, I didn't see "not working toward the team objectives" as being a dilemma. Occasionally, you'd be unfortunate and have a team full of douchebags, but generally, as much as people love K/D, they ALSO love to "win". Seizing a base, taking territory, making the map RED, these are tangible and visible "rewards" for your efforts. You feel you have "won" when you seize a base, tower, etc. I don't think it will cripple the game either way, but it is true that it probably influences mindsets and actions some.

[Littleman]

I've always wondered why FPS' moved into K/D. Ever since early arcade games, score has always been the determining factor. You get first place, put in your initials, walk away, and let someone else try and beat your score, or you can try and top yourself.

If UT used score points, and placed a huge emphasis on say, flag caps and returns or control points, it would encourage more focus on the flag or points during CTF or domination, respectively... it might encourage TKing for those points too, unless there were harsh penalties to one's score applied to FF of course.

[Raymac]

People will expect K/D to be tracked. I think there is tons of logic to support elevating other stats, but many people will still want to know their K/D.

Plus if somebody wants to play the game solely for themselves, who is to say they shouldn't be allowed to? They should be allowed to play Planetside as a "single player fps with huge maps and really really really good AI". Obviously, that's not how most of us would play it, but so what?

The game shouldn't pigeon hole players into a certain play style, but rather it should encourage teamwork.

[The Kush]

I have been playing Planetside since 2004 and FPS since the genre first emerged.

That being said..

I agree 100% with the original poster.

Removing k/d tracking will greatly help promote teamwork.

If they leave it in game, myself and everyone else won't be working as a team or charging through the doors of a base. It will put an emphasis on spawn camping and ignoring objectives.

[EisenKreutzer]

Right, and let us throw in a "meters run" stat too, which pops up on the screen in capital letters:

"1 000 METERS!"

"DOMINATION: 10 000 METERS!"

"REVENGE: YOU OUTRAN A GUY!"

"RUNNING SPREE: 1337 METERS!"

It is not my goal either, but heck, I would like to know. Plus, if you run enough it WILL have an impact.

Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Renegadeknight]

I don't understand why people make such a big deal about their K/D. I always see the objective as more important. I like to know my K/D, but that doesn't mean I'm unwilling to die to aid my team. The only time K/D was ever important was in death matches which this game obviously doesn't have. I say leave the stat but don't emphasis it.

[GLaDOS]

Yeah, like you guys are saying (I think, I'm really tired right now so I might be misinterpreting), K/D should be kept, but score should be considered more important and perhaps highlighted this. A way to do this would maybe be that, when you click on link saying "Leaderboards" on the site, it takes you to a leaderboard showing score and various score-related stats. However, if you're determined to find out your K/D, you can click on another, smaller link on that page, saying "Alternate Leaderboards" or something like that, and find you K/D, accuracy, blah blah blah other stats.

EDIT: This was posted before I saw a few of the other posts right above it, so yeah.

[ArmedZealot]

I agree with what TB said. One thing to incentivez more team play in PS1 they started out giving 5K XP for a base capture, quite a few points at the time and offset the kill,kill,kill mentality to some degree. Then somewhere along PS1 history, base caps were lowered to 2.5K XP so the pendulum swung in the direction of kill based XP. For PS2 just do what they initially did in PS1 and more heavily reward territory cap XP versus kills. Kills still matter and get XP but it much more rewards a player to work as a team when they get larger XP bonus based on territory capture.

This basically.

If you want to reward teamplay there are better ways than just removing K/D. Incentivize people to play as a team and completing objectives beneficial to their empire.

Keep K/D on a back menu and leave it off of the HUD by default. Even better take it out of the game altogether and put it on the website.

[Rumblepit]

i have to say this game is going to be way too fast paced for it to be a issue. people wont have time to camp and with the changes made to support bep i just dont think it will be a problem

[KnifeGun]

I completely agree with what Totalbiscuit said.

I'm the type of person that loves looking at stats. (The more the merrier) It gives me an idea of the areas I need to improve my game at. Hey my base captures are kinda low I need to improve on that or damn my k/d is kinda low i need to improve on being more aware and keeping my reflexes sharp when I'm trying to approach a capture point etc.

In alot of FPS's that are objective based that I have played (CS, TF2, Some gametypes in CoD, etc.) Communication sways peoples' playstyle more than anything. I have never had a problem going for a higher Kpd and helping my team plant the bomb in CS. Same goes with TF2. I can try to kill the most people without dying while still encouraging capturing points and pushing the cart.

Communicating with your team about the current objective at hand will sway more people into joining that type of play rather than removing kpd stat. Adding in a VOIP in PS2 is a fantastic idea. So the people who dont want to join outfits and are going rogue can be yelled at over a mic.

[ZaBa]

As much as Malorn is a horrible obsessive with some terrible opinions, I've got to agree on this one, at least as far as elevating score-per-minute to being the most prominent efficiency stat goes.

Everything else should still be tracked though, even k/d, since score by itself is somewhat ambiguous ("SPM: 842" doesn't really say much about what you've really accomplished or how much better you could be doing).

[QuantumMechanic]

K/D ratio is only imortant to some people, and maybe not all the time.

In reference to games like CoD and Battlefield, you have only points and K/D to guage how well you did.

In Planetside 1 you had your K/D, plus also not only battle XP but support XP (which was a great addition). However I found that whenever I was running "special ops" in PS1, doing things like resecures mostly, I was getting little BEP, no SEP and never had a positive K/D ratio.

Despite all of that I knew that I was doing the right thing for my empire, so I didn't mind. However it would be nice if PS2 rewarded that type of gameplay in some tangible way.

[brighthand]

In a game like PLanetside, k/d says nothing about you as a quality player and contributor to the team.

My k/d in bf3 is .7, and that is because I attack and defend objectives, and fly helicopters alot. You get killed ALOT doing those two things regardless of how skilled you are- and I consider myself rather skilled, especially in my favorite vehicle, the transport helicopter, where I have done over 70 hours of flying- and in those hours, your gunners are doing the killing, while you just get shot by tanks, Javs, rpgs, and rammed by jets. -but I love capping flags and flying helis TOO much to give it up just for a more polished k/d.

Expect to see me flying a Galaxy and dumping squads all over the rest of you Vanus and Terrans.

Those who enter planetside and care so much about their k/d should want to rethink their approach to team-based gaming. Even the ones who run solo.

K/d is irrelivant in this universe.

[Tzitzimitl]

Yea I agree with score being prioritized and it being highlightled/bolded/underlined/glitterfied so that players pay attention. However it should display the activites that earn you your total score when you check it.
Also to interject even if this was implemented you would still have your population of players that focus on K/D but hopefully the majority would be focusing on score rather than K/D

[Flaropri]

TB (and many others) are basically what I've been saying as well (albeit I say it less effectively), I really hope that K/D is in and in the background, but I ALSO hope that they include assists on the same screen(s) as K/D. Though really I don't think Score (or any specific stat) needs to be prioritized.

Actually, better yet: Let people customize what stat is "prioritized" on their screens. With none by default.

[MorioMortis]

K/d is irrelivant in this universe.

This is the essence of the topic; we don't need to remove the k/d completely, but it needs to have it's importance relegated to "just another stat with little meaning", compared to things like Base Captures and Base Defenses (or any stat that can be a players prime objective), which refer to things that are central to the objective of the game.

Furthermore, there needs to be heavy incentives for support roles; support players should earn at least as much xp, if not more, for their actions than combat players do for a similar level of play and skills. Indeed,all the little things that are, in the end, essential (like flying people in a Galaxy) should be rewarded, sufficiently so they are a valid and desirable roles, not a sacrifice for the good of the empire.

[Tzitzimitl]

Another possible solution or addition to the score system could be points gained by being near teammates. This would encourage/reward sticking together

[Disillusioned]

The size of Planetside will negate the effect of a few killwhores only playing to juice their stats- in games such as BF3 or CoD where half your team won't come within 500m of an objective for fear of ruining their precious stats, it's obviously a major problem. A few of these types in a fight with 500+ ppl isn't going to have an impact.

Added to which the stats for PS2 look like they will be extremely detailed, so when xl33t boasts of his godlike k/d it will be easy to roll your eyes at the 2 facility captures in 300 hours of play.

[Captain1nsaneo]

It's circumstantial evidence but I know that K/D definitely impacts my gameplay and what I do. It's made me far less favorable to support roles and much more timid for fear of getting another tick on my death counter. Anything less than perfection is like mental sandpaper and the inbuilt desire to brag is boosted by being able to quickly compare k/d. At the same time I'm going to always have the statistic up because I believe more information allows for better decision making.

[Drakkonan]

Time to copy and paste the main points:

1.) /time doesn't work in a game like Planetside 2. Only in round-based games like Battlefield.

2.) There's no way the designers are going to take out death count, despite the arguments for it, and how much it would benefit the game. Not only do the CoDers they want to attract expect it, but they've been running with "The more stats, the better" argument since the game's announcement. What they should, and may do, however, is allow players the option to make their stats only visible to all/guild/friends/none. This would permit all the benefits of benchmarking your own performance while preventing most of the problems statistics introduce.

3.) Another approach would be to make 'Score' the primary stat and K/D totals and ratio minor stats a la Battlelog stat pages. While it wouldn't represent player skill, as it shouldn't be divided by time, it would incorporate support actions. It could also be used to determine other stats (i.e. % of points from support actions, % of points from kills etc...)

[darkfiretwofive]

They need to have he K/D in, but not so I can hit Tab and see it, maybe sift through a couple of menus to see it.

[Synapse]

Let me be very clear: Stats are not bad.

My main priority is that we get as much data as humanly possible.

We need stats on every tiny little action we make, where, and to who.

I agree points are going to be more important than kills, just like in Eve Online the value of damage done to damage recieved is more highly regarded than number of kills, but I dont want that overriding the fact that we want loads of stats to play with, and then we will take care of coding the rest.

Just get us all the numbers, all of them.

[OnexBigxHebrew]

I think the effect of K/D in gameplay is being drastically overstated. It's just a staple statistic that makes sense with shooters, and is both fun to check out and useful.

Not to mention, K/D CAN be relevant and useful as a stat outside of deathmatch games without making a player change playstyles to accomodate it, such as in this scenario. Let's call our player 'John':

'John' has decided on a playstyle that is an aggressive infantry capture support style. He typically has used "Gun A" for this purpose. His K/D is 1.55. Now, Gohn has unlocked a new gun - Gun B - and would like to know, without changing his playstyle, how the new weapon is performing. It is important to note the John has only changed weapons, and is still playing the same role within his outfit. After two weeks John's K/D ratio has gone down to 1.03. Now John can deduce that because the only variable that has changed is his weapon and his K/D has gone down significantly, the gun that suits his playstyle more is Gun A. This approach works well for anything from attatchments to weapons. The major factor here is that John is still playing the same team support role, but is using the K/D statistic to understand performance in battle.

