Why Rank is hurting the community and why we should boycott groups that ask for it...

rank is really just a weak measurement. But it is also quite decent.

It's like in real life - if you apply for a job. Half of the people are sorted out by the first look at the material they sent in. Same with rank. It is not a very good measurement, but it works good enough to filter about 70% of bad people. Sure, it filters also good people, but after you applied this 'rank filter' you are more likely to get good players.

It is nothing more, nothing less.

So a 'rank 3+' just means: someone who played tombs enough to know how it works.

Sure it is unfair somehow, but you need some kind of filter. Otherwise you would only play with friends and friends of friends. Because you don't want some completly new people in your team.

and please stop that hate 'PvP <-> PvE'.
Please consider:
PvP got /fame emote
PvE got FoW armor

i thiink that a combination of rank and qquestioning is the way to make good teams without rank noobs can say there excellent and won the hall 1000 times (im aware im exagerating please dont flame me for it)

I believe that rank is all to one-sided towards people who PvP a lot and luckily get good groups.
I take my monk to Tombs and I instantly get 10 blind invites (all of which I discard when I don't see any advertisement from the party leader for needing monks). After that I put up my own advertisement: "Healer looking for an organized group with TS -- message me please". This means, simply, the team needs a strategy (spiker, KD/AS, etc) and needs TS. I immediately get 2 or 3 invites with no message.
I try again, another 2 or 3.
I'm not patient enough to wait for the perfect team, so I pick one that looks half-decent (and NOT the single warrior trying to get me to join him - when I advertise I'm looking for a group I mean more than 1), and I ask if they have TS when I join.
"No"
-Leave party-
2 minutes later repeat process.
Finally I see an advertisement along the lines of "[build] group of guildees needs a monk to roll, we have TS". So I send my join request and I get in.
I say Hi and ask for the TS adress, and they reply with "Rank?"

I don't spend hours upon hours wasting my time with PUGs in Tombs, I have a few PvP friends I've played Tombs with several times (out of around 40 matches I have 17 fame). It doesn't matter that I am a highly competent healer (I get compliments from every half-decent or great team I play in), I still don't have rank.
"I don't do Tombs often enough to have a rank yet"
-Kicked from party-

This one time a rank 3 group invited me, and asked for my rank. Fed up of getting the turned up nose for not doing Tombs enough, I said "3".
"Emote please"
*Sigh* -Leave party-

My guild is 13 people, half of them aren't ascended yet and so they don't have access to the great skills - nor are they highly interested in PvP yet because they don't have good experience with it. I play with 5 people normally for Team Arenas (not at the same time, obviously, five people including myself are interested is what I mean), and we get some decent builds and wins. But we still can't get a full Tombs team.

I'm planning to get the five of us together in Tombs, pick up some KD/AS warriors, and try a mixed team for some practice. Two of us are healers and two others can make IWEP mesmer/warriors. We also have two Area Of Effect curse-master characters at our disposal if need be for a full AoE team...

/me doesn't know what this is all about ;p

what the hell are those shortcut-names and wtf do you want to acchieve with this? O_o

Incorrect
most peopel thought sB was all rank 9+
well theyre not
one of their Elite Strategist is what rank 3?which is really nothing.

he has the most superb skills at planning through gvg / tombs
thats why
rakn doesnt mean anything to me
ive seen a couple rank 6-9 who are well terrible... no offense

but as me i get in groups of 6--9+'s
which is not bad
but we do as good as i do with a non ranked pug that i teach/tell what to do
ive done this started a no rank req group
got to hoh 5 times
but all lost for less cordination
u just gotta tell them what to do if u dont well its just u

While I respect your opinion, I disagree that pve monsters focus monks as much as pvp "monsters" do. In pve you are rarely Lingering Cursed + energy denied by a character focused solely on you + rigor mortised and then chased by 1-2 warriors for the duration. A good example of this is the general lack of need for a prot monk in pve, its just not required for most of the game.

Don't get me wrong, I used to monk in PVE (terribly boring) but pvp monking is something I will leave to the gifted and those who like frusteration. In a good tombs group the monks won't feel much pressure until they face a similarly good group, vs a bad group the monks rarely need to strain too much.

