K/D shouldn't matter to you

Let us be precise here, all low KDR players assume that all high KDR players are stat padders and farmers.

Caring about your K/D does promote a different attitude (waiting for ever for medic rezzes, never taking risks, putting other people on the line, logging off to avoid death etc.)

On the other hand, the K/D padding is some form of metagame for those people.

Is this the reason why you think people got good K/D? I don't have the best K/D in the game, but I consider it decent enough:
https://players.planetside2.com/#!/5428106629448837169

I never wait for medic rez unless an outfit member says specifically they are coming to res me, example if we are holding a point I wait for a res so I don't have to run back to the point.

I'm always on the front line, but prefer to flank and not head straight into the line of fire. I also get "greedy" (taking risks) all the time and get my self killed in the attempt of killing one enemy, where I really should've waited another 5 seconds to gain tactical advantage / element of surprise so I could've kill 3 more.

Putting other people one the line? - what the hell? - they choose when to run towards the enemy, I don't force them, I don't tell them where to go or how to do it.

Logging off to avoid death, really? - you think this is a widespread thing to do? I've never in my entire playtime even considered doing that. In fact in BRTD it is shunned upon if you even try to bail out of a vehicle in order to avoid death.

Idk, to me it seems like the same people who complain about the K/D stat are the ones who put them selves in the midst of the zerg fighting battles without any form of organization and basing their opinion only on observing the zerg which frankly isn't a representation of good K/D players.

As I said, it is a metagame.If people have fun trying to raise it, more power to them. My personal metagame is collecting auraxium medals (which led to usage of some pretty abysmal weapons).

Some people will get into extremes (like fighting only from inside spawn rooms, fighting only inside vehicles etc. The choice of the main class does play a big role in the K/D (heavies traditionally have higher K/D than, say infantry engineers), infiltrators usually have decent K/D etc.

Anyway, I don't really agree with the OP. It is a stat and while irrelevant to me (suicide rushing that sunderer 10x times is more important to me than maintaining X kills before dying), it is important to the enjoyment of the game to others.

You were expecting this and I would not want to disappoint you.

It's all in-game stuff, therefore not meta. The developers put that stat in there and are tracking it on ps2players, so they intended it to influence gameplay to some degree... well probably because they were going to sell resets.

My beef with the OP is that he doesn't seem to understand that there are "unlimited" ways to play this game, none of which are wrong or correct. There is no defined goal to this game and even if it where, people are allowed to play it the way they want to.

Also for some reason there is a generally agreed upon theory among all low K/D players that a high K/D player automatically does not contribute to the current fight. While the very fact that someone have a high K/D in that fight proves that they contribute, that alone forces enemies to respawn loosing valuable time and keeps them from reaching the point. Exactly how they got that K/D doesn't really matter because regardless of how, you forced the enemy to respawn and that helps capturing the point! We could just /thread there, but the OP isn't convinced..

Also having a high K/D shows you are more efficient at stopping the enemy from reaching the point when they try to advance(if that is where you got that high K/D).. If I kill 2 enemies and get away alive so I can fight again a few seconds later (maybe even drop a squad becon or wait for my squad to deploy on me), while another guy killed 1 guy and died so he had to spend a full minute of respawning and getting back into the fight. I'm at least 3x as effective in that fight. Why is that not appreciated? - jealousy and ignorance are my guesses.

The OP seems to think that a high K/D player is a coward padding his K/D from behind spawnshields. However none of the high K/D players ever sit behind a spawnshield shooting out, that's not where or how they enjoy to play their game! Cunning and aware of the tactical situation is more correct, so here is a typical scenario I've seen so many times:

"TR is advancing on a capture point, the mindless zerg rush towards it, the high K/D players are with them. Now and then you see them branch off to the sides taking a less direct route. Leaving the zerg more or less alone eventually.

Suddenly the NC scum appears with some infantry and a MAX unit. The TR and NC zerg start shooting at each other. The TR zerg left in the open has little chance of killing the MAX unit standing in the doorway with engineers giving him repairs.

