Modern Warfare 2

[KhyronTheBackstabber]

I've always found the cries about campers not playing the game hilarious, especially since I play Ground War Domination primarily.

So when I'm a sniper I'm supposed to run about willy-nilly when my rifle sucks at close range or I'm not supposed to protect my objective when given predictable avenues of approach? I wish I'd have known that in BCT, then I could tell my Drill Sergeants to not worry about defensive positions when defending an objective (like a downed battlebuddy whom you're calling a Medevac for), just run around and kill them.

My normal response to crybabies like that on my team is
"Stop whining, ya big baby.
It's called defense. If you morons understood that concept,
we wouldn't be losing right now."

There are a lot of people out there who have no clue how to play Domination,
and for some reason, 8 out of 10 times, the computer puts me on their team.

[CaptHawkeye]

AS for knives, when I brought up the issue that a 7.62x51mm M240B does the same damage as an MG4 (5.56x45) and less than an L86 LSW (Another 5.56 NATO) I was told it's 'Modern Warfare' not 'Realistic Warfare', it's supposed to be cinematic and ignore verisimilitude when that conflicts with what's cool.

Fuck them. I'm so fed up with that bullshit defensive move. "Oh hurf hurf we're not making a sim so we can skip any detail we want lolololol retail price $60".

[Ritterin Sophia]

My normal response to crybabies like that on my team is
"Stop whining, ya big baby.
It's called defense. If you morons understood that concept,
we wouldn't be losing right now."

Seriously, every time it happens I do this and they keep hurling themselves through a chokepoint one after the other, you know rather than fortifying the other side and turning the tables.

[Ryan Thunder]

AS for knives, when I brought up the issue that a 7.62x51mm M240B does the same damage as an MG4 (5.56x45) and less than an L86 LSW (Another 5.56 NATO) I was told it's 'Modern Warfare' not 'Realistic Warfare', it's supposed to be cinematic and ignore verisimilitude when that conflicts with what's cool.

"Running around and knifing people" being a viable tactic is never cool.

[Jade Falcon]

It's a TERRIBLE way of measuring performance ANYWHERE but in free-for-all deathmatch. Any team-based game is going to be fucked up by people wanting to manage K/D stats, because sometimes helping the team means you die without getting a pile of kills.

There aren't many times I agree with Stark, but this is one. I like helping the team in deathmatch. Examples being Wasteland and Terminal, I will often go the Riot Shield guy to help the team because those two maps are pretty much geared for that, especially Wasteland with that bunker in the middle. I often get killed, but in the process help the rest of the team by drawing fire and allowing them to shelter behind me and pick off the other team. Ditto with carrying a stinger because I want to be able to take down enemy air assets that come in.

[Singer]

I think Team Fortress 2 had a good method for dealing with K/D obsessed team mates: it put emphasis on a point system instead. For example, you could be a Medic or an Engineer without having to worry about your stats sucking, because the stats were given based on a points system for doing certain things rather than a strict K/D measurement. You also got points for achieving objectives like flag captures, etc. When you hit the Tab key (or whatever console scoreboard button equivalent), you saw that players were ranked based off those points, not their kills.

I would love MW2 and other shooters way better if they started using a TF2 style point system to measure the performance of players.

[Stark]

Yeah, WiC did a similar thing, which tracked your 'score' in different roles, 'score' being a combination of kills, caps, forting, repairing, TA, etc. It greatly changed the focus (you can get best player just repairing, forting and air-striking) but in there is ALSO the unit kill/death ratio. In a game like WiC it's damn near fucking meaningless (since units have different strengths and roles, an arty player well-covered will have a good ratio, a frontline armour player will often have a quite poor ratio) but people still focused on it. Often top score player would be support (or me forting everything with trucks), but people would still brag about their K/D.

It's sad that people focus on it when there are better stats around, because I don't think it should be hidden. People should just be mature enough to ... oh wait, online games.

[Artemas]

They do. In MW2, you gain points for all sorts of things, and the "winning" players are ordered by how many points they have, not how many kills.

Not sure if this is the case with MW2, but in COD4 the number of points you gained from killing people varied from mode to mode.

It doesn't help that most of the gameplay for MW2 inhibits public players from working as a team.

EDIT: To singer.

[Stark]

Yeah, but as in WiC the focus is heavily on K/D anyway. Your profile screen gives a great prominence to K/D, and 'stat whores' are all about that shit.

Which is pretty funny since anyone can just go knife ninja and stats-pad, but nobody said they were smart.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Yeah, but as in WiC the focus is heavily on K/D anyway. Your profile screen gives a great prominence to K/D, and 'stat whores' are all about that shit.

Which is pretty funny since anyone can just go knife ninja and stats-pad, but nobody said they were smart.

IIRC WiC didn't even show K/D unless you logged onto massgate.com to look at your profile.

[Stark]

It was on the profile stat screen in the game too, but no great emphasis was placed on it (it's a 'generic' stat, doesn't even get a heading). In MW2 K/D is one of the few stats that's on almost every screen (even the whee look at your playtime screen right at the start).

