Wotcha everyone,
“Let them win”.
I hate that phrase. It’s everything I hate about online PvP, rolled into one.
When I play, I try to play as a good player. It’s about being a good loser, as well as a good winner. It’s about doing my utmost, even when I’m in a situation that’s beyond all hope.
It is also about being a good enemy, one who respects the players fighting against me enough to play to the limit, rather than just give up because I’m losing.
I’ll never understand the mentality of those players whose battlecry is “Let them win”. I have only encountered it in World of Warcraft, but they seem to be a vocal minority who are so interested in the Honour Points, and only interested in the Honour Points, that they don’t care whether they win or lose, only that the Battleground is over fast, so they can get into the next one. If a win isn’t achieved fast, they’re only interested in a fast loss.
For them, the PvP is a means to an end. It’s a grind, a points farming exercise. They don’t care about the players on their own side, never mind those players they’re up against. Which is why I find it deeply ironic that they are farming points in something called “Honour”.
I have yet to hear it in Warhammer Online. And long may that continue. I’m really enjoying taking part in the Scenarios in Tier 1 and 2. So far I’ve been in big losses, big wins, and results that have come right down to the wire. Sometimes they go the full 15 minutes, sometimes they don’t get past 5 minutes.
But the attitude I have found in most is that people want to partake. That it’s not just about farming Renown or Rank, but it’s about the fun of the game, of the fight. It’s about taking part, and the pride taken in a win, no matter how hard fought.
So a big thankyou to both my allies and my enemies. I hope I continue to be worthy of both of you.
Cheers,
Hawley.
Filed under: scenarios | Tagged: farming renown, hated phrases, let them win, letting the other side win, RvR, scenarios, warhammer online |
Book of Grudges 
It probably helps that the Bonus Xp/renown at the end is primarily determined by how many points your side earns. No points? No Xp.
Kills are also a factor but we’ll just assume they come as part of winning.
I loathe it, and if anything in WoW it just made me fight harder to draw the whole thing out or force the complainers to accept an /afk penalty.
Admitedly there have been a couple of occasions at the start of Tier 2 when I thought, argh how can I get out of here, my group are a bunch of idiots!
For too many people it’s about loot, points, xp and so on and this demented quest to get as much of it as quickly as possible. If the only point of doing something is because of artificial rewards and not for fun then something’s wrong. What PvP MMOs should be comparing themselves to is, Team Fortress 2 or CS:Source, developers should ask themselves if people are going to play scenarios for the sheer fun of it and not for the rewards? It’s a fervent hope of mine that people will be PvPing in WAR because it’s a great way to spend an evening, rather than because they need all those shiny purples/renown ranks.
Oddly, the most fun that PvP ever was in WoW, was when there were absolutely no rewards for it.
Guess I’ve been on both sides of this in WOW — doing everything I can to win in most games, and wishing (though not shouting) that others would just get over already.
Part of the problem is that WOW Battleground PVP’s design lends itself to this attitude:
1) There’s only 4 BGs and everyone’s played them to death.
2) You can use BG honor and tokens to purchase epic level gear that’s useful outside of BGs, so lots of (most?) people are in BGs to earn gear for use elsewhere (in fact, honor gear are among the few epics players can reliably get on their own). Their goal is not PVP, but getting done as quickly as possible to get their gear and get back to what they really like PVE.
3) You don’t earn XP or money in PVP in WOW.
4) Battlegrounds do not produce honor at the same rate. If you want honor, you’re probably in AV. A lot of people are in the other BGs only grudgingly because they are required to gather enough tokens.
5) You get honor and tokens regardless of whether you win or lose, further reducing the necessity to push to win. You can even get honor and tokens while AFK.
6) BGs are cross-realm, so queues pop faster but you tend to play with different people all the time (so less chance to build up rivalries with guilds on the other side of your own server).
7) BGs like AV don’t have a time limit, so turtle games providing lots of frustration but little rewards can go on for a long time.
8) Some BGs, like AV, can be won with almost no PVP at all. You essentially end up with PVE races.
WAR addresses a lot of these issues. PVP is the goal of the game, not a means to an end. All the Scenarios have pretty quick time limits. There’s a nice variety of scenarios. You get XP and gold from participating. I’ve really enjoyed PVP in WAR, especially in the scenarios, and I’m about as carebear a player as you’ll find.
Still we’re already seeing people min-maxing the levelling process and determining things like you’re better off grinding the first part of PQs solo instead of grouping. As more players come on board, I bet you’ll start seeing people AFK in scenarios. There will always be jerks who want to exploit the system.
That’s what /ignore is for 🙂
GRAGH! If there was one thing that made me turn green, rip all my clothes except a pair of shorts and run around smashing stuff, it was the “let them win” brigade in WoW battlegrounds. “Oh, they always win”. Uh huh, really? I wonder if the fact that one of our team is being bugger all help could possibly be a factor at all? And of course if you try and engage them in debate, you’re not fighting yourself and thus compounding the problem.
I haven’t seen them in WAR yet either, which is nice. The arsewit strategy “genius”, pouring forth their oh-so-helpful suggestions, is also thankfully rare, though one did turn up in Phoenix Gate last night constantly spamming “GET THEIR FLAG!! GET THEIR FLAG!!!” Oh *really*? the idea of “Capture the Flag” is to… capture… the flag? *That’s* where we’ve been going wrong, thanks! You can probably stop shouting it now. No, really, you can.
The push for win on both sides also has a lot to due in part of the RvR aspect of scenarios. Your whole faction will gain points for zone control. As the game moves closer to sieging cities we see more and more players pushing for wins and never “let them win” attitudes.
[…] https://bookofgrudges.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/dont-be-a-cop-out/ […]
Oh my man, you took the words right out of my mouth. ❤ I had such a caniption when “Honor” points were introduced, as I virtually never saw honor shown anywhere on any virtual battlefield other than “GG” shared between strangers. They should have been called “jerk points” or something more unclean perhaps.
You get so much more out of a game with a “To the last man!” mentality. If you give up when things look sour out of the gate, of course things are going to suck for you. But honestly, some of my most memorable Starcraft matches were the ones where I got beat down to one third of a base and I pulled victory out of no where. Those peeps are denying themselves a great deal of fun.
I just wanted to let you know very sadly as it is to be the one to bring this sad news, but the influx of self centered, under 15 year old’s children have arrived at Warhammer. My old guild seemed to be fllooded with them, and more seemingly this virus seems to become more evident in scenario chat and city chat. They are the only one who uses it, and its a savage vile disease that plagues the mmorpg virtual worlds.
Watch out.. the old Tricks of WoW have arrived here, one I preticually found veyr annoying was “Anal *spellname*”.
Although you cannot link Items, or spells yet in warhammer, people in cities are still starting to do it. (If this is the first you have heard of it, then let me tell you taht on every WoW server on alliance it can be seen in city chat)
maybe it’s time for us all to roll on RP servers to get away from the rabble @_@
15 is too young for an MMO. I’m srs. 18+ it should be. Sorry to any less-than-18s who are actually respectful and mature. To every one of you fine peeps, there are at least seventy jerks.
Don’t even get me started on the psychological implications of a 9 year old playing such a game. >=|
IF I was on a RP server, I would be role playing a bigger douchebag then I am already, the changer of ways has deemed it so.