Curse

reboot · Feb 03, 2006, 09:33 PM // 21:33

lol explaine to me how getting -20 for a loss instead of -5 dosen't hurt our rank?

striderkaaru · Feb 03, 2006, 09:37 PM // 21:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by reboot

lol explaine to me how getting -20 for a loss instead of -5 dosen't hurt our rank?

if you didn't get a -20, then you would have been placed higher in the ladder. hence, any subsequent matches you would have had may have been against tougher teams. you may not have played against the teams you beat, and even if you did, you would have gotten less rating.

at least, that's what i got from ensign's post.

Sarus · Feb 03, 2006, 09:44 PM // 21:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by reboot

lol explaine to me how getting -20 for a loss instead of -5 dosen't hurt our rank?

He did ...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

That is because you also would have gotten *less* points from every win due to your higher rating. A slightly higher rating also exposes you to more good teams and less softies which similarly affects your record. Pretending that everything else would have worked out exactly the same if a couple matches were different is foolishness.

Obviously if you just look at the ladder as the one single match where you lost to a smurf then yes, it hurts. Fortunately, that's not how ladder's work and you need to step back and look at the big picture.

reboot · Feb 03, 2006, 09:45 PM // 21:45

it would effect it alittle but not like you say.

if we gained 15 points cause theres wasnt a -20 smurf loss, a +15 match would be worth like +13, so you lose like 2 points to gain 13...about.. so we got to play 10 games to nulify that effect? thats um 2-3 days of gvg for us. 4 times that we need to GvG with out a loss for 12 games to make up the loss of rank caused by the 4 smurfs. So what if its slightly off cause im guessing, It hurts our rank.

Explaine to me how +27 is worse then +15 please.

p.s. also, the loss of moral when you have to play 3 games to make up for a -20 from a smurf...

p.p.s. - if this short ladder season dosen't matter then why are you smurfing at all? It dosen't matter use the main guild then...

p.p.p.s. - as long as there is a ladder, people will be drawn to the top guilds when LFG, cause everyone thinks they are pro, so we need to be high enough to recruit non-noobs, so tanking us, short season or not hurts us for the next reset.

p.p.p.p.s. - you guys do alot for PvP no doubt and some of your players even guest for us, so why you can't admit when something hurts the majority of the PvP community that isn't going to tapai, cant play 20 games a day, dosen't have 100 awsome players begging to join them every day. Tanking ratings hurts guilds, no matter how you justify it

Four Pool Rush · Feb 03, 2006, 10:01 PM // 22:01

Question? What is the name of your guild?

reboot · Feb 03, 2006, 10:11 PM // 22:11

why does that matter?

anyway here...
http://www.team-iq.net/forums/ladder...a&territory=Am

Our old guild SoS was top 50 for several months on and off, but its not listed on your ladder history anymore.

Sarus · Feb 03, 2006, 10:23 PM // 22:23

http://www.team-iq.net/forums/ladder...S&territory=Am

Was this you guys?

reboot · Feb 03, 2006, 10:25 PM // 22:25

yea
...

dunno why it was blank for me before, also its not our full history for some reason. Missing a ladder year i think.

reboot · Feb 03, 2006, 10:31 PM // 22:31

i mean like yeah i see how it evens out over time, but every -20 takes us 3 wins or so to make up so if we keep getting smurfs at the rate we are now, then were never going to be ranked high enough to get active members who would be as good or better then the guests we can get, and zero chance of building a praticed team that could get better then we are now.

losing to smurfs is killing us, cause its a RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing pain trying to stay active with only 4-6 active members, and the fact that we almost beat top tens with this set up is probally the only reason we even bother.

Like i dont care if we lose to your on you main... we did a few days ago. Most of the Guilds we lose to are still good games, and better then the normal blow out, when we win.

Id rather lose to you guys then roll some 3000 rank guild, but not if its aginst a smurf that costs us 3.5 times for then it should.

Ensign · Feb 03, 2006, 10:41 PM // 22:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by reboot

lol explaine to me how getting -20 for a loss instead of -5 dosen't hurt our rank?

I already did. It has a minor effect upon your rating and a negligible effect upon your rank.

In match N you play against a theoretical smurf out to destroy your rating. Instead of losing the -5 that you would have if they were on their main, you lose -20.

In the next match you play a team much worse than you. However because you just had your rating 'tanked' you get +1 more from winning that match than you would have if you hadn't run into the smurf. The same goes for the next match. And the next one. Then you lose to a better team on their main but lose one less point than you should because of the rating tanking. After around 10 matches you stop getting the extra point regularly because those extra points have largely eliminated the difference.

If you suffer several losses like this in a row the corrections happen even faster because you're even lower than you should be. You get a string of +2s from every win or lose two less from losses, then ones, and then you're back where you should be, roughly. That's the great thing about the ELO system, it corrects relatively quickly for gross deviations so unless you'd suffered a gross tank job in the last 10 matches or so your rating is right around where it should be.

So that -20 in your guild history translates roughly into a -10 in your guild rating after around 10 matches, and even less after more. In a longer view of things it becomes meaningless.

