Zeroing Fame or Rank

Over the last year we've seen many changes to Guild Wars... Skill revamps, skill nerfs, spawn changes, map changes, economy resets, new equipment, loss of old equipment, and two entire new areas.

Today, I was about knocked out of my chair by something that I realized existed, but turned a blind eye to simply because it didn't really effect me.

The story as if unfolded. A guildie starts demanding certain things from the guild. Selling items at outrageous prices to fellow guildies (offered to sell me 9-17 Fire Wand, with a req of 5 for 10k), demanding drops because they were valuable not so he could use them (playing a Wammo demanded a Rago's Staff so he could sell it), demanding officer status. After a few times, I gave him a warning (as the leader) and he shaped up... No worries. All is forgotten and forgiven.

He later gets into a verbal joust with my girlfriend over politics... foolish for anyone to be discussing that on an online game. But again all is forgotten and forgiven after a talking to.

I do some farming and some running, so I've never had huge issues with maintaining gold in my coffers, but I normally can't go purchase someone a PERFECT GODLY Req 7 Sundering Chaos Axe of Fortitude... Normally, I can cough up enough for a req 9-10 10/8 or 10/9 Chaos Axe of Fortitude +27-+29, with 13^50%. So, I got a little annoyed with him constantly wanting loans, a couple of plat is one thing... but a 47 ectos is a bit much.

He than purchased several hundred platinum from an ebay auctioneer. Though in violation of the EULA, which I'm unsure exactly what transpired, I haven't reported him for. (Should I or should I not?)

Now he has gone on and furthered my general annoyance with seemingly a large amount of players... He has taken is large bundle of cash to go and start purchasing fame runs... I.E. Paying a high ranking player to let him tag along on HoH runs. I keep him around so that I can try to maybe be a better influence... /sigh

Now, this annoys me it drives me to a different form of the same problem. He complained to me that the reason that he paid for this fame farming was the fact that it was impossible for him to get into a good HoH team under rank 3. Which since I bounce between PvE and PvP, I investigated... There tons of posts of R3+ IWAY team LF this or that; some like R6+ Barrage/Spike team LF this or that; R6 PuG... and than the scariest Paladin LFG!!! I had absolutely no problems with fame and think that it WAS a great method of measuring a player's ability in PvP, it was relatively hard to earn without gaining some level of skill, and such.

So, I did my little dance and started PMing people to get into a group... As I have stated in other posts, I can play an IWAY Orders or Taint Necro (a PvE character that I find easiest to group in PvP). Shortly after, I found myself in a group... all of rank 6, they couldn't find an orders necro of rank 6 so settled for me... They asked me what build I was running, and I spewed out the list of OoV, OoP... so on and so forth; the build I got from a friend.

So we set out, 8% the ghosts and pulverized what I hoped was a PuG and not an organized group. We went into our second fight and came up against a team that had quite a few N/Me in it (anti-IWAY build?). I watched in horrow as the opposing team cast Echo, SS, Empathy, and such... and than watched the IWAY group completely disintegrate... I used my res early in the fight on the Tainted Necro and was the last member left standing... so I sat down and awaited my fate.

The other members of the group told me to run and res... I replied I used my res earlier... than they (5 out of the 7) called me a noob for not running and prolonging the game.

We went back to Tombs to do it all again... I asked why they didn't stop attacking and they said that it was the Orders job to provide the Healing and booted me. No worries... found another group... Rank 3, this time a little more my caliber (according to rank) about the same scenario in the Underworld this time, they just kept attacking through the SS (pets died early and our res chain succeeded)... Continued on with one more group of IWAYs.

Spiteful Spirit is one of my favorite skills and I don't believe needs a nerf... so I can think of only one way to correct this lack of skill compared to fame and rank... resetting the fame pools. Is there another way, perhaps by forcing time over multiple classes or builds? It was abhorrent to think of R3+, and once R6+ warriors just continuing to attack, all balled together, with SS on them. Many straight PvE Wammos have learned SS = Bad.

Between fame farming, purchasing fame, and all of that... can we reset the fame and rank score, or force it to encompass more than... Enter Mission, Unworthy, 2 battles, Return to Outpost, Enter Mission...

If I just had a bad experience... please inform me... but 3/3 for me was a clear indicator. Than I got into a rankless PuG that was looking for a healing monk, somehow didn't feel as dirty after our defeat trying to cap the relic.

And now to the pointed question... Between the purchased fame and the huge quantity of fame farming is fame meaningless, can/should it be changed, if so how? Since its becoming apparent rank is no longer proof of a player's skill, is it no longer useful at all?

Last thing, I don't want to hear about how bad some people are because they have fame and rank... or anything along those lines... Nor do I want to hear about how PvE should be able to gain it through XP, I am mainly interested in Rank and Fame when it comes to choosing/getting into a group in the Tombs.

You are right, I've actualy read everything you said, and I agree with everything. Even though you are clearly a better player then those R3 and R6 players (though, to be fair, that doesn't require much) you are ranked lower.

What might be an interesting idea to counter this is that you lose fame when you lose a match - all those IWAY players lose about 9/10 matches, might make them shape up and think about their strategies before just going in with a random party.

