Ranks are the ruin of zombies

[BriggzyJ97]

Hello all. I am here to have a rant.

Lets begin 4 years ago in World at war. I was a young boy only about 11 and playing zombies happily , not perticularly good at it but enjoying it for what it was. A fun game mode. I had many people of whom frequently added me as a friend and we played often. I slowly got better as did they and we had fun getting to the high rounds because we helped each other out and there was a real sense of brotherhood. Unfortunately when MW2 came along we played zombies less and less and we all ended up deleting each other.

Now black ops 1 came along and I realised that people were now less friendly and more concerned about getting to a higher round. Box hoggers started to appear and by Moon it was hard to find anyone that had any concept of teamwork and helpfulness. But I could handle this as I normally did Private matches instead of online games. Then MW3 came along causing a natural break in zombies. During this time my friends who I played private match zombies started doing other things.

Then Black ops 2 came along. First of all no-one knew how the ranks worked, but just knew that they were there. Then they realised it was a kill to down system. Then the ragequitters came. They knew that if they lost perks then they were likely to die again so they quit , due to downs stopping them from getting their precious shotgun rank. Ranks have also segregated the community, making it so that knives refused to play with skulls , skulls refused to play with bones and shotguns refused to play with anyone. This makes it almost impossible to find a game. I have been playing zombies all afternoon and I must have gone through 250 different lobbies just to play about 20 games. And when I do find a game they ragequit 85% of the time, therefore causing the game to be null and void.

The ranks themselves are meaningless because I, personally think that a good zombies player isn't someone who can stay up and running , but someone who knows how to revive and be courteous towards others.

Gone are the days were I could sit down, put my mic on and slay some zombies with some good, friendly, honest, people with good team working skills. Nowadays I barely put on my mic, because of some little kid shouting new swears he learnt from school that day, just because I had "stole" the box from him.

Right, rant over continue as you were. Any debating is welcome and encouraged .

[way2g00d]

Ranks are not meaningless. It shows your skill up to some extent.

A person with highest rank shows he is a good/decent player if tested in combat against zombies.

However someone with a knife or skull cannot be verified as bad. It's just the kind of games you play and how responsible you are with downs and picking people up.

If you just want to have fun with zombies don't worry too much about rank. Lots of people already know having the highest rank does not mean you are God and having a mediocre rank does not mean you stink.

My 2 cents.

[mattywagon]

I am a knufe guy and I know pretty much without a doubt I will never be a shotgun guy due to all the downs I accumalted playing tranzit early on. I have played with shotgun guys that I htought were trash and didnt desrve them I also have guys that are non knife guys on my friends list that embarass me sometimes. What i do is add randoms to my friends list after playing with them if they are good and team players and can actually hold a conversation while playing. So most times I have 15+ friends on all the time now and dont have to focus on randoms as much.

[BriggzyJ97]

Ranks are not meaningless. It shows your skill up to some extent.

A person with highest rank shows he is a good/decent player if tested in combat against zombies.

However someone with a knife or skull cannot be verified as bad. It's just the kind of games you play and how responsible you are with downs and picking people up.

If you just want to have fun with zombies don't worry too much about rank. Lots of people already know having the highest rank does not mean you are God and having a mediocre rank does not mean you stink.

My 2 cents.

I agree that ranks are reasonable up to a state. But I was saying how that because about 80% are so worried and preoccupied by them that it becomes almost impossible to find a good game quickly, without someone of a higher level leaving or someone ragequit ting because they went down.

Thanks for the reply though ;)

[BriggzyJ97]

I am a knufe guy and I know pretty much without a doubt I will never be a shotgun guy due to all the downs I accumalted playing tranzit early on. I have played with shotgun guys that I htought were trash and didnt desrve them I also have guys that are non knife guys on my friends list that embarass me sometimes. What i do is add randoms to my friends list after playing with them if they are good and team players and can actually hold a conversation while playing. So most times I have 15+ friends on all the time now and dont have to focus on randoms as much.

Yeah, I was thinking of doing this as well.:)

[way2g00d]

Ranks are not meaningless. It shows your skill up to some extent.

