As much as I love kill/death ratios.... They're very good for determining ranking for tourneys, getting a general idea of how good a player is... etc, etc....

I don't think they should be displayed in-game. Simply because, the whole issue surrounding death is an ambiguous one at best. Most people have rationalized that you don't die when you do die, instead being teleported or something to that nature.

So why do we need it?

I suggest only having it listed on the character info on the site. Therefore it will still be available for detail oriented situations, but won't detract from any immersion in the game.

What if it was changed to say "Ships destroyed/lost"?

the death count is largely meaningless, It's not even a good indicator of how capable a pilot is. A LARGE portion of my deaths are from me goofing around, using absurd ship/weapon combos and the like. (wraith with gat cannon (not turret) and popcorn, quad free blaster hornet... etc etc)

I'm all for removing it entirely.

I blow myself up quite often with my opponent. I like the extra explosions :)

Upon review, I guess so - I agree about removing the death count entirely. If someone has to know how good they are, then they can fight PvP duels-only. Especially with the /explode teleport bit having been around so long and the Deneb->Sedina trip being relatively inconvenient, the death count for 99% of players is likely entirely meaningless.

I like seeing stats. If it is meaningless to you, feel free to ignore it.

That is fine too, TRS, and it can be renamed or left alone or whatever... It isn't exactly important and I don't care about it anymore.

personally, if there was a credit loss for cloning my character back, i would be less lethargic while flying through dark waters.

buying my ship back really isn't that disturbing to me, it's just like a shopping spree, big freakin' deal. more importantly, if it cost me (a 9/12/8/11/7 character) 1 million credits or more to reinstate myself, i would be really careful.

this would have to be on a variance scale for sure, no n00b has 1 mil credits from the start. maybe even a couple free deaths, then the count starts...

this would put a different spin on ganking and pirating too, hunt a higher lvl'd char, to make them pay more for their character.

Doak, that's an interesting idea... but I think it's a bit off topic (There is be a thread concerning the possibility of cost related to death somewhere).

TRS, my point wasn't that the statistic should be completely done away with, just keep it available on the site. I don't find it to be meaningless at all, I find it to detract from the reality of the ingame experience.

Keep the stat, but don't display it ingame.

I agree with Gaven.

we have pk stat why not pd's (death by player)? they are slightly more meaningful than the regular death stats from say botting or roids or devs

Immersion man! Immersion!

I want to feel I'm going up against warriors that have hundreds of kills under their belt. Not warriors who have hundreds of kills under their belt but have died and magically been reborn hundreds of times.

The debate surrounding the actual system involved when one's ship is destroyed has never actually touched on one actually dying. If we do indeed die as the death stat implies, then we're all some sort of super-spiritual beings.

And Crazy I'm all for that idea... but I would still say keep it out of the game and make it accessible online.

I agree with Gavan 100%

First if you remove the stats from the game but keep it on the site, "immersion" will last for the first encounter (assuming you won't even bother to check the site first while in game).

I want to feel I'm going up against warriors that have hundreds of kills under their belt. Not warriors who have hundreds of kills under their belt but have died and magically been reborn hundreds of times.

Well, stats à la Icarus (read huge PK/death ratio) will always be much more impressive than just a big number of kills that can be earned by online seniority.

The irrationality of kills would be an argument in WoW and the like. In VO a kill is the destruction of a ship. Just like in real life military pilots' stats are accounted in kills even when the guy whose plane was shot down was lucky enough to get alive out of it. There is no need to imagine any 'magic rebirth'.

CrazySpence's suggestion makes sense but as he says it's only "sightly more meaningful" : it ignores players issuing on their own flares or swarms or flying backwards on a roid during a fight, or deaths by non-hive bots in multiplayer fights like in Deneb.

Like I said, I like stats. I certianly don't mind if you add more stats, and I don't guess I really care what you call them. I don't want to have to go out of game to look them up. I often look at the stats, the first stat being how many player kills they have. If they have a fair number of player kills, I start looking at the other stats, mostly deaths. These can be important indicators for who to watch out for, and who to let run away.
It would be nice to call it something other than deaths.
How about calling it win/lost, with a break down in order of explodes, bots, itani, uit, serco, players subtotal, totals. Thats 5 win/lost stats, and 2 sub/totals. It even seperates out the explodes.
Gaven, no one expects anyone to be an ultra great fighter jock. The stats are there to show us what we should expect, on average. If your not too happy about your stats, ask some of the better players to give you some tips and pointers, and learn to know which fights you should just plain run from. Mostly, don't get too wrapped up in the stats. We all where newbs at one time, and we understand when someone is still just learning. Hell, I've played at least more than a couple of times, and I'm still learning. Stick with it and you will get better.

Um... dude, Gavan's one of the best pilots in the game.

~D.
"Nigel"

Bah, Gavan's at the mercy of his internet connection!
When my operatives successfully sabotage his connection again, I'll be able to beat him once more! Bwaa haa ha ha hahaaaaa!

Seriously, tho - I care less about my stats as some of you may have surmised. I would wager that half of my deaths are from /explode or from running into asteroids.
The other half are split pretty evenly among ex-BLAK members and prominent Serco pilots.

Andy said once that the game keeps very detailed stats on how you died, what you were flying when you died, what the other person was flying when you died, duel ratings for both when you died, etc etc etc. Detailed info like that would be VERY interesting to see.

stats are good! if you dont like them, dont look at them!

/me pops in to annoy Leebs.

I vote for removing

(a) all stats
(b) all character names

I am doing this for immersion.

Meh, I don't think I WANT to see my stats, thank you.

Actually, in all honesty I think I'm the best pilot in the game right now. I don't think any of the rest of you half-assed throttle jockeys could fly into a hail of fire and hit every single motherloving blaster bolt the way I can. I can even get hit by people that are shooting at someone ELSE, that's how damn good I am.

~D.
"Nigel"