Curse

shardfenix · Feb 13, 2006, 08:15 AM // 08:15

1: Rank is useless as it is. too many people got their rank from Spirit Spamming and various other exploits (excluding me

).
2: People can buy rank via eBay (although it is illegal, people will always be dumb enough to sell it, and other people will always be dumb enough to buy it).
3: Too many groups are rank-exclusive, meaning new players can't get into any heroes ascent groups unless the moon happens to be blue and 15.2 degrees above the horizon.

The solution?

Rank should be calculated not only from fame. If you want a system to show players how good you are, rank should take all of these factors ito account:
Fame, Win/Loss ratio in heroes ascent, and individual HoH wins.

In addition to these, rank you earn should only be included for whatever primary class you are playing when you obtain that rank. For example, because I ranger spike nowadays, and used to ele spike, I would be rank 3 ele, rank 3 ranger, and rank 1 or 2 of everything else. This makes sure that people can't "cheat" their way to rank 9 or 12 with IWAY or Spirit Spamming, then pass themself off as one of the best players in the world. I'd bet everything I own that everyone who is rank 12 today has spirit spammed and IWAYed in the past.

Minor fix to fame: Only allow a team to win in Hall of Heroes a certain number of times (5 would be nice). This would fix the problem of groups dominating HoH because they are specifically made for holding altars. This would also ensure that no team can get more than (you do the math) 300 fame per run if they fought through every level.

007Bistromath · Feb 13, 2006, 08:38 AM // 08:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

1: Rank is useless as it is. too many people got their rank from Spirit Spamming and various other exploits (excluding me

).
2: People can buy rank via eBay (although it is illegal, people will always be dumb enough to sell it, and other people will always be dumb enough to buy it).
3: Too many groups are rank-exclusive, meaning new players can't get into any heroes ascent groups unless the moon happens to be blue and 15.2 degrees above the horizon.

The solution?

Rank should be calculated not only from fame. If you want a system to show players how good you are, rank should take all of these factors ito account:
Fame, Win/Loss ratio in heroes ascent, and individual HoH wins.

In addition to these, rank you earn should only be included for whatever primary class you are playing when you obtain that rank. For example, because I ranger spike nowadays, and used to ele spike, I would be rank 3 ele, rank 3 ranger, and rank 1 or 2 of everything else. This makes sure that people can't "cheat" their way to rank 9 or 12 with IWAY or Spirit Spamming, then pass themself off as one of the best players in the world. I'd bet everything I own that everyone who is rank 12 today has spirit spammed and IWAYed in the past.

/signed

Quote:

Minor fix to fame: Only allow a team to win in Hall of Heroes a certain number of times (5 would be nice). This would fix the problem of groups dominating HoH because they are specifically made for holding altars. This would also ensure that no team can get more than (you do the math) 300 fame per run if they fought through every level.

...

/recanted

The "problem" of a group dominating the HoH because etc. etc. isn't so much a problem as it is them doing exactly what they are supposed to do. If you find a way to hold altars that is in some way tweakorific, congratulations! You win the game! Wait for Anet to nerf you and enjoy your stay at the top.

mattjones527 · Feb 13, 2006, 08:41 AM // 08:41

Rank is not usesless, rank shows that a person knows the maps. Also it sounds like your saying most everyone with rank got it from exploits. I got to rank 6 playing mostly balanced builds and air spike.
Your suggestion of taking win/loss ratio into effect wouldnt help the problem, clearly the teams that are more likely to win more often are the ones with the higher ranked players, who know the maps better and usually have more experience in HA. So all that would do is widen the gap of ranked and unranked.
As far as fixing the max hoh wins a team can have, that is just stupid. If a good team can manage to hold halls more than 5 times in a row, they are most likely skilled players. This game rewards skill not hours played remember, so to take away the rewards after so much skill has been shown, well that just wouldnt go along with guild wars ideals now would it.
To me it sounds like your just ranting because all of the good groups wont let you in. you might want to check out the "rant about rank" thread.
I would reccomend getting fame the same way I did. Play pve and if your not a jerk you can meet some nice people, make friends, form a guild, practice some gvg with voice communication. then simply go to HA. Then once you have your rank 3,6,9,12 or whatever then feel free to complain all you want, or better yet get to rank 6 and play with an unraked group and see how often you get people who have just got the game a week ago. My point being once you know the maps and know what to do, why would you want to chance the rest of the group having no idea what they are doing.

