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

[Figment]

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

Why do you believe negative emotions can't contribute?

Negative emotions such as rage, frustration, envy, fear, stress, derogatory elitism (towards those with a lesser score), etc?

In a game?

Let me think.

Yes they do. Otherwise the point for a medic is moot.

Context Zealot. We're talking about "Deaths" as a statistic. They do not matter one bit.

[MrBloodworth]

Originally Posted by Gandhi

I'm actually wondering what the point of the medic class is, considering how fast people were dying and respawning in the GDC footage. Hopefully that was just sped up for the presentation, otherwise I don't see the medic contributing much at all.

Combined with full equipped spawn on squad leader ( Another session based mechanic to remove war game logistics ).


I'm not sure. Other than dropping med packs, or tossing heal grenades.

[ArmedZealot]

Originally Posted by Gandhi

I'm actually wondering what the point of the medic class is, considering how fast people were dying and respawning in the GDC footage. Hopefully that was just sped up for the presentation, otherwise I don't see the medic contributing much at all.

Revival and Healing. To prevent or reverse death. To be a lynchpin in any team. They are even more important when you spawn far away or there are limited points to spawn from.

Unless its a one shot kill this does not change.

[Aurmanite]

Originally Posted by Malorn

This what-you-could-do in PS1 is off-topic, but you could not always do everything in PS1. In the first couple years of PS1 cert limitations required you to work with others to to cover all your bases. As the certs increased and the certs got cheaper/packaged people started being able to do a lot more as individuals and not require anyone else. Eventually all the core abilities everyone could do by themselves and you didn't need specialization. This just shows the PS1 cert system did not scale well, which is part of the reason they moved to a class-based system in PS2.

What's on-topic is this - ask someone in BF3 how they did after a match. The vast majority of the time they will read you their K. BF3 also has "score" which tracks support activities, objectives, etc. The scoreboard is typically ranked by score not Kills, but that doesn't matter. Kills and deaths is the first two listed, score is the third. The culture has come to see K as the measure of success. It's a pathological situation. Take the death-stat out of the picture and everything changes. They could say "I got 10 kills" or they could read their score. Put score first and hide kills as a mouse-over function and people will report their score as how well they did, not K/D.

Suppose for a second that K/D is the primary measure of success. What does one do to improve this value? Well it's simple - you get in the most efficient killing machines, take the fewest risks, and take advantage of any situation that might pad your kill count. Does this make you better as a player? Does it mean you are a better asset to your empire? Sure it might in some twisted sense, but generally no, it doesn't.

Now suppose score or experience points earned is my measure of success. What does one do to improve this value? Well there are many things I could do. I could do all the things that I could do to improve K/D, like getting better at killing people, or getting in more efficient killing machines, but padding my kill count won't help me. I also have new and other things that can help, like capturing or defending objectives, assisting my teammates, or healing/repairing them. I can gradually improve my overall performance and impact to my team by improving on a number of axes. I could learn to shoot better (more kills), learn to use cover better (avoiding score lost while dead), pay more attention to wounded teammates and heal them, destroy spawn points, focus more on capturing objectives, providing my squad a spawn point, etc.

Over time, one could see their score/min and/or score/day improve as they get better at not only killing but also achieving objectives and helping teammates.

That's all goodness. It's innovative. It's productive. It makes for richer gameplay. By comparison, K is archaic, short-sighted, counter-productive, and completely unnecessary.

The first couple of years? You must have meant weeks. It didn't take me or anyone I played with a couple of years to get to BR 20.

Read my post on the bottom page 4.

[ArmedZealot]

Originally Posted by Figment

Negative emotions such as rage, frustration, envy, fear, stress, etc?

In a game?

Conquering the reasons for causing rage, frustratin, envy, fear, and stress can be the most exhilirating task a person can accomplish. It's why competition exists and why games like Starcraft 2 have such a large following.

Originally Posted by Figment

Context Zealot. We're talking about "Deaths" as a statistic. They do not matter one bit.

True. But why would my hardcore leet outfit recruit someone with a KDR of .0001?

[MrBloodworth]

Originally Posted by Aurmanite

I plan to play exclusively with people who are focused on whatever objectives we feel like achieving. We will farm all the solo K/D farmers into oblivion.

Sometimes our objectives will be to capture that base or reinforce those guys.

Other times our objective will be to kill every-fucking-thing that moves.

Both are valid gameplay styles. Both require team work and support to achieve.

Playing with good players is what separated the chumps from the champs in the original. You played it, you should know it.

I do know this, and tip my hat to that dedication.

Now what about the masses? They have learned that team work does not matter, only kills.

