Is the Killboard Hurting RvR?

[kpihuss]

I think the Killboard was created with a good intention and, at its core, it is still a useful tool.

Being able to check statistics, see what is happening in RvR, analyse fights, compositions, character performance, or simply have a record of server activity can provide useful information to players.

The problem, in my opinion, is not the Killboard itself, but the incentives it creates and the way part of the community ends up using it.

I am speaking here mainly as a casual player. I am not a hardcore player, nor do I have any particular interest in competing for a place in the Top 10. However, I have been playing RoR for long enough to consider myself a veteran, and I have seen many different stages of the server and its campaign over the years.

Also, this opinion does not come only from my own perception.

Over the last few months I have talked about this subject with both casual players and much more hardcore players, including people who have actually been in the Killboard Top 10.

And some of the answers were quite revealing.

I have heard directly from players competing for those positions that they would rather spend five hours camping a Warcamp than participate in a siege, simply because they could get far more kills that way and maintain their position in the Top 10.

And I think that is where we have a problem.

Not because those players are doing anything illegal, and not because they are somehow playing the game "wrong".

They are simply using the tools and systems the game provides and pursuing the objective they personally find enjoyable.

The problem is that this individual objective can come into conflict with the overall objective of the campaign.

In certain situations, some of the strongest groups and guilds on the server can spend hours in the same area purely looking for kills while the campaign barely progresses.

And when we are talking about organised groups and very skilled players, their impact on a zone can be enormous.

They can block a Warcamp exit for a very long time, control certain routes, or simply turn part of the zone into a constant kill farm.

From the Killboard's point of view, this can be extremely profitable.

From the campaign's point of view, perhaps not so much.

That is why I wonder whether the Killboard is unintentionally creating an incentive that, in certain circumstances, actually harms RvR itself.

The original purpose of the system seems positive to me: providing information to players.

But when that information becomes a ranking, and that ranking becomes one of the main objectives for certain players or guilds, it creates an incentive to optimise the number of kills above almost everything else.

And optimising kills does not always mean progressing the campaign.

Sometimes it can mean exactly the opposite.

It can mean keeping a favourable situation going for as long as possible because locking the zone, attacking a keep or fortress, or simply moving the front elsewhere might end an extremely profitable source of kills.

And I think there is another important consequence here.

When the campaign does not move for hours and RvR repeatedly becomes the same situation — the same Warcamps, the same chokepoints, the same groups looking for kills in the same places — the game can start to feel extremely repetitive.

And when a player logs in night after night and feels that they are experiencing exactly the same situation again and again, without the campaign actually going anywhere, sooner or later they can become bored.

And when people become bored, they stop logging in.

I think this is especially important in a game like RoR, where campaign progression should be one of the things that gives RvR variety and a sense of purpose.

Moving the front, attacking keeps, reaching fortresses, changing pairings and finishing campaigns gives each session a sense of progression.

If that progression disappears, and for five hours the most efficient thing some of the strongest groups on the server can do is maintain exactly the same fight because it generates a large number of kills, then perhaps we are incentivising the exact opposite of what the game needs in order to keep players interested.

I am not saying that the Killboard is responsible for players leaving the game, nor that it is the only reason campaigns sometimes stagnate.

Obviously there are many other factors involved: population, realm balance, organisation, time zones, rewards, zone mechanics, and so on.

But I do think it can be part of the problem, and that it is worth discussing.

Personally, I think there is a fairly simple solution that would preserve almost everything useful about the system: remove the Top 10.

I would not remove the Killboard.

I would not remove the statistics.

I would not prevent players from checking kills, deaths, fights, character performance or any other data they might find useful.

I would simply remove the public ranking that turns those statistics into a permanent competition.

Because I think that is where the real problem lies.

The Killboard as an information tool is useful.

The Top 10, however, introduces an additional objective that is not necessarily aligned with RvR or with campaign progression.

Without that ranking, anyone who wants to analyse their statistics could still do so exactly as before.

Guilds could still look at their results.

Players could still check who killed them, which groups are active, or how a particular fight went.

But part of the incentive to spend hours optimising kills purely in order to remain above other players on a leaderboard would disappear.

I do not think removing the Top 10 would magically solve every problem with the campaign.

Obviously it would not.

But I do think it would remove an incentive that can currently push certain groups towards prioritising a personal statistic over the development of the campaign itself.

Maybe the problem is not the Killboard.

Maybe the problem is that an information tool has been turned into a competition.

I would be especially interested in hearing the opinions of players who have seriously competed for the Top 10 over the last few months, because they can probably explain much better how much that ranking actually influences the decisions a group makes during an RvR session.

And I would also like to hear from more casual players who have experienced these situations from the other side.

Because in the end, I do not think the important question is whether the Killboard itself is good or bad.

The question is whether we really need a Top 10 kills ranking when that ranking may be encouraging behaviour that slows campaign progression, makes RvR more repetitive and, ultimately, causes some players to lose interest in the game.

[CountTalabecland]

IDK if killboard is good for anything, but you do see a lot of ppl getting judged by their K/D or W/L in a negative way on the forum, but it really only matters for DPS bc its a meaningless stat for everyone else. Overall I doubt it has much impact at the blob v blob level.

MMR was nothing but toxicity, so why would this be any different.

