Rant About Rank

Problem is your emote shows at least some commitment to pvp. A lot of pve-ers just walk into HA and expect to be invited into a winning build and coached thru to stardom, when it clearly doesn't work like that. They all say 'mY rank is low but I'm a really really good player and i have gvg experience' but most of that is bs. GvG experience means the three matches their guild played to get to r4000, and they just expect to play their pve builds in pvp. Fact is pvp doesn't work like that, real people don't act anything like the ai of this game, and experience in pve means absolutely nothing to how good you are at pvp.


What im saying is rank is a good barometer of commitment to the game. If you cant be bothered to 'grind' to r3 then you haven't got the commitment or sustainted interest of somebody who people would be happy to tombs with. If you want to play tombs casually, go ahead, but do it with people just like you who don't take it seriously, and be aware that you won't be very successful.

/endrant

Ranks has a large number of issues, but it needs to exist. Without it a lot of people would never take a person they didn't know into the group. Unfortunately it isn't a good measure of skill. Personally when I am in tombs, unless I know the player I expect even rank 9 players to be grossly incompetent. I just hope the higher ranked players can listen a bit better and maybe know a little about how to play.

I've held HoH at this point; been there 3 times, held it for a run of 3 the other night. Earned a ton of fame, boosting me to rank 2. I'm not a bad player, I just play TA and GvG mostly, as I hate the tombs (now HA) idiocy.

Rank FTL, lol. Gotta suck to be in some rank 6+ IWAY and see a Me/E on the team that just flawlessed you gain rank 2. That's what rank is worth.

Good riddance.

Here is an idea.

Make rank based on fame AND faction. Or at least create a seprate emote list for people with high faction.

Fame is faction for people with access to TS...

you just don't get it and never will..

And double posting/caps helps? Use your head.

Catch 22's are actually pretty amusing, if you look at it right. And you're willing to suppress the indignance of the sheer stupidity evidenced in it sometimes... Now, the following are anything but completely true, but make for a decent summary.

You must have rank to get a good group.
You must be in a good group to get rank.

See the catch? Of course you do. What if you don't have any fame? Why then, you must suck! But why would you ever give someone a chance to get better? Can't be having that, oh no...

/sigh.

If you got 21 fame in one run,that's a HoH win,which is hardly discouraging.And don't mind the rank 9's who flame you for using IWAY..chances are they spirit spammed and fought in smite teams back in the day.

not really , you can try to convice a good group to take you ...

if they wont take you, well no one is paying them to play, and no one can force them.

It took me 5 months to get r3, and I havent even won halls yet. It was mostly 1 fame a day or 2 due to the fact PUGs suck. Most of my fame has come to the first round 1 fame win, Because back in the day they got owned in the 2nd round by spirit spam/smite guild teams.

Exactly

And if you guys are as good as r3/6/9+ players just join the groups anyway... if they emote check then too bad. I rarely emote check anyone unless its a r9+ group, if you suck you suck. And people say "omg everyone else in the group sucks but i dont" but ive taken noobs that say that into my groups and every time they suck. People who have earned their rank have the right to let whoever they want in their group. If you are going to complain about OTHER peoples groups try making your own group for a change?

i've been starting R6+ groups myself since i was R3. I even levelled to R4 in one of those groups, they all laughed at it and said "well, at least you have the balls to pull off somethin like this". No one has ever complained about me not playing good or RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing up.

Complaining about the vicious circle thing is rather cheap. Just start your own group (ranked or unranked) and off you go ...

for the record : about 10% of my pvp time is tombs, as opposed to 90% of gvg, and i realy don't feel like spending time in groups that hardly know what they're doin, just because i have a low rank.

Well there's a convincing argument if I've ever heard one. The simple fact of the matter is that you're wrong - rank doesn't play a huge role in any part of gw (in PvE it means nothing and in PvP you can still find unranked groups - something which will become easier not harder) and won't prevent any new players from enjoying the game. I'd be willing to bet that a MASSIVE portion of the current community is r0 to boot.

