Why Rank is hurting the community and why we should boycott groups that ask for it...

[βlitzkrieg]

This thread is 'lol'? Geez mate, come back when you can speak english and have something worthy to contribute.

Anyway, Rank is a good wway to show just how much Tombs experience one person has had. I know where you're coming from, and that it can be hard for newer players to get good experience, but you're gunna just have to stick to it.

[Navaros]

Rank is the best and only sure way for players who do not know each other personally via having played together before to have a way to gage each other's skill.

Original poster can boycott ranked groups all he wants, but he'll probably not win much.

Higher ranked players beat lower ranked players because they're better. Rank really is a measure of skill, and time-spent. But mostly skill.

Boycotting groups for being more skilled is a ludicrous idea.

I suggest: let go of the jealously, get yourself to rank 6 and finally rejoice in being free of "PUG Hell" - PUG Hell being the state I describe in which one's PUG's are guaranteed to lose in Tombs because they players are less thank rank 6 and logically, usually also not very good.

Rank seems like a bad thing when you don't have any but once you have a lot of rank then you appreciate the measure of a man that it represents.

[Navaros]

Originally Posted by Zaklex

You want to know a little secret, all of the top PvP players, and by top I mean the ones in Fianna, SoW, Nuclear Launch Detected, Negative Zero, etc. don't play tombs. Do you know why, it's a broken mechanic, and those /rank Tomb PvP'ers just may not be good enough for GvG, which is the pinnacle of GW PvP.

Must disagree strongly with this.

GVG is far easier to be successful at than Tombs is.

I've been in a whole whackload of r6+Tombs PUGS.

Any time we met a Guild in Tombs with any rank worse than #75 on the Guild ladder, they almost always got steamrolled really badly by the r6+ Tombs PUG.

Try this for yourself if you ever get to rank 6 or more, and no doubt your results will be similar.

Why?

Because Tombs is set at a much higher bar of skill and coordination than GVG is. Which is probably why the devs decided not to give fame for GVG in the first place; because they designed the Tombs to be much harder hence the reward is much better.

[Medion]

Wrong. None of us were born with fame. Nobody's preventing him from joining a pvp guild. No reason he can't have a friend list. He can make his own groups. Rank 3 is 180 fame, that doesn't take long at all.

Is it easier to get fame if you have it? You bet. But we all started at 0 here.

This is true, all you high-ranked players will have done a lot for your rank.
But most of you started at the first few weeks of the game, when rank wasn`t asked. You meet some other nice <well in PVP> players, and get rank after a few weeks. In the beginning you high ranked ppl probably didn`t find any trouble finding a non-rank group. But nowadays, about 80% of the groups is rank+3, besides that, the groups that are not +3, split up after the first try.

I am not saying that you should entirely stop with playing with high-ranked players. And I know it is possible to get some rank, as a friend of my did. But why not once in a while group with some low-ranked players, look if there are some good ppl in there. And teach the other ppl something about PvP.
The ppl you find good, you could take with u if u need 1 or 2 last players. In that way, at least some people have a chance to develope.
To do this, u really don`t need to group with low-ranked players 24/7, a few times a week would be enough.

[Timoz]

Originally Posted by Zaklex

You want to know a little secret, all of the top PvP players, and by top I mean the ones in Fianna, SoW, Nuclear Launch Detected, Negative Zero, etc. don't play tombs. Do you know why, it's a broken mechanic, and those /rank Tomb PvP'ers just may not be good enough for GvG, which is the pinnacle of GW PvP.

Not at all.
If they were all that good you would see them winning both as other top guilds.

GvG is the main pinnacle agreed, but its completely different to tombs. They don't not do tombs because GvG is the pinnacle or whatever, they don't tomb because they suck in the tombs.

[conker]

People that cant get to rank 3 in one day are just Crap-reason why ranked groups dont take non rank3s like ne more..

