Why track negative stats?

I'm curious as to why ANet decided it was a brilliant idea to track deaths in GW. To my knowledge there is not a "/pvpkills" or "/pvekills" command to show how many kills you have in relation to deaths, so why track them? It doesn't even separate the PvE and PvP deaths. It's almost like saying "This is how many times you've failed" without cause.

I've been against tracking of this stat since the release of the game, because it serves no purpose without something to compare it to. If they had tracking of your kills to compare it to, it wouldn't be a bad thing. You could get ratios for your kills to deaths and such, and rank yourself with your friends or enemies. Still, all you can compare is the number of times you have died, which doesn't say much because an older character will probably have died more than a newer one.

So what is the point in tracking such a negative stat? I mean if there's a "/kills" or something to show your kills alongside it, then I have no problem with it, but it seems like a waste of 4kb in a pfile or an SQL database to me. That's 4kb per character. Think of how many megabytes or even gigabytes are wasted on this variable that does absolutely nothing. Seems like a waste.

Survivor title I'm guessing.

Although I'm not sure if they instituted this command before or after they did the title.

Other than the survivor title, I don't know. Kind of like EXP points, with the exception of skill point awards, it is rather meaningless once you reach lvl 20.

There you go, XP/Deaths. Use that for your PvE ratio. XP is going to be better than kills anyway since it washes out all the low level kills you may gain long after you are level 20 and rewards you for big xp quests and the like.

This ratio is still useless, but it might make you feel better




.

This was in the game LONG before titles. This was from the core itself, so I don't think it deals with titles. If it does, that effectively makes it impossible for older players to attain certain titles.

What do you mean by "kind of like exp points"? You don't gain anything from deaths as far as I know.

*EDIT*

Just read the info on the survivor title, and that sucks. I have four original characters from a time before titles, all have died somewhere along the way, and now none even have a chance at the title. That's piss-poor design.

Well let's not turn this into another "my char can't get survivor QQ" thread.

I'm guessing it's because some people like to keep track of their deaths. I know I kind of like to keep track of them.

And you can compare, /age and /deaths.

If you both have, for example, a 3 month old character, you can compare deaths! Woohoo. Even when they're not of the same month you can compare by calculating stuff.

I definitely hear what you're saying. It's just a random personal stat that they threw in for people to look at and feel a little more in the know with their character. However, I really really really like the idea of a /kills counter

mathematicallly speaking, if:

You have 1 mil XP
/death = 0

=> congrats you just maxed another title.

Simple enough?

You are correct.
Tracking deaths was a largely meaningless waste of data that served no useful purpose prior to the survivor title. Perhaps it was a "just for fun" statistic that they eventually implemented a use for.

Well they should have planned better in that when they added this title, they should have reset player deaths or allowed players with deaths to earn the title as long as their deaths didn't increase or set it up so that the exp counter gets reset each time a player dies so that everybody has a chance. Thing is, they simply added this title without using common-sense. Older players will not delete and recreate their characters just to earn a title, and it is like a thorn in your side since you might be able to earn it, but now cannot due to bad coding. That's another topic though.

I don't consider the death-count "just for fun" unless I have something to compare it to. Comparing it to months is pointless and proves nothing. Comparing ti to your number of kills however, does provide meaningful data. For example, if you had 100 kills and 10 deaths, you'd know you're on about a ten-to-one ratio for kills, which is great.

I have viewed this stat as something pessimistic since the release of the game. I mean in what light can your number of deaths be viewed as helpful if you've got nothing to compare it to? If they've wasted 4kb (8kb if it's a 64bit var) for storing your failures, why not waste another 4kb on your victories? It's like they want to depress you or something. I'd rather see it removed or have a kills counter added, but if they add the kills counter they need to reset all deaths or the ratio will never be right for players with a thousand deaths already. Either way, it irritates me as a programmer because it is being wasted, as a gamer because it is a reminder of failures with no reminder of victories, and as a person because it seems pessimistic.

This is also something unique to GW, as most other MMOs track successes, not failures. The few that do count losses also count victories, such as WoW. That's why I can't understand why GW only counts your losses.

/death is as old as the game itself I think.

I don't think a kills counter would be especially meaningful outside of PvP, since it's easier than experience to farm. It would be another meaningless statistic like deaths purely for entertainment. This is just a game; I don't think there is any deep meaning behind the counter.

Many people have compared the /deaths to /age for a deaths per hour figure.

The Deaths is a great stat. My toon has died over 12,000 times and I am only lvl 17. Going for the LDoA title.

And about the game and the deaths things and the survivor title the game is on EVEN lvl with everyone else. Just pay the 10 bucks and get an extra toon and get the survivor. I did. It is good for the game.

DO you remember that they are going to make the titles ACCOUNT BASED? that means that all titles will transfer to GW2. so there is no need to say anything that you can not get the title to do anything cause they did not reset the old deaths. I believe this is a direct result of the LDoA title and the Survivor title being mutually exclusive.

