Omg Wth This Is So Cool

omg wth this is so cool

Did someone say COMPLETE DATA ANALYSIS OF ALL THE DEATHS IN THE LIFE SERIES? No? Well. I did it. Here are some neat graphs for you guys to look at so that you don’t have to deal with the gigantic spreadsheet I did!

Let’s start off with the big bad question: what gets people killed in this game, anyway?

Note that a CAUSE OF DEATH is not the same as a KILL. Cause of death is what pops up in the chat when someone dies (ex. PearlescentMoon was slain by Smallishbeans, BdoubleO100 fell from a high place). The cause of death does not always account for player responsibility (ex. TNT traps). Generally, a player is only considered to be someone’s cause of death if the death occurs through direct PvP combat. HOWEVER, responsibility for an indirect kill such as a trap still goes toward a player’s total kill count—for example, Joel has 14 kills overall, 10 of which are direct enough for him to be considered the actual cause of death. After all, axes don’t kill people without being swung by someone.

A few other whacky things about kill counts:

Self-inflicted deaths do not count toward a player’s kill count (ex. Grian doesn’t get a kill for jumping off Monopoly Mountain at the end of 3rd Life, Scott doesn’t get a kill for blowing himself up at the end of Double Life).

When it comes to Double Life, soulmates are considered to share their three lives. No distinction is made between Soulmate A's life and Soulmate B's life, and each death only counts as one kill (ex. Joel gets one kill for killing Scott with fireworks, even though that also killed Pearl (however, Pearl’s cause of death is still Joel, as her life is considered the same as Scott’s)).

Using the /kill command does not count toward your kill count. Grian.

With that cleared up, let’s look at kill counts.

By the skin of his teeth, Grian leads the pack in total kills. The top three you see on that graph are the only players who have a KDR (kill-to-death ratio) of more than 1—for you folks who are unfamiliar with those, a KDR of more than 1 means you kill other people more often than you die. Less than 1 means you die more often than you kill other people. Here are the highest and lowest KDRs in the series:

“What’s this?” I hear you say. “Jimmy Wet-Paper-Bag-of-a-Man Solidarity DOESN’T have the lowest KDR in the series?”

No. No, he does not, and it’s actually really funny you should ask.

Because of Last Life’s mechanic of life transferring, even players that have been in all three installments of the Life Series don’t have the same death count. Eight players died more than three times in Last Life. Another eight died exactly three times. And one player only died twice.

By virtue of starting on yellow and never receiving any extra lives in Last Life, Jimmy holds the record for fewest deaths in an installment of the Life Series with just two deaths in Last Life. He is the only player to ever die less than three times in a game. This means that although he has just one kill, he has fewer total deaths than BigB (who has died a very standard nine times), the only other player with one kill, so his KDR is higher. Congrats, Jimmy, you’re not last in everything. But you are still the only player without a PvP kill.

Speaking of PvP, it’s time to look at how people do that! Here’s a graph of the top five weapons that tend to land PvP kills the most in the series:

And now here’s weapon preferences by game:

[Double Life not depicted due to lack of PvP deaths—only 4 occurred, using a diamond axe, a diamond sword, fireworks, and an iron axe respectively.]

Despite 19 more deaths occurring in Last Life than 3rd Life, the two actually have the exact same amount of PvP kills (28). It’s interesting to note the strong preference for bows in 3rd Life, which was a much more warlike game and had several fairly formal battles where people fought from a distance. Last Life required an overall sneakier strategy, resulting in a higher use of traps. In combat, non-ranged weapons like swords and axes were generally preferred due to fights often starting in close proximity and without warning, courtesy of the Boogeyman curse. Comparatively, Double Life saw remarkably few PvP kills, likely due to each person being twice as accident-prone by virtue of being linked to another player—in fact, with a total of 12, accidents accounted for three times as many deaths as PvP in Double Life and overall for more than half (57%) of the deaths in the game.

As for individual player stats sheets, here’s an example of one of those:

If you want to see one of those for ALL 17 PLAYERS, you can go to this slideshow! More details about the stats can be found in the presentation notes of each slide. And, if you have a really specific question and want to get into the nitty gritty, feel free to send me an ask! Hope you guys enjoyed the data!