Guild Wars 2

been around doing pve for over a year, ran three dungeons in all of that time. When I finally decide to run dungeons it is nice to know I am guaranteed include in pug. Just feel sorry for the guys when they find out how green I am. Ah well, at least I can follow directions, and don’t argue with veteran dungeoneers.

Zaxares.5419:

AP is not a good way to determine skill. I have over 15k AP now, and I consider myself fairly skilled. I know all of Fractals, can solo just about all open world Champs, have been to multiple Teq/Wurm kills, know what to do in WvW ankitten ow slowly learning sPvP. Yet the highest dungeon I’ve done is SE; I wouldn’t have a clue what to do in CoF/CoE/HotW/Arah if I were to step in there now. When I first started SE, everybody was mindblown when I said I was new to this and for people to please give me instructions for tricky areas. They couldn’t believe that somebody with 14k (at the time) AP hadn’t done SE yet, but it happens!

And thats why high ap is a safe bet. Even if they have no knowledge of this dungeon > they can compensate with their experience of other parts of the game, they wont fall so easily. They can fight by themselves. They know their class and etc and etc…. Id prefer in my party a guy who run dungeons 0 times, but know his class and game perfectly, than zombie zerker, who only knows how to run this special dungeon with this special build, and any changes from his routine would make him useless.

I think AP has some value in determining skill (if it’s WAY too low), but it’s not the be-all, end-all. Requiring thousands of AP isn’t necessary.

I very rarely kick people from pugs. Only had to do it a couple of times for afk’ers and one spectacularly foolish player that had no idea what fractals was all about.
“lvl 49” in LFG
player joins and we roll harpies
player gets blasted off every platform possible
Boss fight, player gets one shot 5 times by asura and we wipe three times trying to save him
I check his AP and he’s at 1.5k. Normally that wouldn’t be an issue but this is fractals 49 and going down like that so regularly led my guildie to ask him how much AR did he have. Response? “What’s that?” Linked him an ascended item. Response? “Wow, I’d be lucky to have those” Gave him a quick run down of what AR was and what ascended items were, then booted him.

AP isn’t a gauge in determining skill, but it can be a good determination of familiarity with aspects of the game. Some times, like in most dungeons, inexperienced players can be carried, and I don’t mind doing so. But in high level fractals, everyone really needs to pull their weight

Azrael.4960:

I very rarely kick people from pugs. Only had to do it a couple of times for afk’ers and one spectacularly foolish player that had no idea what fractals was all about.
“lvl 49” in LFG
player joins and we roll harpies
player gets blasted off every platform possible
Boss fight, player gets one shot 5 times by asura and we wipe three times trying to save him
I check his AP and he’s at 1.5k. Normally that wouldn’t be an issue but this is fractals 49 and going down like that so regularly led my guildie to ask him how much AR did he have. Response? “What’s that?” Linked him an ascended item. Response? “Wow, I’d be lucky to have those” Gave him a quick run down of what AR was and what ascended items were, then booted him.

AP isn’t a gauge in determining skill, but it can be a good determination of familiarity with aspects of the game. Some times, like in most dungeons, inexperienced players can be carried, and I don’t mind doing so. But in high level fractals, everyone really needs to pull their weight

Now that is a legit reason for kicking someone.

I still don’t use AP as a requirement though. In fact my pugs don’t have requirements. Sometimes we get a good group, other times not so much. But I enjoy helping those who may not know whats going on. Thas just me though.

AP is an indicator of time in game.

The more time spent in game the more opportunity you have to grow as a player.

The more time spent in game the more opportunity you have to be exposed to varied elements of game play.

Are AP an indicator of skill ? No.

Are they an indicator of something, time spent in game, that has the potential to lead to increased skill ? Yes.

Unless they got that AP from mindless zerg farming, which could also be the case. Although I agree that time spent in game CAN lead to better players. Thats not always the case. And the opposite is true as well. Been playing 1.5 years, only have 4500 AP, but still would consider myself to be a decent player…

pdavis.8031:

Unless they got that AP from mindless zerg farming, which could also be the case. Although I agree that time spent in game can lead to better players. Thats not always the case. And the opposite is true as well. Been playing 1.5 years, only have 4500 AP, but still would consider myself to be a decent player…

If this is a response to my post keep in mind that I said that time spent in game provides an opportunity to grow as a player, not a guarantee. Not everyone takes advantage of opportunities.

