Curse

Kibokun · Jun 12, 2008, 03:58 PM // 15:58

So I've been trying to find a guild lately to start doing some low end GvG and HA, but it seems like all the guilds I can find are asking for 500k-1 million Balthazar faction. Now, I've been playing pretty regularly for the past month or so and I have about 40k. I mainly do pug ABs, Aspenwood and RA/TA because that's all I can really access. Am I doing something wrong or is everyone really looking for a year+ of experience? I'm getting a little discouraged because I don't see myself making these requirements until the clusterfck that are AB and RA bore me to the point where I quit the game.

And constructive criticism is accepted. I try to thicken my skin when asking for help. Try not to flame the poor noob though.

phan · Jun 12, 2008, 04:02 PM // 16:02

Absurd amounts are 50 - 100 mil ;

try get r1 gladiator in RA ; should get you to 300k or something ; + uax on your proffesion .

Pesi · Jun 12, 2008, 04:08 PM // 16:08

there are alot of guilds that are taking in beginners, to learn them and help.
Though it is too hard to learn people that havent got any kind of exp from pvp.

300-400k factions is not much factions tbh, and msot people with under 1 mill balth factions will never be accepted as a experianced pvp players even if that player got nice pvp titles.

40k balth factions, is what people make during a night of gvg, im afraid you wont find a guild until you got some more factions mate.

Covah · Jun 12, 2008, 04:08 PM // 16:08

UAX = unlocked all X (profession)

people ask for 500k-1mill b/c thats what usually shows how experienced you are. It shows that you have alot of unlocked skills so you would be a help to the team, not a burden.

Ferret Deathsquad · Jun 12, 2008, 04:09 PM // 16:09

If I was you I would try to find a small guild to join that doesn't have a requirement of faction needed. I could PM you the one I am in, I know some guilds have certain days that they set aside time just to do Ab, gvg, and HA. Maybe even look in the PVP looking for members section on guru Or post on PVP looking for Guild.

Dronte · Jun 12, 2008, 05:03 PM // 17:03

500k-1mil isnt much. I got like 600k during casual pvp while I was in pve guilds

.

moriz · Jun 12, 2008, 05:07 PM // 17:07

http://www.teamlove.us

go there. that's the best place for you to start.

Shayne Hawke · Jun 12, 2008, 05:26 PM // 17:26

Guilds think faction requirements are good ways to nab players that have unlocked a lot of skills/equipment. You can do the same to an extent in PvE. I'd think that it's more likely that people will raise requirements over time, thinking that people will spend a lot of their faction on ZKeys.

Sun Fired Blank · Jun 12, 2008, 06:00 PM // 18:00

So your question is: how can I get people to take me seriously enough that I can play on a serious level? This may or may not be the ultimate point of your thread, but I perceive that you're concerned because many guilds have set a rather arbitrary threshold of competence that you haven't yet reached.

Let us be fair about guild requirements. Arbitrary thresholds (and yes, they are very arbitrary) are not entirely valuable because you can't decipher the true quality of a player from them. They're also valid anyways; rank and faction are hardly a nonfactor, even if they devalue frequently.

But if you asked me about experiential value of balthazar faction, I would say that 500,000 Balthazar faction is very minimal experience, a very sad and lonely drop in the bucket. Anything under 2.5 mil is fairly negligible. You probably don't have a real Balthazar faction measure until you're pushing eight figures. And if you asked me about experiential value of rank, I would say that anything under glad 7 or hero 10 is not overly important either.

I say that largely because people do not get anything from their experience. In very extreme cases: you have a glad 8 that only uses a dervish tank build to farm RA; he sets point quotas for himself. You have a glad 6 that uses necro hexspam to farm RA. You have a glad 6 P/R or D/R that only farms RA. You have sync guild players from empty districts. You have international players that use only Me/N or N/X for points. You have glad 8s in TA that only use mash-spam, R/W smite or R/P domi. And in HA, you have people that have only run __spike or __way, that are completely unable to be anything other than a number in a generic build. Many AB players are fairly high in Balthazar faction, but if you asked me if they were qualified to play outside of that format, my answer would be no; their experience is unable to extend outside of AB.

If you haven't already discerned, my concern is the gap in experience; or more precisely, quantity versus quality. You have not developed quantified experience and you have not yet developed qualified experience. My primary measure is always qualified experience, and if you are determined to be taken seriously on that measure, then you have to play seriously. Find something that you enjoy which is viable in any environment and stick to it. In my opinion, you honestly don't have time to be a hyper-competent, multi-faceted player. Read up on everything you can about your position, ask questions of experienced players about your position, and very importantly make note of every mistake that you make; and be able to distinguish them from the mistakes other players make. Make it a point of being a capable theorycrafter.

