out51d3r wrote: »

PVP rank means nothing. I didn't/don't boost, nor will I in the future. It is completely meaningless to me, thus boosting it would be a complete waste of my time.

bubbygink wrote: »

out51d3r wrote: »

PVP rank means nothing. I didn't/don't boost, nor will I in the future. It is completely meaningless to me, thus boosting it would be a complete waste of my time.

Fair enough. I can totally respect that and that 100% supports my argument - the people who are boosting can't defend their actions by saying "Who care? PvP ranks are meaningless anyway." If, like you, they truly thought PvP ranks were meaningless then, also like you, they wouldn't be wasting their time boosting. Yet, there they are spending hours and hours boosting up their rank instead of actually PvPing and playing the game. If you are spending hours forgoing actually playing the game to sit at a keep and boost your rank up then obviously you think ranks matter. In fact, ranks obviously matter to boosters even more than the average players - boosters care about alliance rank so much that they thought up the cheesiest and easiest way possible to get as high a rank as they could because getting that rank is all they care about. So don't come in here saying "well yea I boosted up 26 mil AP to hit Warlord but why should you care, the ranks don't even matter." You can't have your cake and eat it too.

My point in all this is that ranks do mean something to a lot of people, including to (and actually particularly to) boosters. There is a reason why there is currently a popular thread asking ZoS to add more ranks - ranks are the only true means of progression we have in PvP. So don't underplay boosting like it isn't a big deal. It is undermining the entire PvP progression by allowing people to simply boost to the top without even playing. In my opinion it is clearly cheating, but of course ZoS is the final arbiter on this. But at the very least it is a cheesy, underhanded way to reach the top of PvP progression and show of a high PvP rank without even having to actually PvP or participate in the Alliance War in a meaningful way.

bubbygink wrote: »

out51d3r wrote: »

PVP rank means nothing. I didn't/don't boost, nor will I in the future. It is completely meaningless to me, thus boosting it would be a complete waste of my time.

Fair enough. I can totally respect that and that 100% supports my argument - the people who are boosting can't defend their actions by saying "Who care? PvP ranks are meaningless anyway." If, like you, they truly thought PvP ranks were meaningless then, also like you, they wouldn't be wasting their time boosting. Yet, there they are spending hours and hours boosting up their rank instead of actually PvPing and playing the game. If you are spending hours forgoing actually playing the game to sit at a keep and boost your rank up then obviously you think ranks matter. In fact, ranks obviously matter to boosters even more than the average players - boosters care about alliance rank so much that they thought up the cheesiest and easiest way possible to get as high a rank as they could because getting that rank is all they care about. So don't come in here saying "well yea I boosted up 26 mil AP to hit Warlord but why should you care, the ranks don't even matter." You can't have your cake and eat it too.

My point in all this is that ranks do mean something to a lot of people, including to (and actually particularly to) boosters. There is a reason why there is currently a popular thread asking ZoS to add more ranks - ranks are the only true means of progression we have in PvP. So don't underplay boosting like it isn't a big deal. It is undermining the entire PvP progression by allowing people to simply boost to the top without even playing. In my opinion it is clearly cheating, but of course ZoS is the final arbiter on this. But at the very least it is a cheesy, underhanded way to reach the top of PvP progression and show of a high PvP rank without even having to actually PvP or participate in the Alliance War in a meaningful way.

bubbygink wrote: »

Fair enough. I can totally respect that and that 100% supports my argument - the people who are boosting can't defend their actions by saying "Who care? PvP ranks are meaningless anyway." If, like you, they truly thought PvP ranks were meaningless then, also like you, they wouldn't be wasting their time boosting. Yet, there they are spending hours and hours boosting up their rank instead of actually PvPing and playing the game.

bubbygink wrote: »

If you are spending hours forgoing actually playing the game to sit at a keep and boost your rank up then obviously you think ranks matter. In fact, ranks obviously matter to boosters even more than the average players - boosters care about alliance rank so much that they thought up the cheesiest and easiest way possible to get as high a rank as they could because getting that rank is all they care about. So don't come in here saying "well yea I boosted up 26 mil AP to hit Warlord but why should you care, the ranks don't even matter." You can't have your cake and eat it too.

