[Suggestion] Highest damager gets kill

Why does the last player to hit a damaged enemy get the kill? Especially as a skyguard, I commonly end up with assists only because someone else is shooting the air with a pistol or lmg.

So I spend hour chasing around ESF/valks to only get 2-3 kills, yet I get 10+ assists because somebody else comes in with a faster RoF weapon and finishes them off?

Seems off.

Because even if you deal the most damage you didn't kill them.
Say for instance, you bring a tank down to .000000001 HP, but miraculously he lived because of FS and you were for some reason unable to finish him off and he recovered to full.

But if he did not recover to full and you had done 99% of the damage and someone hits him with an archer or a walker even, you still get most of the kill anyhow, while it does not require a full kill the game cannot predict if you were in the apt situation to kill the apposing player, it would be equally as unfair to say I did 51% of the damage to the tank, even if you ran him down with a bassy harasser I would still get the kill, that's simply how it is.

An esay solution would be if you get percentage exp for an assist.
If you do 40 % dmg you get 40 % of the exp that you would got for the kill.
If you do 99 % you get 99 % exp of that kill.
The one that makes the kill gets of course still 100 %.

The easy solution is evidently the current method... this is already how it works in-game, to a degree of course.

I'd say for the last one, the actual kill, you only get 100% if you did more than 50% damage, otherwise you get 50%.

Seems a bit unfair to get all the credit xp wise when I snag a ESF with a lucky pistol shot while a Skyguard is blasting it full auto. (and it has happened)

I kind of agree, but what happens when say i fight another tank 1v1, it manages to kill me but i do 51% damage to it, it then dies to Reaver hornets moment later before attempting repairs.
Your system would give me the kill credit, which i have to say i do not deserve since i didnt win the fight or kill the enemy, and barely did the most damage to it.
Id much rather just share the XP as Naaahhhhh has suggested (quoted below).
Sucks that you dont get a kill in situations where some1 KS you, like the skyguard example you mentioned, but i dont see a way of getting around it that wouldnt award kills to people non deserved of them.

Im sure you actualy do get awarded different amounts of XP for the damage percentage you did, critical kill assists etc. But i dont think it directly correlates as simply as you've suggested.

Although thinking about it now, im sure my outfit m8 said he got something like 590 XP for a crit kill assist, compared to 600 for a kill the other day, so perhaps it is working like that .
Guess ill have to find a willing enemy to help me test it .

But what about a situation where that skyguard has been killed (by the ESF or not) and nothing is now shooting it except for you with your pistol. I think you absolutely deserve full credit for being the 1 who finished it off, for if not it would escape to repair and return. You've effectively removed the threat (....for about 30 seconds but thats another point) is how i see it, sure you've had help, but thats why they got 99% of the kill XP aswel.

Yeah, its pretty common where I'm destroying an esf and midstream of flak it says "assist". I'd say this is the case 75% of the time.

It's not just about the xp is it? there are rewards for kill ribbons and suchlike as well as directive progression (but not for assists).

If you start awarding kills on statistical calculation rather than who delivered the killing blow you skew other parts of the system.

It is a bit bogus to do all the work and then be robbed of the reward but then, it also works the other way. I've finsihed off more than one planetman or esf (and a harrasser once) with a couple of rounds or a quick burst from a carbine, which was obviously a benefit of massive assistance. Shot down a Lib with one rocket the other day and then killed a Max I couldn't even see with the next one (I fired at his dorito from miles away).

I know there have been some suggestions about ribbons and directive rewards for assists. That would seem an easier and more equitable solution but would still take some re-engineering when there may be better things to spend dev time on (I'd vote for fixing the lag problems and introducing Battleye myself).

it is annoying, especially for things like rocket launcher directive,
sling 4 rockets into a tank, did you get the kill? NOPE!
someone else was waiting for you to do all of the work so they could steal the kill when the tank starts burning.

it promotes toxic play,
i think for directive purposes you should get credit if you did atleast 70% of the damage to the target.
you don't get the kill credit, but you get a point towards directive

^ Simple solution - if you (1) do 50%+ damage AND (2) sent the vehicle into burning you get the kill. Both conditions must be met - 40% damage and sent target into burning isnt a kill, neither is 60% damage that doesn't send into burning

Maybe implement "assist counted as kill", where both the highest damage dealer and the killer get a kill like in battlefield. If I snipe an esf that's at 5% out of the sky with my archer from 300m I deserve kill because he would have made it out otherwise. On the other hand had you not brought the esf down to less than enough for my ohk he would have made it out too since 2 or more archer shots to an esf that's fleeing I pretty much impossible. Therefore the kill is equally yours.

Assists need a better representation. Currently they are worth nothing, and recorded nowhere.

The skyguard needs a tweak, but that's for another thread.

The current method in game is fine. As others have pointed out every one kill steals so it balances out in the end. I'm sure you've been out there shooting at ESF and you get that 1 lucky hit that kills them but you only did ~1% damage.

However if it really is that big of a deal (According to http://ps4us.ps2.fisu.pw/player/?name=ziggurat8&show=statistics I have ~10% assist rate) perhaps a system where by the player with the highest damage within 8 Seconds of the kill gets credited. After 8 seconds of 0 damage it goes to whoever lands the kill shot. Situations in which I land 4 RL shots on a tank and someone pot shots it with a single uncharged lancer shot for the "kill" would then not be possible unless the tank had managed to escape damage from me for 8 seconds.

It could work out to be more fair that way. But as I said I don't think it's really nescessary. Getting kills stolen out from under you all the time is usually a symptom of something else, under performing weapon (skyguard) or multiple damage sources all at once (lots of AV spam, I doubt most people will withhold damage because they hope to get the last shot, that just leads to targets being alive longer) or perhaps the player is just unable to finish the job, runs out of ammo or needs to reload or is out of range/los in which case, git gud applies.

Just my 2 cents.

http://ps4us.ps2.fisu.pw/player/?name=ziggurat8&show=statistics
That page shows assists. Not sure how accurate it is. It also shows hits per kill and damage per kill on the weapons page. Very good site.

Ok they are recorded somewhere, but not somewhere you can easily see them. They need to be visible in the TAB screen for instance and be easier to value. A player who gets an average of 6 full assists and 1 kill (a heavy teamplayer for instance) should be valued more than a player who gets 2 kills per life. Right now the player who gets 2 kills is valued more.

The differences between what you've been doing should also be valued. You been killing MAX's as infantry? Ofcourse your KD is going to be lower than the guy who's been spawncamping players with a vehicle! These kind of differences should also be visible. This way you can more easily differentiate between a good player ("Oh my god this guy kills a lot more MAX's on average than most other players") and a farmer ("this guy has more kills, but he got them by cheesing a vehicle").

Come on people!

How the **** are you supposed to get awarded the kill if you did not get the killing blow, its pretty god damn simple.

Either you killed him or you didn't, there is no almost or "mostly" there is only did or didn't, its pretty cut and dry.

If a teammate dies and you finish off the enemy as they try to run, I think you'd want that kill credit. Esp for vehicular situations

Quit your whinning.

Think of the poor lasher player, you ain't even got it half as bad

If it's whining about KDR, nothing should change, but if it's because of the frustration due to not getting the kill for directive well welcome to reality.
Directive counted as kill are toxic, it should be changed to exp count.
For example : get 116 000 exp with decimator. (equivalent to 1160 infantry kill) EXP multiplicator won't be counted.