This isn't Eve Online where the order in which players bought the game determines where they will stay through the rest of their experience. Rank isn't the end-all and be-all of gw and people should stop treating the fact that there's a few r3+ or r6+ PUGs in HA like the end of the world. Rank is a simple and quick method of picking up players you don't know who are likely to be in the same experience and competence zone as you. I've been in enough ranked groups to know that most of these "elitists" players don't give a crap if someone turns r2 in the middle of a r8-9 group as long as they know what they're doing.

ill give my input here.

ive been r9+ since october, but i moved in november from the east coast in north carolina to the west coast to cali. i left my guild "apathy inc" because i was no longer in their playing hours. now im guildless. but i can say as a rank 9+ that the reason most of us like to play in 'high" ranked groups if we go pugging is because of the maps, not just any map, but the last 3 maps of tombs.

"the courtyard" : 3 way capture the alter match.

"sacred temple" ( think its called): relic run (very dynamic map)

and "the hall of heroes": up to 6 teams total then it goes to a 3 way cature the alter match.

ask yourself this, who has been to these last three critical maps more.....a rank 9+ or a rank 2+?
in my opinion the 2nd to last map "sacred temple" needs to be very well known if you want to be in one of my pug groups.

i would really expect somebody to know that you can shoot arrows thru the door but you cant shoot accross the door with its open. i would expect somebody to know how to body block the different stair steps there.

everybody and their mother knows the first few maps, but do you really think as a rank 2 player you can be just as good at the last 3 maps as sombody with 5,000 MORE fame than you? i really think not.

if im making a pug, i for the most part drop down to recruiting rank 6+. rank 6 players have a minimum of 1000 fame. and i feel that somewhere between 1000 fame and 2000 fame you have learned the last 3 maps like the back of your hand.

getting to rank 7 or 8 or 9 doesnt mean that you have grinded fame. yes i agree that those iway teams are grinding but they are getting minimal fame from it, compaired to teams that can hold hoh for an hour at a time.

when you can get 250 fame from one run because you know what your doing and the rest of your team knows what they are doing why on earth would you even consider taking anyone who doesnt know the maps even half as well as your pet wolf does?

ive had ppl say to me, " im rank 5 allmost rank 6 can you please take me".
and honestly i really feel bad rejecting them, but from my experience, these so called rank 5's that want in the group cant even produce a skill that i have assigned for them if they were to join.

the rank can go more than just "rank" and map experience.
for me, i have one true pve character, and i dont play pve anymore untill chapter 2 comes out, getting fame and rank came hand in hand with gaining faction and unlocking all the items and skills, shortly after the whole faction system came along i was maxed out. i think it was that faction weekend where i got maxed. the point is, higher ranks for the most part will have more items skills unlocked and 100% of all rank 9 chars should be 100% unlocked. im also sure that alot of the rank 1 crowd are also 100% unlocked cause they are pve RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOs. but witch took longer?

just because you the thread starter has played so long doesnt entittle you to play with the bigger pvp crowd.
stating that you have beat the game with your warrior doesnt give you the right to get in those ranked groups that you crave for.


i wouldnt even let a member of a top guild if all he ever did was gvg, he could be the best single gvg player out there, but if he doesnt know the maps of tombs then he doesnt get the chance to play with my time.

i can tell you from expeirence, i didnt get to where i am 2day from total random pugs, most of all my groups were either guild groups with AI or "friendship" pugs with a minimal number of real "pug" players. so 5 friends and 3 randoms would be a safe number to go with, but were those 3 randoms complete randoms? no, they all had to check out and either lie to say they had the right amout of fame or were honest about it, i never asked to see the emote. but if somebody said they are rank 6 but dont have a particular skill, then i would just have to boot them. cause to me, not having all the skills in the game at this point (pvp earned or pve earned) means you have alot of learning to do before you can run with this crowd and its no power trip. not only must you obtain that skill, you must know how to use it and when to use it.

ive seen some guilds go into gvg with a player or two assigned a skill that they had to go buy before battle, im thinking, what kind of shit is that? your asking for a loss when you do that.

so to all the ppl who complain about rank means nothing, consider why your saying it and think outside the box and look to see why ppl are requiring rank.

just like alot of ppl have said before, we all started with 0 rank and 0 fame.
live and learn myfriend.

So we have a Catch 22, it's true: You can't get Rank if you don't participate, and you can't participate if you don't have Rank.

In my naivete, I thought "Oh, nice, cute little emotes to show that people have been playing a lot and doing well." Yep, I wasn't seeing it clearly. I must have forgotten the days of the SC ladder and how numbers were "the be all and end all" of getting onto a competitive team.

