Ranger and Thief relegated to small scale...when others can both zerg and small scale fight

[subversiontwo.7501]

@"KeyOrion.9506" said:Now, if you can come up with something more CONSTRUCTIVE, on how a Ranger OR Thief can get a little bit more...ACCEPTANCE into a zerg without commander's getting all "screw that class" ATTITUDE, I would love...LOVE to hear or even read it. But since i've listened to nearly every single kitten commander on multiple servers give the same excuse, i'm not seeing much on the end of "constructive" or "objective" arguements of how you can make a build that is UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED by those same commanders. I would love to see in chat, or HEAR in discord, "kitten we don't have enough Ranger's/Thieves, i need some people to switch to Ranger and/or thief.I'm pretty sure ways to garner at least a bit more of general acceptance has already been posted in this thread or at least in the other recent thread that this thread was necro'ed to support. I think the distinction here is pretty important: There's a difference between improving a class' ability to compete for roles and another thing to directly affect people's attitudes. That's important for the whole "GvG" and "meta" argument going on here too. This means that there are things that work but it has to be exemplified in very stiff terms to change people's attitudes towards it. If you are a game designer you look at balance from what works and not what people believe works.

Demographics

That sends this discussion from balance to a discussion about how communities are commonly built and composed in this mode these days. To understand the attitudes revolving around the glorification of meta and people's attitudes regarding Rangers (and Thieves) in large scale gameplay you need to understand the playerbase and its demographics. Lacking the effort to paint a picture let me illustrate it with text:

AAAAAAAAAAAA BBBBBBBBBBBBB CCCC

That's a very crude cut of the playerbase. You have players who are unorganized, you have players who are organized into the meta and you have players above the meta. This is represented on alot of servers by random players and community guilds who look to offer random players a home and basic training into a meta. Then you have the second group which is represented by various fight guilds who are looking to maintain and polish the meta. Then you have the last group that comprises guilds that has a higher ambition and usually engage in things like GvG, group-roaming and zergbusting. Here is also a timely place to point out that recent years and the developers' overall strategy regarding the mode has seen group A grow and group C shrink disproportionally.

Tied to this topic

So how is all that bull relevant to this discussion? Well, classes like the Ranger or the Thief in large scale WvW are mostly played by group A and group C. There is a gap inbetween in representation, knowledge and whatever else. That is also the problem that you are describing. There is as such a difference between making something appealing to group C and group B that has less to do with what works and can be done and more to do with people's attitudes and the ease of making something work in a norm of trying to turn group A players into group B players. Turning a group A player into a group C player is nothing that can take simple shortcuts and development will (and should) mostly consider what is possible and as such more likely be discovered and possibly popularized by players in group C.

There are few guides and little help for turning Group A into Group C because that requires disproportionate time and effort from the people helping out and the route from A to C may be better learnt by playing outside of pickup groups or by playing other classes on the way. The fact that so many Ranger mains are not only Ranger mains but also seem to be Ranger only and completely unwilling to play alts or join smaller guilds to gain experience also suggests something about them in terms of demographics and attitudes. Right? They want the easy large scale pay day without investing in the mode or its communities, without respecting the commanders or adapting to help their needs or resources. That is a Group A negative attitude issue that sows quite alot of discord in the mode and is a headache for both Group B and Group C players.

Other examples

Again, even if this is mostly theoretical bull to most readers on this forum, you can see these underlying workings in other classes and shifts in the meta machinery. For example in recent trends regarding Core power Guardians or if you roll back a couple of months in the trends of Bomb Scrappers. These were all trends where people's attitudes towards these things shifted over time through group C players establishing examples to shift attitudes over time. At first they were underestimated and later they have run the risk of becomming overestimated.

The same goes for the burn Guards that you now list as part of a (problematic) meta: You don't have to go too many months back to see people having very negative attitudes towards those builds and scuffed at people using them, claiming that they didn't work even though they clearly worked. It just took enough examples and players held in some regard playing them to change the attitudes towards them over time. Changes in the actual balance of the game also obviously helps (bombkits being popularized when weapon damage got nerfed, condi becomming more popular when power is nerfed more evenly than condi has been nerfed across classes etc.). However, people's attitudes within a concept of "meta" changes with examples and ideals statuated by players who make ideals.

Tied full circle

So, to put all of that into this context: To make Rangers (and Thieves) more competetive in large-scale gameplay there are certainly things you can do (improving Stance sharing, improving the Druid Staff, rolling back some trait nerfs or skill splitting plenty of things from PvE, PvE changes that has hit the Ranger in WvW). However, overcomming people's attitudes in the game is no different from overcomming people's attutides here on the forum. The more examples there are to disprove people with poor attitudes the more ground towards a universal acceptance will be won. Just look at the post above mine. We've gone from a discussion of "there are no examples" into a backpedal of "there are some examples but they are not good enough for me" now.