I do kind of like your idea of rank per class, but then again by the time you get to rank 6 you generally know all the skills and can learn a class very easily. So it would kind of just become a headache trying to get every class up in rank.

tafy69 · Feb 13, 2006, 09:34 AM // 09:34

Well rank isnt useless but its pretty close.

Im sure they are doing some kind of fame/rank system for Ch2 as there is new PvP areas. New teams will be asking for those emotes and wouldnt care much for the old rank emotes I hope.

NatalieD · Feb 13, 2006, 04:34 PM // 16:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattjones527

Also it sounds like your saying most everyone with rank got it from exploits. I got to rank 6 playing mostly balanced builds and air spike.

It's not that everyone got their rank that way, but that so many people did that rank is completely unreliable and useless as a measure of skill or knowledge of anything.

007Bistromath · Feb 13, 2006, 04:44 PM // 16:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattjones527

Your suggestion of taking win/loss ratio into effect wouldnt help the problem, clearly the teams that are more likely to win more often are the ones with the higher ranked players, who know the maps better and usually have more experience in HA.

You're ignoring the more important change the OP would make: including HoH wins. IWAY and other twinky builds aren't actually very good at holding the hall, and many fame-farmers will even quit and restart after making it there so they can go get more fame off hapless newbies. Factoring HoH wins into rank would make rank definitely indicate the things you think it does now, rather than indicating either that or farming skill.

Da Deathblade · Feb 13, 2006, 04:46 PM // 16:46

The above post is right, not everyone got their rank by doing air spikes, iway builds etc. There are a lot of advertisments for "Fame Farming" around the forums, so in this a rank 5 or 6 could easily have no idea what their doing. Maybe somewhat, but not as good as someone who earned it.

007Bistromath · Feb 13, 2006, 05:03 PM // 17:03

Which of us are you agreeing with? You realize that IWAY is fame farming, right?

lyra_song · Feb 13, 2006, 08:16 PM // 20:16

Losses in HA should remove fame. (Just like GvG removes your rating if you lose)

now that would be fun :P

shardfenix · Feb 14, 2006, 04:21 AM // 04:21

Wow i didnt expect this much feedback.
Rank is, in fact, useless right now. I say this because:
1: People cheat for it using exploits
2: People can buy it from eBay
3: It is account wide, meaning when GW Factions come out, I will be a rank 6 assassin/ritualist with zero experience.

Also, the win/loss ratio would help. IWAY has an average win/loss ratio of 1:1, and a "good" iway has a win/loss ratio of 3:1. Groups of experienced players running balance or ranger spike often run 5 plus wins in a row every time. Either adding a win/loss ratio, or taking away fame as lyra said would prevent groups from randomly charging in without a plan. (achieving rank could also be a safeguard. Once you hit rank 2, your fame can never drop below 75.)
Ill leave it up to A-net to figure out specifics, but something has to be done. Rank is a wasted stat on characters right now.
Please sign if you think this is a good idea.

dawnrain · Feb 14, 2006, 04:26 PM // 16:26

This thread is expressing a desire that rank be more an indicator of skill and less an indicator of time played.

Consider this under the current system: Group A consists of players who play Hero's Ascent (HA) 1-2 times a week but always get to or hold the hall of heroes. Group B consists of players who play 20 times as much as Group A but only win 1 or 2 matches per HA run. Group A is the more skilled group of players but Group B is the higher ranked players.

My suggestion for a modification of the rank system is that fame is not awarded until the team wins consecutive matches equal to a player's rank / 2. For example rank 3 and 4 players would not get fame for winning the first match, but would start getting fame after winning the second consecutive match. And fame is always awarded for winning the hall of heroes.

Rilder · Feb 14, 2006, 05:08 PM // 17:08

Rank is seriously messed up... Those that have no rank cant get any groups... those that have high rank cant get into groups cause theres not enough rank 3+ cause noone invites low ranked peeps into groups ^_^

Sinjin · Feb 14, 2006, 05:25 PM // 17:25

I agree that rank is mess up - just look at the last generation of R6 iwayers (by that, I mean the people that grinded out 1000 fame nearly entirely from iway) that are attempting to play something other than IWAY and they fail miserably.

Rank as it is represents time spent in HA, imo. I know a couple R7 IWAYers that play like noobs for other roles.