It seems many agree there's good in having Rank -- well deserved recognition for one thing -- but also a drawback. What could we do to encourage people to, I don't know, reach out, include, help train the next batch of competitive players? Maybe to engage those of "lowly rank" by offering a place as a guest on their team?

Any time you have exclusivity, you risk long-term negative consequences. If we don't all play a role in training the upcoming and possibly brilliant new PvP players, who are we going to play against? Or play with? Isn't it our responsibility as a community to not slip into insular "in crowd" thinking, and then complain that there aren't enough matches worthy of our time?

Do you have ideas on how to be more inclusive while maintaining high standards of play?

Well, you can thank IWAY for the whole rank seperation in the first place. If it wasn't for iway, 95% of the people who have r3 or 6 today would not be so, and it would be much easier for everybody to find a group. The rest would be an elite hundred or less r9+ hanging out in id1, and you would rarely have to face their groups

I remember the days back within the first month that the game came out when i would be invited into a group before i could even load the map. Then we would go on a good two to five game run, occasionally making it to halls. I got to halls more in that first month than I ever have since.

Im r4(I mostly got it from air spike, not iway)... but i would go back to r0 again if they just eliminated the rank seperation.

EDIT: To answer gaile's question, here's my suggestion. New players obviously can't win very much in tombs anymore, so give them credit for things that they can win in, like GvG. GvG is the only type of pvp that matches teams evenly, so they can face teams that they can actually beat. Give them... say 3 fame for each gvg victory. Then when they gain enough fame from gvg they can be more accepted in tombs. It's been suggested many times before, so obviously there's a lot of support for it anyways. Or, alternatively, just eliminate the rank emote all-together.

Ranks are getting de-valued, builds like EoE bomb and IWAY that take next to no skill to win with and offer no chance for players to further pvp abilities, but those players are still rewarded the same rewards as another person who is trying multiple builds and evolving their builds, they will both eventually reach their desired rank, but one will be a well rounded player with the capability to play several builds the other will know nothing but still get into the same teams.

Thats one of the reasons pugs are upping the rank requirement, not long ago rank3 was an indication of an experienced pvper, but as a result of certain FOTM builds people are finding useless players getting into their groups so they up the requirement to prevent that happening.

I know theres a lot of FOTM fans about, but i really think anet needs to be faster balancing or "nerfing" these builds to prevent players being able to use a single build to reach rank6+.

Beating a decent guild with IWAY in tombs is a big achievement as they are all 100% prepared to face IWAY.

Not entirely true, a lot of the decent guilds are wanting to hold rather than just farm fame in the initial maps, they take 'holding' builds into tombs that arent designed to excel at 1v1 anihilation maps but are isntead designed for HoH, so taking out a high ranked guild in UW with IWAY does not mean that you are skilled.

your first line is false, as much as i love you and this game, that is really false

one great way to get good at tombs is to create or join a guild, a smaller guild of no more than 10-12 regualar active players for your pvp groups.
play together (even if your rank negative 10) and learn how to play together and start working on builds that work for you and your teammates. after a while, you will learn a build that is just right for your team/guild and what roles will get played by whom. you will soon notice that your skill level as a whole has greatly increased. now you can get a name for your small guild by outsiders and they will recognize you not as indiviuals but as a team.....a guild team.

when i was in apathy and at the begining of their tombing days, it was rough. we had a few guys that had zero rank and fame and we has some others with more experience. we worked as a small group of 9 regulars and we all had pretty much our roles cut out for us. after a while everyone knew what skills and character they would be for that night. before you knew it, our rank 0's were racing for rank 6+ and our others were racing for rank 9+.
this was all in a matter of 5-6 weeks. our team play level of skill was close to as good as it would get. we held halls on a daily basis with some of our players never even seeing halls before they joined our guild.

so when you say what you said, its not entirely true. i really hate for somebody with your sayso to think of it like you do.

the key to rank and fame is friends. after all, this is a team based game.

A: Destroy the human race and start over
B: Give 1 fame for every game you play with a player that is below your rank
C: Hand out candy
D: unranked players get 128 bonus armor!

Gaile, I'm really glad that you too feel this way, as I'm sure many female and pve gamers feel the same. But unfortunately, this type of thinking that "training future good pvpers is a good thing" doesn't work for most pvpers. To them, fewer competition for prestige, the better. So if you're asking them to include more "new players' into their groups, you are addressing wrong crowd.

