Guild Wars 2

Today it came to my attention that players are buying additional copies of the game for the sole purpose of preserving their pvp rank on their main characters. By creating a separate account, they can practice pvp at the expense of new players who are getting unfairly matched up against them.

The pros:
*Anet makes an additional 40-60 dollars off of these players per each new copy/login they buy.
*It preserves the rank of said player’s main account.

The cons: (the first two counter the pros directly)
*Dedicated pvp players spend the least at the gem store. The gem store is focused on PVE currently, and the 40-60 dollars gained is hundreds lost in not retaining a PVE player that might have enjoyed PVP if it weren’t for these rerollers.
*The second “pro” is selfish and doesn’t foster community growth. It’s all about the player who wants to preserve his or her rank.
*It creates an artificial barrier to entry of tPvP because new players who think they are getting into an even match will be utterly destroyed by a team made up of rerollers who display as rank 10 or less, but are in actually rank 50 or higher in skill and experience.

I suggest tying rank to IP to prevent players from making rank 1 teams with rank 50 or higher skill levels. I’m not sure if this is possible, but I think it’s important to address this issue to keep the pvp side of the game growing and changing, and to foster the GW2 community.

I’ve never tried tPvP but I don’t see a big problem here. Any good player that rerolls and starts out with a new character will win a lot and get pushed to higher tiers quickly. If they reroll and are terrible then they will lose and stay in these lower tiers because it is appropriate. It’s a win/win. ANet gets money and lower tiers get more people playing.

And what would you do then about siblings who share the same computer and each bought their own account?

Or people on an ISP that occasionally changes IP? It could be that Player A who is a newbie on PvP and therefore low ranked gets switched to the IP that Player B had last week but Player B is a PvP vet who has a high rank. Does Player A get to spend the beginning part of that week getting steam rolled because they landed on an IP that used to belong to a really good PvP’er?

@Seera: I’m not a programmer and I don’t know the best solution, but it is a problem that needs to be looked at and solved. Thank you for pointing out the problem with a shared computer. I hadn’t thought of that.

@Kokocabana: You don’t rise through the ranks quickly enough. There is no win/win unless Anet wants to trade a one time 40 dollar transaction for an average 10-20 dollars per month that they could get from a player who doesn’t do pvp to the exclusion of all else.

Hardcore pvpers like it or not, the pve players who spend money at the gem store every month are driving this game. I’m not one of them, but I respect them and want them to feel a part of all aspects of the game. This kind of thing was going on in WoW and it completely hamstrung their Arena system discouraging widespread participation. I hope Anet takes heed of the problems that WoW had with their e-sport and act accordingly by eliminating the possibility for players to reroll in this manner.

Alternatively they might be able to implement a practice arena where the opposing team is run by AI. I know that seems silly, but a practice arena with human players on both sides would just perpetuate the problem as high ranking players would see it as a place to roll new players just for fun.

With all due respect, I don’t view tracking IPs as a very elegant solution.

I believe that leaderboards are they are right now are still kind of in their infancy, and will be developed into more functional entities over time.

How about making leaderboards for tPvP reset each month?
How about making the leaderboards based on a ‘ladder’ season, applied to everything from public matches to ranked matches?

I do believe this is where we will end up in the future. Currently it’s possible to do irreparable damage to your account with respect to its leaderboard position, which I don’t believe is a good long term system.

Ladder seasons would give everyone a clean slate to start from every X period of time.

Would something like that help address your concerns?

I don’t think so. This is a segment of the player base that has many hours a day dedicated to playing tPvP, so even with monthly resets, they’ll be looking for a way to protect their main accounts ratings while they feed their habit.

lol is this a troll post, i think so

Roman Legionary.6715:

lol is this a troll post, i think so

lol, is this a reroller trying to be dismissive of a problem that affects more than his/her precious .01% of the player base? maybe. I don’t know. I’m not a mind reader, and neither are you.