The Resetting of the Rank System : A Proposal

Before I dive into details, I will first state that I am neutral on this subject. I would also like to point out modestly that I do have a high rank, so do not see this is a post about a low rank person complaining about the rank system. I do not feel strongly towards a reset, nor am I opposed to one. Here's the argument.

First off, let's define rank. Rank is a measure of how many games you have won in the ToPK. That does not mean you are skillful; it just means you have won. Being so, rank is just a facilitator for forming a group. All it does is help you find someone to join your group that has a probability of being intelligent and able to play his/her role well.

So, you say, "I gained my rank 9, you can't reset all that progress!" Well, why not? I myself wouldn't mind a reset back to rank 0 after the balance of a few skills (i.e. after certain skills are changed so they don't provide a quick self-invite rank farming build) So I might not be able to flash my tiger, that's ok. The whole reason behind getting a high rank isn't to get some silly emote (maybe to a select few it is, but those are the ones you usually don't want in your group). It is safe to assume that any competant player that has achieved a high rank (let's say r7+) will have a fairly large friend's list or will be on a lot of group leader's list. That means that any competant player will be asked to join groups, therefore eliminating that players need to have to "spam" "rank ## looking for group". I am not by any means equating high rank to high skill, nor am I saying the two have no correlation. So, if the rank system for all players was reset, good players would not have a problem finding groups since they don't usually mingle with PUG teams anyways. Putting this in context, if I were to lose all my rank tomorrow, I could still find a very good group with a high probability of winning and holding the halls because I have proven myself competant to my group leader, and therefore rank ceases to matter.

I do not want to make the generalization that lower rank players are bad players, so I will focus on the "unexperienced" or "skill lacking" players in this paragraph. We've all seen it in the districts. "Skill lacking" players are spamming "Rank ## looking for group", hoping to get into some pick up group that will judge skill based on rank. It's obvious these players repeat the same mistakes over and over, but somehow get a high rank (likely because of certain fame farming builds). The reason they have to find a pick up group is because they are not seen as good enough (and therefore generally aren't) to be on someone's list of reliable, capable players. Therefore, resetting the rank will do nothing to harm this category of players since they will continue to spam their message, looking for a pick up group. It will not make them seem any less competant than the person next to them spamming the same thing if they are both rank 0. They will still be able to get into lower-quality groups that accept people based on a number.

From the point of a party leader. You might say, "Hey, don't reset the rank system! Then I would have no way to form a (good) group!" In response to that, I would have to say that if you are a good leader that people want to play with, people will add you to their friend's lists, and you will add good players to your friend's list. The whole idea I am trying to get across is that high quality PvP is formed from players you know are good, unlike rank initiated pick up groups, which only leaves you in a "this player could be good" situation. Seeing that high quality groups are generally not formed from a random pick up group, a reset of the rank system will not harm high quality groups.

My main thesis: Even with a rank reset, things will, for the most part, remain the same. Good players will continue to form their groups using players on the friend's list known to be skills. Less skilled players will still be able to find groups, and just like today, the PUGs shouldn't be expected to be really good. One key to success is playing with people whose playstyles are familiar to you, or that you get along with. With a PUG, it's possible that there be people you do not like, and therefore that impedes the group. Resetting the rank system would not change this. If you want high quality PvP, you aren't going to want to be joining a lot of PUGs. If you want quick PvP, you are going to want to join a PUG. Seeing as rank only faciliates the group leader to guess which players are good, the overall skill level of these groups will remain the same.

Please do not reply and tell me that I'm wrong in every way unless you have read my whole message, and can show me which parts of my argument are flawed. I have humility, and I will admit flawed thinking if you can point it out to me. Enough of this talk, please provide your input. Please keep in mind I am not looking for the "/signed" or "/notsigned" messages that appear so frequently in this forum. I am looking for intelligent, well thought-out responses. Please do not respond if all you are going to say is "No, do not reset the rank system". Please explain why you feel that way.

I have a good friends list and a compitent guild that i could earn y rank back again if they reset it, thats not the issue. I dont want the rank system reset due to the fact of the time involved that it took to get my rank.

People can IWAY to r6 (seen it happen with a friend) in about 2 weeks if they are dedicated to getting their wolf that bad. does that mean that they are a good player because they are r6 with IWAY? anyone that doesnt "farm" fame and runs a build that takes more time and skill and you fight and earn your way up to r6, those are the people that will have a problem with reseting the fame. Some of the top ranked people in this game, i knwo for a fact, would quit if that happened due to the time and effort the yhave put into earnign their rank.

also how would this help a new player? they wont have the friends list or the contacts to be able to earn rank, so in a month or two, well be having this same argument.

