Completely new rank system

1: Rank is useless as it is. too many people got their rank from Spirit Spamming and various other exploits (excluding me ).
2: People can buy rank via eBay (although it is illegal, people will always be dumb enough to sell it, and other people will always be dumb enough to buy it).
3: Too many groups are rank-exclusive, meaning new players can't get into any heroes ascent groups unless the moon happens to be blue and 15.2 degrees above the horizon.

The solution?

Rank should be calculated not only from fame. If you want a system to show players how good you are, rank should take all of these factors ito account:
Fame, Win/Loss ratio in heroes ascent, and individual HoH wins.

In addition to these, rank you earn should only be included for whatever primary class you are playing when you obtain that rank. For example, because I ranger spike nowadays, and used to ele spike, I would be rank 3 ele, rank 3 ranger, and rank 1 or 2 of everything else. This makes sure that people can't "cheat" their way to rank 9 or 12 with IWAY or Spirit Spamming, then pass themself off as one of the best players in the world. I'd bet everything I own that everyone who is rank 12 today has spirit spammed and IWAYed in the past.

Minor fix to fame: Only allow a team to win in Hall of Heroes a certain number of times (5 would be nice). This would fix the problem of groups dominating HoH because they are specifically made for holding altars. This would also ensure that no team can get more than (you do the math) 300 fame per run if they fought through every level.

/signed...

/recanted

The "problem" of a group dominating the HoH because etc. etc. isn't so much a problem as it is them doing exactly what they are supposed to do. If you find a way to hold altars that is in some way tweakorific, congratulations! You win the game! Wait for Anet to nerf you and enjoy your stay at the top.

Rank is not usesless, rank shows that a person knows the maps. Also it sounds like your saying most everyone with rank got it from exploits. I got to rank 6 playing mostly balanced builds and air spike.
Your suggestion of taking win/loss ratio into effect wouldnt help the problem, clearly the teams that are more likely to win more often are the ones with the higher ranked players, who know the maps better and usually have more experience in HA. So all that would do is widen the gap of ranked and unranked.
As far as fixing the max hoh wins a team can have, that is just stupid. If a good team can manage to hold halls more than 5 times in a row, they are most likely skilled players. This game rewards skill not hours played remember, so to take away the rewards after so much skill has been shown, well that just wouldnt go along with guild wars ideals now would it.
To me it sounds like your just ranting because all of the good groups wont let you in. you might want to check out the "rant about rank" thread.
I would reccomend getting fame the same way I did. Play pve and if your not a jerk you can meet some nice people, make friends, form a guild, practice some gvg with voice communication. then simply go to HA. Then once you have your rank 3,6,9,12 or whatever then feel free to complain all you want, or better yet get to rank 6 and play with an unraked group and see how often you get people who have just got the game a week ago. My point being once you know the maps and know what to do, why would you want to chance the rest of the group having no idea what they are doing.

I do kind of like your idea of rank per class, but then again by the time you get to rank 6 you generally know all the skills and can learn a class very easily. So it would kind of just become a headache trying to get every class up in rank.

Well rank isnt useless but its pretty close.

Im sure they are doing some kind of fame/rank system for Ch2 as there is new PvP areas. New teams will be asking for those emotes and wouldnt care much for the old rank emotes I hope.

It's not that everyone got their rank that way, but that so many people did that rank is completely unreliable and useless as a measure of skill or knowledge of anything.

You're ignoring the more important change the OP would make: including HoH wins. IWAY and other twinky builds aren't actually very good at holding the hall, and many fame-farmers will even quit and restart after making it there so they can go get more fame off hapless newbies. Factoring HoH wins into rank would make rank definitely indicate the things you think it does now, rather than indicating either that or farming skill.

The above post is right, not everyone got their rank by doing air spikes, iway builds etc. There are a lot of advertisments for "Fame Farming" around the forums, so in this a rank 5 or 6 could easily have no idea what their doing. Maybe somewhat, but not as good as someone who earned it.

Which of us are you agreeing with? You realize that IWAY is fame farming, right?

Losses in HA should remove fame. (Just like GvG removes your rating if you lose)

now that would be fun :P

Wow i didnt expect this much feedback.
Rank is, in fact, useless right now. I say this because:
1: People cheat for it using exploits
2: People can buy it from eBay
3: It is account wide, meaning when GW Factions come out, I will be a rank 6 assassin/ritualist with zero experience.

Also, the win/loss ratio would help. IWAY has an average win/loss ratio of 1:1, and a "good" iway has a win/loss ratio of 3:1. Groups of experienced players running balance or ranger spike often run 5 plus wins in a row every time. Either adding a win/loss ratio, or taking away fame as lyra said would prevent groups from randomly charging in without a plan. (achieving rank could also be a safeguard. Once you hit rank 2, your fame can never drop below 75.)
Ill leave it up to A-net to figure out specifics, but something has to be done. Rank is a wasted stat on characters right now.
Please sign if you think this is a good idea.

This thread is expressing a desire that rank be more an indicator of skill and less an indicator of time played.

