65 replies to this topic

[Elessar]

Nope, I don´t think that the K/D-Ratio plays a large role for most of the people, especially as it isn´t prominently displayed (just a subpage of your profile page).
If people shoot blindlings into a brawl I rather think it is lack of experience, maybe combined with the influence of an enemy ECM mech (which lets the friendly mech tags disappear ... and also could make people (experienced as well as inexperienced) believe that the mechs out there are all enemies)

[stemnin]

I wish there were more stats, WoT does it pretty well with even each tank individual stats. Allows me to see which vehicle I can improve on.

Accuracy can be ignored in this game though.

[StandingInFire]

The only problem with the stat is that it isn't KDA (kills-deaths-assists), that would allow people to still track useful data without encouraging kill stealing as much.

[Quxudica]

Oy of MidWorld, on 14 January 2013 - 03:46 PM, said:

There are few statistics on the stats page. One of the most prominent is the Kill/Death Ratio. This is not really a good indicator of skill in this game, as it is actually decieving. It favors some builds and playstyles clearly over others, and some of those unfavorable playstyles are actually very important to a good team..

My point is that it leads to some terrible gameplay:

People carelessly shooting into bunches of brawling mechs, to proooobably get that kill, hitting their teammates.

People getting in very very close to targets (much closer than rationally advisable) creating those close bunches in the first place (looking goofy btw...).

People intentionally blocking the line of fire of teammates, to be the one scoring that last hit.

People waiting for a target getting worn down to red-critical, so their own alpha will finish it (unbelievable, but some people actually do this).

People disconnecting mid-match, when they are damaged, but could still have made a difference, further hurting their team.

People being angry about "kill stealers", when they should be happy their team is winning.

And the list goes on, i guess...

I've always considered myself a team player. When i first started playing, my K/D was rather low. So i ignored it, still being happy as can be about every kill i scored. Still playing carefully and team oriented. But when i improved, and finally got past that magical 1.0 mark, i noticed myself starting to play cheesier, sometimes not telling my lancemates about a heavily injured enemy mech, as i think "hey, i got it in a sec..." And if something happens, and i don't get it, i have just hurt my team. So i force myself to always tell nowadays, however suspect that my lancemates don't always do it. There we are, even us, corrupted by our precious K/D rate...

Even if you know about it, and resist it, it eventually gets you (not everyone, i know, but some of us) and leads to cheesy play. What do you think about it?

I think making stats public would hurt the game and the forum community, I don't private stats as we have now are as big a deal.

[Mercules]

We all know K/D ratio can be gamed with some subtle and annoying behaviors that don't help the team win.

My personal favorite is chasing the Light Mech. Some people shoot at the nearby light mech because if they don't they know it will be at their back shooting them. Others end up with the same focus as a dog chasing a squirel, very often straight into traffic. There are some though, that see that Commando, Spider, Jenner, Raven as an "easy kill" for their ratio.

I've also personally witnessed players holding off attacks when the team is focus firing until the target is nearly dead. As they were not having heat problems or tracking anything else but were just sitting there with the reticle over the targeted opponent, I make that small leap of logic that they are waiting until it is likely their shot will "kill" the mech.

Every enemy mech cut down reduces the amount of firepower coming our way so it doesn't matter who kills said mech. What matters it taking it out of the fight. I've stopped shooting a mech that is left with a single Small Laser to focus on a different mech that has a full compliment of weapons and watched my PUG teammates continue to focus on the damaged mech till it is dead. Yes, it "could" run off and cap.... but on the other hand that Atlas is still dumping AC 20 shots into you.

Damage done isn't even a good measure of how effective someone is on your team. If a light mech decided to hold back and target a Cat with double AC/20s with a TAG so that your fire support mechs could kill/damage it before it could bring those AC/20s into range, they have made a large contribution, but gained no "stats" in the process that most other people can see.