[Timoz]

Originally Posted by Medion

I am not saying that you should entirely stop with playing with high-ranked players. And I know it is possible to get some rank, as a friend of my did. But why not once in a while group with some low-ranked players, look if there are some good ppl in there. And teach the other ppl something about PvP.
The ppl you find good, you could take with u if u need 1 or 2 last players. In that way, at least some people have a chance to develope.
To do this, u really don`t need to group with low-ranked players 24/7, a few times a week would be enough.

Personally i have helped some lower ranked friends and given them advice, but when it comes to them playing with me and my guild thats not gonna happen, they're not experienced enough and they know that.

[Navaros]

Originally Posted by Guizzy

If you know them personally, then you don't need to be asking "Rank 6+" in the chat.


We're not saying you are not good; we're saying you have no idea how good lower rank players can be if they're not forced to be in bad groups.



Look, we never said lower ranked groups are better; they are very rarely organised. Why? Because organised groups discriminate on rank.

Man, really you need to brush up on your reading comprehension.

You have not understood a word I've said in all that ridiculously large thread. Read it again.



Not everyone is a good leader. Not everyone wants to start groups. "Your" rank system serves no one but yourself. It's NOT a way to weed out bad players, and I've proven this time after time that YOU CAN MAKE A MUCH BETTER GROUP BY ASKING QUESTIONS.

Next time someone post here, he better have read the thread before repeating arguments I've disproven time after time after time...



Pro-rank argument: But the ranked players are better!

Anti-rank argument: You have no idea; try unranked in an organised group.

Pro-rank: But they'll be bad!

Anti-rank argument: Try it.

...

----

But I agree on skill usage being the most important part. That said; skill ability does not come with rank. Rank does not even mean experience; as some people never learn. And some people learn very fast. And those people, well, they can't go at their speed because the only groups that will accept to take them are blind invites with fiery dragon sword whammos (complete with Mending and Healing Signet).

I'm doing my part to change that; I make my own groups and am very broad-minded with my invites. I am getting much success (every group I've made that way was only beaten by less than 300-ranked guilds).

What is going on here is that some people are trying to justify what would be easily comparable to marking poor people (as well as putting them into specific "poor" gettho) so that the rich (living inside guarded areas) will be able to avoid living with them. The justification given is exactly the same.

This post shows that your logic is entirely based on folly.

You say high rank does not weed out bad players, yet you yourself are complaining about only being able to get into "bad groups".

Of course by "bad groups", you are referrring to "unranked groups". So you implicitly admit unranked groups are bad, yet you still say rank does not equal skill.

As you can see by your own logic, bad groups are equivalent to unranked groups. Hence your argument against rank falls apart right there.

If you can make a much better group by asking questions rather than asking for a rank emote, then why don' t you? Why don't we all see your name flashed across our screens as you win HoH constantly as a direct result of your question-asking abilities?

Furthermore:

What need have you to complain about not being able to get into good groups, if your question-asking abilities are all that it takes to make a good group?

Why aren't you out enjoying your massive victories that such question-asking skills allow you to have? Instead of making a thread complaining about your frustration with not getting into ranked groups?

You even have compared ranked people to rich people. Yes, ranked people are indeed rich in skill, and unranked people usually are not.

If you disagree with this and think rank does not equate to skill, then it makes no sense for you to complain about ranked players discriminating against you. If ranked parties were not better than yours - if you did not want to be included in ranked players because you *know* they are better than yours - then you would not care about ranked players discriminating against you.

There are a lot more unranked players than there are ranked players. Since you are so keen on having a "try it" attitude with unranked players, then why not take your own advice. Use your awesome question-asking abilities to organize like-minded unranked players who think like you do. I'm sure there are many who would be happy to join your party. Do that, and let us know how your successes have worked out. Which I see you have already done to some extent. Yet why then do you still complain if you have in fact solved your own problem?