But Rank is just a facilitation to find a group. Yes it's true you spent time getting your rank, but think of it as time spent finding a good group. Also, good groups usually have a wide "tree" of players. IE, you are forming a group, but you have 7/8, but you have no one else online that can play the role you need . One of the members in the group can ask one of their skilled friends to join your group. Once again the generic (rank = skill) system is bypassed. Of course, you trust a player (that you know is skilled) not to bring a crap player into your group. You don't need to bother to ask the player his rank, because hey, a skilled person says he is skilled. That's good enough. Once you have found a good group of people to play with, why does fame/rank have any meaning at all? A silly emote means nothing to me, but it seems that it means something to you, MistressYichi. I don't mean to sound condescending on this matter. I guess one of the expected reponses is "But I want to keep my emote".

Lol. Why would anyone care? It's an emote. I don't think it matters one bit whether it's reset or not, the people who want it will farm it, those who could care less will just play. Anyone with a few neurons to rub together will realise that it isn't in anyway a true descriptor of skill, as you could play a toal of 40 matches and win each one thanks to your brilliant skill and be ranked behind the guy who plays 10,000 games and wins less than a half percent of them (that's an exagerration to make a point {reductio ad absurdum} - I doubt anyone will play 10,000 and only win 50, but it's possible...)

It doesn't take much thinking to realise that some people prefer tactical play in GvG, or don't like waiting an hour for a team to form up so play the faster TA format for example. These players are fine. It doesn't take a genius to figure out tombs maps, if you don't know them by rank 2 you aren't very swift. To say that a rank 6 player who ran a fotm (like a warrior that got smited off of...) is any better than a rannk 0 player with 100 GvG wins under his belt is ludicrous. Rank just doesn't matter. For tsanity's sake, just ask people what the plan to bring, why they chose a skill or two and watch them in the first battle. You can tell pretty quickly if they know their stuff.

this issue has a lot to do with pride...

the real hard-core PvP players (rank 11... 12 soon?) have spent a long amount of time gaining fame and rank. they have pretty much earned the right to say they are good players.
yes, they could form groups with people they know and are in thier friend's list, but they should still be able to show off that soon to be pheonix.
i seems unfair that they will now be just like people new to the game.
and i get your point about still being in great groups and what not, but only few people look at it that way...
to most people, rank is a goal.
i dont think it's cool to those people, who have spend a lot of time playing PvP. rank is like a bonus to them, a bonus that shouldn't just be taken away...

and btw... i reached rank 3 today!!!!!!! dont take my DEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!

To the poster:

what rank are you? how long have you been playing? what guild are you in?

Anyway, why would ANet actually consider resetting fame? If they reset fame, why not gold, faction, skills, etc. It's pointless to arbitrarily wipe out whatever people have worked to accumulate.

IF they did decide to do this, it would just be a huge advantage to people in my situation. I am currently in NES, a rank 7-10 guild. With our large member base, we'd never have to pick up random pugs. For all other players, including high ranked players who don't have a reliable / quick way to form teams, it will be a problem.

Basically, in a week or two my guild members would all hit rank 6 again while most others would struggle to get 100 fame. Advantageous for us, but still pointless.

I could care less abotu my emote, otherwie id have one higher than what i currently have, but i am proud of the fact that i have one and could get a higher one if i so chose too. But for the peopel that havent pvp'd much and dont have that list of peopel that they know, it will not help anyone one bit, but would give advantage to those that do. it wouldnt change anythign than what we have now, where the people who do have those connections and list to chose from, will still be atop the tombs rank, and the rest will fall behind. so again in a few months well be having this same conversation.

My rank is irrelevant to this argument. Please re-read my post. Either way, the answer to your question is in the first few sentences of my post, AND if you read all of what I'm saying, including my examples, it is pretty easy to discern the general range. I don't see how my personal rank could affect the argument you make though.

I have been playing since release.

As for my guild, that also has nothing to do with this. If you have any more relevant questions for me, please feel free to ask me.

EDIT: Yichi posted while I was responding to ImBobNewbie..so:

@Yichi:
You say that the new PvPers will not be helped by this. But they will. There are many rank 3/6 players that are absolute crap, and being so, they try to join any pick up group they can find. Of course, bad leaders are going to take these players solely because they are rank 3/6 and then realize they are crap when their team is losing because of it.
This takes away the chance of a new player who isn't chosen just because of their Rank. If everyone is rank 0, choosing a PUG will be less selective and easier for newer players to get into.