Hardcore pvpers ARE on average much better at PVP then hardcore pver's. How can you even compare the two? Keeping the tank alive vs monsters that rarely remove enchants and hardly purely target you is not the same as keeping a team alive when everyone wants to shut you down. Try tombs vs a good shutdown group and tell me its easier then life + essence bonding a tank and letting the monsters all aggro him. If you think pve monking is hard your team is most likely doing it wrong.

Not particularly, how many questions that would need to be asked to determine a competant player varies from role to role, and in general I can spend 15 minutes asking questions to a player and getting their answers before I would feel confident that he won't be a COMPLETE dud. Rank saves me all of that. Either you have the emote or you don't. Not to say I would rely totally on that, but at the very least I would know that the player I am getting has some semblance of what to do. Whereas a Rank 0 could be from a top rated guild or someone who has little or no pvp experience.

Rank definately isn't the be all and end all when determining skills, all it is, as I said, is a convienent metric to see if the person you are trying to pick up has any tombs pvp experience at all.

Not sure, I suppose you would be what you would consider to be a "hardcore PvPer", and I don't tend to feel any contempt towards any group in particular. I guess the reason why many pvpers feel disdain to pure pvers is simply because the pve game is so pathetically simple. I personally have completed every (every last one) misson and quest with the sole aid of henchmen. Sorrow's Furnace was the first time I've played with other people in PvE, and that was with 4 man teams with my guildies.

At the same time, you find alot more immature people in PvE as well, people who train another purposely to get drops, people who fight and squabble over equipment, people who have little or no idea what they are really doing at all.
At the very beginning I used to actively group with people to do quests/missons in post-searing ascalon, after several bad incidents I simply shrugged and used henchmen from there on in- never looked back.

In PvP this is quickly rooted out, sure you can farm fame 1 point at a time with bad IWAY groups, of course by the time you get to rank6, you have grandchildren by then. So in general, with people of higher rank (6-9) you are assured of some level of competetance. You of course have people with silly overinflated egos, but you find that everywhere, pve and pvp both.

2 questions are usually enough:
- What kind of character are you running?
- In the field, how do you do that?

You don't have to even understand every type of character to see when someone is not worth having on a team. It's not about him running what you want him to run; it's about him understanding what he runs. It's where the average PUG fails.

If you have an answer like "Tank" for the first question; it's insta-kick.
If you have an answer like "I kill them; lol!" for the second; it's insta-kick.

The rest is open to interpretation.

I don't like rank either, but I don't begrudge the people that have it to have the opportunity to flaunt it. I avoid tombs anymore... unless with my best of friends or something... why? cause its full of rude and rankist potty mouthed jerks normally. If you are not at least a rank 3 or better your less then trash to them. no matter how you play. So basically I just do not care anymore. eventually they will either be bored and leave Guild wars (lets hope so) or move on to a new tombs like content in chapter two.

The Shorts are for specific builds.(you will learn in time dont worry)

I also had the problem that i couldnt get into teams in Tomb because i had and still have zero rank
(Irefuse to play IWAY because it doesnt show your real skill)
But since a week or so i am in a PRO guild so i am going to be alright.
But still the whole rank thing is a problem for most people.
Banning rank totaly is not a very good solution on this matter.
I think the comunity should change.
Take people with rank 1 in your party.
Give them advice on the skills they should bring.
Do several runs with them to get them used to the skills.
And keep pointing them on mistakes they make.
This way the community gets an even more competitive character.
More real good players=More FUN!!!

Not really. It would be like measuring the quality of an employee by the amount of his annual salary. While SOMETIMES people earning more money ARE better at their jobs then their coworkers earning less money, this is by no way certain. Especially it's not certain that the opposite is true: that people with a bad salary are automatically bad at what they do. Weeding out people because of lack of rank is exactly in line with the latter.

Rank is not a good measurement unit for skill. It gives you a VERY SLIGHT idea, nothing more. What the OP suggested works way better: TALK to the people you are about to join your group. At most times, idiot players will give themselves away after like 10 seconds or so.

