Guild Wars 2

The death of T1 PPT play (an obituary)

The game mode of T1 died. Not recently, but a few months ago. It is hard to place the exact day, but likely somewhere in the aftermath of season 2. As a big fan on T1 WvW, I feel it deserves a proper obituary.

A garrison defense music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxICg9ay-ks

Let me start with a personal success story, which happened just 2 days ago. As usual, I was pinned up during EU times, trying my best to defend JQ BL from the enemy. A big (for EU times) group of about 30 BG appeared at NE tower. However, they passed NE tower and went for our garrison. As it happens, garrison had reinforced gates, no waypoint, plenty of supply, and 2 defenders: me and one pug. While BG worked their way through the outer gate with 3 superior rams, I build a trebuchet for the north inner gate. A minute later, BG dropped 3 superior rams on north inner gate. Of course I disabled the rams, and started trebbing. After the second disabler, BG used the \cry emote and ported out. JQ garrison was saved.

A big personal success. But was it really? Garrison had no upgrade running. There was 0 siege build up. I was pinned, but only had one follower (who was not in teamspeak). Clearly, JQ did not care about defending garrison. Bad enough, but was BG any better? I know how to attack garri via NE, and putting all your supply into rams at north gate is not the way to do it. You build catas in the back. Or you go for west inner. Or, at least, you keep some supply in reserve for a cata in case the rams are destroyed.

And even after I had killed the rams, BG still outnumbered us 30 to 2. They could have man-moded the door down. Or sent away 15 people to run for new supply. Hidden a mesmer. Plenty of options. BG chose none. In the end, they cared just as little about who owned that garrison as JQ. All that was going on was a big karma train, which I, as the single person on the whole map who cared about PPT, rudely interrupted. Note that this happened early in the week. Not a Friday or Thursday.

The death of PPT

Now, a single incidence may not be enough to convince you. In that case, just compare your WvW experience today with the experience 18 months ago. Remember spawn camp scouting? If you ran into a spawn camp on reset, you could bet on a 40 person zerg appearing 30 seconds later to squash you. Remember siege teams who ran supply to keeps to build up defences, while the zerg was away fighting? Remember coordinating pushes on several maps? Remember map politics and sustained 2vs1’s against one server to break a WP? Remember the time when you did not have to coordinate pushes on several maps, because all maps were nearly queued?

When was the last time you saw all that? A long time ago. Granted, every now and then, you might catch a glimpse of what T1 WvW was, but it is usually isolated and short-lived. All-in-all, T1 now resembles what T2 was a while ago. Guild groups looking for fights; roamers duelling; a frustrated back-bones crew scouting. T1 WvW is dead.

Who killed PPT WvW?

The short answer is, BG overstacking. The longer answer, ANet’s design choices.

WvW T1 was inherently instable. It was instable because the game was designed in a way that makes strong servers stronger and weak servers weaker. Once you are stronger, you can take and downgrade the weaker servers keeps and towers, making them even weaker. The karma training ensures that the weakest server’s BL is the main place of action (keeping everything papered), not the strongest server’s BL. Players on outmanned servers have to put in more hours than players on strong servers to keep up. They also face defensive play rather than the more fun offensive play most of the time. Due to both facts, burnout is considerably higher on servers with less players, increasing the disparity in numbers.

That is, WvW with 3 servers is bound to produce an uneven outcome and “kill” weaker servers.

So why did T1 WvW work for so long? The reason was the untapped pool of WvW players in lower tiers. Whenever a server’s numbers thinned out to much, there was a replacement. This could happen in two ways: Either by the weak server recruiting additional players from lower tiers. Or by the weak server collapsing, and being replaced by an up and coming lower tier server, who now had a great positive story of reaching T1 and could use that to recruit (for example the players of the collapsed server).

This refreshing of T1 via lower tier players kept T1 WvW alive. Whenever the situation became too unbalanced, either a server was replaced, or a server mass recruited.

By now, that pool of lower tier players has dried out. Everyone with an interest in PPT WvW already plays in T1. No T2 or lower server comes even remotely close to the numbers of T1 servers. We have reached the final imbalance, which will not be fixed this time.