See? It's not all about padding and self gratification. K/D can be used as an over-time indicator of a specific variable's performance with playstyle being the control in the experiment. Besides, is some guy going to ruin your 100-man outfit charge if he is just hanging out with friends online and killing people? No. K/D is fine.

[Ieyasu]

if you care what your kdr is outside of a team deathmatch style of play youve got some funny priorities.

kdr in games like COD where people play alot of tdm does make sense to care about as if youre going around sporting a .48 kdr youre hurting your team far more than helping it as the object is to get points by killing the other team and someone with a kdr of under 1.0 is usually giving more points to the other team than they are contributing to their own.

Im all for kdr being included in PS2, but anyone who thinks its goign to help them get laid on a saturday night or on the other end of the spectrum that everyone is going to point at them and laugh are both sporting a cod mindset.

as OnexBigxHebrew stated above me quite nicely, there are valid reasons for tracking kdr other than inflating ones epeen or laughing at the small size of anothers.

[Mythoclast]

I agree that it should be buried in an advanced stats screen and not directly or prominently displayed.

[AzureWatcher]

It should be accessible in-game and easily available to review. Team based game or not, it's still an FPS.

Just shove it in a list that also mentions how many heals/revives/repairs/objectives completed/etc. you've done.

[Xyntech]

The most important thing is that it not be elevated above other random stats. Getting rid of death count or K/D ratio is ridiculous in a game that's going to offer as many stats to track as PS2, but promoting K/D ratio as an important stat will probably do harm in the long run.

Just keep it away from kill cam screens and from the front page of players info.

I definitely agree with the sentiments of some of the posters in this thread who say that other factors will be a lot more important to fostering team work, but I think this will still help enough to be worth making an issue out of.

I definitely plan to comment on this (or voice my support in a preexisting thread) once I get into the beta forums.

[BlueSkies]

I think the effect of K/D in gameplay is being drastically overstated. It's just a staple statistic that makes sense with shooters, and is both fun to check out and useful.

Not to mention, K/D CAN be relevant and useful as a stat outside of deathmatch games without making a player change playstyles to accomodate it, such as in this scenario. Let's call our player 'John':

'John' has decided on a playstyle that is an aggressive infantry capture support style. He typically has used "Gun A" for this purpose. His K/D is 1.55. Now, Gohn has unlocked a new gun - Gun B - and would like to know, without changing his playstyle, how the new weapon is performing. It is important to note the John has only changed weapons, and is still playing the same role within his outfit. After two weeks John's K/D ratio has gone down to 1.03. Now John can deduce that because the only variable that has changed is his weapon and his K/D has gone down significantly, the gun that suits his playstyle more is Gun A. This approach works well for anything from attatchments to weapons. The major factor here is that John is still playing the same team support role, but is using the K/D statistic to understand performance in battle.

See? It's not all about padding and self gratification. K/D can be used as an over-time indicator of a specific variable's performance with playstyle being the control in the experiment. Besides, is some guy going to ruin your 100-man outfit charge if he is just hanging out with friends online and killing people? No. K/D is fine.

Clearly there were confounding variables as we all know Gun B is OP and needs nerfing :p

Seriously though, K/D will continue to remain important to those who care about it (hiding it won't change that). Just smile and nod at anyone who thinks the K/D leaderboard means anything in a game like this.

[Gonzo]

KD should definitely be in the game. Don't "bury" it in some obscure page, just put it in the list with the other stats displayed. Then, put focus on objectives- Control Points Captured, Facilities Defended, etc.

Having KD on the main stats screen won't suddenly cripple the game. I think you will find that even if some players are seeking kills as a top priority, it won't be as terrible as you think. To get kills, you naturally gravitate towards areas of high traffic, like facilities or hexes that your faction is attacking. And I would say, if someone is working hard to murder any enemy in the base I'm trying to cap-even if they don't actually take control points-they are doing their part.

Kill-focused players have their place even in very objective oriented games like PS2. Take MAXes for example. Yes a MAX is very good for assaulting or defending an objective, but it can't hack, so it is purely there to murder the crap out of the bad guys. In all likelyhood, this will end up benefiting those actively/directly working on the objectives.

[XxAxMayxX]

I agree that PS2 shouldn't be kills based. but all of us will ignore K/d and it will get all the COD Fanboy newbs todo all the dirty work.

[Minigun]

I think it all comes down to people wanting to "be the best" as opposed to "best part of the team." If you look around teamwork skills have been on the steady decline, Nobody wants to be the Miami Heat, everyone wants to be Lebron James.

[opticalshadow]

my view is this.

rewarding for kills makes sense, keeping track is importent.

K/D might not mean much in the large scale, but for an outift, it lets its members track each otehr, this can be key, you generally want your main squad to be the best, you want to keep a standered.

now kills dont mean everything, like in any sport you rarely will use a man for one stat, but its the overall avalibility of all stats. i would love a distence traveled, avg life span of vehicle, avg number of players per hour transported. all these meaningless stats allow an outfit leader to boil down whats importent to him.

he will want his HA to have long life spans, and good k/d, he will want his gal pilot to have high transport values, high survivability. he wants his medics with high avg heal rate.

theres no such thing as an inimportent stat, they all help paint a picture.

but i do think its dangerous to reward the stat. getting 250 exp for a kill is nice, you earned a kill, getting a reward for killing 25 people in a row, less nice. your no longer rewarding the stat, your creating an obtainiable objective (killing spree,domination etc)

so i think we need all the stats, but not the goals they create.

[BuzzCutPsycho]

Stats Promoted by the game prime player behavior


The study of priming teaches us that passive stimuli can shape our behavior. Things like which stats appear on your character sheet will prime players to improve them, even subconsciously. For example, if you constantly reinforce that "captures" are important in the game, and put capture stats front-and center on the stats and have the default leaderboard show captures then you will see a change in player behavior as they are subconsciously primed to play for captures.

(More on priming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_%28psychology%29)

The good side of this is that the developers can significantly and subtly influence the behavior of players by carefully choosing the stats which are promoted. The bad side of this is that if they don't carefully choose them with the understanding that their choices will affect player behavior then they can introduce ruinous gameplay.


K/D is Ruinous


The primary motivation for this post is to highlight K/D, which is a particularly ruinous stat currently being promoted by PlanetSide 2. The gaming world has a terrible culture precendent where the barometer of player skill is by default kills-per-death. Try this trick at home - play a round of BF3 or just ask a player in PlanetSide 1 how well he did. The vast majority of the time players will read their K-D stat. They will rarely read their score, and almost never cite whether their team won or lost. Years of early session shooters have erroneously trained us that the K/D stat is important. Some people think it needs to be present. It does not, and the game will be better off without it.

The danger K/D poses for PlanetSide 2 is that it discourages risk-taking which leads to derisive gameplay. Taking risks increases your chances of incrementing the death stat, which sends the K/D in the wrong direction. Taking objectives, helping other players, being the first man to assault a defended position - these are all behaviors that are discouraged by the promotion of K/D. This is one reason many players will resort to being relatively useless and sit back and snipe so they can preserve their stats rather than assault a well-defended position. If it's a good farm they will have no interest at all in advancing objectives, preferring instead to sit back and rack up stats.

If the "death" stat were not shown on a scoreboard or leaderboard then you would see significantly more teamwork and objective-based play in PlanetSide 2. It is as simple as this - when there is no perceived penalty for taking risks you will see more risk taking. Risk taking is good in games and especially so in a teamwork environment to keep the game from stagnating. The only thing K/D teaches players is that they should avoid risks. It is a selfish stat which when promoted leads to poor gameplay and derisive player behavior.


Developers have a huge opportunity


The developers of PlanetSide 2 have an opportunity to leverage the priming to influence the game by promoting stats that encourage the behaviors they want to see in game. But choosing any simple stats is meaningless and squanders this opportunity. The best stat for developers to promote is score because it is abstract, defined by the developers, and they can directly control what influences it. Simple stats like kills, captures, and K/D cannot be influenced; they are crisply defined constructs. Score is malleable. For example, if the devs which to encourage more captures, they can increase the score value of a capture. If they want to encourage more kill streaks, then they can increase the kill streak score bonus. If they want to encourage more ammo dropping by engineers they can add score for kill assists from people who were recently given ammo, and/or the score value when ammo is received.

Score is a universal stat that is defined by the developers and can therefore be controlled by the developers. It is a tremendous opportunity not only to create a universal calibration of how effective a PlanetSide 2 player is, but it also allows the developers to change the impact each action has on it. Additionally, the "death" stat is naturally factored into score - dead players don't score points. Time spent returning to a combat zone is time not earning score, so naturally dying less can be one way to improve one's score. Playing with medics and utilizing squad spawn and teamwork is a way to minimize these effects and so score takes that into account also. It's an elegant solution.

Other interesting stats could be derived from score, such as showing players where their score contribution originates, be it kills, revives, captures, etc. You could classify them, have pretty color charts, and even bring in leaderboards based on categories of score gain, from support, kills/assists, vehicles, objectives, etc. Who are the players with the highest objective-related scores? Who are the players with the highest kill-related scores, be it direct kills, headshots, streaks, assists, etc? The possibilities are rich here for PlanetSide 2 to influence what players perceive as important and aggregate many similar types of gameplay together.


Recommendation


Deaths as a stat need to be gutted from the game. It is a negative thing that discourages risk taking; just get rid of it. With it goes K/D, and in its place a universal developer-controlled stat can exist.

The best stat to promote is Score/Minute. The /minute part factors in playtime so casual players and hardcore players are on relatively equal footing in terms of making the leaderboard. It becomes a fair comparison. It also becomes a measure of efficiency; simply playing a lot and racking up score isn't enough to dominate a leaderboard. Players should be encouraged to be productive which is precisely what score/min achieves.

Please understand the power that stats have on player behavior. It isn't simply information; it influences the way the game is played. Don't blindly follow tradition and squander an opportunity to set the tone and influence player behavior in PlanetSide 2.

[OnexBigxHebrew]

Stats Promoted by the game prime player behavior


The study of priming teaches us that passive stimuli can shape our behavior. Things like which stats appear on your character sheet will prime players to improve them, even subconsciously. For example, if you constantly reinforce that "captures" are important in the game, and put capture stats front-and center on the stats and have the default leaderboard show captures then you will see a change in player behavior as they are subconsciously primed to play for captures.

(More on priming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_%28psychology%29)

The good side of this is that the developers can significantly and subtly influence the behavior of players by carefully choosing the stats which are promoted. The bad side of this is that if they don't carefully choose them with the understanding that their choices will affect player behavior then they can introduce ruinous gameplay.


