Should being revived count as a death?

[Trignite]

I don't think I can really answer this with a yes or no, personally I think it should be somewhere in-between. Maybe it could not count as a death the first time you are revived or count as half a death. its a pretty hard topic to deal with. If it didn't count as a death at all i am sure we will see people boosting but it would help give more of an incentive to reviving.

I am not very concerned about my k/d as long as i help my team out and having fun i don't mind running into the crossfire if its for a good cause. I am not saying i will completely forget about it though.

[Envenom]

Very interesting to see how split the community is on this topic. 50/50 split on the polls. I myself prefer it not to count, though if it did it wouldn't be the end of the world for me.

[Eyeklops]

Originally Posted by Envenom

Very interesting to see how split the community is on this topic. 50/50 split on the polls.

I really am enjoying the feedback in this thread. It does seem to be a very polarizing issue.

[Vreki]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

If you are revived, you did not die. Bottom line. Death is only finalized when you respawn. To do otherwise is artificial stat manipulation.

If being revived is not a death, then killing someone who is later revived is not a kill either.

In both cases you are being rewarded / punished for things outside of your control. And that is artificial stat manipulation.

You can argue the semantics of what a "kill" or a "death" really means, but if you want to use K/D as a measure of your personal skill then you cannot boost it with the actions of others.

It is meaningless anyway in a game where one player may spend his entire career reviving others or piloting transports, while another spends his career dropping cluster munitions on spawn points.

[Crator]

Originally Posted by Vreki

If being revived is not a death, then killing someone who is later revived is not a kill either.

As long as there is a stat that tracks revives I'm not certain I care. But you are correct in that statement.....

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by Vreki

If being revived is not a death, then killing someone who is later revived is not a kill either.

In both cases you are being rewarded / punished for things outside of your control. And that is artificial stat manipulation.

You can argue the semantics of what a "kill" or a "death" really means, but if you want to use K/D as a measure of your personal skill then you cannot boost it with the actions of others.

It is meaningless anyway in a game where one player may spend his entire career reviving others or piloting transports, while another spends his career dropping cluster munitions on spawn points.

What we found, anecdotally at least, in Battlefield games, was that when revives did not return deaths, people would beg not to be revived(this was before BF3 gave you the option). Have you never heard of the group Don't Revive Me Bro? And so in a ticket based game people would not want to be revived to preserve their KDR. Now, Planetside is not ticket based, but people who shun revives devalue medics and hurt their team by spending more time dead than necessary.

And we can demonize KDR-centric players all day long, but we need them to help pay for the game.

One thing we suggested for BF3 was the creation of a "takedown" stat, which you would receive in lieu of a kill every time someone you killed got revived. And vice versa a taken down stat, which you get instead of a death whenever you get revived. Ultimately DICE chose to simply have revives return deaths in BF3 but; in Planetside, takedown/taken down would be a very useful statistic. You see, if you get more takedowns than kills, it means you are lone wolfing and going up against organized squads, getting a kill or two, but then getting killed yourself and the enemy simply revives and moves on with no real harm done to them. And vice versa, someone with no taken-downs is either lone wolfing, or is running with squads with no medics, because they are never getting revived.

[Conq]

FPS nerds and their K/D obsessions...

[asdar]

I wouldn't count the kill because I think the killer didn't finish the job. I would count the death because you went down and couldn't get up. I'd give a stat to the medic for reviving you, so in this situation the only stat that's positive would be to the medic.

[Crator]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

One thing we suggested for BF3 was the creation of a "takedown" stat, which you would receive in lieu of a kill every time someone you killed got revived.

I like that idea!

[jollytraveller]

I voted yes. If you die, you die and the stats should reflect that. I also think not counting the death also encourages people to further "play" for their K/D, which is already prevelant in FPS games and also not really what Planetside is all about. Often it's about throwing yourself in regardless of the risks to your K/D.

I do however think that revives from Medics should revive players with their implants or perks intact and some stamina, unlike Planetside 1. There should be some bonus to getting revived as opposed to just respawning. Perhaps these abailites will be available in the Medic tree.

[Gandhi]

Originally Posted by Anderz

No! Making it count as a death will give casual players -- i.e. COD/BF3 players who care about their KDR -- even less of an incentive to work as a team. However, making revives NOT count as a death will encourage them to stick closer to medics and their squad, as it will less likely damage their precious KDR if they go down. By showing these players the statistical benefits of playing as a team, they'll feel less inclined to go lone wolf.

Or they'll just sit there and yell for a medic to save their precious K/D stats when they could be respawned and helping the team already. In other words, the only time they'll be concerned about working in a team is when they're "dead" and needing a revive. Everything up to that point will be the same lone wolf mentality they had before, with the added difference that now they get all upset when a medic doesn't want to risk his neck to save their killstreak or something.

[Malorn]

Deaths shouldn't even be counted.

Tracking deaths as a stat only discourages risk-taking. Take that stat away and people are a lot more willing to go after objectives and do support activities when they aren't "punished" with a death when taking that risk doesn't work out.

[Vreki]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

One thing we suggested for BF3 was the creation of a "takedown" stat, which you would receive in lieu of a kill every time someone you killed got revived. And vice versa a taken down stat, which you get instead of a death whenever you get revived. Ultimately DICE chose to simply have revives return deaths in BF3 but; in Planetside, takedown/taken down would be a very useful statistic. You see, if you get more takedowns than kills, it means you are lone wolfing and going up against organized squads, getting a kill or two, but then getting killed yourself and the enemy simply revives and moves on with no real harm done to them. And vice versa, someone with no takedowns is either lone wolfing, or is running with squads with no medics, because they are never getting revived.

Yes, I am well aware of the discussion in BF, and for that matter every other game which tracks that kind of stuff.

If we want these stats then Kills/Deaths or Takedowns/Takendown both make some kind of sense. But what I see here is people wanting TakeDowns/Deaths as the primary skill indicator. And that is just kidding yourself, since a T/D ratio of 1.0 still would mean that you are doing poorly from a purely narcissistic FPS perspective.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by Vreki

Yes, I am well aware of the discussion in BF, and for that matter every other game which tracks that kind of stuff.

If we want these stats then Kills/Deaths or Takedowns/Takendown both make some kind of sense. But what I see here is people wanting TakeDowns/Deaths as the primary skill indicator. And that is just kidding yourself, since a K/T ratio of 1.0 still would mean that you are doing poorly from a purely narcissistic FPS perspective.

I hate KDR-centric players as much as anyone but I don't think we can just alienate them since we need them to fund the game(seriously, I suspect there won't be a PS3 if KDR players can't be successfully integrated), so we can't just eliminate KDR. But what we can do, is BURY KDR in a sea of other more important stats - capture point hacks, revives, kills you get when you are a MAX and you fall on an enemy infantry from a height(joke, but that would be funny, MAX Stomp we could call it), etc.

[Trignite]

Originally Posted by asdar

I wouldn't count the kill because I think the killer didn't finish the job. I would count the death because you went down and couldn't get up. I'd give a stat to the medic for reviving you, so in this situation the only stat that's positive would be to the medic.

I kind of agree if you didn't wait for the guy to time out so he can't be revived (I have no idea if this is actually in PS2) then you didn't finish the job. Maybe you could have some sort of finishing mechanic where you could go to the enemy body and do something so they can't be revived but I don't really think that would work very well.

But really I am not concerned too much about this as its just for stats, either way works for me but as I said before I would prefer something in between the two. to help give more incentive to reviving and sticking close to your team mates while not making it so people can get insanely high k/d or boosting stats.

I don't want people to start basing peoples skill solely on k/d.