A person with highest rank shows he is a good/decent player if tested in combat against zombies.

However someone with a knife or skull cannot be verified as bad. It's just the kind of games you play and how responsible you are with downs and picking people up.

If you just want to have fun with zombies don't worry too much about rank. Lots of people already know having the highest rank does not mean you are God and having a mediocre rank does not mean you stink.

My 2 cents.

I agree that ranks are reasonable up to a state. But I was saying how that because about 80% are so worried and preoccupied by them that it becomes almost impossible to find a good game quickly, without someone of a higher level leaving or someone ragequit ting because they went down.

Thanks for the reply though

I agree match making is ridiculous sometimes and people hardly stay unless they see others with similar rank or higher. Not just that once in the game, they go down a few times and know that they wont be revived, they simply leave. I have seen this mostly in case of people with higher ranks, they do that most of the time which pisses me off. Randoms are unpredictable period. We can't tell much about them anyways but I hear you the rank factor even makes it worse, it's almost like you need to penalize them for leaving the game, like take away 50xP points that would hurt their rank. Now that's clever mr Jimmy.

[BriggzyJ97]

Indeed, perhaps if they have left 5 times in their last 10 games them a minus xp penalty

Jimmy if you're reading this *shakes fist at sky*

[MysteryMachineX]

Ranks are not meaningless. It shows your skill up to some extent.

A person with highest rank shows he is a good/decent player if tested in combat against zombies.

However someone with a knife or skull cannot be verified as bad. It's just the kind of games you play and how responsible you are with downs and picking people up.

If you just want to have fun with zombies don't worry too much about rank. Lots of people already know having the highest rank does not mean you are God and having a mediocre rank does not mean you stink.

My 2 cents.

I don't know if you intended that or not, but that sounded very condescending. It sounds like you were saying that people with a lower rank are only able to play for fun, not for skill.

[way2g00d]

We never know, that might already be in the system ;)

[way2g00d]

Ranks are not meaningless. It shows your skill up to some extent.

A person with highest rank shows he is a good/decent player if tested in combat against zombies.

However someone with a knife or skull cannot be verified as bad. It's just the kind of games you play and how responsible you are with downs and picking people up.

If you just want to have fun with zombies don't worry too much about rank. Lots of people already know having the highest rank does not mean you are God and having a mediocre rank does not mean you stink.

My 2 cents.

I don't know if you intended that or not, but that sounded very condescending. It sounds like you were saying that people with a lower rank are only able to play for fun, not for skill.

No, absolutely not. I was only talking about how Ranks does carry some sense.

I know most people when they play for few days easily rank up to skull. I have no intention of speaking ill for lower ranks. I myself have skull on xbox which I consider mediocre, low rank (single or two bones) to me just means starter nothing much.

[Dahniska]

I'm going to defend the opposite perspective.

I feel like ranks and stats is a good idea, it just wasn't implemented perfectly. The idea of ranking people based off of their stats is a nice thing and it gives you something to play for other than for kicks and giggles. I'd say it was a favor to the better players of Zombies, just like persistent Jug is a favor to the lower level players.

Way2g00 is right as well. Having shotguns doesn't mean you're KingJaq by any means but it does show that (in most cases) you aren't bad. However shotguns are becoming less and less valuable as a measure of skill due to all the glitchers out there. In the end of the day what really matters (imo) is how far you can go, not your K-D. But it does give you a goal to go for with a visible reward.

One of the main flaws with the ranking system is Turned. In the end play as you like - for.fun, for stats, whatever.I recommend you play with friends and not randoms though. And if people back out, your round counts, now. Treyarch fixed that. I just wish they'd make it so custom games didn't affe/ct stats.

[BriggzyJ97]

I agree that the concept of ranks is a good one, but too many people take it too seriously. Rather than people thinking that its a small add-on to zombies (which it is) , they believe the rank to be the major part of zombies. Like it is in multiplayer. I suppose my rant was more towards some people that play zombies, and the decline of team working skills, which rather reflects humanity as a whole, then the premise of ranks

And yeah turned was a bit annoying with the downs counting. That's 350 downs I will never get back. My friend while trying to do the trophies gained an extra 750 downs. Ouch

[NinjaNick]

Meh, i'll play with anyone. I down a lot because me and my friends mess around a lot but generally we work together even if the others are first-time players or hardened veterans.

