Curse

anonymous · Dec 23, 2007, 08:09 AM // 08:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keithark

Well what I have said you have had no valid argument against. I was content that to any intelligent person I had made my point which is a valid one. (obviously you are not an intelligent person) But since it would make an arse like you happy for me to stop posting in here I guess I will have to continue. If you happen to phone a friend and get help comming up with a valid reason why there could not be some sort of different town or whatever to let people say r0-r3 only, another for r4-r6, and so on play against like opponents then I will be happy to agree with you and move on. But as it stands I see no rational argument against having it seperate.

Because people have friends that are not always in their rank range. Why can't I play with my rank 10 friends just because I'm only rank 7?

elektra_lucia · Dec 23, 2007, 12:47 PM // 12:47

Quote:

I used to think "rank discrimination" was a joke, and I still do to some extent, but after recent GW logons I think the problem has finally become reality.

The problem isn't high ranks not accepting low ranks, because that is a given and probably SHOULD happen. The problem is that there are very few low rank pugs in existence anymore. Low rank pugs with any organization are even more rare.

This creates a huge gap in the playerbase that is not currently filled. In the old days new players could quickly pick up an Iway pug and gain some HA experience. They could go on later to try out better builds if they were serious about PvP. Nowadays that is nearly impossible.

The amount of districts today compared to years ago is truly sad. I am not saying rank is the only factor (or even the biggest factor), but it was definately A factor.

Less low rank groups, less high rank groups. When I started, I actually remember more IWAY groups and not much balance at all, but it could be my twisted perception in search for the almighty bambi (rofl).

Quote:

/Agreed

OS: that problem isn't limited just to HA and it's rank system, but the GW community in general is not very 'new player' friendly...

No competitive game is really. Look at CS. I had made friends with SK, mTw, Mouz from another game so it was easy for me to then play with them when I started BUT for new players who didn't know anyone, hell they probably wouldn't even know the passwords to private servers (lol). A player will say look at demos, but often people don't know what to be looking for in a demo.

I remember in one game fatal1ty playing Vo0 (vo0 won most of the matches) I could see that Vo0 was playing with high mouse sensitivity. Fatal1ty slower, but Vo0 played generally better. What has this to do with anything? Well, many players would say fatal1ty won the final and therefore the better player. If they could understand the match, they would see that fata11lty definitely wasn't a better player.

Quote:

Anyhow for what it is worth I am one of these 'no rank' up starts that has tried to find pugs that will take me. It is really hard to learn how to do something in PvP when no one wants to take the time to teach you. "Watch OB mode" is what most say... fat lot of good that does if no one is there to tell you what the heck is going on, what went wrong and what went right.

Yeah, but over time you learn. Start off by studying one character, watch the match 8 times (each person on one time). Watch how he pre kites (or doesn't). Hits a protted target... Doesn't hit a protted target. Balls in AOE, doesn't ball in AOE. These are all basic things but so many warriors I see, go towards a player, it gets pre protted and they don't think to change target or another thing which can be good, go towards a player (as though you were going to hit it) then switch target. Wasting monks energy. When you have watched it a lot, watch it again but looking at EVERYONE and not just one player.

I did try to make a thread on helping people and I try to help people in game. I do play with low rank people if I'm in the mood, but always some fool will criticize me (when I haven't done him).

Quote:

You lot like posting, ok... go post something positive, heck yeah I want into a higher ranked group.... you know why? not because I think I'm as good as, but because I'd actually like to learn from somebody who knows what they are doing instead of being lead by those who don't.

When you have learnt all this powerful stuff and you have your close friends. Are you going to kick one of them out of the group to make way for a person learning? Also, how are you so sure you will learn? You might actually not... Not as fast as you think anyway.

The best way, is to say at the END of the match (not during) what did you do wrong. Or what did the team do wrong.

Quote:

Post like the OP only manage to kill desire to learn. I don't ever want to be anything like the OP. I know I'm just as worthy as they are, I am capable of learning what they know (if not more), I simply have yet to obtain that knowledge and experience yet.