This argument can be heard quite often - unfortunately it doesn't take into account that some people already ARE in great guilds that they don't really want to leave, even if that guild isn't big into PvP. My guild is PvE oriented, we have 35 members at this time, but only 5 or 6 are interested in PvP (I am one of them). Problem is that the other 29 people are my friends, too.

I just lied about my rank so i could get into good groups. I got my rank up fair quick like that. May not be honest, but i knew i was a decent player.

This is a) not a real solution to the problem and b) obviously only works up to rank 2 since you don't have the emote. Which is the reason why most "rank zealots" (as I have come to call them) will only accept rank 3+.

make yourself stand out of the crowd

people ask for rank just to filter the crap de la crap.
They don't know you. They may not want to invest to much time in teaching you, after all they also just want to play like you.

So what do you do as a low ranked player?
make yourself noticed in different ways. a bland 'order necro lfg' will not have high response rate.
Add some intelligence to your message, add some humor to it.

also: guildgroups are guildgroups. small chance you will get in there.

some PUG management tactics can be found here:
http://sof-guild.com/index.php?Page=pugmanagement
I suggest you read it. It was written for PvE, but much applies to PvP also.

Doesn't work, too:

1. post: <insert humorous LFG message here>
2. response: "Sounds good - What's your rank?"

that is quite sad... I usually only do tombs only with a guildgroup so i don't have this problem...

hmm.
Start your own group? after all, the claim made in this tread is that rank doesn't matter. So you can take players that are also lowly ranked and play?
I refer to the previously posted PUG management guide to prevent the crap de la crap from entering your group.

I started to pvp the first week GW came out.. few days ago i got rank 3. More of 70% PVE, 20% Random Arena and 10% Tombs. I could really never get a group, Me "Monk Lfg, I want to heal!!!!" Some guy "Sounds good, we want heals!!! what rank are j00?" As soon as i told them im rank 2 hes like "Srry no n00bs in grp, go away newb!!!1."

One time I finally got picked by a group that made it to halls, didnt win though. I thought id show them im not a newb and im not useless, so I used met shower and fire storm, and ran in and used pheonix.. I swear I killed 6 in a few seconds.. the whole team was like "GJ, man j00 ownz!!", got to halls and lost to some guild.

Now I have no prob finding a group.. just that they all suck. Kinda sad ive got 198 fame and never won Halls, wouldnt mind winning for a change. Rank only means exp and knows how things go down, Doesnt mean they are 1337 or "G0dly".

Rank req filters out the tards that saw the build online and
are just trying it for the first time. Or the idiots that go in
without a pet because 'I N33DZ SOWRD SKYLLZZZZONEONESHIFTELEVEN'

/un-signed

Yes it does. I also filters out competent players who just don't have a rank (e.g. because they only do GvG usually). It's pretty much the same like dropping a nuclear bomb on a city because you know there's a terrorist in there. Your bomb WILL kill the terrorist but it's not a suitable means to achieve your goal, won't you agree?

As I've said, just asking a few questions will weed out the 'tards.

Yesterday, I had a warrior that asked if we wanted him. I decided I'd give him an chance and ask what he does, even if I didn't need anymore warriors. When I asked what kind of warrior he was, he answered: "Wat? Wut kind of war I am? I'm War ranger!" I persisted; but what kind of warrior; what do you do as a warrior? "well; I'm a wurrior; a tank! lol!"

Needless to say he was not picked. I proceeded to complete that PUGs, which won 3 rounds before it was beaten by guild group. Most in the group weren't even rank 2.

If you don't have the time to ask a few questions to the players before inviting them, you are already doomed.

And a bad player absolutely never, EVER (this is not even debatable) understand his character. Period. You don't need to understand his yourself. It's very obvious if he doesn't understand it. A player that admits one of his choice is weird is usually a great player; he understands what is usually expected of him. A player who can't explain why he has such or such Elite is NOT a good choice.

If you are not able to distinguish a good player from a bad players in a few questions, you are a pitiful leader indeed.

You might think you'll get better quality if you use both rank and questions to choose, but think of the harm you are doing to the community. New players being shunned because they don't have rank; not wanting to play PvP anymore, simply because you feel your is soooo important that you should use a flawed criteria.