K/D is Ruinous


The primary motivation for this post is to highlight K/D, which is a particularly ruinous stat currently being promoted by PlanetSide 2. The gaming world has a terrible culture precendent where the barometer of player skill is by default kills-per-death. Try this trick at home - play a round of BF3 or just ask a player in PlanetSide 1 how well he did. The vast majority of the time players will read their K-D stat. They will rarely read their score, and almost never cite whether their team won or lost. Years of early session shooters have erroneously trained us that the K/D stat is important. Some people think it needs to be present. It does not, and the game will be better off without it.

The danger K/D poses for PlanetSide 2 is that it discourages risk-taking which leads to derisive gameplay. Taking risks increases your chances of incrementing the death stat, which sends the K/D in the wrong direction. Taking objectives, helping other players, being the first man to assault a defended position - these are all behaviors that are discouraged by the promotion of K/D. This is one reason many players will resort to being relatively useless and sit back and snipe so they can preserve their stats rather than assault a well-defended position. If it's a good farm they will have no interest at all in advancing objectives, preferring instead to sit back and rack up stats.

If the "death" stat were not shown on a scoreboard or leaderboard then you would see significantly more teamwork and objective-based play in PlanetSide 2. It is as simple as this - when there is no perceived penalty for taking risks you will see more risk taking. Risk taking is good in games and especially so in a teamwork environment to keep the game from stagnating. The only thing K/D teaches players is that they should avoid risks. It is a selfish stat which when promoted leads to poor gameplay and derisive player behavior.


Developers have a huge opportunity


The developers of PlanetSide 2 have an opportunity to leverage the priming to influence the game by promoting stats that encourage the behaviors they want to see in game. But choosing any simple stats is meaningless and squanders this opportunity. The best stat for developers to promote is score because it is abstract, defined by the developers, and they can directly control what influences it. Simple stats like kills, captures, and K/D cannot be influenced; they are crisply defined constructs. Score is malleable. For example, if the devs which to encourage more captures, they can increase the score value of a capture. If they want to encourage more kill streaks, then they can increase the kill streak score bonus. If they want to encourage more ammo dropping by engineers they can add score for kill assists from people who were recently given ammo, and/or the score value when ammo is received.

Score is a universal stat that is defined by the developers and can therefore be controlled by the developers. It is a tremendous opportunity not only to create a universal calibration of how effective a PlanetSide 2 player is, but it also allows the developers to change the impact each action has on it. Additionally, the "death" stat is naturally factored into score - dead players don't score points. Time spent returning to a combat zone is time not earning score, so naturally dying less can be one way to improve one's score. Playing with medics and utilizing squad spawn and teamwork is a way to minimize these effects and so score takes that into account also. It's an elegant solution.

Other interesting stats could be derived from score, such as showing players where their score contribution originates, be it kills, revives, captures, etc. You could classify them, have pretty color charts, and even bring in leaderboards based on categories of score gain, from support, kills/assists, vehicles, objectives, etc. Who are the players with the highest objective-related scores? Who are the players with the highest kill-related scores, be it direct kills, headshots, streaks, assists, etc? The possibilities are rich here for PlanetSide 2 to influence what players perceive as important and aggregate many similar types of gameplay together.


Recommendation


Deaths as a stat need to be gutted from the game. It is a negative thing that discourages risk taking; just get rid of it. With it goes K/D, and in its place a universal developer-controlled stat can exist.

The best stat to promote is Score/Minute. The /minute part factors in playtime so casual players and hardcore players are on relatively equal footing in terms of making the leaderboard. It becomes a fair comparison. It also becomes a measure of efficiency; simply playing a lot and racking up score isn't enough to dominate a leaderboard. Players should be encouraged to be productive which is precisely what score/min achieves.

Please understand the power that stats have on player behavior. It isn't simply information; it influences the way the game is played. Don't blindly follow tradition and squander an opportunity to set the tone and influence player behavior in PlanetSide 2.

Way too dramatic. I get the point of view, but that was way too long.

[Malorn]

I was a bit surprised to see this resurrected, but I'm in total agreement with TotalBiscuit. As I've said before it's the prominence of the stats that causes problems. It's in-our-face as a constant reminder, rather than an advanced option for people who care about it to check up on. TotalBiscuit had a great explanation. I hope the dev's listen to him if not to us about this matter.

[Blackwolf]

K/D isn't the objective and never was the objective. But the idea that the K/D stats are what ruins the team play of the game is just wrong. The only people that would be consciously or subconsciously affected by having those stats up are more interested in killing other players then in completing objectives to begin with.

Most of the objectives met in the game are achieved by going through the enemy and the KDR is a means of measuring your ability to do so as an individual. Improving that stat by improving yourself helps you achieve your objectives better. And as TB said in that the stats shouldn't be removed.

Now what I would propose is that all stats of your time played remain hidden from view until you log out. Once you officially log out of the game, the game pops up a run-down of your accomplishments during that session as well as totals. Maybe even save each sessions stats so you have a comparison of how well you did, how long you played, how much you accomplished (including base captures, kills, support kills, etc.)

This way you aren't subjected to any kind of constant need to change your play style in order to improve your K/D ratio, but still have access to that information so that you can try to improve yourself and keep track of what is and isn't working for you.

[Symmenix]

Right, and let us throw in a "meters run" stat too, which pops up on the screen in capital letters:

"1 000 METERS!"

"DOMINATION: 10 000 METERS!"

"REVENGE: YOU OUTRAN A GUY!"

"RUNNING SPREE: 1337 METERS!"

It is not my goal either, but heck, I would like to know. Plus, if you run enough it WILL have an impact.

Have all kills In game announced by the Dota 2 mega-kill announcer
M-M-M-M-M-MONSTER KILL!

[rTekku]

Stats have completely ruined Battlefield 3. In the attachment which comes from Battlelog aka Statsbook, you will see the biggest statistics are individual stats and that the page lacks any real team action stats, captures, etc.

The only team actions you will find are heals, resupplies, revives and repairs at the bottom of the page.


841

I'm not even going to go off on a long rant explaining why, but this is the WRONG way to handle stats. Team Actions need to be emphasized more as individual statistics are irrelevant. It would be nice to be able to view them still, but honestly, there's no reason my K/D should take priority over how many times i've captured a point or the amount of times i've healed and revived people.

[Ruffdog]

Won't farming be worse in PS2 if XP per kill is static and not on a sliding scale like PS1? What I mean is, and vets will know, if you killed Jonny NC and he spawned 5 minutes ago, your XP reward will be a lot more than if he spawned 5 seconds ago.
This is why I never liked incessant farming. It was naked K/D and not for XP. The XP you got per kill was less than a single tick of ANT refil.

[Malorn]

Stats have completely ruined Battlefield 3. In the attachment which comes from Battlelog aka Statsbook, you will see the biggest statistics are individual stats and that the page lacks any real team action stats, captures, etc.

The only team actions you will find are heals, resupplies, revives and repairs at the bottom of the page.


841

I'm not even going to go off on a long rant explaining why, but this is the WRONG way to handle stats. Team Actions need to be emphasized more as individual statistics are irrelevant. It would be nice to be able to view them still, but honestly, there's no reason my K/D should take priority over how many times i've captured a point or the amount of times i've healed and revived people.

Unfortunately the stats we've seen of the game from E3 it looks like they copy-pasted the battelog stats page into PS2.

(If anyone wants to see the stats offered for PS2, see E3 Day 3 TotalBiscuit footage - it starts with a stats overview for the game).

[Bittermen]

Keep all the stats... But don't plaster K/D everywhere... I think it would just be in your overall stats.

[opticalshadow]

at the end of the day, just like in ps1, i think it will be the outfits that matter more anyways.

people can pad stats and play like idoits to do it. but you get a few of the bigger outfits rolling, and the stat padders follow, stat padders become fodder, or clog, they become targets and distractions, the big outfits will push the objective, smaller squads will followi the lead, and in the end it all works out.

its how i remember the early years of ps1. i think it will be the same here. alot of people who only care about k/d will generally follow the giant crushing machine that lets them pad it. while taking out that gal spawn is a big advatage, if some idoits camp it for ten minutes and wind up routing small squads of the enemy to try and save it, in the end they are doing something importent. keeping fire off the main force.

[Fligsnurt]

I completely agree with Totalbiscuit on this matter. KDR heavily effects how people choose to play the game. The early problems in BF3's community could be attributed to the fact that KDR was such a prominent stat on battlelog. It evened out after a while due to the fact that the more people focusing on KDR the more your WLR suffered and that stat was more reflected on your front page.

I think that TF2 is a good staple to look at for the effects on gameplay in the current gaming community that doesn't utilize KDR on their score boards. The gameplay is much more progressive. There are objectives, there are teamwork based classes and their are the more combat based classes. And because points are more easily accumulate by supporting the team rather then kill whoring you see more people filling support roles.

There will always be those that care solely about the amount of kills you get but if you don't make it seem that KDR is important less people will care about it. If you are to keep it, put it in a less observed area. The front page stats on a player's profile should be more about their over all contribution to gameplay. Stats like overall score, SPM, revives, repairs, squad spawns, people that have spawned off your galaxy, hacks, captures, defends. Those stats, if put in the first place people look at their stats, will help promote better gameplay.

Just remove the KDR stat itself and put kills and deaths as two seperate stats on the advanced stats page IMHO.

[Kalledorn]

Definitely agree that K/D should be moved to a less prominent place and should not be emphasized. I am not sure if it should be changed or removed completely but I definitely do not think that it should be shown as an important stat.

Yes, outfits and team play can still win out over individual lone wolves but alot of people do simply love to be at the top of the leaderboards by any means necessary and that could mean simply farming and other things that can be counter productive to team play.

[Novice bot]

This again?


I want to follow my stats, so I can follow my progression as a player. Do I actually care if my K/D ratio is higher or lower? Nope. But I want the option to know, that's about it.

It's not the objective, who the hell thinks people think its their objective, if K/D is in the game? Those who care about their K/D.

[foam]

I'm not smart enough to grasp the concepts being talked about in this thread.

[bmfof]

It's amazing how such a small and simple feature stirs so much butthurt in the glass.

The notion that K/D shouldn't be tracked because it's not an objective is laughable - enemy extermination is the prevelant method of reaching objectives and accomplishing the more challenging tasks in the game. Having a gauge on that performance is important in order to monitor both your and your outfit's overall usefulness with this particular method. If you are a bad leader you'll take someone with shit K/D and kick him out because you can't find a purpose for him, thus your outfit will suffer, because it'll end up being composed of FPS junkies with no tactical foresight. If you are half competent and you're able to detect someone's strenghts then more power to you - at the end of the day a good outfit is compiled out of all kinds of players - medics and engineers who'd rather stay in the back for support, infiltrators who'd scout and backstab enemy lines, pilots who fare better with vehicles, and your HA, LA and MAXs cannon fodder platoons - the more varied your force is, the more effective it'll be.