Guildwars was always an iffy game for me. 400+ ping. Not going on mic, so gaining no respect from people, but all I can say is that in the games I took serious my drive to be good was quite apparent. Personally I don't think I'm that good at guildwars, yes I think others are bad but I do not think I am that good. Yes I would want to put my fist through the screen if I lost or punch a brick wall as hard as I could. Did it get me far? Sure; HOWEVER, in guildwars I don't really have that attitude.

It's not a 1vs1 game, I can't play 10 hours a day (plus 20 before tournament) like I could when I played FPS. There just isn't the people to do that unless I go play with randoms...

So considering I am not pushing myself then you shouldn't even waste time comparing yourself to me. I'm nothing worth comparing too at the moment. Drive was the primarily thing what made me good at games and I simply don't have a tenth of it as what I did with other games.

Quote:

long and short... quit talking down to people. your experiment failed because you fail to see that person as a potential equal. yes there are things to be taught but constantly telling a person they are stupid doesn't make them any smarter.

Are you talking about me making a guild? That failed because people wanted to leech and not put in any effort. Was my fault though, oh I'll continue to talk down to people.

Nice post, I must say. So what reasons have I for letting you join my groups? Sorry that it just got worse, someone else now pays me 2.5K per fame.

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There's a difference between you and me, eager learners, and Joe Noob, who thinks Mending is the best thing to happen to Guild Wars since Frenzy. The OP is railing on those latter people, not on us, though I have learned from painful experience with the OP in-game that not being fully aware of the entire team's actions is tantamount to saying "stupid things."

That team we lost to, I played vs with randomway and won (I prot monked and didn't have an infuser on team I think). Not trying to sound cocky but it was definitely the prot monks fault.

A lot of people PM on here, you're welcome to invite me to play, I'll play with whoever if I'm in the mood (or not already in a group) and I don't dump people mid match unless the rare exception that I promise to play with someone...

Quote:

I don't ever want to be anything like the OP. I know I'm just as worthy as they are

You barely know me, and you're pre-judging quite a lot. You could be the most dishonest unloyal person in the world and saying you are as worthy as me. As far as I'm concerned, the mere fact you waste time judging whether or not you're as worthy as someone who QUIT pro-gaming (or whatever) makes you less worthy

.

RotteN · Dec 24, 2007, 01:53 AM // 01:53

on topic :
As for the "low rank" people, surely, there are those who are willing to learn and take advice. But most if not all experienced players realy don't have the time, nor the interest, to filter through all the "know-it-alls" to reach those new players eager to learn things. I'd rather spend my time actually playing the game on the level i'm used to instead of getting annoyed too much. This might sound selfish, but the goal of gaming for me is still to have fun. If someone asks me a question about something, i'll always reply, but i won't run around tutoring people

aapo · Dec 24, 2007, 05:58 PM // 17:58

Opening post is making false attribution error.

When you say "low rank people think that...", "low rank people don't understand kiting", "low rank people don't listen to others", you fail to understand that rank is nothing more than number describing how many battles in HA have been won for that particular account. It means that if you lost your account and bought a new one, I could use your words to say that "you think Mending is a good skill and don't listen to people". This is what can be said about drawing equation marks between personalities and rank title.

I'm not particularly criticizing that there is rank dicrimination, I'm just surprised why it's so prevalent. If someone would go to make PvE groups for Urgoz Warren stating that only characters wearing FoW armor can join "because all others are just bad", everyone would probably laugh him off the district. There's builds XYZ for farming ectos in the Underworld, which work and which get results. There's builds UVW for farming fame in Heroes Ascent, which work and which get results. Both require proper set-up and practice of course, but besides that it's nothing special.

Problems arise when people (often in PUGs) are given skillbars they've never played and don't understand why certain skills are in the bar. They don't dare to ask or question anything, because of the mentality that everyone who is any good at the game knows everything implicitly. I can relate my best HA experiences on teams (it was mixed r3-r8 team) where the leader was a vocal person. I don't mean vocal as spouting insults on every chance he gets, but as explaining what to do with every build we faced and every situation that occured. High rank groups nowadays are disasters, when everyone just assumes and don't bother to talk about anything. I would say leading the team is the factor that contributes most to success, but alas there is no title that says someone is a good sociable person, only title that says you've "been there" on the winning team for # number of times.

