PvP: Attempt to Win, or Attempt to Lose

Back in highschool, there was a version of chess called 'Eat Me' that the chess club had it's stupid members play. I excelled at Eat Me.

Basically, it was a game to see who could lose the fastest. By this, the goal was that any piece of mine that I put in a position for one of your pieces to take, you had to take it. That was your move. The winner was the person who lost at chess.

Lately, in PvP, I've been seeing people who, not even with us losing the battleground, state: "Let's just lose".

W. T. F?

No wonder Alliance is horrible, half of the people in any given battleground probably aren't really trying, they're just doing token crap to avoid being reported /afk. Because it's a given that the Alliance will lose, right?

If that's your thought... why are you there?

Some people are farming battleground marks and to them, a fast lose is better than a slow lose or even a slow hard fought win. (nevermind that you get more marks if you do a fast win... that's just too hard to do though, it requires an ATTEMPT. We can't do that! Geez.)

Some people are there to farm honor and HK's. Ookay. I do BG's to farm honor, but you get more honor by winning. Heck, you get more bonus honor by TRYING in a losing BG than by merely letting the other side win. A close run will have the losing team still getting almost 200 bonus honor from the BG. As for HK's... go to AV and play defense.

But some people are PvPing for marks, honor and because it's what they like to do. And you, Mr. Quitter, are taking that away from them by not doing your best, the way they are doing their best.

Sure, sure, it's everyone for themselves! (We all have to be the hero! No team play ever. Focus fire on their healer? Why, I almost got this rogue dead! ... crap, how'd he survive? Why am I dead?)

We're going to lose anyway! (And I wonder how the Alliance got the rep for PvP that we do... geez.)

My thought on it, even in the face of obvious defeat... keep trying. Why? For a variety of reasons.

Practice makes perfect. Practice like you play. Both espouse the same thought. If you 'practice' poorly, and don't try, and don't give a damn because this isn't a real game or whatever you are thinking, you won't get better. You don't push yourself, guess what? You stay where you are. An Alliance Loser.

Learning Curve. Some people have a higher learning curve than others. Sure, you can be sitting there going, "OMG. Don't they know 'Fight at the node, not on the road!'", but it could very well be someone who is new to PvP or battlegrounds or that battleground. They may NOT know the rules. So take a chill pill and just say it with a smile. Watch them die up the road from the flag. Comment in battlegrounds, "If you come to the node, we'll help you kill him." or "If you come to the node, I'll heal you.". They'll learn. And you don't continue the cycle of stupid BG remarks like, 'omfg u nubs. l2pvp. lolz. f*ing moron.'

Strategy. The more often I do various BG's, the more often I see a variety of different strategies. Group 1 here, Group 2 there, Group 3 there. Group 1 Defense, Group 2 Offensive. Groups 1-4 Galv, Groups 5-8 RH.

I see which ones work better, I see which ones work worst. I see which ones have no chance of working when your group is made up of 5 warriors, 5 hunters, 2 feral druids, 2 rogues and 1 paladin. (that was a very bad AB for the Alliance. We got hosed. They had 4 paladins, 3 priests and 3 shaman.)

And I learn. And in some battlegrounds, where everyone is trying, and a strategy that has a hope of working is laid out -- like the bg leader actually arranging the groups so there's a healer in each group -- we stand a chance to win.

One thing the Horde have... is strategy. And frakin paladins. Dear lord, every base and node has a freaking holy paladin sitting there just screwing up your attempts to cap. What a good idea to have! Too bad we don't ever learn from our mistakes. We're so busy giving the victory to the other side to bother to see what they're doing or learn from it.

They have roving defenses in AB. So even though the node only appears to have 2 people at it, in about three seconds, it's going to have 8. (Which would be a perfect time to hit something ELSE, but nooo, let's just keep bashing our head against the wall.)

It's frustrating to be Alliance when trying to PvP. It really is. But when it works... we're just players who actually are trying.

If you walk into a battleground expecting to lose... you will.