Guild Wars 2

Fights. I wish they would take PPT out of WvW.

PPT: Literally zero reward outside of seasons aside from a server-wide ego boost for 12 hours. Even in seasons, a green and some blues, a rare if you’re lucky.

Bags: Negligible income compared to PvE/dungeon droning.

All that’s left are the fights.

Bags are a little bit overrated.
You get way better reward in spvp – Gold / Glory

if you play for bags.. you are just wasting your time there ….

if you play for fight …. This one is tricky … you will see most of people running away, stealth escape, outnumber you ….. which spvp may be more enjoyable.

Xenesis.6389:

Rall wants to think they’re special and they let people play how they want, at the same time they only play to fight and think that’s how they win. The reality is every server lets their guilds play however they want, but they tend to have a healthy balance of both types of players. The Rall elitist keep campaigning for the fights, that will drive away their ppt players and eventually their pugs from wvw or even the server, hell even some of their for the fights guilds already jumped ship.

Thumb up on this quote. This is one of the main reason why I left SoR. I love scouting because I want to bring a whole different level of scouting to this game and how scouting can change the course of war. But what is the point of scouting if my server don’t even play for PPT. I don’t get bags from these scouting, and I don’t get paid for scouting. What I want to see is the outcome at the end after my 4 to 6 hours hard work.

I asked the “community leaders of sor” this question at somewhere around july last year. “What is the point of scouting if the server don’t care about PPT?” The reply I get is, “if that is the case, then ignore PPT. Just do what you want.”. I was scratching my head because they did not understand my view.

My point of view regarding bags or PPT is the same as most of the posts above. It should have a healthy balance between fights and PPT. That is to keep both of those who love fights and those who love the success of their actions happy. And if you really want bags, go karma train. I got full inventory every 20 to 30 mins, it is much more rewarding.

I play for the sake of fun. PPT is all about zerging and coverage. I dont bother with coverage because I have also have RL. And I dont bother with zerging because its entirely stupid spamming 1111111111111111111 all over again.

I play for the bags, roaming around looking for fair fights. I dont run havoc teams because most of the time you just 5vs1 everyone down. Sure, you die less but you also have less interesting fights.

Fighting for PPT only works if you know your server can field 24/7 coverage or at least coverage during all times your enemy server can field people. If your server can’t do this you will not win and you will get frustrated and either transfer, quit, or play for fights.

Sunt.6835:

Bags are a little bit overrated.
You get way better reward in spvp – Gold / Glory

if you play for bags.. you are just wasting your time there ….

if you play for fight …. This one is tricky … you will see most of people running away, stealth escape, outnumber you ….. which spvp may be more enjoyable.

-Very true. Equal number forces will run/wp all of the time. WvW has made it so it’s more important to run away and take some undefended objective than it is to fight other people. The issue with spvp is that it’s about capturing points. There is no true PvP in GW2. Everything is associated with taking and holding points, when the focus should be figthing eachother.

I’m pretty sure 90% of the people who seriously play for PPT are relatively new to WvW. I used to be a dedicated PPT player during the first 3-4 months of the game, but eventually it just grinds you down. Once you’ve played a dozen matchups against servers both much stronger and much weaker than your own, you come to realize that it’s almost entirely about coverage and that smart play and strategy can be completely trumped by a 5am karma train.

Playing “for bags” is mis-leading too, because playing WvW for rewards is a waste of time. You’ll get 10x more gold for your time in PvE. Generally when people say bags, they mean fights.

People like to polarize these things, to make it “us” against “them”, “ppt” against “fights”. But, tbh, most people will do both if they can. I’ve spent the last year with guilds who prioritise open-field fights, which means we don’t disengage from a fun fight if swords appear on a friendly structure. But that doesn’t mean we don’t defend stuff, and it doesn’t mean we don’t take objectives either. Often the only way to get a decent fight is to bang on a reinforced door.

“Fights” guilds take a lot of flak from pugs for “not helping the server”, when the reality is they’re better at getting ppt than anyone else on the map. So many times we’ve had crap thrown at us for staying at a fun spawn-tower fight rather than coming to defend a wooden keep, but the people complaining conveniently forget that an hour ago that keep was fully-upgraded in enemy hands, and the only reason you now have it at all is because a guild group took it for you.
They also conveniently forget all those times they would undoubtedly have lost a T3 keep if it hadn’t been for a fighting-guild coming to the rescue.