@Your parties only losing to Guilds ranked lower than 300: that may be pretty good for an unranked PUG, but I got some bad news for you, those Guilds most likely are not very good either. As already mentioned by me, the benchmark for what r6 groups will almost always beat is #75 or worse, and even that analysis is probably being very generous on my part in favor of Guilds. Rank 300 Guilds are oftentimes not skilled Guilds.

[Timoz]

I can see the future now with question asking:

ARE THERE ANY GOOD HEALING MONKS GOOD AT HEALING ?!?!?!
Of course asking someone their build proves nothing as you can pick up a build anywhere.

<<<would much rather get a friend rank6+ and not have to ask a few questions and keep going through people until someone answers my questions right.

[Schorny]

Originally Posted by conker

People that cant get to rank 3 in one day are just Crap-reason why ranked groups dont take non rank3s like ne more..

How exactly do you plan to gain fame without 7 people helping you?

Last time I checked, Tombs are pretty hard to solo...

[Ventius Hozza]

I hate the concept of Rank. I think the /rank is simply a way for players to boast. I get this all the time in CA. You die and your team is deeated, what do you see above your body? Somebody standing there doing their deer over your corpse, very nice.

Also, i play necro/mesmer most of the time and the PUGs that invite me, i will join as i believe that is still is possible, even though it has a small chance. Most of them dont even understand the concept of the tombs and i try my best to teach them but this isnt the way. I have even resided to doing IWAY *shudder*. I'm rank 1 and about half way to rank 2 for about 3 weeks now. Why? Because i can't get into any groups.

I agree wholely with the OP

When I do tombs, either leader or not, rank doesn't mean a thing.

The best way to determine if a player is good or not is to get him on vent/ts, and talk a bit, ask him wat his build is, how smoothly it works, maybe a few skilltesters such as "What's the last mission in the game", or "What do {insert skill} do and what would u do to counter it". The problem these days is that no one does that anymore, back in may, june and july when the game was still new people wouldn't care about rank, just how courteous/intelligent you were. If you join a random PUG group with a rank requirement you won't get far.

Rank is best used when you are the leader, high ranking players (6+) tend to get more respect, and being leader, you need respect. It will also help getting people in your group. The thing about builds like IWAY and such is that they lack creativity and they actually work decently.

A suggestion to solve the rank problem is whenever you earn enough fame to proceed to next rank you have to take some sort of skilltester question, if not you dont get the rank.

[Guizzy]

I will certainly not answer everything that was said; I'd be repeating my self far too much. I don't know how many times I've refuted that rank = skill, and yet people still come to this thread claiming it. But...

Originally Posted by username

A suggestion to solve the rank problem is whenever you earn enough fame to proceed to next rank you have to take some sort of skilltester question, if not you dont get the rank.

This is indeed nice, but it'd get useless quickly as the answers would be posted on every website there is. Also, it can't be done by ArenaNet, as they have a duty to deny the existance of the meta-game. I mean; they can't ask questions like: "What's the worst skill for a Ranger?" as they probably believe every Ranger skill is good (else they would have balanced it).

I'd say peer review would be the best way to handle fame. It'd be anonymous, of course. People would be motivated to judge fairly because if they start giving everyone too high (or too low) of a score, they'd be stuck playing with assholes later on.

If you can make a much better group by asking questions rather than asking for a rank emote, then why don' t you?

I do. Of course; the reason you don't see my name flashing for winning the HoH is that few PUGs win it; it's a guild thing. And when PUGs do, it's because they have been trying for quite some time, which I don't always have. But my PUGs are as good as anyone's.

If you disagree with this and think rank does not equate to skill, then it makes no sense for you to complain about ranked players discriminating against you.

I'm not complaining for me anymore; as I said, I make my own groups. Should everyone working in a hospital be sick? Is everyone working for the Red Cross needing blood for himself? Is the idea of wanting change for other people so outlandish?

[dbgtboy]

Originally Posted by Navaros

Higher ranked players beat lower ranked players because they're better. Rank really is a measure of skill, and time-spent. But mostly skill.

rank has nothing to do with skill, it just means how much time you spend playing fotm builds in tombs, nothing else, im rank 6 btw so i know this for a fact, most rank 9s got their rank from smiting/spirit spam groups and because they play so much everyday, ive been in a rank 2 pug that owned rank 6-9 groups.