If getting rid of it actually causes ppl to fight in ORvR, then I’m good with it. Way too much of this game is running around and staring at the other wb, not enough fighting.

[Bloodkiss]

I share your opinion, but you know there is an Addon named "Deathblow" with an integrated killboard inside. Ok this is a personal killboard but these players will still be able to show their "big" K/D on the forum.
Removing the official killboard wont change the mentality of players.

[Nameless]

It is kinda of end game feature and since the game itself lack real end game currently (city sieges lol) if removed there are certain ppl that won't have reason to log.
That leaderboards feature could go but not atm but after there are done some meaningful campaign changes

[Lescargo]

Just because a couple guys in the top 10 say they'd rather camp WC than doing siege to get kills, that means everyone aiming for the top 10 has the same mindset and then we should remove ?

I mean who said that ? what are the names ? Isn't more likely just one guy who said something stupid, and you're turning it into a generalization?

And even if there are some people who only care about getting kills, what’s stopping you from fighting/ignoring them and advancing the campaign?

yet another attempt by a casual player to horizontalise the game, we really need to stop that.

[Nelly74]

As a strong supporter of the killboard, I still have to admit how harmful it has become.
Today, I would actually support completely removing all the statistics it displays, because I’ve noticed that a lot of players are adopting borderline anti-gameplay behavior precisely because of it.
A complete rework of this system would be more than welcome. And even though I enjoy having a pretty solid K/D ratio, I’d much rather get back to the real fights we used to have, when everyone just smashed into each other without worrying about whether they’d make the top 10, or whether joining a particular fight would be “worth it” in terms of stats.

[wonshot]

The thing is, if it wasnt killboard it would be something else.
Damazkron addon, Deathblow, warcamp site, the site for tracking best KDA of guilds in a ranking and whatever else succesmessurement players will lean on when the gameplay is not enough on its own.

If winning a scenario was meaningful for the campaign ala Victory point system, or fighting and holding a flag and trying to play for time was actually worth anything in rvr, if pushing a zone meant a danm.
But it doesnt, its all just progression in a game that had Bis gear release 6 years ago.
So naturally the focus has shifted over to what feels good about pvp games, killing the enemy.

I miss having a greater objective. i think the relic event is very engaging and it motivates me, because something is on the line (despite how flawed the greenskin pairring is for this gamemode)
I miss fighting on the ground unmounted, trying to look around to see what wincondtion there is to play for time if allies are nearly to roll in and save the day.
So I do think Killboard is hurtful, in the sense that it simply replaces what rvr and the pvp gamemodes should do.
But killboard is fantastic for GMs to track killtraders easily, so theres that!

[agemennon675]

"The problem is that this individual objective can come into conflict with the overall objective of the campaign." This is not a problem, players are free to do whatever they want and dont have to do what you think is right or what you think is the campaign objective

[kleinbuchstabe]

Imo kill statistics are 100% an ego driven tool wich lead to toxicity and bad gameplay behavior, and on top it is useless for two-thirds of the playerbase, so called healer and tanks. It realy has no use or benefit for anyone. It doestn represent your playstyle at all, and certainly not whether you are a good player or not. You can see many people here in forum who realy attach importance to this BS, judging players by killboard stats, and i cant take anyone of them serious, because this is beyond stupid. Examples:

Most of the killboard leader heroes are just blob surfers, warcamp stompers, Aoe spamers, call them whatever you want. I saw MANY (not all) of them failing miserably in smallscale. Especialy range dps players, who were suddenly confronted with a situation, where they couldnt hide behind a blob to farm kills easyly anymore, turned out to not being the killing mashines they thought they are. Also big zerg leader names, who suddenly dont have 8 healers in their bag who keep their leader alive, are melting during useless overextending aoe spam.

Winrate of Scenarios. Imagine you dominate every fight, you focus it, and win battle after battle. Now one of the enemy team starts to cap flags and the suppressed team wins by caping flags. Statistic says now, you are a bad SC player, because you have a low winrate. And the players who got farmed again and again, are the good players, becasue the have high win rate. And there are for real some brainless people who judge you about it. The fact that you won all the fights, and your group was dominating everytime, gets ignored by the stats.

Another example is the resulting “chicken” playstyle. Instead of taking on good fights, rising to the challenge, and trying to win 2-on-1 battles despite being outnumbered… All of that is avoided just so there isnt one too many deaths in the stats. And definitely not against THAT one player, because that would totally ruin the stats. We have been there before on life server, with Damazkron addon. You could observe how people changed their behavior on the battlefield drastically when this addon came up. Groups started to avoid fights, avoid challanges, avoided having fun, because of taking statistics too serious. I respect everyone for taking a challenge, far more than every chicken who runs away. For me its out of question who is the better player, the one who took the challange and died 100x, or the one who ran away 100x and has clean statistics.

But i think the main point is: These stat tools dont increase fun. Potentialy they do the opposite. They only increase avoidance gameplay on the battlefield.

[FairWeather]

Unfortunately, the killboard is also used by some people to argue that a class is doing well /bad, with numbers that often depend on how long the single individual can afford to be online.
I think the killboard should work in a similar way to how https://maartenson.net/ror_scenarios.html?tier=T4 does and provide general metrics.