CONTINUED

But season 2?

As you may remember, during season 2, JQ and TC organised a strict 2vs1 on BG, leading to JQ winning the season ahead of TC.

In a way, this was the last hurray of PPT play. JQ and TC realised that BG had been too big, too stacked for too long to take on. In response, they chose the nuclear option: Killing 1vs1vs1 in favour of essentially 2 teams.

The result was a win, and … incredibly boring. It also lead to the extremely unfortunate turn of BG further recruiting. They saw the JQ win as a sign of unbalance, to be countered by the usual T1 strategy of mass-recruiting. In fact, the 2vs1 was a sign of extreme weakness, of JQ and TC basically admitting “BG is too strong, we can not win this the usual way”. The unbalance existed, but it was BG that was ahead.

When BG recruited what was basically the last drop in the barrel of lower tier PPT players, the option of further balancing ceased to exist.

In season 3, the 2vs1 was not renewed. Not because JQ and TC suddenly started hating each other. The reason is simpler: There were not enough people left on JQ and TC to care. Those people who did care about PPT stopped playing during or after season 2. By now, those few left are, by far, outnumbered by the “for the fights” people. And those would not organise something such as a 2vs1. Without it season 3 was a foregone conclusion and basically decided in the first 48 hours.

Cheering the dead body

Some people may find some sadistic pleasure in this. T2 players, who looked down on PPT crazy T1 for a long time may not find anything bad about PPT’s demise. However, it was a game mode that many enjoyed and which brought a lot to GW2. Even though it may not have been your favourite, it is sad to see it go. Personally, I never cared for GW2’s GvG (which I felt infinitely inferior to GW1’s better concept). Despite that, I did not cheer when the GvG scene died.

Some BG players may also enjoy the downfall of their rivals. And, in a way, that is ok. After all, WvW was set up to be the competition of servers. And when all others are dead, when you are the last one standing, you have kind of won. Unfortunately, the feeling will be short-lived, as the death of the last opponents also implies the end of the format.

Where do we go from here? music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eJuhd9xFRg

So, what is next? The death of T1 WvW is not a sudden phenomenon. Rather, a long drawn out process. There are bound to be some ups and downs along the way, but the general direction is clear: Towards extinction.

Many will predict the imminent end of JQ and its replacement with YB. I would not be too sure of that. I was around during SBI’s implosion, and the current situation on JQ is nothing like it. SBI ceased to exist, as a WvW force, a few days after the announcement of transfer costs. It basically took less than 3 days from the first guild leaving to the last big guild leaving. On JQ, SG leaving was followed by … nothing. Not a single guild moved out. I would not even call that positive. The players simply do not care about WvW anymore. And then, why pay the transfer cost? It is just a big void of players having given up on the game. And virtually nobody believes that YB can take on BG. It took TC an awfully long time to come close to T1 level in terms of play (personally, I would say they never reached it. Instead of TC moving up, the ability of BG and JQ eroded downwards to match TC), and they had a much better starting point.

An implosion of BG is even less likely. After all, the hurt is less there, and where would BG guilds go to?

In any case, every death of a server has a cost: Not all of the players move on. Probably close to half of the player base simply gives up, stops playing, or moves to another game mode (e.g. duel based roaming). This is a big reason why the inherently instable T1 WvW could not go on forever. Everytime T1 consumed another server, the overall pool of players shrank. Together with the natural erosion over time, this has contributed to todays situation, where not enough PPT players are left to fill 3 server.

I see the efforts by Indo & friends to prop up JQ with alts over here. That is one of the facts that convinced me that PPT WvW is finally and irrevocably dead. We have reached the stage where servers have become irrelevant. Where players log on to look for fights and do not care which side they are on or how well their server does. In other words, we have reached T2 meta. The T2 meta of 1 year ago that is. Unfortunately, that is not for me. As a PPT player true and true, I am left to lament the demise of my game mode.

- Xeeron

Lol. Thanks, I needed a laugh like this for a while now. Much appreciated!

Moved out of JQ to find better WvW, to avoid the mess of PPT and blobbing. Found better WvW in a low tier server. When it collapsed, move to a third, and final, server.

