[Suggestion] A wild thought: what if we remove K/D?

As we all know we are in desperate needs for new players (especially for Briggs). Briggs is now the playground for veterans, I've seen players complain "well, I just run up to the front and redeploy in this game". It can be extremely frustrating for many new players when they see at the end of the day they got 0.2 K/D or something.

I understand that K/D helps players get a sense of achievement in some way, some players have it to flaunt, but as the vets farming the noobs, what the noobs get from the game is sometimes serious competitive frustration. Because this game cannot be balanced, players are not assigned to rooms according to their performance (which is good, but also bad). When they feel this game is positively related to negative feelings, what's the point of playing it?

What if let’s just remove the K/D in this game, we only record kills but not deaths, this may mitigate competition frustration... Since this game is unbalanced, let’s just make getting killed totally free from any consequence, so that players (especially new players) would concentrate on the objectives instead of personal performance. Also at the end of the day everyone would focus more on their achievements rather than disappointments.

Don’t know if it’s a good idea, I’m open to criticism.

P.S. Don't try and compare gaming with workplace performance, we are here to have fun, not to have a career. Don't expect people to "practice and get better", because not all people have the same time as some of the best players.

Well it has been awhile since I've heard this silly suggestion. It seems to crop up every few weeks or months. K/D is the most important stat in an FPS. Some people like to dream that PS2 is somehow different and that K/D is irrelevant for some reason. That if you stop telling the player what it is then that player will run blindly onto the enemy guns without a care in the world because META.

Taking territory, flipping points, all of it is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is improving your own character and stats.

Well the great thing about PS2 is that it caters for so many different play styles and motivations - if all you care about is k/d, so be it. Me - I especially like the team and vehicle game and often play supporting roles, so i'm not bothered by k/d and will gladly keep swarming a lost point in order to keep the enemy busy while a different squad is taking another base.

It would be wrong to remove k/d - just because many people have it weaved into their very existence - the important thing is to not be worried about it and enjoy what you enjoy.

Even if we get rid of the death counter, you are personally perceptive of your proficiency with a game and the number of times you've died compared to what you've achieved. The killed-by window is already partially embedded to a glorified measure of one's successes prior to that point and is designed with other mechanics suggesting to players what good things are happening in their play. (It's not very good but that's neither here nor there. It exists.) People will experience the angst of K/D even if K/D is not officially counted. The self-stigma is not going away even if we tell people that "K/D doesn't matter."

At least it wouldn't be constantly shoved in their face. Anything to nudge players towards the objectives instead of selfish stats is good in my book. There are plenty better games to test your skills without all the random ******** like this one has. This is the least competitive game I've ever played, stats here are ridiculous. What if continent won/lost was the only stat in the game? Or facility won/lost or defended/lost. Things would be better.

It's not constantly shoved in my face. Where is it that I am forced to see my K/D?
Tab screen? pshaw, map holds more useful information to what needs to get done. You press tab when you want to stroke your ego with statistics and you don't need to do that if you're playing the objective.

There's an idea: get rid of the tab screen altogether.

Dump K/D into the trash. It's an extremely addictive statistic to seek improving, yet there are many other factors that determine one's success without having to sacrifice gameplay styles that you'd otherwise prefer:

• Longest killstreak
• Total kills
• Directive points

These are all things that could be put onto the "big screen" for players to brag about, while none of them affect gameplay nearly as poisonously as K/D does. And this is coming from someone who does care about K/D in its present form, and does achieve 5.0+ infantry-only K/D when actively seeking a good stats run (but would often prefer not to do it if it wasn't tracked).

Seriously third party stat trackers can work that kind of stat out for you if you care that much or leave it on the stats page for those that care but there's no need for it to be visible when you hit tab.
Whining about it being inconvenient to know how much **** you choke on doesn't compare to the negative impact a 0.05 KD would have on the new player experience. He may know he died a bit but it's human nature to over estimate our achievements and underestimate our defeats.

