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.