Awesome, more rank discrimination! Just what we all needed!

I'm guessing anyone with enough of an opinion to post in reply knows what I'm talking about here. Prior to today's update groups forming in HA could only see whether or not you were below rank 3, 6, 9 or 12. Thus teams formed accordingly, ie. r3+, r3/6 and even 6/9. Now this was all fine and fair and good until people started using the 5/6 and 8/9 convention for recruiting teams. Of course, the logical result of this was that people who were r3-4 and r6-7 claiming to be r5 and r8 respectively. I'm not saying that was right - basically they were lying about thier rank, since party leaders couldn't prove otherwise. It could be argued that the 5/6 and 8/9 party formations basically worked on the honor system to discourage lower ranks from joining, or that the raging rank discrimination was so bad that only having recognizable ranks every three levels gave people a way (albeit, a little dishonest one) to get into these groups.

Now people in your group can see exactly what rank you are. There's no fudging it anymore, making the 5/6 and 8/9 formations actually enforcible. My question is, do we REALLY need MORE rank discrimination? Part of me says this is only making things worse, but part of me says it's a good thing to empower party leaders. I haven't made up my mind on this one yet...have you?

-Jessyi

It's still retarded... I recently got into PvP, and I am an EXTREMELY good PvP monk as well as mesmer (i've had compliments from rank 6-12 people many times) Yet, those compliments don't matter. What matters is that damn wolf, tiger, or phoenix....that's it. You could be the best monk ever, and because your rank 2 like I am, you can't get a good PUG group. Rank discrimination is retarded, as are the people who perform it. That's my two cents.

Well, Factions being released will introduce a sling of rank 0's into the mix, so forming parties will be eaiser there. And because of this system I think we'll see more Rank 4+ groups popping up. I mean it's pretty much assured that every rank 3 or rank 4 ever at one time of another pretending to be rank 5 to get into a rank 5/6 group, so now you won't have to fib your way into a group. Now we'll just see more rank specific groups popping up all over the place. Not that big of a problem, because it doesn't destroy your chances of fidning a party, but isntead of having 3 rank 4/5/6 mixed group you'll just see more rank 4, rank 5, rank 6 specific groups flaoting around.

I go agree some amount of discrimination is retarded, like if I know a very good player who doesn't happen to be ranked, the members in my party would still rather have a random pugger who can flash the bambi. In general though the discrimnation is there simply because, sure you could quiz that un-ranked guy for a couple of minutes and make sure he knows what he's doing and get a feel for him, or you could just grab that rank3 guy and have a higher chance of him being the better player. Sure there are exceptions, but ranked players are taken over non-ranked for one of the same reasosn IWAY is so gosh darn popular, it's quicker. 10 minutes trying to find out if the unranked guy is jerking your chain about his experience is alot more strenuous and time consuming then just having someone pop the "/rank".

But there's still aa way out for experience unranked players. Start your own group, there's plenty of unranked players around who will gladly join a group. Plus, I know quite a few people who were unranked and had a hardtime getting the fame with sub-par pugs. So finally they just started forming their own parties, and got to the ranks much quicker. If you are a decent player and just don't have the rank to back itup, that's the best thing to do in my opinion.

Yet people have been asking for pve ranks for months.

Be careful what you ask for.

If you have an impressive GvG title or even Random title you can display that instead. I'm glad that a rank 5 can now be distinguished from a rank 3 (it is 3 times the experience). All those rank 8s out their are also happy. Your pure rank9 groups will be happy to go 8/9 if they could have evidence of experience.

The only people this hurts are those lying about your PvP experience. If you have 50 10-streaks in random arenas, I'll take you as a monk even if you don't have a bambi; that was a hard case to make before titles.

If you had compliments from r6 players on your monking, why not simply add them to friend list and play with them more often? I'm sure he'll gladly take you again if you did well once. I know I would.

People who discriminate based on rank after around rank 5 or so are not really worth grouping with. As for newcomers to GW, they are screwed no matter what as fame will keep getting harder and harder to come by. Maybe by chapter 4 HA will become an impenetrable bastion of the terminally obsessed, and the rest of the game will then move on to more fun pursuits.

I think its great, a way to show off your hard earned rank among other things (lots of different titles out there now)(or there will be soon)

Rank system = new players need not apply

Seen it all before in other games. It's a tough one, I think it's important to recognise achievement. But the game needs to support the new PvP players to actually being able to play PvP. At the moment, it's hell for a low ranker.

I used to do Halls all the time. Until everyone started getting all worried about rank. And since most of my time is spend PvE, I don't have a high rank. I can't do halls anymore for the simple fact that I don't have a high rank. I can PvP, and I can do it well. So, because of these new systems...I'm either A) giving up on PvP or B) doing the horrible thing and paying for rank.

This piqued my interest. Could you expand on this? Are there really non-HA titles? If so, what are their requirements?