On your guild rank it doesn't matter at all. Why? Because every guild on the ladder is playing in the same environment and has those -20s too. Everyone's rating gets deflated a little bit but that's just noise since it's across the board. Ranks are slightly lower because those smurfs eventually pass you and take their own place on the ladder.

But if you're sitting around 140 on the ladder it's because that's roughly where you belong. Your performance thus far is about the same as the other guilds in the 130-150 range, and you have no better claim to the #50 slot than the 80-90 guilds ahead of you.

In other words if you're looking for who to point the fingers at for your current guild rating, it is yourself.

Peace,
-CxE

reboot · Feb 03, 2006, 11:17 PM // 23:17

no ensign... its not my self, sorry. I wish you could argue the point and not make it personal. This is about GvG smurfs not about me.

If we play 40 games I agree, then the 4 losses to top ten smurfs dont hurt as much. 40 games from now we will be top 50, just look at our rank when we actually play, and look at how every loss we have save three is from someone in the top of the ladder.

What about now? Does having a rank 160 like we do now, hurt us today, when compaired to the rank 80 we would have had if they were on the main?

What about the 60 we would have had if they didnt tank us and let us win?

What effect on recuriting would being rank 60, today have?

I doubt you have had to recruit or struggle to find players who don't suck in the current player base cause your top 10 forever, so I doubt you would understand.

And the all things are equal because you all play the same amount of smurfs is unlikely...we have been unlucky, I admit it, and I doubt that many of the teams in the top 100 have played as many smurfs for -20 as we have... because they dont have 70-80 wins it would take to make up for the difference between my guild now and them now, and i know that top 50-100 teams arnt beating top ten smurfs much if the do play.

Also looking at the top 100, theres so many smurfs in the Am nighttime zone already, if you removed them then adjusted our four -20 smurf losses we'd be ranked like not 80 and not 60, but say 40 ish....so don't tell me smurfs arn't hurting my guild.
thanks

Sarus · Feb 04, 2006, 12:40 AM // 00:40

Look, first off I understand completely that losing sucks. I don't like losing either . In fact I hate losing. I hate losing to smurfs, I hate losing to noobies, I hate losing to IWAY, I hate losing to the best guilds in the world, I even hate losing when I'm not supposed to care because the ladder doesn't matter. I also understand how losing to a smurf feels worse than losing to a normal guild or to a guild playing on their main. I understand this because we lose to smurfs just like you do and we also beat smurfs and get hardly any rating even when the match was really tough. So for the moment lets agree to disagree about the whole smurfing issue and look at the underlying issues here. The first is that smurfing is allowed by Anet so long as you don't throw matches. Since smurfing is allowed lets just agree that you complaining about it on the forums is not going to stop guilds and players from playing on multiple guilds.

It appears to me your goal is to get to top 50. At the moment it seems like you feel you deserve it but the only reason you aren't there is because of smurfs. Since I think we can both agree that smurfing isn't going anywhere you obviously need to figure out what else you can do besides complaining on forums to increase your chance of improving.

I think the obvious place to start is with the fact that you are:

Quote:

Originally Posted by reboot

trying to stay active with only 4-6 active members

There is no way you can get to and maintain a sub 50 ranking with only 4-6 active members. Now you contend that you can't recruit anyone good unless you have a high rank. This can't be true because when the game first came out guilds had to recruit people without having any official rank (this includes us). We didn't even start GvGing until the first ladder season. In addition, if the only reason someone joins your guild is because of your rank you don't want them anyway and you're just gonna have the same problem of having to recruit people when you lose a few matches and the people quit.

Too many guilds focus on their ranking instead of focusing on getting better. Focus on recruiting intelligent loyal players and getting better 1 match at a time and your rank will take care of itself. Obviously easier said than done but it starts with the guild leadership. I know none of this addresses your smurfing concerns but I think trying to convince one side or the other that smurfing should be disallowed is a lost battle.

reboot · Feb 04, 2006, 01:07 AM // 01:07

yeah I see what your saying,

all my bitching aside it seems like im obsessed with rank and im not really, our "goal" is to play and have fun, caring about rank is related to being able to recruit people that dont suck, so we can play and have fun.

..Still I dont think smurfing should be allowed.

Saying that every teams gets beat by smurfs so its fair would only be true if every team got beat the exact same number of times by the exact same smurfs and it had the exact same effect on each team, and thats never going to happen either.

So I guess i shouldn't be mad at top tens, just anet...

zemelett · Feb 04, 2006, 01:18 AM // 01:18

wtf is smurfs?

I know I know its a n00bish question but....

Sarus · Feb 04, 2006, 01:18 AM // 01:18

@reboot

If you need help trying to recruit some members you can try posting in our guild recruitment thread. You can also just look through our member listing for people looking for a guild (all are looking for PvP guilds) and message them. The key when getting any new members is to constantly emphasize that the goal is to improve level of play. Everybody hates losing and if the guild leader puts an emphasis on rating all the time then it only makes losing harder to deal with. Since you're going to lose no matter what (whether to smurfs or to regular guilds) you should make it clear that your rank does not matter. You'll find that the less you pay attention to winning/losing, rating/rank the better off you will be. I can say this for a fact because we used to be totally caught up on our rank until we finally realized it doesn't matter. All we care about is getting better after each match (wins and losses). If you can make this transition and get your guild to make this transition you'll be much better off in the long run.