[TheBSZombie]

To be honest I would like it to go back to how it was in black ops 1. Where you could go into a lobby and see everyone's highest round. You could see their downs and kills and stuff. This tells me that they stay (since they got a high round) and that they are skilled. If they have a lot of downs they were probably less skilled and were carried. And if they had very few kills they probably were carried or sat in a glitch the whole time. I understand if someone is in the high 50s coop and have less kills because they don't have the wonder weapon but they should still be in the 1.5+k range.

But since we don't have that, I like to base who I play with on their rank. I have played with a crossbone before that clutched a high round and i have played with a shotgun that left on round 2 because of multiple kills so I know its not the best strategy. But I still base who I play with purely on their mic "skills" (just a general term to sum it all up) and their rank. I will spend 20 mins looking for some people to play with. Why do I do this even though I know it isn't foolproof? Because there is a better % that they are better. The rank may not be perfect but its close. People play poker even though its not foolproof but they have their %s set and know when to bet and when not to.

So that is why I like the rank. When I went back to bo1 zombies and went down multiple times it felt a lot less stressful then when I go down now. When I go down now Im like do I have time to get another 250 kills before the game is over? Of course I don't leave if the answer is no but I do get pissed off at times.

[BriggzyJ97]

To be honest I would like it to go back to how it was in black ops 1. Where you could go into a lobby and see everyone's highest round. You could see their downs and kills and stuff. This tells me that they stay (since they got a high round) and that they are skilled. If they have a lot of downs they were probably less skilled and were carried. And if they had very few kills they probably were carried or sat in a glitch the whole time. I understand if someone is in the high 50s coop and have less kills because they don't have the wonder weapon but they should still be in the 1.5+k range.

But since we don't have that, I like to base who I play with on their rank. I have played with a crossbone before that clutched a high round and i have played with a shotgun that left on round 2 because of multiple kills so I know its not the best strategy. But I still base who I play with purely on their mic "skills" (just a general term to sum it all up) and their rank. I will spend 20 mins looking for some people to play with. Why do I do this even though I know it isn't foolproof? Because there is a better % that they are better. The rank may not be perfect but its close. People play poker even though its not foolproof but they have their %s set and know when to bet and when not to.

So that is why I like the rank. When I went back to bo1 zombies and went down multiple times it felt a lot less stressful then when I go down now. When I go down now Im like do I have time to get another 250 kills before the game is over? Of course I don't leave if the answer is no but I do get pissed off at times.

I agree the bo1 leaderboards were the best so far. I'm not entirely sure why they had to change that system at all but oh well. And that's the point, zombies shouldn't be stressful, if anything it should be a stress reliever, but ranks has changed that, as most people are so stressed about the ranks they have forgotten about the true joy of the mode. Not I wouldn't have mind this but it has caused problems for those that want to enjoy the game.

[bagel_]

As stated before, I think rank is a positive thing in zombies. Sure, you have those kids with shotguns, rage quitting and such. But who says you have to play with them? My advice is only play with people with mics. Talk to them before you ready up. "What's your highest round? How'd you get your rank? Honestly, will you back out?" If you're in a game with someone friendly, you're good to go.

Also, I think that the ranking system was a strategically good move by 3arc. It encourages you to keep playing and get a higher rank. The people out the rage quitting are the ones the trick is working best on. ;)

[TheBSZombie]

New tweet from zilenski shows that turned and grief no longer effect your rank anymore.

This shows that game modes like grief and turned don't count towards your "kd/rank" This means i can have fun lol. Im going to take this tweet with a grain of salt though and play very cautiously while playing turned until I see if its true.

[Tattoo247]

It's all cosmetic to me, not to take away from legit players, but I've yet to meet a shotgun rank that didn't want me to join in glitches. Not that I play randoms anymore but those I usually would back out just because I didn't want to hear the glitching talk.