WvW is much more enjoyable since we don’t have to focus on PPT to have fun. Our biggest fear is facing stacked and bunker servers like BG and YB. Why? not because of numbers, but because they’re boring and don’t offer anything in terms of enjoyable WvW play.

It is your right to cheer for other players no longer being able to play their favorite game mode. Not the nicest of reactions though.

Xeeron.9254:

Some people may find some sadistic pleasure in this. T2 players, who looked down on PPT crazy T1 for a long time may not find anything bad about PPT’s demise. However, it was a game mode that many enjoyed and which brought a lot to GW2. Even though it may not have been your favourite, it is sad to see it go. Personally, I never cared for GW2’s GvG (which I felt infinitely inferior to GW1’s better concept). Despite that, I did not cheer when the GvG scene died.

Very detailed and truthful post that I’m going to link to on the unofficial wvw forums if you don’t mind. If only Arenanet put as much effort into WvWvW at the start of the game as they did into trying to make Spvp into an esport. Then things might be different.

Xeeron.9254:

Everyone with an interest in PPT WvW already plays in T1

the self importance in this post is strong.

Xeeron.9254:

It is your right to cheer for other players no longer being able to play their favorite game mode. Not the nicest of reactions though.

inb4 everyone thinks like me.

Yeah, not so much anything that you quoted, so much as WvW isn’t dead just because PPT is taking a punch to the stomach. It is more a reason why no one really cares as much about it as people like you, who put such a strong emphasis on it being great because of server/tier pride. Better match rotations are needed, a new system for points gain is needed, GvG’s and WvW in general need their screws tightened. T1 WvW just does not offer what others players are looking for, assuming a player isn’t just looking for a free win.

It’s time for change, and it’s necessary at this point. Otherwise, Yes, my favorite game mode (WvW) will die. While I don’t entirely agree with some of the changes being made, and in some cases abhor them altogether, a fresh system would benefit WvW if the sole focus of winning was not entirely up to PPT.

EDIT: Mind you, Xeeron, I’m not trying to pick on you, I just choose not to engage in any tact on matters like this and I don’t agree with you. I remember running with you on JQ quite a few times before I left your friend Eris to her own devices in a guild she single handedly killed, after almost a year of me keeping it alive by myself, leaving me in charge when she thought the game wasn’t good enough for her/us. I am aware of how you feel, I just choose not to consider how you will react to what I say.

-back pats-

Why would WvW die if PPT WvW dies? T2 has show for more than a year that WvW outside of PPT exists.

And why would you alter my quote with some crap I did not post?

EDIT: Ahh, I did not know you had some personal grievance that colors your view of T1 PPT play. In that case, never mind.

I hardly play WvW anymore ever since people stopped caring about ppt.

“No one likes Pepperoni Pizza anymore because they put cheese on it.”

- Xeeron 2015

WvW won’t die if if people don’t focus entirely on PPT. T2 and below have proven that too. WvW is better without as much focus on PPT, but then again, that’s my opinion and I’m not sure why you are trying to invalidate it.

We see things differently and I am expressing my opinion on behalf of the people who like WvW as competitive play rather than a points game.

But, like minded peoples have a tendency to stick together. That’s why you’re all mostly in T1 caring about that while the rest of us enjoy ourselves just as much by not making it our solemn duty to siege cap a series of towers and wait to farm enemy zergs of 40+ players, lol.

The entire post drips of self aggrandizing drama. BG had 30 peeps in off peak hours during non-season? Didn’t happen.

1v30 and they cried and ported out? Really? I will tell you, Mr Pro, a reality. You aren’t gonna 1v10, let alone 20 or 30. If any large blob suddenly ports out when they face no opposition, it was to go somewhere where they were needed like…um…defending their garrison?

Anyways once you post all this “Look at me I am winsauce” your credibility tanks and thus you have posted a large wall of fluff.

GOSU.9574:

1v30 and they cried and ported out? Really? I will tell you, Mr Pro, a reality. You aren’t gonna 1v10, let alone 20 or 30. If any large blob suddenly ports out when they face no opposition, it was to go somewhere where they were needed like…um…defending their garrison?