Though I must admit, you are correct in your assessment of "in a few months, we'll be having this same conversation". That is, if the tactics stay the same. Sure, if certain skills are left unbalanced (let's not turn this into a debate over current FoTM), things will be the same. It will be like cutting your hair--it will just grow back and have the same situation at a different time. If the rank system isreset and the skills arecompletely re-balanced, there is a good chance that when the time comes, the rank 6+ players will be competant, not just having got their rank through a silly no-brainer build. This will help rank do it's intended purpose--give a means of judging a player's skill (not 100% accurate, of course) and help PUGs form.

Not signed and HELL NO!

You wanna flush several hundred/thousands of hours of other players' time and energy down the toilet just because you are jealous of their good rank? No way.

Worst idea ever.

If they ever reset rank then I personally would post that GW is the worst game ever made on every forum known to mankind, as would legions of others.

don't reset the ranks remove them all they do is piss off 80% of the players who can't get in a freaking group to gain rank to be picked in the freaking first place it's freaking bullshit

In response to you accusing me of being jealous of other players ranks, that is not true. You are incorrect in your evaluation, and I would recommend you re-read my post thoroughly before responding again. I'll even be nice enough to show you the few couple sentences you seem to have either not comprehended or failed to read.
As a reminder:

One thing, you say 'reset', you mean set everyone's fame back to zero? What for? Rank is a stupid statistic, therefore starting it a second time is even more stupid than starting it the first time.

Either propose a new system, ie a ratio wins:losses, or suggest they scrap the whole thing. A reset is ridiculous.

If it is reset, players can still win and not have skill according to what you've stated. Personally I think that people would be losing much time and progress. Adjustments will still be made to the game when people discover them. Just like how the 55 Monk was reduced, things like this will still happen and then what? another reset? I think not.

My post was indeed intelligent and well-thought out. Do not mistake anger at the outrageousness, ludicrousity, and gall of your suggestion with my post not being well thought-out.

As for you saying you are high rank and therefore not jealous, seeing as you will not post your in game name or what Guild you are with, there is no reason to believe that that is a credible statement on your part.

You could have simply asked him to prove it to you in game, if he refused, then I'd accept it, but the way you've done it is falsely. I also think Free4all supports his claims with the fact that he is competent enough to write out this forum post in the first place.

Navaros: I am not here to wage an insignificant quarrel with you or any other forum member. I appreciate your interest in the topic, and I would appreciate if you would just drop this so we can stay on-topic with this discussion. I am not going to ferverently attempt to prove that I am an experienced player who just so happens to be high-ranked. I have already stated it. Even so, the only reason I stated that I was high ranked was an attempt to prevent such petty squabbles such as these, claiming I am just jealous of high rank players. My rank has nothing to do with the actual topic, so please, unless you want to PM me to talk about it, drop it.

If you are mad about people fame farming and forming elitist groups to get rank, imagine how much worse it would be if they reset ranks and for a month everyone ran IWAY constantly to get back where they were.

I don't see where you get a feeling of anger from my thread. Anyways, you said this:
After I had already posted this at this earlier post:
I believe I have already covered that aspect of it.

/not signed

stupid idea, it's fine as is taking away the fame and rank of people that have earned there fame isn't a good idea at all, this isn't even really an improvement its more of a punishment for not allowing people that are new to tombs into our groups, there's plenty of people in tombs willing to start up pug groups, there's guilds always recruiting in various website forums for up and coming people that are starting to get into pvp, free4all if your really so intersted in helping people out by getting fame/rank for them, then you do it yourself, go start up your own guild like XoO or something.

Under this logic of the original post Anet should delete everyone's PvE character and make them mission again, and farm ectos and shards all over again for their fissure armour. Take away everything that people have earn't to bring them back to the level of people who haven't earn't it.

Look it's ridiculous. If Anet reset everyone to fame 0, people would quit and the game would die. Why should everything people have earn't been taken away from them because other people can't earn it themselves.

It's not just a silly emote, it's a sense of achievement and accomplishment for yourself. It gives you another goal in tombs besides holding halls. It in fact is a well designed system for maintaining the population in tombs, as is UW and FOW and fissure armour after the PvE missions are done for the RPG crowd. And instead of taking away from PvE players to maintain the population, they added to it by bringing in Sorrow's Furnace. And perhaps if the tombs crowd dwindles Anet could add in extra maps.

