So I went on the Brink blog after a good while, and noticed the interview about leader boards, K/D etc. Anyways, leader boards are a KILLER for competitive play imho, and one of the reasons why I'm so interested in this game is to see how competitive play might roll out. A good call would be to look at VALVe. Team Fortress 2, for example, doesn't use anything like leaderboards, and it has the GREATEST competitive community I've seen in a looong time (I play competitive Medic myself). Brink has already been up on Steam for a while, so it wouldn't be a bad idea to post something like stats on Steam too.
So it could be some thing like
Time played Heavy/Medium/Light
Most kills Heavy/Medium Light
Most assists Heavy/Medium Light
Weapon stats~ Etc
tl;dr
Use TF2 stats type thing to help keep competitive game play alive.

There are no persistent leaderboards to ensure that people can't obsess over certain stats like KDR. I would like to see stats, but no leaderboards and these stats need to be related to teamplay, helping the team and completing objectives.

True! Maybe something like
Points from kills:
Objective points:
Combined:

Or rather have it monthly, I kind of like that idea.

Richard Ham has just said no to persistent stats in general, because it leads to whoring, instead of people just focusing on teamplay as intended.

At one point they considered just a win%, since then you would focus on helping your team win rather than personal stats, but it would just lead to team switching and rage quits.

I'm sure people could come up with stats that don't seem like they would cause any problems, but they just don't want to put any in.

Just time played stats and perhaps numbers.
- # of revives
- Time played as medic.
- Time spent dead

Just examples ^^

Wouldnt time spent dead increase camping?

Now you say it. Well, I don't really care if there are leaderboards or not. I was trying to look for counterarguments.

I agree any type of stats or leaderboard and such wreck a game by people farming/whoring them. Just do tournaments for competitive. And if they DO stats at all, have them reset monthly. I know on gunz my KDR svcks since my same character I used most recent is same I used my first day of gunz, so you can imagine it being hard to deal with people judging you. Also, stats make people judge you before you even play, such as on APB people would lower their TL by losing matches on purpose to get an edge over enemy.

Yeah cause we all know that people would be whoring the time spent dead stat :unsure:

No, they would be focusing on staying alive to keep that number low, instead of taking risks for the team.

To have truly "effective" leaderboards, that do not interfere with what players should be be doing on the battlefield, the stats would need to be things that make players want take chances and win games. This is really tricky to do, since players can find a way to exploit even the most positively reinforced stat.

- Time played as class (Soldier, Engineer, Medic, Operative)
- Objectives destroyed (also hacked, built, repaired)
- Objectives escorted (vehicles and NPC's)
- Total Objectives completed
- Favorite Weapon
- Favorite class
- Favorite Ability
- Time played


I can see them as being "effective" stats.

So just mix TF2 and BC2 together and you get that stat system. i find it odd the devolpers need to go through so much trouble so the majority of players wont focus on there stats and instead actually using teamwork and having fun. i find stats make it more of a chore then fun in most cases.

I think 'Stats' is a dirty word
It implies k/d, whoring...
Simply something like your tendencies, time played as classes, favorite guns, favorite abilities, character customization builds, goals you tend to go after etc. This means that whoring just looks bad in general, and it allows players to look at someone profile and see their play style, and even adapt as such. This also lets players find good partners to play with, maybe even get some teams, scrims etc together. The big thing is that stats (or the lack thereof) can make or break competitive play.

True but having to make it so people wond k/d [censored] make me question gamers of today, COD really did some damage.

This could easily cause the opposite problem of K/D though, people running into an objective point without backup, constantly trying to ninja plant; or trying to do an objective, when someone has a skill that allows them to do it faster. Someone who keeps dying trying to get another stat point is just as bad as someone who focuses on kills and staying alive over teamwork.

But trying to plant objectives is not nearly as appealing to simply killing players, at least not to most people. Having the importance of something that's easy to do (kill players) reinforced by a stat (k/d ratio) is not nearly as detrimental as having the importance of something that players may feel reluctant to do from the start and something that requires teamwork (objectives) reinforced with a stat.

Most people by default, don't enjoy dying, stats or no stats. Having a stat that displays how many objectives they completed, isn't going to change that. The majority of players are still going to play smart.

Besides, when I made that list, I wasn't talking about global leaderboards. I was referring to personal stats or leaderboards among friends.

It could at least lead to people quitting or team switching like a win% would. "I'm not going to be able to get a defuse this game, I'm leaving"

Even without global leaderboards, players can use their stats to make their own leaderboards (I believe this was the case with Halo 3) and even if they didn't stats still lead to whoring because http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuYeHPFR3f0

Yeah, people still do stat whoring when games are ranked by other things, like experience. Clans focus on it too much, basing recruitment on stats rather than tryouts. Players focus on it too much, thinking of it as a rating of skill.

With that logic, this discussion would just go in circles, because even if there were no stats to be seen at all, there are people that would still play like there were stats, or people who keep their own.

No amount of stats or lack of, is going to keep players from whoring - they're gonna do what they're gonna do regardless, just like I expect players (at least on XBL) to treat every match like a TDM, regardless of everything SD is doing to prevent it.



I remember in my clan days, I had to go through tryouts. Either that, or I would be playing with members of a clan, who would ask if I wanted to join based on my performance they just witnessed. Of course, this was for RTCW and W:ET - games that had no stats/leaderboards.

I don't think anyone in the world is so hardcoe that they track their own stats. But if there is anyone out there who does, hats off, your pretty damn hardcoe.

I wasn't referring to players who mark down every kill on a napkin while they play. I was talking about players who keep stats in their head, on more of a per-match basis (specifically, K/D)

that or server owners on the PC if certain people who regularly play on their servers ask for it add some sort of stat-tracking feature for their servers. happened a lot in tf2 since their stats didn't include such things.

The easiest solution is what SD is already doing. Do away with stats completely. Everyone here is posing arguments and counter-arguments for everything everyone else is saying. Instead of even having to debate it, just don't put them in the game. It may irritate some people but it's better than having a stat that can be obsessed over.

I would like to see a few stats, things that have nothing to do with skill or player ability.

-Time spent playing each class
-Highest distance you fell from
-Time spent near objectives
-Distance traveled
-Number of times you switched classes in-game

And then you can have class specifics like Turrets laid down, revives, interrogations, etc.

I dont think there should be a time spent playing stat. It would defeat the purpose of these stats. The point of the ones i listed is that you can't base them off skill because you don't know how many games this player played or what their in-game time is. And these wouldn't be on a leaderboard, I'm against leaderboards for the most part. They would just be personal stats. The only leaderboard I can see working in this game is for the challenges. Who completed it the fastest or most effectively. Cus isn't that the point of a challenge?