K/D junkies will be K/D junkies regarldess of whether you track their stats or not. Let them have their fun - it's completely irrelevant if they have good stats, if they can't follow simple objectives and listen to orders they will remain useless and eventually give up on the game. But I'd rather cultivate them and keep them in the game, instead of just putting a cockblock infront of them from the getgo and alienate them during the first 5 minutes of playing.

[Fenrod]

It's amazing how such a small and simple feature stirs so much butthurt in the glass.

The notion that K/D shouldn't be tracked because it's not an objective is laughable - enemy extermination is the prevelant method of reaching objectives and accomplishing the more challenging tasks in the game. Having a gauge on that performance is important in order to monitor both your and your outfit's overall usefulness with this particular method. If you are a bad leader you'll take someone with shit K/D and kick him out because you can't find a purpose for him, thus your outfit will suffer, because it'll end up being composed of FPS junkies with no tactical foresight.

^This.

[Kran De Loy]

I fully support Malorn's idea of using Score as the primary way to track individual and outfit ability, however K/D should stay in the game as well.

I agree that K/D and kill streaks are bad, but they're something so ingrained into the FPS gaming community that has been derived from session bases shooters for so long that it's pretty integral now. So basically they're bad on a personal opinion level.

I mean K/D isn't the same as red jam on your screen. If red jam being just as integral in FPS gaming as K/D, then I would be COMPLETELY behind any movement to irrevocably remove that idea from the face of existence for all of time.

[Kipper]

I see this as being as much about balance as how actual guns, vehicles and classes compare to each other.

Simply don't give any single one stat any prominence over the other, but report as many stats as its possible to track.

Thus people can measure their performance on the criteria that they feel comfortable with, they can check leaderboards against people on what they feel as though they excel at, or how performance should be measured.

Some people will want to play for kills, some support actions, some captures, and its all relevant and up to the individual imho. Some people will want to track all-time performance, some will only be interested in the last 30 days, or last week - why would you beat yourself up / want to be at a disadvantage for being shit at a brand new game which you weren't as familiar with, a year after you started playing?

No one person should be even allowed to say "the way you're tracking your performance is wrong, you should do it like this" because thats just bollocks, its up to the individual - and the game will be more successful when everyone can play it exactly the way they want to and not have to conform to what someone else says is right.

[Landtank]

Right, and let us throw in a "meters run" stat too, which pops up on the screen in capital letters:

"1 000 METERS!"

"DOMINATION: 10 000 METERS!"

"REVENGE: YOU OUTRAN A GUY!"

"RUNNING SPREE: 1337 METERS!"

It is not my goal either, but heck, I would like to know. Plus, if you run enough it WILL have an impact.

Well atleast I don't have to take you seriously ever again.

[Gugabalog]

Way too dramatic. I get the point of view, but that was way too long.

Never say anything like TL;DR.

I enjoyed it very much.

[Shadowrath]

Personally K/D is what motivates me in FPS's so I can't imagine them without them.

[Malorn]

Need more people actually listening to TotalBiscuit's response instead of knee-jerk posting.

Ill reiterate - I agree with TB entirely. Put KD in an advanced stats option, make that option private, and fill the default stats with teamwork related stats.

The masses get good encouragement, the "i want all stats!" people get what they want, and its there for the silly individuala who measure themselves by it. Its win for everyone.

[SavageB]

Keep K/D as a main stat. For me personally, I like competition, I like trying to be the best I can be, and improving my KD is on top of the list. I like the idea of looking up someone's profile and seeing a good or bad KD. It will seperate the goods from the bads when it comes to KILLING, but they could be exceptional when it comes to SUPPORT, this kinda stuff needs to be reflected which Im sure it will as well. You can have a great KD ratio and your teamwork/support skill set can be just as good.

This is a FPS, KD = pretty important.

[Revanmug]

You want a good way to show stats? Forget Battlelog and check http://bf3stats.com/

Pick a name and see by yourself.

[Hydra]

Ill reiterate - I agree with TB entirely. Put KD in an advanced stats option, make that option private, and fill the default stats with teamwork related stats.

The masses get good encouragement, the "i want all stats!" people get what they want, and its there for the silly individuala who measure themselves by it. Its win for everyone.


This.
Planetside isn't about individual competition, or how many killstreaks you get because that isn't going to win the day, its about tactics, organization and teamwork, a K/D ratio does not promote teamwork.

Make it private , so someone can improve their individual skills and not have it a inevitable trollfest when people compare their stats to each other to criticize - not everyone is interested in getting kills

[bmfof]

I fail to see any sensible reason for K/D to be hidden. I'm tempted to say "because I'm horribad" isn't a valid one, but I'm sure you'll come up with something else entirely to mask.

[Malorn]

I fail to see any sensible reason for K/D to be hidden. I'm tempted to say "because I'm horribad" isn't a valid one, but I'm sure you'll come up with something else entirely to mask.

TotalBiscuit answered your question quite well.

[Natir]

Keep K/D as a main stat. For me personally, I like competition, I like trying to be the best I can be, and improving my KD is on top of the list. I like the idea of looking up someone's profile and seeing a good or bad KD. It will seperate the goods from the bads when it comes to KILLING, but they could be exceptional when it comes to SUPPORT, this kinda stuff needs to be reflected which Im sure it will as well. You can have a great KD ratio and your teamwork/support skill set can be just as good.

This is a FPS, KD = pretty important.

So what about the random people who just go on remote ledges to snipe people? Your logic would say these people are amazing players. I would say they are terrible players in terms of organization and team play. It doesn't take much skill at all to go on a roof or somewhere remote and kill people, especially if they cannot find you. You may be amazing and hide and seek but that is really all that person is good at.

This game is a MMOFPS which requires a good amount of team play and organization. Encouraging people to go for kills over capping a base or holding points doesn't make sense. If you have to hold points for resources, win the game, etc, wouldn't you want people to be encouraged to do those things? Killing people just comes with doing that. Killing should secondary to the objectives. Fulfilling the objectives will give you those kills as enemies will be attacking you.

[Gugabalog]

Malorn +1 for levelheaded posting.

Btw, You're one of the space nazis I actually have respect for :D
Also, can you give me your (on-topic) opinion on: http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=46157 ?

I agree with TB.

So what about the random people who just go on remote ledges to snipe people? Your logic would say these people are amazing players. I would say they are terrible players in terms of organization and team play. It doesn't take much skill at all to go on a roof or somewhere remote and kill people, especially if they cannot find you. You may be amazing and hide and seek but that is really all that person is good at.

This game is a MMOFPS which requires a good amount of team play and organization. Encouraging people to go for kills over capping a base or holding points doesn't make sense. If you have to hold points for resources, win the game, etc, wouldn't you want people to be encouraged to do those things? Killing people just comes with doing that. Killing should secondary to the objectives. Fulfilling the objectives will give you those kills as enemies will be attacking you.


Teamplay ftw!

[bmfof]

You should try reading instead of baiting. TotalBiscuit answered your question quite well. Watch the video and educate yourself so you dont look like an ignorant troll.

Maybe you didn't quite understand what I'm asking - I want to know why should your K/D be private information and not public?

[Gugabalog]

Maybe you didn't quite understand what I'm asking - I want to know why should your K/D be private information and not public?

Read the thread.

[bmfof]

Read the thread.

Indulge me and extract that bit of it that answers my question.

[Gugabalog]

I will not indulge the lazy or stupid. I expect them to claw their own way out. Not to bait or anything. But I refuse to enable poor behavior on this forum especially in the form on knee jerk posting.

[rTekku]

Indulge me and extract that bit of it that answers my question.

People have already explained why....

As I said earlier in the topic, stats have completely ruined Battlefield 3 which is supposed to be a game that focuses more so on team play than anything else. The problem with individual stats being emphasized like THIS (http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/soldier/r-Teku/stats/246886305/) is that many are more likely to just focus on trying to improve those individual stats which can be detrimental to team play.

Depending on your playstyle, you may or may not be able to net a high K/D.

If i'm a player who enjoys running around keeping ally tanks repaired and taking out vehicles here and there when needed, I might not have a really good K/D, but i'm still helping the team in my own way. But what everyone else sees when they click on my page is that crappy K/D. They don't see that i've repaired this many vehicles or that i've assisted my team in capturing X amount of flags. They automatically assume i'm a bad player because I have a low K/D ratio. I might end up changing my entire play style just so I don't look like a bad player because of that. Instead of running out to help friendly tanks who are engaged in a battle, I might hesitate because I don't want to risk dying a lot.

Stats are the reason Operation Metro is the most played map in the game despite being a piece of shit. It's nothing but legal stat padding.

[Malorn]

Indulge me and extract that bit of it that answers my question.


It's at the top of the OP.

Goto 5:52

► The Mailbox - July 25th, 2012 - YouTube

Click and listen. Real simple for you.

[bmfof]

I will not indulge the lazy or stupid.

The irony.

I took the extra mile and read the entire thread, but, shockingly, did not find the answer to my question as promised. I also watched the video and had no luck there either. I suppose it has something to do with the fact that I don't put up whether K/D stats should be tracked at all up for debate - like you seem to think, despite my crystal clear phrasing - but would rather like to know

WHY SHOULD YOUR K/D STATS BE INVISIBLE TO ME?

Picture this: I am an outfit leader and you want to join up with my outfit. I check out your profile and I want to see your K/D so I'd know what use I can get out of you. Why would you hide it?


As for the rest...

I also love me some long-winded tirades induced with false pretense of knowledge based on anecdotal evidence about a game someone did in BF3 back in the winter of '11 where this awful kid just kept killing everyone and didn't took the objective. This shit holds merit only for pubies and if you think that by removing a simple tracker they'd all suddenly (or over time) start playing to your imaginary pipe dream of perfectly coordinated 13-year olds bound by fleets of galaxies and armor strewn across the horizon in perfect harmony... I am sorry, but I have to dissapoint you - it's not happening, ever.

Here's what I can guarantee (*hint hint*) you is happening - people with no general purpose or idea will act out like they always act out in any other game, stat or no stat attached to their meaningless existence.

You people need to realize that no game mechanic can redeem the inherant human flaw of stupidity. All you can do is try and funnel it into something useful for the rest of us - removing tracking or keeping it hidden does nothing to further this principle - it just serves to frustrate and confuse people. Whereas, if present, it allows quicker and more accurate shifting of player potential.