[Navaros]

Originally Posted by Guizzy

I do. Of course; the reason you don't see my name flashing for winning the HoH is that few PUGs win it; it's a guild thing. And when PUGs do, it's because they have been trying for quite some time, which I don't always have. But my PUGs are as good as anyone's.

This statement is quite false.

R6+ PUGs win HoH all the time. Getting in a R6+ PUG is pretty much a guarantee to get straight to the Hall, and often a HoH victory too.

I guarantee you that most R6+ PUGs would cream any unranked PUGs. There may be occassional exceptions. But they are just that, exceptions. "The norm" is that ranked groups are vastly superior to unranked groups, which incidentally is precisely why you made this thread to complain about the frustration of your inability to win a lot with unranked groups.

[Guizzy]

Originally Posted by Navaros

"The norm" is that ranked groups are vastly superior to unranked groups, which incidentally is precisely why you made this thread to complain about the frustration of your inability to win a lot with unranked groups.

You have no idea if an "unranked" groups you are fighting against is a blind invite group or a intelligently put together group. So you can't know what is "the norm", because while intelligently put together unranked groups (which I concede are rare, but they exist) can be just as good as ranked ones, these blind invite groups fail.

As I've said: TRY IT. Backtrack a little in this thread and find the guidelines I use to make a group. Try these guidelines and make your own unranked group. It will cost you at most 30 minutes, and you will have a quality group out of unranked players. You should always ask questions anyway; as some Rank 6+ can also be dumb players (I don't know for myself; I never check anyone's rank, but some people in this thread seem to have observed it).

What I'm up against is that the people who actually are able to organise group will consider unranked player like trash who can't think right, and that these unranked players can only find groups with one of the very few people that do like I do and with blind invite groups. I'm not complaining about my ability to do anything; read the thread before asserting that. These unranked players have no chance to ever prove their skill unless they have a Guild very active in the Tombs. It wasn't true before FotM began dictating who gains rank, but it now is.

If you don't agree we should remove rank; then at least give unranked player a chance to prove themselves. Of course; I'm not saying you should get every dumb unranked there is; but if a player seems good enough when you talk to him, don't kick him because of his rank. That's all I'm asking.

[Rey Lentless]

This is true, all you high-ranked players will have done a lot for your rank.
But most of you started at the first few weeks of the game, when rank wasn`t asked. You meet some other nice <well in PVP> players, and get rank after a few weeks. In the beginning you high ranked ppl probably didn`t find any trouble finding a non-rank group. But nowadays, about 80% of the groups is rank+3, besides that, the groups that are not +3, split up after the first try.

I am not saying that you should entirely stop with playing with high-ranked players. And I know it is possible to get some rank, as a friend of my did. But why not once in a while group with some low-ranked players, look if there are some good ppl in there. And teach the other ppl something about PvP.
The ppl you find good, you could take with u if u need 1 or 2 last players. In that way, at least some people have a chance to develope.
To do this, u really don`t need to group with low-ranked players 24/7, a few times a week would be enough.

I personally started this game with gvg for the first few months and didn't even start tombing until after the pvp weekend. Granted, I had all content unlocked and was experienced in pvp, but I was still rank 0. I didn't have people who tombed on my friends list, and didn't have a guild that did tombs.

I won the halls before I had an emote anyway. I was in the same situation new people were in starting out in tombs (at least the good people the OP describes) and I ranked up just fine. Any of you people can do the same. You're not unfairly disadvantaged or prevented from success. Are you gaining as much rank as quickly as higher ranked people? No, and you shouldn't be. Find like-minded people in the same situation and bring about your own success. Don't ask to leech off me and others who have already been through it. I don't want to train you in pvp.