While your point might be true, I’ve already seen many big groups just change their mind on trying to take somenthing simply because they face oposition… Depending of where you are attacking and how many defenders are in the place, it will be very time consuming and people that just want to K-train don’t find it worth it.

Jeknar.6184:

Depending of where you are attacking and how many defenders are in the place, it will be very time consuming and people that just want to K-train don’t find it worth it.

That’s what I like about the non-ppt aspect of WvW. It’s more exciting and engaging in most respects.

Jeknar.6184:

While your point might be true, I’ve already seen many big groups just change their mind on trying to take somenthing simply because they face oposition… Depending of where you are attacking and how many defenders are in the place, it will be very time consuming and people that just want to K-train don’t find it worth it.

I’ve seen this too. I want to add though another reason why big groups change their minds. These big attacking groups are looking for fights. They may be trying to coax the defenders into one by attacking a structure (PPT for fights) but the defenders scurry away instead of fighting. Even more depressing, a group takes the time and effort to get into an upgraded structure only to have the defenders run away when all their defensive siege is down. In those instances, why even bother with the siege?

Hell oh El

Hell oh El

Hail Glory?

try killing it and not running away from it to keep it in combat.

get your 6 random exotics with a 5% chance at a legendary.

go abuse your Immobilize on it to get your easy free loot while in testing phase.

You dont need it anyway if you can perma chill & cripple it.

which no zerg consist of anyhow.

enjoy the upcoming new dynamics to WvW

What I instantly thought after seeing that wall of text

http://nephewsam.net/2014/top-10-reasons-top-10-lists-are-stupid/

Your view of the problem is nothing but a mere part of it.

Oh boy, that wall of salty text OP, thanks for the morning laugh.

Our friend Chaba has the correct answer to this text wall with soundtrack add’s lol
Very often BG forces hit something from JQ and dont get proper opposition and we just go away. So many times I saw a guild dropping outer and inner, waiting for the defenders and when no1 came, just left to pugs cap it. We dont want your Garri, we want you inside fighting for it. The reallity is way less dramatic then you’re saying my friend.

Voicer.8239:

We dont want your Garri, we want you inside fighting for it. The reallity is way less dramatic then you’re saying my friend.

Hear, hear!

It’s the competition that makes wvw fun not capping points. If capping points was the fun part then we’d never leave eotm.

JQ failing in double teaming and BG superior gaming skills killed T1 PPT.

Xeeron.9254:

EDIT: Ahh, I did not know you had some personal grievance that colors your view of T1 PPT play. In that case, never mind.

The personal grievance has nothing to do with the T1 PPT play. I find it boring, always have, and have recognized it as being an severe imbalance to WvW that’s needed an overhaul since the game’s release.

You can’t argue against the fact that you just have to have more numbers in your server to have higher PPT. More numbers equates to longer coverage, which means servers with low numbers won’t have the opportunity to move out of their standing without some sort of server exodus.

The answer is not, “lol move to a better server” when the method of play doesn’t even pan out.

This is looking much more like a system problem than a player, server or guild problem. We no longer have balanced competition. Without balanced competition, WvW will die. Case in point, Borlis Pass, which used to be a VERY proud WvW T2 server was ticking only 20 PPT/ a turn during PRIME time yesterday.

ANET, you have a problem.

If you want WvW to succeed, you need to govern how players and groups are organized in competition to create balanced teams. Self organization of players on servers via transfer is failing miserably to produce competitive match ups.

No one likes to take the role of designated loot bag.

They simply stop coming.

You will have no game.

Now, it is your business, and maybe you have other priorities. Make no mistake though, WvW is seriously broken – not in detail or content – but in organization. If you want it to succeed and have excited WvW players champing at the bit to get into the fight, that’s what you need to fix.

I’ll end with a metaphor from my youth. – Pop Warner football.

Those leagues always are the most fun, and have the highest participation, when they are the most balanced, and anyone who brought their “best game” on a given day, could win against anyone else. One year, someone setting up the teams let someone pull in all the “good” players, and dump the leftovers on another team.

