How feasible is it to achieve Rank 13 with this much play time?

[Afrospinach]

My old GM had to account share back in those days to reach the higher ranks. If I remember right wasn't the system designed that you had to 'feed' one person to get those high ranks and people just rotated the feed? Gah, it seems like a lifetime ago.

Yeah, more importantly it was a head to head system. 5 hours is enough if no one wants to put more time in. HW gear was some of the most desirable outside of naxx iirc so prepare yourself.

[Samski]

well i think your talking about a different patch in BC but Blizzard did change the honor system in WoW a few times during Vanilla

I just double checked, it was Patch 2.0.1 that introduced the system I was talking about but it was rolled out to the live servers about two month before BC was actually released.

[Eurhetemec]

It was never changed and there was always a theoretically unlimited amount of players at any rank. There's an artificial soft cap in the amount of people at a given rank which depends on the amount of players who are PvPing and gaining standing and how big the brackets are and whether or not people are fighting against their rank decay and so on and so forth.

The bottom line though is that it's a myth that there was ever a hard cap on how many can be a certain rank, and that depending on pvping population of your server you could potentially have 10+ people maintaining Rank 14 if they really wanted to.

This isn't true and it's not hard to find out that it's wrong, even if you've forgotten:

http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Honor_system_(pre-2.0)

The big patch, if you scroll down, was 1.8 - that massively increased the number of people that could be rank 6-14, though 14 remained a tiny number.

It wasn't a "hard cap", but it was NOT a true "soft cap" and there could NOT be a "theoretically unlimited number" of people at each rank - it was a grade-style curve, with limited percentages of people at each rank, and R14 was at or below 0.1% on that curve (R11 was something like 1.4%). So to have 1 R14, you need 1000 players with some kind of rank. To have 10, you needed 10000, which you almost certainly didn't have. I think it's extremely unlikely that your server ever had 10 R14s, even post-1.8.

Prior to patch 1.8, you pretty much had to account share to reach R13, let alone 14. Post 1.8, you could, if you had a clear run and little/no competition, hit R14 in under a month of 12+ hour-a-day play. Which sounds like a lot because it is, but it's still a lot less than pre 1.8. Basically you'd need to be off sick, unemployed, or have an incredible amount of holiday and a desire to spend it all grinding BGs, to hit R14.

There's no way it is going to happen for someone who can only grind part of the week.

[Crimsonak]

This isn't true and it's not hard to find out that it's wrong, even if you've forgotten:

http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Honor_system_(pre-2.0)

The big patch, if you scroll down, was 1.8 - that massively increased the number of people that could be rank 6-14, though 14 remained a tiny number.

It wasn't a "hard cap", but it was NOT a true "soft cap" and there could NOT be a "theoretically unlimited number" of people at each rank - it was a grade-style curve, with limited percentages of people at each rank, and R14 was at or below 0.1% on that curve (R11 was something like 1.4%). So to have 1 R14, you need 1000 players with some kind of rank. To have 10, you needed 10000, which you almost certainly didn't have. I think it's extremely unlikely that your server ever had 10 R14s, even post-1.8.

Prior to patch 1.8, you pretty much had to account share to reach R13, let alone 14. Post 1.8, you could, if you had a clear run and little/no competition, hit R14 in under a month of 12+ hour-a-day play. Which sounds like a lot because it is, but it's still a lot less than pre 1.8. Basically you'd need to be off sick, unemployed, or have an incredible amount of holiday and a desire to spend it all grinding BGs, to hit R14.

There's no way it is going to happen for someone who can only grind part of the week.

I don't care how much time you had to put in to get R13 or R14, that is irrelevant to how many could have the rank in theory.

I also don't care about the change making it easier to rank, that does not change what my claim was. Which is there has never been any change to how many people can be a certain rank. There is only an artificial soft cap, and there has NEVER been a hard cap of any kind. I at no point even suggested that the bracket sizes never changed, so what I said is in fact true not false as you claim.