Rank is the best we got. Simple to check, not very accurate to describe skill. Unranked groups are just like taking employees off the street for your company. It just doesn't work and for a reason. It has nothing to do with actual rank value though, but getting to know them.

Winstar · Dec 24, 2007, 07:25 PM // 19:25

You're right that you can't take rank as a perfect indicator of skill or potential to learn

You say,

"Rank is nothing more than number describing how many battles in HA have been won for that particular account"

To say 'nothing more' is to wrongly imply that this statistic indicates nothing of relevance to your assessment of a player. This is where I think you are incorrect. It indicates experience. You can say of a fighter pilot that Completing a tour of duty just means having flown so many missions. But of course this implies at least some information about the person that is relevant when wondering if you want to make use of their services.

Of course rank is not a perfect indicator of ability, but it isn't irrelevant or surprising that its used when forming pugs. What other information do you have to go on when trying to form a team? If you don't know the persons guild or anyone they may have played with before then its the only thing that tells you anything at all before actually playing with them.

The reason its not surprising that rank elitism in forming groups doesn't occur more in PvE is that PvE is - in almost every case - freaking easy. Player skill doesn't really play as big a roll in success. It may speed up or slow down completion of goals, but thats about it. Where it does matter it wouldn't be crazy for some sort of relevant rank to play a roll.

elektra_lucia · Dec 24, 2007, 09:05 PM // 21:05

The low rank players to whine about rank discrimination are bad, the low rank players who had rank12 accounts (leteci for example) don't waste their time whining. They play with friends still. So it's not really quite what I meant, in what I said. Also generally when I discuss, I don't mean the rank15's who bought their account on ebay, or the rank 50's who sold their account but now have rank1 on their new one. I'm talking about the general. Someone from PVE, going to PVP and then whining he doesn't get high rank groups, only to get pissed off, run back to PVE and not give someone free droks runs! : ).

I think that you narrowed my argument down too much and argued with that, try to think of it as more a general thing.

Vulkanyaz · Dec 24, 2007, 09:31 PM // 21:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by aapo

I would say leading the team is the factor that contributes most to success, but alas there is no title that says someone is a good sociable person, only title that says you've "been there" on the winning team for # number of times.

Agreed

I've always done best in a group with a vocal leader.

aapo · Dec 25, 2007, 12:24 AM // 00:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winstar

To say 'nothing more' is to wrongly imply that this statistic indicates nothing of relevance to your assessment of a player. This is where I think you are incorrect. It indicates experience. You can say of a fighter pilot that Completing a tour of duty just means having flown so many missions. But of course this implies at least some information about the person that is relevant when wondering if you want to make use of their services.

- Rank tells how long person has played HA and it's nowhere as fundamental indicator of skill as many people seem to think. It also doesn't tell what professions person can play correctly. In days of IWAY, bloodspike, spiritway, paraway etc. it took next to no skill to farm fame. Then there was double fame weekends which devaluated old achievements by offering potential to gain fame double the rate.

Why rank doesn't tell how skillful person is?
If a "good" player wins 80% of the time and plays 3 hours a day and "mediocre" player wins 40% of the time and plays 6 hours a day. Let's say that maximum amount of fame that can be gained in one hour with perfect play is X.
Then
"Good" player gains 0.80x * 3 = 2.4x fame per day
"Mediocre" player gains 0.40x * 6 = 2.4x fame per day

This is my point. It's time spend * skill level = rank, not skill level = rank. To get accurate measure of one's performance we would need weighed, dynamic ranking system and even then it would have problems like how to measure inactivity. Obviously developers of this game is nowhere this serious about PvP. Alter a few skill variables every now and then to give the impression that they're considering.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winstar

Of course rank is not a perfect indicator of ability, but it isn't irrelevant or surprising that its used when forming pugs. What other information do you have to go on when trying to form a team? If you don't know the persons guild or anyone they may have played with before then its the only thing that tells you anything at all before actually playing with them.

- Unfortunately nothing else, unless you're playing with people you personally know, which makes me ask why PvP players are forming new guilds all the time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by elektra_lucia

I'm talking about the general. Someone from PVE, going to PVP and then whining he doesn't get high rank groups, only to get pissed off, run back to PVE and not give someone free droks runs! : ).

