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what killed the pugmander?


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Most pugmanders from longer ago simply were grouped up bodies from guilds that weren't running that particular night for those players that did play every night. It was a way to diversify approaches and ideas, and kept commanders from being burnt out.

Now, you have a bunch of long time players that think they are to good for squads; new players that have no idea what a squad is, how to join one, or why it's important; and then a smattering of the above players that usually aren't enough to form a core for a pugmander to have a meaningful effect vs another actual guilded group.

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@"Virdo.1540" said:sounds a bit harsh, but is quite on the spot.

People not moving when a zerg comes closer, not pulling healing skills, not dodging.... or the simply "autoattack & afk" playstyle

Not just that (but a huge part for sure), they wont get in coms and they also tend to be the people who then QQ at tag for being "bad". I have seen the map chat from these people and then I have seen screenshots of PMs and mail these people send to pug tags. No one helps them with siege or cost of running and many cases the pug tags don't have a guild funding them etc etc. So you get hate anytime you lose a fight or structure and when you win, no one shares the loot and they don't help with siege costs etc.....So why would people want to pug tag?

This is also a reason people run tagless.

In most cases (though not all) the reason I see pug tags wipe are the pugs, in many cases the tag has ok/good movement and position....However no one is on them and pushes? Even when spammed in chat "PUSH!", I will be one of only 4 people to push and die right on tag while 95% of the group didn't budge from where they were and then all die because they then scatter.

It's frustrating to me and I am not the one tagged up! This is also why most days I am solo roaming/havocing.

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OTHER - Server Linking - which caused & continues to cause

LOSS of Server Identity & systematically perpetuates Long Term SUPPRESSION of Communities

2016-06-11 - Prediction & Full Detailshttps://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/WvW-Poll-6-June-World-Linking-Schedule-CLOSED/page/5#post6197744


NEXT - Server Linking = Alliance Linking = Toxic Game Mode

2018.07.17 - Prediction & Full Detailshttps://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/593461#Comment_593461


ALTERNATIVE - Clear Roadmap & New Match-Up Model

2019.10.05https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/89449/wvg-world-vs-globes-road-map-to-reboot-wvw/p1

Credibility requires critical insight & time.

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They're still commanding, they just don't roll up full zergs anymore. A good pugmander won't throw everyone into a bad drive to get wiped, if the pugs aren't pushing with that commander, there's likely a good reason. You can cry about them not getting on your discord or whatever but most people aren't dumb and already know what they need to do, but they might see clearly that you as a commander don't and they're going to be careful because they don't want to waypoint too many times.

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The player base. Just in general. It's not just pugs being bad. A lot of people play this mode in what is possibly the most unfun way possible (siege humping, running from fights). And even more, there's an armada of people whose only goal at the end of the day is to be the loudest person yelling in team chat.

Gets old after a while.

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People don't join anyway when someone tags up (With a few exceptions when someone a bit well-known tags open once in a blue moon). Full map with a big que and most coms struggle to get even 15 people in squad. Even if they are on TS/Disc. If pugs don't want to join, why bother to tag up at all? So of course they rather run hidden tag with a tight squad they can rely on.

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Megaservers and linking primarily.

Before megaservers you could get fresh blood in PVE cities if you needed reinforcements which recruits more people for your server effort. Before linking every 2 months you could at least build up your general WvW playerbase, which you simply can't if you are forced to play musical chairs against people stacking servers.

One of the 16 to 72 hour (reset weekend) commanders that quit when links started wrote that the servers should all be unlinked, there should be no lockout of servers, and transfers should be more expensive. The rationale that commander gave is "even if people stack on one server they would be bored out of their mind and all actual competitive guilds and players would try to balance it out" , "people would eventually disagree or try to get people to get off maps and generate intraserver conflict and move off" or something to that effect. We saw this happen to Blackgate , where eventually anyone that wasn't a PVE player considered moving to avoid queues and to actually have fights. Cookie quit by the way.

For someone that hit 10K WVW rank in 2017 or 2018 and has all the skins and legendary things you can get from WVW what is the incentive right now? To have PUGs running their own builds that will never listen or adjust anything that the commander requests (any class is usable in WVW by the way, it's just players refuse to play as a team player)? How do you motivate people afk pipping, the ones there "just for gift of battle for their legendary", or those that would rather k-train than defend because it's more WXP if they are not great at fighting?

Squads aren't an issue. It's a wrong way of thinking to believe they are. Before squads existed we still had people playing WvW on a competitive scale. Squads only provided additional organization of boon priority and cleanses.