Tracking is how you funnel people over time - it tells you where you lack and where you excel; and the more in-depth it is, the more of an accurate performance picture it gives you and your fellow squad mates. Yes, placing priority on K/D in a game like PS2 is wrong, but if you do that, you'll end up lagging behind in overall performance and if you have the foresight you'll eventually correct your playstyle, like any sensible person would. If not, you'll keep lagging and eventually quit. To suggest that tracking K/D in particular has created purposless playing, is absolutely laughable.

And last but not least, it's nigh impossible to K/D whore without at least remotely playing to the objective. The game is built in such a way that it's not physically viable to stay a mile away with a rifle shooting for an hour so you'd get >1.0 K/D. The battlefield itself would shift quicker than you'd actually do something besides hurting a baddie, maybe landing a headshot at best. Unless you're actually in a very favourable position and have clear sight to loads of enemies, you'll find that playstyle very boring, probably before you run out of ammo (which will inevitably happen). And if you actually do, well, OHEMGI, you're actually useful because you're eliminating loads of enemies. On the other spectrum, being close to the objective automatically puts you in the "remotely useful" bracket, even if you just run around gunning for enemies. Rumour has it that killing all the opponent players on the objective lets you cap it :huh: , but don't hold me to it.

On the whole, high TTK, no HP regen, limited ammo, cross-dependancy throughout classes, are all mechanics that discourage the lone ranger playstyle - stat tracking, and especially K/D tracking, is completely irrelevant.

[Malorn]

WHY SHOULD YOUR K/D STATS BE INVISIBLE TO ME?

Picture this: I am an outfit leader and you want to join up with my outfit. I check out your profile and I want to see your K/D so I'd know what use I can get out of you. Why would you hide it?


Public stats only lead to poeple judging people by stats which they may or may not consider relevant. You have the right to be an idiot and judge people by K/D, but the fact that you can judge them will change their behavior. They should be able to play the game however they want to play it without your scrutiny.

If they want in your outfit, and they have K/D hidden and you think it's important then tell them to un-hide it or don't invite them into your outfit. Pretty simple there KD pro.

----

Moving on to the discussion..Team Fortress 2 really is the example PS2 should be taking for stats. TotalBiscuit called it out as a good example and I absolutely agree.

The most prominent stat is which team is winning, followed by individual scores, which is a normalized stat which is contributed by a lot of different behaviors, like healing, repairing, assists, destructions, captures, defenses, and kills too of course. Each one has an individual weight

You have the all-up Score stat, which is what is prominent and clearly displayed as the important stat. Then there's a breakdown about how you get that score and other stats. They don't even have K/D here. If you want that you have to do the math yourself.

http://2disbetterthan3d.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/tf2.png

It's clear from this scoreboard that winning, and scoring points are how you excel at the game. It does the background work of weighting different activities, and you can see the raw numbers if you like, but TF2 has good team-play and people do play for objectives. It's a good happy balance between promoting the right type of gameplay and giving people the raw stats. The game, not the players, dictates what is important.

[rTekku]

bmfof, i'm not sure if you're blind or what, but i've already answered your question as to why K/D should not be displayed to the public.

And by the way, K/D in public matches does not determine what you will get out of a player. Many of the top players in Battlefield have K/D ratios of 1 or 2 simply because they play against each other a lot in public servers. Whereas someone who does nothing but 24/7 Metro might have a K/D of 5, but isn't actually effective in a competitive match.

[Gugabalog]

Thanks you two for illustrating to him what should of been painfully obvious. Have some cookies :D

[bmfof]

@rTekku, Malorn: Do you actually have any data to back up your claims? Or are you going by personal experience? (if that's not perfectly clear, I mean data backing up the notion that K/D tracking makes it harder for people to find and play with other people in a coordinated fashion, i.e. in teams with voicecomms and so on).

Let me get this straight - you are bitter at a particular stat, because it shows your performance in a bad light? You are bitter at it, because - in DM games with high spawn retention - it has supposedly conditioned everyone and their mom to judge one player's performance solely on his K/D rating? To this end your intended "fix" to the problem of conditioning is to re-condition players into... I don't know... suddenly forget that K/D exists?

The problem is that K/D is, contrary to what you so firmly want to believe in, actually important. K/D tells me something I'd want to know as a leader, and if you want to be in my outfit you will be "scrutinized", because I need that information to find an appropriate role for you. If you don't like that, have fun playing with pubies for the rest of your (very bitter, I promise you) life. But please don't try to paint a picture where leadership denies admission to people left, right and centre because one stat out of eleventy is crap - weirdly enough Planetside isn't the only franchise where logistics actually matter and, from my experience, "carebears" do have their place, even in the most cutthroat environments.

Again, if it's re-conditioning what you seek, the game already has the mechanisms to accomplish this - people cannot afford to K/D whore, it's just not an effective way to play. Why would you care if some cretin you don't know anything about picks at your profile on a random basis to look at your K/D, is truly beyond me.

[Kipper]

In a game where 'winning' is not possible at worst, and at best, a very transient state since you could well be losing again 10 minutes later - I don't think any individual personal stat needs prominence - but I don't beleive any should be removed either. They should all be listed equally, or better - in either a custom layout, or a layout that favours the current action (I'm currently a sniper so I see K/D at the top, or I'm currently a support so I heals/repairs at the top).

Its true that for some people, they'll change their play style to improve stats that they care about (or want to get achievements on), and its probably true that some people place too much importance in pure K/D. It's also true that pure K/D is probably not a good barometer of teamwork - but should seeing/tracking it be denied to individuals? No. It's probably just become the de-facto standard of e-peen length measurement because there's nothing else that anyone can agree on.

To influence how people play the game, the developers must define a generic 'score' system and promote that above all else.

It will be comprised of many things - kills, deaths, support actions, captures/defences, streaks, time alive & active, shots fired/hits, and so on, so forth. The exact calculation should not be revealed if at all possible; or it should be highly situational (so killing in an area where you're outnumbered > killing in an area where you have more troops, likewise, dying when overwhelmed is not frowned upon too badly compared to dying in a 'secure' area).

Also, since its a generic number that is comprised of many different things - the dev team can balance it continually to try and remove advantages in scoring from any individual class/weapon/vehicle/gear/playstyle combo.

None of this means that K/D should be removed however! It simply means that the universal benchmark of 'who is best at Planetside 2' can only be measured by 'score' as it comprises all things - to be the best at 'score' you must be able to play all roles, classes, weapons and vehicles (but it should also be tracked if possible with breakdowns available).

People should still, if they prefer - be able to see 'who is best at K/D', or 'who is most accurate with the sniper rifle' or 'who has the best kill streak in a mosquito' or whatever else you want..... It may just be that tonight, your outfit is having "air to air combat night" in which case, they just want to focus on related stats to determine who gets the glory - be that 'score' while piloting an A/A vehicle, or A/A KD, Kill Streak, or whatever.

Don't remove stats - quite the opposite imo... add as many different stats as is possible.

[Disillusioned]

People have already explained why....

As I said earlier in the topic, stats have completely ruined Battlefield 3 which is supposed to be a game that focuses more so on team play than anything else. The problem with individual stats being emphasized like THIS (http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/soldier/r-Teku/stats/246886305/) is that many are more likely to just focus on trying to improve those individual stats which can be detrimental to team play.

Depending on your playstyle, you may or may not be able to net a high K/D.

If i'm a player who enjoys running around keeping ally tanks repaired and taking out vehicles here and there when needed, I might not have a really good K/D, but i'm still helping the team in my own way. But what everyone else sees when they click on my page is that crappy K/D. They don't see that i've repaired this many vehicles or that i've assisted my team in capturing X amount of flags. They automatically assume i'm a bad player because I have a low K/D ratio. I might end up changing my entire play style just so I don't look like a bad player because of that. Instead of running out to help friendly tanks who are engaged in a battle, I might hesitate because I don't want to risk dying a lot.

Stats are the reason Operation Metro is the most played map in the game despite being a piece of shit. It's nothing but legal stat padding.

This. Which then leads to the Spoony-esque "if your SPM and or K/D is below such and such you fail" forum domination, which causes more insecure players to think they have to farm stats to be respectable in the eyes of their peers.

Personally I've never understood it; if you're not getting paid or laid based on your video game stats (I'm pretty sure the latter has yet to happen in the history of humanity), then who really gives a shit?

[SavageB]

So what about the random people who just go on remote ledges to snipe people? Your logic would say these people are amazing players. I would say they are terrible players in terms of organization and team play. It doesn't take much skill at all to go on a roof or somewhere remote and kill people, especially if they cannot find you. You may be amazing and hide and seek but that is really all that person is good at.

This game is a MMOFPS which requires a good amount of team play and organization. Encouraging people to go for kills over capping a base or holding points doesn't make sense. If you have to hold points for resources, win the game, etc, wouldn't you want people to be encouraged to do those things? Killing people just comes with doing that. Killing should secondary to the objectives. Fulfilling the objectives will give you those kills as enemies will be attacking you.

Just like snipers IRL are bad at teamwork to right....

Just because a person is on a ledge " Lone wolfing " does not make him a bad player.....Hes taking out enemy which in turn will make an assault on a base easier for those foward troops, not to mention a sniper has amazing recon ability. However, if he is lone wolfing and not taking out a damn person with his sniper rifle...then yes I agree he would be a terrible player. It's all in context how you view these things...I could run with a squad and have 10:1 KD...Im using teamwork and im an amazing shooter at the sametime, all in context.

I could have a KD of 1:10 but still be amazing because I have repaired 1000+ maxes within 2 hours per say. Everyone has their place in the game.

KD ratio is important to ME, maybe not YOU. I enjoy competition, I love seeing a high KD in a player because above all this is a shooter, you can rant away about a MMOFPS...at its core this game is a SHOOTER, being able to shoot properly and kill effectively is the ABC's of a shooter game.


Just my 2 cents.

[OnexBigxHebrew]

Sorry to tell you, but straight score stats can be abusive as well.

Someone can pad their score just as easily as they can camp to boost their K/D.

[Gugabalog]

Sorry to tell you, but straight score stats can be abusive as well.

Someone can pad their score just as easily as they can camp to boost their K/D.

Yea. This is a core argument of the hide the stats platform. Stats are not necessarily an accurate portrayal of a players capability. You want a capable player? Give them a trial period or train them.

[DirtyBird]

For arguments sake, KDR also caters for the single player and outfits comprising of those single minded players.
Not everyone wants to join an outfit and play soldiers to the generals.
There are outfits out there who's soul objective each night is to simply kill everything while yours is to guard a tower, cap a base, watch the grass grow all in the name of Team play.
And who cares if they all want to be rambo, doesn't effect your game unless they are pwning you.

Those people are part of the game, the unpredictable. I believe they actually make it easier for those of you who want to meticulously plan every move like a game of Snorlax chess.

