Comparing KDR Relevance in Different Game Modes

[Mr. 9]

Sup squids? I was just wondering about how you think the importance of your KDR (kill vs. death ratio) compares from mode to mode.

This is definitely going to vary, based on your play style, which is exactly what I’d like to hear about. Personally, I’m the squid who is THE RAINMAKER in your match, or who is quite happy to hop on the tower again, again, and again. Before getting into my ranks, I’ll note the obvious: You can’t push the objective if you’re dead.

Given that, here’s how I would rank the modes from least to most important in terms of having a nice KDR.

1) Rainmaker. Let’s be honest, picking up the RM is a death sentence almost always, but it’s the only way to win the game. I usually win this mode, and my KDR usually looks bad if I’m doing it right.

2) Tower Control. Though you can hop off the tower, if you do it’s probably because you have bad stage control, which means you’re likely still going to die after hopping off. Also, some levels don’t allow you to hop off without dying in key areas (hiya camp!). Nonetheless, you have to ride the tower to win, which in most cases means that you’re also gonna have to get splatted quite a bit to pull off the W.

3) Splat Zones. KDR matters quite a bit more here. You need to take the zone and lock the other team out, which is hard to do when you die more than you splat.

4) Turf War. I really don’t play this mode anymore, so it’s hard for me to place it on this list. I’ll just put it here.

 

[Captain Woomy]

While I do find paying attention to your kill/death ratio important in all three ranked modes, they did change the way the ranked results screen worked in 2.3.0 for a reason. There are indeed other ways to contribute to your team than getting the most amount of kills or the least amount of death. Rainmaker is a good example of that. I almost never see the first person to grab the rainmaker at the beginning of the match walk all the way over to the goal without getting splatted at least once. A lot of players seem to be afraid to grab the rainmaker because of this. I pick up the rainmaker knowing I'll most likely get splatted, but I'll still do my best. The rainmaker is not going to move on its own, after all. Having a higher amount of deaths than kills on this mode is understandable.

With tower control, I could see the winning team have a mix of high kills/low death count or low kill count/high death count. With the way I played on a couple particular maps on this mode though, I would always have a higher amount of kills than deaths. Sometimes I would even have the other three people on my team have horrible kill/death rates and we ended up making a great team together. In my opinion getting on the tower isn't quite as bad as grabbing the rainmaker, though you still have a good chance of getting splatted either way, especially if you're right by the opposing team's spawn point where the goal is. But overall I'm going to say it is best to try and stay alive and get more kills than deaths here.

As for splat zones, I have nothing to add there. You pretty much said everything that needed to be said for that.

For the kill/death ratio in turf wars... I don't know about that. A good sniper on your team can help assuming they've inked a reasonable amount of turf and get a decent amount of kills, yet an Aerospray can do excellent in a turf war with a lot of turf inked and a horrible kill/death ratio. For turf wars I think it's all about your play style and weapon preferences when it comes to what your usual kill/death is in a winning match since some weapons are better suited for certain jobs than others.

 

[Ansible]

When playing solo, I play the objective I am the objective. At least, that's what I like to tell myself.

As a result the kdr is nigh worthless to me (yet I always feel embarrassed about it when in a squad).

Before I started regularly doing squad with whomever, I was teaching myself to... objective better, yeah let's go with that. Recon the maps, play with distances, read the ebb and flow of ink, that sort of nonsense. In Rainmaker I dart, hide, dodge, stall, navigate, pressure, and take risks to keep from going splat for as long as possible. In Tower Control I dodge, wall ride, pressure and take risks to get that tower moving so well I wind up trapped deep behind enemy lines. In Splat Zones I ink, pressure, ink, retreat, ink, dodge, ink, stall, ink, hide, ink, ink, and take risks to keep that splat zone counter going or stopped.

Yeah, my kdr would still be lousy-ish compared to what's expected from you in a normal shooter, yet over time I also started learning how to keep myself from respawning as long as possible to better our odds at winning with a bigger advantage.

Though for whatever reason(s) I try not to behave this way in squads. Fear? Judgement? But sometimes situations arise that encourage me to henshin once more into... the Kamen Objective. *POSE*

Maybe I should return to this sort of mindset instead of being strict support and wanting others to push the goal for me? Especially if I intend to solo up and down and up the S rank ladder.

