Curse

sarra june · May 05, 2009, 02:31 AM // 02:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gradius

I understand why people "cling" to rank. Experience, skill, whatever. What I don't understand is why people are so judgmental towards those with lower ranks, and why there's only 1 way to gain rank. Here's how I see it:

- You gain rank through wins in HA.
- You have to be on a good team to win.
- You need to have a good rank to get on a good team.
- If you have no rank, you're screwed.

It all makes sense, it's just unfair to people who havent been playing for 3-4 years.

I knew absolutely no one in HA when I started and I got bambi in literally two weeks, solely from pugging with unranked groups - don't say it's unfair or impossible for people that haven't been doing it for a long time. Almost everyone in HA has to grind some experience out up through the lower ranks the slow way - pugging in low ranked groups - before they are good enough to get noticed by better players. By the time you get bambi you ought to have met some decent players (regardless of their ranks) and/or some decent players will have noticed you, and you should be on a few peoples' friends lists. When they form up you can join in, and it gets easier from there... less QQ more pewpew.

phoenixtech · May 05, 2009, 08:14 AM // 08:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gradius

I understand why people "cling" to rank. Experience, skill, whatever. What I don't understand is why people are so judgmental towards those with lower ranks, and why there's only 1 way to gain rank. Here's how I see it:

- You gain rank through wins in HA.
- You have to be on a good team to win.
- You need to have a good rank to get on a good team.
- If you have no rank, you're screwed.

It all makes sense, it's just unfair to people who havent been playing for 3-4 years.

Even though I had played some HA when the game first came out, spirit spam days, etc.. but had quit the game and came back later, and back then you didn't get fame for the first win, the 2nd map was a 6 way gankfest, quit the game for a while, came back and there were r9s around and I was unranked with but a few fame, much like the situation of most people who are new to HA now. Even worse, I'm pretty sure there were no observer mode back then, no double fame weekend, so it's even harder than it is now to make it to that 180 fame for your bambi. Took me HOURS just to get a group, that will promptly disband after the first loss, sometimes even at zaishen. What's worse was that I was on dial-up at the time which made vent practically impossible.

You wanna know how I finally got my 180 fame? I studied up on the map conditions, studied up on builds (you have ALL of that made alot easier these days with stuff like PVXWiki, Guru, OBSERVER MODE), studied up on strategies that was successful, and took charge by forming my own groups. Yes, it'll take you forever just to get a group, yes you have to have a CRAPLOAD of patience, and most importantly, you need put the people who didn't rage quit at the first loss on your flist.

Once you got that core group going, and playing together everyday, you'll naturally get better and you would only care about rank when you are pugging someone from outside of your group, then you'll be making the same post I am to some new guy who ask the same old question of "why do people cling to rank?"

aapo · May 05, 2009, 12:24 PM // 12:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by axe

When I play with people higher rank than me I learn something on every map, also my mistakes as small as I think they may be, are glaringly obvious to the other players, they dont hesitate to call you out on it, and thus --> improve as a player.

- That is certainly one option. I was saying in the opening post that encouraging environment counts more to successful run. Every successful team I've been in (regardless of rank) has had good team leader calling tactics even if they might have been obvious to some of the more experienced players. Take relic run or capture points for example. Every team build has different strengths and these have to be taken into account.

Yet some things are just easier to blame than others. Two warriors die against fire ele team. No one asks did these warriors have +armor vs. fire shields equipped, everyone places the blame on healer "for not healing". Or if one of the warriors was lower rank than rest of the team, now it's the warrior's fault for balling up with the other warrior. I've been in countless mid-rank GvG guilds where the build is always to blame for losses. No matter if it was copied skill-to-skill from top 20 guild, it's always the build which sucks. People never stop to analyze things and that's the road to ruin. Ranks and other stuff which are not even based on winning probability give false refuge from having to think.

When monk presses wrong skill when it would be time to Infuse, everyone notices the mistake. At the same time Warriors and Mesmers could be spamming their skills on recharge, scoring lucky kill every now and then. Just like in Poker when even idiot sometimes manages to get lucky hand and win without any strategy. Everyone wonders why their guild is only rank 500. It's times like this when I smile inwards. "This build doesn't work".

