Kill the K/D Statistic. It's killing Planetside. Seriously. It's time to Reevaluate The Effect.

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by inigma, Jan 3, 2013.

  1. inigma

    In Planetside 1, K/D wasn't that important. Really. At all actually. In fact, you didn't have access to such a statistic.

    But lately I've seen the fear of a less than 1.0 K/D really ruin this game for a lot of people. It causes a cascade effect as one person changes their gameplay as a result, and social consequences follow among those who don't care less anyways. Bases don't get defended. Zerg don't push a camp together. It makes fighting a chore, rather than an enjoyment. It has done what many vets in beta predicted it would: It has ruined Planetside. It has changed the game from Planetside to just a K/D session. It has removed what made Planetside epic: soldiers fighting, not caring about death. It has ruined the onus for massive pushes for the greater good. For outfit. For Empire. Now K/D matters. Even if it doesn't, the stat is there, and I don't know anyone who spends money into this game who doesn't check it.

    Imagine, just imagine what would happen if no one cared about getting killed or blown up in Planetside 2. What would we see?

    Fights that are real pushes. That's what. Real honest-to-goodness violent fights. Way more than there are now. Fights over small bits of ground, fights in bases, fights from ams to ams, from sea to sea. Farms wouldn't be farms for long. People wouldn't care. They would die for the greater good, firing off to the last bullet, the last man. People wouldn't chicken out and redeploy in safety. We'd have the greater good in mind.


    How many times have you checked your K/D in game? Compared to Planetside 1?

    DEVS, HIGBY, SMED, SOE; for the LOVE OF PLANETSIDE, REMOVE THE K/D stat from the game. If you must track such stats, then make it only viewable outside the game, online, via the character stats API - delayed if u must. In fact, I don't recall, but I don't even remember seeing a K/D stat on the old PS1 character pages either. If so, then remove it entirely.

    Please see this as a formal petition to remove the K/D from inside the game. If you agree /sign below.

    Take a moment to email and twit Smed, Higby, SOE, and co. Do it now. Let's make them aware of this. Let's ask them to seriously reevaluate the effect K/D stats are having on PS2. Link this post.

    It's time to bring Planetside back to Planetside.
    • Up x 47
  2. UberBonisseur

    You meant Certifications ?
  3. DarkMatter223

    I don't have a problem with them giving us access to K/D ratio info, I will just never care what mine(or anyone else) is and have yet to even look at it. But Im sure mine is crap, because Im usually the first through the door and dont spend a lot of time in vehicles.
    • Up x 4
  4. Vorxil

    K/D is a useless statistic. Time efficiency is at least a bit more useful but I'm only able to calculate a rough upper limit so it's also useless, just less useless than K/D.
  5. Ghostfox

    The problem I have are the times I run into situations where we need to keep pushing and those around me want to sit around a door pecking away like pansies.
    • Up x 4
  6. HerpTheDerp

    You are operating under the assumption that removing the K/D statistic from the character screen will make people stop caring about it.

    This assumption is quite laughable.

    That's one.

    Two, judging by the amount of people whom I gleefully see running towards their death through the same doorway even though they died in it five times not even minutes ago, I don't think K/D is an issue for most people in the game.

    I think you're just confusing K/D whoring with XP farming, which is something completely different.
    • Up x 3
  7. Ghoest

    Kill stats are not ruining the game it is death stats that(I say this as someone with an unimpresive K/D.)

    Fair to good players are totally warpng the way they play in an effort to maintain a nice k/d.
    People are avoiding defended bases and not playing aggressively.

    There should simply be no record of deaths.
    • Up x 10
  8. HadesR

    K/D isn't an issue .. What is an issue IMO is the XP per kill .. It's turned what should be an objective to reach a goal into the goal itself.
  9. PineSG

    I do not think it is possible that such a change will be made... not even if Smed himself wanted it, too much vested interest in having a game that competes *** for tat with other FPS games. BUT there is something missing.. something that ONLY PS2 has ( or well PS); stats for things other than single player..
    point flips
    gen drops
    outfit stats
    time on point

    These are mechanics that the devs should want to encourage... these are the stats that indicate that a player is participating in the meta-game, and it is THAT participation that makes the game enjoyable for all.
    • Up x 1
  10. RottenGroinArea

    When we played PS1, Tribes 2, Tribes 1 we played to fight together and win, stats didn't mean anything and didn't exist.

    Enter the world of Generation YY, the downs syndrome medication generation that requires meaningless virtual stats to
    give them meaningless virtual self esteem.

    These little dummies thrive on the virtual numbers, having zero self esteem in real life, and the sick corporate vampires
    know they can exploit this need for virtual progression and suck millions of dollars out of parental wallets. (parents are
    happy to let the computer babysit their undisciplined little monsters for 12-16 hours per day)

    The bottom line is that ALL games are catering to those stat kiddies, or will be in short order, because it is profitable.

    Gameplay be dam-ned the only thing that matters to the corporate blood suckers are short term gains.
    • Up x 4
  11. MaxDamage

    Don't be so absolutely ridiculous. You sound like a communist, or worse a feminist. Competitiveness is vital for the majority male gaming population and should be encouraged. I have no interest whatsoever in an "everyone is equal regardless of their contribution or ability" mindset infecting our games, we see enough of it in real life. The problems you link to K/D are seperate problems and more closely tied to the certfarming nature of the free to play setup.

