KPs good in high population - KPs bad in low population - No KPs is good in low population

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@maddoctor.2738

You've somehow missed the point of everything I have said entirely, and yet in the same breath with your own example given, you have proven my point that it would up raid participation rates by allowing everyone to have a chance again.

~ Anyways, I've said enough. Let this thread die and stop necro'ing it.

[Henry.5713]

The use of KPs is a rather mixed bag. They are being used for a reason, a good reason, but some people do go too far at times with their ridiculous requirements.I have spend my fair share of time dealing with "3s" while running training raids. They were even more frustrating to deal with for all of the "2s". But even with how quickly the "2s" improved and with how much I enjoyed watching them grow, I still wouldn't invite them to my statics or any of my groups if all I am looking for are quick and easy runs and for every single person to be reliable.

There might even be a short period of time in which veteran players would have to accept playing with unreliable squads and players but that period won't last very long. Let's say there are indeed large numbers of willing new players who are currently held back by the KP system. Quite a few of those players would then enter the raid scene all at once, in which case the veterans are even more likely to put anything in place as a safety net.

Curious to see what that anything would be. I remember not being let into dungeon pugs back in the day due to my low AP. Back when I spend all of my time (speed)running dungeons. Situations which amused me even back then. That old "system" actually excluded those who spend the most time in dungeons, the one place that rewarded very little AP (at least back then).As many flaws as there may be with the KP system, it at least isn't terrible enough to exclude the most experienced and most accomplished raiders.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Yes it would. For every reason I already stated. I already explained how it differentiates between 2s and 3s, through raw natural organic evaluation, in the same way I would judge if guys were good or bad at basketball, only after I showed up on a court and played with them. This way everyone gets a chance to at least play.That works for a basketball team (in GW2 terms: a guild), where they can train and evaluate their members before a match. You can bet that if there was an LFG version of basketball, and that it was being played for real stakes, and not just for fun, most veterans would not be doing "evaluation through play" either, and only allow proven players to team with them.

In fact, that's how it always worked in games we used to play as kids as well - the new kids were picked for teams only after all the "good players" (as well as friends and family) were already chosen. And those games were theoretically purely for fun, with no stakes associated with winning or losing beyond "mere" bragging rights.

Some of you guys are still missing the point here. I'm not stating that this is a better system. I am stating that it would increase raid participation rates.It would not. It's not the lack of training that causes those low rates. It's caused by, on one side, most players having no desire to train as much as it is necessary to clear this content, and, on the other side, by too low release rates (or, for some, content being too easy).

Basically, content is already meant for a small number of players, and on top of it it's not supported enough to satisfy even that small community.

I'm stating that current population & participation rates are so low because players are waiting waaaay too long in line before getting to take a ride, and this is because of KPs.And my take on it is that you assign too much importance to KPs. They are not a cause, but merely a byproduct of the core issue. "Dealing" with KPs in any way is not going to remove the reason why they appeared in the first place.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"Psykewne.3025" said:You can't change people's behaviour, no matter what barriers you remove

Are you sure though?In a way, yes. You can't change people's behaviour, unless you remove the

reason

behind that behaviour. You can't make people not use KPs (or other forms of prefiltering, in case you would take KPs away) unless you remove the reason for why they want to prefilter in the first place.

People want to play this content alongside other players that are good enough to clear the content with. Thus, prefiltering. The only way to get rid of that desire to ascertain other players will be good enough is to ensure that all the players will be good enough. Which can be done only through either limiting access to the content only to the players that pass certain bar (so, basically, the game doing prefiltering for the players), or by lowering the difficulty of the content to the level where prefiltering is no longer important.Concenrating on KPs, or on veterans "not training new players enough" is just window dressing. It may look nice to someone looking at the situation from the outside, without really understanding the underlying issues, but it's just for show, and accomplishes nothing truly important to the issue at hand.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Yes it would. For every reason I already stated. I already explained how it differentiates between 2s and 3s, through raw natural organic evaluation, in the same way I would judge if guys were good or bad at basketball, only after I showed up on a court and played with them. This way everyone gets a chance to at least play.That works for a basketball team (in GW2 terms: a guild), where they can train and evaluate their members before a match. You can bet that if there was an LFG version of basketball, and that it was being played for real stakes, and not just for fun, most veterans would not be doing "evaluation through play" either, and only allow proven players to team with them.