Robster Lobster · Feb 14, 2006, 10:39 PM // 22:39

Sorry, but I completely disagree with that first point.

I'm currently struggling to get to rank 3 to get accepted into more teams (105 fame so far), and almost all of that has been with PUGs, some of whom I've gone in with, only to find that half of them don't have a clear idea what to do. Should I lose fame for that? I'd never hit rank 3, and have an even harder time finding groups. Hell, I went into Tombs with a group recently, and after defeating the Zaishen (after several minutes) one of the fire ele's said "lol! I didn't put any points in fire magic". I wouldn't say our subsequent loss had much to do with me, we were effectively a player down. Speaking of which, some of my guild mates have internet problems, and have Net Err'd at the start of a match. Should that drop my fame even lower?

This wouldn't help at all in my opinion, the people that know the maps and can be organised would continue to gain fame, albeit a bit slower, whilst everyone else drops.

shardfenix · Feb 15, 2006, 01:29 AM // 01:29

Yeah,I think it would be unfair to take away fame for losses. However, the win/loss thing would make a big difference, especially with people who faction farm with crappy builds such as IWAY. The main concern is that rank does not show playing skill, when it is supposed to.

SziP · Feb 15, 2006, 01:38 AM // 01:38

shardfenix, i know its hard to get ur r3.....ive been through that, but try to endure, i assure you, after that you'll rank up a little easyer and not that slow.

TheLordOfBlah · Feb 15, 2006, 01:41 AM // 01:41

I PVP rarely. Random arenas only really, this is because of my horrible hatred against tombs. The system is so screwed that I cant get into any groups EVER. Trying to get into a group with 0 fame is damn near impossible.

I joined a group one time and they were like "OK emote at the front" and I told them I had no rank. Does that really show how good you are at it? NO. You could know every thing there is to know about the build you are using (eg: IWAY) and still not get a group because you havent used it enough.

I think of tombs like every other mission, exept theres a rank system exclusively for it and it does not show experience or skill, but rather time played which is not what this game is about. With other missions its easy to tell which people are going to be trouble, people who go "come on lets go lets go gogogog blahg balh [email protected] press ENTER MSIon!" why should we have a different system for tombs?

I have not PVPed in a long time because of stupid stuff like this. I think the whole rank system needs to be trashed.

shardfenix · Feb 15, 2006, 10:52 PM // 22:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by SziP

shardfenix, i know its hard to get ur r3.....ive been through that, but try to endure, i assure you, after that you'll rank up a little easyer and not that slow.

I'm rank 5. It's easy to get rank. I started this thread because after encouraging my friends to buy the game, they can't get any groups together, and every time I make a group, nobody joins because some of them dont have any rank. One of my friends has almost every skill unlocked from comp/team arenas but is only rank 2, and he plays better than most rank 9s I know.
PvP should encourage people to either specialize with a single class/classes, or to be all around. I hate joining groups who say they have rank 9 monks, when those monks have never healed before in their lives. As much as I hate the rank system, it could stay the same, they just need to apply it to the primary class you get it with.
I'll be a rank 6 assassin/ritualist in a few months with zero knowledge/experience of the skills. Tell me that makes sense, and you can keep the current rank system.
I assume the current rank system was reset when the game was released. The main abuse that people used in those days was spirit spamming, which ensured that once you captured Hall of Heroes, you stay in it until your whole team decided to leave. I can use 7 skills, then afk the rest of the match, why am I not rank 9, since that's what other rank 9's did. I have as much, if not more skills than them. Besides, using exploits is technically against the EULA, and you're supposed to report it right away, although I don't blame people for abusing it. I've abused a few exploits myself in order to have a fair game against other people abusing them.
Now that Guild Wars is near perfectly balanced, a reset would truly be fair for all players. My rank 5 means more than Virus's rank 12, since he got his from spirit spamming.

Simath · Feb 15, 2006, 11:32 PM // 23:32

I like the idea of each individual class would have its own rank. So when you are looking for a group you can say Rank 5 warrior LFG, and people can tell you experienced you are at that proffesion. The only problem i see with that is the large amount of people doing IWAY and therefore = an even larger amount of warriors looking for a group. Also i think that you should be able to get rank from GvG since you would be playing a class then and getting experience from it.

Clusmas · Feb 16, 2006, 02:06 AM // 02:06

I like the idea of losing fame for losses