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

I agree that 1vs1 PVP for fame is not an ideal solution. In my view it is simply the best available solution to take away the frustration of unranked players who can't get into good parties due to their lack of rank.

Keep in mind that the devs could balance 1vs1 PVP for fame so that you don't get 1 fame for each win. They could still make it equivalent to the difficulty in getting fame in Tombs. Ie: To earn 1 fame in 1vs1 PVP, you must beat 10 others players in a row in 1vs1 combat. Maybe they could throw in NPC's, traps and things like that to balance it out so that it's not just a matter of two players pounding on each other directly until one drops.

But as previously mentioned, 1v1 is about as similar to 8v8 as random 4v4 is. 1v1 teaches very little about team play. It would only introduce a new noob class: "People who got their fame in 1v1 and don't even know what a tombs map looks like, who join your group in tombs."

So then what do you guys suggest be done about the original poster's point that unranked players only get crap groups? Because that is generally true and I agree with OP that casual players are not ever gonna play Guild Wars in Tombs for that exact reason. Guild Wars IMO already has mostly become a game where only hardcore players even bother trying to PVP in Tombs.

Is that just "the nature of the beast", and nothing should be done about it?

PVP in any game is competitive, the casual player isn't going to be as successful. That's any game.

My suggestion (and he's already alluded to "oh, I didn't mean me.. I meant the other noobs have a problem"), he start his own groups, make sure they're built adequately to beat iway, ask all of his probing questions that identifies skill that doesn't require an emote, and win in the tombs.. at least enough to gain fame at a moderate rate. He'll develop a friend list, maybe even.. join a pvp guild, and he'll be in this thread in weeks asking for emotes for the inbetween ranks.

Anyone new to the tombs that wants to, can become ranked. And not just the people who started out when everyone wasn't ranked.

If he can't design and organize a team that can beat iway a few times each run.. then he shouldn't be gaining fame anyway.

Maybe Anet should add emote for faction if they are going to keep rank as Tombs "reward". I've played lots of GvG and Comp/Team Arena (I have 80k+ faction) but just can't get Tombs group at all. Everyone and their mother wants to see your rank.

Indeed; 1vs1 wouldn't be a good idea unless ArenaNet does a massive balancing.

Or else; Air Eles would kill anything without Protective Magic.

Warriors would never even have a chance to swing at a Water Ele.

Prot/Healing monks would never even have a chance at anything with self-heals.

Mesmers would either kill any warrior or kill any caster.

Necros would never have corpses to use for their spells.

The only class which could 1vs1 PvP almost normally would be the Ranger. And then, I'm pretty sure there's something I don't know about them that makes me wrong on that.

get to rank 3 in one day??? like how many hours of playing? it'll take about 15-30 mins (or even more) for a non ranked player to get into a group. the bigger problem facing here is for the new players. they just bought the game and want to play just PvP. But when they tried to play, almost no one is going to pick them up bcoz they don't have ranks. how in the hell they could gain ranks and good experience of gameplay if no one will pick them or join them.

well GuildWars is designed to be a casual friendly game. Some/Hardcore PVPers are just ruining it. :P

i also agree to a poster here that the pinnacle of GW is GvG. in tombs, you will just face some new guilds wanting to have some fun, pug groups, or people desperately wanting to have rank so they can have the golden emote.

If you want skilled pvp, try GvG.

maybe the concept/idea behind the tombs is whether or not we can farm at UW, :P. say if america doesnt have the favor, america will send a team of 8 skilled pvpers to take over the HoH so UW farming will be back to business. and they can get the emotes so other pvers will recognize their heroes.

maybe the tombs was meant to bridge the gap between pvp and pve. :P

A while ago I would say people go for HoH for UW and I would say I would love to help out to get Aericra Favor but now I have not been to ToA for a long time. I pretty much only really PvP any more and I dont care what group I play with.

As for rank it is massivily over rated. I will say I struggles quite a bit to get rank 3 back in July. Now I plyaing time as cut down to less than 1/4 it was back then and I gain fame at a much faster rate. Mind you I am playing with my guild so getting 40 fame in a run is not uncommon any more. Heck in under 1 month I alreayd earned more than 175 more fame after hit rank 3 it just became easier to get in good groups.


That being said I think it massivly over rated. I love being rank 3+ because I think have the Deer head just looks cool. I want the wolf because I think it looks cooler. Not so sure about the tiger. personally I think the wolf looks better.

I really didnt read the whole thread, a rank 2 boycotting rank 3+ groups really isnt an issue for me.

