Why do people hate KDR so much??

Its hard to correct a kdr when you come into a new game and have no idea whats going on, Im objective oreinted i know it hurts my kdr, with that said. Im a run and gun player, i probably die more then usual because of that. I admit im not the best player out there, with that said im 50 years old and still gaming, i know my twitch reflexes arent what they used to be in quake 1 and 2, i did play hardcore mode on COD which was a whole nuther experience. I guess i just care about having fun these days, if i die oh well. My hero is still fatal1ty aka Johnathan Wendel, the greatest fps player of all time imo.

only cheater care about KDR

Very nicely said. Some of the "best" players on my server absolutely will not fight a losing battle. You see them at big fights farming choke points and biolab telepads or air farming etc. The minute that fight turns from being a profitable farm into a force the points to take back and win the battle they disappear like a magic trick.

It's truly a travesty. Some of these players are really the very best of the best. The idea though that some how KDR is more important than our faction winning alerts or even bases hell even pushing to the control points boggles my mind. But there you have it. They won't push a control point if it means they might die before they can farm another 6 enemy.

I've seen KDR corrupt one of my servers very best leaders. He was an organizer and leader. He would fly a lib or park a sundy or med tool spam or engy rep during a MAX crash. Always willing to pull a Gal and fly it back and forth to the fight. He was always in the top 10 of the score per day/week/month you name it. His platoons won bases and alerts and locked continents. He was awesome to play with and a devastating opponent to fight against.

His KDR was barely above 1.0. I honestly don't know what caused him to change his perspective but now he's never doing any of that. Maybe the pressure to "git gud" got to him. He started over on another faction with a few players from his original outfit and I never see him outside of farms. Parked on a hill at a base spamming HE rounds or lib bombing/esf spamming. As soon as the farm is no good he and his outfit are gone. It's depressing really. Sure his KDR is now in the 5.X's but the server is so much worse for it.

10% of my bad kdr is falling through the ground, TKs, or various other weird *** suicides I didn't commit myself.

That doesn't change my opinion and I was not talking about padders. When sht hits the fan then low k/d players tend to die, not dependable.

Putting level 1 players in the same space as level 120's,then keeping score on how many times that new player was slaughtered, is one of the fundamental flaws that destroys any thoughts of a long term relationship with this game

Does he have more fun or less fun after being corrupted?

I don't care for it anymore. I can die 15 times trying different strategies, but as long as I complete that objective or die repairing, healing someone else, I'll be fine

Kdr and stats both matter and not matter at the same time.

If you are underpoped having a high kdr etc kind of mater in this game since you need to kill more to get a hold of a a point and also keep on killing to keep it.

If you have a negative kdr against a dubble out pop is a 100% fail.
Also in this game tha achievements are a good way to figure out what the player is about (note; did not say good or bad).

Also ppl that say sats don't mater are most of the time crap. Again they are not that inportant buts saying they don't mater whatsoever is just pointing out you are a scrub.

Flame away scrubs

Funny to see how people argue about kdr/spm's relation to player skill level on a game that has no real meta.

Are you guys really that obsessed with each other's stats?

This is getting old.

Exactly this. If I try to get to and knock out an enemy spawn beacon 10 times - and get killed in 9 of those attempts without taking out a single enemy soldier, it doesn't really matter as long as I get it on the 10th and stop the enemy advance. This type of play gives crap KDR, but can completely turn the tide of a battle.

Too many times have I seen KDR warriors ignoring enemy spawn beacons - just so they can get back to the farm.

My last death yesterday (the 'unknown (magic!)' at the top of my killboard) was when I was told the continent was locked (by VS I think) just as I spawned. I got out of the spawn room pain field with half shield and full health, but the game just decided I died anyway

I think KDR matters, but not straight higher = better.

I have a KDR of barely above 1 and I personally think that is totally ok. I go on killing sprees regularly, but am not to fine to die 10 times in a row to get THAT point.
There is a limit though, and that limit is: If the session kdr goes under 1 I let THAT point go and look for another fight.
Because this fight will be lost no matter what.

Any player that cares more about his unbelievable high kdr is a useless player. Those types do nothing but stupid farming all day long and think they are "gud" because they are able to farm a biolab entrance for hours length.
I don't want to play with those players... They are arrogant and only think about themselves.
Team play? No!
Trying to save a teammate? No, might die too!

And now the other useless players: The ones with a kd of under 1...
It's seriously un-fun to play with those as well, as they will cause you to fail.
Sure they try teamplay, they stick together. But won't hit the side of a barn even with explosive weapons...

So I think the sweet spot for a good winning oriented gamer is somewhat between a kdr between 1 and 2. Not considerably lower or higher.

(Anybody with a kdr of 4 or higher, that is an incredible high number... I smell cheating a lot when engaging those players...)

Why is it a problem how other people play? Don't worry so much about it. KD worshipers aren't faction-specific - there's going to be roughly the same number of KD chasers across factions, so it's a level playing field - let them do what they want, and the rest of us can go out and shoot each other.

I pilot a harasser, so my K/D ratio is gonna be abysmal compared to my gunner.