bubbygink wrote: »

There is a reason why there is currently a popular thread asking ZoS to add more ranks - ranks are the only true means of progression we have in PvP. So don't underplay boosting like it isn't a big deal. It is undermining the entire PvP progression by allowing people to simply boost to the top without even playing.

bubbygink wrote: »

In my opinion it is clearly cheating, but of course ZoS is the final arbiter on this. But at the very least it is a cheesy, underhanded way to reach the top of PvP progression and show of a high PvP rank without even having to actually PvP or participate in the Alliance War in a meaningful way.

xblackroxe wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

out51d3r wrote: »

PVP rank means nothing. I didn't/don't boost, nor will I in the future. It is completely meaningless to me, thus boosting it would be a complete waste of my time.

Fair enough. I can totally respect that and that 100% supports my argument - the people who are boosting can't defend their actions by saying "Who care? PvP ranks are meaningless anyway." If, like you, they truly thought PvP ranks were meaningless then, also like you, they wouldn't be wasting their time boosting. Yet, there they are spending hours and hours boosting up their rank instead of actually PvPing and playing the game. If you are spending hours forgoing actually playing the game to sit at a keep and boost your rank up then obviously you think ranks matter. In fact, ranks obviously matter to boosters even more than the average players - boosters care about alliance rank so much that they thought up the cheesiest and easiest way possible to get as high a rank as they could because getting that rank is all they care about. So don't come in here saying "well yea I boosted up 26 mil AP to hit Warlord but why should you care, the ranks don't even matter." You can't have your cake and eat it too.

My point in all this is that ranks do mean something to a lot of people, including to (and actually particularly to) boosters. There is a reason why there is currently a popular thread asking ZoS to add more ranks - ranks are the only true means of progression we have in PvP. So don't underplay boosting like it isn't a big deal. It is undermining the entire PvP progression by allowing people to simply boost to the top without even playing. In my opinion it is clearly cheating, but of course ZoS is the final arbiter on this. But at the very least it is a cheesy, underhanded way to reach the top of PvP progression and show of a high PvP rank without even having to actually PvP or participate in the Alliance War in a meaningful way.

You know you can also just boost for AP. Idc for the rank just wanted AP for boxes and motifs.

Atlantide wrote: »

bubbygink wrote: »

Fair enough. I can totally respect that and that 100% supports my argument - the people who are boosting can't defend their actions by saying "Who care? PvP ranks are meaningless anyway." If, like you, they truly thought PvP ranks were meaningless then, also like you, they wouldn't be wasting their time boosting. Yet, there they are spending hours and hours boosting up their rank instead of actually PvPing and playing the game.

This is an interesting argument but I wouldn’t generalize so much about players' behaviour. You are portraying a structured model which I can hardly imagine fitting with everyone.

bubbygink wrote: »

If you are spending hours forgoing actually playing the game to sit at a keep and boost your rank up then obviously you think ranks matter. In fact, ranks obviously matter to boosters even more than the average players - boosters care about alliance rank so much that they thought up the cheesiest and easiest way possible to get as high a rank as they could because getting that rank is all they care about. So don't come in here saying "well yea I boosted up 26 mil AP to hit Warlord but why should you care, the ranks don't even matter." You can't have your cake and eat it too.

But ranks matter for who? For someone’s personal and subjective sentiment over the game or for the general objective recognition? These are different perspectives.
One thing is what is subjectively and personally important to me. Totally different thing is what is objectively important to the smart eyes of a community. The perspectives can obviously match and influence each other but they remain different and separated.
As already stated before, I honestly want to believe that a quite mature community of players like this one will considerately value and recognize a player for his concrete game skills and activities, not for his badges. Especially after this event.

bubbygink wrote: »

There is a reason why there is currently a popular thread asking ZoS to add more ranks - ranks are the only true means of progression we have in PvP. So don't underplay boosting like it isn't a big deal. It is undermining the entire PvP progression by allowing people to simply boost to the top without even playing.