Quote:

Originally Posted by axe

But with the new(er) title system people know that r8 players are a better bet than an r6 player, as a r8 player yourself surely you can notice better results in r8 pugs than r6?

- I'll give you an example. I recently started HA again, after long break from the game. I noticed that everyone was playing IWAY and decided to join one r8 group to play the healer. I kindly asked what the bar was for Prism healer. Instead of just pinging the bar this is what I received:

"OMFG NOOB"
"ebay..."
"Kick!!!"

Some hours later I got the build, studied how it worked and then proceeded to hold halls on good party. People assume things that are simply false. Having good rank doesn't mean you're necessarily good (after long break) and having low rank doesn't mean you're necessarily bad (top GvG player).

Nadia Roark · May 05, 2009, 03:15 PM // 15:15

Something similar happened to me the day I came back, when I tried to get into a party as a PnH. I asked the team leader what he wanted me to run, and he said "PnH Prot" and left it at that. My attempts to divine exactly what he wanted on my bar were met with no small amount of hostility, and I was kicked from the group despite outranking half of them (I'm r9). The team leader was pretty cool about it in PM afterward, but there you have it.

As for me, I'd rather have a r0 that pays attention and follows calls/strat than a r9 who doesn't. I know many such people in both categories, and I bring the former into r9+ teams frequently. I have a r1-r3 friends that I bring into my r9+ groups, and so far no one has complained about their play, or booted them for being too low a rank.

TogoTheTiger · May 07, 2009, 01:33 PM // 13:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nadia Roark

Something similar happened to me the day I came back, when I tried to get into a party as a PnH. I asked the team leader what he wanted me to run, and he said "PnH Prot" and left it at that. My attempts to divine exactly what he wanted on my bar were met with no small amount of hostility, and I was kicked from the group despite outranking half of them (I'm r9). The team leader was pretty cool about it in PM afterward, but there you have it.

As for me, I'd rather have a r0 that pays attention and follows calls/strat than a r9 who doesn't. I know many such people in both categories, and I bring the former into r9+ teams frequently. I have a r1-r3 friends that I bring into my r9+ groups, and so far no one has complained about their play, or booted them for being too low a rank.

But how often do you win HoH?? Being such as low as rank 1 means you have just over 25 fame... That means that you haven't been to halls much besides skips.

Try 3way KoTH. What if that r1 is the SoC? And he throws it up before the opposing ghost dies and you don't cap? Maybe he is a ranger, and he can't decide if Blue's E/P or W/P has SoC. Any non-ebayed r10 would know that.

Now say it's 1v1 Cap points, and you have an r1 in the group with 7 r10s. The leader could be calling tactics, but shouldn't even have to by this point. Every player should know when to split for which base, and for what reason. Maybe you put the r1 on the bitch bar, LC. Now how is he supposed to go back to snare anything sent for your base if he doesn't know what to look for? What if while everyone else is playing flawlessly, he runs to the base that isn't even there because it's a 1v1. He could be trying to get there for a minute and lose you the match because he is inexperienced.

Relic run is obviously the joke of HoH in my people's opinion. If you once again have him on N/E, he could easily get faked out, get diverted, or not even be on a 40/40 earth. Knowing those things comes with experience in halls.

The obvious response to this will be "The caller should be telling him what to do." Well do you really want your caller busy micro'ing someone? They should be busy playing their own bar, and if not, then why not bring Gwen? She can atleast interupt Infuse.

jaximus · May 07, 2009, 02:49 PM // 14:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by TogoTheTiger

They should be busy playing their own bar, and if not, then why not bring Gwen? She can atleast interupt Infuse.

pro high level player here guys. when in doubt abuse a hero's amazing interrupting ability. prolly rode gwen all the way to your high rank.

as for why people cling to rank, its because they are compensating. they know their own rank is prolly tainted with heroway, sway, palm striking/heroes, iway and know they lack the proper skill to be at the rank they are. therefore they need to surround themselves with players that should have the skill level and are able to carry them.

i myself only have a bambi. i spent my first few years in pve/arenas getting a knowledge base and playing with irl friends. the past year ive been in gvg and know i have a higher skill level than many r9s.

anet says rank doesnt really matter with the hall of monuments (which i hate) says r3+ glad, r3+ champ, r8+ hero in order to display them. they are saying that these are comparable titles.