Consider this under the current system: Group A consists of players who play Hero's Ascent (HA) 1-2 times a week but always get to or hold the hall of heroes. Group B consists of players who play 20 times as much as Group A but only win 1 or 2 matches per HA run. Group A is the more skilled group of players but Group B is the higher ranked players.

My suggestion for a modification of the rank system is that fame is not awarded until the team wins consecutive matches equal to a player's rank / 2. For example rank 3 and 4 players would not get fame for winning the first match, but would start getting fame after winning the second consecutive match. And fame is always awarded for winning the hall of heroes.

Rank is seriously messed up... Those that have no rank cant get any groups... those that have high rank cant get into groups cause theres not enough rank 3+ cause noone invites low ranked peeps into groups ^_^

I agree that rank is mess up - just look at the last generation of R6 iwayers (by that, I mean the people that grinded out 1000 fame nearly entirely from iway) that are attempting to play something other than IWAY and they fail miserably.

Rank as it is represents time spent in HA, imo. I know a couple R7 IWAYers that play like noobs for other roles.

Sorry, but I completely disagree with that first point.

I'm currently struggling to get to rank 3 to get accepted into more teams (105 fame so far), and almost all of that has been with PUGs, some of whom I've gone in with, only to find that half of them don't have a clear idea what to do. Should I lose fame for that? I'd never hit rank 3, and have an even harder time finding groups. Hell, I went into Tombs with a group recently, and after defeating the Zaishen (after several minutes) one of the fire ele's said "lol! I didn't put any points in fire magic". I wouldn't say our subsequent loss had much to do with me, we were effectively a player down. Speaking of which, some of my guild mates have internet problems, and have Net Err'd at the start of a match. Should that drop my fame even lower?

This wouldn't help at all in my opinion, the people that know the maps and can be organised would continue to gain fame, albeit a bit slower, whilst everyone else drops.

Yeah,I think it would be unfair to take away fame for losses. However, the win/loss thing would make a big difference, especially with people who faction farm with crappy builds such as IWAY. The main concern is that rank does not show playing skill, when it is supposed to.

shardfenix, i know its hard to get ur r3.....ive been through that, but try to endure, i assure you, after that you'll rank up a little easyer and not that slow.

I PVP rarely. Random arenas only really, this is because of my horrible hatred against tombs. The system is so screwed that I cant get into any groups EVER. Trying to get into a group with 0 fame is damn near impossible.

I joined a group one time and they were like "OK emote at the front" and I told them I had no rank. Does that really show how good you are at it? NO. You could know every thing there is to know about the build you are using (eg: IWAY) and still not get a group because you havent used it enough.

I think of tombs like every other mission, exept theres a rank system exclusively for it and it does not show experience or skill, but rather time played which is not what this game is about. With other missions its easy to tell which people are going to be trouble, people who go "come on lets go lets go gogogog blahg balh [email protected] press ENTER MSIon!" why should we have a different system for tombs?

I have not PVPed in a long time because of stupid stuff like this. I think the whole rank system needs to be trashed.

I'm rank 5. It's easy to get rank. I started this thread because after encouraging my friends to buy the game, they can't get any groups together, and every time I make a group, nobody joins because some of them dont have any rank. One of my friends has almost every skill unlocked from comp/team arenas but is only rank 2, and he plays better than most rank 9s I know.
PvP should encourage people to either specialize with a single class/classes, or to be all around. I hate joining groups who say they have rank 9 monks, when those monks have never healed before in their lives. As much as I hate the rank system, it could stay the same, they just need to apply it to the primary class you get it with.
I'll be a rank 6 assassin/ritualist in a few months with zero knowledge/experience of the skills. Tell me that makes sense, and you can keep the current rank system.
I assume the current rank system was reset when the game was released. The main abuse that people used in those days was spirit spamming, which ensured that once you captured Hall of Heroes, you stay in it until your whole team decided to leave. I can use 7 skills, then afk the rest of the match, why am I not rank 9, since that's what other rank 9's did. I have as much, if not more skills than them. Besides, using exploits is technically against the EULA, and you're supposed to report it right away, although I don't blame people for abusing it. I've abused a few exploits myself in order to have a fair game against other people abusing them.
Now that Guild Wars is near perfectly balanced, a reset would truly be fair for all players. My rank 5 means more than Virus's rank 12, since he got his from spirit spamming.

I like the idea of each individual class would have its own rank. So when you are looking for a group you can say Rank 5 warrior LFG, and people can tell you experienced you are at that proffesion. The only problem i see with that is the large amount of people doing IWAY and therefore = an even larger amount of warriors looking for a group. Also i think that you should be able to get rank from GvG since you would be playing a class then and getting experience from it.

I like the idea of losing fame for losses

i kinda agree with you, i do meet r6 and r9 who are very bad at doing their job, they sure can , but i usually expect them to do it better. I play Ranger(ranger spike mostly), Monk(healer) , Mesmer(Shutdown) and sometimes shock/gale warrior, i dont like to play other things, i am really good at what im doing and if i change my builds it will take a while for me to adjust to the perticular build.