Everyone hated playing the “good” team. They didn’t like playing the “weak” one either. Everyone ended feeling pretty unhappy. Next year, the league saw a sharp drop in participation. People voted with their feet.

If ANET wants WvW to succeed, they need to get a balance back.

jdallen.5179:

If ANET wants WvW to succeed, they need to get a balance back.

Yep.

I think they will once server population stops being a prime contributor to points generation.

jdallen.5179:

Case in point, Borlis Pass, which used to be a VERY proud WvW T2 server was ticking only 20 PPT/ a turn during PRIME time yesterday.

bp has never been higher than rank 10…

Voicer.8239:

Our friend Chaba has the correct answer to this text wall with soundtrack add’s lol
Very often BG forces hit something from JQ and dont get proper opposition and we just go away. So many times I saw a guild dropping outer and inner, waiting for the defenders and when no1 came, just left to pugs cap it. We dont want your Garri, we want you inside fighting for it. The reallity is way less dramatic then you’re saying my friend.

The next step in that thought process though is to ask why the defenders do not come out to fight. Do the attackers outnumber the defenders? Are the attackers a guild group while the defenders are a pug group?

The clear solution is for an Arena-Net supported GvG format to be released (perhaps with the much rumored 2015 expansion??) to form the middle ground for guild focused players to get the competition they have been looking for.

This change would turn WvW into purely PPT and the mode’s participants would shuffle greatly.

With guild-based combatants finally having a format of their own, arguments of fights vs PPT would evaporate and PPT would truly become the determinator again.

In imbalanced matchups PPT is a pointless metric. The lower coverage servers concentrate on improving quality which leads to them dragging down the PPT server when coverage is even. If a lower server gains in quantity they inevitably attract people looking for an easy ride and the cycle starts over again.

insanemaniac.2456:

jdallen.5179:

Case in point, Borlis Pass, which used to be a VERY proud WvW T2 server was ticking only 20 PPT/ a turn during PRIME time yesterday.

bp has never been higher than rank 10…

Yeah, even a hell hole like ET been ranked higher than that…

Addendum to my last.

In my Pop Warner experience, with unbalanced teams, by mid season, kids got bored/de spirited. By mid season, a lot simply stopped coming. The “weak” team had trouble fielding a full squad.

Same mechanics apply to WvW. So, to answer someone’s later comment, People stop showing up because it’s no longer fun.

Borlis Pass’s standing is irrelevant to how things evolved. The key thing is, at one point, things were fun, and people were having a blast, even when we were not winning. Then we started facing an impossible play imbalance, and both our team coherence and numbers collapsed. ANET take note, a bunch of those folks left GW completely.

Playing WvW for PPT is just boring and pointless (no pun intended)… if you have the highest score at the end of the week, so what? Winning just meant you had more coverage then the other two servers. And contrary to popular belief, there is literally zero skill involved in the PPT game. And before the quoting begins, using all-call on teamspeak to “coordinate” a defense, aka blobbing, is not skillful unless you consider waypointing into a keep to use siege and press 1 “skilled”.

So why not just play for the fights? At least there you have a constantly changing meta involving group comps and tactics, and plenty of guilds to fight from (at least that’s how it used to be). And also the winning side is not always determined by numbers. I’ve seen plenty of times where a coordinated group will run in with 15 people and wipe 40 man groups.

An idea for changing the dynamic: make rewards less dependent on team standing, and tied more to cumulative PPT gained. Give that, people would have incentive for piling up totals even if they were not winning.

Reduce the winner take all feel of it. Give people incentive to come back and make a fight of it.

Chris.3290:

The clear solution is for an Arena-Net supported GvG format to be released (perhaps with the much rumored 2015 expansion??) to form the middle ground for guild focused players to get the competition they have been looking for.

Wait, what? How is that any solution to the WvW problem?

This change would turn WvW into purely PPT and the mode’s participants would shuffle greatly.

How? By ignoring all that makes WvW what it is?

With guild-based combatants finally having a format of their own, arguments of fights vs PPT would evaporate and PPT would truly become the determinator again.

