Kill/Death Ratio

[L_C_Scipio 395]

So the thread about randomized maps got me thinking about another radical change I'd love to see implemented in shooters, namely removing Kill/Death Ratio as a stat. You can still track kills, but deaths and ratio shouldn't be found anywhere in the game. 

For starters, it's practically meaningless as an indicator of player skill without any context. if player 1 has a 2.5 k/d but finishes Domination matches with no caps or defends, and player 2 has a .7 k/d but finishes on top of the scoreboard every game, who's the better dom player? 

People place entirely too much stock in this number. No doubt the main reason people don't play the objective is to protect that precious k/d. More people playing the objective means more intense matches, which personally I find much more fun to play, win or lose. 

I used to play an FPS called Urban Terror, which kept no stats whatsoever. Once you finish a game, it might as well never have happened. And guess what? Pretty much everyone played the objective. There was no reason not to. There was a popular mode called Team Survivor, which is TDM with no respawns (or SnD with no bombs, if you will). Can you imagine the campfest a mode like that would be in CoD? People camp when they're on offense in SnD, for crying out loud. Yet in UT, pretty much the only time you saw somebody camp was when they were outnumbered 3 or 4 to 1 (in which case camping provides your best/only shot at winning). Granted, the community was far different than the Cod community...but is CoD the way it is because everyone is so focused on that magic number? 

Games could track K/D in TDM modes, since it is somewhat relevant there (though even then, it's debatable whether a guy who goes 4-1 is better than a guy who goes 15-5). 

What are your thoughts?

 

 

Oh, and before you dismiss me with, "He doesn't want K/D in the game because his sucks": over the past few Call of Duty and Battlefield games my K/D is usually in the 1.15-1.2 range, which is not "great" by any means, but I don't think you can fairly say it's "bad" either. So that's not my reasoning. I genuinely believe that without that stat, everyone would play the game the way it should be played and we would all have a lot more fun with it. 

 

[JsinOwl 644]

I agree 100%. That's one of the things that made Bad Company 2 so great. The scoreboard showed score, and that's it. To top the scoreboard meant racking up as many points as possible, which killing alone wouldn't accomplish.

Unfortunately the whole I'm better than you attitude is what

[JsinOwl 644]

Oops, hit submit on accident and can't edit posts from my phone for some reason.

Anyway, for a lot of people the whole point of the game is showing off that number and being "better" than everyone else. They can have CoD, but I'd love to see it kept out of other shooters.

[cyberninja2601 1,106]

I agree. 

 

I also agree with having it in TDM.  Your example of 4-1 vs 15-5 is a bit extreme but I player with a lower score while maintaining a positive k/d is less of a liability to the team at that point and therefore "playing the objective" which is to get more kills than deaths.

 

Protecting the K/D can be a liability to the team in other modes. 

 

You particularly see it in games like BF conquest or rush where you need to either get the flag or protect the flag. If you are a defender in rush who gives a shit how many times you die as long as you ensure that the other team runs out of tickets before the destroy the objectives.

 

Score or score per minute seems to be the better stat. 

[techno 3,509]

I like having a kdr as it kind of shows I'm improving but I wouldn't mind if it was removed.

I notice destiny doesn't give deaths just kills bug then gives a Kdr which sort of pissed me off a little as I would see my number of kills rise, great, oh shit kd is lower ffs argh. Just leave kd off.

[BO7H B4RRELS 2,452]

I disagree.  I think that K/D should be a tracked stat.  Is it the tell all of stats... nope, but it definitely provides SOME indication of skill.  TDM is obvious, but even game modes like DOM it can still be important.  If someone goes 5-30 with a bunch of caps, he can still be liability to the team by giving the other team a bunch of kill streaks.  I don't want someone on my team dying over and over by mindlessly trying to jump on a flag.  I want people who cap flag, get kills, and don't die over and over.  

 

If we only tracked caps/defends/spm, that wouldn't tell the whole story either.  Someone might have a ton of caps, but like I said, if they're giving up kill streak after kill streak, he might be the reason the team lost.  I think we need ALL the stats to paint a more full picture.  

 

We can tell who was kill whoring and who was playing the objective by looking at the scoreboard at the end.  Hell, sometimes it's valuable to have one person kill whoring while the other 5 guys play the OBJ.  He provides cover, distraction to the other team, etc.  If it's coordinated that way, it can be valuable.

 

There will always be people trying to abuse the system no matter which system you implement.  Whatever the new hot stat is, that's the one people will find a way to abuse.  I'd rather have ALL the stats so I can see for myself what someone was doing. 

[J4MES OX4D 10,025]

W/L is the only thing that really matters in terms of stats if people really want to into the nitty-gritty about players' abilities. COD is all about the K/D 'image' because of the attitude of a large part of the community. The feature is pretty useless seeing it can be manipulated by dashboarding and influenced by rage quitting. I remember the days of Black Ops when you'd see someone with a 5.54 K/D and 0.13 W/L ratio.  If kills were the only thing that was displayed; people would happily go 43-39 with an offensive and care-free approach but the stereotypical K/D whore that was born in COD would rather sit in a corner for the sake of a few numbers and a decimal point. SPM is also a good stat for consistent scoring players although it can be mode-dependent if you play more SnD as opposed to games with a higher pace and greater opportunity of point scoring in a specific time. 

