KD is a key Stat, but is not properly rewarded

Problem exists as long as team-oriented PvP.
You wrote yourself, that is conditions of single kill can be pretty complicated to judge, who deserves the kill point, especially for the machine. There are many situations, where damage done isn't the indicator and a really proper decision has to be done with consideration of much more conditions.
Imagine hard position fight with ton of resets. Teammate A deals 199 dmg to the Enemy 2-3 times, but doesn't knock him down. Player B implements flank attack and finally makes it via single 200 damage burst. Who deserve a kill point? Now add new condition revealed: Teammate A made Enemy waste all the shield cells and batteries and overheated his gun right before B made his flank move. Oopsie, now it's harder? Ok, now consider, that Teammate B knocked down Enemy, but Enemy was revived and knocked down again by Teammate A with random grenade "bonk!" 10 dmg while trying to reset in the open, supplied with new bats and cells by his teammate.
The whole bunch of conditions becomes too complicated sometimes, so last shot can be right and wrong kill mark just as the damage done. But to reward damage done with 0 knockdowns would be strange too(that's why kill assist point exists).
So the last shot as the kill point trigger chosen long ago as the simplest way of scoring. You can't do much against it(well, you can risk of losing fights ordering your team to cease fire, but i doubt you are good enough to pull that out each time).

@aim_with_my_eye

I don't see a stat AD (assist/death) and the KD stat is very prominent. My point here is no need to even bring up assist stats, they are meaningless to nearly everyone.

But your point of draining cells is very good, as is your random grenade point.

If a single shot can damage more than multiple shots, then so be it. That is the nature of the gun you use. I prefer RE45 because its easy to aim, but I realize it isn't the most powerful gun on the board.

The bottom line is that the KD doesn't reflect your contribution. It's good that Apex prominently reflects damage, but the effort should mean more toward who is awarded the kill. Simply saying you knocked the guy and you went on to shoot others while allowing the guy to die at someone else's hand isn't fair when your only contribution was only 10% of what brought him to the knocked state.

I also agree with you that in the context of a multi team game, this is way complicated. But I do think that awarding the kill to the one who dealt the most damage to the knock state is better than simply the last shot to the knocked state. You can argue that it isn't fair for any number of reasons, but I think it is one step closer to fair that what we have now.

Honestly I have had moments lately where I want my teammate to start shooting an opponent for a few seconds then drill him with my RE45 so I am awarded the kill. That isn't what a shooter should promote in the way of incentives. On the other hand, if my RE45 deals most of the damage and that leads me to the kill award, then I am more motivated to shoot first, which would be consistent with a shooter.

@reconzero

Oh I realize that. But even then, it would be more fair if the most damage was awarded the kill. (Not totally fair, just MORE fair, and not that much more complicated to figure out from a server coding perspective.)

@MrGreenWithAGunK/D isn't a key stat..thats still damage :v, it's the very thing that "in detail" shows your efficency, kills can be easiely stolen, third partied or even farmed, same goes vice versa, some kills of yours can be yoinked but the damage on the over hand will show you the bigger effort.

Many games have a system that the teammate, that dealt the most damage to the respective target, will also get the kill and it's my eyes the most fair system i've ever seen in a game and the most sensical.

K/D for a matter merely gives you a rudimental understanding, whether you improve or not and if you're average, below average or above.

@NitoTanaka

I just looked on my stats screen.

Total damage on the left

Total kills on the right

Ya, I would say it is a key stat just a prominently displayed as damage.

I understand what you are saying, but if it isn't supposed to mean that much, it shouldn't be in the same big font as the damage nor to its side, but below damage, in an inferior position.

Because that is the standard "Template" of any shooter, KD/A is the most prominant stat because it's lowkey what every game does, only a few games have a damage counter tbh.

KD/A is like.. "Raw Infomation", i mean why do you think everyone loves to show the Damage badge, because the badge gives your teammates an rough idea of your contribution to gain kills, the kill it self is the teams goal to prevail, but said target cannot be archived without..well dealing damage to the respective target.

The kill is the result, the damage the way to the finish line, take damage more as a "Indepth" factor, than just mediocre numbers.

A case:

You play Duos with a random (A) and you are (B ) - The end of the game, whether lose or win, you have 2.8k damage, among that 2 Kills/8 Assist/2 Knocks

Your mate (A) has - 8 kills/1 Assist/8 Knocks with an overall damage of..meeh let's say 900 to 1.1k.

Do you understand what im saying? The damage is ultimately the very fact of how much of a contributing variable you are in your team.

We could of course make (A) an saboteur, he waits willingly till you crack the shield and afterwards starts blasting to get the final blow, does that last hit in your mind really make a *click* and be like: "Yea that was all you! Good job!"?

You tell me now who contributed better to archive the target, does any of that make sense?