[Suggestion] Removing Team Kills from K/D

A TK can range from a minor annoyance for some to a straight up rage inducing experience to others depending on whether it was intentional or unintentional, whether you got a revive or not, and whether or not you care about your K/D.

Don't get me wrong, I do not care all that much about KDR, but its a reality that a ton of players in the game do. On the face of things a TK should barely affect players considering all they need to do is redeploy, often into the same room or nearby after a few seconds. Sure it's annoying to have to redeploy but why is it that some players get so angry when they get TKed? Some are even pushed to come back and kill the person in retaliation.

Whenever I get TKed, in the back of my mind, the main frustration I have is the fact that I now am marked with a death that feels "illegitimate." Its one thing to get killed by an enemy but to get killed by your own team just feels so much more pointless. I feel like there is no reason for me to be given a negative mark because of someone else's mistake or desire to be an ***. I assume many other players feel similarly while others may just not care at all.

In the end its not really a big deal and its a pretty insignificant change but I can't really see why it shouldn't be made. It doesn't really affect people who don't care about KDR, except that it'll increase it a bit, and it'll cut off the harm done to people who do care. Will removing team kills from K/D stop or encourage people from team killing? probably not. Could it possibly decrease the rage a player has after getting TKed and persuade him not to pursue revenge? possibly.

That seems pretty worthwhile to me.

No. I want the spawnroom warriors I TK that are padding their K/D to feel it.

And if you're not doing anything dumb, an occasional TK will be nothing to worry about.

I have a question - are there more people focused on K/D than there are people focused on people who are focused on K/D?

I've been tked a handful of times by people with your exact rationale, except I never been a "spawn room warrior."

You deciding that you have the right to tell people how to play is disgusting.

How can you guarantee the people you kill are camping spawn? Oh that's right you can't tell the difference between a freshly spawned in guy and a guy who has been camping for the last 10 minutes. So your just tking people because you think it is right...unless your camping spawn long enough to make this determination, in which case you are wasting your time, and a bit crazy if I might add.

There's no way to make the K/D count only "deserved" deaths. Even if you do remove TKs from your K/D, there's still all the "technically not TKs," like when you get shot in the back by a teammate for 90% damage and finished off by the enemy, or a friendly shines his darklight on you and you get shot, or you barely dodge a friendly grenade, but expose yourself to enemy fire in doing so, etc. There are also other undeserved deaths, like "suicide" by ejection seat or other bug, death via hitching, etc., and these can't be removed, either. And finally, some TKs are totally your own fault and deserve to go on your death count. If you're constantly sticking the back of your head in front of your allies' guns, you're gonna get killed now and then.

Protip: If you're trying to punish people for not playing the way you want them to, you're a *********.

While I do understand the frustration of not being able to get people to mobilize out of a spawn room to rush the point even when we had the numbers to do so, I've never really felt like I had to "punish" them for refusing. If there was a limit to the number of players that could spawn, then sure they are somehow hurting us by taking the place of another player that might be willing to rush the point but that isn't the case in PS2. Yes maybe they aren't as helpful being a "spawn room warrior" but they are being marginally more helpful than if they were dead or not there at all. And of course there is the whole problem of them redeploying after you TKed him looking to shoot you in the back of the head or just causing problems in general.

While i do agree that its impractical to try and account for some of those situations you described within K/D and would be open to removing suicides from K/D considering many people like thinking of K/D as a stat that reflects a players interactions with enemy soldiers ( there is the risk that people will abuse suicide bombing). I feel like when it comes to a TK, just like with a regular kill, what ultimately matters is that final shot. Just like if a player does 90% of the damage and then another player gets 1 shot in, they get the kill. The game registers that as a kill and doesn't account for damage. The same principle should probably apply for deaths. Even if a teammate does 90% of the damage to me, if someone else ultimately kills you, it should count since he did kill you.

Ah, I thought TK's didn't count for KDR, one way or the other?

Oh but I can. If I run out. Then run out again. Then run out again. If there's enough time between each spawn and I see the same people in there...I know they're a spawn-room warrior.

And, whether you like it or not...the right is granted me by the weapons lock. I've never been weapons locked. Ergo, my TKing must be rather minimal. You're welcome to TK me if you see me lounging in the spawnroom. But I don't spend much of any time in a spawnroom. Same thing with people complaining their vehicles were flipped in warpgates. Never happens to me because I don't loiter in a vehicle in the warpgate.

But it all boils down to a change for spawnrooms and/or grief mechanics. Till then we share the same sandbox and if you get TKd in the spawnroom by people "like me" all I can say is they have a shorter fuse than I do regarding the matter.

And don't confuse this with me saying I'm in the 'right' or it's the right thing to do. It isn't. But until there's a better way to discourage spawnroom warriors, it's going to happen. That's something everyone is going to have to live it.

It doesn't count as a kill, but it does count as a death. If they counted for kills you would see nonstop TKing happening all day, every day until the game broke.

You DO know this isn't going to discourage anyone, or even communicate your message, right? Do you think they say to themselves, "hmm, that ******* TK'd me, so I must be doing something wrong, and somehow I both know exactly what he's thinking and now agree with him!" Nope, they're going to respawn and go right back to spawn warrioring, if not at the same base, then somewhere else. Meanwhile, YOU have make the team worse and made someone's day slightly less pleasant.

