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

[Pavilo Olson]

K : D is good if you have a 'round based' game. Planetside 2 is persistent, its different from most shooters. This is where i agree with the OP and say tracking Death stats is bad, if you are immortal why would you track your deaths?
I agree tracking kills is a good thing though, knowing how many you have killed with what gun and such is good.
/mythoughts

[GameCobra]

Score should definitely be the "go to" stat in this game for people that want to show how good they are, but there's another thing i think is that instead of a K/D ratio, it's a K/D/A Ratio, something like what Team Fortress 2 had, like for example:

Kills = 2 points
Assists = 1 point.

Assists are from things like healing, repairing, deploying turrets and people successfully killing with them. That way, it don't matter if you're a medic who is living off of assists like a Medic from TF2 is like, but you're getting points regardless in a team effort enviroment.

The only question would be the cap. I remember PS1 had a small cap last time I saw.

[avpmaster]

Originally Posted by duck

I'm surprised Higby and no other developer wanted to comment on this particular thread (20+ pages btw), yet they are all over some pointless threads (looking at VIP tracker). Yes, they've been great with providing answers to our questions and that they look at our feedback to "improve" the game but if they are true to their word they should scrap this idea in its entirety. The HUD and guns look and shoot like CoD already, but KDR is such a **** idea for a game as large as Planetside 2.
They should at least keep KDR private for one's viewing and not public.

They should really ask themselves, are they trying to evolve the FPS genre or follow in the footsteps of CoD and BF3?

I agree. If the KDR is kept private, the incentive to killwhore might slightly deciminate. Also, if an outfit demands an up-to-date KDR, all the player would have to do is to take a snapshot of it.

[EisenKreutzer]

Originally Posted by duck

I'm surprised Higby and no other developer wanted to comment on this particular thread (20+ pages btw), yet they are all over some pointless threads (looking at VIP tracker). Yes, they've been great with providing answers to our questions and that they look at our feedback to "improve" the game but if they are true to their word they should scrap this idea in its entirety. The HUD and guns look and shoot like CoD already, but KDR is such a **** idea for a game as large as Planetside 2.
They should at least keep KDR private for one's viewing and not public.

They should really ask themselves, are they trying to evolve the FPS genre or follow in the footsteps of CoD and BF3?

I'm sure there are similiar threads on the beta forums that the devs are reading and commenting in.

[kertvon]

I don't think the entire idea of K:dr is horrible in terms of concept, but as far as individual tracking of K:dr it is. K:dr would be really cool if it only took effect while in squad/outfit and the "perks" that come with it were only valid based on the spread of K:dr per squad/outfit mate.

Imagine if there were xp gains for killstreaks, but that those killstreaks only took effect when your squad/outfit successfully stacked kills while back to back kills from the same team member would not register.

Ex.
1. member 1 takes down an air vehicle
2. member 2 takes down a tank
3. member 3 takes down a foot soldier
4. etc, etc.

Only kills registered by different squad/outfit members would trigger the streak and once any member of the chained killstreak dies the whole thing ends.

Something like this would encourage team coordination, including but not limited to, healing one another, avoiding tk(although it would still likely happen to save one another's skin) and "chasing" targets to keep up a killstreak.

A system like this would encourage team play and anything in PS2 that does that is fine by me.

[Flaropri]

Originally Posted by Zulthus

You know what I meant, don't be a nazi.

1. Godwin's Law.

2. I "know" you meant that Batting Average is similar to SPM... that there isn't a valid comparison between it and KDR... but that isn't the case in my view, and I provided reasons why that wasn't the case. If I'm wrong about what you meant, I apologize but that's what I read, and I can't go off what's going on in your head only what you write.

Or KDR could mean you're good at camping the spawn doorway with a sniper rifle. It varies by person. And as for the second part, that's exactly why SPM should replace K/D. It covers everything you do and shows how good you are and how much you contribute in general.

You say that as if spawn camping isn't valuable. It keeps the enemy pinned to a location while the rest of your team can continue to secure objectives. There was one person that talked about a sniper camping a doorway with a 50:1 KDR. If you can pull that off...

I'd say that player is holding their own. (Well, that or that sniper rifles need to be nerfed.)

