It has come to my attention that people in the Halo community have taken to using K/D as a measurement of skill. While K/D might be a fun stat to look at, it is not in any way an indicator of skill. I am currently level 130, with over 145 hours played in War Games. I was a complete Halo 3 junkie that got to level 46, but never played Reach for more than a few hours. My slayer K/D in Halo 4 is 1.21, and my overall K/D is 1.13. You might say that’s not impressive, but the surprising thing is that I am actually a very, very good player, not that I expect you to simply take my word for that. Instead, let me just explain why K/D does not accurately reflect a player’s skill.
In this topic, I’ll only be discussing Slayer K/D, and why even that is not representative of skill. Objective gametypes are such an obviously flawed and moot point in terms of K/D that it is not even worth covering. Let me also remind everyone that with Team Slayer Pro gone, all that is left for determining Slayer K/D is Infinity Slayer, Big Team Slayer, and SWAT. I don’t think I have to even mention the problems with these gametypes in determining “skill”, but I will anyways, in case people failed to notice.
Slayer K/D can be padded by camping and camo sniping, which often leaves your team with little or no backup. People who are obsessed with K/d will often stay out of high-traffic areas and avoid helping out their teammates when they are under fire. A common k/d spread for a k/d padder would be something like 10 and 2 with 1 assist. I often times get K/Ds like 25 and 15 with 10 assists, which puts my K/D at that game at 1.67, whereas the K/D padder will get 5, even though he contributed much less to the game. I personally don’t care about K/D, but it bothers me that people still think that such a thing represents skill. Players like to single out other players for this kind of thing and boast a higher K/D, belittling others because of a largely irrelevant ratio, encouraging others to only pad their K/D in a similar manner so that they can belittle others like they have been belittled in the past. Since only overall K/D is shown in the service record (unless you want to dig for it online) this unwanted purposeful tunnel-vision often seeps into objective playlists.
As a level 130, one thing I have noticed is that the more you play, complete challenges, and master commendations, the lower your K/D gets. Here’s a few reasons why.
-Lag issues: they simply break multiplayer at points. If host is not you, then you are at an immediate disadvantage if connections start going haywire.
-SWAT, instant respawns, and bad spawnpoints: all of these make it easy to go -15 in a game on Complex due to the fact that you are spawned according to distance, not field of view. AS such, players camping on rooftops will be able to DMR snipe you the second you spawn. This has happened to me on numerous accounts. SWAT is probably the sole reason my K/D is in the state it is in now. Shoddy hit detection, host hitscan priority and limiting myself to a pistol for commendations, even on complex, did no favors for my slayer K/D.
-Team coordination: If you’re not playing with friends, then it’s likely that your team will not have it. It is also likely that the enemy team will be communicating and backing eachother up. This isn’t something you can control, as players are matched randomly. If you’re being teamshotted by DMR’s and your partners are busy cloak-crouching around corners with boltshots so they can pad their K/D, then you’re sh** out of luck.
-Ordinance: It is present in the two most populated playlists, and can determine your K/d by a factor as much as 15. If you get grenades/needler/speedboost as an ordinance four times in one match, while the enemy team gets incineration cannon, binary rifle, damage boost DMR, etc., then there is very, very, very little you can do to compensate for the imbalance.
-Commendations: these encourage players to try new weapons and different loadouts after mastering one. I have currently mastered the Shotgun, Pistol, Battle Rifle, DMR, Energy Sword, Plasma Grenade and Frag Grenade. Right now, I use a carbine, which is less advantageous than the all-purpose bullet-magnetising DMR that has double the aim assist. I personally like the carbine as it is more skill demanding, but I feel I am robbed of a lot of headshots that I would have gotten with a BR or DMR. It’s certainly a taxing weapon to learn to use, as it actually requires skillful target tracking, and is practically useless at long ranges. Soon enough I’ll be using the Light Rifle, which is considerably less effective at close ranges than any other primary loadout weapon, and is still less effective than the DMR at long ranges.
-Trueskill matchmaking: It exists in multiplayer, although it is not a visible ranking. Players are paired against other players with a similar degree of skill, balancing that player’s K/D closer and closer to 1.0 the longer they play. If you don’t believe this, try bringing in multiple friends who are either wholly more or less skilled than you are, and you will find yourself unevenly matched against players that were selected to the party’s average trueskill.
This has been a Public Service Announce to explain why K/D does not represent skill. If you agree or disagree, please post why, I’m curious to hear your thoughts.