Me, as a 100% ranger would say that rangers are probably the best in PvP, but what u shouldn`t forget is:

Pacifism (really irritating I think)

Any hex (we rangers have troll unguent ofcourse, but don`t overestimate that healing ;0)

But i guess we are able to defeat elementalists and warriors very easily.

About the rank 3+, I think ppl with rank 3+ should play a little more often with non-ranks and the other low ranked.

I just started getting into tombs and pvp extensively. Currently i havent found earning fame that difficult as i see people complaining it is, granted i dont have that much and dont have an emote to show how 1337 i am, but its kind of simple in one aspect. Find people that have a similar goal and gameplan to yours. Coordinate your builds, find what skills benefit each other towards the goal, coordinate and go in with a gameplan ie. ok we attack chat xx/xx first. if none of those attack yy/yy next. have a plan and you can still have some success with a pug.

also if voice communications is what youre looking for and dont have TS or Vent, you can always use yahoo messenger, AOL Im, etc.... I have been in many groups that we used yahoo voice chat and we had no problem coordinating our attacks and actually did quite well in that group. (didnt win halls, but made it twice and this was all with a R2 or less PUG)

im thinkign too why rank tell so much? im seening very much of very good players at my guild and they didint got even fame 10, really arenanet must but some 1 vs 1 thing too see how skilfull are the players really expesially those players who has no fame or rank,because rank and fame didint tell so much,exspesially the experience.


unlike me i got only fame 10 and im good player, but mostely im testing diffrent builds for competition arenas.

Rank simply shows the amount of time you have spent playing in Tombs. You generally can't manage to get to r3 without having experienced most of the maps along the way to Hall and at least seen the Hall a couple of times. This just tells someone making a group that you aren't totally lacking in experience. However, good players that listen well and coordinate often rock r6+ groups that all think their idea is the only idea.

I first check friends list and vent servers before I actually fish for players in game. I rarely ever take anyone from in game because I don't know them. I network through the people on my team to get whatever people we need to finish the group. This way, I don't even look at rank, as long as I fill the team with competent players that people know.

If all else fails, I look for rank 6+ because they have to have some sort of skill and experience in tombs to have that much fame. They usually will play any skill bar you give them because they know how to play at that point. I don't want to play with people who haven't been to tombs enough. Too many different maps with different strategies and its unfair to the other players to waste time and try to teach people each map. Unfortunately in tombs, one player, one mistake, can cost you a win.

I like running with my guild, which only consisted of one rank6 for the longest time and we'd get to HoH easily.

Don't blame the rank system if you can't find a group because you don't know that many people. It does WEED out the bad players. Good players will always find a group regardless of rank

bullshit

i was just experimenting with my other account that i just used for muling and tried to find a group in tombs. didnt happen unless I wanted to play iway and thats pointless.

What ANet really has to do (and what would solve the problem) is :

1. remove the silly lvl 20 tag on top of the pvp player's head. I mean, wtf it is there for? Put total faction earned there instead. In combination with fame rank, it would work as experience filter.
2. ADD A WAY TO SEE PERSON'S SKILLBAR if he does apply for an invitation into your group. At least something like ctrl-click on skillbar and attribute screen. Better yet, just show attribute allocation/skillbar to the group leader. Without this, there is *no way* a good group will ever take the risk of inviting an unranked player. Simply because 90% of them are not competent, and you can't always spend 15 minutes interviewing before the game.

If you take a r6 prot monk, you can be sure you won't have to ask whether he has aegis (or superior prot rune, or staff of ench, etc). If you take an r0 prot monk, you will have to go through every item that pvp character has (and you will have to trust him since you have no way to check and he might very well be lying to stay in your group), and in the end, you still might get a piss poor performance. Who would take the risk?

I agree...I've been in a high ranked group before...it as an ego contest and it didn't go well at all.

Although I agree that Rank shows the ammont of time you spend...it also shows that you can read forums and spell words like 'IWAY' or 'Emo' ...or whatever the flavour of the month is.

Stuck up egotists who can't handle a loss, I wager a good portion are. It's a self perpetuating system and will only get worse over time. Why? Simple logic.

Need rank to get into a group, in order to get rank. That's just from my limited experience though I'm sure I'm not the only one who ended up feeling it was a waste of time trying and left rather disgusted at how far too seriously people were taking things. You start off with 0 rank, and can't get into a group to start with and hence can't get any more rank anyway.