Alleji · May 07, 2009, 05:16 PM // 17:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by aapo

Once you've gotten your rank 9, you're rank 9 infuser, rank 9 interrupter, rank 9 target caller, rank 9 team former all at the same time. Today and after taking one year break, no matter what the current metagame is. Yeah right! It just doesn't work at all and I'm genuinely surprised so many people think it does.

People who have half a brain won't actually try that.

I got r11 playing midline classes - necro, mesmer, random brainless bars like fire ele, etc. I'm a terrible monk. Sure, I could join a team as "r11 monk", but I'd fail, make the team fail, and not win anything as a result. So what's the point?

Back in the old days plenty of people got r3/r6 iwaying and then attempted to join different builds and simply didn't know how to play them. As far as I can see now, it's happening less and generally not at higher ranks. People will be fairly specific about what they can and can't play.

EDIT:

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaximus

anet says rank doesnt really matter with the hall of monuments (which i hate) says r3+ glad, r3+ champ, r8+ hero in order to display them. they are saying that these are comparable titles.

Or maybe it's because hero title existed for over 2 years before glad and champ and anet might have wanted to compensate for that somehow? Also, lol good joke comparing r3 glad and r3 champ.

jaximus · May 07, 2009, 05:43 PM // 17:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaximus

anet says rank doesnt really matter with the hall of monuments (which i hate) says r3+ glad, r3+ champ, r8+ hero in order to display them. they are saying that these are comparable titles.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alleji

Also, lol good joke comparing r3 glad and r3 champ.

bolded words are key here.
also if they removed heroes from pvp, people would actually have to learn how to play and then rank would begin to almost mean something.

Reverend Dr · May 08, 2009, 09:16 PM // 21:16

Not trying to fanboy Ensign (well, no more respect than is due), but can we just end all "rank discrimination" threads with his post on the one that was over in Riverside?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Let me share a little secret:

Talent is not important.

Talent is a cheap resource. There's lots of talent out there. You can find it anywhere. It's very common.

Here is what is rare:

1) Attitude
2) Effort

That's what I care about. That is what is rare. People who are looking to *get better as a player and contribute to a team* and *put forth the effort to do so* are solid gold. It doesn't even matter if they have talent. They'll inevitably get better and start working as a team. They're putting in the effort. And they beat up on everyone who doesn't.

What I got from the original post is that:

1) Your attitude is terrible
2) You are not even trying

As long as that is true, no player who has accomplished anything in this game will want to have anything to do with you. I don't care if you are the most talented person to ever grace Guild Wars. You are bad, and will continue to be bad unless you fix your approach.

count_hamstein · May 11, 2009, 10:01 AM // 10:01

im rank 1 and its VERY hard for me to get into a group. Usually i just iway cause its fast, easy and allows me to farm the first few lvls. Sometimes we get some highranked in the groups i make and sometimes they suck (i often have a high ranked player, like 9+ rush into battle on the zaishen battle)

we usually win the first battle though, its quite easy with iway (we can often beat other iways) and sometimes i lie about my rank and get into higher ranked teams. When these teams lose they never blame me even when i tell them im rank1.

I say people just use that rank thing to judge people without playing with them, and to be honest ive had more fun with teams who just want to play and have fun than with the teams who want fame (can be r0 or r9) and freak out or rage when they dont get any, leaving the team instantly after we lose on the 3rd map. Teams that lose on the first battle and just say "lets go again" are the best

Wish Swiftdeath · May 11, 2009, 10:41 AM // 10:41

It's harder to screw up playing a war in iway then playing infuse...

count_hamstein · May 11, 2009, 11:01 AM // 11:01

I didnt say I screw up

BTW I never understood what an infuses purpose was

Killed u man · May 11, 2009, 11:05 AM // 11:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaximus

pro high level player here guys. when in doubt abuse a hero's amazing interrupting ability. prolly rode gwen all the way to your high rank.
.

You missed his point tough. He is saying, or atleast that's the impression I have:

As a caller, it's important to let everyone know how to play their bars BEFORE YOU GO IN. If you don't, then you'll spend most of the match explaining them how to play their bars. Hence, the reference to gwen, because she will play the bar given to her at 99% efficiency, and thus making it easier for the caller to do his job, which is call, and not spend 8 out of every 10 minutes explaining other people what to do.