As for ideas for being more inclusive, well, how about making rank emote not displayable in arena. Or allowing faction points to be exchanged for fame to alleviate problems for those who participate mostly in gvg, and those poor guildless souls spending most of their pvp hours in TA or CA? I'm sure there are plenty of ideas around.

If you were to keep the rank system as it is, the community will naturally segregate their teams into people of similar rank. The only solution comming to mind would be to segregate who faces who within the heroes acent pvp area. Take the average of rank and have them face off against teams of similar rank by introducing some mechanic/code similar to what exists that defines it as X guild has held the hall of hereos instead of Y person's party.

This way it gives a reason to include people of lower rank to have more varied matches on the way to the hall of hereos, or by contrast, have a greater challenge (in theory)by only facing off teams of equal or higher rank. The ranks could be teired in the way the game sets up the matches so that they arent too skewed until certain maps, such as the hall, where everyone who makes it that far competes against each other.

Otherwise you are left with being required to implement a point based system similar to the gvg ladder rankings where it is possible to lose rank over time due to failure. This would seperate the sucessful people from the people who merely are able to spend alot of time in the hereos ascent area. In doing so, there is a risk that the community becomes even more polarized for party selection. Combining both options together might yeild the best results, since all people eventually lose and would lose some points, but being a good player at a lower rank could yeild other opportunities to gaining rank with other people of higher rank wanting to face a more average challenge over time.

I do agree that there is a need to find people easily to party with and that there also is a need to guage relative talent for playing the game, since everyone wants to win. I feel that any tools introduced to help with party selection with those who are merely loitering versus those seeking parties can help, in addition to possibly setting up a search window for party leaders to list what professions they need, how many slots, and perhaps a small comment area for type of overal party build upon completion could help as well. Having this transcend districts and denote which district is home to the party would be wonderful, but i dont know if that is technically possible. You can send a whisper to anyone in game, regardless of location, so it doesnt seem too far out of the realm of possibility.

One of my only real complaints with the game as a whole, is how divided it feels and it is partly due to the lack of tools available in party creation. Currently all we have is the friends list, which is achieved rather haphazardly throughout playing or by guild invites which follows a similar method that the friends list takes. The game feels like an early FPS game setup, in terms of finding people to play with regularly, opposed to a more recent MMO game that has tools for party creation beyond spamming the chat window and scanning /who is here ala EQ1. I think any tool to help form the parties introduced will help smooth things along, if implemented along side any kind of scalable rank adjustments for gain/storage or matchups. Doing one or the other will not have same impact. Introducing other methods to guage relative experience will help as well. Sure, people can look at your guild tag and see if it is a sucessful in gvg fights, but i don't think that is enough considering gvg is the same (more or less) 8 people playing again and again, while the concern brought up here is with pick up groups in a different 8v8 venue. Perhaps translating some of the sucesses and failures over from ch2 city capturing into the faction consideration currently can help as well, spreading out the options to gauge relative sucess and experience within pvp options.

I think there are tons of possibilities available to ANET currently, but i also think they are busy in many different things at the moment. It would be nice to see some kind of change or implication that it is being considered in addition to gaile's comments, but i am not sure what would be the best recieved when doing so.

Plenty of places where veteran PvPs can help train newbies. PuGs in Hero's Ascent isn't one of them. People are there to win, not to hold some newbie's hand.

Can't exactly "train" them properly without the areas to play in really. If this wasnt the case, people wouldnt be as hesitant to take people who are unranked.

If you are also a "veteren" when and how long are you planning to hold those "newbie" hands and get them to not be inexperienced? Even if you say that you are going to devote a quarter of your online playtime doing so, i can easily see thousands just turning the other cheeck and ignoring them completely, while laughing at them later when they attempt to compete.

Can I Phone a Friend?

My apologies, should have clarified what I meant. I was refering to the idea that newbies should try getting into newbie friendly GvG guilds so that they can learn "there" (where ever the guild decides to instruct and train them is up to them), rather than trying to sneak into a PuG.

People more often than not just learn through their experiences rather than some mentor instructing them. People need to learn to stand on their own two feet, rather than insisting that its the duty of community to hold their hand and help them. Granted building a network of people is difficult, and Anet should implement a system besides that awkward friends list to help facilitate this. All in all however, it should be up to the players' own volition rather than depending on others.