It's also wrong to think that PVE guilds don't show up to WvW. I've seen them and they continue even after being wiped in one push because they still get pips (outnumbered ones if the opposing force is larger) and most of them don't care about success on the battlefield because KDR is meaningless for rewards. Primarily PVE guilds are most likely to PPT undefended structures. This means the poll option "getting farmed by guild groups, forcing the pvdoor and slow morale death" isn't correct , as they can either avoid (port out or work other maps) the guild group giving them trouble , play off of a group that actually plays WvW for fights, or adjust their playing time-frames. The groups that exist only to PPK actually are more likely to die out due to boredom or because of diminishing returns on PPK (you don't gain any WXP or loot if you repeatedly kill a particular target).

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@Infusion.7149 said:Megaservers and linking primarily.

Before megaservers you could get fresh blood in PVE cities if you needed reinforcements which recruits more people for your server effort. Before linking every 2 months you could at least build up your general WvW playerbase, which you simply can't if you are forced to play musical chairs against people stacking servers.

Bingo. This right here. Same thing that's been slowly bleeding population as people figure out there are far better balanced games for PvP out there...

Alliances ever!? Communication when!?

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Have seen countless pugmanders get chased off by toxic backseat commanders and cliques that only follow popular ones. Of course these toxic players never contribute anything of value and just run circles around keep if no tag.

On a lesser scale it is especially bad when some tryhard guild flames the pugmander for wiping. Note: your guild group SHOULD outlast the pugs. Also getting away from a losing fight doesn't make you better. Especially bad during queues when people get told to leave.

Thankfully most of them are gone. But the damage is done.

And yes I prefer pugs that are bad over pugs that are both toxic and bad.

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Missing the option about the game mode beeing degraded by cheaters proffesional and not.Its hard to be a pugmander when you reach the point where you fight outmanned against guilds that on top of the boonspam blob have 5-6 spy accounts on your server and when you stall their gold farming they simply sabotage you by blocking access to siege and draining the supply stocks.

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Pugmanders have to suffer bad pugs.Like not newbie pugs which don't know anything.

Like pugs which are like, literally there just to be a rallybot.

They don't resup when people call for resup.

They aggro the enemy group before the zerg can prepare their stack and boons.

They rotate sieges for no reason.

They keep begging the Pugmander to go for daily objectives despite other more pressing matters like defending T3 keep.

Any Pugmander will give up and just leave.

When I pugmand, I don't even demand much.I demand resups, I demand sticking to the group and I demand they follow me when I call to push or not.

I don't even care if they run meme builds.

But somehow some pug can be on other side of the map flipping camps while we defend Keeps.

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Canary in the coal mine & Goose that lays the Golden eggs

The number of Pugmanders is a simple way to gauge the overall health of our WvW game mode.

The number of Pugmanders are dying out should help provide a warning that a toxic environment is present in the game mode.

ANet does not understand the dangers of a toxic environment, or chooses to deny the toxicity...they know much less on how to fix the Match-Up Model that creates the systematic killing off of Pugmanders.


The number of Pugmanders can also be considered the Goose that lays the Golden eggs.

Pugmanders help provide content to ALL Players & help to directly stimulate the traffic flow of players to visit the ANet online store to purchase goods.

Pugmanders & the pugs that follow them flourished before Server Linking, but now the decisions of ANet are coming home to Roost as the number of Pugmanders continue to die off while the level of pug players continue to rise...who don't care to be a Pugmander themselves.

2019.07.30Slowly & methodically killing their "Goose that lays their Golden eggs"Told you so

We need an alternative - We need a Clear Roadmap & New Match-Up Model.

Credibility requires critical insight & time.

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On top of what people have mentioned with their vote on the first option, pugs cannot understand situations.

Assaulting SM and pulling 2 or 3 people off the wall to finish them off and a gathering of 25 pugs cannot damage them and thye escape. Pugs don't know what CCs do. Pugs die to stealth pushes because they don't know when to activate stunbreaks. Pugs don't put marks on portals to alert the group of stealthed enemies etc.

Pugs gather for dailies, that's it. Many more factors play into this of course, but it's the main reason.

Even regular players don't care. My server going T1 today. Comms instructed not to go T1. My guild and all other guilds wanted to avoid the fuckfest of T1 with Piken and Desowsr.

And then you got pugs asking for tags saying: "we don't care, we will take a week off", same people complaining "boohoohoo the link is dead no comms, boohoohoo, what are the guilds doing"... And yet the guilds will be stuck raiding in T1 while the EBG pugs have their vacation.

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