These unranked players have no chance to ever prove their skill unless they have a Guild very active in the Tombs. It wasn't true before FotM began dictating who gains rank, but it now is.

BS! Make a group which can beat iway (which is almost any) and now you can farm fame quicker than you ever could before. These noob fotm builds are not some plague keeping you from ranking up, they're a gift you should be taking advantage of.

Navaros- Exactly. Great posts.

[Navaros]

I agree that unranked players should have more avenues to prove themselves.

My objection is merely with the nonsensical assertion that rank does not equal skill because if that were true then unranked players would be winning HoH constantly. Yes there can be good unranked players, but the reality is that most unranked players are terrible therefore not worth giving a chance to. That is broadbrushing a lot of people intp the same group, but there is a rational reason for it.

However, taking away fame is not the answer. Those who have high ranks have paid their dues to get there. They too had to go through the Hell of enduring crappy parties up until they got 1000 fame.

Yes, spirit spammers are an exception to this.

Having a good Guild to play with is an exception to this.

Smite builds were not all that powerful, especially unless they had really good warriors in the party. Hence smite build should be respected as a legit way to have achieved rank.

Trying to farm fame with IWAY is so incredibly boring and tedious that anyone who has gotten rank 6 with IWAY deserves that rank out of sheer respect for his fortitude in not going insane from all that mind-numbing boredom.

So while it is true that some people got rank in illegitimate ways, ie: spirit spam: there are also those who had to endure the horrible crappy party grind for 1000 fame. Hence their fame must be respected for that reason.

For that reason I say, rather than mess with existing players' fame, there needs to be a new 1vs1 PVP mode in which good players can earn fame.

The biggest problem with fame is the same main problem that Guild Wars has as a whole game: assembling random people together onto a team and then expecting them to perform well on challenging tasks is not realistic. Most people are simply too dumb to handle it. It is a systematic problem with the whole "Cooperative RPG" concept, and the fame issue is just one symptom of this problem.

1vs1 PVP for fame would take that hurdle of out the equation and give good players fair opportunity to prove themselves.

[Lews]

Originally Posted by Navaros

This statement is quite false.

R6+ PUGs win HoH all the time. Getting in a R6+ PUG is pretty much a guarantee to get straight to the Hall, and often a HoH victory too.

I guarantee you that most R6+ PUGs would cream any unranked PUGs. There may be occassional exceptions. But they are just that, exceptions. "The norm" is that ranked groups are vastly superior to unranked groups, which incidentally is precisely why you made this thread to complain about the frustration of your inability to win a lot with unranked groups.

Okay, now THAT is a false statement. R6+ PUG's are not a guarantee to get to Hall at all.

Now, a highly organized pug on say, the Fianna or the gw-vent Ventrillo's, that is a better chance. But not any old R6+ PUG. Those might make it to the relic runs, thats about it.

[Rey Lentless]

For that reason I say, rather than mess with existing players' fame, there needs to be a new 1vs1 PVP mode in which good players can earn fame.

Good posts before that... but this is about the last thing I'd like to see in this game. Competition arenas are already breeding grounds for bad pvp players. I'd rather have people coming from pve than LA arena. In CA, you have people who have to design self-sufficient builds that do not incorporate team play at all because of the random make-up of your team. That's just the nature of the random arena and it's fine people have to build like that as it's the only way to win unless you just wait for the magical moment when the rest of the team fits your build.

But this gives players a lot of bad habits and frankly bad attitudes a lot of the time. People who just go out to win 1 on 1 matchups and don't learn team play at all, and think winning a 1 on 1 matchup is all that matters and they did their part. People don't learn what makes a team build good, how to play a part in it, or that specializing and relying on your teammates for other components of a build is important. People think success in CA (or worse if there was a 1 on 1 arena) will translate into 8 on 8 or even TA. They have false senses of experience and skill in pvp, and don't adapt as quickly to 8 on 8 because they think they already know how to do it.. or they never adapt and remain poor players.

This game is about teamwork and a team build, and hope it remains that way.