I got bitched at once by someone who moved ahead and got himself focused upon. At the time I was escorting our two lumbering Stalkers in my RVN-3L providing them with protection from LRMs and lights flanking them. He pointed out his 200 damage to my 0. Yes, I was the only one with 0 damage in the match at that point, but if I left the Stalkers and they took LRMs instead of being free to fire their LRMs the match would have gone very different. If they had to scrape an annoying light off their backs instead of moving into the main fight the match would have gone very different.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

youre still fighting the good fight I see Oy. Remembering the faces of your fathers

lol that aside its funny that the vote is almost 50/50 on yes (I believe teamplay would improve. (74 votes [40.44%]) and no I don't think it would change a thing. (68 votes [37.16%])

Edited by Mechwarrior Buddah, 29 January 2013 - 08:54 AM.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Mercules, on 29 January 2013 - 08:40 AM, said:

My personal favorite is chasing the Light Mech. Some people shoot at the nearby light mech because if they don't they know it will be at their back shooting them. Others end up with the same focus as a dog chasing a squirel, very often straight into traffic. There are some though, that see that Commando, Spider, Jenner, Raven as an "easy kill" for their ratio.

last night I had a light come at me, I ignored him, focussing on the others, he started ripping out my rear armor, I pulled him to my teammates, they proceeded to ignore him too and I died within 10m of 4 other teammates as that light went to town on their rear ends too.
Ignoring them isnt a plan either.

[Mercules]

Mechwarrior Buddah, on 29 January 2013 - 08:56 AM, said:

last night I had a light come at me, I ignored him, focussing on the others, he started ripping out my rear armor, I pulled him to my teammates, they proceeded to ignore him too and I died within 10m of 4 other teammates as that light went to town on their rear ends too.
Ignoring them isnt a plan either.

Agreed... but if you notice a light mech in a duel with another light mech(or even a fairly fast heavier mech dealing with it)... leave them alone. The number of times I've been friendly fired by teammates trying to shoot the light that I have put in much worse shape than I am in all by myself is ridiculous. I've gone from having nice green back torsos to Orange after a 'helpful' Stalker decided to sweep his Large Lasers over the Raven I was fighting.

Either way you don't need 5 people chasing one light and we all know that because it moves faster we are all going to end up in converging lanes following it and firing right past each other. This is when friendly fire happens.

[Zero Neutral]

I hear you don't like stats... tell me more about how you put any effort in to this game.

If you don't like stats, it's because you don't want people to see your stats.

[Khobai]

1) Instead of KDR we need damage done vs damage received

2) damage stats should be weighted based on location, hitting someone in the center torso or side torso should be worth more than hitting someone in the arm or leg

The multipliers might look something like this:
Head: x9
Center Torso Rear: x7
Center Torso: x5
Side Torso Rear: x5
Side Torso: x3
Arm/Leg: x1

Damage done vs damage received is a much better indication of how good of a player you are than KDR. All KDR shows is how often you killsteal and how often you die. Neither of which is relevant. Because if youre in a Commando you could do like 700 damage and still die. But you did amazingly well. KDR doesn't reflect that.

Additionally damage needs to be weighted by location. Shooting someone in the arm should not be worth the same as shooting someone in the head or center torso. Someone who makes accurate shots should be rewarded more than someone who just shoots anywhere on the enemy mech. It's silly that you can kill 3-4 mechs with headshots or rear armor shots and still end up in third place because your damage total is low. That needs to be fixed.

Edited by Khobai, 29 January 2013 - 09:47 AM.

[Mercules]

Khobai, on 29 January 2013 - 09:35 AM, said:

1) Instead of KDR we need damage done vs damage received

2) damage stats should be weighted based on location, hitting someone in the center torso or side torso should be worth more than hitting someone in the arm or leg

The multipliers might be something like this:
Head: x7
Center Torso: x5
Side Torso: x3
Arm/Leg: x1


Damage done vs damage received is a much better indication of how good of a player you are than KDR. All KDR shows is how often you killsteal and how often you die. Neither of which is relevant. Because if youre in a Commando you could do like 700 damage and still die. But you did amazingly well. KDR doesn't reflect that.

