Shockadingle
Legend
I have played thousands of all of the battlegrounds since 2004, and as a twink since f2p wow came out, and there is one clear outstanding reason why one team wins WSG And the other loses, which nobody seems to notice or discuss.
Fear.
Or, more precisely and accurately, "cowardice."
The psychological factor is extreme in WSG, much worst than in EoTS or AB, but the reasons are too complex to cover here. Here's how it works:
When the gates open, some players from each time run straight for the enemy flag, and some run to fight the enemy team. My estimate is that 95% of the time(no exaggeration) the team that wins the middle in the first conflict wins the match. This is because a psychological precedent has been set.
Often, they won the initial conflict for an arbitrary reason; most commonly, too many members of the opposition ran to pick up the flag when it takes 1-2 at most.
If 5 ppl go to pick up the flag in the beginning, for example, the other 5 get stomped in the field. You may think that doesn't matter because they weren't fighting for an objective, or shouldn't matter, but I'm telling you, it is the single most important factor in determining who wins.
I know a lot of veteran players will disagree based on their paper theories, but I have observed this time and again, hundreds and hundreds of times, with very little exception.
The reason is this: The players who got stomped in the initial confrontation remain convinced that their team is weaker for the rest of the match. They get gun-shy. For every future conflict in that match, they, some of them, will run away, or hover around, hesitating to engage which puts their team mates who DO go in at an enormous disadvantage, which guarantees that their team mates will, indeed, get stomped.
Those people who got abandoned initially, because too many went to pick up the flag become "fair-weather" warriors, who have a build-in assumption that the weather is not fair. And this, in turn, makes the weather abysmal.
I've seen this happen over and over and over to the team that is stronger on paper. They get scared, don't fight anymore and the idea of being weaker becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I used to tell people how many 29s (or 24s back in the day) were on the enemy team, just as a head's up. But I learned NEVER to do that. If I go in healing hard, I can make a weaker team win if they go in hard too. But if I give them the idea that they are at a disadvantage in the beginning, they won't go in hard and fight. I few will, of course, but we'll be out-numbered because of fear, which makes it almost impossible to win. The frightened ones who watch, seeing the better players get stomped, have their erroneous notion confirmed(that the enemy team is just too good).
They're too stupid to realize that it is because they, in their cowardice, didn't help that the fight they just refused to commit to didn't go their team's way. The fear is what kills. It's so prevalent in this game, at least, even though virtual death costs nothing. It's senseless. But it is human instinct, to panic, to run and hide, throwing your friends in the line of danger to buy you time.
As a priest, this is especially frustrating, when you KNOW you can keep EVERYBODY up against the incomming damage, and you are doing so, keeping everyone alive, even topped off. But then one guy panics and runs. End like dominoes, a couple more see that guy taking off and try to disengage. Even if only 3 people panic nad the other 7 stay, that makes it uneven and turns a win into a loss. If the priest stays in until the end, eventually he is overrun by the other team, not because his players died, but because they ran away.
And then, they all get run down and die without heals. By the time the priest resurrects and gets back to the field they are scattered and terrified and remain so for the rest of the match, skittish, afraid to engage.
All because one guy panicked for no reason and a couple more got infected with the panic.
This sort of thing can happen in multiple ways. A warrior might be in front, taking most of the enemy damage. Then he charges deep into the back line away from his healer, and dies. That shifts the enemy focus onto his team's hunters. That wouldn't be a problem; hunters can face-tank with adequate heals. But the hunters' natural instinct is to disengage and run away from any melee attack, which leaves the priest who would have healed them on the new front line, having to tank and heal, which means he gets all the interrupts, stuns, silences and focus fire. It's senseless. But the hunters panicked unnecessarily.
It can happen legitimately at first. Both teams could engage, and one loses. But then somebody on the team that lost the initial engagement leaves the bg and I get in. Even though the battle was close(I can tell how it went before I got in by a quick glance at the damage/healing columns on the scoreboard), and only 2 minutes have elapses, and it's 0-1, it's much, much harder than it should be to turn that game around and make them win. You pretty much have to get a flag cap by yourself in order to raise their cowardly spirits and get them to try again. Usually 2-4 players will just sit in the graveyard afk if their team lost the initial encounter. Then they will come alive again if their team manages to cap without them, with 6-8 vs 10 players participating.
