A new metric for player skill.

Drakkonan · 2013-01-13, 12:08 AM

After the announcement that SPM was going to be made the primary metric instead of KDR, I started thinking.

We all know the pros and cons (mostly cons) of KDR, and people will soon come to realize that SPM is twice as bad. In the perfect world they'd just present us with every stat they track, but for various reasons, mostly bad ones, they've decided that certain stats need to be emphasized. However, if certain stats do need to be emphasized, which one/s should they be?

It'd be great to have some long equation that took into account all stats, neglecting time spent in the gate, and returned a single, accurate, value that reflected player skill. Unfortunately, in 20+ years of first-person-shooter's nobody's been able to figure it out. The solution I have, though very far from perfect, is simple, and way better than what's in place and what's to come.

Score per death takes away the time factor, so you don't have to worry about time spent at the gate forming up with your outfit or general goofing around. You can run to the bathroom without having to worry about your global SPM dropping because of it. It also integrates support actions, which tends to be the major complaint among KDR opponents. With the dynamic XP they're introducing this month, SPD is the simplest statistic I can think of to measure player effectiveness.

Like I said, it's far from perfect. Some players sacrifice themselves in the line of fire as a distraction so that other forces can move up. I'm sure other play-styles won't benefit from it either. Lib gunners won't endure a lot of deaths, and while they won't have opportunity for many support points, they'll still have an inaccurate stat when dividing by deaths. However, with the devs unable to come up with any decent metric, I figured we might share our ideas in hopes that they come to their senses and realize this area of the game needs a lot of work.

Note: SPD negates bonus experience due to boosts.

james · 2013-01-13, 12:14 AM

Stats mean nothing end of discussion. A single number can not be a judgement of how good a player is.

Chewy · 2013-01-13, 12:25 AM

With so many roles that need done in PS2 there is no stat that makes a player "good".

The only way to really tell if a person is a good player is to see EVERY stat on demand that can be sorted by stat, class, vehicle, averages, or any way a person can think of.

ZephyrBurst · 2013-01-13, 12:40 AM

I see how that is better than KDR. My thought though, instead of emphasizing any stat, make the stats page in a scroll format or tabs that divide up them up by section. Such as total HP healed/repaired, # of players you've pissed off by Zephyr Bombing, etc. For the scoreboard, there could be categories based on class or type of stat.

In a game so heavy on team coordination, highlighting any one stat is a negative to me. It's not about the one, but the whole.

Drakkonan · 2013-01-13, 01:17 AM

I agree with you all, but the devs refuse to. They insist on making one stat more visible than the others. The question I'm posing, since they're taking this stance, is: What stat should they be using? There's got to be one that's better than the others.

Chewy · 2013-01-13, 03:16 AM

Originally Posted by Drakkonan

I agree with you all, but the devs refuse to. They insist on making one stat more visible than the others. The question I'm posing, since they're taking this stance, is: What stat should they be using? There's got to be one that's better than the others.

That's the thing, there isn't just one stat that can be used to give a player a value in a complex team-based game of this scale.

Just look at my and ZephyrBurst stats linked in our sigs. From those stat pages can you tell who is the better player?
K/D?
Him 1.38
Me .98
I SUCK next to him

K+Assist/D?
Him 1.91
Me 2.59
That goes to me

Headshots?
Him 382
Me 38
No contest. Him.

Damage given/taken?
Him 1.52
Me 1.28
So that's another for him

Facilities Defended/taken?
Him 1.18
Me 2.15
That's one for me

From what little stats those links have it's easy to see that he is the clearly better killer, yet Im a far better defender. He even has 16 full hours of more play time than me, but Im the one with 3 extra BR. There's also our main classes to take account of that change just about EVERYTHING when looking at stats to see who is better than who.

My main now is an engineer that either uses a shotgun with IR sights or the same shotgun with slugs and a 4X scope. In short, in the shit doing my role making certain that those I keep have only one asshole. ZephyrBurst mains an infiltrator that, Im assuming, uses a long range sniper with damn good aim and goes for the head. An unseen killer who strikes like iron.

There are no stats that tell who is the better player between us. And that's just due to our main classes alone. Those linked stat pages don't even touch what we really do in game to boot.

TL / DR
Without EVERY stat the game records, there is no way to see who is better. That's if they can even be compared to begin with.

SeraphC · 2013-01-13, 05:09 AM

Tbh for a part of the players any stats that may contain negative information reduce the amount of fun you have because you always have them in the back of your head. I'm not saying it's the case with everyone, but it's true for alot of people.

For instance I'll never rush out of a camped spawn because I know chances of me killing anyone before I die are slim. If my deaths weren't recorded I'd surely rush out arms blazing time after time until it was proven futile beyond a shadow of a doubt.

