Remove kd?

First, back when ps1 was out kd wasn't as much of an accepted metric as it is now. This was true across multiple games and from my POV kd only became a mainstream metric after cod.

Second, internet stat concerns can really ruin your game experience, but only if you care what others think. If you like stats use them to assess your own performance and improvement over time, but in games like this understand that they largely reflect your play style. Don't worry about how you're assessed by piers obsessed with stats, just enjoy the game. Every improvement in stats stems from that.

I haven't read that far into the thread just yet. Dividing it by the time played could be good, but I would prefer something else. Personally I often have to go away for a while, the times I've been nearly or completely disconnected for being idle are too numerous to count. It would mean that my stats would be mind-bogglingly low. Similar to how my favorite weapons often have incredibly low score's per minute, because they are my favorite's they are more likely to be in my hands when I go AFK, and i don't boost those stats by holding onto medpacks or the like (again a way to boost the stats).

heh, so your argument is "KD is fine, but I look at another site to see my actual KD because the in-game one has a stat-pad element that I want filtered out"?

I say, add many more stats that would actually show how you played, preferably stats that combined can mark you for a stat-padder, kill stealer or whatever.

"dumb" isn't the right word, "lazy" is more like it. Why use other trackers if there's one in-game? One that in fact shows a more favorable one than the one on DA or Recursor? Many people have judged others based on the in-game KD, and many people use the in-game KD as their guide. The OP wants this removed so people stop caring about this (and seeing the reactions from beta-players in previous threads, before KD tracking was added people were much more focused on fun fights than staying alive in them). I would want them nuanced by other stuff, such as damaged received, damage dealt, revives received, revives declined, points/generators/objectives met and many more. That way you get a much better idea of what kind of player they are, without having to sift through the tons of data that DA and Recursion offers for each and every player.

Wha... What? You don't know how to play LA if you don't fight from the front lines. "far away" doesn't mean "2 hexes away", but being on a building 5m out can be "far away", as even then you can be out of range for revives and cut-off from your team. The LA is played as a flanker, and uses it's mobility to do so (it has to, otherwise the Engineer beats the LA in every way), this also means it leaves the confines that binds the other classes, and they leave them behind.
Oh, and you should know how important the fringe-fights are around the front-line. I wouldn't be surprised if more than 50% of the battles are won by what happens on the edges of the fight, where people flank or push through to eventually make the hostile front line collapse.

I have used DA often enough, but why do I have to? Why can't I just see a bunch of neat statistics that don't just show my overall score, but also my current scores? I would love to see how much damage I get, how many deaths were by headshots, what my average accuracy is at certain distances, how many vehicles I've destroyed etc etc.

Aah, the interesting bits. I don't think we are actually against each other, we both disagree with the OP to have it completely removed (although I would rather have it removed than keep it in it's current state). I just want more stats to track in-game, so when I look up anything in the TAB-screen I don't have to feel disheartened or boosted by any KD I see, but be able to show "my KD might be low, but I killed X vehicles/MAX's with X lives, and that's damn well impressive!"

This is a nice "yes/no" game. Both claims (snipers are/aren't useless etc) are completely based on subjective experience, only both sides will claim the other to be baseless.
A sniper will have effect on any battle by sniping. It will force new behavior from the players to deal with the sniper. However, do they impact enough to affect the actual battle in a positive or negative outcome? While any player death is positive for their side, they might actually be forcing more players in a direction where they are needed. Similar to people just using a big tank to camp one door. Yes they might have locked down one route to the point, but if 6 other routes are still completely viable and nothing is done against those routes, they have done barely anything for their team. Seeing how many players will happily sit in a tank and shell stuff rather than coming out and helping their team capture the point inside, and watching their teammates fail again and again because not everyone is participating, I should say that many players are doing nothing for their team, as they are doing things that are sub-par for their capabilities, and actually dragging a battle out rather than helping speed their team along.

As KD can be stat-padded,i guess all other new stat would be able to be stat-padded.
I don't think anyone should be "ashamed" (somebody mentioned it before) by his own KD or any other stat. As said previously,some people more focus on killing opponents,any others focus on repairing,healing or whatever.
Who should care about your own stats,but you? My guess is if that anybody or any organization judges you on your stats...just move along,just ignore it,search for cooler people. It's just a game,and games are for bringing fun,not dumb clueless frustration.
Set your own goals,and do not judge others' goals.