PS2 wont, nor shouldn't, remove a basic stat that appeals to a targeted player base that they have openly declared they are pursuing (eg. First Platoon).
If you dont like KDR then ignore it, dont force your insecurities about it on others.

[Gugabalog]

We won't be playing snorlax chest, it will be lightning fast when we make our move. Have fun being mowed by teamwork and coordination.

[rTekku]

@rTekku, Malorn: Do you actually have any data to back up your claims? Or are you going by personal experience? (if that's not perfectly clear, I mean data backing up the notion that K/D tracking makes it harder for people to find and play with other people in a coordinated fashion, i.e. in teams with voicecomms and so on).

Let me get this straight - you are bitter at a particular stat, because it shows your performance in a bad light? You are bitter at it, because - in DM games with high spawn retention - it has supposedly conditioned everyone and their mom to judge one player's performance solely on his K/D rating? To this end your intended "fix" to the problem of conditioning is to re-condition players into... I don't know... suddenly forget that K/D exists?

The problem is that K/D is, contrary to what you so firmly want to believe in, actually important. K/D tells me something I'd want to know as a leader, and if you want to be in my outfit you will be "scrutinized", because I need that information to find an appropriate role for you. If you don't like that, have fun playing with pubies for the rest of your (very bitter, I promise you) life. But please don't try to paint a picture where leadership denies admission to people left, right and centre because one stat out of eleventy is crap - weirdly enough Planetside isn't the only franchise where logistics actually matter and, from my experience, "carebears" do have their place, even in the most cutthroat environments.

Again, if it's re-conditioning what you seek, the game already has the mechanisms to accomplish this - people cannot afford to K/D whore, it's just not an effective way to play. Why would you care if some cretin you don't know anything about picks at your profile on a random basis to look at your K/D, is truly beyond me.

Why would I need data to back up my claims? When you're involved in a community like Battlefield's for a long period of time, you experience this type of stuff all of the time on both forums and in-game. Disillusioned knows exactly what i'm talking about. You see people with higher stats putting down those with lower stats and telling them how bad they are because they have a low K/D ratio or SPM. And if these players are insecure about their stats, then they are going to do whatever it takes to boost those stats up in order to look like a better player.

Again, it's why so many people play Operation Metro(the most popular BF3 map). It's the easiest way to get high stats with little to no effort.

Who said anything about conditioning players into believing K/D does not exist? I've stated multiple times now that individual statistics like K/D should not be emphasized as much as team statistics in a TEAM based game. That does not mean remove K/D from the entire game. Even if K/D is made private, it's still available to that individual user so that they may see their progress if they want too. This can also be displayed on in-game leaderboards.

I never said K/D was not important, but the fact of the matter is there are other ways to help your team succeed that do not involve killing. That especially holds true in Planetside. So why should we judge the skill of a player based on one stat? Here is an old picture of me playing BC2 with my friend mscmn. He piloted a helicopter as I gunned for him and we easily won the match. You can see he went 0/0 over the course of a full match. Is he a horrible player because he could not get a single kill? No, he's not. He assisted the team in his own way and in this case it was flying for me while I gunned down the enemy team.

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb45/ron56ace/2011-08-16_00026.jpg

Stop trying to bring up this argument about clans because you won't win it. For the second time now, some of the best players in the game have average statistics in public rooms because they play against one another. Because they are playing against tough competition like that in public matches, they won't have super high K/D ratios and SPMs. Here's an example.

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/soldier/rivaLCartel/stats/231150739/

Cartel is the leader of RivaL Gaming. One of the most successful Battlefield clans out there. And if you scroll down to the bottom of his page, you will see his original stats before he reset them. He was only averaging a 1.7 K/D and 600 SPM. Those are pretty average stats, wouldn't you agree?

Here's another example of a guy I play with that has a 2.0 K/D and 800 SPM. He has no competitive experience whatsoever by the way.

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/soldier/m-Teku/stats/250830806/

But I guess you'd still take the second guy over Cartel because he has better stats, right? Do you see how irrelevant and misleading stats in public matches are? Not to mention there are some things that cannot be measured using numbers. So while Cartel may be a tactical mastermind who is able to come up with effective strategies and knows how to properly organize his troops, you will never know it because no such stat exists.

And finally, there are people out there who are insecure and do in fact care about what people say about them as a player just as there are folks out there that don't care. Why they care is beyond me, but the fact is they do care and many will change their entire mentality in order to impress those who are bashing them because of their stats.

[Gugabalog]

If I had my say there would only be stats for outfits, and not individuals. I fee like punishing lone wolves. :evil::evil::evil::rofl::lol:.

[Meriv]

perfect a simil like efficiency stat like Wot :D:D (efficiency mod in wot changed a lot my gameplay in better)

Now I just need the option to color names by their score ratio.

same reason as wot, you need to know who is the weak side of your team (to help him, cover him, heal him etc..etc.. and being able to know where to hit harder the enemy in real time).

and since I don't have a lot of time because I am a casual player not ending up with a troll

[Aurmanite]

The TF2 screenshot in this thread tracks everything... kills, deaths, captures, destructions, heals, damage and more.

Aside from a few specific playstyles, such as dedicated medic (and they still get assists,) a player's score will not be very high if they aren't making more kills than deaths. You can't capture points, run flags, hold territory... complete objectives...if you aren't killing people.

Planetside is an FPS. Shooting people is what the game boils down to. Give players the choice to show their online profile in whatever manner they choose, but track and show everything.

Everything.

[Gugabalog]

This thread has great examples of the mentality of FPS=K/D

And that it would be a challenge to change that mentality and thus require greater measures.

[ikon]

planetside already caters to bad players, its called support classes.

why in gods name would we get rid of k/d, it only matters to the people who want it.
the rest just go about their business and be helpful via support or dying over and over as a offensive style class.


i know tb dislikes the one man army idea, but shouldn't every player aspire to be a one man army regardless of what class they play.

[Gugabalog]

planetside already caters to bad players, its called support classes.

why in gods name would we get rid of k/d, it only matters to the people who want it.
the rest just go about their business and be helpful via support or dying over and over as a offensive style class.


i know tb dislikes the one man army idea, but shouldn't every player aspire to be a one man army regardless of what class they play.

You have obviously never heard of a force multiplier.

[rTekku]

planetside already caters to bad players, its called support classes.

why in gods name would we get rid of k/d, it only matters to the people who want it.
the rest just go about their business and be helpful via support or dying over and over as a offensive style class.


i know tb dislikes the one man army idea, but shouldn't every player aspire to be a one man army regardless of what class they play.

I prefer to be part of a team versus a one man army. If I wanted to be a one man army, i'd still be playing Unreal Tournament.

[Cow God]

This thread has great examples of the mentality of FPS=K/D

And that it would be a challenge to change that mentality and thus require greater measures.

CoD and BF3 are unfortunately advancing that mentality faster then the objective-focused players can regress it. =\

[SpcFarlen]

I like to know my KDR, just because i like to know my combat effectiveness. When i assault a base with my outfit i want to be there to support them. Being alive longer means i can support them. Making sure when a target has a bead on me i can take them down before me means i can support those i need to for longer. Taking out an enemy means i keep my forces alive longer. The more we have, the better our odds for success.

If you have that mentality i dont see the issue. If you're worried someone else is going to "make fun of you" for a low KDR, ignore them or just not care. If you know you are doing the right thing, what do you have to prove to them?

[super pretendo]

Just make it like PS1

[Flaropri]

You can't capture points, run flags, hold territory... complete objectives...if you aren't killing people.

Yeah you can. As long as you're able to avoid death and your team takes care of the killing, you can absolutely focus on objectives in TF2. Sure, as a Scout I'll get some kills, but my primary job is to get objectives, find SG locations, and play baseball.

[opticalshadow]

Yeah you can. As long as you're able to avoid death and your team takes care of the killing, you can absolutely focus on objectives in TF2. Sure, as a Scout I'll get some kills, but my primary job is to get objectives, find SG locations, and play baseball.

ill agree here, as a scout and sometimes spy, ill make it to the intel (i primairly play intel) without fireing a shot and then bline to base, sometimes i dont even fire, ive had plenty of tf2 games end in the top 3 postions with no kills.

[Voltar]

Mission completion or something like that would be better than K/D if we're looking to track productive teamwork stuff. Even though it's not been implimented yet, I think the mission system could be the thing that really makes this game.

There's a lot of potential for indirect coordination.

[bmfof]

Why would I need data to back up my claims?

When your whole argument is based on the notion that players en masse are degrading in quality solely because someone in a game told them they are bad, then - yes, you need data to back up your claims. Let me run you through the paces, since you're kind of drifting elsewhere with the rest of your post:

You: Players should have the option to hide their stats from the public eye.
Me: Why?
You: Because if their stats are public they are under constant scrutiny!
Me: So?
You: Players become insecure about themselves and their priorities suffer as a result.
Me: Do you actually have any data that backs up that claim?
You: They do, OK? I JUST KNOW IT!!!

Then you go on implying I've completely dwarfed the significance of other stats - which I never did at all - and try to build some kind of an argument around that implication, which is indicative of very poor debating skills. I'm telling you this so you don't wonder why I don't even answer the rest of your post - it's unanswerable because it assumes I've said and claimed things I didn't, and I refuse to be forced into that position.


Back on track, I realize what you're trying to accomplish - cut to the root of the problem, so to speak - by removing public stats, you believe people won't have the means to call anyone bad, thus leading us into a new age of gaming where everyone is happy about themselves and la-di-da. Sadly, you are wrong on two very simple accounts:

As I mentioned earlier, stupid people are stupid, regardless of stats. If they called you bad because of your stats in the past, they'll call you bad now because that's simply what they do - it's the essense of their being. Stats just gave them great flogging material, but the presense of stats is secondary to the intentions of a player. Stats aren't the cause (or root) of the problem - people are.

Second, you completely disregard the fact that your "beef" with stat tracking stems from any number of other factors like poor method of overall stat tracking, many possible exploits and exaggerations, poor level design (in your favourite example of op.metro), immature communty, and lastly - it's based on a game(s) that is totally different from PS2. However, you seem to ignore the fact that many of these factors are redeemable - stat tracking methods could be improved to better represent actual useful performance, exploits could be kept track of and dealt with, poor level design averted, immaturity - funneled into useful playstyle through ingame mechanisms... and it goes without saying that PS2 is so inherantly different from your standart Battlefiedesuqe gameplay, that to apply experiences and overall mass mentality from one to the other is an absolute waste of time and energy (kinda of like this whole thread).

To sum up, stats aren't your problem, people are. And it doesn't matter what kinds or number of mechanics you attach (or detach) to a game, they will remain stupid until the end of time. I also have the whole of human history to back me up on that claim, unlike you.