It will bre great. By the way, my Survivor has over 4 Million XP and no deaths so far. I kill Snow Wurms for farming. Woot. I wonder if there will be a surper survivor or a special gift for me if I can get 1 Billion Xp without a death? think so???

No no. They did not say anything about titles being account made. Atleast, not all of them, maybe a select few.

EDIT: Sorry, I can't read. Reopened, sorry.

If you had a /kills how would you figure that? Like I play a monk, and I have not killed as many bad guys like a warrior would do. So do you figure that a kill counts for everyone in a team? Or is it whoever gets the last hit in? What if I get a monster down to 1hp and some ele shoots a fireball at it and takes it out? Does he get the kill or do I get the kill or do we both get the kill or does the whole team get the kill, even tho they are attacking other people? What about NPC kills? Do they count for your total or do you just get a kill stolen, kinda like when the ghostly kills the ghostly in HoH, you don't get the morale boost.

Get it by playing the game, and not farming the same easy area, then maybe come back and suggest it.

" Get it by playing the game, and not farming the same easy area, then maybe come back and suggest it." said Anduin.

Is it not good to have no deaths? I don't want to die! I got this far. I died on 2 other toons that I had to delete cause they died before lvl 3 of the title. What is wrong with killing the Snow Wurms? I get lockpicks and Golds and goodies during events. IS that not what this game is about? I have taken many weeks perfecting my build to kill snow wurms in Hard mode. I even ran my main toon all the way through GW:EN so that I could get at Hard Mode. I gave away my end game weapon to someone in Ascalon as a fun thing to do. Was this bad?

I am sorry if I offended someone but grinding on Snow wurms in post or killing bears for ale in pre is what I enjoy the best. Just me and my sword.

Stc95:

You bring up some good points, but this isn't WoW. Just like XP is shared while in the world, so should kills be shared. If your team kills a mob, everybody on the team gets a kill added. Likewise, if your entire team is split, each player fighting one mob, say eight on eight, assuming everything goes well, the entire team would get eight kills added because all eight were working as a team, even if they weren't working on a single mob.

If you want to know how to figure out your ratio, you divide your kills by your deaths. For example, let's assume I had 1278 kills and 244 deaths.

1278 / 244 == 5.237

Therefore, my kill ratio is 5.237 to 1. Not good, considering I am actually much better than that! Still, give me something to put the deaths into a good light with. Right now all I can view it as is something that logs my failures, since I am not a title-monger.

Everyone has there own approach to the game and what they think is important. You seem to think (but I could be wrong) that the number of deaths and kills you have are important. Others, like myself, just like exploring the PvE world, doing quests and stuff, and have no interest in either my deaths or my kills. Others are somewhere in between. I have noticed that some people seem to get unreasonably upset if they die, but whatever floats yer boat, I guess.

I don't know why they track deaths and not kills, and I don't really care why either.

Exactly, exploring the world is fun, and you're bound to die, but why only log that? I mean why not also log the number of bosses you killed or something? All a person has to look back on right now is how many times he or she died, since nothing else gets logged. That seems depressing, that's all. It's not that I mind having my deaths logged, but I would like my kills logged as well.

You see, logging only deaths puts pressure on some not to die. I too have felt this pressure with new characters. I imagine a perfectionist would have even more problems with it due to it being a "bad" thing. Then again, a masochist might love the deaths thing, but most of us aren't like that!

Logging deaths makes me want to die. Either way its all pointless data.

The only "pressure" is if your going for survivor. If not, why does it matter how many times you've died?

You can open your inventory or titles to look back on what you've accomplished. Those would be considered your "kills" since not all classes are designed to be damage dealers. These things don't need to be in /emote form!

Don't give yourself a complex over something so trivial.

yeah... what's the fuss ?

/death is just a utility to track death, usually for those going for survivor title that suddenly got frozen game during fighting, and wanna check whether they are still in the track after coming back. also for those who wants to know how many times he died so far.

if u dont like it, dont use it......

Well one could easily argue that if it's so lightly taken, where's /kills? It's a pessimistic thing, with no optimistic counterpart. That's the big thing. It is there solely to track failure, where most other games ignore failure and focus on achievements. Armor and weapons are not achievements as they can be bought or found almost anywhere. If you track the bad side, why not the good side? I'd much rather see my frag count than my death count!

Then my advice is do not type /deaths and your situation is solved.

I think you are experiencing extreme tunnel vision. You ask "Why only track deaths?", but you are neglecting things like XP points, faction points, /age, all the various titles, etc., which track quite a number of things besides just deaths. True, "kills" are not tracked, but that doesn't mean that deaths are the only thing that is - and out of all those various tracked stats, only Deaths and Unlucky could be considered negative. Cheer up!

Well you do not even need to use the /deaths to see if the survivor title is still progressing. If you kill something and get xp and your xp in the title goes up then you have not died. If you kill something and your xp in your title does not move and your xp in xp (if that makes sence) goes up then you have died and can no longer progress in the title. easy peezy
So just ignore that such a thing as /deaths exists and get out there and kill something!