There's no good reason to get rid of KDR, just don't put it on a pedestal, don't elevate it to be more important.

SPM can also still encourage bad behavior when it is elevated above other stats, because there are always loopholes that people can abuse if they want to after the system is learned (shouldn't take that long for people to figure out what gives the most SPM). I'm not against SPM existing, I want MORE data, not less.

The score you get from kills is a part of your total SPM. Everything else you do, repairing, healing, deploying CE, transport driver, etc is also calculated into it. What is the need for K/D? I didn't say killing doesn't matter, I said your K/D ratio does not matter.

KDR tells you more than just Kills alone. Tracking negative stats is a GOOD thing, as it helps players (that want to) learn more about what they can improve in their game-play. If they are dying a lot without killing people, they can ask themselves: "Is this reasonable for the role I'm playing, and if not, how can I improve it?"

Deaths, Friendly Fire, Accuracy (per weapon), Damage Taken (per class/vehicle), all tell you useful things even though they are "negative" stats.

Here's another example if a player has a lot of kills per minute, it might mean they are very precise, careful, and deliberate, having a high KDR. Or it might mean they often run in with boomers strapped on with a nearby medic to rez them, having a relatively low KDR. In either case, KDR tells you something about the player, and in both cases achieving that many kills in a given amount of time relies on at least one player being able to stay alive during most of the killing.

SMP rolls a bunch of stats together, but without also going into telling those stats or if people focus on SMP you have the same problems as KDR, but with even LESS information about the player.

[Rhyfelwrr]

Dont like it dont pay attention to it?
at least to kdr

score per minute is da beanz

[EisenKreutzer]

Originally Posted by Rhyfelwrr

Dont like it dont pay attention to it?
at least to kdr

score per minute is da beanz

But other people will pay attention to it. What if they don't like your kdr and kick you out of the squad? Or the Outfit?

[Mythoclast]

Originally Posted by EisenKreutzer

But other people will pay attention to it. What if they don't like your kdr and kick you out of the squad? Or the Outfit?

Why would you join an outfit that does that? My guild in WoW wasn't obsessed with gearscore, they cared how well you did. If some asswipe outfit thinks KDR is so important than leave them in the dust and join a good outfit.

[EisenKreutzer]

Originally Posted by Mythoclast

Why would you join an outfit that does that? My guild in WoW wasn't obsessed with gearscore, they cared how well you did. If some asswipe outfit thinks KDR is so important than leave them in the dust and join a good outfit.

Maybe you didn't know they thought kdr was important? Maybe the new Outfit leader is an asshole?

I'm just saying, it's a possibility.

[Mythoclast]

Originally Posted by EisenKreutzer

Maybe you didn't know they thought kdr was important? Maybe the new Outfit leader is an asshole?

I'm just saying, it's a possibility.

That is possible without death being tracked. You leave them. You leave them fast.

[vVRedOctoberVv]

Originally Posted by EisenKreutzer

But other people will pay attention to it. What if they don't like your kdr and kick you out of the squad? Or the Outfit?

Switch sides and go head hunting



This argument, too, people on both sides have interesting points. But I think SOE has settled on this. I got the impression from the way they were describing the smartphone apps, the more stats, the better.

There are always going to be lone wolves, and killwhores. No amounts of tweaking is going to change that. So, to be honest, arbitrary inclusion or exclusion of a certain feature isn't going to change much. Even if it does subtly influence playstyles, it's not likely to have a world altering effect.

And even if I was immortal, I'd probably still keep a running tally of how many times I died. Especially if I experienced pain and discomfort while dying Reminds me of the story background for PS1 about that guy that flew through the warpgate and they kept executing him, only to have him respawn somewhere else on the world... increasingly pissed off after each execution

[MrBloodworth]

There was a marked, noticeable decline in PS1 game play when they added Session stats.

Hay look, its that word again. Session.

[Flaropri]

Originally Posted by EisenKreutzer

But other people will pay attention to it. What if they don't like your kdr and kick you out of the squad? Or the Outfit?

Feel free to not associate with such people. Also, I find it highly unlikely it will happen in PUG squads, considering such people most likely won't have time to check, will have made it invite-only, or won't be in a position to kick anyone anyway.