But WvW is not a Guild based system and it is a server based system. Also, at least as many, probably a lot more, would not want WvW to disappear to introduce GvG. I can’t begin to understand why GvG is even talked about here. I for one would never want to play GvG. I hate the GvG dynamic. I hated it in GW1 for the same reasons some loved it (control and discipline freaks hobby is not for all). GvG is not WvW and it should never be.

In imbalanced matchups PPT is a pointless metric. The lower coverage servers concentrate on improving quality which leads to them dragging down the PPT server when coverage is even. If a lower server gains in quantity they inevitably attract people looking for an easy ride and the cycle starts over again.

I prefer a pointless metric in a server based game where people who have learned to be less dependent on score to have fun can play the build they want however than want than a metric that need to fall into the GvG rigid mind set to even have the right to play.

You want to play WvW: Just push the WvW button.

You want to play GvG: Well here are the unending kitten conditions you have no choice to agree with before you can even try it… No thank you.

MrFluffy.9307:

I’ve seen plenty of times where a coordinated group will run in with 15 people and wipe 40 man uncoordinated groups.

You forgot a word so I FTFY.

Jeknar.6184:

MrFluffy.9307:

I’ve seen plenty of times where a coordinated group will run in with 15 people and wipe 40 man uncoordinated groups.

You forgot a word so I FTFY.

Show me a PPT guild that can pull that off, without siege of course.

Voicer.8239:

Our friend Chaba has the correct answer to this text wall with soundtrack add’s lol
Very often BG forces hit something from JQ and dont get proper opposition and we just go away. So many times I saw a guild dropping outer and inner, waiting for the defenders and when no1 came, just left to pugs cap it. We dont want your Garri, we want you inside fighting for it. The reallity is way less dramatic then you’re saying my friend.

What you say makes no sense. If that was the case why would BG ever attack anything of JQs during EU? JQ hasn’t had any EU in over a year and a half with the brief exception of SR and Tohu and BG players know it.

Yep. Let’s blame a single server instead of the fact WvW has not changed much in the past two years and we face the same opponents every week. And yes, your posts were primarily anti-BG as I’m sure that was your intent when you posted rather than about lack of PPT.

Same thing happened here in EU tier 1. Just replace BG with SFR. Here at Desolation we have been constantly outnumbered already for many months in a row. Often whole evening (so called “busy” prime time) outnumbered “buff” on our border + 1 other border, outside prime time often 3/4 maps. Amazingly the rating different between us and rank #1 is still less than 100, telling that in EU the rank differences are smaller.

Sadly this game mode is dying. It seems that also many of the over stacked enemy server players stopped playing. Us having just 10-15 players on the entire map isn’t giving much loot bags or fights. I do not blame enemy for blobbing, but it is quite obvious that the enemy zone wide blob will just cause the outnumbered opponents go hiding. Arenanet has made pve (especially special events like the labyrinth during Halloween) way too profitable compared to WvWvW. And most players flock where the rewards are.

I’ve done basically nothing but WvW for over a year, starting in Jade Quarry NA and now on Seafarer’s Rest EU, both T1 servers. Can’t say I see it dying at all, really. I don’t know why there are always threads like this popping up. I wouldn’t consider WvW to be dead or dying until a blob is classified as 10 – 20 people, then we should be worried. But as is, servers will field 50 – 70 people at peak hours and the maps are still pretty active at off-hours as well. Sure, sometimes things will get a bit slow, like this past Halloween on T1 EU where Deso and Jade Sea had like 5 people tops in EBG, but that’s just the nature of things. Some PvE content comes out, people want to get their golds and achievements, then things pick up again.

Anyway, sorry, I don’t see it. I think WvW is just fine and maybe T1 isn’t as active as it used to be but I think you can save the obituaries for a later date.

jdallen.5179:

Addendum to my last.

In my Pop Warner experience, with unbalanced teams, by mid season, kids got bored/de spirited. By mid season, a lot simply stopped coming. The “weak” team had trouble fielding a full squad.

Same mechanics apply to WvW. So, to answer someone’s later comment, People stop showing up because it’s no longer fun.

