Is it time the K/D ratio Died?

With many FPS games putting more emphasis on dynamic team based gameplay and adding different elements into play, like vehicles and a multitude of different team game modes, what does the very individual kills to deaths ratio really tell us about a player and is it even useful anymore?

Does it tell us how a person works in a team? Does it tell us if they are good at fulfilling different roles? Does it tell us how skilled they are? Does it tell us of they are the sort of player we'd want in a team objective lead game? Well no, it doesn't. It doesn't tell us anything other than the ratio of how many kills they've got per death; an arbitrary numeric value. 

Yet many people put a great deal of weight on this single statistic as if it were the be-all and end-all of FPS gaming.

As FPS gaming moves forward let's take a look at one popular title that largely encompasses everything that is good about casual FPS gaming; Battlefield 4. It's ideal for this discussion as it offers good variety in terms of variety and team play. From dynamic areas which offer either tight urban environments or wide open spaces or sometimes a combination of the two in a single arena, to having the option to go via land, sea or air to take the fight to the opposing team; coupled with a large, varied and balanced weapon roster and wide player base, Battlefield 4 is as good a place as any to test whether the K/D really deserves such a prominent place in FPS gaming and if it's even still worth having at the forefront of player statistics.

So where does the kills to deaths ratio fit in when considering the above description? If we look at the BattleLog that accompanies Battlefield 4, which is essentially a player profile, one thing we see almost immediately is a player's K/D ratio. Well, a player with a 1.00+ K/D must be pretty good right? That means they've at least got as many kills as deaths. Players with K/D of 2.00+ must be even better with twice as many kills as deaths...

Because in Battlefield 4 one of its key dynamics is vehicular gameplay. This includes things like attack boats, fast jets, attack helicopters and battle tanks. Let me tell you, it's not especially hard to go an entire round, rack up 30+ kills while only dying 5 or less times (I've even seen 125 kills 0 deaths). In realism it wouldn't be hard for a player to specialise in vehicular gameplay like this, focusing their attention on attack vehicles, and maintain an overall K/D of 4.00 or even 5.00+. Which of course looks amazing on the face of your player profile and certainly makes you look much better than someone sporting a 0.87 K/D.

However, players like this might not always be the best team players. I've seen it a number of times - so have you no doubt - they dominate the map but all they are doing is polishing their K/D, most of the time they aren't actually supporting their team or capturing objectives. 

Wouldn't you rather have someone who's a blinding support player, who heals, repairs, supports and re-supplies their team mates in battle and watches their backs with a K/D of 0.87 over someone with a K/D of 4.00 who just goes of and does their own thing for the whole game leaving their team behind?

It's high time the FPS put less emphasis on K/D and more on team play because that's where it's at right now. The best maps aren't free-for-all games, the best maps are team based objective games when you roll with your team and feel good that you've got someone watching your back.

But I play team objectives and no one watches my back, how come?

Because everyone is more worried about their K/D than supporting their team mates. It just isn't considered "good" to take a bullet for you team mate so they can get the objective and your team can win but it is good to have a K/D of 2.00+ regardless of anything else. If you think this is backwards well, sadly it seems, you along with me are in the minority.

So why is the move into a more cooperative style of FPS gameplay important? 

Primarily because it has the chance to change the face of FPS gaming in a big way and change the way people play and possibly even act in other areas on and offline in a positive manner. We could all do with being more cooperative I think you'll agree. What better place to start than your favourite FPS? 

There are lots of things that FPS games still do to emphasize the K/D and selfish gameplay either directly or indirectly that need to be altered somehow. 



Here are just a few of them and some beneficial alternatives;

Kill streak rewards - 

These emphasize individual player kills not a team effort. Fine in things like Free-for-all and maybe TDM but not so much in team based games. Simply removing things like kill streak rewards from team games would make people focus more on playing as a team while not actually effecting individual play. Alternatives could be squad kill rewards, where instead of individuals having to maintain X kills over Y time to maintain a 'streak', the entire squad would be included in the 'streak' allowing one squad/team member to initiate the streak, the rest could then continue it and everyone would have the potential to benefit.

Revives - 

Revives are good but sadly they get misused a lot. Particularly in Battlefield as it rewards a player for the initial revive no matter if the 'revivee' survives or not. What happens inevitably is revive spamming that ends up in a string of revive instant-deaths for the revivees because the emphasis is on the revive NOT on whether the friendly player actually survives. One solution is to move the scoring so it only rewards the revive after the person who has been revived has survived for X amount of time.

X kills with X gun - 

Again this emphasizes individual player kills and largely locks down their play to a purely selfish end when engaging in team games; they're likely to ignore everything else and just go for their kills to unlock whatever reward, no necessarily concentrating on helping their team capture objectives or flags or whatever. Something that perhaps could be removed from team objective games and left only for things like TDM and Free-For-All game modes.

K/D ratios - 

These simply shouldn't be the key statistic in FPS anymore. This is fairly easy to solve in-game by a simple reshuffle of the scoreboards. Instead of reading something like Kills, Assists, Deaths, Round Score. Removing all but the Round Score and Assists column would help players to concentrate more on team play. Saving the kills/deaths statistics for other out-of-game screens, if at all. Other information could replace the kills/deaths columns as well, such as objectives captured, flags captured/returned or squad assists, etc..

Team based objectives - 

There should be a stronger reward structure around team play over individual play and more emphasis on helping out your team rather than going it alone in team based games. For instance, team/squad member assists, driver spawns/assists, team revives and heals, team resupplies and saving team members should all be highly rewarded to encourage team cooperation in-game.

Free-for-all and TDM game modes - 

This where the "X kills with X gun" type rewards should be restricted to. This will save team based objective lead games from people who are just acting alone and not helping their team. If you wanna unlock that thing you want and you need X kills, get it done in free-for-all or TDM.

There could possibly be things like a "squad proximity award" that rewards all players within a squad/team if no one in that squad/team goes more than 50m away from any other member - basically a reward for sticking together. Perhaps on top of this, squad/team assists should have a multiplier system attached to it so it stacks with the squad proximity award for even better rewards or more points for everyone in the squad/team for staying together and helping each other out. That way the entire squad/team can benefit from it not just individual players.

Final scoreboards could also reflect the best squad/team as well as the best player score wise. In this the incentive will be to have the best squad/team and best players in that squad/team, balancing out both individual and team play and aimed at removing the completely individual "play for stats" mentality.

I'm not talking about altering the way the FPS plays at all, if you want it be lone wolf that's up to you of course and you wouldn't be penalized in any way for that but the potential rewards would simply be greater for working as a team when playing team objective games. 

The side effect of this team focused play and move away from the obsession with K/D ratios would also be dedicated lone-wolf servers that allow people to operate singularly and add a new dynamic to online play where people could concentrate on more dedicated and tactical PvP game-modes if they didn't wish to play on team based servers. This would keep the two, team games and free-for-all type games, well separated as well. It might also dissuade team killers and other selfish players from entering into team games, as with new scoring structures, they wouldn't just screw over other players, they would screw themselves over as well in terms of round scoring and rewards. Binning the individualistic K/D ratios from in-game screens and moving into more team focused play structures and scoring benefits all parties and play-styles.    

So is it time the K/D ratio died? 

If we want to move forward in FPS gaming, 

then yes, yes it is.

~

Thanks for reading. 

It doesn't matter what you use, only that you game. 

#GamersUnite
~

Also, take a look at this petition if you're a BF4 player;
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/DLCguns-BF4