Ah yes, but those veteran players in the LFG in a world without KPs, are known by their names and from word of mouth of who is good, not from KPs. They had to go in several games with several people and prove they were good with their actual performance, not KPs. <- This way a player who does get a chance to prove himself and show he is good, can do so in a single night which will spread word of mouth, rather than it requiring years of grinding KPs. With a KP system, that good player will be ignored because he has very few KPs or none at all. And even if he is accepted into 1 group, he still has no KPs to show for a different group or to an LFG community. In a game without KPs of any kind, players would begin to lean again on word of mouth recommendation and memory, which is a much truer form of KPs, so to say.

The problem here is that taking KPs for granted and placing all judgement in it and only that, replaces any & all rational common sense past it.

In fact, that's how it always worked in games we used to play as kids as well - the new kids were picked for teams only after all the "good players" (as well as friends and family) were already chosen. And those games were theoretically purely for fun, with no stakes associated with winning or losing beyond "mere" bragging rights.

Yes but those players they choose are people they know, who have proven themselves in true form through actual demonstrations. They pick those players because they know for a fact that those players are good, or simply because they are friends & family. That is a far cry from picking or booting players that you do not know that you've never seen before, based the faith of a KP system that can be lied about with fake chat codes, that has no way of allowing players to see the strong 2s from the bad 3s, that encourages people to never play with anyone who doesn't meet a KP requirement. In a game without KPs, when a team needed a couple extra players they would give people chances to join no matter who they were, and although it may be annoying to stumble into a few 3s before finding a 2, so be it, as this is providing participation rates which is what we need. But in a game with KPs, no one gets a chance to even try unless they first ping that KP req. This is why 2s get bored and leave, because they are waiting in line too long for it to be worth it.

We can INB4 "Well if the 2s REALLY wanted to play, they'd try real hard to find a guild and learn and do it" and this simply is not true at all with the way things are now. You could have 10 players who are considered 2s who are on the scene. They are all of equal skill level and know at least enough to complete wing 1. Out of these 10 players, maybe 1 or 2 of them actually care enough to fight through the social stigma, to wait in line long enough, to get into a reasonable raid guild that actually wants to play with them. The other 8 or 9 players who were also good, who would have stayed if it wasn't a completely unreasonable fiasco to wait in line to get involved in, end up leaving the scene. This is because there aren't enough other 2s around to group with because they also left, because all the players with KPs have hid inside a fortress and have forced the 2s into an impossible to achieve tribulation mode of playing with 3s to build KPs or learn anything at all. And even when the gates to the fortress lower briefly, only a few make it in, and then they still wait and wait and wait on someone else's schedule.

What I am saying is that for general casual raid participation through LFG, where people get a chance to prove themselves and find each other, it would be better for KPs to disappear entirely. For the slight annoyance it would cause the elites who already mostly recognize each other, to have to give people a chance again, which the elites represent a very very small % of the GW2 community, it would make the major bulk of the community interested enough to come back and try again.

For those elites who STILL are not understanding what I am saying about this problem, imagine this:

Remember back to a time when you were relatively new to raids, but you knew that you were good. You knew that you were good enough to watch any video guide and very quickly adapt & learn any new raid thrown at you. You knew that if a squad gave you a chance, you wouldn't disappoint them. Back in those days you barely had any KP at all. Now imagine yourself now with many KPs, in here defending KPs in this thread while telling me that I am wrong. Imagine yourself now as an ultimate peak level veteran, who had to put an LFG post with what would be considered a moderate to high expectation of KP today. Now imagine yourself again as when you were new and you knew you were good but had no KPs to show. Imagine that you look at that high KP LFG post made by your future self and realize that you aren't going to let yourself into the group because you don't have enough KPs. Imagine that segregation & judgement being based on a KP number instead of knowing someone. And seriously ask yourself: Reeeeeally how much better are you now, than you were back then?

lol I don't know what else to say ^^

Some of you guys are still missing the point here. I'm not stating that this is a better system. I am stating that it would increase raid participation rates.It would not. It's not the lack of training that causes those low rates. It's caused by, on one side, most players having

no desire

to train as much as it is necessary to clear this content, and, on the other side, by too low release rates (or, for some, content being too easy).