Also, rank means alot, but definatly not everything. There is enough bitchbar players out there (Mip, all the german Rspikers/IV'spikers/Deathspikers, etc...) who achieved their personal R12 (Or even 13), yet only played bitch bars for all of it.

Just yesterday, someone I KNOW is a bad player invited himself to my R10+ team (He is R12 or 13), but I refused him.

I judge on skill, not on rank. And if I don't know you, you'll get the benefit of the doubt (Which is whatever your rank says).
Rank is the only way of indicating someone's experience. Good thing I observe alot, and thus I pretty much know every HA'er, and also how skilled he is.

So as a straight-up response to your thread:

Why do people cling to rank?

It's the only thing we've got...

TheHaxor · May 11, 2009, 01:07 PM // 13:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alleji

EDIT: Or maybe it's because hero title existed for over 2 years before glad and champ and anet might have wanted to compensate for that somehow? Also, lol good joke comparing r3 glad and r3 champ.

Yes, the champion title is an elite title in this game. It's not like just anyone can pay some people manipulating the ladder to achieve it, right?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

Just yesterday, someone I KNOW is a bad player invited himself to my R10+ team (He is R12 or 13), but I refused him.

Yes, all of the real good players played rit spike

Nadia Roark · May 11, 2009, 05:16 PM // 17:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by TogoTheTiger

But how often do you win HoH?? Being such as low as rank 1 means you have just over 25 fame... That means that you haven't been to halls much besides skips.

Color me puzzled: I'm r9. Still, I don't win HoH much on account of my not being a part of any core HA team at present. I've been running (mostly) that terrible new iway, if only on virtue of the fact that finding a good pug balanced is about as rare as an honest politician. They exist, but it might take me months or years to find them. People give me a lot of crap for running iway (as well they should, especially considering how god-awful the new version is), but at this point I honestly don't have the flist to pug anything else.

Quote:

Try 3way KoTH. What if that r1 is the SoC? And he throws it up before the opposing ghost dies and you don't cap? Maybe he is a ranger, and he can't decide if Blue's E/P or W/P has SoC. Any non-ebayed r10 would know that.

Speaking as a PnH (who obviously carries Song) I've actually found it to be relatively useless. Group Leaders seem married to the idea of taking it just in case so I do, but it gets interrupted about 99% of the time, and if it doesn't my Ghostlies have this hilarious habit of doing something super intelligent like dshotting or cyclone ax-ing before he caps. In the three or so weeks I've been back in HA, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times SoC+ AoS worked as intended, and even then it hardly guarantees victory. I'd say I start casting song about 80% of the time we're about to cap, it gets interrupted 90-95% of the time, and if it doesn't, it gets wasted on Cyclone Axe or dshot or something about another 66% of the time. In terms of raw functionality, SoC is the most useless skill on my bar by a fairly wide margin.

Quote:

Now say it's 1v1 Cap points, and you have an r1 in the group with 7 r10s. The leader could be calling tactics, but shouldn't even have to by this point. Every player should know when to split for which base, and for what reason. Maybe you put the r1 on the bitch bar, LC. Now how is he supposed to go back to snare anything sent for your base if he doesn't know what to look for? What if while everyone else is playing flawlessly, he runs to the base that isn't even there because it's a 1v1. He could be trying to get there for a minute and lose you the match because he is inexperienced.

Funny you should mention that because I had a strat caller last week who told me (as PnH) to take the ghostly to "the middle," which I found curious, but being as I'm not in the habit of challenging strat once called, I complied. I figured maybe the rest of the team would be playing differently, but that wasn't the case. Of course, we lose the match (and I did have the sense to double back to the bottom two altars after about the first 15 seconds anyway) but three guesses and the first two don't count who got called the noob in that situation.

Quote:

Relic run is obviously the joke of HoH in my people's opinion. If you once again have him on N/E, he could easily get faked out, get diverted, or not even be on a 40/40 earth. Knowing those things comes with experience in halls.

