54 replies to this topic

[Dingo Battler]

I used to be really stressed over my KDR, keeping it above 2.0. I left shortly before PSR came out, because I bought SCRs, and one of them was @ 0.7, or something terrible. Recently joined and had fun with KGCs and FSHs. In fact, my KDR is now below 2.0, and I don't even care.






However, I still have the same obsession with my TBRs, so I never ever play them. The problem is, I actually like playing with TBRs, so I took one out for a spin last night. I started with 2.42 KDR. Died several times, it fell to 2.35. I raged really hard. This was 11pm last night, and today is a gym day, so I played in anger for the next 2 hours, despite my wife constantly asking me to go to bed. I pulled it back to 2.41, but I was angry, worked up and tired. I don't even know why it matters, but I was 1 loss away from punching my screen and deleting the game forever.



In fact, my "trainer wheels" TBR-P used to have a sub 1.0 KDR, and I spent 2 months pulling that up to 2.0. I've never played it ever since, because I'm too scared to touch it.



I know it sounds really weird. Is there any way to overcome this?

EDIT: Lots of false accusations. If you want to criticise my stat, post your's first. 1.17 WLR, better than the expected 1.08 from all players (1+1/12players)

Edited by KBurn85, 26 February 2016 - 05:17 PM.

[Lyoto Machida]

I have no idea if you will overcome it but one of my Dragons (not the 1N) sat at like 7.0 kdr for awhile because I liked the way the stat looked. Of course, it was something like 14/2 so it wasn't a huge sample size but I eventually accidentally played it or something when I forgot and ended up ruining it forever. Now I don't care...

[MischiefSC]

Yes.

Relax.

Kdr means jack ****.

Win/loss is a vastly better indicator of your value to a team. KDR in pug queue is pretty meaningless.

I would even go so far as to say that if you're fixated on KDR you're sandbagging your team overall.

Focus on being a boon to the team first. KDR fixation is going to teach you bad habits.

[Johnny Z]

No one cares about KDR. Your ploy if foiled.

[Fiona Marshe]

Counselling?

[Davegt27]

Don’t know what to tell you my KDR is .86 and continues to drop

I started at .92 when the PSR came out so I managed to move from tier 3 to tier 2 and still drop my KDR

It bothers me because it’s going down which I take means I am playing worse not better

But I am also playing better higher tier players and they kick the crap out of me

I spend a lot of time in the Mech lab staring at my Mechs wondering which one will actually work
My TW (streak wolf) and my Ice ferrets work the best

Anyway your KDR sounds really good to me

[Chimera_]

Worrying too much about KDR can lead to some bad habits, such as hugging enemies for killing blows and being too passive in a match. My KDR sits around 1.75, which I'm fine with since I'm a purely solo queue player and I know I'm generally a valuable asset to my team.

Really, KDR doesn't matter. What matters is you do your best to work with your team and score wins. I mean, if someone had a KDR of like .2 after 1000 matches, then maybe that person might need to have some help to figure out why. Otherwise, don't worry about it.

[El Bandito]

KBurn85, on 23 February 2016 - 06:14 PM, said:

I know it sounds really weird. Is there any way to overcome this?

Ok, you have some issues. I personally can't help you but I hope someone will, before your marriage suffers.

From a guy who had similar experience, but in League. I eventually let it go...

Edited by El Bandito, 23 February 2016 - 06:43 PM.

[TexAce]

find a shrink

[Accused]

I was in a similar position.

Worked really hard to bring my kdr up. Would struggle continuously through grinding new chassis, events, etc. Eventually when I did get better, I said "*^&% it" and focused instead on winning (and now damage).

My kdr now hangs around 1.49 in Tier 1 and it's not dropping. I think I've finally leveled out and I'm happy with that. Support your team, deal damage, go for a kill when nobody else will, etc. If you die a horrible death with 99 dmg in the first 60 secs of the match, don't sweat it.

[Impyrium]

Remember when games were about having fun?

[Otto Cannon]

Hmm. Could it be perhaps zat you are feeling your parents vere only proud ov your achievements?

Maybe you are tryink to fill ze hole in your psyche with a high KDR and ze admiration of others ven it can never truly be filled by such conditional love- because zey admire not you but ze false mask you haf created to impress zem.

Zat session vill be $500, I vill send you my invoice.

[Kyynele]

I'd suggest forgetting about your KDR and concentrating on getting your average damage higher on your "best" mechs. Seeing big numbers in the match end screen feels nice, and making those numbers big is much easier to achieve regularly than securing killshots or stressing about dying.