- That is the question:
Are people bad because they whine and don't listen to others?
Or are people bad because they have no rank?
Choose your enemy, don't just couple together no rank = whining = bad

I don't see the correlation, as there's around as many unreliable high-ranked people who might ragequit and run off at any minor setback, thus costing games as much as playing poorly does.

Winstar · Dec 25, 2007, 02:11 AM // 02:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by aapo

- Rank tells how long person has played HA and it's nowhere as fundamental indicator of skill as many people seem to think. It also doesn't tell what professions person can play correctly. In days of IWAY, bloodspike, spiritway, paraway etc. it took next to no skill to farm fame. Then there was double fame weekends which devaluated old achievements by offering potential to gain fame double the rate.

Why rank doesn't tell how skillful person is?
If a "good" player wins 80% of the time and plays 3 hours a day and "mediocre" player wins 40% of the time and plays 6 hours a day. Let's say that maximum amount of fame that can be gained in one hour with perfect play is X.
Then
"Good" player gains 0.80x * 3 = 2.4x fame per day
"Mediocre" player gains 0.40x * 6 = 2.4x fame per day

This is my point. It's time spend * skill level = rank, not skill level = rank. To get accurate measure of one's performance we would need weighed, dynamic ranking system and even then it would have problems like how to measure inactivity. Obviously developers of this game is nowhere this serious about PvP. Alter a few skill variables every now and then to give the impression that they're considering.

- Unfortunately nothing else, unless you're playing with people you personally know, which makes me ask why PvP players are forming new guilds all the time.

To address the last first about PvP players forming new guilds. When people form new guilds they generally aren't getting together with strangers but people they know from other guilds they have played with before. If things aren't going well people want change, so they move around a lot trying different things out. If a guild doesn't know someone they generally try them out first.

Second, I agree there are lots of factors that should make one wary of strictly equating rank with skill as I mentioned before. I also think some other measure could be implimented that is a lot more informative- but that isn't happening at this point in the games history. Yet given the way things are, if you are forming a pug and you have a choice between two people you don't know, one with rank and another with no rank, you choose the person with rank. If you take rank = skill without question you're misguided. But it does give you some useful information in such cases about a persons amount experience, which is important.

Rank obviously doesn't trump everything. If a friend recommends someone who they GvG with with lower rank than a random person in id1 I'll take the friends suggestion everytime. But that doesn't mean there aren't times where rank isn't relevant.

yum · Dec 25, 2007, 03:11 AM // 03:11

<yawn>
Friends >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> PUGs. We can end the discussion here.

elektra_lucia · Dec 25, 2007, 03:38 AM // 03:38

Indeed we can, if the discussion was an argument based on friends versus pug; however, it isn't.

Quote:

Choose your enemy, don't just couple together no rank = whining = bad

Hmm maybe I explained myself badly. This thread was made towards the low rank people that whine. Generally... I am talking about the ones who spam ID1 saying how they can't HA because they have no rank, etc. Obviously I don't think all no rank players are bad =p.

TheHaxor · Dec 25, 2007, 06:01 AM // 06:01

Despite the fact that the OP is all over the place as well as the fact that there are some bad arguments in this thread, this thread was actually an interesting read for me.

What the OP described in their original post is simply human nature. It is within our nature to believe that everything is unfair because there is simply no way to explain everything otherwise. It is within our nature to resist change because if we feel the need to change then we admit that we are not as good as we think we are (we are actually fallible!). It is within our nature to believe we have unlimited potential. Life would simply be unlivable if we were to admit that everything is not possible. People don't want to actually work for anything because it is easier to have it handed to us. If things are not easy, then people tend to give up or leave and go somewhere else where they feel they have a better chance to succeed because things might be easier there.

Simply put: People bitch about everything because well... it is human nature for people bitch about everything. There is always going to be someone that is unhappy. No post, whether it is good or bad, is going to stop unranked players from bitching.

Graphik Desine · Dec 26, 2007, 03:01 AM // 03:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheHaxor

Despite the fact that the OP is all over the place as well as the fact that there are some bad arguments in this thread, this thread was actually an interesting read for me.