Luckily for the zerg a high K/D player had anticipated that the NC might come out of that building since it is the most common route to use in order to counter an attack. So the high K/D player approach the enemy max and engineers from the side-door, first shooting the infantry, then dropping a C4 love-pack or a decimator at the unsuspecting MAX unit.

The low K/D zerg got few kills, mostly just support xp and most of them died several times. However they all felt jolly good since they had revived at least 10 people contributing to the fight. Although strictly it might be considered more effective to kill the enemy and then revive your friends, so that your friends don't get instantly killed upon accepting the revive.

Also they blame the high K/D player for not helping them out since obviously the high K/D player where not right next to them and therefore must've been a cowards and using them as a meat shield.

Truth: the high K/D player saved the day. The low K/D player didn't even notice what the high K/D player did. "

There are also so incredibly many times I see zerg sitting right on top of the point getting slaughtered by incoming enemies. While I personally sit just a bit further away from it and kill off entire enemy squads trying to approach the point. I get blamed for being a killwhore and not helping out!

It is definitely meta.

Let me give you another example of something more extreme that is also meta. Reaching BR100 without killing anyone.

Also to the post above, you can have a high K/D without contributing much in a fight. We do have the biggest K/D stat padder in the game after all on our server, and all he does is finding a spot where nothing much happens and farm the **** out of it.
(Ok, that was unfair. I've seen a profile link of an infilrator with 500k/d. Apparently he was snipping people only from inside spawn rooms and was redeploying when the base was about to flip).

Utility and meta are different concepts. Meta is using information outside of the game to make decisions. The set of decisions you make that are exclusive to your preferences and only involve in-game information is still not meta.

Using knowledge of the MAXs health pool to plan what weapon you're going to use without having used it first is meta, trying to kill a MAX with a knife because you feel like it isn't, as satisfying as it might be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagaming

"Metagaming is a broad term usually used to define any strategy, action or method used in a game which transcends a prescribed ruleset, uses external factors to affect the game, or goes beyond the supposed limits or environment set by the game. Another definition refers to the game universe outside of the game itself."

You're getting too hung up to the highlighted bit and you ignore the rest.

Take a game like Syrim for example. The "goal" set by the game is to complete the main quest. Nothing prevents you though from ignoring it and do whatever in that world. You're basically creating a game within the game. You set some extra rules for yourself that don't necessarily coincide with the rules envisioned by the developers.

Honestly, **** it. Until they can describe it in mathematical terms, it doesn't matter. Sure, you're right. Whatever.

My OP is an exhortation, not a prescription. You're right, do whatever the **** you want, it's just a game, but ...

if somebody is going to discriminate against people with low K/Ds (anything less than 3 is low, obviously), pad his K/D by being an *******, or do whatever because he bases his self-worth on a number meaningless in this game, then... so be it.


It's his right to be a moron. Who am I to question his motivation in an online game? It's up to the developers, not the community, to get **** right by providing the right incentives. It's not K/Ds fault that I can't find an even fight during off hours for a given server, it's the developers'.

It's not the players fault that farming infantry has bigger return than winning objectives. It's the developers'. They ****** up big time and the population shows it.

So, I'm sorry, Anfall, et al. although you ****** up the gender for (DER) Anfall, it's masculine... unlike you.

I agree with you for the most part (personal insult excluding). The game doesn't seem to have well defined objectives (well, most other FPS winning the round is your objective). The WDS do seem like a step towards the right direction. I just wish continent and base control was a bit more prominent. Right now some people think that holding a continent is the goal. Others think that winning the alerts is a goal. And others don't care at all and make thier own goals. In the end, I wouldn't want to mess with the whole sandbox feel of the game.

Perhaps what is missing is the personal touch. What if ... what if bases were outfit controlled. What if the game was a bit more personal like this? Did that aspect worked in GW2? Or it created more frustration, because "our side" doesn't help defend?