If you think there was a percentage based cap of people who could have a certain rank. Prove it. Show me the data that prevents people from gaining RP if there are too many other people at that rank, because that's what it would take. If you can't show me that, and I suspect you can't. Then the only actual limit is how many people can fit into a bracket in order to either level their decay or beat it. Which is a soft cap based off how many people are playing, and is theoretically limitless in that a theoretically limitless amount of people could play.

Edit: (From your own link)
"While there are a finite amount of players who can be in the top ranks, the actual number will depend on how many other characters on the server are involved in PvP. The more players competing, the more players will be able to reach the top ranks."

Your own information is saying exactly what I have been saying. There is not, and never has been a hard cap of amount of players who can be a given rank. There is a theoretically limitless amount in that you can theoretically plug any number you want into said system. Also, Even if you know the number of people in the system the number still isn't locked in place, because rank decay happens 20% at a time, so if someone stops playing as much at 90% R13, and hits one of the lower brackets and lets say gains 10,000RP instead of their usual 13,000RP. They will only decay 1900RP which means they would stay R13 for 3 weeks. People don't suddenly become unable to hit that rank because of population while someone else is decaying.

[Storfan]

It has been a very long time since i achieved rank 12, but here's what i remember. I was part of the "Marshall and above crew" that would basically farm bgs all the time. This grind is a very long grind that can't be done over a week or even a month. I consistently hovered around rank 8-9 before i decided to push to the purple gear rank. A few things were in place at least on my server at the time. From what i remember, the people pushing the top ranks were more or less in communication with one another, and there was essentially "turns" to who would get GM / HW in a week. ( i believe only 1 person could achieve that rank per week if i am correct?). There was also somewhat of a honor cap put in place by this group of people and basically the GM person would get that much honor and be the top person for that week. I believe i averaged something like 8-10 hours a day of pvp to get rank 12 for at least 2-3 weeks from rank 11. If i wanted to push rank 14 i believe those people averaged something like 12-16 hours a day if not more. Account sharing was very common and typical, maximizing double honor weekends was a must.
It is one of the more brutal grinds back in vanilla. I got rank 12 and my "3 purps" and called it a day. It would have taken my soul to get rank 14. I hope blizzard changes it, and i believe they will and should. It was not uncommon for a rank 14 person to be considered a scrub on the server since there was no correlation of skill with that rank. However, they were the best geared on server for a very long time and you could spot a rank 14 person from a mile away.

Shadowsong-EU had three people hit HWL on the same week, so you're incorrect. The brackets don't work the way you think they do and it was absolutely possible to have multiple R14s in the same week. Maximum decay possible in one week is 11999.8. Meaning anyone getting into the bracket awarding between 12999-12000 will gain rank at r13.

To be extra clear here 1999.8 is literally the worst case scenario. So even on a low pop/low participation server it is still possible to hit R14 no matter what, just incredibly shitty and slow if your pop is too low.

Edit: Just to supply some evidence we had three rank 14s hit the same week;

http://www.shadowsongeurope.com/foru...p/t-12658.html
http://www.shadowsongeurope.com/foru...p/t-12659.html
http://www.shadowsongeurope.com/foru...p/t-12660.html

You will see the relevant dates on each thread announcing the achievement.

From what I remember there only hardcaps was this:

- Only 1% of the total PvPing population of any given week could attain R13.
- Only 0.1% (Yes, that's a Zero and a period) of the total PvPing population of any given week could attain R14

Meaning, standings and brackers aside, a high population server could indeed have several GM/HWLs per week.

I may ofcourse be wrong. I never pvped past r10/r11 in vanilla myself.

[Crimsonak]

From what I remember there only hardcaps was this:

- Only 1% of the total PvPing population of any given week could attain R13.
- Only 0.1% (Yes, that's a Zero and a period) of the total PvPing population of any given week could attain R14

Meaning, standings and brackers aside, a high population server could indeed have several GM/HWLs per week.