Additionally damage needs to be weight by location. Shooting someone in the arm should not be worth the same as shooting someone in the head or center torso. Someone who makes accurate shots should be rewarded more than someone who just shoots anywhere on the enemy mech.

Which still doesn't address someone adding to the team worth by spotting with a TAG for fire support. They get XP and C-bills, but no 'street-cred' so to speak.

[Khobai]

Quote

Which still doesn't address someone adding to the team worth by spotting with a TAG for fire support. They get XP and C-bills, but no 'street-cred' so to speak.

So add a stat category called TAG-assisted damage.

[zraven7]

If nothing else, other stats need to be made AS prominent. Spotting is huge, and should be represented in some way. average damage done per match is much more important than kills, and frankly, should be worth more exp and cbills. Take it from a Cicada pilot, lasers land you more accidental kills than I'm happy with receiving. I'll be throwing support fire at a target, and just because my beam is still on it with the K2 AC20s the thing down to 1 point of torso, my beams get the kill. This is ridiculous.

Over all damage is MUCH more important than kills.

Edited by zraven7, 29 January 2013 - 09:55 AM.

[Mercules]

Zero Neutral, on 29 January 2013 - 09:30 AM, said:

I hear you don't like stats... tell me more about how you put any effort in to this game.

If you don't like stats, it's because you don't want people to see your stats.

That would be a Circumstantial Ad Hominem fallacy. Claiming we only don't want stats because ours are bad is poor rational. There are sure to be people who would have good stats but want them gone because they see others doing things that are... shall we say 'less intelligent'... to raise their stats artificially. There are also going to be players with bad stats that want to be able to see them because they feel they can track their progress with them.

I believe that stats can be useful as a measure but are too often interpreted wrongly. This would be like someone who does not have a psychology degree trying to interpret what the results of an MMPI-2 or similar psychological test says about someone. BTW, to the untrained everyone looks crazy based off their MMPI-2 scores.

[Khobai]

Spotting XP should be based on the duration you hold target locks on the enemy though. I get sick of scouts just running past the enemy team and cycling R to get spotting XP on all of them and then just running away. They didnt actually hold the lock for anyone firing LRMs but they still get a massive XP boost anyway which is stupid.

[zraven7]

Khobai, on 29 January 2013 - 10:04 AM, said:

Spotting XP should be based on the duration you hold target locks on the enemy though. I get sick of scouts just running past the enemy team and cycling R to get spotting XP on all of them and then just running away. They didnt actually hold the lock for anyone firing LRMs but they still get a massive XP boost anyway which is stupid.

That, or damage done to a target you're locked onto you by someone other than you. Maybe mitgate it by your own damage onto the target, to get some balance between spot assists and kill assists.

[Mercules]

Khobai, on 29 January 2013 - 10:04 AM, said:

Spotting XP should be based on the duration you hold target locks on the enemy though. I get sick of scouts just running past the enemy team and cycling R to get spotting XP on all of them and then just running away. They didnt actually hold the lock for anyone firing LRMs but they still get a massive XP boost anyway which is stupid.

Technically we have to have someone actually fire to get the spotting bonus although it doesn't have to be long enough for anything to actually hit. Then again should we be punished because someone is firing LRMs at something 1002 meters away?

[Adrienne Vorton]

not the stats,but the mentality being supported by those stats:)

[bmulkshake]

I don't think this game is dying but if it were I wouldn't blame it on the stats, or the devs or the bugs, I would blame it on the # of Stew Pidasos playing the game.
I generally enjoy playing this game very much but every once in a while I come across a Stew Pidaso that kind of ruins the match for me. Either he talks too much, says something really stupid or just has no idea how to play.
But, you know what they say, you can't fix stupid.

[Monsoon]

K/DR is getting reset anyway, so I wouldn't worry about it, the problem is all those people who care more about getting the 'kill shot' then anything else, even if it means shooting through their team mates...