Wednesday, August 6, 2008

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.

9 comments:

  1. I feel your pain. *hug*

    I have seen this in every Alliance bracket I PvP in.

    Secret? I see it on Horde side too. But just not in the same quantity. The worst Horde insult that I make when we are losing "You all must be Alliance rerolls."

    Battle on and kill more.

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  2. Mori potius quam foedari
    - it is better to die with honor than to live in shame

    Unfortunately the concept of fighting and dying an honourable death seems to be lost on most PvPers in WoW.

    Don't think it's all on the alliance side, however. Sure the horde might steamroll 9 out of 10 AVs, but haven't you noticed our pathetic attempts at EOTS?

    I must win only 1 or 2 out of every 10 games in EotS.

    How is it that Allies can excel at this one battleground?

    - Zupa, undead mage on frostmourne, bloodlust battlegroup.

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  3. In our Battlegroup our Horde side we win a lot in AV. All of the other BG's we usually lose. Zupa is right about EOTS on the Horde side. I had to grind out 40 marks for my boots. It took me forever we had one victory, so I had to go in there 37 times. Oh and another thing is whats with the Q times on the Horde side? When I get in on the Alliance, its less than a minute. The Horde side 8 to 15 minutes.

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  4. I think more Horde PvP. Probably because most Alliance find PvPing a slog at best and a nightmare at worst! :)

    It probably does vary on Battlegroups though... my Battlegroup ... it's a fight from start to finish for anything we want to accomplish.

    Even in AV... the horde have developed an unfortunate strategy of turtling. :P

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  5. Couldn't agree with you more.

    I only know Alliance, and more than half of battlegrounds in my battlegroup are made of quitters. It's frustrating, and Blizzard's every-nine-month-or-so banning/gear-stripping isn't enough.

    I'm glad that BGs are a side project for me and not the main reason I play. :)

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  6. In my Battlegroup, the only one Alliance regularly wins is AV. We use to win EoTS 3 out of 4 times, but recently, we lost our edge there too and can't win for anything. The Horde just dominate. And usually within a few moments of us getting behind, people start calling out, "Just let them win!" It's so frustrating. Last night in AB, one of our teammates admitted to dancing with a Horde. Why? Why waste our time if you're not going to help us? Join one of the naked battleground groups if all you want is the marks. So frustrating.

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  7. I get tired of BGs very quickly, but I never stop trying to win. I got into a very bad AB where I dont think anyone else was trying and we got 4 and then 5 capped very quickly. I stil led the BG in damage and even tried to steal a node or two (unsuccesfully). It gets very annoying and when nobody tries, they dont develope any kind of strategy and will never win.

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  8. I see from a few comments that the Horde have their own problems.

    But do you guys have QUITTERS? Or just not doing well?

    Alliance side has people advertising for 'Pre-Made Losing' teams.

    I mean, c'mon. >< How pathetic are we? (don't answer that, please. :)

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  9. The only time I've ever seen anyone quit on the Horde side other than afkrs, is when we were in eye of the storm and there was a multiboxer with 3 Shaman. I didn't notice it at first then all of a sudden I get hit with lightning strikes by 3 dudes at once instant death. It was actually a beautiful thing to watch. When they would lay down there totems it was like christmas.

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