Borlis Pass’s standing is irrelevant to how things evolved. The key thing is, at one point, things were fun, and people were having a blast, even when we were not winning. Then we started facing an impossible play imbalance, and both our team coherence and numbers collapsed. ANET take note, a bunch of those folks left GW completely.

“how things evolved” is that bp’s big wvw guilds fell out with each other and some transferred away because they werent having fun. there is no winning and losing in a game of who has the most people because there is no competition, there is only the fact of population disparity and how scoring reflects on the disparity.

no more or less people on bp have left gw2 than any other server as a relative proportion of the server population. when your numbers collapse, you need to take a serious look at your community’s interguild/interpersonal relations (and fix things there to prevent/mitigate catastrophic exodus). this is a social game.

MrFluffy.9307:

Show me a PPT guild that can pull that off, without ACs of course.

I don’t have to show you anything… You’re the one who have to show me a guild group of 15 wiping a guild group of 40… Wiping pugs isn’t impressive you know?

Jeknar.6184:

Wiping pugs isn’t impressive you know?

Specially when the pugs have builds that aren’t anywhere near optimal and designed for the specifics of fights only.

People need to learn to compare apples with apples.

@OP:

I don’t think BG is overstacked. I think it is more that people are leaving WvW in general. From a TC perspective, we had larger queues in T3 2 years ago than we have in T1 right now. If you took today’s BG and put them against T1 from 2 years, ago, BG would be complaining about not having enough players.

As I mentioned, the issue is that people are leaving WvW. I believe the reasons are:
1. Stale gameplay: ANET has not done much for the game mode and people are bored. Worse, when ANET does make changes, it is not to the areas that need focus. For example, there have been discussions around the commander system for 2 years. When we finally get something, it is just colored tags. Really?

2. Seasons: This has created a mindset for people to play during tournaments and then ignore the game mode the rest of the time. There is no longer any reason for anyone but the most hardcore players to participate outside of seasons.

3. EotM: This took away the casual WvW players. While originally intended to be a place for people to play while in queue, it became the best karma train in the map. Why should a casual ever enter WvW when they can get so much better rewards in EotM?

And if WvW switches from PPT to PPK, how will that change the fact that coverage and population beat skill?

blah blah blah bg killed it blah blah blah blah it’s bg’s fault , blah blah blah blah that is pretty much what i got from this thread .

okay lets do a reality check because it is very much needed .

wvw as a whole has died which you can read my thread here —-→ https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/we-are-not-the-target-audience/first#post4536699

but to blame everything on blackgate is very short sided and weak but i can only assume that this is coming from someone from jqq .

jq in the tourny season prior to this last one we just came off from . organized with tc to double team against blackgate the entire season . because of that many tc guilds and some jq players felt that this was wrong to do because it was directly cheating the system . so after that season many tc guilds and some jq players left both servers .

when the next season came jq wanted to do the same double team again with tc against blackgate , tc refused to go a long with jq’s plans so blackgate won the tourney , tc put in the effort to fight blackgate while jq sat around doing nothing for themselves . after the season jq has barely showed up while tc has taken over and blackgate stopped showing up because bg are like mercenaries . bg only shows up when it matters . so after winning the last tourney lots of guilds and players decided to not play because it is pointless when you get nothing for winning each week .

that is what has happened in tier 1

Swamurabi.7890:

And if WvW switches from PPT to PPK, how will that change the fact that coverage and population beat skill?

It won’t at all but those who are told they are not playing the game when they only seek to duel or GvG, and don’t give a * about PPT, will now have the legitimacy to say kills make points so buzz off. That is all that it will do.

A lot of these issues can be found in the other tiers, not solely Tier 1 but very good post.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Chris.3290:

The clear solution is for an Arena-Net supported GvG format to be released (perhaps with the much rumored 2015 expansion??) to form the middle ground for guild focused players to get the competition they have been looking for.

Wait, what? How is that any solution to the WvW problem?

This change would turn WvW into purely PPT and the mode’s participants would shuffle greatly.

How? By ignoring all that makes WvW what it is?

With guild-based combatants finally having a format of their own, arguments of fights vs PPT would evaporate and PPT would truly become the determinator again.