I would actually quite like to take part in a challenging “ppt war”, my favourite games are all RTS, but the fact is that WvW is not a strategy game. It’s a coverage game.

I play for both PPT and Bags. They go hand in hand.

Ragnar.4257:

I’m pretty sure 90% of the people who seriously play for PPT are relatively new to WvW. I used to be a dedicated PPT player during the first 3-4 months of the game, but eventually it just grinds you down. Once you’ve played a dozen matchups against servers both much stronger and much weaker than your own, you come to realize that it’s almost entirely about coverage and that smart play and strategy can be completely trumped by a 5am karma train.

Playing “for bags” is mis-leading too, because playing WvW for rewards is a waste of time. You’ll get 10x more gold for your time in PvE. Generally when people say bags, they mean fights.

People like to polarize these things, to make it “us” against “them”, “ppt” against “fights”. But, tbh, most people will do both if they can. I’ve spent the last year with guilds who prioritise open-field fights, which means we don’t disengage from a fun fight if swords appear on a friendly structure. But that doesn’t mean we don’t defend stuff, and it doesn’t mean we don’t take objectives either. Often the only way to get a decent fight is to bang on a reinforced door.

“Fights” guilds take a lot of flak from pugs for “not helping the server”, when the reality is they’re better at getting ppt than anyone else on the map. So many times we’ve had crap thrown at us for staying at a fun spawn-tower fight rather than coming to defend a wooden keep, but the people complaining conveniently forget that an hour ago that keep was fully-upgraded in enemy hands, and the only reason you now have it at all is because a guild group took it for you.
They also conveniently forget all those times they would undoubtedly have lost a T3 keep if it hadn’t been for a fighting-guild coming to the rescue.

I would actually quite like to take part in a challenging “ppt war”, my favourite games are all RTS, but the fact is that WvW is not a strategy game. It’s a coverage game.

Well said.

LetoII.3782:

The percentage of posters in this thread from BlackGate is lol
“OOooooOoHHh PPT discuss!!!!!!

^^^ ahahahahahahahaha truth

Stackgate gotta problem as they lust over a “thing” that no one else gives a kitten about anymore. Everyone needs to understand that the “I play W3 for fights” is the mentality that COULD save this game mode. IF W3 players play for PPT the stacking will continue and the game play will continue to get worse. Only when players decide to play for fights will the transfers DOWN begin, therefore creating the balance ANET decided was not worth their effort. We’re getting closer as T2 is getting really competitive with some guilds coming down. T3 is still pretty much a mess, but the more weeks stackgate blows out T1 the more boring it gets which will hopefully lead to a further exodus of JQ and SOR guilds down. I know for a fact FA is actively telling NA/OCX people to go down to T3 servers, and from what i hear with their new guilds recently acquired SOS is doing the same. Eventually stackgate guilds will have to realize that if they actually want competition on the battlefield they too will have to get off the PPT junk. Don’t let these PPT peddlers try to tell you otherwise, PPT is pointless and only a reflection of a servers fairweather PVE population and coverage. W3 is a fantastic game mode but two things have slowly ruined it #1 Anet and its refusal to make it a priority #2 Stackgate for ruining other communities by buying guilds out and actively recruiting guilds when they already were the dominate server, PPT whoring, and the contempt they have for other players and guilds that want to play this game mode the way they want.

Ragnar.4257:

I’m pretty sure 90% of the people who seriously play for PPT are relatively new to WvW. I used to be a dedicated PPT player during the first 3-4 months of the game, but eventually it just grinds you down. Once you’ve played a dozen matchups against servers both much stronger and much weaker than your own, you come to realize that it’s almost entirely about coverage and that smart play and strategy can be completely trumped by a 5am karma train.

Playing “for bags” is mis-leading too, because playing WvW for rewards is a waste of time. You’ll get 10x more gold for your time in PvE. Generally when people say bags, they mean fights.

People like to polarize these things, to make it “us” against “them”, “ppt” against “fights”. But, tbh, most people will do both if they can. I’ve spent the last year with guilds who prioritise open-field fights, which means we don’t disengage from a fun fight if swords appear on a friendly structure. But that doesn’t mean we don’t defend stuff, and it doesn’t mean we don’t take objectives either. Often the only way to get a decent fight is to bang on a reinforced door.