Don't play junk in various formats to get rank. When you hit a certain point, if your only mode of play is X in a specific build, you're shafted. Nevermind the glad title; if you spent your player development on [Apply Poison], target your pet on monk, [Enraged Lunge] on recharge, tab-space-[Barbed Spear] ad infinitum, then you're in a great deal of trouble. Nevermind the shiny hero emote; if you spent your player development on placing spirits, [Splinter Weapon] 1, [Warmonger's Weapon] 2, [Splinter Weapon] 3, [Ancestor's Rage] on recharge, [Expel Hexes] on purple bars, then you're in a great deal of trouble.

You don't have to be high rank / faction to be solid, nor do you have to be solid to be high rank / faction. But if you aspire to be solid outside of rank / faction, you're going to develop much faster, and by the time that you honestly have the qualified experience, you'll have the quantifiable experience to match.

Lykan · Jun 12, 2008, 06:03 PM // 18:03

Most wont actually ask for a screenshot as proof tbh.

Tab · Jun 12, 2008, 06:12 PM // 18:12

Agreed with Sun, you can get to a reasonable level by being intelligent and making friends with fairly good people instead of simply whoring out titles, and you'll probably be better off as a result.
Lykan's right too, when I was getting my bambi, I joined a R9+ guild. They never did ask to see my tiger.

Krill · Jun 12, 2008, 07:03 PM // 19:03

I have got 1.4 million since the beginning of April (when I started playing again) mainly from TA / RA and during the last AB double weekend. If you play 4-5 nights a week it starts to add up faster than you think.

Also I agree with Sun Fired Blank in that there are a lot of really awful players that are high ranked from exclusively running gimmicks, making rank / balth requirements arbitrary at best. But remember sometimes good players do pug, and pugs always run simple builds.

Shendaar · Jun 12, 2008, 07:19 PM // 19:19

500k isn't much really. I am up to 3.2mill factions atm. At the end it doesn't mean much though if you got it all running gimmicks.

axe · Jun 12, 2008, 08:03 PM // 20:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shendaar

500k isn't much really. I am up to 3.2mill factions atm. At the end it doesn't mean much though if you got it all running gimmicks.

I actually agree with the OP 1 mil is quite a bit and 1 mil is typically what I have seen as the balth req.

I have 1,100,000 faction and R7 Hero (2,100 fame about), R1 Glad, R5 Luxon, R1 Skillz (lol still you get faction)

And I am into the title tracks for the next rank of each title as well. Im definately NOT bragging because I dont think those titles are impressive, but I am just trying to put it into perspective.

It just makes me laugh when an R3 guild is looking for 1mil. balth faction

Kibokun · Jun 12, 2008, 08:30 PM // 20:30

Thanks a lot for the really great responses. I'm still at a loss for how to amass any respectable amount of faction. I've been doing RA and AB for the past 9~ hours and I haven't even gotten 15k today, nor a single Gladiator point. I know it's not a waste of time since I'm learning my profession and getting skills for other builds, but at this rate it will take me about a month of daily 9 hour sessions to get to a point where guilds, however misguided they may in creating the requirements, will even begin to consider me.

My real question was, am I doing something wrong and if so, what should I be doing? I tried to get into a group in TA to maybe try some more organized things, but no one would take me because I didn't have a Gladiator title. Despite the fact that people have <insert however many millions of faction here>, it still seems like I'll be stuck in RA/AB/Compeititve missions because no one else will even give me a chance.

I'm sorry if it all sounded whiny and like "waahh, the game takes time, wahh." but I just want to know if I'm wasting my time with farming RA all day.

Zena Starlight · Jun 12, 2008, 08:51 PM // 20:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kibokun

I'm sorry if it all sounded whiny and like "waahh, the game takes time, wahh." but I just want to know if I'm wasting my time with farming RA all day.

Well you have to understand that this game has been out for over three years. You said that you have been PvPing regularly for about a month, so you can't expect to be the best without putting so effort into it.

Tab · Jun 12, 2008, 08:54 PM // 20:54

Work on your friends list. When you play in better groups, your balth, titles and skill level all increase far faster than they would from RAing.

Kibokun · Jun 12, 2008, 08:56 PM // 20:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zena Starlight

Well you have to understand that this game has been out for over three years. You said that you have been PvPing regularly for about a month, so you can't expect to be the best without putting so effort into it.

Who said I expected to be the best? All I want to do is start from the bottom and I'm trying to figure out how far I REALLY am from that.

urania · Jun 13, 2008, 06:07 AM // 06:07

500k to 1 mil bf is NOT an absurd amount of balth faction.

if you play regularly (and with success) more or less every day you should have reached it quite fast.

Div · Jun 13, 2008, 06:26 AM // 06:26

I think I got ~10-15k from AB alone today. Over a month's time with some breaks and some days where you play a bit more, you can get 250k. Some guilds have 200-250k reqs to make sure you've PvP'ed for at least a month. The 500k req is for guilds wanting people with a little more experience than that.

And I know people with ~10 million faction, so 500k is definitely not insanely high