[This group has been deleted]
I was watching this Rift game mode play and have a suggestion for a scoring change. I'd like to see a bonus applied to enemy kills while near the spark carrier, and a reduced reward for kills that happen away from the spark. This should be a buff for both teams, those defending the spark and those trying to get it to the rift. The buff should be largest for those protecting the carrier. Additionally, the players [b]score [/b]should be highlighted/shown after the game, with kills and deaths requiring players to change the page for additional information. Team based PvP game modes should focus on your impact to the teams performance first. In this game mode (particularly with the change I'd like to see) score will be a better indicator of you impact on team performance than K/D. If Bungie shows kills and deaths after a round that is lending focus to individual performance that isn't necessarily the best indicator of team impact (positive of negative). I believe the changes I suggest (or others) might help the game play significantly in at least a couple of areas, with other smaller benefits too. First, large benefit could be to keep the game-play centered around the core objective of the game. Second large benefit could be to help foster an environment of cooperation even among players that aren't playing as full teams.
Having the game more focused on the specific mode would obviously allow for greater differentiation, and I think this is the reason for Bungie offering this mode to begin with. I, for one, don't want to go into the Rift game mode just to feel like I'm playing TDM. I want something different. TDM already exsists if that's what a player wants. Even watching the video linked, there where moments where the game-play felt like TDM with new weapons a suppers, not a new game mode. The teams in the videos had every reason to play as team's versus lone wolves, but that wasn't always evident in the game play. If they (sitting directly next to each other and knowing the purpose of their being there) could devolve something less than a team dynamic I believe it would be even easier for the usual players, at home, to do so. I'd like to see some changes that help players understand the best way to play this mode, and highlight players impact on team performance.
I'm sure I'm not the only one that, in Destiny PvP, has watched heavy ammo be pulled by teammates who seemed to be serving themselves more than the team. Likewise, I'm sure I'm not the only one that has left a capture point in control to kill three nearby attackers only to see some teammate at the point cap it, and fail to fire a shot in the mean time. I really don't like taking a loss in a round of control when my team has more kills than the other team and I captured 6+ points with no one else capping more than 1. (Yes, I know the maps well enough I'm not capping the "wrong" points.) These situations can be a bit frustrating if you let them be. I imagine similar issues arising in the Rift game mode too. I can see, perhaps, teammates fighting me to grab the spark, or, if I grab it, simply running off leaving me to make a sad and lonely charge forward. Another possibility would be seeing teammates off attempting to spawn kill for K/D while I'm off trying to play the objective. This game mode, and it's spawns, seem to make spawn killing an easier thing to do. I'm fully expect spawn killing to be a thing in this game mode (if implemented as shown in the video). With 6v6 players versus the 5v5 shown, there will be even more opportunity for less focused game-play among teammates who aren't actually working together. Placing buffs and or debuffs to scoring and [b]focusing on score versus K/D [/b]might help rein in some of the less team based game-play we currently see in Destiny PvP buy incentivizing more team based game-play or deincentivizing some more selfish game-play.
[u]I'd really like to hear the community's thoughts on showing score versus K/D for the first page of the "after action report" in this, or perhaps other team based objective, game mode[/u]s. What would be the potential negatives of such a change? Do those outweigh the potential negatives. I"m not suggesting change to all. I'm asking for thoughts related to highlighting score over kills and deaths in objective based game-play. Also, it's not really punishment to those with high K/D or the most kills, they should still be able to do the most good for the team. It's just going to be more obvious if they aren't doing that. Also, TDM would still exists and in that mode K/D is the most important thing and is highlighted, as it should be.
Now a pre-edit, before someone decides to go way off topic and talk about my personal K/D versus the question at hand. I'm not saying K/D isn't important, it is. That said, I gave up caring about my K/D when I realized I could do very little more to improve it. Not that mine is good, it's not. It's just that my K/D is very much more affected by my connection to the game host than anything else. I honestly believe that any (random) game I play with little or no lag I have a good chance at at least a 2.5+. If a game is the (in my experience of 9 out 10 games) typical lag fest I can see a K/D of less than .5 and feel powerless to change it. I've got PS4s with a great SSDs. I'm directly wired into my modem (without NAT) which has fiber optic running straight into it. My connection is 1 Gbit/s (or 1000 Mbps) down / up. Although I live in Switzerland I have ping times to severs in the US faster than the majority of people living in the US. My TV and monitors are some of the best you can buy for low lag and good gaming performance. I have been tested for reflex times and shown that for sight, sound, and hearing I'm in the 99th percentile for humans (in general), and much, much, higher for people my age. No other game I play online be it on PC, Xbox, PlayStation, or anything else is even remotely as bad as Destiny PvP in terms of lag. Perhaps Battlefield 4 was a little less than half as bad at launch. I honestly feel I have one of the best setups for playing Destiny, and simply put, for me, PvP is great fun about 10% of the time; really, really great fun. 85% of the time, for me, PvP is a major downer and no fun at all. 5% of the time, for me, PvP makes me truly upset to the point wish I could bottle my frustration and use it to, I don't know, power Las Vegas for a couple of years. I find it hard to improve my PvP K/D when the majority of the time I don't know if a single arc blade will kill a enemy or if I can hit them 5 times with an arc blade and have them them live to see their teammate kill me with a melee from what appears to be halfway across the map moments later. If you don't have this experience, I'm truly happy for you and you should be thankful. If , like me, you have this experience, I can empathize and wish I could change it for us both. Unless it changes for me, I am happier letting go of caring about my K/D.
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Edited by insecurerat: 9/1/2015 9:05:01 PMSorry to say but, get used to it. It's gonna happen. Edit: probably not the k/d listing though.