@zemelett

Smurfs are second guilds created for the purpose of playing new builds, letting new players get a chance to play, letting old players that don't play often get a chance to play etc. etc. A lot of people confuse smurfs with PUGs (pick up groups). There are lots and lots of PUGs that use players from top guilds and people usually complain about them as smurfs. Whereas a PUG is not affiliated with any guild in particular a smurf is. For example, last ladder season the iQ smurf was the Carebear Club [wuv]. We played on wuv whenever we had a new build, whenever we had our non-playoff team, whenever we were on new roles, or even if we just didn't feel like playing very seriously that night. Usually an official smurf becomes very high rank (wuv was ranked higher than iQ at one point and was in the top 20 most of the season). PUGs tend to have much worse ranks that fluctuate a lot.

reboot · Feb 04, 2006, 02:57 AM // 02:57

you iQ guys are showing alot of class Thanks ill check it out.

Scaphism · Feb 04, 2006, 08:06 AM // 08:06

To further clarify the definition of a smurf guild:
Smurfs can be created for different purposes, but the underlying similarity between all smurfs is that they are a spin-off of another guild.

In Guild Wars when someone talks about a smurf it is almost always said in a negative light. There is nothing inherently negative about playing under a second guild, but it is by nature disingenuous. The well-known smurfs hardly make an effort to conceal their true identities however, so their value as smurfs/aliases is questionable at best.
In some games, smurf accounts are used by "famous" players to play incognito, for whatever reason (less stress, nubstomping, research, etc...)

Smurfs can also be used to play and purposefully lose to the main account (or guild). This behavior is clearly against the rules.

This is an important distinction I'd like to make.
Taking a dive (purposefully losing) to a main account is "tanking". You tank your own rating. It is not possible to tank someone else's rating in the strict sense of the word.

Tanking and smurfing are often both talked about in the same conversation without any distinction. Smurfs that engage in this type of tanking are breaking the rules.

However, from what I have seen and read (and it is present in this thread), when most people talk about smurfs "tanking their rating," the author almost invariably means to say "My guild lost to a smurf guild." Tanking (purposefully losing) is not possible in this situation, and it bugs me that the terms are used indiscriminately.

Most of us don't like losing. I don't think it's fun either. But smurfs that beat you are not "tanking" anything. Then are winning. They refuse to tank, which is what I believe is the right thing to do, becaues tanking is explicitly against the rules.

reboot · Feb 04, 2006, 04:38 PM // 16:38

by tank people mean "make low" so yeah it is possible and if everyone uses the word "tanking" to mean that then thats what it means. There is no way to make internet slang into proper english. You just have to understand what people say.

If a smurf losing is ladder manipulation, then a smurf winning is also ladder manipulation. If like your a pro team, playing in state highschool durring the season its stupid to say that its ok for a pro team to play only if they win every game, if they lost every game it would also be bad but not as bad to the state ranking. Either way its bad.

Anet condones it, but it dosen't mean that it isn't having a negative effect on pvp guilds, and unfortunatly it hurts guilds like mine alot, cause we were unlucky and drew alot of smurfs, cause were struggling to stay active anyway it hurts us even more.

It sucks you are sort of forced to Smurf to test builds, but in my guild guess what? We test in our main now, we could use our smurf but we cant fill it up with players, we can barly guest our main into action. If anet was really serious about PvP I think we would have some other options for testing builds by now, so I blame Anet all the way around, for not releasing a complete game and for not fixing it fast enough.

Why should you care about a guild like mine? Well i don't know how much you like rolling to ez wins. My guild probally wont be easy for you to beat, even with 4 guests, were giving you a good fight. If you hate stupid guilds with henchies or people who are just 5 min matches, you probally should care about the community and other guilds.

I think you guys probally do care, more then most other high level guilds, as shown by your website. So I don't see why you think smurfs are ok, but whatever. I bet aside form the few guilds who smurf, most people agree its bad for the ladder...

Everyone wants reconnects, becuase it sucks to lose points when you shouldn't. losing from err7 is part of online games it has been for ever, but we all want to change that. It's kinda the same thing, except people who do smurf seem to want to keep smurfing, but I don't know, would you smurf if you had some other way to pratice with out risking the main?

Patrograd · Feb 04, 2006, 08:35 PM // 20:35

Until such time as Anet introduces random unrated GvG then smurfs are a vital part of any decent guild that cares about the rank of the main. Even then smurfs will still exist.

You also need to win in your smurf to get it to as near the same rating as your main as possible, otherwise any build tests you run in it are pretty meaningless.

tafy69 · Feb 04, 2006, 08:44 PM // 20:44

it is quite annoying to lose lots of rating to smurfs, but just get over it eh. In the end you end up where you belong