I thought the PvP progression was about improving every day in playing better on the battlefields. Learning my own class, then starting to learn the enemy’s one and how to counter-react it, bettering the management of my skills to be every day more efficient, developing my alliance and personal reputation on the battlegrounds, etc. Am I really so naïve ?

bubbygink wrote: »

In my opinion it is clearly cheating, but of course ZoS is the final arbiter on this. But at the very least it is a cheesy, underhanded way to reach the top of PvP progression and show of a high PvP rank without even having to actually PvP or participate in the Alliance War in a meaningful way.

The concept of cheating can be interpreted very differently, of course. I just opened the Oxford’s Dictionary I got from high school now. Cheating: “A person who behaves dishonestly in order to gain an advantage”. I straight cannot see where was the concrete advantage gained and under which perspective.

Atlantide wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

I think @bubbygink 's response is perfectly valid.

No, I don't assume someone who has a high PvP rank is a great PvPer. But I don't have all of you memorized and the vast majority of people in the community, rank and achievement titles are the only indicators I have of what it is that they accomplished in ESO. Just because some people place little value in titles and ranks does not mean they are meaningless and their integrity should not be preserved, or at least an effort should be made into doing so. I was *very* proud when I got my Boethia's Scythe title; had their been a CE that made it meaningless, I would have been very upset.

You don't think people getting Combat Frenzy 2 in a few hours or being millions of AP ahead of their would-be emperor opponents not behaving dishonestly to gain an advantage? And even beyond that, ESO's titles are supposed to be earned; while these cheaters may not be strictly attaining a competitive advantage, they are still circumventing the intended means of gaining said accomplishment and that is most certainly cheating

Every online game is fluid, dynamic. Titles are not an institution solemnly written in some rigid Constitution. Of course they are not meaningless (!) but they have an in-game meaning which is defined by the time and by plentiful other circumstances.

When I spend my time and efforts to achieve them, and I assure you it happens very often in my life because I enjoy that, I certainly can’t expect from them to maintain eternally the same significance they had when they were originally acquired. They are not a time-proof Absolut.

The fact that, at some point, they became, let’s say, “more popular” for one reason or another, does maybe mean that they are less important to me? Certainly not. This a normal feature of every live, breathing game and it surely can’t scratch the satisfaction which came with my original acquisition.

When, moving from a subjective perspective, you decide to give them a discerning role of skills’ estimator you cannot not consider how much relative and fluid these indicators (to use your own term) are and will always be. This is also why, in my previous posts, I proposed a greater attention to the substance of the gameplay.

Even though I found very interesting your previous points, “their integrity should be preserved” sounded a bit excessive (to me) in this contest. It reminded me the feudalistic speeches which characterized for centuries the debates in my country on more important threads. I just don’t think the concept of integrity fits perfectly these kinds of relaxing subjects.

For what concerns the discussions about cheating or not cheating, you can easily recognize how hard is to qualify these activities. I honestly don’t see any substantial advantage. Yes, someone could have unlocked Combat Frenzy before than someone else.. Someone other could have claimed his emperorship (here it is another title) in an cheesy way. But which is the point? It feels like we are looking for a formal casus, no matters how really relevant it is in the gameplay, just for the pleasure to spare around some sanctions here and there.

I believe that, instead of keeping this debate as a never-ending blame of our fellow players’ behaviours (honest or dis-honest they may appear to us), would be much more constructive, on the long term, addressing and proposing to the developers our ideas to prevent these kinds of things to happen again in the future.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hi everyone,

We just completed a mass action on a few hundred accounts that were involved in regular coordinated cross-alliance AP farming. Specifically, swapping resources and keeps to farm high amounts of AP in a short period of time. Not only does this behavior harm our PvP gameplay and community, but it is also a Terms of Service violation. Accounts found taking part in cross-alliance AP farming may be subject to disciplinary actions.

Here’s the break-down of the accounts we took action on and where they were:

• PC/Mac – Europe: 170 accounts
• PlayStation 4 – Europe: 42 accounts
• PlayStation 4 – North America: 39 accounts
• Xbox One – Europe: 50 accounts
• Xbox One – North America: 61 accounts

Those involved have received a three-day suspension at minimum and removal of all AP from their accounts. If you were involved, you have received an email with an official warning.

Thank you to everyone who reported this exploit. Please help us keep ESO’s PvP content fun, competitive, and fair for all.