Dude the lack of training is because it is unreasonable for 2s to train with 3s all day, so the 2s leave the scene. You seriously cannot learn anything when a group of 3s is keeping you stuck in a certain phase they can't move past. And as I said before, joining guilds there is still wait time and wait time on someone else's schedule, and too much initiation bullshit to prove that you can successfully contribute to beat a video game boss. People get bored waiting in line and they leave. A player can have much desire to want to play & complete the raids, but when faced with the reality of the social stigma, elongated initiation phases, and the KP privilege that older players get to benefit which always put them in the front of the waiting line, a player's reason & general logic kicks in and tells them it isn't worth the time & hassle so they leave.

KPs exasperate this problem.

Basically, content is already meant for a small number of players, and on top of it it's not supported enough to satisfy even that small community.

I'm stating that current population & participation rates are so low because players are waiting waaaay too long in line before getting to take a ride, and this is because of KPs.And my take on it is that you assign too much importance to KPs. They are not a cause, but merely a byproduct of the core issue. "Dealing" with KPs in any way is not going to remove the reason why they appeared in the first place.

I agree. I've stated multiple times in this very thread that KPs worked great during high population times, and when the difference between 10 KPs and 50 to a 100 KPs actually mattered. But over the course of time, calling for massive KP overqualification has created segregation & division that is really unnecessary. The difference between 10 or 50 or 100 KPs will certainly show differences in knowledge & skill. But the difference between 200 and 600 KPs starts to matter much much less. The growth rate of a player from 0 to 10 LIs and from 10 to 50 and 50 to 100 is very large, but the growth rate of that player between 200 and 600 is a lot less if noticeable at all. And now you're also talking the guy with 600 LIs only has 600 LIs because he's been doing it for years, whereas the guy with 200 LIs is actually a hot player who is better in every aspect than the guy with 600 LIs, however the guy with 600 LIs will qualify for groups that the 200 LI player cannot. <- Do you see this? How do you not understand it? There are unfair, inaccurate and unnecessary segregations happening now in 2021. KP judgements in GW2 are out of control at this point and it's causing problems for the social cohesion of the community. KPs may have began as a good system and good method of judgement, and it may "feel" that way for the elites, but they truly are not understanding from their point of view inside of and on top of the KP fortress walls, what this is like for new players now.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"Psykewne.3025" said:You can't change people's behaviour, no matter what barriers you remove

Are you sure though?In a way, yes. You can't change people's behaviour, unless you remove the

reason

behind that behaviour. You can't make people not use KPs (or other forms of prefiltering, in case you would take KPs away) unless you remove the reason for why they want to prefilter in the first place.

People want to play this content alongside other players that

are good enough to clear the content with

. Thus, prefiltering.

I agree ^ but when the prefiltering becomes a ridiculous fiasco demanding serious levels of overqualification, people start walking away.

I mean seriously, this is just out of control in GW2 at this point. These kinds of KP pings that people want to see before letting others into raid or CM groups is kind of the equivalent of if I made a post on craigslist that said:

"Grocery Run Walmart - Need 5 world class athletes - 3 Olympic Gold Medals Required"

Will it be the fastest grocery run ever? Probably.

Do I need 5x world class Olympic athletes to complete this grocery run? No, I don't lol.

You don't need to possess Olympic gold medals to complete a grocery shopping trip. Stop acting like it matters. The grocery trip is easy.

Find the 2s, let them in, stop discriminating with KPs.

I have nothing else to say here.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:You've somehow missed the point of everything I have said entirely, and yet in the same breath with your own example given, you have proven my point that it would up raid participation rates by allowing everyone to have a chance again.