As for "form your own group" tried that too, it consisted of getting some people into the group (half of them guildmates at the time) and the random people all joining for a little while then leaving for whatever reason. End result, group isn't really enough in numbers to take part anyway... would hate to think what it's like for people who have the game and want to take part in things like this, and don't have a guild or not enough active members at once etc.

I've been on and off Tombing for awhile. I've just recently came back after getting all Warrior elites (that makes all Monk, Ele, Ranger and Warrior skills unlocked) and it's harder to get a group than a rank 3+. No it's not impossible, but I've had to sit around for ages to find one.

If I make my own group or not, the most common situation that happens is someone doesn't think the group has a chance and just quits (this is for balanced groups, no FotM here). I'm all for going back to the drawing board, as I'm sure alot of higer rank groups do, but these teams that don't request rank don't think it's worth it, or at least the majority don't.

Since I've gotten the game way back in June, I've been interested in PvP moreso then PvE. First time through Tombs (when no one gave two glances at rank) made it to the HoH albiet didn't win. I believe I'm an asset to any team, imo, since I'm rather deverse for a Rank 1. Yet, as the OP stated, rank is killing me. One or two fame every run? BS! I refuse to go to IWAY, so I guess I'll have to live with it.

If the elitists only want to play with their own kind so be it. Give us divisions, give us different levels of competition. I could make a pretty safe assumption and that say that if anyone did farm faction to get to rank 3 using IWAY, and were then forced to play against only r3-5 people... they wouldn't get much furthur. They would be forced to play against people who actually knew what they were doing, were using unique and powerful builds and actually earned the title bestowed upon them. It would force them to think outside the box and actually develop some skill to understand the concept of teamwork in PvP.

Quite frankly it is nearly impossible for me to get in a group because of my rank. I can play a decent monk, but quite frankly the concept of sitting there spamming every spell to heal myself is really not my idea of fun. I've been told I play an excellent warrior, on both the PvP and PvE grounds.

Thus, you get people like me, the ones forced to play IWAY simply because we want to play the damn game. Didn't shell out 50 bucks to sit around attempting to make a group, or beg a PUG to take you in under your wing. So, you could just stick with PvE because in most cases in takes a fraction of the time to party up, and kill a couple of hours with some random people. Maybe even make a friend or two. The competitive nature of PvP doesn't promote this sort of behaviour, which is probably why players boasting about their EXP totals in PvE doesn't always get them into their ideal group.

People also need to look at it from the POV of someone trying to organize a group. There are FAR TOO MANY people who naturally assume that just because they beat the PvE game with a class combination that they are automatic geniuses with that class. And then there are others who believe simply because they can win 50/100/200 times in a row in RA/TA, that they are greatest players ever and are "only" hampered by rank. Then there are the few who made to the HoH once or twice and automatically assume that they know all that there is about PvP.

Sorry folks it doesn't work this way.

Is the fame system awkward? Yes.

Should it be removed? No.

There are a lot of nuances involved in tombs (and in GvG), that an inexperienced player would not know how to handle. When to push? When to fall back? Who is in danger of being overextended? Who IS overextended? Is the backline in danger? Does your build fair better in cramped conditions? How would you forced the enemy into converging if so? And one of the most basic concepts - Situational Awareness - what the hell is going on right now, and what can I/we do to make our team's life easier and the enemy's a hell of a lot harder? These are all examples of 8on8 BASICS, and way too many groups fail at concepts as simple as that.

Rank should be not be only obtainable in Tombs.
You should be able to aquire some fame in the random PvP arenas too.
It's hard enough to get into Tombs as it is without fame.
How do they expect us to aquire it then?

well if you think fame as "your experience in tombs" only tomb should give fame

as many people say there are many not ranked good player.

many of them it seem also posted in this topic.

1 + 1 = Contact them and make a group to get rank 3 ...

Trouble is, if u give fame to arenas, then no-one will do tombs anymore cos arenas is so much easier.

I can't actually think of an answer to this whole rank problem, but personally I think that a lot of people get to know tombs by doing it with their guilds, so just join guilds that do it and are good at it, and u get better and so does you rank.
And well if u don't want to join a guild u just want to do it all alone in groups of people u don't know, then tough! Only with the help of others that are good can you really succeed in tombs.
So if you won't get the help from others, suffer the consequences man! This game is all about Guilds and co-operation and helping each other! U feel u can't get rank cos teams ask for it? Only way to counter is join a good tombs guild and get some practice!

not true...

if everyone went to random to farm fame me and my guild would be in tombs day and night...

winning the HOH and getting the chest... hello yummy!
maybe after three or so months we would taper down after an inventory full of crystalline swords perhaps we would take a break to hit uw/and fow if we faced a american team and could get there before we lost favor...

ahhhh yea I hope your right and I hope they put fame in random arena..