 

Sadly as so many people pride themselves on K/D because it's the 'cool' thing about COD; I don't think it will ever be removed but I think for players profiles; the attribute should be masked to just kills on record. You could also select if you want your K/D visible but only to friends or something. 

 

I also hope prestige mode gets removed; that just means someone who's played the game more than someone else. 

[TigerBurge 2,375]

I disagree. I think that K/D should be a tracked stat. Is it the tell all of stats... nope, but it definitely provides SOME indication of skill. TDM is obvious, but even game modes like DOM it can still be important. If someone goes 5-30 with a bunch of caps, he can still be liability to the team by giving the other team a bunch of kill streaks. I don't want someone on my team dying over and over by mindlessly trying to jump on a flag. I want people who cap flag, get kills, and don't die over and over.

If we only tracked caps/defends/spm, that wouldn't tell the whole story either. Someone might have a ton of caps, but like I said, if they're giving up kill streak after kill streak, he might be the reason the team lost. I think we need ALL the stats to paint a more full picture.

We can tell who was kill whoring and who was playing the objective by looking at the scoreboard at the end. Hell, sometimes it's valuable to have one person kill whoring while the other 5 guys play the OBJ. He provides cover, distraction to the other team, etc. If it's coordinated that way, it can be valuable.

There will always be people trying to abuse the system no matter which system you implement. Whatever the new hot stat is, that's the one people will find a way to abuse. I'd rather have ALL the stats so I can see for myself what someone was doing.

See I disagree with you there. SPM it the tell all stat. Especially in obj modes. Who cares if you have 30 kills with no csps. By "you" I mean I general. We that have played with you know you don't cap flags

Plus if someone goes 5-30 but with a shit ton of caps/defends I guarantee he's also shooting down whatever streaks he's giving them.

[J4MES OX4D 10,025]

See I disagree with you there. SPM it the tale all stat. Especially in obj modes. Who cares if you have 30 kills with no csps. By "you" I mean I general. We that have played with you know you don't cap flags

The problem is with this K/D mentality of a portion within the community; the SPM score has somewhat gone over people's heads and they don't realise its value in a player or what it means. 

 

I like how Treyarch did the combat record in Black Ops 2 as it demonstrated all the key stats

Sadly K/D is one of those stats that always has more value in peoples eyes. 

[BO7H B4RRELS 2,452]

See I disagree with you there. SPM it the tell all stat. Especially in obj modes. Who cares if you have 30 kills with no csps. By "you" I mean I general. We that have played with you know you don't cap flags

Plus if someone goes 5-30 but with a shit ton of caps/defends I guarantee he's also shooting down whatever streaks he's giving them.

 

SPM is game mode dependent.  So, you're overall SPM isn't going to tell you anything.  If I play a mix of DOM, TDM, and SPM, my overall SPM will mean absolutely nothing. 

 

I would care if someone had 30 kills and no caps.  Most likely, it would make it easy as hell for me and the rest of my team to cap the flags.  If everyone is dead because some guy is killing everyone, I'm going to cap flags effortlessly. 

 

You can't guarantee that if someone is going 5-30 with a bunch of caps that he's shooting down kill streaks.  Not to mention, he cant' have a "shit ton of defends" because he only had 5 kills  

 

Get back to vacation, that sun is clearly baking your brain. 

[BO7H B4RRELS 2,452]

I'm not supporting kill whoring, K/D minded people, or anything like that.  I just don't want the stat removed because it's one more piece of the puzzle that tells me a little something about the player. 

 

I love SPM.  I wish it was more heavily emphasized.

[JsinOwl 644]

You can track a stat without showing it on the scoreboard. I could look at my Bad Company profile and see my K/D. I was quite ecstatic when it went positive. It's making that info available to the lobby that causes egomaniacal gameplay. Give people a forum to show off their elite skills and objective play goes out the window. Like it or not, most of the prepubescent idiots that play CoD could give a toss about SPM or win/loss. The prevailing attitude is more kills means you're a better player.

That's what a lot of people want, which is fine. What drives me crazy is that it seems all shooters want to be more CoD like. I'd think the better business decision would be to differentiate and draw in all the people turned off by the way CoD does things.

[Madjonny 386]

I like the K/D stat always have, on games where it wasn't tracked back before, I used to work it out anyway...

However I would have it removed, or at least only have it visible in your own combat record...

It would take a load off my mind if before a game I couldn't so quickly and easily see everyone else's K/D as it does a few things, makes you assume this game is going to be easy, then get pissed when things aren't going as the numbers say. Or see someone who's better than you and assume they are going to be unstoppable...

I like it for personal use, but it would be better if I couldn't see everyone else's...