Anyway, I find nothing wrong with people playing for their stats. On the other hand though, some people need to realise that not everyone is playing for their stats.

Now you are getting to the point

If only they'd just seperate K/D into infantry K/D and Vehicle K/D that'd be great.

The whole problem of the game being sandbox is that there are no NPCs to fight and the game doesn't do enough to ensure opposition. The whole logistics make it a nightmare as well, but PS1 proved that very good game design could overcome these obstacles.

Even in GW2 if you have no players around, there are NPCs to kill, things to do .. but GW2 is much more trivial, since everybody is funneled into a tighter area for the most part.

Yet, even in GW2, most people don't participate in WvW, because the complete lack of an incentive to win. Not to mention that the territory in this game mostly has no purpose other than its function in winning alerts for the most part (save tech plants/amps.. bios are nearly worthless).

What is the most important thing in an FPS? Having enough things to shoot at. Right now that's not an easy thing to come by in this game and that's pretty devastating. The population imbalances compound the issue and make it an exercise just to find a fair fight. Everything points to faulty game design.

It's not an issue if people want to do what they want, but it is when they can't do it, or when it involves doing boring ****. Alerts made the game more appealing to me as well and I too desire more objective based gameplay, but even that sometimes entails doing boring things like capping empty bases/continents etc.

You're SL doesn't know how to find and create good fights then if you're capping points with 2 squads and no resistance. That is most definitely, boring.

Uhh what? It's called - Mass Squad Deploy or group drop with a beacon. You are NEVER trapped in a spawn room.

Your stats page in game shows a k/d chart over time. Weekly/Monthly K/D is available at stats.dasanfall.com

Only if it gets our medic killed coming to get you I can't even imagine you AND sock using that thing together in a situation.

Umm, no. His (DJ and other farmers) stats are meaningless, yes. That does not immediately make all stats meaningless by definition though. The manipulation of stats in-game shows up in other stats such as kpm and others. None of it is visible without taking all of them into account, but you get a very good idea of how someone plays...and how good they are at that playstyle by looking at their overall stats. K/D just happens to be one number in a sea of many, but it will never be meaningless.

I actually liked your OP and I think the thread has gotten a bit off track and there's a lot of miscommunication going on. People do need to get out of the spawn rooms and fight for objectives and there needs to be more incentive for them to do that.

I really don't think K/D matters to as many people as has been implied though. Sure, my guys that have posted in here have decent K/D's, but it isn't their end-all be-all when they're playing the game. Fun is. They just happen to be good at killing people, usually in non spam/farm related ways.

I recruit players with higher than average infantry accuracy because I try and put DA in a lot of situations where we're outnumbered 2-3x or more. High infantry accuracy gives us a higher chance of success when taking a base from 3x our numbers because each individual lands their shots and puts the enemy down faster. Also, i'm well aware the spelling is wrong, but it's been incorrect since day 1 and changing it now would just feel wrong.

How does population in off hours show that infantry farming yields more rewards though (not sure how this ties into K/D since you aren't getting many kills at all)? If i'm intelligent and know how the game works i'd go to the side with far FEWER people, get the pop bonus, and shoot the hordes of people on the other empire? In fact, we frequently do that with [SBW] on NC Mattherson and [DLUV] VS Waterson.

The OP brought up a legitimate issue to be sure, but I really don't feel that K/D is the primary cause. I also never see people with high K/D's creating threads mocking people that don't. I don't see people in-game going "HAH SCRUB, YOUR K/D IS SO BAD, U BAD, U TRASH". Well, I guess I haven't seen that since radiix quit months ago. High K/D players generally aren't flaunting it around others unless it's been provoked in some way, such as a K/D doesn't matter thread. K/D is a tool to use for your own benefit to gauge how you're doing over time as far as killing things in an FPSMMO.

