Guild Wars 2

Rank, was going to be removed. No person in game was going to have rank. Folks on the forums fussed, Rank was not removed. Dragon rank would take years for a person to get, people on the forums complained. What it takes to get dragon rank was brought to a reasonable level.

They were going to retain the finishers even after they removed rank so people could still be recognized for their achievements. Try and understand the spirit of the protests. People want to be rewarded for the tons of time and effort they put into the game.

That’s not unreasonable is it?

Very unreasonable if the net result is that you will create a barrier of entry (perceived or actual) for semi-casual players who need to get anchored into PvP as well as the other game modes they already play.

We need more population in the game mode. That comes from players who may otherwise have shunned the system as being “no reward” based. So, clearly dungeon loot is a good thing to add. But then, you get into people wanting to be able to obtain titles, ranks, finishers etc without feeling like it is an impossible journey.

So a few hard core pvpers get upset. It really is inconsequential compared to the benefit of those new players enjoying the game mode. Not being rude, just very forthright. This is absolutely the right business decision.

Bombsaway.7198:

Very unreasonable if the net result is that you will create a barrier of entry (perceived or actual) for semi-casual players who need to get anchored into PvP as well as the other game modes they already play.

We need more population in the game mode. That comes from players who may otherwise have shunned the system as being “no reward” based. So, clearly dungeon loot is a good thing to add. But then, you get into people wanting to be able to obtain titles, ranks, finishers etc without feeling like it is an impossible journey.

So a few hard core pvpers get upset. It really is inconsequential compared to the benefit of those new players enjoying the game mode. Not being rude, just very forthright. This is absolutely the right business decision.

Having a special finisher to show you spent thousands of hours doing an activity is a “barrier to entry”? Is that how you’re defining it?

I can live with it being a business decision. As long as Anet makes a post apologizing saying in essence “We’re sorry we screwed you over. I know it’s wrong, but…”

I have come to the conclusion that the complaint is not really about skill or recognition. I believe people are mad they grinded rank, only to have this happen. Playing a game for hours a day is an achievement, but not an in game one. I don’t think it should be either. I am sure all the good players are up there on the leader board, rank 20 or 70. That is where the recognition is. In fact this could be considered justice by some for all the people that sky farmed.

It is not a mistake and they did not screw you over at all. It is hardly wrong.
It is a solid decision.

The achievement or gear loving MMO semi-casual player wants to “get it all”. that is part of the addiction of an MMO. The time it would take to get that very cool finisher is just too long. Moving to the middle of the bell curve is just smart.

bhagwad.4281:

They were going to retain the finishers even after they removed rank so people could still be recognized for their achievements. Try and understand the spirit of the protests. People want to be rewarded for the tons of time and effort they put into the game.

That’s not unreasonable is it?

There is an underlying current behind that as well: Some—not all— of the people that didn’t care if it was removed had gotten to a really high rank and didn’t care if it got removed because they already had the emote. People like me who were just at rank 40 at the time of the announcement had already put hundreds of hours in to try and get up to the level of Phoenix or Dragon and it was all going to be for nothing. Just because my life doesn’t lend itself to farming PvP for hours on end doesn’t mean that me getting there more slowly should mean less.

In the grand scheme of things Rank is just an XP bar for PvP. The leaderboards will be the actual achievement once they are fixed and ladders implemented etc.

Way more people would have been affected adversely if they had removed rank altogether.