Ashen.2907:

pdavis.8031:

Unless they got that AP from mindless zerg farming, which could also be the case. Although I agree that time spent in game CAN lead to better players. Thats not always the case. And the opposite is true as well. Been playing 1.5 years, only have 4500 AP, but still would consider myself to be a decent player…

If this is a response to my post keep in mind that I said that time spent in game provides an opportunity to grow as a player, not a guarantee. Not everyone takes advantage of opportunities.

Oh I totally agree with you, just wanted to point out that having a lower amount of AP doesn’t mean you are a bad player either (edited my post to reflect that).

While AP can be used as some sort of measuring tool, it seems silly and counter productive to me to use that number as the sole basis to find other players for dungeons/fractals/etc.

AP is the dumbest possible way to measure anyone’s skills. And it’s getting so kitten that you see people claiming to exclude others on lower aps, where you see stuff like “2500k+ only!!!!” “3521k only!!!!” lol…seriously…
AP means for the most that player has been grinding, Wvw-pvp-living story-daily-monthly. WTB someone to explain me how someone who killed 1000 skales and got 1000 kills with a harpoon gun is to be preferred to someone who runs only dungeons all the time, thus has lower achievement points.
But seriously, after being asked my FotM lvl as a requirement for Arah, I suppose I saw everything.

Pip.2094:

But seriously, after being asked my FotM lvl as a requirement for Arah, I suppose I saw everything.

Really!? As if that has much of a bearing on Arah at all…Thats funny.

Ashen.2907:

Are they an indicator of something, time spent in game, that has the potential to lead to increased skill ? Yes.

So basically in the end, it means pretty much nothing. Joining a PuG is like playing the lottery.

RedStar.4218:

Ashen.2907:

Are they an indicator of something, time spent in game, that has the potential to lead to increased skill ? Yes.

So basically in the end, it means pretty much nothing.

Not really.

If one player demonstrates that he has had more opportunity to learn the game than another individual, assuming that you are not going to take the time to actually ask some questions, then they are more likely to be the better choice (assuming efficiency is your goal).

Of course there will be situational deviations such as a veteran dungeon runner on an alt account or the like.

Choosing the individual with low or no AP over one with a high AP is like drawing to an inside straight, great when it works out but generally not the best option statistically.

RedStar.4218:

Ashen.2907:

Are they an indicator of something, time spent in game, that has the potential to lead to increased skill ? Yes.

So basically in the end, it means pretty much nothing. Joining a PuG is like playing the lottery.

More like a crap-shoot. This has always been the case in most games, and likely always will be.

ICEing.9237:

I feel like so many players measure AP as a skill base. While yes it can determine how long someone has played for, it doesn’t measure how skilled you are. And while yes there is nothing in game to measure skill at first sight, capping LFG groups at “LFG Zerk Only 7,000+ AP Ping Gear or kick!” Is annoying at the least.

Last night In fractals I had a 21.000 ap guy repeatedly die at various parts more so than everyone else around 3-5k.

However I do agree if someone’s joining my group at high level fractals and has 500 ap I’m gonna kick them. I feel it should be loosely based on something like that to avoid wasting time.

You’re a giant hypocrite. My mind = blown.

Yep that’s what I was getting at, in the end it’s pretty much a random guess. It sometime works, it sometime doesn’t.

Best way to avoid that is join a guild or build a dungeon list.

But I won’t lie, we (guildies) do get different reactions depending on AP :
-low : we’ll probably explain things without the player having to ask for anything
-middle (3-10) : we’ll assume he sort of knows what to do
-high : we might cringe a little. From our experience we’ve found that there’s much more players in this group compared to the middle/low groups who think they are the best at everything (be it true or not) and won’t take any sort of criticism.
However low AP players are generally nice and sometime quite timid. Even if they aren’t really good they seem to be more likely to listen to tips.

Try telling someone with 15k points that he doesn’t really know how to play his main character in a particular dungeon and you’ll probably get a “shut up, you noob. I’ve done this a million times”.
Idiots exist everywhere, but it’s incredibly more painful to tell someone with high AP that they don’t really know how to play.

So in the end, we don’t use AP as a way to measure skill. We use it as a way to determine how susceptible a player might be, coupled with quite a lot of other things.

RedStar.4218:

Yep that’s what I was getting at, in the end it’s pretty much a random guess. It sometime works, it sometime doesn’t.

Best way to avoid that is join a guild or build a dungeon list.

But I won’t lie, we (guildies) do get different reactions depending on AP :
-low : we’ll probably explain things without the player having to ask for anything
-middle (3-10) : we’ll assume he sort of knows what to do
-high : we might cringe a little. From our experience we’ve found that there’s much more players in this group compared to the middle/low groups who think they are the best at everything (be it true or not) and won’t take any sort of criticism.
However low AP players are generally nice and sometime quite timid. Even if they aren’t really good they seem to be more likely to listen to tips.