Your TBR average damages seem to be 300-400 at the moment, if you can manage to push it towards 500 and above, your W/L and K/D ratios are bound to go up as well.

If you have to look at numbers, I think average damage is the healthiest one. It will steer you towards builds that produce reliable results. You'll find just the right level of aggression that doesn't get you killed right off, but allows you to deal that decisive extra bit of damage in matches. You'll eventually become the guy that carries the team to an unlikely win by dealing 800-1000 damage even if sometimes all your kills get secured and you die in the process. In the long run, it's much better to be that guy than the guy who secures 2 kills and did 250 damage, hiding the whole match being afraid of lowering his KDR.

At least that has worked for me.

Of course, the super healthy thing to do is just to play with friends and have fun.

[Chuck Jager]

until you have at least 50 games in a mech dont even think about stats. Start to examine them as real data at 100 games. If you wins ratio is below 1.15 at best your KDR means Jack (group Q is easier to get positive win ratio)

[WrathOfDeadguy]

KDR is utterly meaningless. The best way to stop stressing about that stat is to stop checking it. You will still know if your Win/Loss is positive by your progress on the PSR bar- if it trends upward, you're doing fine; don't worry. Seriously... as long as you're carrying your own weight in each match (aside from the occasional quick and messy death; that happens to everyone), stressing out about your stats is pointless. I actually turned off the tier meter in my frontend for about a month or so when I was getting close to the Tier 2 boundary because I discovered that watching it bob up and down (when I hit loss streaks and then broke them) was making the game feel like work. I wasn't having fun because the silly little progress bar wasn't always going in the direction I wanted it to. I turned it off, and... guess what? Within a week I was over the line and didn't care anymore.

As a side note, people who worry overmuch about their KDR tend to be the ones who are willing to hang their teammates out to dry when the fight starts getting hot and heavy. Don't be that guy. Play to do your part and win, not to survive.

I check my stats page maybe once a month just to see if I'm doing as well with a chassis that I enjoy as I think I'm doing... and the results have been very telling. I've found that whether or not I enjoy a 'Mech has absolutely nothing to do with how well I'm doing in it, provided that I don't make a big deal out of it and make it my mission in life to be positive with every single variant. Like you, I had 'Mechs I was afraid to even touch because the stats were either so good that I didn't want to wreck them, or so bad that I didn't want them to drag down my overall numbers. After I stopped checking every time I played, I found that while some variants were indeed doing very badly, I was still trending upwards because of other 'Mechs, and in any case my scores were still in the average to good range, so it didn't matter if I was tanking my (utterly meaningless) KDR for a variant.

Remember, if you get 3 or 4 KMDDs but no killshots and die, the game counts that against your KDR... but you still made those kills happen, didn't you? You're the one who did all the work, but the game didn't give you credit. Meaningless. It doesn't track your contribution to a match, only whether or not you landed the final hit. If you really want to keep a record of your performance, then rock it old school: after each match you play, track how many KMDDs you get. Write it down, along with whether you lived or died. Average the results. That's the stat that would actually tell you whether or not you're doing well as a pilot- not killing blows.

[Ivan Tsarevich]

Dingo Red, on 23 February 2016 - 06:50 PM, said:

Remember when games were about having fun?

When games were fun, time to kill felt right, and brawling was a real tactic? Pepperidge Farm does.

[Random Carnage]

I used to be the same as far as constantly checking KDR and getting frustrated when it dropped. I felt it was a reflection of failure. I took a break from the game, and reviewed my reasons for playing, and my wider priorities. When you get that worked up about a computer game, it's simply not healthy. You need to walk away for a while, look around, and get some perspective as to what really matters in life. Your family is a great place to start.

Once you're there, play again, and don't bother about the stats. I can't remember the last time I checked my stats. I couldn't even guess at what my KDR is, and I really don't care. It simply isn't important, and the reality is that no one else actually cares what your KDR is, so why let it upset you?

I still prefer winning, absolutely. I still get pissed off with the clowns that I perceive to be worthless in a match, and yes, still sometimes mouth off when I should know better, but really, just acknowledge when you recognize it happening, take a breath, chill and roll with it. You'll drop with some reta*ds much of the time, and you'll shake your head at some of the decisions people make - but it really doesn't matter in the larger scheme of things.

[Sandpit]

MischiefSC, on 23 February 2016 - 06:25 PM, said:

Yes.

Relax.

Kdr means jack ****.

Win/loss is a vastly better indicator of your value to a team. KDR in pug queue is pretty meaningless.

