Dominations and Revenges are in, thoughts?

[ArmedZealot]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Dominations and revenges encourage personal killwhoring and detract from team play.

I see K/D and other teamplay discouraging stats to be bad for the game.

There are plenty of better alternatives, namely "Score", since "Score" is something that can be generated from doing many types of activities, like having people spawn at your well-placed galaxy, or giving ammo, or reviving/healing, or capturing objectives, or defending objectives, as well as killing.

Score and Score/Min should be the universal "Stat" that people strive to maximize, not Kills or K/D. This isn't deathmatch.

I know many common FPS games have K/D stats - but much like the running of the bulls, just because its always been done doesn't mean its not incredibly stupid.

There's an awesome demotivator poster illustrating this point.

http://www.despair.com/tradition.html

K/D is bad for teamplay. Axe it. You won't lose any players over it, and the game as a whole will be better.

I disagree that this will affect teamplay that much. Games like Tribes: Ascend and CS revolve around team combat with these features and have even grown to form competitive team leagues. K/D ratio doesn't affect teamplay but allows a player to do exactly what Higby said in the video said it would do, which is to get better in the game by providing hard evidence of play style and skill.

"Score" in PS2 is experience earned. You earn it for being a Galaxy pilot and other support roles as much as combat. Higby said this in the video as well.

Deathmatch mechanics bring a large following in FPS games. Along with F2P this will bring a large zerg into the game which is a good thing IMO. They make the game conducive to casual play, and makes a 20 minute game session fun and exciting.

If you want to be more involved in the outfit ops playstyle, nothing about these mechanics says you can't.They don't detract from that style in any way. Don't take away parts of the game that other people enjoy just because it doesn't fit with your style of play.

[Aurmanite]

2 quick questions for those people who don't like K/D, streaks, and domination:

Will these things change how you play?
Are you going to be less team-work orientated because of a bunch of numbers?

When you answer these questions remember that you are not the only people that will feel this way.

People will play their way.

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

I disagree that this will affect teamplay that much. Games like Tribes: Ascend and CS revolve around team combat with these features and have even grown to form competitive team leagues. K/D ratio doesn't affect teamplay but allows a player to do exactly what Higby said in the video said it would do, which is to get better in the game by providing hard evidence of play style and skill.

"Score" in PS2 is experience earned. You earn it for being a Galaxy pilot and other support roles as much as combat. Higby said this in the video as well.

Deathmatch mechanics bring a large following in FPS's games. Along with F2P this will bring a large zerg into the game which is a good thing IMO. They make the game conducive to casual play, and makes a 20 minute game session fun and exciting.

If you want to be more involved in the outfit ops playstyle. Nothing about these mechanics says you can't. They don't detract from that style in any way. Don't take away parts of the game that other people enjoy just because it doesn't fit with your style of play.

This stuff.

[JHendy]

Originally Posted by EVILPIG

Kill stats are a measure of a player's worth

Judging by what I've seen in BF3, they most definitely are not.

In that game, the opposite is true. High kill stats are more a measure of a player's unwillingness to actually play the objective or to take any of the risks that are associated with doing do.

Originally Posted by Aurmanite

2 quick questions for those people who don't like K/D, streaks, and domination:

Will these things change how you play?
Are you going to be less team-work orientated because of a bunch of numbers?

It will definitely end up affecting the way that some of my potential team mates play the game, so yes, in turn, it will affect me.

[ArmedZealot]

Originally Posted by JHendy

It will definitely end up affecting the way that some of my potential team mates play the game, so yes, in turn, it will affect me.

Then why are they your team mates?

[Crator]

The point that the kill stats detract players from team work is a good one. If you only have kill stats and there aren't any other stats that exist that display success in other areas of game play, the stats actually become shallow. Seems to me, if they are only including kill stats, that they just kinda threw it in there cause it's easy to track.

[ThGlump]

Originally Posted by JHendy

Judging by what I've seen in BF3, they most definitely are not.

In that game, the opposite is true. High kill stats are more a measure of a player's unwillingness to actually play the objective or to take any of the risks that are associated with doing do.

Kill stats are reason why most battlefield games turn to be sniperside.

[MrBloodworth]

Its also why most Session based games turn into "Playing alone, together".

[ArmedZealot]

Originally Posted by MrBloodworth

Its also why most Session based games turn into "Playing alone, together".

Session games are "Play alone, together" because they have no persistence. Why put the effort intro organization when all your work is deleted at the end of a match?