You should read the rest of my post before drawing any such conclusions. It would give everyone a chance (for those that it matters, a very very low one) but it wouldn't increase raid participation rates. And that STILL depends on whether groups find another form of exclusion, after the removal of KP, or if such a method doesn't exist, completely stop raiding. Because nobody wants to bother with your "word of mouth" idea.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:Ah yes, but those veteran players in the LFG in a world without KPs, are known by their names and from word of mouth of who is good, not from KPs. They had to go in several games with several people and prove they were good with their actual performance, not KPs. <- This way a player who does get a chance to prove himself and show he is good, can do so in a single night which will spread word of mouth, rather than it requiring years of grinding KPs.That works only in an extremely small community where everyone knows everyone else. Such a community would have been even smaller than what it is now. And yes, such a community would not use KPs, because there would be no point for them. They still would not "give a chance" to unknown new players in LFG unless there was literally noone else to pick from.

With a KP system, that good player will be ignored because he has very few KPs or none at all. And even if he is accepted into 1 group, he still has no KPs to show for a different group or to an LFG community. In a game without KPs of any kind, players would begin to lean again on word of mouth recommendation and memory, which is a much truer form of KPs, so to say.No, they would not, because the need to prefilter people you don't know would remain. Remember, that KPs apply only to players you don't know - if you do know someone, you don't bother asking them about their qualifications, because those are already known to you.And no, in a world without KP, you will have no more chances to become known to others than you have now.

The problem here is that taking KPs for granted and placing all judgement in it and only that, replaces any & all rational common sense past it.

That's because there's no better method that will rationally let you prefilter players before you start doing the instance. If there was a batter method, it would have been already put to use.Oh wait, there is indeed a better one, the "rational and common sense" approach, that works exactly as you described. It's just applied to guild groups and statics only, it's not really applicable to LFG, where most players you meet are completely unknown to you.

What I am saying is that for general casual raid participation through LFG, where people get a chance to prove themselves and find each other, it would be better for KPs to disappear entirely.That would only push most of the veterans that are still running LFGs into desperately trying to find a guild/static and avoid LFG completely.

That's the point you are missing: players do all they can in order to avoid the risk of being grouped with bad players. That desire would not disappear with KPs gone - it would only cause those players to think of other method to do that.

In short: LFG is not a place where "people get a chance to prove themselves". It's a place where people look for players that have already proven themselves. If they won't be able to do that in LFG, they will go looking for them somewhere else.

For the slight annoyance it would cause the elites who already mostly recognize each other, to have to give people a chance again, which the elites represent a very very small % of the GW2 community, it would make the major bulk of the community interested enough to come back and try again.No. Major bulk of the community is not interested in the content because they do not find the content to be interesting. Not because veterans are using KPs.

For those elites who STILL are not understanding what I am saying about this problem, imagine this:

**Remember back to a time when you were relatively new to raids, but you knew that you were good. You knew that you were good enough to watch any video guide and very quickly adapt & learn any new raid thrown at you. You knew that if a squad gave you a chance, you wouldn't disappoint them. Back in those days you barely had any KP at all.I have never been in such a situation, to be honest. By the time i have felt so sure of myself, i've already had a ton of KPs. And i found out that the people that think they are good enough for raiding that they should be given a chance even though they have no KPs (and experience) yet almost always overestimate themselves, and turn out to be far less prepared for raids than they thought they were.

Now imagine yourself now with many KPs, in here defending KPs in this thread while telling me that I am wrong. Imagine yourself now as an ultimate peak level veteran, who had to put an LFG post with what would be considered a moderate to high expectation of KP today. Now imagine yourself again as when you were new and you knew you were good but had no KPs to show. Imagine that you look at that high KP LFG post made by your future self and realize that you aren't going to let yourself into the group because you don't have enough KPs.Oh, i would not let my past self with no KP into group because i do know exactly how "good" i was then. I was the very exact player i don't want to see in a group now.