MaxDamage · 2013-01-13, 05:27 AM

Originally Posted by SeraphC

Tbh for a part of the players any stats that may contain negative information reduce the amount of fun you have because you always have them in the back of your head. I'm not saying it's the case with everyone, but it's true for alot of people..

You do not speak for a lot of people. Do not try to.

Stats exist. These ones speak the truth and only the truth.

Some people can't handle the truth, that is their problem; not the stats.

K/D is a universally accepted measure of competence at killing in FPS/shooter games.
If you play more support roles than killing or spread your gameplay out between both then great - you're not in competition with dedicated killers are you.

Worry about your own, if you want to, just don't obsess over everyone elses. It's none of your damn business what we do with our game.

SeraphC · 2013-01-13, 07:44 AM

What exactly are you arguing with here?

Originally Posted by MaxDamage

You do not speak for a lot of people. Do not try to.

The mere fact that these threads keep popping up on the boards of just about every game that records deaths proves that I do speak for a lot of people. Note that I'm not saying the are a majority, I'm simply saying that it's not limited to a handful of players.

They feel misrepresented by the stats, which implies they care about it or at the very least are bothered that it's there.

Originally Posted by MaxDamage

Stats exist. These ones speak the truth and only the truth.

Some people can't handle the truth, that is their problem; not the stats.

K/D is a universally accepted measure of competence at killing in FPS/shooter games.
If you play more support roles than killing or spread your gameplay out between both then great - you're not in competition with dedicated killers are you.

I'm not saying they don't speak the truth. (For the record I'm very happy with my stats.) They do however speak a very narrow version of the truth, I think that has been established already. A game like EVE Online comes closer to doing it right. There kills and deaths are not valued by mere integers, but actually show a condensed log of the circumstances and the value of things killed/lost.

I'm also not arguing with the "universally accepted measure" that is k/d rate. I'm just saying that it causes you to restrain yourself (if you care about the stat) from doing stupid, but potentially very fun stuff.
There's a reason why games like Quake 3 don't show deaths directly. Same goes for most of the none shooter MMOs. They only record kills.

Originally Posted by MaxDamage

Worry about your own, if you want to, just don't obsess over everyone elses. It's none of your damn business what we do with our game.

I'm far from obsessing. I was also merely making an observation I wasn't judging anyone on either their k/d rate or whether or not they care about it. You shouldn't get so mad about things like that. (-> See what I did there? If you don't I'll explain it to you in the next post.)

Jader · 2013-01-13, 07:54 AM

Nonsense. The whole reason why KDR is so bad is that it makes people afraid/stressed out when they die. Linking any personal stat metric in this game to deaths would be no different from KDR.

gunshooter · 2013-01-13, 08:22 AM

There is no good metric for how good someone is, but KDR was a good metric for how bad someone is, at least - hated by the very people who were brought down to reality when they realized that people could see it.

If it's removed then any stat metrics will just be useless. You can grind anything. You can get 30-40k score/hour dropping ammo and repairing squad MAXes, which takes 0 skill. But at least the guy who can't aim will feel better about himself.

Mox · 2013-01-13, 08:51 AM

The k/d ratio isnt a problem. The problem is that the stats are public. In ps1 the k/d ratio was also displayed but only me could see it. And you know what? I gave a fuck on my k/d. Now everbody can see it. Even if i dont want them to see. So i have to change my playing behavoir to save my k/d.

I dont like this "everything is public"- privacy policy of ps2. I want to decide by myself if i want to share my stats and with whom.

Ghoest9 · 2013-01-13, 09:55 AM

You can twist the game to pump up any possible stat - this is unavoidable.

The problem with K/D is that it twisted the game in a system that wasnt much fun for anyone except a few stat whores.
Having many of the bbest killers spend their time farming the newest and worst players was bad for everyone.

BR/time played does not promote something that is purely a bad experience.

jsnipy · 2013-01-13, 09:59 AM

No single number really, in my my mind its always been looking at: KDR, SPM, and, WLR.

Inside of KDR, is how kills are arrived at: a high KDR with a very high percentage being a gunner is not the same skill required in infantry.

Same with SPM. At least in this game there is a huge reward capping for capping vs standing around doling out ammo or being the guy with a sundy at the crown.

Not sure how WLR conveys in this game - failed defends, failed attacks?

Aaron · 2013-01-13, 10:14 AM

Player skill can only be accurately recorded and recognized by other players in-game. A voting or honoring system should be in place. Since a player's skill is whatever is perceived as skill by other players, this can be a more accurate system.

For instance, let enemies choose to give you a vote on skill if they think you killed them skillfully. There could be a little button on your death cap screen. There could even be different types of votes for friendlies: teamwork votes, sportsmanship votes, MVP votes.

Of course, there would have to be a system in place that would prevent major exploiting or "vote padding". There should be limits on how often and how much you can vote; and how much you can vote on one particular player.