How good are you, really? There’s only one objective way to find out—look at the stats. Of course, with the plethora of numbers that Wolfenstein gives you, it can be confusing to read and interpret the results. After all, which numbers are important and which are meaningless? Let’s cut through the clutter and find out.

Different players have different styles so how you interpret the numbers depends on what you want to accomplish. I’m a very aggressive player. I like racking up kills and going on rampages. I’m certainly not the type to wait for the kill. I go out and find it. With that in mind, I’ll show you how I evaluate myself.

Frags

For me, as a Rambo medic, frags are the most important indicator of performance--how many people I can kill within a specific amount of time. My goal is to always kill as many as possible so I look at this number very intently. It measures how aggressive I am and how efficient I am with my time.

Frags are really more of a result of good camping than gunning skills. You don’t need to be a great gunner to have lots of frags, especially as a medic. If I’m a Rambo medic and I only manage 10 kills in 30 minutes, it’s not because my SMG skills are bad. It’s because I’m not being aggressive enough or efficient enough. It tells me that I’m not camping in the right places and that I need to find more action.

During the course of a match, I like to look at the numbers to see who’s leading in terms of frags. If someone has way more frags than I do, I try to see where he’s collecting his kills so I can go there and get my fair share!

Headshots to Kill ratio

This to me is the second most important stat. It’s a better measure of aim than accuracy itself. When you’re shooting someone, the goal is to always aim for the head. If you can get one headshot for every kill, you’ll win most of your duels. If you can get two, well, that’s just sick!

Having a good headshot to kill ratio can come at the expense of accuracy though. Generally, it’s harder to hit the head than the body. So if you aim for the head all the time, your accuracy will suffer. That’s ok considering that headshots kill so much faster than body shots.

I usually average 1 headshot for every kill. On good days, I might get 1.3. But that’s very rare. If I get 2.0, I’m probably facing new players. I have yet to see anyone get 2.0 consistently against top competition. If you do, consider yourself one of the world’s best FPS players.

Accuracy

Accuracy is another number that I look at. It’s a good measure of aim. Usually top players will average in the 40’s for aim. 45% seems to be the magic number though. No matter how hard I try, I find it very hard to get above 45% consistently against great players. I haven’t seen anyone accomplish that feat either. I might do it against noobs but that doesn’t count. I usually average in the mid 30’s without hit sounds and in the low 40’s with hit sounds.

Kill-Death ratio

For me, as long as I kill more people than people kill me, I’m happy. Kill-death ratio is more of an indicator of conservative play rather than aggressive play. It really penalizes risk taking. For example, if someone has 20 kills and 3 deaths, does that mean they are better than another person with 70 kills and 20 deaths? I rather take the 70 kills.

I usually average greater than 2:1. If I get a really high kill-death ratio, like 10:1, I ask myself if I’m taking enough chances or if I’m missing out on any kills somewhere. Remember, my goal is to maximize frags, not kill-death ratio.

Conversely, if my ratio is low like 1:1, then I’m probably not playing very smart and need to take fewer chances or play better defense. I might get more kills by dying less. It’s really a delicate balance between kills and deaths.

Putting it all together

By monitoring your numbers carefully, you can look at areas where you can tune up your game. If you have good aim but lack in kills, then you’re probably playing too conservatively. Likewise, if you have lots of kills but terrible aim, work on improving your accuracy. And if all areas of your game are really good, then you might want to seek out better competition. There are a lot of great players out there, and by challenging them, you’ll become better in the process.