But WvW is not a Guild based system and it is a server based system. Also, at least as many, probably a lot more, would not want WvW to disappear to introduce GvG. I can’t begin to understand why GvG is even talked about here. I for one would never want to play GvG. I hate the GvG dynamic. I hated it in GW1 for the same reasons some loved it (control and discipline freaks hobby is not for all). GvG is not WvW and it should never be.

In imbalanced matchups PPT is a pointless metric. The lower coverage servers concentrate on improving quality which leads to them dragging down the PPT server when coverage is even. If a lower server gains in quantity they inevitably attract people looking for an easy ride and the cycle starts over again.

I prefer a pointless metric in a server based game where people who have learned to be less dependent on score to have fun can play the build they want however than want than a metric that need to fall into the GvG rigid mind set to even have the right to play.

You want to play WvW: Just push the WvW button.

You want to play GvG: Well here are the unending kitten conditions you have no choice to agree with before you can even try it… No thank you.

All of his points went completely over your head. As soon as you see the word GvG your brain seems to turn off.

If GvG was introduced then people wouldn’t be doing GvG’s in wvw anymore, which means the only reason to play WvW would be to play PPT. Right now there’s a split in the community between those who play for points and those who play for fights. If you take away the fighters and give them their own mode, then WvW becomes purely PPTers.

You saw the term GvG and decided that you would give an opinion on it that nobody cares about. If GvG had it’s own gamemode, everybody would be happy. I don’t see why that is so hard for you to understand.

Wait wait wait…

2014 and PPT is still something people have a thing for ?

I thought we all were playing a game to have fun, not ostracize people for not having the same fun you have.

Whether they play for points or kills, the fact is they are playing.

Nice post OP; This reply is to OP

“Who killed PPT WvW?

The short answer is, BG overstacking. The longer answer, ANet’s design choices.”

At this point you became very difficult to believe. ( for me). Please Let me explain.

Who started the over stack treadmill;

Was it HOD, maybe maybe not, was it SoS, maybe maybe not, was it JQ, maybe maybe not Do I need to continue or can we take it as read that the cycle was started a long time ago . The stacking counter stacking issue has been a T1 vs the rest issue for years. T1 may have thrived at the expense of the other tiers, maybe maybe not.

Attributing the downfall of T1 PPT to a server that has not been there that long is possibly, short sighted. IMHO, you need to look at your own server’s part in the “downfall”. Take responsibility for it and I will be able to read the rest of the post without wincing.

That said, you are entitled to your opinion.

TLDR version….. OP, IMHO, You aint no white knight, get off your horse!

elkirin.8534:

Nice post OP; This reply is to OP

“Who killed PPT WvW?

The short answer is, BG overstacking. The longer answer, ANet’s design choices.”

At this point you became very difficult to believe. ( for me). Please Let me explain.

Who started the over stack treadmill;

Was it HOD, maybe maybe not, was it SoS, maybe maybe not, was it JQ, maybe maybe not Do I need to continue or can we take it as read that the cycle was started a long time ago . The stacking counter stacking issue has been a T1 vs the rest issue for years. T1 may have thrived at the expense of the other tiers, maybe maybe not.

Attributing the downfall of T1 PPT to a server that has not been there that long is IMHO, short sighted. IMHO, you need to look at your own server’s part in the “downfall”. Take responsibility for it and I will be able to read the rest of the post without wincing.

That said, you are entitled to your opinion.

TLDR version….. OP, IMHO, You aint no white knight, get off your horse!

Dude PPT is broken in EU too, away with your NA nonsense. BG or whoever stacking or not has no effect on why games are decided by saturday in EU as well.

lorndarken.3702:

when the next season came jq wanted to do the same double team again with tc against blackgate , tc refused to go a long with jq’s plans so blackgate won the tourney , tc put in the effort to fight blackgate while jq sat around doing nothing for themselves

This never happened. The double team happened for many reasons, one of which was to try and knock BG out of its super overtime mode down to a more sustainable/stable style for everyone. They didn’t get the message and JQ didn’t want to try and send it again. Nobody tried to start a 2nd 2v1 in season 3.