The difference between you and me is that i didn't assume i was good enough for LFG then (i knew i wasn't), and had to try going at it the hard way, in a fully inexperienced group, training from zero to the top (and utilizing the help of veteran friends to show me the ropes when i could and they had the time).

Imagine that segregation & judgement being based on a KP number instead of knowing someone. And seriously ask yourself: Reeeeeally how much better are you now, than you were back then?**Far, far better, to a degree i would not even believe then. And i still would not call myself "good" at all. As far as raiders go i'm probably at best mediocre, low to mid tier at best.

Hint: i have known a number of players that were actually truly good enough to start raiding from the get go. All of them managed to get into raiding within a very short timeframe from attemtping it for the first time, and KPs were not a problem for them at all - because for anyone truly talented there's hundreds ways of circumventing that barrier. It's possible to get past it even now. And even without that much talent it's still possible with enough dedication (or sometimes even on the basis of high level at socializing alone). People that get stopped by that barrier are those that are lacking in at least one of those categories (often two, or all three of them). And people like that would not become raiders anyway.

[Darkblade.7634]

I mean seriously, this is just out of control in GW2 at this point. These kinds of KP pings that people want to see before letting others into raid or CM groups is kind of the equivalent of if I made a post on craigslist that said:

"Grocery Run Walmart - Need 5 world class athletes - 3 Olympic Gold Medals Required"

Will it be the fastest grocery run ever? Probably.

Do I need 5x world class Olympic athletes to complete this grocery run? No, I don't lol.

You don't need to possess Olympic gold medals to complete a grocery shopping trip. Stop acting like it matters. The grocery trip is easy.

Find the 2s, let them in, stop discriminating with KPs.

I have nothing else to say here.

Sry, but you apparently don't have a lot of experience with lfg if you think nowadays the kp-requirements in lfg are way too high.Gonna focus on fractal cm's here since I got more experience with that.The highest level of kp-requirement you normally see in lfg is 250-300 kp (outside of the troll 1000 kp lfg sometimes) and let me tell you, that even that is not enough to guarantee a clean run.My friend and me are lfging 2-3 people daily for our daily cm+t4-clear and we mostly are looking for 200 kp.It's just supposed to be a clean and considerably fast daily clear with hfb and just the basic strats like portaling in on a few bosses, solid precast and stuff but even that's not working out more often then I like.Out of 7 daily runs per week probably 2 or 3 are really clean and fast runs without problems while in the others runs we get 1-2 people not being able to play their role (bad boon-uptime/no bane-signet or even any cc at all/no aegis or stab on hfb, no cc/boonstrip/boons and no dps on alac, being outdpsed alot by bs and/or the other dps on dps) and not being able to play mechanics, apparently never heard of portal use and when to properly precast, instastarting the boss all the time, starting discussions when you start 98 instead of 99 for food and so on.So even 200kp won't guarantee you a solid and clean hfb clear so I don't think 250-300 kp is such a outrageous amount to look for.Often enough when someone joined and pinged only 70-100 kp instead of the 200 kp we were looking for and we wanted to start we accepted it and let him stay.95% of those you noticed it immediately in the run that he lacked experience and had trouble to keep up with the other guys.And depending on what role he played that led to a lot of really sloppy and unfun kills and I would have preferred to w8 another 10 Mins to have cleaner kills.And btw it's not about the 5 Mins I save because we never wipe or the kills are faster because you can obviously carry 1 dude through that's lacking on his role alot and we will finish the run even with that.Clean kills are just so much more fun and satisfying and specially if you wanna practice a class that isn't your main it's annoying if you have to adjust everything and can't practice a proper rotation at all.And I can tell you how it is with me and everyone I know who runs fractals:If kp and even a site like killproof.me got removed we would just focus more on building discords and guilds and stack them with good players we already know and only run with people from there.And i don't mind waiting 20 mins for a group from discord/guild and doing something else in the meantime in-game to get a clean run.And if I can't get that going I would rather skip the dailies and just call it a day since it's just a daily and no big thing to skip a daily here and there then join some random group and get annoyed by a terrible and sloppy run with pugs.