This is tombs, not GvG.

Look for reasons why you can't achieve the level yourself and find an answer, as did the rest of us.

I for one love tombs the way it is, and believe the rank reward system is an excellent method for keeping people in the game. And obviously so does Anet or they wouldn't have added an R12 emote.

END OF THREAD

emotes are the fissure armor , you might say, of pvp... take that away and i would be pissed, even my HARD-WORKED 22 fame

while i respect your proposal etc, and i disagree with all these flamers as i generally respond to civility i dont agree with with civility, i disagree with it

if they re-set my rank /uninstall GW.....

I understand the purpose, however the application of it would not prove successful. It would allow those players not of a high rank to actually get into groups without hanging around for hours on end hoping for a blind invite. However, you consider players out there with hope of reaching rank 12 and viewing that emote only simply to have a years worth of time stripped from them.

Rank seems to be more of a bragging right, and the ticket to getting into a group quickly. If it was more for the sense of self-satisfaction then if they removed the rank emotes it would probably have a similar effect to what your proposal is suggesting.

You admit that resetting rank isn't going to change much. So why do it when it's only going to upset a large number of people?

Why can't people looking for PUGs join a guild or try to expand their friend list? And if they just want some quick Tombs action why do they care about rank when forming a group in the first place?

we don't care about rank it's the ppl who do and wont let us join said groups that are the problem

Guildtag and friendslist > /rank

/rank is a reward for devoting time in tombs. just like ectos and shards of UW.

I would agree with this, there really is no point. Plus if a reset occured a lot of ppl would stop playing even the fame farmers would stop and start ragging down on the game and/or Anet. I dont have to go into the specifics of y they would Im sure a guy like you (free4all) who tried to squeeze in some $10 words into his post should already know why the ppl would react that way

IMO wins:losses looks better in a statistic way than rank/fame.

That was exactly my point. If you want to go into Tombs for a quick game why would you care about the rank of those around you? Start your own group, ask a few questions to the people that try to join and you're good to go. Or if you don't care and just want to play, accept any blind invite you get and go in.

Barring that, start trying to make friends and/or get a guild.

Resetting rank doesn't solve the problem of the rankless not getting PUGs.

I have and will again offer a different system.

But first I want to say - this isnt fair.
Even if what people have worked for is artifical taking it away without absolute nessacity is bad business.

Rank has and should continue to have dimishing rewards.
This means it would take less wins (I think) to go from rank 0-8 than it would take to get 8-12. This is a boon to low ranked players.
The trouble is getting in the game when your rank is low.

So my idea was to section tombs into leagues - rookie leagues, veteran leagues, pro leagues, etc.

If you play in or above your league you get the basic rewards that tombs provides.
If you play below your league you get little or no rewards in tombs.

This would encourage lower rank players to play and compete against lower ranked players while higher ranked players....you get the idea.
It evens out the play field a little for player skill level by making tombs easier for low ranked players and harder for high ranked players.

Lower ranked players can join in with there higher ranked friends and reap the same rewards as they would have otherwise.
While a group of high ranked players wouldnt get anything for playing in low leagues - no fame, no faction, no treasure drops, just the pleasure of mowing down noobs.

This and team finding menus and such would make your group woes for tombs much easier than reseting rank. And everyones happy and no one is upset.

Want a way to determine a skill level aside from the amount of battles you've won?

Winning battles means nothing: a new player can tag along with a winning group. Same goes for losing battles: a great player can hop onto a team of losers.

So, add in an approval system, a sort of... credit score for intelligence. I've suggested this in another thread based on how to form competant parties in PvE, I think. But:

You may add a "Negative" tick to someone's record if they have been one of the last 8 people in your party. These player names are logged into your Friends/Ignore list. You add a negative tick by selecting their name, then confirming by typing their name again. You may remove negative ticks by doing the same thing.

My original thought was to add an unseen positive tick for every party member you have that makes no comment. But, people could raise their approval back up by having guild members join and rejoin their parties, or by moving around noob towns and forming parties with low level players that would be eager to have you along.

So, I decided to simply give each player 100 "Approval" each week. Negative ticks net you -1% Approval from that. After the week, any negative approval is halved. So, you start the game with 100%, get four bad experiences, you drop to 96% Approval. Next week, you're at 98%.

Only problem I can forsee are people randomly joining your party just to get the chance to grief. But anyway, that's one idea.