See that's just it, none of it is a direct counterpart. You can't get a ratio off of any one of them. It's like comparing a jumbo-jet to a child's bicycle. Sure, they both get you from point A to point B, but they're totally different! Experience relates to kills, but it isn't kills. For example, if you kill five monsters for 100xp each, and die once, you get a 500:1 ratio, not the real 5:1 ratio. If every kill gave you exactly 100xp it would be easy to figure out, but experience can range from 1 to 500, so how would you get the true kill count?

They should rename /death to /resurrection

Then it would be a counter to see how many times the gods hath smiled upon thee, granting you another chance in this mortal coil.

/deaths is a valuable tool that lets you evaluate how well you play the different classes, how survivable those classes are and similar.

And it's a nice bit of trivia

This isn't a FPS. There are no K/D ratios.

If /kills would somehow every be implimented, how would you make it fair for monks?

Make it fair for monks?! More like, make it fair for the rest! My monk probably has ten times the kills of the average other classes of his age! He's been a 55 smiter since the beginning, lol!

Seriously though, it isn't a valuable tool if it's just a number. So you died ten times as an elementalist and only twice as a warrior. Well with the warrior you got twenty kills but with the elementalist you got a two-hundred. The elementalist now has a much higher ratio, but judging solely by kills, your warrior is superior. Get the idea?

It still wouldn't be that great to compare it to the number of kills, you could have spent hours just killing low level enemies while another could have been going against high level ones.

The 'fairest' stat to compare it to would be experience

And, of course, if you tracked kills, some people would just spend all day killing hordes of low-level monsters just to jack up their stats. Which would be more meaningful - killing 200 lvl20 monsters in NM, or killing 20 lvl30 bosses in HM?

And, since you can gain experience from completing quests, dungeons, etc., basing any sort of K/D ratio on experience would also be un-usable.

And who gets the credit for the kill? The guy who did the final attack/spell? Everyone who attacked? Everyone in the party, including any leachers/AFKers?

Why track negative stats? The real question is why not? It doesn't matter at all, no one can see it except you, and you never see it if you don't type /deaths . The world doesn't need to be all smiles and rainbows where you are never shown something where you didn't succeed.

the /deaths is a useless as the /age if you look at it. My otoon is just upon its bd. 11 months but when is the 12th month. what is the date of the bd? fo I have to wait till the end of the monk to get my mini pet? WHen. Everyday i log on and check is today the day? I have no idea because I never wrote it down.

Now there is a though. If you want to know how many baddies that you killed, write it down on a sheet of paper my your computer. Or get one of those large calculators. Then with every death just press the +1 and you will know just how many you killed. or keep track for every hour that you killed something. Or play in hard mode. There is a kills counter at the top of the screen. Just before you leave the area tap that number into the calculator. Can't expect ANET to do everything for you now can you. They work hard at giving updates. Does your other FREE games do that? By Free I mean that they let you use their servers for free once you buy the game. They update it for free. The even let you have a storage thing for free. There is no charge for storage. I know that there are a lot of places around where I live that if you want to store something in it that you have to pay real money for it. I think that it was like 20 bucks a month or something like that. I think that it was my fishing stuff that I had gotten from my father before they moved out west for the job that he had. He moved to the north for a while where it was very cold and they were wearing caraboo. Interesting stuff that. The old women with no teeth they would chew the hides into leather so that they could be fashioned into boots or coats that they would were in the winter time. In the spring time they would go to the rivers and hunt for the gold. They needed to get a permit to do it. My father had a minig rights permit but there were too many black Bears that would try and eat them. The food from the camp would draw them in. They got some of the gold but he still has his claim. Someday I should go up there and do some gold mining in the rivers of the north. There was a story of the big mining company there that would drudge the river and shake the rocks into the hopper. This one prospector asked if he could walk behind the drudger to look at the stones that the drudger deemed were to big to be nuggets. He found a 2 pound. Yes 2 pound nugget worth quite a sum of funds. Now you can not walk behind the drudger. there is someone that does that for the company now. You have to change your cloths if you work there too. they do not want you to hide stuff in your cloths cause it is gold and worth money and stuff. But the water is really nice and clean there. They are running out of the water though because of all of the oil mining that is going on there now. You see that they take the fresh water and they pump it into the wells. That then causes the oil in the wells to come to the surface and then they just pluck the stuff off of the top of it. That is worth a lot of gold to like the Beverly Hill Hillbillie tv show that was black and white from some time ago. I remember that show cause I am old. I am not as old as my grandfather though as you could guess cause he is grand and I am not so much. he used to do an oil change on his 1928 Ford He loved that car. I love my car too so we are the same there. They both have 4 sheels and they go pretty goood but mine is faster than the 1928 roadster that he had. It is all rusted now like my car. They put a lot of salt on the roads now and I think that they sold all of the snow plows which is of no use in china. That is where the games start in just a few days. Tomorrow i think is the start of that. Fun and games which brings me back to this post. ITS A GAME.

You bring up a good point, but that's a simple fix like they did in WoW. Only monsters that grant experience count towards your kills. Problem fixed. Then you've got a fair ratio.