Why is damage the "main" Lockdown stat instead of kills/captures?
Sat, 07/21/2012 - 01:17
As a dude who's played a couple of shooter-type multiplayer games for many years, I'm sort of confused as to why most people who play LD seem to place so much stock in their damage dealt per match, or even why it's a recorded stat in the first place. I mean, the name of the game is a control-points style competition, so at the basic level, the amount of times you capture or defend a point is what actually contributes to your team winning. The main way to do that is obviously by making your opponent deader than you, so if you're racking up kills, odds are you're being a good teammate. But what does damage show? Picture a scenario where you keep hitting a certain player a few times, they run off to base to heal up, they come at you again, you deal more damage, repeat. You could rack up a huge amount of damage on that person, but you wouldn't have killed them once, and you might not have had much of an impact on the overall match. But going by the usual standards, you could be viewed as having an amazing round.
So yeah, color me confused why the damage dealt in a match is supposed to mean anything, while your kill/death totals, which are kind of the basic metric of every PvP combat game ever, don't even show up. :P
Sat, 07/21/2012 - 04:08
#2
.....
Damage isn't the "main" stat...
it's the stat fluffballs look at of course...
but it's not the "main" stat.
Sat, 07/21/2012 - 11:06
#3
Great logic bro.
If you keep damaging enemies and they have to keep running back to base to heal, are they capping points? Nope. While they are healing, you are capturing points.
If you keep killing enemies and they have to wait for respawn, are they capping points? Nope. While they are waiting for respawn, you are capturing points.
Out damaging the opponents gives you an obvious advantage.
I'm not against showing kills and deaths, but if OOO were to do this, we would have to suffer through constant complaints of "kill-steals".
Sat, 07/21/2012 - 09:15
#4
inb4 Kattamoon im liek so pro
inb4 Kattamoon im liek so pro
Sat, 07/21/2012 - 11:45
#5
LOL
Sat, 07/21/2012 - 12:54
#6
Because the number is bigger. People are simpleminded. Bigger number is better to them.
@Atacii
Sure, you're doing a great job of defending wherever you happen to be, but if you're just beating up a few people at the opponents homepoint but letting someone backcap your others, you'll lose. I've swept plenty of games doing that with subpar damage.
Sat, 07/21/2012 - 15:55
#7
E-honk bro, e-honk. Who's the toughest in the batch.
Sat, 07/21/2012 - 23:59
#8
Alexis Texas
Katamoon:
No estoy seguro de si te das cuenta, pero la gente realmente se burlen de ti. Nadie se preocupa por sus cuentas estúpidas, y el hecho de que persisten en la jactancia, te hace ver aún más estúpido. Usted tiene una baja autoestima, por lo tanto, tratar de compensarlo mediante la constante jactancia. Consigue algunos amigos y una vida real.
Ahora usted está probablemente va a decir que soy "celoso" ...... porque son inmaduros. Crece :)
No, I don't speak Spanish. I just used Google translate so you fully understand what me and many others have been trying to get to you for so long :)
Sun, 07/22/2012 - 00:20
#9
Damage isn't everything.
It
Damage isn't everything.
It just shows how murderous and merciless ye are.
Sun, 07/22/2012 - 01:38
#10
Honestly though, its the only
Honestly though, its the only realiable stat for personal achievement. Caps and Defends are not suited for reaching personal best, mainly because they are recorded at a low range of numbers, making it inaccurate. Also, any good Lockdown player always takes caps in to consideration. If someone brags, "i got 10k damage" (Im tier 2) but only got 2 caps while everyone else got 6, he/she would almost surely be called out for it, or at least someone would mentally acknowledge his/her poor caps. What would be nice is a more accurate offline stat system similar to halo's old stat system that would show stats such as average damage, average Kill death ratio, time spent on cap points, Win lose ratio, best weapon, ect. ect. but until then damage is the best indicator
@ Bacon
Yes it is about proving your better because its a COMPETITIVE game type. Under that logic, striving for lets say 1rst in the OC track Championship is wrong. (unless your making the point that competitive sports as a whole are wrong then thats a whole different argument) I know what you mean by COD players, as there some pretty cocky people in tier 3 (/biased and overgeneralized statement) but its not from the nature of striving for damage, but instead it derives from the character of the player him/herself
Sun, 07/22/2012 - 11:54
#11
..are we allowed to speak other languages in the english forums?