Plague, that is a nice idea; unfortunately, it is open for abuse.

To be honest, I think the whole rank system is flawed, as there are no detrimental effects to losing, as there are in GvG, (i.e. your Guild Rank goes down).

I really do not know how the system can be improved, however.

As the question at hand, I really don't mind one way or ther other if rank is reset, but I could see many people quitting GW if it was implemented.

Rather than reset it,why not add other ways to show how good a player is?

/winratio => Win ratio and total wins/losses
/hallwins => Number of times you were in a team that won the Hall of Heroes
/tombsconsecutivewins => Highest number of Tomb victories in a row
/teamsconsecutivewins => same except team arena
/totaldamagegiven => total amount of damage you've given and total amount youve taken with an effectiveness percentage in pvp
/totalamounthealed => total amount of other ally healing you've caused in pvp vs the amount you healed yourself
/consecutivekills => Number of consecutive kills you caused before dying
/totalinterrupts => number of successful interupts in pvp battles

and that sort of thing....

I'm afraight I didn't grasp what you'd be trying to achieve with a rank reset. Maybe I didn't read closely enough.

I don't see what good a reset would do. After very short time everything would be back to normal, except that all the players who put a lot of time and effort into gaining their rank would be very pissed off.

If the rank system is really so flawed, then you shouldn't just reset it. You should dump it for good and replace it with something better. But I'm afraight in the end you'll find that every alternative ranking system is flawed one way or another. So you might as well keep the current one.

I think it would be better if the rank system was revised to operate in a similar way to the "up and down" nature of guild rating, rather than just a raw reset of a flawed system.

I expect it could be done by average rank of your tombs group, but to be honest I have no idea exactly how it would function. It would take alot of hard and innovative thinking (which I believe Anet have proven they can do) to come up with a system that works this way.

I like to keep it simple, I can't stand it when people make outrageously detailed suggestions that don't come close to matching the style of the game.

It's not easy to come up with something to replace rank. Wins/Loses? How often will people leave mid-battle to avoid gaining loses? Tombs wins? You don't have to play Tombs to PvP. Total damage? Clearly skewed to certain classes (i.e. not monk). A combination of all of these stats? That's not very intuitive to read through, nor easy to share with other people.

I don't PvP, so this whole Rank thing is foreign to me. Though from what I hear on these forums, it sounds like the best answer would be nothing. You really can't tell if someone is good unless you see them play.

there really is no need for him to provide this information is there? he is merely stating he thinks something is flawed and he thinks that this could be a "modest proposal."

and as for bringing his guild into this - what purpose does that serve? individual rank has nothing to do with guild status.

Shmash

ps- I, along with many of the other posts, do not see how this would solve anything. If a reset were to happen, whatever the said problem was would just happen all over again.

simple fact is, whether it was a good idea or not, you'd kill off a lot of the pvp community in one stroke by resetting fame, and therefore, less ppl buying chapter 2 = gg anet.

there is no way to know whether someone is good or not, by changing the fame system still will not show anything.

I see what you mean, and to a certain extent, I agree. However, I don't think its as simple as you've described it. For me, and a good portion of the community, a reset like this would not much change anything. I'll still play with the same people, and have no problem with groups or the like. I also think we can throw out the idea of having the same problem in a few months, as thats been discussed and there doesn't seem a way around it.

Here is what I see happening:

For the currently high ranked and very experienced, nothing will change. They will gain rank at the same rate they have been, and will be back on top in no time.

For the new players with no rank, there will be less groups requiring rank to play. This may or may not be a good thing. In general, groups will be worse. Maybe the "leet" players will rise to the top even faster because of this. It may seem that this will benefit the currently unranked players and help them find groups faster, but the argument can be made that they can make unranked groups without problem the way the current system operates.

For the players rank 3-7 or so, they will be experienced in tombs, but will have no way to prove it. They may not have the friends list or connections the high ranked players have, so this is the group that will suffer the most. They might be stuck with players without rank at all, making groups they play in worse. (this is not to say that unranked players are bad, but the the assumption is not far from the truth).

Eventually, we'll be back at the same state a few months after a reset like this. Maybe throw out the whole rank system in general? I don't know. Personally, I don't really see much advantage to getting rid of rank/fame or resetting it. It will create more problems than advantages. You may joke about it and think its stupid, but people really want their emotes.

how about doing it so that u gain more fame for winning in the hall say 20 fame (I know its a lot) but that means iway will suffer as fame farming is only so productive and It will mean better players and groups will get there ranks