[Firearms]

Stats are win. Take out K/D and people will just start putting Vanu stamps along their monitor and taking screen shots....human nature.
It's the people that think this or that stat matters is the problem.

To sum up, stats aren't your problem, people are.

/thread

[Trauma]

Maybe something like how Blacklight Retribution shows score and KD will make both sides happy, score is heavily emphasized with it being bigger and brighter on the scoreboard but KD is shown right there for people to see.

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/blacklight-retribution?before=1338167117

Smart/good players will understand how both are related and judge a player on that while people who think score is almighty will have it right there in the open and players who just like the KD, which is one of the most important stats in a SHOOTER, will have it in the same place on the same line as score. Everyone should be happy.

[Gugabalog]

Sorry, but as a pilot game for a genre and an mmofps k/d is a secondary statistic.

[kubacheski]

K/D is kinda bogus in a persistent world. Ever been killed out in the middle of nowhere by a stray reaver that flew by? It makes a lot more sense in an instanced game where you play a round and see how good you do.

PS1 and PS2 are persistent wars where there are a multitude of tactics. For example, ever have a few infils load up with plasma grenades and cause a distraction so the main assault force can push into a base? Damage done causing general havoc in one area that doesn't always yield kills, can still lead to the squad/platoon getting an objective completed.

Something like damage per death makes much more sense as a statistic for your battle effectiveness. But then with varrying classes and vehicles and weapons contributing to varrying damage output, even that doesn't make the equation equal for all. i.e. when you're a medic, your goal is to heal faction members so that primary objective should count more than your damage output. Each class has a different priority. And then people have different tactics they employ to varrying degrees of success. There's simply too much diversity to have anything near a valid "score equation".

With all of the stats people track, it would be nice to be able to configure your own definition of what to display. Some people like K/D, others could choose Damage/Death, others MetersRun/Death, BulletsSpent/Kill. The list goes on and on, you let the user define what he wants to see based upon how he wants to grade himself for battle effectiveness.

I mean if you're displaying one calculation for k/d, then you're already hitting the stats database for a lookup of the 2 stats and then performing the defined calculation, why not allow the user to define the 2 stats they want to see and display that for them on the kill screen.

[Revanmug]

Yeah you can. As long as you're able to avoid death and your team takes care of the killing, you can absolutely focus on objectives in TF2. Sure, as a Scout I'll get some kills, but my primary job is to get objectives, find SG locations, and play baseball.

You kinda prove his point. You might be doing your job but other people still have to do the killing and if they fail at killing, your job will be harder.

Depending on the person's job, a higher k/d might be more important comparing to another's people job. As long as any other stats are shown so you can judge yourself, Why would that wrong? Just make sure no stats look more important than the others since changing kdr for a score or something is nothing more than changing the bad to another place.

[Flaropri]

You kinda prove his point. You might be doing your job but other people still have to do the killing and if they fail at killing, your job will be harder.

Depending on the person's job, a higher k/d might be more important comparing to another's people job. As long as any other stats are shown so you can judge yourself, Why would that wrong? Just make sure no stats look more important than the others since changing kdr for a score or something is nothing more than changing the bad to another place.

My point was that killing isn't important for individual stats pending type of play, not that killing isn't important at all. The idea that all players need to individually have high K/D is wrong in TF2 and not just for the Medic (who needs high A/D). In fact, for some roles, if you focus too much on getting kills you aren't doing your job. An Engineer that goes off to get kills without protecting his nest risks losing it and putting the nest in an overly aggressive spot could leave the objectives undefended (some Engineer builds are good for aggression though, mini-SG and all, but you generally want to use that only when defense is already covered).

I've been saying from the beginning that more stats is best stats, just to make them equal in importance/prominence, so we're on the same page here. The thing is, there is a difference between individual kills and team kills, and I dislike the implication that K/D is particularly important for everybody on a team. I was merely responding to that on the individual basis. Killing is important, but not on an individual basis, especially for PS2, which has more support/logistics to take care of than most FPS games, including TF2.


To sum the thread:
And that's the point of Malorn's concerns. People who go after the objectives, who play a support role, etc. aren't going to generally have particularly high K/D, because it isn't their focus many is the time I've run in as a scout, knowing I would die horribly, just to tag the Intel or to keep the cart from rolling back. That isn't to say that the rest of their team isn't out murdering people in the most brutal of fashions, but if Kills are over-hyped and made overly important some people will get frustrated with being "forced" to play a support role or "forced" to capture points or "forced" to baby-sit the parked Gal (whether by necessity or by orders from guild-mates) and ending up with "lower stats" or whatever. This in turn might lead to less and less people willing to perform those important tasks. It's already a bitch to try and get medics in TF2 random servers as it is (and yes, I will often switch to Medic when it's needed).

In essence, if a given stat is glorified for whatever reason, then the concern is that people will forgo important roles in order to cater to that stat. (This is also why I'm concerned about Score-whoring as well, Tribes Ascend has some good examples of how that can fail as well, as the video mentioned.)

Ostensibly, it shouldn't matter, but many people get affected by that sort of thing. Absolutely don't remove stats, I dislike that sort of approach, but remove emphasis by providing more stats on the same screens, etc.

[OnexBigxHebrew]

CoD and BF3 are unfortunately advancing that mentality faster then the objective-focused players can regress it. =\

And unfortunately people like you advance the BF3/CoD grouping mentaility.

Sorry to blow a massive hole in your logic, but BF3 places you at the top of the list by points, regardless of your K/D. The fact that K/D is displayed next to this score actually downplays its importance. A player with 5456 points (From support, assist, kills, vehicle support, etc) and a 12-23 K/D will place well ahead of a person who is 14-1 with an 1867 score. It's common knowledge that people are ridiculed for having a ton of kills and low score. The MVP medal is given based on total scores, and let me tell you, the easiest ways to score points in BF3 are not killing.

I think all of this hate is perptuated by word-of-mouth from people who just look at the fact that CoD and BF3 are both set in modern times and are therefore the same thing.

Gameplay in these two games is vastly different.

[Revanmug]

Big wall of text that I embraced

Pretty much agree

It's more that I just don't understand why some people have this mentality of : High kdr = killwhore no teamwork. Where is the logic in there? Hell, if you are in squad with a few medic (and death don't count if you get rez), you kdr is probably going to be alot higher. wait, better kdr if teamworking with people mmmm...

If I'm a HA or LA or a sniper and I'm not killing enemy and making sure things are clear near the objectif for my squad, what the hell am I doing? If I die, that squad just lost a man, making their stand or attack harder and so on so forth. That could be say of any class though meaning that death is usually bad.

Are there going to be people that just care about kdr? Oh certainly but to be fair, we'll probably have some medic/engineer that are never going to use their assault rifle and simply go around with their tool and use that as an excuse. Is that wrong? Not exactly but depending how powerful those rifle are, defending yourself to keep you alive THEN repairing/healing might make you more useful for the team. Dead people are useless.

This is a sandbox game. I feel like things like that should just be left to the player to determine with, again, a complete neutral stats page. More stats the better.

[CorvicM]

To sum up, stats aren't your problem, people are. And it doesn't matter what kinds or number of mechanics you attach (or detach) to a game, they will remain stupid until the end of time. I also have the whole of human history to back me up on that claim, unlike you.

Uh, you just kinda proved the reason why we should be allowed to hide our stats, people like you.

You judge people and start insulting them as fast as you can, it hurts the player/user and is just proving your an ass. That and the "just ignore them" practice doesn't really work as eventually it wears a person down and they stop playing, even when they ignore it (common fact from Psychology).

Personally i have horrible K/D cause most of the time i care more about objectives than kills, but not everyone thats why they said have it be a choice on showing others your stats.

[ArmedZealot]

Uh, you just kinda proved the reason why we should be allowed to hide our stats, people like you.

You judge people and start insulting them as fast as you can, it hurts the player/user and is just proving your an ass. That and the "just ignore them" practice doesn't really work as eventually it wears a person down and they stop playing, even when they ignore it (common fact from Psychology).

Personally i have horrible K/D cause most of the time i care more about objectives than kills, but not everyone thats why they said have it be a choice on showing others your stats.

"I'm embarassed by my K/D so I should have the right to hide it."

That is your reasoning?

[CorvicM]

"I'm embarassed by my K/D so I should have the right to hide it."

That is your reasoning?

and your reasoning not to is to gloat that you have a higher K/D?
I believe we are at an impass.

[ArmedZealot]

and your reasoning not to is to gloat that you have a higher K/D?
I believe we are at an impass.


I'm not gloating. I had a horrible K/D in PS as well. Such is the life of an infil.

But not having the balls to take criticism for a low K/D isn't really a good reason to have the right to hide it.

[CorvicM]

I'm not gloating. I had a horrible K/D in PS as well. Such is the life of an infil.

But not having the balls to take criticism for a low K/D isn't really a good reason to have the right to hide it.

so you're calling me a pussy just cause i don't want some no-name saying shit to me when im having a good time and ruin my day. huh seems legit btw why the hell would you even be checking my stats in the first place. so i see no reason not to be able to hide stats from other players. Hell when i first started to play Blacklight: Retribution I was put down constantly because i wasn't a smurf account.

[ArmedZealot]

so you're calling me a pussy just cause i don't want some no-name saying shit to me when im having a good time and ruin my day. huh seems legit btw why the hell would you even be checking my stats in the first place. so i see no reason not to be able to hide stats from other players. Hell when i first started to play Blacklight: Retribution I was put down constantly because i wasn't a smurf account.

Talk about being defensive...


btw why the hell would you even be checking my stats in the first place.

Maybe because you may have killed me? Why do you care?

you're calling me a pussy just cause i don't want some no-name saying shit to me when im having a good time and ruin my day Your attitude does that for you. It's just a game, so relax.

[ArmedZealot]

So you calling CorvicM a pussy for being defensive?

Heheh. I couldnt resist.

He called himself that lol. Maybe he just wishes he could be a big bad kid with a high K/D on the inside, seems to me like he is compensating for something.

[CorvicM]

He called himself that lol. Maybe he just wishes he could be a big bad kid with a high K/D on the inside, seems to me like he is compensating for something.

see strait to the insulting. but not to flame or derail I have seen (personally) no reason why we should not be able to hide our stats other than cause you want to see them but they are OUR stats we can do with them as we please.

[SpcFarlen]

I dont see why KDR is a bad stat to have. Some classes/roles will only be getting kills such as the MAX. They cant hack nodes, give supplies or do anything besides be mobile turrets and lay down fire. And also with MAXs come their restrictions on being able to be in transports. If im driving/piloting and only have two slots for MAX units, i want to make sure i have the best i can carry. Just like if i had a medic in my squad. Id want someone who can get the job effectively.