    I have a crap K/D, but I consider it a positive gauge of my own personal progress that I can improve upon if I desire. It is individual players that have problems and obsessions over it, and that's no reason to attack one of the few things in a gaming world oversaturated with nothing-games, that make an fps competitive.

    It is cert grind that drives people to desperate measures.
    • Up x 1
  12. SinerAthin

    I agree.

    K/D is a stat reserved for ranked deathmatches.
    Planetside 2 is a huge war with different roles and vehicles, and it is unranked(as in, you are not assigned to fight people on your own rank/rating)

    Even though my own K/D is steadily rising to 6:1, having a night of 76:6, I will agree that it is a pointless stat.

    It is a stat that sticks in your brain. You know you shouldn't care about it, you want to pretend you don't care about it, but it subtly affects your decision anyway, encouraging a playstyle that is ill suited for a game like Planetside 2.


    As for people who are worried it will reduce the competetiveness of Planetside 2, remember that this is not a 1vs1 game, nor about single players, but about outfits, squads and armies.
    It is you and 99 others vs the other 100 on the other side. Victory through any means necessary.

    Some of the best outfit players I know have less than impressive K/D ratios, but that's because they're not afraid to get dirty in a fight and push the enemy back, getting the objective/saving the sunderer etc.

    How much infantry you farm or how many times you die doesn't matter in Planetside 2 as long as you destroy the enemy sunderer/generator, overrun the enemy base etc
    K/D is also thrown completely out of balance due to vehicles, ping differences, unranked games, max suits, different classes and so on.

    I'm perfectly fine with K/D in a game like COD as it suits that game, but COD and Planetside 2 are two different games.
    • Up x 2
  13. medbot544

    If I see scenario that I think will get me killed, I avoid it. All due to K/D stat. If it was removed, I would go die over and over no problem. But when I see KDR in a game, I want to make sure it's at a good rate; if I can't, I don't play no more. I try to forget it, but I just can't. That number there sticks out like a sore thumb and it's hard to ignore.

    I don't freak about KDR in TF2 though, cus they got it right imo.

    6:1 and rising btw if you want to bring that up as an arguement.
    • Up x 2
  14. MaxDamage

    Also you are wrong about planetside 1, there were detailed scoreboards for outfits, individuals, all available for anyone to see on the official site; along with a toggle-able in-game onscreen K/D ratio per play session visible in the hud.

    As for one of the guys above saying that there are many roles in the game, you are absolutely correct, and many of them involve killing things as efficiently as possible, thus, visible K/D is useful for them, no? No one but you is making it a problem.

    To these people claiming to have no self control when they see K/D, you should see a doctor. It is an MMOFPS, we are interested in statistics. In fact, the more, the better. People who don't want
    K/D are by far in the minority. An insecure and pathetic people who obviously have addiction issues from mmorpgs.

    Seek help.
    • Up x 1
  15. Fate

    They won't be removing KDR from the game. It's something that's in EVERY shooter and PlanetSide 2 is directly copying a lot of aspects from other shooters.
  16. xxJackallxx

    Pretty much this says it all....
  17. Draxo

    I must /sign this

    In a game where there are multiple noncombat roles whose positive effect on a battle is far higher than the guy running/vehicle driving and gunning down infantry for far better K/D than a more skilled and important infantry role who use it as an argument weapon vs people who perform far more important roles than them its just silly.

    K/D only encourages arguments and attacks on other players, I see no positive effect on the game or community as a whole, but many downsides.

    Instead, track base caps, track heals, track ammo vended, track terminal hacks, track repairs, track revives.
  18. MrHenderson

    Post of the year so far.
  19. Vorpal

    I think it's incredibly silly that K:D is the ONLY statistic it shows you.

    I was thinking I Might see # of turrets repaired, # of allies revived, # of allies healed, # of MAX units repaired, # of allies I resupplied with ammo, # of people I spotted and teammates killed, # of shield generators I stabilized/compromised, # of enemy sunderers I found and pointed out to allies....you know, all the things that actually matter in a fight.

    But nope, it's just K:D, the most meaningless statistic in the game.

    It is somewhat useful though, it provides a good litmust test. Anyone who says "You should listen to me I have a good K:D" you can immediately and totally ignore.

    Recording kills is good. They should also record assists.

    I see no good reason whatsoever to record kills, particularly as currently when an idiot teammate kills you that gets counted!
  20. Gavyne

    K/D ratio isn't the problem with this game, it means nothing, does nothing for characters. It does however give people personal goals to shoot for, and yes FPS players like to look at stats. Right now stats don't work well and without that competitive edge, many lose interest. You'll be surprised how many FPS players play these games just to get on top of the charts.

    But still, the game showing K/D is not a problem, it doesn't change anything if you remove it. There are fundamental issues with the game that the designers have to think hard on, but the last thing they need to worry about is displaying K/D ratio. I'm one that really truly do not care about KDR, I rush in first, I die a lot, and I go for vehicles & sunderers. I blow up a lot of vehicles as seen in my stats, but my KDR probably sucks by all modern standards. But hey, I have fun doing what I do ingame, so I could give less than a rats *** what others say about it.
    • Up x 1