Why not just add a separate Hero's Ascent for unranked players that doesn't affect favor? It only adds fame until rank (1-3) and you can no longer participate once you're rank is past 3.

guild tag > emote

All this fame farming has already been discussed to no end. Tons of people are rank 9 that don't really have the knowledge or skill on all the classes and strategies that they probably should have. Everyone knows this, and because of it, the rank emotes have lost a lot of credability. I remember fighting 40 minute matches in burial mounds for 2 fame, and taking a month to hit rank 3. Now you can do that in 2 days. The result is that fame means less and less. I know the people that I play with, and I don't care how much fame they have. I play with them because either I know them/the guilds they are in, or friends have vouched for them.

Its a balance issue. I'm sure Anet is working on it and hopefully it will be improved when skills are rebalanced around the 20th. Every time people learn to hold halls more than 6 or 7 times, Anet nerfs holding, so why bother? Its clearly much easier to play the first maps quickly and just restart when you lose. Most of the people arent entering tombs or HA anymore to hold halls, which results in everyone running iway.

I think more than just skill rebalances need to be done. The fame/tombs system keeps being changed to favor new players to pvp (less teams per match, easier alter taking, tougher to hold). This is great, but they need to remove the incentive of grinding away at the same early maps over and over again. Maybe remove the 40 fame cap, remove fame altogether for the first few maps, or increase the difference in fame earned after 4-5 consecutive wins.

I'm just gonna stop because i'm sick of all these rank discussions...

Arguably they could learn how to do things the wrong way going either route, since the "newbie" friendly guilds i see advertising are commonly guilds that are either pve focused or still getting started themselves.

Its not about sneaking into someone else's pug, its about having the same opportunities the "vets" had when the "vets" were new to the game as well. The thing is, the game will never be reset really and the knowledge is already out there. So, in reality, the "vets" will at one point need to take them into their normal groups or shun them completely as is the norm now usually.

First off, inexperienced PvP players don't have any of the tools they need. implementing those new premades that the top guilds submitted would help a ton.

Second, better systems for forming groups need to be created. If it was easier to form something other than an IWAY group people would have more of a chance to learn this game.

Third, IWAY has to go. It is extremely easy to organize and quite effective for the skill it takes to run. As a result large amounts of players are drawn to IWAY to farm rank. They then don't know how to play anything else and continue to play IWAY. The end result is IWAY being so dominant in tombs that the only way to get a reliable non-IWAY group is to gather eight people you know. Independent of the issue "Is IWAY overpowered" is the fact that IWAY has stunted tombs to the point where the only reasonable way to gain rank is to play IWAY.

Finally, putting together a build isn't easy. A.net needs to help people out by posting simple 8-man builds that can work in tombs or GvG. Something 8 players who are new to PvP can get together, run, and a reasonable chance of success. The build isn't everything, but having a decent build helps a ton. Tap the resources of your pvp community or use Izzy (just make sure he doesn't invent another IWAY.)

When someone wants to get into PvP I tell them to join XoO. The way the game currently is, they don't have a prayer of getting into PvP otherwise.

I seriously just now got into a group that was "rank 8+". The guy asked my 'rank?' and I said *You see a wolf emote flash before your eyes* and the guy accepts me in. O.o

I mean, I must be Force Sensative.

Edit; Warskull, I concur! Tell it, brotha!

i tink i just saw a putty tat

i myself just turned r6 acouple days ago and i can tell u it wasn't easy

i personally see that new players get frustrated to easy. They stand in halls say "LFG (insert class here)" and get frustrated when they don't get invites. after 30 min to an hour they get upset and leave. It takes time for someone that just zoned into HA to get a core pvp group. When i was first went in to tombs back when it was tombs and not HA wow i was so lost. Had no idea what i was doing and i using my sword w/mo and my fire nuker. I got about 18 fame in a months time. I got frustrated to after i went online i think my first reaction was like "WTF I NEED 180 FAME FOR A WORTHLESS DEER" i thought i would never get it. I continued though unlocked more things through faction delted a pve character for a pvp slot and got to work. I made it to r3 and i used my friends list. I added all these people i met and would form groups with them all the time. Fast forward i am now rank 6 and i haven't flashed my wolf (i named him Brandon) hardly ever in HA because the people that i tomb with pm me all the dang time to come with them.