“Fights” guilds take a lot of flak from pugs for “not helping the server”, when the reality is they’re better at getting ppt than anyone else on the map. So many times we’ve had crap thrown at us for staying at a fun spawn-tower fight rather than coming to defend a wooden keep, but the people complaining conveniently forget that an hour ago that keep was fully-upgraded in enemy hands, and the only reason you now have it at all is because a guild group took it for you.
They also conveniently forget all those times they would undoubtedly have lost a T3 keep if it hadn’t been for a fighting-guild coming to the rescue.

I would actually quite like to take part in a challenging “ppt war”, my favourite games are all RTS, but the fact is that WvW is not a strategy game. It’s a coverage game.

Very good post. So many “fight guilds” are incredibly burned out over sieging objectives is what I’m finding. A typical night used to be like this:

1) Logging in to see opponents T3 keep staring you in the face.
2) Hit said objective only to see a 50 man blob port in and promptly build 8 ACs at every door.
3) Finally break outer door down after an hour and a half only to get to inner gate which has another 8 ACs.
4) Finally break inner door down after another hour and a half.
5) Try to break lord room fight which has been sieged up to high heavens all the while opposing forces get to port in every 3 minutes. (seriously, stupidest mechanic ever)
6) Finally cap the objective after 4 hours.
7) Log out an hour later only to have the opponent cap the objective back 20 minutes after logging out.
8) Go back to step 1…

You can sit there and say “well you are getting fights”. That isn’t at all what happens. The whole 4 hour ordeal turns into a chess match with siege with placement and counter placement while the two sides sit there and stare at each other.

Bags bags bags. There’s no progression with ppt. At least I get monies from bags.

PPT alone as a goal is futile without the coverage. Fights alone are not as profitable as PVE. So what is the product you are selling to the new guy on the map and the old grizzled roamer / defender? What are you as a leader or persistent member of the population giving to the population of real value?

Coordination and continued improvement- Solid and professional communications across multiple WvW guilds and the general population using teamspeak. Objectives based play for a specified time in order to exercise the capability of the entire coordinated team in a measurable period. Use of individual, roamer, GvG (zerg buster) fight focused teams and large organized forces based on the enemies actions and makeup. Demonstrated flexibility and effectiveness in offense, defense and maneuver.

There is no reason to sell your population short by focusing your efforts to a coverage based PPT fight or to abandon PPT and exclusively roam around looking for fights. Do the best you can with what you have when you have it. Do better each time you come onto the field to engage your opponent.

This is what is happening on Devonas Rest. We are at the very bottom of the rankings and don’t have the huge population to dominate our opponent but we are still fighting and working as a team because we have an achievable goal and a determination to improve.

Aeonblade.8709:

I play for both PPT and Bags. They go hand in hand.

High PPT means no enemies. (PvD)
Low PPT means no allies. (Outmanned)

Balanced PPT means lots of fights. Just right.

Too bad just right doesn’t happen much outside reset.

Playing for PPT only works if the fight is fair. Right now, Yaks Bend has no chance of winning against SBI or the other higher tier servers that have a way bigger WvW base. Playing for bags/fights/ect will always be fun. More so when you consider the fact that being outnumbered means constant people to fight against.

As soon as we get a matchup where we can reasonably win? Sure, I’ll play a little more towards PPT. Until then, its all about wiping the enemy zergs.

Both, PPT is meaning less imo but that doesn’t mean we ignore everything except the fights. We take towers and keeps, we also defend them but I think its safe to say that we rarely actually look at the PPT. In the end its whatever people enjoy doing, I don`t think theres a player out there that can say, Taking that undefended keep was such a rush, we should avoid the enemy and do this more (quotations not working). I thnk most people will agree that the fights are the most enjoyable part of the game so long as they are relatively even, a zerg killing a solo …. not so much.

DivineBeing.2086:

If that is the case than either that server or your server is in the wrong tier. And if you are talking about Dragonbrand (and I know you are) than you should be able to roflstomp them in all other timezones except for Oceanic.

If they can beat you 3 out of 4 timezones than once again either you or them are in the wrong tier.

I wasn’t talking about anyone specific. Dragonbrand, sure, today they fit that bill. But I’ve been playing WvW almost exclusively since this game launched nearly a year and a half ago. In that time the story is always the same, the faces just change. It was Maguuma, it was Yaks Bend, it was Crystal Desert, it was even us for a few long stretches. You are taking it as a given that because a server is heavy in coverage in one zone then they are automatically light in another. That isn’t always the case, and in the specific example of Dragonbrand that you are putting forward, their coverage is more than adequate to fend off other time zones in their current tier of opponents long enough to secure victory… remember, all they have to do is not be zeroed out on the points board, not dominate.