[CaptHawkeye]

It's utterly bizarre to me that non-DM deathmodes prominently display the K/D ratio at the end of the match anyway. I think K/D shouldn't be displayed anywhere except obscure stat websites. Since all it does is encourage the most sickening manner of scoring possible.

It still makes me fucking sad that most games give a player 90% of the credit for a kill as long as he landed the finishing blow. Does it matter if someone else did 98% of the damage? No, he gets a nice little +10 kill assist score. While the other guy gets 50 points for profiting off the work I did? Fuck off.

[Edward Yee]

There are a lot of people out there who have no clue how to play Domination,
and for some reason, 8 out of 10 times, the computer puts me on their team.

That's why matchmaking < dedicated servers; I have this happen too. And yeah, the points from kills varies between modes; I believe it's 100 (and thus 100 points for your team) per kill in the deathmatch modes or Search and Destroy with respawning off, but in objective matches it's only +50 points for a kill. I guess a system to determine and give points based on the "meaningfulness" of a kill in objective matches* needed more work than IW was willing to do beyond just killing an attacker/defender in Domination.

I do like the MAG system where you get more XP for a revive than for a kill, and double XP for doing so within the vicinity of an objective.

* For example, more points for killing the enemy flag carrier, or for killing someone attacking your team's flag carrier (like the rescue bonus but even more), or a particularly well-timed kill that allowed your team to maximum their time holding the three capture points or the headquarters.

[[R_H]]

It's utterly bizarre to me that non-DM deathmodes prominently display the K/D ratio at the end of the match anyway. I think K/D shouldn't be displayed anywhere except obscure stat websites. Since all it does is encourage the most sickening manner of scoring possible.

And in a non-DM game mod, the K/D ratio isn't all too important anyways. I played Domination earlier today, my K/D ratio was 1 or lower, but during Team DM it was at least 1.5. Does MW2 display stats like control points (whatever they're called) captured/defended after a Domination game?

[weemadando]

It's utterly bizarre to me that non-DM deathmodes prominently display the K/D ratio at the end of the match anyway. I think K/D shouldn't be displayed anywhere except obscure stat websites. Since all it does is encourage the most sickening manner of scoring possible.

And in a non-DM game mod, the K/D ratio isn't all too important anyways. I played Domination earlier today, my K/D ratio was 1 or lower, but during Team DM it was at least 1.5. Does MW2 display stats like control points (whatever they're called) captured/defended after a Domination game?

No silly head, why on earth would IW want people to put any stock in actually completing an objective rather than just stabby stabby stabbying?

[[R_H]]

No silly head, why on earth would IW want people to put any stock in actually completing an objective rather than just stabby stabby stabbying?

Stabby Stabby earns you way less points though in objective-based game modes. Something that some players have failed to notice.

[Edward Yee]

You get more EXP, but no, at the end of the match the leaderboard shows kills, deaths, and kill-assists, with your personal points coming from the kills and kill-assists, even though you get a lot more EXP from fulfilling/defending objectives, plus in certain modes a bonus if the kill was of a defender or an attacker.

For comparison, just played the PS3 Bad Company 2 demo, and it gives slightly more for "squad critical" kill-assists, i.e. killing a guy who's near an objective. (Dunno if this is squad's-objective dependent as in MAG, or match-objective.)

I will say though that the kind of Stabby Stabby is pretty important in MW2 -- if he's just trying to artificially keep his official kill/death ratio lopsided, screw him, but if he's just that good, you want him. (In fairness, a legit reason to avoid dying is that the next kill may = killstreak, which may be more helpful than your immediately defending the objective, especially if it can be easily taken back.)

P.S. Re: BC2 beta, I ended up quitting after it seems that the matchmaking from using "Play Now" doesn't change the composition of the teams, so if your team sucked as attackers? You're stuck with them as defenders. If they suck at both... you're screwed.

[KhyronTheBackstabber]

Actually, in Domination, and HQ, the points you get for taking and/or destroying the objective go into your score. Many times I've taken first place, and the guy in second place had quite a few more kills then me.

[[R_H]]

I will say though that the kind of Stabby Stabby is pretty important in MW2 -- if he's just trying to artificially keep his official kill/death ratio lopsided, screw him, but if he's just that good, you want him. (In fairness, a legit reason to avoid dying is that the next kill may = killstreak, which may be more helpful than your immediately defending the objective, especially if it can be easily taken back.)

I see what you mean. The problem is if it's a matchmade game, you may not know how good the others are, unless of course it's someone you know or who's been playing on the same server/host for a couple of games.

[Edward Yee]

Awesome re: Domination/HQ getting your objective-completions into the score. I have mixed feelings though about K/D ratio. And yeah, [R_H], pretty much -- not to mention that the matchmaking seems rather inconsistent about how it adjusts the teams.

K/D ratio on a guy's profile is meaningless, but I find that a guy who tends towards a high K/D ratio within a match are just that much better, since they're calling in kill streaks or otherwise helping their team by consistently being able to get kills when they matter (i.e. near objectives to force respawns out of position). Could just be the guys I'm getting matched with.

The lack of ability to jump teams also sucks.