Another thing i don't like about new players is they like to lump all pvpers in "rank elites" when that is far from the truth. That would be like me saying all unranked players are impatient people that don't listen. All because i seen many unranked players like that doesn't mean they are all like that.

if someone has the energy to come to this site to post a complaint about the rank system why not take the extra energy to use the search function and learn about tombs more? I seen alot of post on this site that are very helpfull for new players about HA.

As for you have to have rank to get in a group and you have to get in a group to get rank that is complete BS. If that was true there would be no new ranked players.

Today acouple hours ago actually i tried to put together a no rank requirment group. A specific build i use for HA so i ask for the classes and start getting alot of pms. I got the monks easy and when i asked there skill bar you would think i asked them for there credit card number on how they reacted. Then when i got people in the group they were like take my friend pls he's this and this and when i would say i need a me/e can they reroll they said just take him like that. And my personal favorite when u ask for a certain class and u get a pm saying
"oh i'm not what u asked for at all can i come"
then i would say "can u reroll?"
"oh come on i pwn noobs" or whatever the kids are saying now

ok after forming the group (that took about 30 min) i wanted to explain how it worked, after people saying just go a dozen times i finally got them to shut up and listen and i say this before we go in

"We are all new playing together so if we lose stay in the group and we can go again"

We get a +4 moral beat the first map get crushed second map

EVERYONE LEAVES

so you want advice new players
A. Don't get frustrated so easy it takes awhile
B. Be flexible
C. Listen
D. don't rush
E. Don't leave after losing 1 match

I wrote what amounted to a massive and vague post on the subject, then decided to delete it in favor of a quicker "proposal-style" rundown of how Anet could recognize and cope with these issues. Gaile or any other member of the Anet staff, please take a moment to at least read through this. If nothing else, it'll give you a slightly deeper understanding into GW's real issues and some ideas on how to fix them:

The Problem(s)
-Experienced PvP players commonly discriminate in player selection based on an estimate of that player's HA experience
-Inexperienced PvP players have difficulty finding groups and getting the experience necessary to be effective
-The groups inexperienced PvP players are able to join - often after a significant amount of time spent searching for one - are largely inexperienced themselves, causing a "blind leading the blind" type scenario which serves to further frustrate these players and further hampers their ability to learn from the short playtime they do get

The Source of These Problems
-GW lacks an effective means of organizing groups short of spamming one district at a time in the hopes of finding what you're looking for - and that you're lucky enough to beat the 1/5 or 1/7 or whatever odds of finding it in that particular district. This is evidenced by the fact that groups requiring a large variety of individual builds are rare and nigh-impossible to organize (Balanced, Mixed Spike, Hex-Oriented, etc) while groups that are composed of many similar individual builds (IWAY, Ranger Spike, etc) are exceedingly and increasingly popular.
-Most inexperienced players have no way of knowing what the requirements of the build they want to play are. They may know the general idea behind a "heal monk", but will they know what healing spells to bring? Will they know that they are also responsible for hex removal? Will they know that using Holy Veil - a rather un-obvious choice - is the most effective means of performing that same hex removal?
-The wait time to play one of these more "complex" team builds is nothing short of ludicrous. Before IWAY became the status quo (i.e. at the start of GW's life, when players usually played a large variety of individual builds) groups would usually take at least half an hour just to organize (sometimes well over an hour depending on the build and number of people playing at the time). Furthermore, once these groups finally did play, they usually won no more than two or three rounds on their first "warmup" attempt, frustrating most of these players into quitting PvP altogether.

Approach To Dealing with These Problems
Because of the nature of these problems, it is clear that there are two distinct aspects of the issue that must be addressed:
-The simplification of the group-finding system into a logical, efficient and intuitive one, preferably by means of an in-game framework that actively supports these ends.
-A means by which players can easily see and understand a group's needs in terms of individual builds and, likewise, a method by which groups can "browse" available players in order to rapidly find what they need.