Try telling someone with 15k points that he doesn’t really know how to play his main character in a particular dungeon and you’ll probably get a “shut up, you noob. I’ve done this a million times”.
Idiots exist everywhere, but it’s incredibly more painful to tell someone with high AP that they don’t really know how to play.

So in the end, we don’t use AP as a way to measure skill. We use it as a way to determine how susceptible a player might be, coupled with quite a lot of other things.

Some really good points there.

linuxotaku.4731:

Serophous.9085:

I like joining these groups with my 11k ap, then calling then scrubs for not even being near me.

Its horrible judgment as time goes on, ap will continue to add up, causing higher qualifications. Not to mention probably half of everyone’s ap is from salvaging.

Salvaging is now capped. Similarly for hobby dungeon explorer.

Which I consider really disappointing, as I use Agent of Entropy to effectively count total salvage on my account and its neat to see that. Once I max it out I’m going to lose that
I understand with the rewards added it opened it to people grinding AP for the loots they felt the need to slow it down. But I wish they’d come up with some way to track my total salvage without adding extra AP. It’s a little thing I know.

I was in a Fractals party a few months back. Had a 1k achievement player and a 15k achievement player. The 1k player asked for advice and tricks. I helped him out. He was a great player! The 15k one in the EXACT same party was an elementalist who stayed in fire, never dodged, never healed his conditions and was generally the most useless person I have ever come across.

In fact, every time I see him on the forums I just remember that day.

I think the groups that require massive numbers of AP aren’t looking for skilled players, but jaded ones. Players who have played and explored the game so extensively that they’ve exhausted all the content, are bored, but for some reason just can’t move on. With these players, there’s no risk of them doing anything fun, exciting, or otherwise disruptive to the play.

ScribeTheMad.7614:

Which I consider really disappointing, as I use Agent of Entropy to effectively count total salvage on my account and its neat to see that. Once I max it out I’m going to lose that
I understand with the rewards added it opened it to people grinding AP for the loots they felt the need to slow it down. But I wish they’d come up with some way to track my total salvage without adding extra AP. It’s a little thing I know.

Good news, it doesn’t stop counting and you even see the award when you finish it again. Just doesn’t include AP. It shows that you’ve completed it x number of times.

I have about 5,200 AP, someone I know that started playing the same day I did (Launch day) has over 16,000 AP. Are they inherently better then me? No. Reason being is I am not an achievable hunter. I did complete all the jump puzzles and got all dive points, but I am not a big PvPer/WvWer which seems to hold many large AP rewarding tasks. I do the minimum 5 daily tasks, sometimes, and have only completed a monthly once. I just don’t really care about AP. I am an average player and i do fairly well in dungeons/fractals.

Just as your XBox gamer score doesnt reflect skill, your AP doesn’t either. It just shows how active you are across a broad spectrum of things.

AP =/= Skill

My opinion is that Achievement Points are not a measure of skill, but a measure of what targets you’ve aimed for.

Nothing to do with skill, just targets. Someone who has only 5,000 points may simply have just not aimed for the same or as many targets as someone with 18,000 points.

It’s the only measure that players have available, so they use it. It’s as simple as that.

Offair.2563:

Achievement Points are so easy to get, even my 2 braincell cow can get them, funny to see LFG asking for ppl over 5k AP – as if that means anything.

I remember playing another MMO with a gearscore addon, oh the joy of pugs asking for high gearscore and dying on stupid ways as certainly the score did not make them walk out of nasty stuff automaticly

A lot of MMOs have strict DPS/HPS barriers on fights. Proper mechanics can be practiced, DPS walls are harder to overcome. Gear score tools are often pretty accurate judges of a character’s output capability since in other MMOs gear sets need to be meticulously built by downing bosses for RNG drops. None of that really applies here since you could just drop a bunch of money on gems and run a bit of EOTM zerging for dragonite and have a full set of the best gear. AP is less accurate, but in a game with nothing else at least it’s something. People get sick of spending the whole run reviving someone or replacing people, they grasp for some way to minimize risk.

That said I have 3.2k AP, new to GW2, full ascended zerk and fractal reward level 46. If someone judged me by my AP they’d think I was a fresh 80 in mixed masterworks and trying to queue up for my first fractal in a scale 37 as if I never heard of AR. Also almost the majority of chronic double downers in my hundreds of fractal runs have been 10k+ APers that got it all from dailies and not from trying to better themselves as a player. AP makes zero sense as a scale of ability, it just gives some people a bit of peace of mind.