Edit: Ah, was reading the forums before I started playing and didn't notice the new patch.

r2 Extremely good monk? you actually played in group with r12 and 9?
Its not just how you heal or prot in tombs. When you are experienced r6+,9+ monk you also know how to preveil,switch weapons,what shame does on you exactly,how to run relics,bodyblock etc. There is no way you could learn all that at rank2. So off course some r6+/9+ group will not take you,they will take experienced monks instead. Only iwayed high ranked players will play bad but they are ussually kicked after one run in tombs by guild leader if they play bad.

If you take a r2 person, you're risking that person not knowing every skill in the game...

So what to do about it? Just tell that person about general stuff like positioning, calling out what hexes are on you, etc. If he's a good rank2 he'll know what to do.

Slightly off-topic, but a lot of the high rank groups moan about players they don't usually play with because they were unable to do their 'job'. Say if you were an Ele and supposed to be casting lots of AoEs and unfortunately an interrupt ranger sits on your butt so you can't get a spell off... Let people know, otherwise they'll just assume that you sucked and couldn't follow simple instructions, and hence not go with you again.

It depends on a lot of the other titles, and whether people will merit titles for winning 50 matches vs top guilds as much as say rank 6-9.

In reality it kind of helps people, because if they are rank 2 people can see that, and people can see what else they have done in the game. It doesn't make it any harder for people to get into PvP, it just doesn't make it any easier either.

The titles make me want to hit rank 7. I know I'll never hit rank 9 any time soon, but having a nicer title does give some point to doing HA at all.

I don't know how many times I asked to join a rank 6 group at rank 5 and I got "Sorry, most people lie about their rank, I never take people with deer." Many groups that I form that are Rank 5/6+ later discover that most of the group is at rank 3, and all of them don't know how to play.

Sorry, rank discrimination I do not like for some people, but other people just get leached or drag their way to rank 3. If you can get Gladiator 1 or 2 I'de probably take you, but if you're just some idiot trying to lie.. No way.

Rank is good for puging. If you want rank, teach your guild to play the game and start HAing. Recruit unranked people that want to learn.

Have to disagree with that, even someone who's not rank 3 can know every hex/condition and its effect just from the icon, know about body blocking, how to preveil, switch weapons and so forth... All that's basic PvP knowlege, you don't need to be rank 6+ to know that. You don't even have to play HA once to know that. The only reason rank is truely important is knowing the stages, and some of the strategy for those stages. Other than that it shows absolutly nothing about how much you know about PvP, just how much you may know about HA.

The truely sad thing is nearly every HA player equates rank with skill, even though many, many HA players who are rank 6+ still don't understand basic PvP principles or basic game mechanics(usualy the IWAYers or single FOTM only crowd).

Umm, so why are there rank 0-2 players in the top 50 guilds on the ladder?

Ah the wonders of rank....

I have lost count of the amount of times someone has come up to me in town & flashed their cherished emote at me while I'm trying to put a PUG together for a UW/FOW/SF run.

By flashing that emote they are automatically excluded for being a stuck up themselves egomaniac. Sorry to burst your bubble people but rank does not mean you are a good player, especially in PVE.

When did rank = knowledge of skills? I've completed UAS in PVE & have an understanding of all the skills available, but I don't have any rank at all.

I just won't go near HA at all because of the elitist mentality there.

There are atleast 5 - 10 of you in this one post saying you are unranked and cant join groups because of it. You only need 8 people for a group to go HA. Theres atleast 1 potential group right here. If you "Unranked" people got together and started to learn HA with each other you would soon stop complaining that HA is unfair.

Over in the HA section there is a whole thread for unranked players that want groups. There would be loads of groups waiting to be set up there. But what it really comes down to is that you Rank 0 - 2 players want to join the Rank 3 - 9 groups and hold halls for a good few hours and get your Rank 3 easily. Well, that isnt going to happen to the average player. You have to earn your Rank and that means making groups and making a F/L of people you know who you play good with.

Us Rank 3 - 10++ people didnt sit in HA and wish our way to where we are. Are there hundreds of posts that Rank 0 - 2 people cant Rank up because of Rank "Discrimination". If you went through these posts and asked the people in them whether they would like to go HA with you, you would have a nice F/L of PvPer's in no time at all.

My two cents
Weeping

I'm still waiting on the Balthazar Faction titles.

Exactly. If you want rank you have to work for it, and it's a valid measure of HA experience. Since there's really no other valid measure of skill (besides the champion title and MAYBE the gladiator title) it's completely logical why PUG groups HA groups accept only those above a certain rank.

My point was only that being ranked and being compitent/skilled aren't mutualy exclusive, and there's a common misconception that all unranked people = noob(although I will admit a vast majority of rank 0-2s totaly suck, and some rank 3-5s still totaly suck).