Proposed Solution
An in-game system that actively maintains a voluntary list of information that spans ALL districts in a given geographical zone. This would be reminiscent of a "bulletin board" approach wherein the system would be broken down into two disctinct halves:
1) A "Looking for Group" list that allows players to submit one entry in which the following fields would be filled out. Manually: Build name and possibly a short description (i.e. Boon Healing Monk w/OOB). Automatically: Their entire skillbar, attribute allocation, armor types and weapons used (i.e. [Set of healing skills], OOB, Boon, Holy Veil; Divine Favor: 16, Healing: 10, Blood: 9; Tatoo Armor; Healing Rod/Healing Ankh.) This way, a group leader in ANY district, could rapidly scroll through a list of players (possibly broken down by primary class to make the lists shorter) and contact any player that would meet his or her requirements simply by selecting that individual's entry. Furthermore, they would know - without resorting to checking rank - that the player in question has a reasonably firm grip on his build and how to play it.
2) A "Group Looking for" list where a group leader could post a list of player builds needed to complete his or her group. This would, of course, include all Manually and Automatically inputed information as listed in part 1, only it would be directed towards un-joined players who could choose to browse through this list at their leisure until they found a request they could meet. At that point, they would simply select the entry, whisper the group's leader to find out district info, inform them they are rerolling (or are already playing the appropriate build) and allow that group to remove the entry since it has been filled. This would also have the double-benefit of helping newer players tremendously by telling them everything they need to know about the build they want to play. They will know what skills are needed, what armor to use, what weapons, how to distribute their attribute points, their runes - everything. I, for one, would have killed to have a fraction of that information at my finger tips when I first started playing PvP, and I'm certain that I'm not alone.

With this approach, Anet could: drastically reduce group-organizing times, increase the amount of playtime vs organizing time several times over for newer and experienced players alike, make a wider variety of builds practical to run in a "pickup" fashion, allow newer players to learn a wealth of fundamental information before they even joined their first group, encourage groups to "coach" new players rather than being practically forced to boot them (e.g. it is MUCH simpler to tell a player how/when to use a skill best as opposed to being faced with the impractical necessity of spending half an hour telling them how to even make their build before you can even begin to help them learn to play it), reduce rank-discimination, intermix newer players with experienced vets, and generally improve the PvP system by leaps and bounds.

Anet, I beg you, please start addressing GW's biggest and most fundamental problems. The fixes are incredibly simple and obvious once you think about them. I'm sure anyone here would gladly sacrifice the next tweak or PvE area to see these things fixed.

Thanks,
Cel

They could also make a Tombs Ladder, and then have your emote based on your guilds rank on either the Tombs or GvG ladder.

Another way to fix the problem could be to remake the tombs maps, so that they aren't just a slaughterfest.

Celios, that was an awesome post. I know Gaile et al. are reading this, so hopefully some of your suggestions are implemented.

I particularly like the idea of skill bar being visible to the leader. Whenever I message a leader with my skillbar, I get accepted almost 100% of the time.

then dont run iway, most iway groups are gonna be like that
hang out in the lfg channel in sb vent, put in your comment what you like to play. sooner or later someone will come into the channel and say "we need a sb infuse monk and two shock warriors" (or something) i guess you like to play a warrior, so shock warrior would be good for you. so you say "oh yes kind sir, i would love to play a shock warrior in your team" if he asks you to emote, and you still arent ranked, just ask him to give you a shot. if your good, he will keep you. but if your not very good, people arent that nice, you'll most likely get kicked.

when i go into tombs its been flodded with people doing iway i carnt get into a team because im a w/m and they dout them because they think they wont do any good. just because im a w/m doesnt mean i carnt do things

I'm not sure why this is problem. People are there to win, not to teach.

If the players aren't patient enough to have a trial run or two to allow the players to get accustomed to one another, that is their own problem.

How would the leader know if the player understand's how to play the build? Granted I love your idea for a LFG/GLF system (and its been suggested many times in the past, but ANet insists that they are leaving it to Chapter 2), and it definately will facilitate group finding/player finding, but this system cannot convey how experienced a player is with a particular build.


Copying a build doesn't inform you how to best play it, nor does it impart the experience needed to handle high pressure situations

A well implemented LFG/GLF system will drastically improve the guilds/players ability to network with unfamilar players. It will definately make HA a more pleasant experience.

However it cannot impart newer players with the experience they need and it won't make them anymore attractive to more experienced groups. At best, all they can accomplish, is duping more experienced teams into taking them, and after a few frustrating rounds when their inexperience is made known, they will simply be booted and both parties will have just wasted time. So as much as this will help newbies find groups, it is not a pancea which will suddenly make them experienced players nor will it stop so-called "rank discrimination".