[NCA-Paendrag 2,758]

I disagree.  I think that K/D should be a tracked stat.  Is it the tell all of stats... nope, but it definitely provides SOME indication of skill.  TDM is obvious, but even game modes like DOM it can still be important.  If someone goes 5-30 with a bunch of caps, he can still be liability to the team by giving the other team a bunch of kill streaks.  I don't want someone on my team dying over and over by mindlessly trying to jump on a flag.  I want people who cap flag, get kills, and don't die over and over.  

 

If we only tracked caps/defends/spm, that wouldn't tell the whole story either.  Someone might have a ton of caps, but like I said, if they're giving up kill streak after kill streak, he might be the reason the team lost.  I think we need ALL the stats to paint a more full picture.  

 

We can tell who was kill whoring and who was playing the objective by looking at the scoreboard at the end.  Hell, sometimes it's valuable to have one person kill whoring while the other 5 guys play the OBJ.  He provides cover, distraction to the other team, etc.  If it's coordinated that way, it can be valuable.

 

There will always be people trying to abuse the system no matter which system you implement.  Whatever the new hot stat is, that's the one people will find a way to abuse.  I'd rather have ALL the stats so I can see for myself what someone was doing. 

No killstreaks - Problem solved

[BO7H B4RRELS 2,452]

^

LOL, that's one way to do it. 

[NCA-Paendrag 2,758]

Loved playing Barebones on MW3

[J4MES OX4D 10,025]

No killstreaks - Problem solved

Barebones better be in AW! Just let the guns do the talking in peaceful matches without players doing well and then getting rewarded further.  The Ghosts killstreaks weren't memorable in the slightest and ones like the attack dog and juggernaut were just so OP. Also the field orders gave a player a stupid advantage for the sake of 1 kill and a basic challenge such as teabagging the enemy. It's worse on the DLC maps particuarly on the likes of Favela where you can pretty much earn a AC130 in the first 30 seconds. 

 

I hope there is greater emphasis on the exo suits in place of the perk system as opposed to killstreak reliance too. 

[Commander_Undies 618]

As far as TDM goes, I don't need a ratio to see if someone is a crappy player or not. As far as DOM goes, if you have a lot of points, you're playing the objective. If you have a lot of kills and not a lot of points you're not. So no.. I don't see the point. SPM is cool though.

[tronic44 3,642]

K/D is everything, it's how i got my job, gf, clothes, gangsta lean, crip walk and so on.

 

Take it away and you take me away

 

 

Note: most of what you read above may not be entirely true, except the gangsta lean, that's pure K/D

 

K/D is probably one of the least important stats and because of this i'd rather have someone on my team with a better W/L than a higher K/D. Even if you play TDM all the time, your W/L will still be good. There's just no need for K/D. Just another way to measure dicks.

[L_C_Scipio 395]

W/L has issues as a skill stat as well, just because there's only so much one player can do to affect the outcome of the game. An extreme example: I wanted to unlock the xbow in Battlefield 3, which required winning three matches of Scavenger. No big deal, right? Won the first one, then went on to lose ELEVEN games in a row, placing first or second on my team every time. So my W/L took a hit even though I was doing everything I could.

[tronic44 3,642]

W/L has issues as a skill stat as well, just because there's only so much one player can do to affect the outcome of the game. An extreme example: I wanted to unlock the xbow in Battlefield 3, which required winning three matches of Scavenger. No big deal, right? Won the first one, then went on to lose ELEVEN games in a row, placing first or second on my team every time. So my W/L took a hit even though I was doing everything I could.

That's very true.

 

Do you think that, if K/D was completely removed, would W/L be the new thing to shout about?

[L_C_Scipio 395]

I think they need to come up with a unique stat. I remember on the old MW2 forum Jason (I think) had a formula for a TDM stat that took into account not only k/d, but what percentage of kills needed to win that you got and maybe SPM too? Based on that, I had an idea for a stat for objective games. For Domination, I think it went something like

(Caps per game) + (Defends per game) + (kills per game - defends per game)*.25/100

That way it shows how well you play the objective, with reduced value for straight kills.

[cyberninja2601 1,106]

I don't think W/L is necessarily good either. Especially for CoD. If you put some of the guys on this forum on the same team all the time and end up playing randoms it's almost a guarantied win. The random guys might be pretty good but was playing against a stacked deck.

 

The above formula looks a bit like the BF skill calculation with has SPM, Objective and K/D included in the calculation. The problem with that is that it is relatively undocumented and most people don't know that it means

[Chookes 965]

Will expand when I get to a keyboard but K/D is a number I look at my for my own game. I know how I play, I know I play to win so that number has context for me. Other people's K/D, SPM, W/L doesn't interest me in the slightest. There are some good stats out there that are better indicators in to someone's skill but those generic ones on show in COD aren't great.

I have an account in Black Ops 2 with a 4 K/D and a SPM of 430. If stats were as important as some people made out then I'd be swimming in clunge.

[L_C_Scipio 395]

My point is that for some people k/d is everything; they're the ones we rage about for being idiotic randoms who don't PTO. There needs to be a way to show skill while at the same time encouraging people to play the game the way it should be played.