The effect might not be great but every little helps when New Player Retention is so low. And I doubt any vet who is obsessed with their K/D will leave if that stat becomes harder to locate or needs to be manually calculated.

Again delusions that removing K/D will mean new players will finally stick around for the endless, meaningless war. I'd put good money on it having the opposite effect. I'd go further and say that when you get a revive your K/D should not be affected. You didn't die, you got revived - other games do this and PS2 should too.

I like keeping an eye on my k/d, it's a fun metric and an indication of personal accomishment even if my team is getting DP-zerged

Jac70, you say delusion, I say minor effect driven by psychology. Since one of us is basing their position on established scientific principles and the other is just asserting that their opinion is right I feel justified in ignoring your opinion on the matter.

Also unless I've been drunk for the last forever or so I'm fairly certain that being revived DOES undo the death counter restoring that life.

I said that several times ... the solution is far easier:

Clientside:
(1) Add "DisplayKDRStats=1" in UserOptions.ini as default, it can be changed at any time in "DisplayKDRStats=0" and back

ServerSide:
(2) Read the value of DisplayKDRStats upon startup
(3) Keep the value stored server-side when the player is offline
(4) When the APIs are invoked to fetch info:
if DisplayKDRStats = 0 then
return 0.0 when KDR is asked
return an empty list when the list of deaths is asked
return 0 as number of deaths when asked
return the list of kills when asked
if DisplayKDRstats = 1
return the real KDR when asked
return the list of deaths is asked
return the real number of deaths when asked
return the list of kills when asked

Done. No more delusional, half-delusional or whatever. Everyone chooses.

Development wise, the changes are trivial (I would guess below 50 LOCs and I was a software engineer in a former life).

I don't know if you could take it
Know you wanna see this game without a K/D...

Please do it DBG, or at least make it hidden by default, it manages to throw people off their REAL objectives, making them stroke their e-peens while bases get flipped

K/D is meaningful in an arena death-match type game as it can give a true reflection of performance - but in PS2, with support roles, it's meaningless unless you only ever play one combat role, in the same manner.

The second you start playing a support role, or a different type of combat role (e.g. long range sniping vs spearhead assaults) your overall K/D becomes meaningless because there is no way to disentangle the various components of your gameplay from a single stat that only concentrates on kills.

K/D by role may be more meaningful - but even then, how do you decide whether a medic with 0.5 K/D is better than one with 3 K/D.

Certs earnt per death might be a better statistic - since this would reflect your efficacy in support roles as well as combat.

K/D isn't toxic.

****heads who think they're better players because OMFG MY K/D. When in reality they never sacrifice anything for the good of the squad, outfit, or faction. Then wave their K/D around like they aren't zhitters. LMFAO.

MMO yet these clowns play like it's a single player.

That's toxic.

That's already the case. If you get revived - the death doesn't show on your stats.

But again - this is another reason K/D is meaningless. You could have a high K/D simply because you have a good team of medics stood behind you, nothing to do with your own combat prowess.

You could be getting killed 10 times for each kill you get - but if you are being revived each time - your K/D will be much higher than your actual combat effectiveness would suggest.

Finally someone who knows a bit of decent psychology! And, YES! we are talking about NEW PLAYER experience, the first reply digressed in the first place. It's not about satisfying the vanity of the vets, it's about how we can have more players, how to make this game more enjoyable for MORE people.

I'm a 3 K/D infil and I more and more feel I'm no better than a 0.5 K/D medic. The better I got the less appetite I have to take risks because I have limited skills I must be really careful to maintain my K/D. I feel I'm becoming increasingly chicken which is terrible. This shouldn't be the way I play this game, I miss the time I had 0.5 K/D, I was much peaceful then.

Every time you die. You might never die and never see it, but new players definitely do. I don't mind competition, that's why I play a fps, and NC at that. But this game has drawn too much of the CoD crowd and not enough of the teamwork crowd. The emphasis on stats and kills is part of that.

I'd miss the ping/latency information and time played vs certs, but I'd give that up.