[Plunkies]

Originally Posted by Mythoclast

The statement "Showing deaths hurts gameplay" is an opinion. Don't be an ass. It is a REASONABLE opinion but it ain't a fact.

Your whole argument centers around the idea that no matter the class or player there should be no incentive to avoiding death or playing less risky is narrow minded and against the spirit of playing PS2 your way. If someone wants to play in a high risk high reward, pulse pumping adrenaline fueled, objective rushing, squad, hell yeah, go for it. If someone wants to play in a calm, collected, surgically precise and slow paced, squad, you gonna knock em' for it?

An opinion is something that varies based on a personal views. Example: Apple tastes good, flower smells bad, game is unfun. A fact is truth originating from experience, observation and evidence. "Death stats discourage teamplay" is a fact.

Jerk your knee back down, sit quietly, and try to think rationally for a moment. How can this be? Well, what could deaths do? OVERALL, they could have no effect, they could promote teamplay, or they could discourage teamplay. These are the three things that could happen. These are not opinions that vary from one person to another, like whether an apple tastes good or a flower smells funny. These are actual consequences resulting in a persistent death display. An individual may be effected differently, but the overall change can only be one of these.

So looking at the first option, it could have no effect on every single person. Meaning no change. We know from this thread alone that the overall effect will not be neutral. So now we're down to only two possible outcomes. Does it promote or discourage teamplay? At this point it should be common sense but since you keep spewing the word "opinion" like you're making a point, I'll just have to keep slowly explaining things to you.

How can showing deaths help teamplay? Well, there's really only two ways. The first, if dying subtracts from a team resource. Battlefield has a ticket count for example. If your team has tickets and you are not wasting them, you are indirectly helping the team. This isn't, however, active TEAMPLAY. This is just an indirect benefit. The other way to decrease deaths while helping your team is an overall increase of skill. But with no proof that KDR actually increases the average skill of the player with access to it, it can not be directly attributed to the KDR stat. You could make a similar argument that KDR reduces overall skill because players will take fewer risks resulting in less experience in situations that demand an increased skill level.

And finally, how does the death count discourage teamplay? Well the closer you get to an objective, the more likely you are to die. I've already posted my 4.8 k/d battlefield profile with minimal objective points. Objectives are meatgrinders with highly concentrated fighting often requiring a high risk of death to attempt to achieve the victory conditions or deny them from the opposing team. Logically, someone avoiding deaths would avoid these situations. Also, all support roles suddenly become less attractive as well. Only repairing or healing, driver seats with no guns, transport vehicles, etc. Not much of a KDR when your role never get kills. These are typically very team oriented tasks and anyone wanting a higher KDR would be wise to avoid them. In addition to this, KDR also promotes more SOLO activities that don't involve teamplay and might not help much at all. Vehicle pad camping, spawn camping, sniping. In BF specifically, most mortar and MAV abuse was a direct result of people trying to pad their stats. I can go on and on with more... Spawning on a squad is a very high risk of death often with little pay off. Switching to a class that your team needs more but you're less effective with is discouraged. Playing AA or AV if your weapons are more likely to only be a deterrent rather than something that will actually get a kill.

Here's a very important one. If you're losing, go somewhere else. Fighting losing battles gets you killed. Fighting outnumbered gets you killed. When your team needs you the most you have the least incentive to be there. Once again, persistent death stats actively discourage teamplay. It is not an opinion. It is a fact based on observation and logic. If you disagree with this then please give some reasoning behind it, because I've heard none so far.

Also, I can't BELIEVE you used the phrase "literally a fact" when referring to this. You need to go take a debate class or something because that just makes you look like a stubborn mule. I don't think you are an idiot, or an ass, or a stubborn mule, but God damn bro do you come off that way. I like your arguments and it would be interesting to test the effect of removing deaths. I wouldn't be completely surprised if you were right (but I would expect you weren't) but don't try and set your opinion as the fact we must all believe.

You provide more insults than proof of what you say. I've already asked you to disprove me and you haven't yet. Go ahead and try. How can deaths possibly promote teamplay more than they discourage it? Go.