I also get the feeling you don't realize how many things actually ARE tracked by SOE's API. All of it is tracked, and by all of it, I mean ALL OF IT. Almost anything you want to see, such as medpacks used, beacons placed etc. Our site, stats.dasanfall.com shows these stats that almost all other stats sites leave out.

Our site does that too.

What I like about your site is how it keeps on calculating BR, even after one reaches BR100.

You misunderstood. Sometimes, there's a lot of resistance, too much even. The problem is not that. I don't like static game play "camp this doorway for eight minutes".

I like to run around, discover things, act accordingly. I like attacking or counter attacking, but there is none of that in objective oriented play.

Attack would assume getting to a cap point through enemy resistance, but this task is trivial and achieved by a gal drop. Galaxy is tough and rarely is destroyed before the squad arrives at the cap point. Once we're at cap point, we just camp in while timer ticks. Doesn't matter if enemy is attacking the cap point after that, the play is still stationary, and it's boring.

-I'll try not to be rude

- with 10 fps, you should not be playing this game. You cannot use your pc as an excuse to be bad, do you see professional tennis players or golf players going in a tournament with crappy clubs and then say they are more skilled after they had a crappy score just because they're ''using crappy clubs / rackets''

- i think i was pretty generous with your class' analyse. let me argue every point you gave:
- headshot a medic that doesn't stand still, unless he moves in a very predictable pattern, its more up to luck. You can't predict another human's movement unless you have seen that person do that movement few times in a row. You lead the target, if the target stops moving for whatever reason, it's not because you are less skilled or more skilled, it's luck.

- LA that are flying are easier targets to hit because their trajectory is very predictable, everything that goes up will go down. LA while using their jetpack are the easiest infantry target to hit except maybe someone afk/looking at his map

- Infiltrators can recieve damage even when cloaked i considered you skilled enough to know that fact and use it. I don't play Sniper alot but its not hard to headshot an infiltrator when cloaked after you saw his moving patterns

- exactly, you get infinite amount of time on the first shot. if you miss your first shot, you show that you aren't that skilled of a sniper, or that you were unlucky. From a sniper's distance, it's impossible to know where an infiltrator exactly is after only 1 shot and due to distance a majority of players won't even bother trying to kill you

- ''with a 2 seconds lead team at long range'' sniper bullets have like 600m/s velocity. You can't render players after 500m, which makes it a less than 1 full second lead. Nice try <3

- about the surprise enemy statement. Do you imagine yourself that in a 40 vs 40 fight infantry in the base encounter eachother 1 by 1 from the front and wait till the signal to start firing at eachother? There is no way you can compare a random HA attacking you from behind once every 10 mins to a situation where everywhere you go (outside spawn) there can be 1, 2, 3, 4 + people around that corner or behind you or MAX units or Harassers/Tanks/ESF/Libs/Snipers shooting you from afar.

- by seeing your current K/D i doubt you'll have a K/D higher than 1,2 with a LA shotgun at 30 fps. People QQ alot about shotguns because dying so quickly is frustrating, but its one of the loudest weapons, and has a very short effective range. Personally i feel people using shotguns are the easiest to kill if you know how to keep distance from them. There are times where you turn a corner and you die, but that means they use their ability as intended.

- As a sniper, you don't need to move while shooting, and you don't need to hit over 7 bullets on target to get a kill.

- I could go on like this for quite a while, but i have to leave for univ i have an exam, i'll see after if you replied or not.

- I'm not trying to say that snipers are unskilled players, i'm saying that snipers' skill cap is not that high

- ''infiltrators underated'' lol infil are one of the most fun class to play, you have access to weapons for every range possible for infantry, and you can do so many things for a team as to hack terminals and towers, darts and see every ennemy in 50 meters range at 4 different spots at the same time, etc. However, snipers' skill cap is not as high as infiltrators playing SMG.

- At the same time as skill cap being lower, higher K/D means less also. It's nothing personal, it's just the way things are. I'll be happy to answer any question you have about any class. I really have to go now :/