I've had so many games in which not a single player on my team dies within range of me the entire game, and yet we lose 0-3, because they scatter like roaches when the light is turned on as soon as they see the enemy team, and all die out of range for heals.
I would bet on a team of non-enchanted lvl 20s who had no fear to beat an team of pre-made 29s about half the time. Most 29s are not very good. They tend to be below average at PvP, which is why they seek asylum in the one bracket with a built-in underclass. Why would you pay to play in the free bracket unless you either hate money, or feel you need an unfair advantage?
I noticed early on that the main reason the 24s, and now 29s, are so dominant in this bracket's pvp is the fear that their anticipated advantage instills in the opposition. The other team simply won't fight, not all of them. So they lose 95% instead of the 50% they would lose if they weren't low-intelligence, low-courage persons.
So, guys, there's nothing to be afraid of. I'm here for you, to give you comfort. But I have to give it to you straight. You're a bunch of pussies who need to grow some balls and do the PvP you queued up for. This really is the magical land of immortality and unicorns. If you die here, you come back to life in 0-30 seconds with no ill effects. There's no pain. There's no risk. No downside. But if you can't overcome your womanly instinct to run away and fuck your team mates, you will be a loser. And I don't want that for you.
If you can't be a man in a video game, how on earth will you be one in real life? Yours is a generation of pussies. You need to participate; that's how you get better. They never should have given you trophies for it. It gives you the idea that it's just for some people some of the time. No, participation is expected of you all the time in a team competition, because people are depending on YOU. The trophy is for the one who wins, which you are expected to try to do.
I can imagine any 2 of you in the schoolyard, getting approached by a bully who says to give him your lunch money. Even though together, 2v1, you could stomp him into the ground, you instead each try to hide behind each other fighting each other to be the one not closest to the bully until you both get your faces punched in and your money taken. Fight you pussies!
FIGHT, I SAY!! For God's Sake, boy! Fight! (It's what you came for.)
Fear.
Or, more precisely and accurately, "cowardice."
The psychological factor is extreme in WSG, much worst than in EoTS or AB, but the reasons are too complex to cover here. Here's how it works:
When the gates open, some players from each time run straight for the enemy flag, and some run to fight the enemy team. My estimate is that 95% of the time(no exaggeration) the team that wins the middle in the first conflict wins the match. This is because a psychological precedent has been set.
Often, they won the initial conflict for an arbitrary reason; most commonly, too many members of the opposition ran to pick up the flag when it takes 1-2 at most.
If 5 ppl go to pick up the flag in the beginning, for example, the other 5 get stomped in the field. You may think that doesn't matter because they weren't fighting for an objective, or shouldn't matter, but I'm telling you, it is the single most important factor in determining who wins.
I know a lot of veteran players will disagree based on their paper theories, but I have observed this time and again, hundreds and hundreds of times, with very little exception.
The reason is this: The players who got stomped in the initial confrontation remain convinced that their team is weaker for the rest of the match. They get gun-shy. For every future conflict in that match, they, some of them, will run away, or hover around, hesitating to engage which puts their team mates who DO go in at an enormous disadvantage, which guarantees that their team mates will, indeed, get stomped.
Those people who got abandoned initially, because too many went to pick up the flag become "fair-weather" warriors, who have a build-in assumption that the weather is not fair. And this, in turn, makes the weather abysmal.
I've seen this happen over and over and over to the team that is stronger on paper. They get scared, don't fight anymore and the idea of being weaker becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I used to tell people how many 29s (or 24s back in the day) were on the enemy team, just as a head's up. But I learned NEVER to do that. If I go in healing hard, I can make a weaker team win if they go in hard too. But if I give them the idea that they are at a disadvantage in the beginning, they won't go in hard and fight. I few will, of course, but we'll be out-numbered because of fear, which makes it almost impossible to win. The frightened ones who watch, seeing the better players get stomped, have their erroneous notion confirmed(that the enemy team is just too good).
