What is with this kill obsession?

Why do so many Smite players obsess over kills?

Seriously, WTF? In League of Legends, which supposedly has the most toxic community (it doesn't, really), even they understand that kills aren't everything. Why is this toxic attitude unique to Smite?

It's disgusting. I once posted a thread about how people tend to killsteal and how it negatively affects their gameplay, and again, I don't see as much of that in LoL. There are level 30 players who report you for feeding at 1-5-21. I once had a chat with a player who kept harassing me for not getting kills, in Arena, while he kept killstealing (Ever see a Chronos die when he uses his Time Rift at maximum range to KS, while he's being pounded by Sobek + Artemis?).

I think this is the source of the problem: Newer players are indoctrinated to hate being killed and love getting kills. And unlike LoL, there are few classes exclusively designed NOT to get kills. There are (some) tanks, and...that's it. Most supports deal ridiculous damage (compared to LoL supports) and usually get at least a few kills.

Which means, as these players reach level 30, all they care about are getting kills. Think about it. The current trend of gods seems to be on high-damage, high-CC, powercreeped and flashy gods who can get lots of kills. Even the ones who shouldn't really be dealing much damage, like Zhong Kui, get their defenses lowered rather than their damage.

How many times have you griped over someone instalocking an assassin or mage? How many times have you seen a tank instalock? Not very often, I'd wager.

So...what is with this kill obsession?

Well, this is a completely unevidenced (making up words like a champ) assumption, but I would imagine that Smite would attract more FPS fans than LoL would. Now, I'm not trying to insult the FPS community in any way, I'm just saying that in FPS games that aren't called TF2 and Battlefield, individual kills are far more important than any other aspect in the game, for the most standard modes anyway.

Also, I must be incredibly sleep deprived, because even typing this, the sentences sound incredibly awkward.

Not going to lie. Getting kills is fun. I have fun killing my opponent, but it's definitely not the main focus I go for in the long run. I focus on getting the win. If I get some kills along the way, great, but if we get the win, I could go negative for all I care.

That being said, if I'm playing a class that isn't really a class to secure kills, I usually won't try too much. If I'm playing someone like Athena or Chang'e, my main concern isn't getting kills. In fact, it's not a concern at all. It's either trying to tank so my teammates can get the kills, or healing my teammates so they, and I, stay alive longer.

As far as ks'ing goes, I try my best not to. Definitely not that satisfying getting a kill out of a KS.

But, this isn't even just an issue within Smite. I'm not sure about the other MOBA games, but plenty of other multiplayer games based around one team vs. the other, people are obsessed with getting kills so much, they're blinded to what the actual objective is. Just look at most FPS games. There are millions of people who pass up objectives or play stupid just to secure some kills.

Like I said, getting kills is fun, but it definitely shouldn't be the main concern in most game modes, other than Arena, and even then, if a person doesn't have too many kills, that doesn't always mean they aren't doing good. Could just mean they keep getting ks'd or plenty of other reasons.

You know what. There should be an MOTD where... doing the finishing blow will give you.. am Assist! And those that helped Get a kill!

I Don't know... Just thought it would be fun. :/

Why would you not try to get kills as Chang'e? A fed Chang is one of the scariest things in the game. 'Slice', there went 500 health on three people. Better kill her before she does it again 2 seconds later... oh wait, she ate a full round of attacks, aegis danced, healed it all back, then ulted everyone, gg.

Asking why people are obsessed with kills though is like asking why people bm or rage. It's just human nature. A large subset of people would rather do well themselves than be on a team that does well. That's why they lock gods that don't help the team or do things like focus in on kills above all else. You can get all psychological, but that's just the way it is.

Personally I think it's brought on by solo queue more than anything that's bred by a player base. You're asking people to sacrifice to help anonymous people who they'll never interact with again. Self gratification is always easier.

Also, it just sucks playing a game and not getting kills. Outside of winning or losing, kills are really the only mark of how well everyone's doing, even if it's an extremely flawed mark. Unless you're a support, it ends up feeling like you're being carried or you're the one holding back your team (depending on how the team is doing.) Neither is a fun feeling.

The only time I've had someone on my team yelling KS, was our feeder.. which were at our base at that time we got 3 kills at enemy left tower ..
Seems like some people only yells it to get attention.

Even in arena the objective isn't kills. Its minions. And it is pretty dumb. Honestly the only time I ever hear people actually complain about it in LoL is in bot games oddly enough.

I must disagree with you Phil725, I come from strategic and RPG rather than FPS and Mobas. I dislike being support or a tank and would rather be a carry, but it is my nature to play to win rather than having the best score. I believe the team should play in unison, so rather than kill stealing the under fed, 1/5/23 jungler fella, I would set up for him to get some kills and give him a chance of coming back in the late game, with that strategy I notice that I actually win way more games. Believe me, if someone is low health I go for the win so they cannot escape, but if I'm 10/0 and someone else (not a tank) could use that kill more than me I would let them have it, however in most instances it is the smarter move to just grab a kill when you can over someone else to avoid someone escaping, but most people in Smite don't have that mentality.

I have an awesome extreme example of that. Just yesterday I played a ranked game on silver tier for 129 game (lol coming later), I was playing tank ymir (go figure) and was keeping my neith very well fed at 5/0 or something, I was 0/1, we had a good jungler fenrir that was going something like 10/1 ksing everybody, the enemy team's jungler mercury had maybe 1 kill or so, their carry Artemis had 1 kill only and their mid laner wasn't doing too good either. The middle lane agni from our team was not so happy (aka raging like a mofoka) because he was getting ganked alot and fenrir was last hitting his would be kills, a team fight went down on short lane jungle that I was no part of but apparently agni died and fenrir got all the kills there with our solo laner, agni then cursed everyone and rage quit. Agni was ahead of gold from everyone in the enemy team and rage quit the game with a humble score of 3/4 and we ended up losing a game that would otherwise be an easy win. Btw we waited for him to come back for about 15 min and got demolished after he left. Anyways, I guess his desire to end with an impressive kill score was greater than winning a good silver league game.

I'm not sure I see your point. I didn't mean that every single person who plays this game was only after kills or k/d ratio. Every game has good players who are going for objectives and helping the team. There's usually at least one person per team who will play what the team needs in the pregame lobby, and most people are good once the game starts because wanting to win is just as common of a trait.

It only takes one person like that Agni though, and there are a lot of them. The topic is asking why there are so many people like that. The only real answer is 'there just are'.

Maybe I misunderstood you, but I understood that you pretty much game reason for people to be selfish by: not helping randoms in solo queue because you will never play with them again, by saying k/d is the best measure of how well someone is doing and that is all human nature etc... I think all those ideas are bad habits brought by ignorance of people who don't see that a loss is a loss and a win is a win, no matter how your k/d ends. Alot of that frustration also comes from smurfs playing with low level people and getting an amazing score but losing the game, then saying how amazing they were with their awesome k/d ratio and how ****py all the "noobs" were for feeding and losing, which might've been unavoidable either way. At higher level play having more kills and less deaths than someone does not mean you play better than them, it just means that you probably took some kills from someone or someone was just good and smart enough to feed the right players in the team, maybe at another game with the same exact people at same roles and same gods that same person could've been the team feeder. Not trying to bash you bro, just seeing things from a different prospective =)

The topic is asking why there are so many people obsessed with getting kills. The only real answer is 'they don't know any better'.