Point being, the design needs to be focused on team play, not the individual.

Or we will have 24/7 tower farms again.

I played Planetside from beta to 6 years out. I watched the degradation as more session based design goals were implemented. If you only played after they added more BR's and certs. Please do not respond anymore.

Originally Posted by Aurmanite

The first couple of years? You must have meant weeks. It didn't take me or anyone I played with a couple of years to get to BR 20.

Wow guy. You have an issue with comprehension.

See you on the field.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

Why do you believe negative emotions can't contribute?



Yes they do. Otherwise the point for a medic is moot.

Deaths matter, but not directly. When you are dead you aren't contributing to your team. Dead people can't capture objectives. Thus, reviving people and healing people is important. Avoiding death is a good thing, but not to the point where it becomes a measurement of success - it isn't. Avoiding death helps success indirectly but is itself not a success indicator.

Achieving the objective is the success indicator. Not dying a lot generally helps that happen. Another way of putting it is that success is the success indicator. Things which contribute to success should be rewarded. Death doesn't contribute, but things you do while you are alive does. Naturally you want to avoid dying, but some professions are more prone to death than others, and tha'ts fine because someone has to go through that door, and when you do your team makes progress and if it results in you getting a cap - your death has helped achieve success. Someone attempting to minimzie death would not likely take that risk and thus success is less likely to be achieved.

[Gandhi]

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

True. But why would my hardcore leet outfit recruit someone with a KDR of .0001?

Because he's the most badass Galaxy pilot out there

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

Revival and Healing. To prevent or reverse death. To be a lynchpin in any team. They are even more important when you spawn far away or there are limited points to spawn from.

That's his intended function yes, whether it's actually useful in the game remains to be seen. I can see it being useful behind the lines where respawn possibilities are limited, but I didn't see any real need for him in the GDC footage. But again, maybe that's just due to the nature of the presentation at GDC.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Aurmanite

The first couple of years? You must have meant weeks. It didn't take me or anyone I played with a couple of years to get to BR 20.

Read my post on the bottom page 4.

BR 20 was not sufficient to get everything. You had to pick and choose your specializations. Alas, off-topic and not relevant to the discussion.

[wasdie]

K/D ratio won't really matter that much in the long run. It's a nice stat to have but unlike other FPS, people won't be farming for high K/D ratios.

I understand your concern, but this not the type of game where we are going to see the K/D ratio have a huge impact.

[MrBloodworth]

Sorry about that Malorn. I was trying to illustrate something, but got sucked into what i thought was going to be a constructive discussion.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

Conquering the reasons for causing rage, frustratin, envy, fear, and stress can be the most exhilirating task a person can accomplish. It's why competition exists and why games like Starcraft 2 have such a large following.

However, it should not stop you from doing things that need to be done, like sacrificing yourself for the good of the empire.

So it's leading to you becoming a liability or at least less productive by dieing less due to something like fear or hurt pride.

If it frustrates too much, it means you stop playing. Also not good.

True. But why would my hardcore leet outfit recruit someone with a KDR of .0001?

Depends on if he is good for morale. Wouldn't you figure out if someone's suited for your outfit by testing him rather than relying on an obsolete statistic the moment he joined your group and is taught things?

[Shogun]

i would agree on removing deaths from the character summary stats.
as a supporter my k/d ratio sucked all the time and i wouldn´t want to see on my leaderboards, that i was killed 200000 times but only killed 60000 enemys
all other stats are nice to have. but a alltime deathcounter is counterproductive and might indeed discourage supportroles

[Top Sgt]

agreed the game would be so much better with Total score, Squad score, objective score (pts earned in surrounding immediate area of objective), how many objective caps, revives etc.

leave Kill death out because that just get's players to not want to rush objectives and just camp somewhere because they have been COD A'lized and think their K/D is important.

[SKYeXile]

Stats including are apart of all FPS games, without them PS2 wont be up with the times.

K/D or even score/death needs to be taken like a grain of salt though, they're meaningless on there own. So much determines K/D, ofcourse skill, but also play style, class, latency, if you run grouped or not, if you play like bitch or you're aggressive. with enough stats tracked though you can kinda determine how good a player is though. atleast in a game like WOT, in an MMO where battle sizes vary and you could be fighting against the odds all the time, its going to be alot harder.

I dont think it should be a stat thats focused on, it should certainly be there, but i think SPM/SPH(score per hour/Min) tracked by class is a better method.

or we could just go by K/D to determine whos better...so which player is better?

http://www.battlefieldheroes.com/en/heroes/193470196
http://www.battlefieldheroes.com/en/heroes/203688377