This is obviously not true in PS2 because of its scale and permanence, and I believe that makes it an apples to oranges comparison.

[EVILPIG]

Originally Posted by JHendy

Judging by what I've seen in BF3, they most definitely are not.

In that game, the opposite is true. High kill stats are more a measure of a player's unwillingness to actually play the objective or to take any of the risks that are associated with doing do.




It will definitely end up affecting the way that some of my potential team mates play the game, so yes, in turn, it will affect me.

"A" not "the" and don't take it out of context.

[JHendy]

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

Then why are they your team mates?

Because they're part of the same empire as me?

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

Session games are "Play alone, together" because they have no persistence.

Battlefield 2 was a session based game.

[ArmedZealot]

Originally Posted by JHendy

Because they're part of the same empire as me?

Does that mean you have to squad with them? Does that mean you have to be in the same outfit as them? Does that mean you even have to speak to them? No, you can still play the game by playing it as you wish, with or without these features.

Originally Posted by JHendy

Battlefield 2 was a session based game.

Your point? Apples vs. Oranges. Planetside 2 offers overreaching goals that reward Op style play and encourage teamwork for those that have the time to offer it. Battlefield 2 and similar games do not.

However Planetside 2 also offers an analog to session based games to reward casual play. These features should not be deprecated because they are not what you find fun.

[MrBloodworth]

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

Session games are "Play alone, together" because they have no persistence.

No, they are "Play alone, together" because of the design.

Its all about the individual ( Except in rare cases of E-sports and Private servers ).

[JHendy]

Originally Posted by ArmedZealot

Does that mean you have to squad with them? Does that mean you have to be in the same outfit as them? Does that mean you even have to speak to them? No, you can still play the game by playing it as you wish, with or without these features.

Since the people you are referring to are all the other people who will be populating this game, yes, I will inevitably be interacting with them and playing with them and they will be affecting me. They are the people who will be making up the outfits and squads.

This is supposed to be a deeply team-based game, so no, I cannot play the game 'as I wish', independent of everyone else. The behaviour of other players completely defines the way I play the game, and when the masses are being told that their K/D ratio is the stat that defines how good they are, teamwork and objective based play will suffer.

I don't see how stats like K/D ratio can possibly reflect on how well you're playing a game like Planetside 2, given that it's supposed to be all about cohesion.

I'm not saying that your K/D ratio isn't something that should be available for you to look at, I'm simply saying that It shouldn't be your primary stat in a game that is meant to be about teamwork. In other words, don't stick it on the front page of a player's profile in bold.

Players should be boasting about some sort of 'Overall Value To Empire' type stat that revolves around capturing bases (or something), not their k/d ratio.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Aurmanite

2 quick questions for those people who don't like K/D, streaks, and domination:

Will these things change how you play?
Are you going to be less team-work orientated because of a bunch of numbers?

When you answer these questions remember that you are not the only people that will feel this way.

People will play their way.

The behaviors that the game encourages are the behaviors the game will have. Individuals may shy away from them or not care, but the majority population will follow the cues the game provides to answer the question of "Am I doing well?" If the game encourages deathmatching and maximizing kills while minimizing deaths you will have very different behavior overall in the game than if it did not have those things.

PS1 Example: Do you cap that tower or farm it for kills?

If Score is the key metric and you get a lot of points for capture, then you will be encouraged to cap that tower and move on (or maybe farm a few kills and then capture, but farming too long risks the capture). If the game encourages K/D, you will sit in front of the tower door with a tank and not even attempt a capture.

I know what would do, but what I would do doesn't matter. It's the impact to the general player base that I'm worried about.

These type of stats are important in session-based games where killing really is the only real metric and you could flip a coin and predict the outcome of a round. Games like battlefield would also benefit from the removal of "Deaths' and "K/D" - kills are fine, but shouldn't be emphasized any more than revives or repairs.

Deaths as a tracked stat discourages risk-taking. People will do the lamest behavior there is just to minimize deaths so they can maximize their precious K/D ratio and prove to the rest of the world that they are good at the game. Saying "oh hey just ignore it if you dont care for it" doesn't change the fact that the rest of the game around me adopts anti-teamwork behavior because the game rewards that with recognition.

[sylphaen]

Originally Posted by Ragotag

While I don't mind individual stats, I hope they include other stats that better reflect the team-based aspects to this game. Things like repairs, resupplies, heals, revives, assists, etc. Maybe even have some squad stats as well as Outfit and faction stats.

I agree, this system needs MORE stats. And hopefully, there is also an XP assist system in place like PS1.