Sun, 07/22/2012 - 12:51
#12
Morale booster
Seeing you doing around 2k damage with 5-15k teammates and opponents is a lot more heartening then seeing you having 2 or 3 kills with everyone else in the tens digits.
Sun, 07/22/2012 - 13:47
#13
Lick
@Bromon "Yes it is about proving your better because its a COMPETITIVE game type. Under that logic, striving for lets say 1rst in the OC track Championship is wrong."
Yes but in that case the point of the competition is to get the better time. In LD, the objective is not damage, it is captures. In track, getting first place is playing for the objective while getting damage in LD is not.
Sun, 07/22/2012 - 19:04
#14
@Oatmonster
But as i said
@Oatmonster
But as i said earlier, Caps is not a viable method of comparison as
1. the value range is low making it less accurate
2. Most good lock-down player assume damage is accompanied by goods caps.
from my experience if someone brags about damage without receiving caps, they are almost never fully credited by other regular players. Under these circumstance, both caps and damage become sort of the same thing and thus saying "Having more damage than other try makes themselves better than the others of trying to prove they were the "soul" of the party." is the same as saying "Having more caps than other try makes themselves better than the others of trying to prove they were the "soul" of the party." which is, in my opinion, a misconception.
Sun, 07/22/2012 - 19:20
#15
I agree
Personally, I play A LOT of T2 lockdown and I believe that the scoring system as well as the leader board system is messed up.
The damage system SHOULD calculate damage, caps, and defends as it does; but wouldnt it be better if it calculated kills, accuracy, deaths, and whom killed whom?
The leader board system isn't up to my standards either...
Pretty much ANYONE can make it onto the leaderboards as long as their entire week is devoted to playing LD, EVEN if they are a noob spammer. I think the scoring system should be changed to the following:
1) A weekly update for fresh starts
2) A leaderboard that ranks players based on DAMAGE instead of how devoted you are to LD, by choosing your top score currently in the week based on a point system by adding damage, caps (400 damage pts each), and defends (250 damage points each)
3) Different classifications or categories for Swordsmen, gunners, and bombers
By using THAT system, players can rightfully boast about their LD skill, instead of saying 'horray im 6th on the leader board because of my technique with my TSB is called SPAM!
@Bromon - Hai Bromon
Sun, 07/22/2012 - 19:32
#16
I actually prefer having a
I actually prefer having a damage counter rather than kills. Kills can be easily ks'd, and doesn't fully portray that players skill. If you went around, last hitting every enemy player, you did not do the job of actually killing, but simply last hitting. That could be called a skill, yes. But it is not accurate. Damage is accurate. This player swung, hit, and dealt this much damage.
1. Is not the leaderboard on a weekly refresh? Or monthly?
2. The points per capture is hard to balance, when you have to compare it to damage. One T3 game could be low scoring, under 10k. Its quite possible. Another ld game could be over 15k on everyone, also possible.
3. You really can't classify by "class" because class is a self imposed restriction by players in this game. It isn't inbuilt. Unless you are referring to most damage with 1 weapon type, which may be possible.
Sun, 07/22/2012 - 19:39
#17
....
People are only attracted to damage because they are high numbers. I mean, how could you not like high numbers, unless... actually screw that statement there's a lot of situations where you will most definitely not like high numbers but y'know. Whutevs.
Not got much to say, just wanted to do this.
HAI HUNGRAN! BROMON! *coughs* I'll leave this to you smart guys to debate on.
~The Mighty Cheese Knight; WeeGee
Sun, 07/22/2012 - 19:54
#18
@Weegle
Hai Weegle
Sun, 07/22/2012 - 20:09
#19
High numbers.... Ever played golf?
It's like the most boringest game evar.
Sun, 07/22/2012 - 23:27
#20
The Perfect System?
What (IMO) would be the best system for score is actually pretty complicated.
First, you would receive score for multiple sections
Damage - This one is basic. its the Score of how much damage you do. Everything else gets a little complicated
Cap TIME - This is a score of how many "seconds"or "milliseconds" you spend on a cap. You would receive a set amount of score each millisecond of cap time you do regardless of how many people are on the point. You receive a small bonus of points for fully capping a point
Cap Hold - Once you cap a point, you will earn a small amount of points per five seconds or so until the point is neutralized.