They're too stupid to realize that it is because they, in their cowardice, didn't help that the fight they just refused to commit to didn't go their team's way. The fear is what kills. It's so prevalent in this game, at least, even though virtual death costs nothing. It's senseless. But it is human instinct, to panic, to run and hide, throwing your friends in the line of danger to buy you time.
As a priest, this is especially frustrating, when you KNOW you can keep EVERYBODY up against the incomming damage, and you are doing so, keeping everyone alive, even topped off. But then one guy panics and runs. End like dominoes, a couple more see that guy taking off and try to disengage. Even if only 3 people panic nad the other 7 stay, that makes it uneven and turns a win into a loss. If the priest stays in until the end, eventually he is overrun by the other team, not because his players died, but because they ran away.
And then, they all get run down and die without heals. By the time the priest resurrects and gets back to the field they are scattered and terrified and remain so for the rest of the match, skittish, afraid to engage.
All because one guy panicked for no reason and a couple more got infected with the panic.
This sort of thing can happen in multiple ways. A warrior might be in front, taking most of the enemy damage. Then he charges deep into the back line away from his healer, and dies. That shifts the enemy focus onto his team's hunters. That wouldn't be a problem; hunters can face-tank with adequate heals. But the hunters' natural instinct is to disengage and run away from any melee attack, which leaves the priest who would have healed them on the new front line, having to tank and heal, which means he gets all the interrupts, stuns, silences and focus fire. It's senseless. But the hunters panicked unnecessarily.
It can happen legitimately at first. Both teams could engage, and one loses. But then somebody on the team that lost the initial engagement leaves the bg and I get in. Even though the battle was close(I can tell how it went before I got in by a quick glance at the damage/healing columns on the scoreboard), and only 2 minutes have elapses, and it's 0-1, it's much, much harder than it should be to turn that game around and make them win. You pretty much have to get a flag cap by yourself in order to raise their cowardly spirits and get them to try again. Usually 2-4 players will just sit in the graveyard afk if their team lost the initial encounter. Then they will come alive again if their team manages to cap without them, with 6-8 vs 10 players participating.
I've had so many games in which not a single player on my team dies within range of me the entire game, and yet we lose 0-3, because they scatter like roaches when the light is turned on as soon as they see the enemy team, and all die out of range for heals.
I would bet on a team of non-enchanted lvl 20s who had no fear to beat an team of pre-made 29s about half the time. Most 29s are not very good. They tend to be below average at PvP, which is why they seek asylum in the one bracket with a built-in underclass. Why would you pay to play in the free bracket unless you either hate money, or feel you need an unfair advantage?
I noticed early on that the main reason the 24s, and now 29s, are so dominant in this bracket's pvp is the fear that their anticipated advantage instills in the opposition. The other team simply won't fight, not all of them. So they lose 95% instead of the 50% they would lose if they weren't low-intelligence, low-courage persons.
So, guys, there's nothing to be afraid of. I'm here for you, to give you comfort. But I have to give it to you straight. You're a bunch of pussies who need to grow some balls and do the PvP you queued up for. This really is the magical land of immortality and unicorns. If you die here, you come back to life in 0-30 seconds with no ill effects. There's no pain. There's no risk. No downside. But if you can't overcome your womanly instinct to run away and fuck your team mates, you will be a loser. And I don't want that for you.
If you can't be a man in a video game, how on earth will you be one in real life? Yours is a generation of pussies. You need to participate; that's how you get better. They never should have given you trophies for it. It gives you the idea that it's just for some people some of the time. No, participation is expected of you all the time in a team competition, because people are depending on YOU. The trophy is for the one who wins, which you are expected to try to do.
I can imagine any 2 of you in the schoolyard, getting approached by a bully who says to give him your lunch money. Even though together, 2v1, you could stomp him into the ground, you instead each try to hide behind each other fighting each other to be the one not closest to the bully until you both get your faces punched in and your money taken. Fight you pussies!
FIGHT, I SAY!! For God's Sake, boy! Fight! (It's what you came for.)