You are also neglecting to allow for server #3 in the equation who also has varying coverage. To make up for a 4 hour blowout by 1 server, the two other servers need to split that servers points for nearly 4 times as long because neither has the population in any other time zone to match the feat. In some cases – like with DB – one server can hold that advantage for 6-8 hours out of a 24 hour window, meaning that the other two servers are never able to make up the gap because there simply isn’t enough hours in the day.

In the last 12 months I can count the number of compelling matchups where playing for PPT was an option on one hand. Dropping down a tier does us no good because for the servers down there we become the offending coverage heavy server. Raising the abnormal coverage server up does them no good because they can’t match up with the next tier above and the one that comes down has even better coverage than the one they replaced. The system of tiers and server versus server simply does not work for the majority of matches.

Fights>Bags>PPT imo. The reason I love gw2 is the combat, bags are also important because it’s a source of income. PPT is whatever in my view, seasons are over you don’t get anything for placing in a certain position. Even the season one rewards weren’t that great, so who cares.

albotelho.2931:

I see a lot of drama talk on WvW chat about people that play for PPT and those that play for Bags and Fights only…. I see commanders arguing about it with one another along with the players the follows then… and a great division is happening at least is what I feel on SoR.

The majority of guilds and their commanders on SoR play for the fights and bags, I can say that people who cares about PPT and defending and sieging stuff are the minority here.

I myself prefer the fights, I play for PvP and sieging stuff, scort dollies, scouting is boring to me… but I also like to win, the server competition to see who is better so although I think it is little bit boring to care about PPT I also feel that sometimes I need to do something to help the server get more points… maybe if ANET changed the PPT system and rewards but it is an old discussion.

What I would like to know is how is it going on right now on the other servers?

I prefer fights, however, I do like playing for objectives for 2 reasons:

1. Objectives provide interesting fights. Highly defended lord room can be quite challenging and interesting to take or defend for example, just as much as a completely open field fight. The open field fights can get boring and this provides a much needed diversity.

2. The 2 do not have to be exclusive. If you wipe entire opponent force and place a havoc squad for example to slow down their return to the objective, this provides a great deal of interesting fighting while obtaining the PPT.

So going too much towards 1 side or the other is what makes the game boring. It is nice to mix it up.

Personally, I prefer to fight for bags. I’ve been on SoR Since day 1 and I’ve noticed that nothing good comes out of winning. Ever. I mean, there’s a very low chance of us dropping out of tier 1 with the new stone-locked tiers. Besides, what does being #1 get you? 250 dolyak finishers and 3 bonus wvw level chests at the end of every week. This is my opinion, but why would we want to have people sit in towers all day scouting when it does no good? I mean, I could understand if there were better rewards, but the rewards are non existent for being #1 or #2. So, that being said, I feel like it’s just a lot easier to farm bags because SoR is very very excellent at open field fighting and that’s where we excel in tier 1.

Some of the best fights you can find is over a Keep like Bay or Hills, or Garrison if it manages to get as far as that. So it’s not so much about PPT is boring – it’s more about where you pick your fights to find the best fights.
You can get bags defending an objective even a camp, it’s just that fighting over a camp near another Server’s spawn mostly ends up a never-ending fight compared.

I play for fights, really. I see it like… if you can own it up in fights, and you can defend objectives well, and attack objectives quickly… then you’re being rewarded in PPT as well, because you’re still playing the game right just with a different focus.

Anyone who thinks they’re a genius because they play ppt needs to step down off their high horse. It doesn’t take a genius to say “hey i think this is the tower we should kittenin zerg the kitten out of within the next 6 minutes”

on the other hand, it’s nearly godlike how some guilds can come out on top of most all their fights despite running weird builds or team comp or smaller numbers than huge map zergs.

If you are “playing it straight” you should be getting plenty of bags along with some decent PPT.

Things get out of whack when you go to one of the extremes (I direct you to Tier 3 NA for prime examples).

You are PPT’ing too hard when you spend too much time on defensive siege (hold for the tick) and timing your attacks to gain for the tick.

You are going to the other extreme when you leave spawn and ignore all “hard target” objectives to race across the map to get where the orange swords are (because nothing says skill like mopping up a zerg when their cooldowns are on).