For me the number itself is the game. It turns me into a scared, exploiting, back stabbing bunny rabbit scared of his own shadow. It makes me feel alive and I love it. I can't compare my stats to any other player since my kills are so low. If I went down the enlightened path to “enjoy the game” within a year I would become bored with the monotonous nature of this games design. Watching people crowd around points is too much like watching Tennis. Heads in the crowd swinging left to right and right to left...no thanks. I plan to stay awhile and I'm having too much fun innocently reflecting the sun off my wrist watch into the crowd.

You make me want to grab you, shake you, and invite you to squad.... Where do you play?

Emerald and you sir...are blue and I've been fighting your filthy empire for over 10 years. I keep company with 3 other bunny rabbits once a week and that is when I die the most so squads aren't really an option. I dream of a day when the entire playerbase of some future game all converges on one world server. That would really make these forums a fun place to play.

That actually sounds like you want a more "close call" meta-game...

There's tons of games that have those incredible "close call" moments. If I remember how I played good old Renegade that was chock full of them, just entering a building for sabotage would get my heart pumping almost every time again, as it was high-risk, the likelyhood of being discovered was high, but the timing when you were discovered was important, and the amount of people you could hold off while your time-bombs were ticking was even more important. And that wasn't the only thing that got your heart pumping, from the rush attacks with tanks or infantry to the placement of beacons, everything could culminate in a hectic and adrenalin-fueled action, and even losing was exciting.
As defender on the other hand your heart started pumping upon discovery, there was no way to know how long the explosives were in place, how many other people had infiltrated the base, and if you could disarm them in time without getting your head blown off. And losing a building meant something, as it had a direct effect on your income, purchase abilities etc, without actually meaning you automatically lost the game when you lost one or two buildings.

That's what I'm missing in Planetside. It's just a King of the Hill over and over again. Looking at the flow of battle you can see just about how it will unfold. In other places you can't know exactly who will win the battle and push the others away, but even if you do there's rarely that feeling of excitement. In fact, even when I make a massive killstreak and blow up almost all the hostiles around a choke-point I get a short-lived moment of excitement, and then the depression as most of the time no-one takes advantage of that kind of stuff.

We need CTF-types of gameplay to be added to the game. ANTs, expensive equipment that can instantly reset a base it's timer but you are visible all the way, resource management by (for instance) being able to cut-off supply lines, increasing enemy respawn timers, hampering vehicle availability, deactivating enemy ammo towers and reducing the amount of ammo engineer-packs in the area give out, scrambling all the base-messages for better stealth action (imagine a generator being overloaded but not being able to see it on the radar) etc.

I LOVED that part of PS1. Protecting or killing battery trucks being dropped from the sky, hiding the LLU deep inside another base indefinitely grinding the lattice to a halt. Lugging up groups of modules from the caves and running the gauntlet with a convoy of vehicles to get them installed. Didn't matter which side you were on it got everyone's heart pounding on their ear drums when you got spontaneously sucked into those moments hidden in multiple layers of meta.

I also miss the slow nail biting sessions like prepping bases waiting for the invasion of galaxies and loadstars to pour out of the nearest warp gate. I've only got 30 min to prep this entire base can I do it in time? There was NO ONE there and the attackers were still 2 bases behind on another continent yet I was shaking with anticipation. Had to put down my 15 spitfires, 25 mines, 5 tank traps, 25 motion sensors and Sensor Disruptors and beef up the pain fields in every base between it and the closest tech plant. Upgrading all the wall turrets to AA/AV variants and all the while fending off advanced units of cloakers running around installing viruses in the base computer and infecting the wall turrets and spitfires to fire on our own troops. The list of things to do and strategies to take was enough to make your head explode for both the attackers and defenders. Back then the Generals were real tacticians and had to know their stuff and the good ones you listened to and reacted instantly to every order they gave.

I wish I had experienced Renegade. I hear about it alot but that is EXACTY how I feel about a kill streak. Now days I don't know what I would do if I encountered a brand new complex innovative FPS Combined Arms MMO full of multiple layers of meta. I would be SOOO confused and probably spend more time pinching myself than worrying about staying alive. I don't know what has happened to this industry but they have us all completely convinced that we are dumb, can't handle it and it's all our fault they design games for our simple minded children.

I say yes, but no one will agree to it.

you realize the average k/d around .8 right?

The average player is bad at this game.

I classify a KDR of 3 as bad.