I may ofcourse be wrong. I never pvped past r10/r11 in vanilla myself.

Why do you think that besides anecdotes?

[Storfan]

Why do you think that besides anecdotes?

Googled now and found:
http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Honor_system_(pre-2.0)
http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Honor_...-2.0_formulas)

PvP Rank14 14 60000 (0.1%) Grand Marshal High Warlord
Epic-quality weapon
Epic-quality shield
Only top .1% of players can have this rank

[Eurhetemec]

Your own information is saying exactly what I have been saying. There is not, and never has been a hard cap of amount of players who can be a given rank. There is a theoretically limitless amount in that you can theoretically plug any number you want into said system. Also, Even if you know the number of people in the system the number still isn't locked in place, because rank decay happens 20% at a time, so if someone stops playing as much at 90% R13, and hits one of the lower brackets and lets say gains 10,000RP instead of their usual 13,000RP. They will only decay 1900RP which means they would stay R13 for 3 weeks. People don't suddenly become unable to hit that rank because of population while someone else is decaying.

There is a cap because of the curve. Those are not absolute numbers. READ THE ARTICLE DON'T SKIM IT. For god's sake.

Why do you think that besides anecdotes?

IT IS IN THE BLOODY ARTICLE.

0.1% of the population can be R14.

Your whole "theoretically" nonsense just silly. Servers do not have infinite PvP populations. The max number of R14 is a factor of the population. That is your cap. 10k ranked PvP pop = 10 R14s max.

3 R14s the same week is entirely possible if your PvPing population was high enough? 10 existing at once? Unlikely, I'd say, you'd need to provide evidence of that, especially as 95% of people who hit R14 immediately bought all the gear and so on, then quit PvPing in any serious way forever.

[Crimsonak]

There is a cap because of the curve. Those are not absolute numbers. READ THE ARTICLE DON'T SKIM IT. For god's sake.

So it's a soft cap. Thanks for agreeing with me.

A for the top 0.1% you're right I didn't see that part in the article, it only mentions it on two ranks though which means claiming there are any for any other rank doesn't apply. That's also provided that article is correct too, there's no citation for that part after all. It's just randomly in there and not specified properly in any notes I've ever seen.

Edit: Also, the article is talking about the maximum that can *maintain* that rank, not *attain* the rank at any one point. So it still doesn't match what you're saying. Nor could it. For it to match what you are saying under certain circumstances players would gain enough RP to rank but then just not rank.

[Eurhetemec]

So it's a soft cap. Thanks for agreeing with me.

A for the top 0.1% you're right I didn't see that part in the article, it only mentions it on two ranks though which means claiming there are any for any other rank doesn't apply. That's also provided that article is correct too, there's no citation for that part after all. It's just randomly in there and not specified properly in any notes I've ever seen.

Edit: Also, the article is talking about the maximum that can *maintain* that rank, not *attain* the rank at any one point. So it still doesn't match what you're saying. Nor could it. For it to match what you are saying under certain circumstances players would gain enough RP to rank but then just not rank.

You literally have no idea what you're talking about at this point, Crimson. You're just rambling. This is how the system worked, and it's explained in the text as well.

11 and 14 are the only ones we have hard figures for because they were mentioned by Blizzard long ago. 12 and 13 thus have limits somewhere between 1.4% and 0.1%. As the article discusses, lower ranks have limits too. 0.1% is not a "soft cap" as I would use the term, because it's a simple factor of PvP population. If there are 10000 people with PvP ranks, there can be, at most, 10 Rank 14 players in existence. That's a hard cap that's a factor of another number - but because it varies I'd call it neither hard nor soft.

You just don't understand how the system works and are upset because you made claims which were false, and now you're trying to lie and disparage the article. It's just sad at this point.

[Mister K]

-necro- how did i even get here?