Actually, it's generally been my experience that teams are okay at snaring (it's fairly intuitive), where they tend to fail is body blocking. Maybe one out of four of my teams have been able to successfully execute a 2-2 body block, whereas about half the teams I face execute them perfectly and we never get around them (it's not hard, just stand on the stairs and don't move... don't know why people can't do that).

Quote:

The obvious response to this will be "The caller should be telling him what to do." Well do you really want your caller busy micro'ing someone? They should be busy playing their own bar, and if not, then why not bring Gwen? She can atleast interupt Infuse.

Heh. In the summer of '07 I came back to HA for a bit and pumped out about 1100 fame with a fairly successful build, but I eventually rq'd the guild because our Guild Leader insisted on both calling and playing backline at the same time, despite my complaints as a fellow backliner.

Eddie Frenzy Spam · May 11, 2009, 05:16 PM // 17:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheHaxor

Yes, the champion title is an elite title in this game. It's not like just anyone can pay some people manipulating the ladder to achieve it, right?

In the end all the titles can be bought/obtained through means not involving any player skill. However, the majority of people with champ titles (3+) haven't bought them and so most of the time you can assume they are somewhat legit.

It still is one of the most prestige titles, despite becoming more and more tainted.

TheHaxor · May 11, 2009, 06:07 PM // 18:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by eddie the reaper

In the end all the titles can be bought/obtained through means not involving any player skill. However, the majority of people with champ titles (3+) haven't bought them and so most of the time you can assume they are somewhat legit.

It still is one of the most prestige titles, despite becoming more and more tainted.

Are you kidding? Most people that have c3+ now have farmed them off bought guilds. It is pretty much the same thing, except you actually have to play to win the matches.

diabiosx · May 11, 2009, 07:49 PM // 19:49

We at Fast as a Turtle [WoOm] are all r11-12. our prot monk is r9(low rank for us) which IMHO our way of saying we dont rank discriminate to a certain extend.

IF we play with our core(which we don't very often now q.q) we can easily get 100-200fame runs and hold HOH at least 5times.
We have played with r11 players who in a sense cause us losses(ie, cant interupt song then ghost, res monk at 5sec before the minute and other minor details that low ranks probably can not catch[cant do voluntary death to instantly teleport to a base in capture points, forcing a player to die to gain energy benefits{which sometimes dont happen cause infuser is stupid}])

Bottom line there are tiers in HA, there is NO WAY in hell r12+ players will play with r3-r8players because of experience difference.

Let's face it R12+players have higher chance of winning than r8 players. And r12 players do mess up but not as frequent as r8.(there is a 10x fame difference)

Even if you are the most PRO r8 who can plays a mesmer and can PD 1/4sec on reflex and not on prediction vs a r12 mesmer who cant,
There are suttle differences in play strategies that you know the r12 mesmer who sucks at interupt is the better player, because of the experience. This HARD to explain but the bottom line is EXPERIENCE(IE how long you played HA) matters because you can react to situations faster.

R8s who play with r1s IS the same as r12s who play with r8s.
whatever you(r8) think of R1s is what we think of you.

As much as you hate to deny it, the bottom line is R8 players are not the best HAers and are no where near it.

PS i do join low rank teams(r3-8) and I do notice the need to farm UW alot with those teams, and I only leave after 3UW farming and them not realising the problem(which is usually the monks fault[as some1 pointed out in the previous post]).

Ka Tet · May 12, 2009, 03:37 AM // 03:37

Um, BNET used to hold every night. In the beginning, our core team had no Tigers(we all got most of our rank between the founding and closing of the guild), and we would frequently turn down r10-13s who were trying to get on our teams, because there wasn't room for them. And when there was room for them they were usually a disappointment. Mostly, it was because they weren't one of us. If you get a core group of good people who are also good players and enjoy playing together and make the time to do so on a regular basis, you can't lose, regardless of rank.

Eddie Frenzy Spam · May 12, 2009, 12:06 PM // 12:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheHaxor

Are you kidding? Most people that have c3+ now have farmed them off bought guilds. It is pretty much the same thing, except you actually have to play to win the matches.

I don't think this is really true...

I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, I know that it happens but it's not the majority.

While there are people who do farm/lameway/buy champ points the % of people that have champ titles compared to the % of people that buy/lame them will be a lot smaller than say...laming HA titles or any other title.

That makes it still one of the most exclusive titles.