No one expects “fight-centric” servers like Maguuma and SoR to drop everything to squeeze the last bit of life out of every single tick to get some points; but when you get to the point where you are berating or belittling others for picking one or the other; then you are a failing server.

I fight for the spikes! More spikes++++

Stationary scouting is really, really kittening stupid.

Anything that requires you to stand in one location staring out into empty space for hours upon hours needs to burn in video game hell. This genre did away with spawn camping 10 years because it was bad design. Yet here we are with stationary scouting which is basically the same concept expect you don’t get phat loots when the enemy finally shows up.

But stationary scouting is absolutely vital to the PPT meta. As is turtling behind massive amounts of siege, see screenshot below.

Until playing for PPT becomes fun, it’s simply not worth doing.

Khayoss.2019:

DivineBeing.2086:

If that is the case than either that server or your server is in the wrong tier. And if you are talking about Dragonbrand (and I know you are) than you should be able to roflstomp them in all other timezones except for Oceanic.

If they can beat you 3 out of 4 timezones than once again either you or them are in the wrong tier.

I wasn’t talking about anyone specific. Dragonbrand, sure, today they fit that bill. But I’ve been playing WvW almost exclusively since this game launched nearly a year and a half ago. In that time the story is always the same, the faces just change. It was Maguuma, it was Yaks Bend, it was Crystal Desert, it was even us for a few long stretches. You are taking it as a given that because a server is heavy in coverage in one zone then they are automatically light in another. That isn’t always the case, and in the specific example of Dragonbrand that you are putting forward, their coverage is more than adequate to fend off other time zones in their current tier of opponents long enough to secure victory… remember, all they have to do is not be zeroed out on the points board, not dominate.

You are also neglecting to allow for server #3 in the equation who also has varying coverage. To make up for a 4 hour blowout by 1 server, the two other servers need to split that servers points for nearly 4 times as long because neither has the population in any other time zone to match the feat. In some cases – like with DB – one server can hold that advantage for 6-8 hours out of a 24 hour window, meaning that the other two servers are never able to make up the gap because there simply isn’t enough hours in the day.

In the last 12 months I can count the number of compelling matchups where playing for PPT was an option on one hand. Dropping down a tier does us no good because for the servers down there we become the offending coverage heavy server. Raising the abnormal coverage server up does them no good because they can’t match up with the next tier above and the one that comes down has even better coverage than the one they replaced. The system of tiers and server versus server simply does not work for the majority of matches.

And that is why Dragonbrand is going to be moving up to tier 3 probably at the end of next week if you have been watching their rating. They are dominating not just one timezone but two, Oceanic and SEA. Their NA keeps them so they are not ticking at 100 ppt either.

All other servers should have pretty equal coverage though. Dragonbrand is really the only exception to the rule.

Other servers may have good coverage in say Oceanic, but an opposing server may have decent EU, SEA, or Oceanic to make it so that server is roflstomping in that timezone.

Again, Dragonbrand is the only server that I know of that has such superior coverage in one specific timezone that they are able to tick at 600+ ppt. Everyone else, may just graze 350 in certain timezones.

Having at least 1 wp per map is going to help you get the bags faster. So you have to PPT a bit to get the bags. Everyone wants loot. If you know your server is weak at a particular time, then having those keeps/towers to siege yourself toward bags is crucial. Throw even 1 cow at a stack and you get credit for any of them that die. So farming SBI morning blob with 8 people for 6 hours straight is more fun than running around taking camps, etc.

albotelho.2931:

I see a lot of drama talk on WvW chat about people that play for PPT and those that play for Bags and Fights only…. I see commanders arguing about it with one another along with the players the follows then… and a great division is happening at least is what I feel on SoR.

You’ve made an error here.

It’s not that things arent defended on SoR (We keep scouts on watch too). Rather, due to the inability to win the PPT game (Its a given face it) we "dont play for PPT). Instead a lot of us are playing for fights. So anywhere that means creating and engaging in more fights, you’ll find SoR fully loaded and engaged. In many instances that crosses lines with PPT, such as scouting and running to defend a keep or tower, or pushing a keep or tower which will force a fight.

At the end of the day, coverage and population imbalances mean we cannot win PPT. However we can hone and dominate in the actual fights (which we do). While BG and JQ spend a large portion of their time honing their zerg balling, PvDoor’ing, and PPT potential across the board, SoR’s guilds, and it’s militia, spend all that time honing their fight provoking and zerg ball countering. It’s what we’ve always done. It’s what we’re good at.

Your perspective is simply skewed.