You can't give damn fame to random arena think of all the noobs doing it

And yeah it will mean everyone goes to arenas and no tombs anymore, because if u can get fame in arenas it is so much easier, if u want quick fame/rank then u would do it - only if u wanted the chest jackpot would u go tombs, or if u simply wanted to do it for fun with guildies.
It's out of the question. Maybe Team Arenas is another story , but definitely not random. In any case, if fame were given to any arena it would have to be much less than tombs.
Also, tombs is meant to be a global competition to win the HoH and take the favor of the gods, and we can go to fow and uw. Thing is, most people who fight in tombs and win aren't going to go to fow or uw - they are doing it for personal stuff - fame, rank, and the chest jackpot. Give fame to arenas and they're all gonna go there for cheap fame - where's our people to win favor now
It would just mean unbalance, you can't do it.

I don't care about rank, but competence, and the easiest way to find out is asking them questions in the whisper, or when they join. Not just "show emote"
1. How long can you stay?? If less than 90mins insta-kick
2. Do you have ts/vent and a mic?? If not insta-kick
3. What skills you been packing for X char in X build?? If they have mending or something else ridiculous - insta-kick
4. If war that says doesn't like to call (sure sign of too much iway) - insta-kick
5. If someone says, I prefer this skill set-up because I'm use to it, and I don't "want" to carry ****skill that you want - insta-kick
6. anyone that says "gogogogogogogo" while you're planning - insta-kick
7. Anyone that doesn't speak during planing on ts/vent - insta-kick
8. Anyone that's constantly brb or afk - insta-kick
9. Anyone that says, ok I'll go an unlock that skill now - insta-kick
10. Anyone that says I'm only 10 fame from rank 6 - insta-kick (not because R6 is important, but cause they "think" it is important)

The problem lies in that you were not BORN knowing all that stuff. Yes, it's a problem, and not so much with your attitude. Now everyone isn't a noob, so the noobs have next to no chance to learn unless they can form a dedicated guild team who doesn't mind losing a million times. What IS needed is a "noobs only" HoH-type arena with a rank limit of 2 or 3.

I dont know if someone has already suggested it(I've read about 4 or 5 pages of the thread) but why don't they implement a Rank or Fame based arena area like tombs, except only having these arenas accesable by people of a certain rank. So for example all the Rank 0-3 would fight in one arena against other players of their Rank range and still gain fame for victories. Same would occur for those who are Rank 4-7 and 8-10. These would obviously have to be 8v8 arenas where you can form PuGs.

This way, players who's skill which is not representative of their rank(for example a really good player with a low rank) will get more fame to increase their rank to boost them up into a higher ranked arena, while a player who, for some reason or another, has a higher rank but is not that good of a player will remain in that arena until they develop more PvP skill.

Players of all ranks would still be able to get together into a common arena(ToPK).

Apologies again if this has already been posted, but I don't see why it isn't focused upon.

/signed

:::End Transmission:::

But that would be against the basic concept of Hall of Heroes. Tombs is about Hall of Heroes, gaining control of it, and holding it so the Gods look favourably on you. This is it's premise. This is the storyline aspect of HoH.

Trying to have mini-HoH is really not what Anet intended. Go play team areans if that is what you want to do, or ask Anet to make a 6x6 or 8x8 competition arenas.

The system is fine. The complaint is about the people playing it. Same complaint I have. You have to earn your rank, and that's fair enough. Do some hard yards, or some cheap ones through IWAY, but if that is what you do, you'll be uninvited very quick in competent groups.

Easiest way for those trying to earn some fame, but don't want to run IWAY or have an active HoH guild, is to make your own teams. Noone ever checks the emote on the guy that makes the team ;-)

Having trouble finding groups? The best advice I can give you (and its what I did) is unlock as many skills as you can. Learn to play every profession, so when you see a group saying "we need [some character] that can [do this]," you can fill that spot. Play PvE to unlock skills, use faction on weapon upgrades, and use gold in PvE to buy unidentified runes. Thats the fastest way to unlock items. I had every skill in the game unlocked before I had 50 fame.