So how many "Tristans" are there out there, cause one way of getting (much) better stats is learning the game and then switching to a new character. 1000 or 2000 hours in the game make an enormous difference, especially if you start fresh with a lot of experience and playing only/mostly for stats.

On the other hand, if you play the game for 2000+ hours with the same character your stats will vary hugely over time, all the time forming a less and less moving mean. If you actually play all parts of the game (and not just your favorite class/vehicle) your K/D ratio will also inevitably drop. Supporting engi, medic and AA/AV-Max are all totally bad for your K/D-ratio. Every time you try to learn something new (flying, base-building, weapon, LA, HA infil, new continent, whatever) all your stats will drop. But overall you will, at the same time, become a MUCH more important and versatile player (for your faction and outfit).

If you selflessly lead squads and/or platoons, your K/D-ratio will drop through the floor, even if you really are one of the most important players on the continent (the equivalent of 48 coordinated players). When you lead you seldom have time to kill anything, though you die frequently (mostly when doing sitrep map checks for the next tactical move ). If you really care about your stats, leading platoons/squads is completely out. Even if the platoon leaders truly are the MVPs of Planetside.

Some have this inherent huge fondness for stats. Not only in PS2, just look at soccer, hockey, baseball etc. Numbers after numbers after numbers, but what do they actually mean?

Well, in PS2 they truly and actually mean very little. I am probably (haven't checked in ages) at slightly above 1, though having lately put a lot of time into learning base-building it might have dropped a bit. I could EASILY start a new character and ramp my K/D up above 3, or even 4, by playing sniper. And I am not ************ either (10000+ kills w. Parallax). Would that make me a better player? No, not at all, since playing 100% sniper instead would make me a much less valuable player, for my faction/outfit/compadres in the same area of the map. The guys I kill all come back to play within 30 sec., and my dropping them doesn't necessarily do much for my faction, though it increases my stats. Of course there are also situations where good snipers are important (for instance counter-sniping, in squad/platoon play, low-pop bases, added aggro/stress etc.), but for any base capture even a noob medic with K/D at 0.01 reviving at the point would be more important a master sniper.

I agree with there being no reason to remove the stats from the game. If some get so locked into them that it affects their gameplay, well, they just need to grow up, Planetside-wise. And for those using stats as a motivational way of increasing their enjoyment of PS2, that's totally fine as well. It is just as meaningful (or not) as the whole game itself. What isn't very meaningful, however, is trying to compare players using the stats, and what's actually outright stupid is sorting players into "better" or "worse" categories using the stats. That is just complete and total BS. And what's more, it shows a complete misunderstanding of most of this wonderful game. If anything, in my humble opinion players with noticeably high K/D-stats are generally more selfish and less versatile than the general pop, regardless of how "good" they actually are.

My advice to new players (to any players, actually) is to take the stats with a large pinch of salt, and completely disregard the K/D-ratio. Planetside is supposed to be fun, and it will be more fun and much longer fun if you try your hand (and possibly even learn to master) most of the (very) different aspects of the game. Planetside is a truly phenomenal game, despite all kinds of occasional rants. There has never been and currently isn't anything else like it. So just enjoy it, and consider the stats the incidental by-product that they actually are.

Statistics alone are not reality, they are artifacts of reality without context, K/D is no different in this regard. To understand K/D, you must provide a gameplay context for the person measured. As we all know, if almost any individual really wanted a high K/D they could exclusively engage in activities that make that relatively easy to accomplish and avoid those which would hinder that effort. On the other side of the spectrum, there's those that don't play for K/D who gleefully engage in activities known to be really bad for it.

So, K/D can only be a useful metric of anything if you know the individuals' curent gameplay behavior. Sites like DasAnfall or even the basic information on DBG's Player Pages can give you a general idea of gameplay propensities historically. But, players evolve a lot over time, so that aggregated information that may span 4+ Years may have very little relationship to what that same player does now..
I will make a general statement gleened from my 4+ years plaing PS2.

Players with low K/D ratios (sub 1.0) tend to not be combat effective enough to rely on for anything.

Players with a very high K/D ratios (3.0+) tend to be so timid/selfish in combat they cannot be relied on for anything.

So, in terms of what your expectations could realistically be in the heat of battle, the net result between those with high and low K/D's are the same. But, even so, there are always exceptions as several posts in this thread have mentioned.

Most players don´t know that high KDR in Planetside 2 is 90% dependent on other factors than "raw FPS skill" and can easily be padded, so it get´s shoved in people´s faces by KDR padders and farmers to belittle them and shut them up.

The issue with KDR is that some people cannot handle it with dignity and seek to use it to be toxic to other players, not KDR itself, which, as has been said before, is just a measurement of playstyle.

High KDR is not necesserily equal to usefulness or "skill" in this game, and if you have someone telling you otherwise and trying to use it against you, just imagine him as the sad, attention seeking pleb he is IRL and move on.

Ignorance towards those toxic players is their worst punishment, because attention is what they want.

Simply don´t give it to them and enjoy the game in whichever way you prefer.