What the OP described in their original post is simply human nature. It is within our nature to believe that everything is unfair because there is simply no way to explain everything otherwise. It is within our nature to resist change because if we feel the need to change then we admit that we are not as good as we think we are (we are actually fallible!). It is within our nature to believe we have unlimited potential. Life would simply be unlivable if we were to admit that everything is not possible. People don't want to actually work for anything because it is easier to have it handed to us. If things are not easy, then people tend to give up or leave and go somewhere else where they feel they have a better chance to succeed because things might be easier there.

Simply put: People bitch about everything because well... it is human nature for people bitch about everything. There is always going to be someone that is unhappy. No post, whether it is good or bad, is going to stop unranked players from bitching.

lol parts of quote in bold, i totally agree. nicely put.

humans fall victim to hypocrisy easily. contradicting one's own self is a major human flaw, and we, as the gw community, can see that [hypocrisy] working itself thick in this thread.

there was a line somewhere on one of the pages (but i could not find it to quote it) that went along the lines of "the players that are playing poorly [that do not see their own flaws] will whine about others and point it out to the group leader (or others)"--but in this case here, the OP seems to have done exactly what those [players that are playing poorly that do not see their own flaws] have done: explaining to us, the gw community, how bad some players are playing for whatever reasons (that don't matter). the argument/topic caved in on itself the instant we had become aware (thru reading these posts) that this is what some players do.

and because nobody had actually pointed this out, this is why this thread is still alive after 2.5 months.

even though rank discrimination and/or arrogance may still be in practice, hopefully new players to HA do not read this and start practicing it as well...it is up to the rest of us to either make it better or make it worse for the rest of the HA players of all ranks :/

elektra_lucia · Dec 26, 2007, 04:48 AM // 04:48

When I was new, I accepted I wasn't very good and I still accept I can improve a lot - these players don't seem to do that. It's not entirely the same.

Quote:

People don't want to actually work for anything because it is easier to have it handed to us.

I find it more fun not to have it handed to me =p.

Selket · Dec 26, 2007, 03:16 PM // 15:16

The last time I used pugs was well over a year ago, because rank 9-11 pugs are still terrible.

And since I know pretty much everyone who's rank 12+ anyway, they're not pugs.

Mental Leteci · Dec 26, 2007, 09:16 PM // 21:16

And who are you?

undeadgun · Dec 26, 2007, 10:15 PM // 22:15

well. yesterday i was form randomway for alliance ppl and guilde, ended up with an average of r0-r6 group(i am r10 atm). i simplely put one comment when i form my group: if you want to win, you want fame, dont even bother to come, if you want to learn, you are the right person to join my group. i think this is a better way of a higher ranked people should do for lower ranked people, teaching>winning.and i forbid any alliance people or guilde to join iway unless they are rank 10+ play for fun. Iway is the worst build that a new player could start with imho.

elektra_lucia · Dec 26, 2007, 10:16 PM // 22:16

I agree with all of your statement, but do you find you have to be in a certain mood to make such a group? I find that anyway =).

undeadgun · Dec 26, 2007, 10:26 PM // 22:26

i was doing my randomway since umm 3 weeks ago lol, until now, everyday the same, got friend's wife rank 3 on x mas, she said that was the best x mas gift ever:P

Saelis Scarfang · Dec 27, 2007, 03:02 AM // 03:02

That's nice of you, Undeadgun. Back when I played HA (still UW then), R3 was good enough to get into pretty much any PUG.

I stopped just before R3 and started GvGing. The account wasn't really mine - my ex 'gave' it to me. The inverted commas is because the ex wanted me to pay for the account when we broke up, which I refused. Just bought a new account and to be honest I'm a little afraid by the fact that I'll have to acquire a decent rank (decent now is a LOT more than decent then!) to get anywhere, but oh well.

I suppose I understand how the OP feels, despite being a little miffed by some of his generalisations, I'll have to admit that all too often, the majority of players are completed Go Red Engine morons (at times myself included, oh the shame). And if I had to choose between a ranked and unranked if I was in OP's position, I most likely wouldn't be choosing the latter.

Not gonna blame it on elitism, I'm just hoping me and my few buddies venturing back into GW will be able to find a good and vocal leader who can help me re-learn the ropes.