Also, and its been said, but USE YOUR FRIENDS LIST!! Did your PUG win a few rounds today? great! add them all to friends and do it again tomorrow! You'll get even farther because you'll have played together before. Pretty soon, rather than sitting in districts looking for PUGs, you'll have your friends saying "we need a [character], wanna join." Or, if you find a group with a couple open slots, whisper a couple friends who you know are skilled, and it will get the group going faster.

This is a very community oriented game. All about player interraction and cooperation. Making friends will help you improve much faster, and it will be much more fun. Play with your friends with any build that you guys think is fun. Just make sure it is setup to beat the FOTM, and you'll go much farther than any IWAY build and it'll be a lot more fun!

Many things play a role in skill: experience, organization, intelligence, and many others. Rank = Experience, and despite what anyone says, experience is by far the biggest contribution to skill. I'm sorry, but you didn't really refute that rank does not equal skill (or at the least, contribute greatly). Making sure your group is organized, and smart will improve your chances in tombs, but making sure your players are experienced (have high rank) will improve your chances much more. And this is proven by the fact that rank 6 groups win hall while unranked groups dont, despite how much you organize them.

You keep telling me to "try it." Well, I win hall all the time by doing it the way I do it now, so why don't YOU try it, and tell us if you win halls all the time with rank 0 players. We're not the ones complaining, so if you want change, you do the work.

The R6+ team I played in yesterday had a VIM monk using rebirth (even after getting a skillbar check before going in he replaced shields up with rebirth!)
"Rebirth is better against IWAY"

And you don't think the other team saw it and started trash talking us.

I'm currently rank 5 (with something like 800 fame) and I've got something around 140k faction. I've been playing in Tombs for about a month now. I've played with a few different guild groups, and have finally settled down to actually joining one. The groups, if not the best players ever, communicate well and most players have most skills unlocked. I've even won halls a few times. The most I've held it for is seven rounds. I started off with only the basic skills for each class unlocked. Now, I've got four classes completely unlocked (all the casting classes), and I can play most ranger setups (except ones running odd elites).

Well, perhaps some of you who are trying to get started in Tombs will learn from my story of how I got to where I am now.

I started off in the American districts just trying to get a group with whoever would take me. I experimented with IWAY as an orders necro and got a couple fame. I then tried a few other groups with random people, some got on Ventrilo or Teamspeak but most didn't. Slowly, I started to gain a few fame. One very good run set me up with rank 2. Getting rank 3, however, was very tough until a friend of mine started to get me in good groups. I discovered a certian vent server that always had halls groups getting started. As I played, I made more and more contacts. For me, the key was monking. Up until that point, the only experiment monking was with a PvE monk. I went in tombs with a basic monk build and found I was rather good at it. Now, I can generally Whisper at least 4 people to ask if they need members for a group. Frequently I get whispers asking me if I need a group.


I still dont have my wolf yet. But soon, I shall get it

Sorry, I should have said that the ranked arenas(except for ToPK ofcourse) should not affect favour.

But see, that's the problem, 4v4 combat is not even close to what 8v8 is. There is no easy way for new PvPers to practice without having to wait to be chosen by a group that doesn't care about rank. Now these new PvPers can form their own group and head in, but most likely than not, they will be killed within the first few matches.

If you do at least implement a team 8v8 or even a random 8v8 arena you will be giving these players somewhere to practice and actually form some type of strategy that can actually be effective in ToPK. Perhaps you can implement a maximum rank on these new arenas where if you hit rank 2 or 3, you will be prevented from fighting in that arena anymore and will have no chooice but to fight in the tombs.

My idea here is that players should not have to wait 10-15 minutes to play the game they want to play, and by implementing some sort of other 8v8 tombs style arena, at least you will be giving them something to work towards. Plus it would be a good oppurtunity to make new friends who are around the same skill level as the player is. The concept here is to give them a foot-hold into PvP combat and guide them along so that they can actually compete when they enter the tombs.

burningpants' inputs are the best ever in this thread.

no signs of elitism. newcomers and old timers who are hindered by /rank coz they were sucked in by pve/gvg/nonfamed pvp, want to play their favorite classes and wont be swayed to play fotms in tombs will surely be happy if his ideas are implemented.

[troll] I tried to join a tombs group yesterday for the first time of my life. And... you guessed right : it never happened. IWAY this, IWAY that, whatsyarank, etc. I find this very sad that new comers can't play in tournament unless they use a "flavor of the month" build. Wasn't GW supposed to offer diversity and strategy? Blah that! [/troll]

I finally have my rank 6, but it doesn't mean too terribly much. With all the IWAY groups farming R3, R6 seems to be "the new R3".