When i got my rank 3 , like 2 months ago, i played every iWAY position possible, and if i get to spread my fame out i wouldnt be the rank i am because i played a huge variety. I think playing the same thing over and over again kinda starts to be boring. The rank system is OK, it could be better, but its fine. I dont want any update that will hurt somepart of the game anymore, game is good as it is.

I regret suggesting that. What if your friends/guild is trying a ton of experimental builds? The win/loss idea I think is way better, because it is more fair to both old and new players. If you lose, no big deal, you could just win the next match. I leave it to arenanet to pick a specific formula, but I think every win should make up for 2-3 losses.
I like the idea of getting rank from GVG, but there is a reason that they didn't already do that (whatever it may be).

Rank and fame should be zeroed out every 6 months like Myth or Myth II. Everyone starts over fresh and new and new players to the game have opportunities to learn alongside the better players without worrying about rank status. This would be the best way to curb elitism and keep everyone playing HOH instead of just the exploiters and those who used IWAY or spike or spam to get there. These aren't expert players they are just freeloaders who used the mechanics of the game to get where they are. Zero out rank and fame every 6 months and watch how things change.

I hope your joking.

umm... no they should not reset it every 6 months. It takes six months for the average player to get rank 6. Once IWAY is nerfed, there will be more good groups in HA, and it will be a tad harder for everyone to get fame anyway. This bring everything back to one of my main points - win/loss record. If a new player wants to catch up with other players, a flawless record in HoH would quickly put him up the rank ladder.
Regardless, look at the rank system now... useless.
Look at a rank system that shows you how much skill you have... better.

No it wouldnet ... GW its alredy elitist as we are ..... if that happens we would have "only positive rank" guilds .... and Rank +10 Guilds .... ECT .. and there woudl be ABSOLUTTLY NO CHANCE FOR NEW PLAYERS ..... now ... Elitism its ok ... but it has one problem ..... it gives you advantage because youv been playing longer than me .... (isent that whats diferent abou tthis MMRPG) .... if that happens im afraid this game would become lineage 2 ... where no matter how skilled you are ... one dude with 2 more lvls than you will always kik your ass ..... (no matter how good you are .. a dude in a "Elite" guild wil lallways win) since your rank its negative and you have no chances WHATSOEVER to advance .. to play the uperior leves ... to get in a noce guild .. ect ...

(does anyone understand or its my english too crappy?)

(does anyone understand or its my english too crappy?)

Basically your avatar says it all. hahaha sorry couldn't resist. (smile)

No, in GW, character level doesn't matter when you're 18-20. If a level 19 goes to random arenas, I play with them,because most of the time, 20 health does not matter.
However, in HA, everyone is 20 (although ive seen groups bring some level 10s). The only thing that gives people advantage in GW is their playing ability. Current rank does not measure play skill, even though the people in HA think it does.
on a side note, I laugh at all those people who think rank 12s are better than rank 3s when the opposite is true.

I just recently learned that players who had characters before the game's release did not have their accounts wiped of rank attained from hall of heroes. I also learned that, until either shortly before the game's release, or shortly after, there was no fame cap per battle. Currently the system allows you to get up to 40 fame per win. Not only could people cheat their way up the rank ladder with spirit spamming, they could also get HUNDREDS of fame PER BATTLE.

Is is not important to have a PvP skill-determining system that is fair and equal for everyone, and does not favor a group of cheaters over the millions of people who either just got the game or were not around when spirit spamming was? I wouldn't mind losing my rank 7 if it meant everyone was judged based on the same information.

Recall the recent trader bug. People were able to buy 250g per item, ectos, shards, sigils, whatever, and you (Arenanet) ended up resetting everyone's account back an hour. You said you did that because leaving it the way it was would mess up the economy. And you're right. But let's say that rank is an economy. You collect it, and people think higher of you if you have more. More people will also let you into their groups with higher rank.
Now, let's say there was a serious bug that made fireballs kill all opponents on the map. You would find out about it in an hour, fix the bug, then roll back everyone's fame to what it was. Now imagine there was a bug where you could drop multiple spirits of the same type, whose abilities stacked, even on each other, and allowed groups to win by sitting on an altar for 10 minutes. What would you do?

I can drop 7 spirits per minute, give me rank 12 arenanet.

What about existing players? Just have them get wiped of their current fame-standing? If a new system was implemented..

And shardy, didja quit Rnub? Awwh.

I do love to spam my rank in PVE and guys are like " Rank is worth nothing here" makes me smile every time .

Leave the rank system as it is.

/Signed

Wow juicey, I didn't know IWAY players were smart enough to know what a forum is. And yes I have quit Rnub, not that it makes a difference to me. I beat them in HoH a few nights ago with a modded version of their necro spike.
Even if we kept fame the way it is (which is more fair than my suggestion in some ways), HA would still be elitist. People think rank 12 means you are a god, when in fact it means you know how to use 7 spirits in a row. I find it ironic that the hardest ranks to achieve are the most undeserved ranks. Fame should have been reset a long time ago, after spirit spamming was nerfed. I guess A-net will keep fame as it is, and all those rank 12 players who don't know what strategy is will still be able to get into any group (my regards to Power Of My Rangers, the only rank 12 who used skill to get his fame.)