All it takes are more examples of good players and good groups of players statuating those examples. The downside of that can be tied back to the beginning of this post: Group A is growing and Group C is shrinking with much less progression from A to B to C than the game used to have because the mode has become so stagnant with so little development put into it, especially for players in group C. The players and groups statuating examples are becomming exceedingly rare and treated with disregard because even if they are certainly above "meta" they are also outside the norm. If we make examples of "Cakewalk did it" or "Lays did it" people here on the forums will roll their eyes, but those examples are actually better representations of what is theoretically possible in the balance.

[Vavume.8065]

@subversiontwo.7501 said:

Also, God already responded to the question with most things you can do with a Longbow.

On the 7th day God created the Longbow.

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

exceptions just confirm the rules. do whatever u feel like, just don't complain that u don't get serious groups.

also, i feel sorry for people who only own ranger and thief, and therefore are locked out of Wvw. usually those are also the ones that hate blobs and zergs and think all should go smallscale, i wonder why.

[NuhDah.9812]

@kamikharzeeh.8016 said:exceptions just confirm the rules. do whatever u feel like, just don't complain that u don't get serious groups.

also, i feel sorry for people who only own ranger and thief, and therefore are locked out of Wvw. usually those are also the ones that hate blobs and zergs and think all should go smallscale, i wonder why.

I main thief and spend most of my time in wvw. Can't say I feel miserable, and while I usually avoid blobs, I have no hard feelings against their existence. They do their stuff, I do mine. Like someone previously said, there is a lot of option in game, if you like something else more, go for it, not everything needs to be the same, work the same have all benefits a profession can have and be an all rounder. Some specs are just niche specs that specialise in something specific with it's own flavour. Also, there is no profession right now in the game that is useless, everything has a place.

[KeyOrion.9506]

Interesting points, but you did forget to take one thing into account. A commander infecting his guild/teammates/server into the same methodology of thinking. Two things happen. One you got a sassy commander that basically punishes any player that plays ranger either verbally in such things as discord ow within chat. And those that gravitate towards that commander tend to become more likeminded in agreement. The second one is, since a ranger is punished verbally, either the ranger becomes more set in their ways, or decides, "ranger is not welcome, might as well reroll". In which case, the only thing you have left is the ranger set in their ways, a community group and leadership that still doesn't see any reason or an improvement of abilities from rangers...to show that they are either wanted, or needed. Same goes with thief. Every commander and player will say, "They have their niche." That's it. They have a niche. And to those players and commanders that niche is very, very small. And since it's so small of a niche, they do not intend or attempt, or try, to implement a composition for ranger or thief to use within their organization of combat teams. You can't change a commander or players mind who is set in the belief that the class is useless to zerg play. That sentiment can not be changed unless that commander or player sees a purely, massive change to a boon or abilities that throws bonuses to an entire group. In most cases, those players and commanders see Ranger players as "self serving", or "non-team players" because...they won't reroll. I can go in as mesmer. I'm accepted. I come in as a support engineer, i'm good to go. I go in as warrior dome support, i'm great. I go in as Ele healer, that's fantastic. I go in as a ranger...."(SIGH)....you know the deal. WE can add you in", if they decide to do that...."but as soon as a BETTER CLASS comes along to the group, we'll have to KICK you."

If you don't player ranger, i'm going to say you can't even begin to understand the problems facing ranger's from the community. But since you've played long enough, you've heard those other commanders. You've heard from those players. And you know everything about exactly what the original post was trying to state. But as I see it. Until Ranger's has some sort of favorable mega top specialty ON the battlefield, it will not begin to see wide acceptance into a zerg composition. After all, players and commanders that don't play ranger, have like already relegated Ranger's to a "niche" part of play within WvW. Acceptance is limited to a few. "Well taking camps is important..." Any class can take a camp. Any class can take a sentry. "Well ranger's die so easily within a zerg..."....lets see....when a Ranger is placed in his OWN party within the zerg, doesn't really have support of a party teammate heals, boons or what not. Might pick up something if i'm stacked up closer to them vs. their own teammate who may be further out. But without those heals, boons and support within the party...well yah, i'm gonna die pretty damn quick. As a party of one, that's going to happen.

Changing a player with C mentality, into a B mentality, or B mentality into an A mentality.....well... It's just not that easy. Especially when the player and/or commander states multiple times, and ingrain it within their troops mentality of their server or guild, that there will never be anything impressive of that class that you play, your not going go see any acceptance of that class. "They're solo players...."....We are solo player's because we got pushed off to the side by our fellow players. Can't say much else on the subject to tell the truth. When the players show annoyance, volatility, or just downright hostility towards the class, no, there is just not going to be any acceptance on getting that class into a composition zerg group. The most common niche a ranger is relegated to. Camp/sentry capture. Scout. That's it. Right now as of this date, Ranger is considered Niche.