Just taking all fame and rank is something that ANet will not do though, even if it might be the best thing, they would need to reset it again and again, an endless cycle, not to mention that people will be extremely pissed.

First and foremost, KICK that guy from your guild. He's a leech. Judging by the "what makes a good guild" etc. thread in riverside, I'm sure there are plenty of other guilds he could join to leech off (sigh... am not a fan of that 'give them everything' mentality)

Secondly, report him.

Thirdly, I dunno, all this fame farming and fame "services" just shows how worthless fame really is. I've pretty much given up even trying to get into groups at HoH anymore because people are so stuck up about rank. The fact that it can be farmed and paid for like everything else just cheapens/proves how useless it is.

well.. Though I personally like the idea of a fame reset or elimination for that matter... I don't like what I know will happen if that is ever implemented. One being a mass exodus of players from the game. I know some of you will say good riddence... But unfortanatly I know that this will be a very significant number of people that will leave when this happens... very similar to the numbers of people that left when AoE nerf happened.. in the thousands... Now this does not seem like much... but still a company can not keep upsetting its users with nit picking every little thing... they can try but eventually a line will be drawn. unfortanatly I think that will be a significant one for many players... And I think it will be a lot more then the last exodus if Fame/Rank is reset or removed... This is jsut IMO, from comments from many users in game when I have asked that particular question...

lol , the title made me chuckle i dont know if its sarcasm
well i dont sign this... basically people have wasted their time to get r9+ well i wasted a shitload of time.... why would u reset the fame to 0... thats like deleting all anets memory. for PvE...
/disapprove.

I'm not going to get into any rank or fame argument but that guildie of yours has got to go. Seriously, if you can take that much crap from anyone you might as well make him leader and be done with it.

I agree with Signet here, wiping the fame will be equivalent to wiping all the gold and items from PvE players. It simply isn't going to happen.

Rank has been useless for a long time anyway. This is why decent PvP players really don't care at all about rank, they are more worried about actual GvG experience.

True, since DGs invented IWAY.... itscrewed up everything, are u happy Nore?
so the real PvP oriented people have moved to GvG <~ Still trying to get a guild o.O

Its more about attitude from all the players realy.....
Most still believe that a rank 6 who got all his fame with iway teams is better then a rank 3 who got his fame in balanced teams. okay...i am guilty of playing in a iway team about 1 and a half MONTHS (Are you trying to tell me you really didn't find the edit button for that? Dral.) to get rank 6 as soon as possible....but that was only 43 fame i needed. the rest i earned with playing in balanced teams for the most part and some ranger/air etc spike teams.People just have to understand that Rank 6 doesnt mean that hes better then a rank 3 or worse then a rank 9.
Resetting will not be a option so i vote no to that. took me a long time to get rank 7 and people with rank 12 will be so ******* pissed.
As long as people dont start changing their attitude you will just have to except it the way it is now.

irony is IWAY asking for rank.
self-servingly self-perpetuating

As for that guy... yesterday, there was a terrible tragedy... I accidently depressed the kick member button on my guild menu. It was ever so terrible, the tragedy, but he is gone now. Thanks for the confirmation there.

Firstly, every r3+ group I've been in has never won a match. Never. Don't think that having that emote is going to get you into successful groups any faster. As a result, I don't pvp unless it's with the guild, or the other two guilds that invite me along on occasion.

You've probably heard it before but get both ventrillo and teamspeak, if possible a mic as well. It also helps if you can completely unlock all of the upgrades for a single profession if not all or multiple ones. Whether or not you unlock everything through faction or through the story mode, it shows players that you have played the game fairly extensively.

Anyway... reseting the fame will just get everyone really ticked off. The high ranked players have high ranked friends who they will quickly group up with anyone and start to farm fame just like before. Not to mention players can just identify others by their guild tag, and those in the high ranking guilds immeditately get into groups.

/signed

Reset fame and start fresh with fame per character type

Every rank 6 group I've got into has been no better - guild teams which contain players still under rank 3 have been far far more successful.

I don't see the need to reset fame/rank - I just think people should stop using it to judge a players ability - to me a quick 1 minute interview says a lot more than the flashing of a deer, although bambi's are pretty cool

As long as the requirement of fame doesn't move onto GvG and the new PvP ascpects of the expansion, I am fine with HoH spawning people who want to fame farm. I get frustrated about all the, "R3 IWAY GROUP LF..." but I just go back to GvG when that happens. I refuse to do IWAY and getting into balanced groups gets tough but I guess you have to live with it. One way of maybe fixing the rank problem, is probably to remove the specific emotes for rank, that way it is more of a personal thing so that people could not check what your rank is( although the emotes are kind of cool :P)

Haha, nice one.


As for resetting fame... of the 40 or so times I've gone to Tombs I've accumulated about 47 fame... that's a half-decent track record that I would hate to lose.
Ignoring this, two things can come from resetting faction:
1) People start relying on their guilds more, and they reclaim their faction with friends.
2) Groups like IWAY would quickly get the "ub3r g0dlee" players into the top ranks, and defeat the purpose of rank altogether.

Both would be accompanied by a mass exodus of players who would be truly pissed that their hard work was all for nothing, and the entire thing could happen again.

I remember a time when you didn't get fame until you had won several battles. Perhaps they should bring that back again.