As for Turf Wars... well... there's no splatfest anymore. All that matters is ego, reaching seven flags for the 1400 coin bonus, and winning 30 matches to feed your pet Spyke, who's slot rolls make a cat appear as energetically loving as a dog. I just play to ink things. I just play to ink all the things!

 

[Cyan]

I can't give an approximation of my KDR across the modes, as I've never really tracked that (and have not played much Zones recently), but I can give an example of why it can be pretty irrelevant. Last night on Port Rainmaker, I was squadding with a friend (ranked A-, I'm an S+), and was rocking the Tri-Slosher, I went 23-7 (an unbelievably dumb KD) and we lost. At the start of the match I flanked and took 2 of them out, but was in their court whilst the other 2 pushed Rainmaker, my other teammates took out the 3rd player, but the RM managed to run from 30 to around 16 on their own. The rest of the match I was trying to take them out and cover Turf whilst my teammates could focus on RM, but the twin we were with kept picking it up and not pushing, even when we wiped them. When it comes to Rainmaker I'm very much the one who picks it up, I love using it as a weapon and slipping past people and getting good scores that usually win the match is great. At the end of the day, I think that good KDs typically go to those who focus on splats and ignore objective (like DUDE, he usually does objective when he has to or it's Zones, where you don't need to be static to get it), but if your team doesn't hold a good defence or your too far away from the RM or Tower, then it's usually too late for your team. I find you usually get more success when the KDs are pretty even amongst your team, as that shows you all stayed alive enough to make a push and a difference, if you get a ridiculously high KD, it is more than likely because you weren't assisting with objective (not saying this is always the case though) and essentially let the other team get an easy push. There are times when the other team can win with significantly lower KDs than the losing team, because they got a push when it mattered most. Ultimately with Splatoon, it isn't how well you play in the match that determines the outcome, it's how you played during the crucial moments (stopping a push/zone, getting a wipe to take lead, distracting the opponents and taking them out as a team etc.) that really matter.

If I had to talk about my KDs, I usually break even on RM, I get a few splats with it, get splatted with it and the rest is made up by my main weapon. Tower Control is an abomination for me though, every time I try to play it in solo it goes wrong almost immediately and Zones has lock outs happen too often, but I fare fairly well when the matches are even (as in no spawn camps and the zones keep switching teams). KDs generally say more about how a player played and contributed than how good they are. You may get a good KD, but if you don't stop them taking the lead or getting a knockout then you're just as much at fault for the loss as your teammates (blame is pretty much shared in solo, because you failed as a team and were defeated because of it - ignoring dcs in matches though). Likewise you can have a terrible KD, but you kept pushing RM, Tower or flanking them, even if they failed you could have taken out 1 or 2 of them with you or bought your team time to reorganise and get their attack/defence ready.

 

[Green Waffles]

If you get splat and leave your objective pushing teammate as the last squid standing...

Spoiler: I garuntee this will be the song playing in their head at that moment

KDs generally say more about how a player played and contributed than how good they are.

Byooteful

Now some text so this post isn't just a gratuitous "like"

Someone has to get the splats, but they have to be at the right time and place(around the objective herp derp)
and it's not neccessarily the end if you get splatted, so long as it wasn't at the wrong time =p


Support? K/Ds tend to be low, think 3/10 (few splats when you is firing ink at key points of an enemy push and ya land the final shot) Your deaths typically mean that you either were trying to slip past middle and you drew out a bad-guy, priming them to be splatted themselves OR you pulled someone from their frontline to deal with the slippery little klunk that is you.

Front line? The higher the K/D, the better. BUT you can go even and that is still peaches, just so long as you weren't the last man standing and you didn't leave 1 or 2 bad guys alive to push.
Going negative is not so good, but if your teammates are sticking around to pick up the slack from your half-splats then it's fine.

Flanker? It can be pretty easy to go positive here, if you are going negative then it's just an off game for you or their sniper is skynet.
Re-iterating the fronliner tidbit, but going negative isn't the end here either, so long as you leave an exposed and/or weakened squid too asceered ta poosh.
~~~BUTT don't go off for a hike in flanking back country if your defense just got wiped and they are primed for a push, I don't care if you managed to get that e-liter or spawn camped two bad guys, you are helping the bad guys at this point.
Thus, I'd argue that game-pad map awareness is the most important for flankers in solo-ranked, as you won't have your discord/skype charger friend to call stuff out for you.