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

[SKYeXile]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Now I'm just getting trolled. Time to move in a productive direction - SkyExile and Epsion's posts.

Sky & Epsion - Thanks, it's a good illustration of how deaths and K is not a necessary stat. I assume people weren't rioting when deaths wasn't put on there, though I expect it was intentionally omitted for the reasons Epsion mentioned. It would be interesting if the creator of psstats would weigh in on the subject. Anyone know if that person is still an active community member?

Since it didn't track deaths people gravitated to other metrics, like kills and outfit points, which is effectively the "Score" metric I've been discussing since outfit points were a fraction of experience earned (which was obtained from many types of activities including support and base captures).

This is the direction I would like to see PS2 go.

basicly yea, us stat whores would go for a high amount of daily/weekly/monthly, kills or outfit points...and you can track outfit the same, with avg kills/points per member per week or something.

Some people also payed attention to kills per hack, since there was no time frame to how long a player played per day.

WOT is a game where there are alot of stat whores, deaths while they're tracked. there is no leader board for it, because really...its kinda meaningless in determining a players worth. when there are better stats like avg damage per match or avg XP per match.

[Espion]

Originally Posted by Malorn

It would be interesting if the creator of psstats would weigh in on the subject. Anyone know if that person is still an active community member?

He doesn't plan on playing

[JHendy]

Originally Posted by Bags

Just use your superior teamwork to stomp statwhorers~

But what if my team mates are filthy stat whores too?!

The horror...

I completely agree with Malorn. K/D ratio should NOT be the primary stat that sits on the front page of your profile, score should be.

Please be aware that he's not saying that K/D ratio should be completely removed from the game and something you cannot look at, just that it should be an ancillary stat, instead of a prioritised one, seeing as this is a teambased game.

Also, killstreaks make me sick...

And the GUI stinks of BF3. Other than that I'm quite amazed by the potential of what we have here.

[JHendy]

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

If you are so focused on playing as a team then why do you care about your K/D ratio?

Clearly he doesn't care about HIS k/d ratio. He cares about the negative impact that prioritising a self-serving stat like K/D ratio will have on the playstyles of everyone else playing the game.

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

Removing features to keep people from zerging hurts the game as a whole to benefit the few.

How would removing K/D ratio DISCOURAGE zerging? It's the other way around.

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

How do you measure how successful your operation is done without having a death stat? Because it got done?

Uhm.... Yes? What's wrong with that? Nothing is as important as the capturing of territory in this game. If you 'got it done' then you're doing it right.

[Figment]

It's the difference between a self centered zerg of individuals with a personal, hidden agenda (survival) and a zerg willing to die for the others.

[Malorn]

The "timeout" caused by death is its own discouragement. Even if not a tracked stat, people still want to avoid it. You aren't earning points if you're dead or returning from a spawn point.

Death has another effect - it weakens the fighting force of those around you. If you're dead, that's more guns turning on fewer allies. Lose too many and you get overwhelmed and pushed back. So too much death leads to less success.

It's natural, you don't need to explicitly punish death or try to discourage it through stats. It discourages itself.

[ArmedZealot]

Originally Posted by JHendy

How would removing K/D ratio DISCOURAGE zerging? It's the other way around.

This was more in response to getting rid of killstreaks and such. Zerg like shiny things like killstreaks/monster kill/headshots as small rewards for casual play.

Getting rid of K/D wouldn't impact it much if you had the above things still. But if you don't then a K/D isn't bad to have. Having none would discourage zerg play.

[Khellendros]

I disagree.

Keep K/D and add a buttload of other stats, there is no reason it has to be either/or. The more stats the merrier!

[MonsterBone]

Lets just remove the K/D ratio from the stats thats all I want.

[JHendy]

Originally Posted by MonsterBone

Lets just remove the K/D ratio from the stats thats all I want.

Just to highlight:

Most people aren't advocating the complete removal of K/D as a stat, rather that it be replaced with a stat that is more meaningful and relevant in a team game like Planetside.

Switch out the emboldened K/D with something like Score/D on the most viewed stat pages. Relegate K/D to a sub-window (or something), so that it sits in line with other general stats like accuracy-per-weapon etc.

Everybody wins. Right?

[SKYeXile]

Originally Posted by JHendy

Just to highlight:

Most people aren't advocating the complete removal of K/D as a stat, rather that it be replaced with a stat that is more meaningful and relevant in a team game like Planetside.

Switch out the emboldened K/D with something like Score/D on the most viewed stat pages. Relegate K/D to a sub-window (or something), so that it sits in line with other general stats like accuracy-per-weapon etc.

Everybody wins. Right?

anything/death means people still care if they die...its the same shit.

[Malorn]

Ya I think deaths just needs to go as a stat. It serves no useful purpose other than to sate a few people's curiosity. Negative stats are just bad. Hiding the stat/burying it is better than prominently featuring it, but still think its best to simply not have it.

Measurements of time are more useful. Like Score/Min and Kills/min. That way whether you play for 10 hours or 2 hours, your contribution/productivity is accurately captured. Overall score, overall kills, kills/day are also useful to highlight super active people. It goes back to the kills/hack thing that Sky mentioned some people looked at because it was an attempt to measure score per unit time played and that was the closest thing there was.

Kills / Time is way better than Kills / Death.

[Kurtz]

Death goes against the very lore of the game.
I do like knowing that I have killed someone, unlike PS1 lol.

[JHendy]

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

anything/death means people still care if they die...its the same shit.

It isn't the same shit. You can't consciously avoid dangerous situations if you want your Score/D to improve, assuming you gain the most score from teamwork actions.

Avoiding getting stuck in will be counter-productive for anyone who wants a good ratio if the dangerous situations you put yourself in are the ones that benefit your Score/D the most.

You're going to have to put yourself in harms way to improve that stat, (unless you're performing non combat roles such as transportation.)

The same is not necessarily true of K/D, which improves the most when you avoid high risk situations.

There's a big difference. One encourages people to get stuck in, and rewards them for doing so, the other does not.

[Khellendros]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Kills / Time is way better than Kills / Death.

But why must it be either/or? I don't understand why we cannot just have both?

Honestly, I don't see any actual harm in having more stats.