I would even go so far as to say that if you're fixated on KDR you're sandbagging your team overall.

Focus on being a boon to the team first. KDR fixation is going to teach you bad habits.

KDR = nothing other than personal pride

A better metric is your damage average and w/l average (although even that is skewed because we player with random teams tossed together)

But, if you're regularly doing over 250 damage and win more than you lose (or have a pretty even split), then I'd say you're doing ok in a mech.

KDR really just doesn't matter. Lots of times I carry negative KDR on mechs because I wind up using them to do things like lead pushes, soak damage, etc. which usually results in them getting blown up. Sometimes I manage to get a kill, sometimes I don't, but my damage output and assists are generally in the 300 range and I'll typically get a few assists as well.

The problem with the "normal" metrics players use in FPS type games here is that those games are typically much less focused on team play and more on solo play within the team. You simply can't play MWO like you would the typical shooter because of the team dynamic so things like KDR and even W/L to an extent become less relevant.

You got 700 damage and 3 kills? Great!
Wait, you lost? Well regardless of how you feel about "carrying", you still lost the battle

You got 250 damage, 0 kills, 3 assists and your team won?


Which was a better performance? The 3 kills or the team win?
That just depends on how you view the game. Either an individual effort or a team effort.

A lot of people in this community obviously never played any kind of team games or sports growing up I can promise you that.
(Which incidentally leads into an interesting discussion regarding the social dynamics of this community in general as a lot of military veterans and "older" adults comprise a good chunk of the "hardcore" fans which doesn't always mesh well with a younger audience who prefer more "traditional" style shooters)

[Zordicron]

Wow OP, you need to chill out. That stat is completely worthless to show any value of your actual skill in the game or how you run with team mates or anything else that really doesn't matter anyway unless you are going to enter professional epeen measuring shows.

Here are some ideas:
Don;t look at it. Seriously, quit cold turkey, don;t log on to the web page for like 3 months. Not enough willpower? OK...

Play garbage mechs, for like the next 3 months. Seriously, play stuff that isn;t meta, that is a known average to poor, load it up with some stuff that looks and feels amusing, and just go with them till mastered. Get a stable of like 6 of them and rotate them, dakka boat this, PPC+SRM's that one, etc. Put some MG on a mech. Play a 12 JJ Spider in berserker mode. The idea here is to let go of the stats, by acknowledgement of the idea that stats on mechs like these are pointless even if you still think stats matter on your "main" mechs. Break the habit, break the cycle, laugh about how bad you trolled that guy in your flamer spider, go to bed after a hearty laugh about how your Gauss Huggin was so rediculous you got 4 comments from both enemy and team mates alike in 2 matches about it.

Once playing becomes a little less obsessive for you, change how you look at the actual drops you do. Pay special attention to your own team, and rather then try to get the most tryhardest high dmg and kills, try to cover your team mates and look at it like this: what can I do to make my team win, or at least have the most fun possible getting rolled? For instance, the other night I was in a Banshee on River City. Timid team of timids balled up behind some buildings in what we used to call upper city and hid. A couple brave soul lights ran a end around through the river and started taking pot shots at the enemy to distract(they were at the one dropsh "base" with the tunnel) Nobody did ****. Guy in a light desperately asks on voip "anyone gonna take advantage of this distraction?". Autobots, roll out. I took my Banshee and tanked 3/4 the enemy teams fireing line as I marched across the bridge, timid team of timids actually followwed, most dumped off into the water, but they were pushing! My dmg was 190 at end of round, got some assists and a **** score, but we won. We won pretty decent, and the team mates all perked up over voip as we started mopping up the enemy. I mean, ONOZ MY STATS. WHO GIVES A ****. I was rewarded for my sacrifice both in actual thank yous and in a rewarding team play experiance and fun match(even though I mostly spectated the last 2/3)



TL;DR- your stats, no one gives a ****. Spend less time playing solo yolo ding dong and start playing as a team mate, start looking for ways to help your fellow mechwarriors out and have fun of their own. Use chat, not to rage, but to tell jokes or respond to them.


If you can;t let go of obsessing over some lolstats, you should probably take a break for a while, take the wife out to dinner and go to a movie or take a trip some place fairly local for some sight seeing. Raging over stats that only the tryhardest of epeen bros worry about is going to ruin the fun this game can bring you anyway.

[Ted Wayz]

Mount a bunch of missiles on your TBR. No matter how good your KDR everyone will call you a bad. Eventually you will learn to let go.