Define bad at the game. First off a third party is running the main stats. Vehicle users are punished and their kills are not calculated into their kdr. So basically we have an outfit that runs around in heavies with the most OP weapon in the game telling everyone how to farm kills instead of actually playing the game. I play to have fun anything else is a waste of time.

General observations of other players and how they play is pretty damning evidence. I am by no means a god of Planetside but watching the majority of players and their behavior is pretty funny.

There was a time where no one gave a crap about k/d and all that mattered was how many people you killed regardless.

Now people think they're MLG and competitive just because they have good stats when really they're just another casual player. The difference being that they're deluded into thinking they're MLG but have never even played on an actual competitive level in their life. Its even more hilarious when people claim yo be competitive in a casual game, or console. MLG wannabes on console are the worst.

Of which is totally over rated and not healthy. Competitive is totally overrated unless you don't mind devoting an unhealthy amount of time to gaming.

There's competitive and then there's delusion. Like a Sunday league player believing their Olympic level material, but less than even that.

Shtty K/D 2.5/3? Good Lord!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sounds like I missed something too...

The original Renegade is easy to get, and there's still servers running. You probably have to find some unofficial (although since the servers were taken over by the public they have become the official) patches and updates to make the game work properly. Beware, if you think that PS2 has a long TTK you are in for age-long battles. One of the reasons Renegade was so good was because the TTK for infantry in normal fights could range up to 15 seconds. This also meant that low-skill players might not be able to kill you, but they could damage you and eventually kill you. And a 2v1 battle even when you have the surprise element didn't mean you automatically won.

Alternatively go here:
http://renegade-x.com/
This is a remake of Renegade, sanctioned by EA (a miracle in itself), for some of the video's they managed to get Joe Kucan to voice it. It's more fast-paced with lower TTK's (a shame I think) and fixed a lot of imbalance issues that were easily overlooked in the first game. It also looks a much more sparkling than the 2002 game.
Also, one of the things that Renegade has over PS2 is a very diverse weapons arsenal, both in tanks and infantry weapons. And a strange but very well done asymetrical balance between the vehicles.

Just to show what kind of wonderful work these guys have done:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=23&v=_VHennwBhG8
(couldn't embed it for some reason)

It's more about math I think.

every player is worth 1 kill. No more, no less.
If you kill him and he's got no kills, the average KD is 1, one kill was made, and one guy died
If he kills you afterwards, the average KD is still 1, 2 kills were made, 2 guys died.
Whatever happens, this will remain the status quo. But there are also suicides, and apparently 10-20% of the deaths are counted as suicides to come at the average of 0,9 or 0,8 respectively. A suicide means 1 death, no kills.

This means that average players aren't bad, they are just following the math. However, due to skill differences and using/abusing certain elements of the game people can get higher KD's than the rest. One of those is for instance only attacking bases where your team is at an advantage, using force-multipliers while insulated from counter-attacks (sitting behind a mass of infantry that die taking a point while you rake up kills using them as a human shield) etc. Those instances are the one's that make KD completely irrelevant, and I would personally rather have the guy with a high KD due to those tactics blow his KD to hell by helping the rest attack rather than have him sit there high and dry.

I think that's what people hate about high KD players. They use specific tactics to upgrade their KD, rather than playing the game objectives for the win. As an objective player I find it mightily annoying to see an attack fail because too few people attacked with you, even though you had the pop to easily crush your opponents. And this happens so much, where people try not to be the front-attackers that get cut down and want to be the middle or last attackers inside to preserve their KD. I often sacrifice myself hoping to get a ton of people to attack with me, inspiring them to go ahead. Or I flank an enemy position, sometimes blowing almost all of them away and creating that hole for your allies to finally crush the opposition and get through a stalemate... only for them to sit there and wait, as no one wants to be the first to attack. And when that is the reason an attack fails (and I see that happen just about every session I play) you get really frustrated. It's very easy to point the finger at people who have a high KD then, since KD is one of the reasons people who play the the game objectives can't have as much fun due to people trying to preserve it.

True. And you forgot Teamkills to boot. they count as deaths but not as kills.

The one thing I find very difficult to deal with are outdated graphics and engines. Coupled with being spoiled by PS1 numbers it becomes very difficult to look back at map based games with limited pops and dated engines. I'm grabbing it to mess with it but ever since 2003 each and every 64-128 player map based shooter has come and gone. Usually it's all about playing it for 5-6 hours straight on lan night and not getting bored. With Planetside 2 that just doesn't happen even if we're at the same tower the entire night. As a backup when PS2 is a technical challenge we're starting to consider Arma 3.