Im just a skull mostly because I can't get my team past 30 on die rise, also when the "perma perks" were being discovered, I have an insane amount of downs and game overs from jug and quickrevive.

I think what makes a good zombie player defines what they do in the first 5 rounds, which should be to communicate, listen but don't be afraid to offer your opinion....also not making a tramplesteam every round or two that's the worrrrrse lol

[MysteryMachineX]

New tweet from zilenski shows that turned and grief no longer effect your rank anymore.

This shows that game modes like grief and turned don't count towards your "kd/rank" This means i can have fun lol. Im going to take this tweet with a grain of salt though and play very cautiously while playing turned until I see if its true.

So this might explain why there were variations in what people reported as being the correct kill-down ratio. Many of the kills and downs didn't count. Huh. Thank you, Zombie.

@way: Btw, way, even so on what you said, I don't think that is correct. Some players simply sacrifice themselves for the team too much to get a higher rank. I know. Most of my downs come from me risking my life for someone else. And you know what, I am PROUD of those downs. Ranked #1 for downs in my group of friends. But they also all know me to be a good player. On the other hand, I've played with people that had shotguns that were so concerned about their personal stats that they led the team as a whole to complete failure.

I think having an arbitrary ranking system based on kills and downs alone is incredibly flawed. This isn't Multiplayer. "KD" has no place here.

[TheBSZombie]

oh and i want to give credit to everythingpiff for showing me that and actually explaining the riddle of the tweet.

[BriggzyJ97]

New tweet from zilenski shows that turned and grief no longer effect your rank anymore.

This shows that game modes like grief and turned don't count towards your "kd/rank" This means i can have fun lol. Im going to take this tweet with a grain of salt though and play very cautiously while playing turned until I see if its true.

Oh then that's good the, but does that come in affect as of now or does it cancel all versus downs and kills I've collected so far. We may never know. :?

[way2g00d]

@MMX I never said don't revive friends. Instead most of my downs in my last few games on ps3 while I had shotguns where from reviving my teammates and you know what surprisingly I did not lose my shotguns. There must be something in the code for downs that occur during a scene where your teammates are down, and if you successfully revive them I strongly believe it adds up. If you check my "Official Ranking discussion" thread I strongly encouraged team play (and clutching the round if needed) even if it causes us downs, which means reviving/ going down for your team should add to our ranking xp or whatever the criteria maybe. Here is a link to that thread's post.

viewtopic.php?f=100&t=26010&hilit=ranking&start=360#p288859

On the other hand I was talking about careless and repeated downs that can hurt our rank.

[MysteryMachineX]

I wasn't saying you, way. I didn't even know you had shotguns. It is just that generally people with shotguns are arrogant and judgmental. You can encourage team-play all you want, but the setup of the ranking system encourages arrogance. Only human willpower can override, a commodity that is not cheap these days. I like playing Grief against people with shotguns so I can show them how little their ranks matter.

[BriggzyJ97]

I wasn't saying you, way. I didn't even know you had shotguns. It is just that generally people with shotguns are arrogant and judgmental. You can encourage team-play all you want, but the setup of the ranking system encourages arrogance. Only human willpower can override, a commodity that is not cheap these days. I like playing Grief against people with shotguns so I can show them how little their ranks matter.

I have to agree with this the best people normally are the most arrogant. Of course there are exceptions like way and many others but.... In my school there are three P.E (physical education or sport) groups with group 1 being the "best" at sport and set 3 being the "worst". There is a direct link to how sporty they are and how smart and arrogant they are. Again there are exceptions but most of the time the more sporty the more arrogant and idiotic.

Earlier I was playing with 3 shotguns ( whom I only just about managed to convince to play with me, just a lowly blue eyed skull), and I utterly trounced all of them.They all had at least 5 downs by the end of it whereas i only had 2, with 15 revives as well. One even asked if he could add me. I replied no because me a skull wouldn't want to play with you shotgunners. That shut him right up.

[MysteryMachineX]

I disagree. Those people are arrogant but they are anything BUT the best player. They aren't even close. They're adequate. No better than regular skulls. The only thing they do is save themselves and not revive, generally speaking.