Vehicles have the same issue. Tanks dont give out a buff. Assault aircraft cant hand out care packages (though Gal dropping supplies would be amazing... make it happen SOE). The only stat they have KDR to really prove their worth or gauge their performance.

[StumpyTheOzzie]

Well, when you're playing MAX, your revives/repairs and captures shouldn't show up on that page.

If you're playing medic, your rezzes and damage healed should be prominent (maybe 'first' stats) with more "global" stats in their own section. Like captures and assists and number of friendlies spawned from your gal and metres flown/run. For this class, Kills would be in this category because it's not the primary role of the medic.

If you're playing HA, or infil with a big sniper rifle, then probably kills should be the primary stat.

But I'd like to choose which stats I see most often customised by class.

[Baneblade]

The only stat I care about is the respect I earn from enemies and friendlies alike for the accomplishments of War Machine. Stat whores can fuck off, my bumper gets more useful kills than they do.

[Revanmug]

so you're calling me a pussy just cause i don't want some no-name saying shit to me when im having a good time and ruin my day. huh seems legit btw why the hell would you even be checking my stats in the first place. so i see no reason not to be able to hide stats from other players. Hell when i first started to play Blacklight: Retribution I was put down constantly because i wasn't a smurf account.

While I don't care if someone is hiding his stats, I am surprise how a random dude can scrap you day so fast when you could simply ignore him or even troll him back. What bothers me is...

How in hell are you surviving on the internet right now? Fool don't need them stats to make fun of others.

I'm sorry but a thicker skin might be require when on the internet and mostly when playing pvp games. Believe me, you'll need it if you don't want "no-name saying shit to you."

[bmfof]

I'm going to spare myself the humiliation of answering CorvicM directly, but to avoid any confusion, let me quickly recap on why stats should not be hidden, even if by now the reasoning should be painfully clear to anyone who isn't braindead - stats are the only completely indifferent and objective measure of someone's performance - not just his K/D - in every activity involved in the game. While it'll probably take some time before people can read these and make accurate conclusions, going by someone unfamiliar's word about his abilities is not enough for me. Let me look at his data and I'll know what he's capable of, where he needs to put focus on and what to learn. If you're looking at stats as a tool enabling bragging, that's your own insecurity calling - don't force others to be inconvenienced because of your own personal flaws.

[CorvicM]

Wow knew the PSU community was going to shit but wow that was faster than i expected.

Just insults not any real reasoning as far as i can see well cya all kinda sucks the one fansite that should matter is full of asshats. (some exceptions apply).

[bmfof]

That's a very transperent troll, kid, you should try harder.

I've stated my reasoning pretty extensively over the course of several posts and never actually insulted anyone (even though there was ample insulting coming my way). What did you do so far to further your argument? You called me an ass, because I want a proper gauge for player performance? Check. You got butthurt and started putting words in people's mouths when they told you your own insecurities aren't a good enough argument to keep stats globaly hidden? Check. You kept strawmening consistantly throughout your few last posts here, trying very hard to insinuate that everyone who wishes public stats is a souless K/D whore bent on griefing the living shit out of other people? Check.

You're just not up to the level of discussion - either collect your thoughts and try to back up your claims with facts and data, or do us all a favour and shut up.

[Gugabalog]

That's a very transperent troll, kid, you should try harder.

I've stated my reasoning pretty extensively over the course of several posts and never actually insulted anyone (even though there was ample insulting coming my way). What did you do so far to further your argument? You called me an ass, because I want a proper gauge for player performance? Check. You got butthurt and started putting words in people's mouths when they told you your own insecurities aren't a good enough argument to keep stats globaly hidden? Check. You kept strawmening consistantly throughout your few last posts here, trying very hard to insinuate that everyone who wishes public stats is a souless K/D whore bent on griefing the living shit out of other people? Check.

You're just not up to the level of discussion - either collect your thoughts and try to back up your claims with facts and data, or do us all a favour and shut up.

bmfof I've seen corvis around and he usually has quality comments. You're the troll here. Shutdown the insults or gtfo.

[MrBloodworth]

There was a marked, and noticeable decline in PS1 when session stats were added. Pop, Quality of battles, quality of team work all suffered.

See that word, session.

[Kipper]

If score is calculated correctly then it should be the only thing you can use to say "player X is better at Planetside 2 than player Y"

Score should be given for being in an area with enemies, killing enemies, resupplying/healing friendlies, transporting troops into contested areas, taking objectives, defending objectives, shooting accuracy and not dying....

It should be weighted so that assault types generate more score for assault actions, support types generate more score for support actions, and specialists are rewarded for specialist related skills (ie sniper = accuracy bonus).

Somehow (not sure how) a player who plays well with all classes should come out better than a player who is great at one and doesn't play the others at all.

...And of course, all-time score is unimportant as that punishes those with less free time, it should be all about average score per hour (or day/week/month).

All other stats are interesting though, and I want to be able to see them, drill down into them, track progression etc.... Including score on individual classes/vehicles/weapons, but "overall score" should be the only thing that matters to compare two different players imo.

[OnexBigxHebrew]

Wow, all of you guys need to calm down.

[basti]

Folks, Calm down or i swing the Hammer!

[Chefkoch]

There was a marked, and noticeable decline in PS1 when session stats were added. Pop, Quality of battles, quality of team work all suffered.

Agree. Teamplay took a good hit back then. Same with Bad Company 2. No K/D in Beta we had good Teamplay. At Release K/D was added and i got way spammier with nobody even going for mcoms.

@Basti

Du Lustmolch xD

[Ghostwing]

I'd say keep the old scoring system as K/D is already caculated into that. It is important to be able to gain more or less equal amounts of XP/score regardless which role you play. A good frontline trooper with high K/D, and a good med/eng/gal pilot should be able to level up at similar speeds.

Leaderboards are an integral part of modern online gaming. Many people (inluding me) like to see how well we did at the end of a session. For PS2 there should be multiple leaderboards:

1 - Overall Leaderboard
2 - Class specific LB
3 - Vehicle specific LB
4 - Combat LB
5 - Support LB

And perhaps even something showing the type and amount of missions completed etc. (The possibilities with the "wall of data" are vast.)

That way everyone can compare him/herself to ppl who play similar roles.

If 13y old Jimmy wants to go for K/D, LET HIM! Hopefully he'll grow up and realize you can achieve a lot more through mutual support and teamwork.

If someone wants to dedicate all his time to ferrying troops to the front line or repairing tanks, KUDOS! you are a great benefit to your squad/outfit/empire.

I will most likely be somewhere in between.

[Crator]

K/D along with many other stats should be tracked.

[MrBloodworth]

K/D along with many other stats should be tracked.

Big difference between tracking something, and splashing it on every window everywhere with the typographical hierarchy of a drudge report "Obama is a Muslim" headline.

[Crator]

@MrBloodworth - Agreed... I'd like more team-based stats to have more emphasis on them in the UI then K/D

[Kipper]

Big difference between tracking something, and splashing it on every window everywhere with the typographical hierarchy of a drudge report "Obama is a Muslim" headline.

This I agree with, if all stats aren't equal, then the one I'd like to see 'promoted' would be a score that takes into account all things. Kill ratio is a curiosity, not a barometer of performance.

...and in any case, my K/D will be somewhere around 0.4 - 0.5 I predict :P

[Gugabalog]

K/D along with many other stats should be tracked.

And if it is, it should be far from emphasized. Maybe de-emphasize it by adding a more prominent "Damage Dealt" stat for combat classes.

[LordSlack]

In an FPS, people always naturally want to kill more than they die. It is the most primal and basic instinct when shooting eachother. The way to balance it is not to hide or remove K/D, but as others have mentioned, incentivise actual helpful gameplay to make that worth more of your time. Earning more resources to spend by taking bases lets you upgrade faster than "death matching" or farming kills. Still, even if this is implemented perfectly, snipers gon' snipe! It's human nature.

[Revanmug]

If score is calculated correctly then it should be the only thing you can use to say "player X is better at Planetside 2 than player Y"

Score should be given for being in an area with enemies, killing enemies, resupplying/healing friendlies, transporting troops into contested areas, taking objectives, defending objectives, shooting accuracy and not dying....

It should be weighted so that assault types generate more score for assault actions, support types generate more score for support actions, and specialists are rewarded for specialist related skills (ie sniper = accuracy bonus).

Somehow (not sure how) a player who plays well with all classes should come out better than a player who is great at one and doesn't play the others at all.

...And of course, all-time score is unimportant as that punishes those with less free time, it should be all about average score per hour (or day/week/month).

Score per min or whatever ain't better. Like any stats, it can be farm or certain job will always reward less score than another. Since certain job give more reward, people will focus on these even though you might need people elsewhere.


And sometimes, some action should not be done even though it reward score.

-Just before an assault, are you really going to love that lonely guy that start hacking? He is helping! But he also made sure that once you are there, you control bar is down to nothing and the enemy's bar is maybe close to half. Have fun waiting until the next capture since everybody is alert of your presence at that point.
-The same could be said of generator (suppose to be there later). You pretty much capture the base intact but before the switch, someone destroy the generator for points. He got reward so it must be good. He is also going to repair it after. More points!
-What about the sniper? getting good score by being precise doesn't mean you are helping at all since he could be farming inbetween bases far from the real fight. Then again, you can't simply ask him to go capture point with quick scope and a pistol if he want a good score.
-Transporting troop in the contest area? But what if it's better just before the constested area where you might not get shoot down? no points. But someone might simply fly directly in the middle of an enemy army making you die horribly. But the pilote got points so it is all good.


Can you see how "score/min" ain't helping? You are not removing the problem but simply changing the problem of place. You can also be sure it will soon be ridicule because some people are farming these points while others do it the "good" way but there no way to know it.

All time score punish people? Well, I suppose so because that's what will drive the number of cert you have right? But that's how the game's leveling is base on so you can't just decide it is unimportant and remove it.

EDIT:
And if it is, it should be far from emphasized. Maybe de-emphasize it by adding a more prominent "Damage Dealt" stat for combat classes.

Damage ain't useful. You might have damage someone or something but it might have survive after killing you (or not). Damaging someone that got a health/repair bitch behind doesn't help at all. He is still there holding the line or moving forward. And if you damage him and someone else kill him, there are assist for that. Assist stats are way more useful in telling what you are doing than plain damage.

[Flaropri]

Damage dealt is only useful if it shows it with weapons and against target types. For example, Damage Dealt With AR vs. Tanks, Flash, HA, MAX, etc.

Even then it's mostly only useful for the sake of figuring out what types of mods you want on your weapon, how effective AP rounds vs. "standard" rounds are and against which targets, etc. In which case you're better off just having the raw data available from the mods/weapon/target and calculating it yourself.