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

[Malorn]

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.