Malorn's Stats Thread Reborn

[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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by Harasus

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.




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.