There's no point because even if your K/D goes higher, everyone's will too, making yours still bad compared to others'.

You're either pulling a Gruber, or you're assuming I only shoot and don't communicate (which is my fault for not specifying). But I'm not here to justify TKing as, hypocritically so, I don't condone it even though I willingly partake in it occasionally.

Back on topic...No. TK's shouldn't be removed from K/D. If it's an accident hopefully it's resolved quickly and with apologies. If it's purposeful, think about what you've done that may have caused it. And if it was just some 10y/o raging and taking it out on friendlies, the weapons lock will hopefully take care of them.

EDIT: I believe TK stats are tracked somewhere. Go ahead and check mine out.

Its a pity they haven't really gotten around to banning rampant intentional TKers

The ultimate point of this change tho isn't really to increase K/D. It's just to mitigate the harm a TK causes. For many people, that extra death means very little and yes maybe just an apology is enough but for some players that care quite a bit about their KDR, it can cause them considerable anger. Whether the TK comes intentionally or unintentionally the fact is that it goes on a person's record in the current system. And for what reason? If K/D was intended to be an accurate record of ones kills and deaths objectively... why allow deaths to be removed by Medics?

It just seems like separating TKs from K/D would help a significant portion of the victims of TKing without causing any harm to other players. Unlike with altering a weapon or some class, this change wouldn't affect anyone negatively objectively. Like I said I don't really care about KDR a ton myself but I also don't feel like others are wrong for caring about their KDR if that's how they like to play.

Sounds like your that guy who screams his head off in the spawn room that everyone should leave, as you hopelessly run to your death over and over. Seems like you care far more than you should about how other people play the game, but that's okay, SOE implemented plenty of features for people just like you. If you want people to follow your orders and play to your desires, maybe consider starting an outfit or starting a squad/platoon. Then you can give orders to those privileged to be in your all knowing presence.

Until then, the tking your doing is simply being a dick. Regardless of how you feel about people staying in the spawn room, you have no right to kill them, and are wasting yours and their time by doing so, and pissing other people and youself off by worrying about it to much.

Justifying it with the fact that you don't get weapons locked is just a desperate attempt to add some legitimacy to what you are doing.

You died. K/D is kills over deaths, not kills over non cheese deaths that you feel are MLG enough to have actually killed you. Almost all TKs are accidental and if you get TKd it's because you put yourself in a position where that might happen (most of my TKs are friendly grenades from ramboing a room, for example), and those definitely should count.

Deliberate TKs should be reported and if someone gets enough reports then SOE should start watching them and suspend/ban them (on their main, if they're fourth factioning) if it seems deliberate.

TKs make up <10% of deaths (I checked my outfit on planetside.tk and we score <3.5%, a somewhat less strict outfit had around 6.5%) so the effect on your K/D would be minimal.

Self Deleted due to thread topic potential derailment.

http://planetside.tk/#hosp
http://planetside.tk/#ronjahn

Oh god. You haven't experienced the twelve year olds on Local Vox who just yell at people for stealing kills? You need the experience, bro. It will make you much, MUCH less tolerant of that one guy hiding behind the spawn shield like it's a brick wall.

I made a few text walls back in the day about how much the KDR stat was poisoning gameplay, and they still haven't listened. I'm not surprised - it doesn't seem like a significant change, but it sure as hell should be.

Regardless. I have every right to rage at the 50 idiots farming the 25 groundhogs who occasionally pop their head above a rock in a flipping point. If you don't want to play the game right, don't play it at all.

Yes I mean I get that K/D is about kills over death but like i mentioned earlier it's not like the stat is actually accurate currently considering they remove deaths using revives. It's not like that revive removes the kill from that person's stats... and every time that happens it's still technically a "death." If it was intended to really reflect a strict K/D those deaths should probably still be included but since there is a mechanism to simply remove those deaths it doesn't seem like a big deal why they couldn't just have a separate stat for # of deaths from team kills separate from K/D. That being said everyone is free to their own opinion so if you are adamant that K/D should reflect TKs that's fine.

I do agree that removing KDR would likely improve gameplay to a certain extent and i've played many a game where people have used exploits and I've wondered what is the point of playing if they aren't playing "right" but I don't really think it applies in this case. Is there really a "right" way to play PS2. There are definitely "wrong" ways such as attacking your own team but beyond that nothing really forces a player to play certain classes, use specific layouts, develop any skill, collect a directive, etc. Sure, ideally it the "right" way might be to help your team win but really people are free to do whatever they want with their time, and those choices rarely have any real negative effect on any other player. If a player just wants to ride around the continent on a cloaked flash for hours on end, who is he hurting. It's not like he is required to take part in battles. Using the example of being in a spawnroom with 50 idiots. You think that they are somehow hurting you but its not like other players that are willing to rush the point with you are getting locked out. Now remove those 50 idiots and you are in the room by yourself surrounded by 25 people. You are no better off without them.

I really should start quoting who i'm responding to but i think each of my paragraphs are pretty clear and in chronological order