Def Damage - You earn extra points for damage you do to an opponent capping a point. Extra points if you kill them
Assist Points - You earn extra points for indirectly helping an ally. is someone on your team damages an opponent you status-ed, you gain extra points based off a percentage of how much damage your ally does. If you get a death-mark, you receive a percentage of the excess damage cause from the deathmark. You also earn points for blocking damage with the guardian shield
Win/lose points - positive points for winning, negative points for loosing.
Your score is accumulated and then weighted based on the time of match to the average time of matches that week. So if your game last longer, you earn slightly less. if your game is shorter, you earn slightly more
Then finally, your score for the weekly score boards is averaged / weighted against the average number of games by everyone else and you must also play a certain minimum of games to qualify for both the weekly ranking and the weighted group avarage. That way, one can not simply "grind" their way to the top of the leaderbaords.
All these extra points would be presented in a similar manner as battlefield 3. A small notice would appear telling you how much points you just earned and why.
This would be amazing. If the specific values for each action could be figured out ( I dont even know what math you would use to balance it out) it would be a pretty accurate system. I highly doubt that it would ever even be considered though. Its so complicated...
PS. HIA Hungran and Weege! *bromon waves vigorously*
Sun, 07/22/2012 - 23:33
#21
Golf is for wrinkly old men.
Mon, 07/23/2012 - 10:36
#22
FALCON PUNCH!
Because If you can keep them dead long enough for you teammates to capture the points, Your in business.
Mon, 07/23/2012 - 12:38
#23
Any ranking system can be gamed
Nick once gave an interview where he said that if you give players the option of hitting something with a sword, that's what they'll do. And that applies to lockdown: fighting is active and competitive in a way that standing on a CP doesn't.
Obviously, I like winning, and I *really* like watching gunners run ineffectively in circles while I take their capture point out from under them. So I capture, and happily so. But most players, given a choice, gravitate to the striker class, because that's a more obvious and quantified way to be competitive.
Capture stats really aren't very informative anyway- "defends" actually refers to "kills that happen on a CP, and not a pixel farther away", which is a TERRIBLE way to measure how well you hold a CP. As for the captures stat... in a perfect match, everyone on my team would get 1 capture, vs 0 captures for our opponents. So while a 14-capture match is pretty exciting, it really means that your team did a crappy job of holding on to territory.
In summary: I don't endorse idiot striker syndrome. I've played against teams that lost despite outclassing us by 2x on damage, and I'd love to see better stats. Until that happens, I recommend that you watch the board and decide for yourself. Good players know how to spot other good players.
Mon, 07/23/2012 - 11:11
#24
how do u play LD?
Mon, 07/23/2012 - 12:05
#25
^ This guy's googling skills are amazing lol.
Mon, 07/23/2012 - 12:19
#26
A more accurate system
Captures and defends are all misleading as well. The current Captures stat is quite inaccurate, rather equivalent to Kills. If you are standing on a point when your team captures it, you are credited, even if you were there for only half a second. Defends are purportedly credited to anyone who makes a kill near/on a held point, and hence also misleading.
I actually think damage is not a bad stat to track, but time spent neutralizing, capturing and refilling a point should also be a stat. Likewise, instead of having defends be kills, have defends also as a time count. Specifically, time spent within a certain radius to a controlled point while an enemy is also in that radius; a multiplier is added for each additional enemy present (so if you were facing off three players, your defense count would increase at 3x the normal rate), as well as a fractional multiplier for each additional ally present (so if a fellow teammate joined you, both of you would receive 1.5x the normal rate).
These three stats I believe would accurately convey one's contribution during a match: either you are out there dealing damage, capturing points, or holding them. It would still fail to register the contributions of players that stall opponents on open ground, but perhaps a fourth stat similar to the revised defends could be use, called Combat Time; this stat would count up like defends, but any time you were within a certain radius to an opponent (again counting up faster or slower depending on additional enemies/allies present).
The same reason why COD players care about their K/D ratio even not playing a DM.
Having more damage than other try makes themselves better than the others of trying to prove they were the "soul" of the party.