So, I’ve been playing WvW for a couple of months now. Still firmly in noob territory, I still have some thoughts.

This is the second consecutive link where I’ve wound up on the Lutgardis Conservatory team, and it blows. In both links, we are vastly outnumbered by the two other teams, and those two other teams largely conspire to work together to keep us dead last.

There are certain accusations against the “MAG” guild this week that they are “cheating.” They are a huge guild. Some of them are good players, some of them aren’t. But it’s not “cheating” to have more players working together successfully, nor is it cheating to get together with another team to overrun the third, especially when that third team is vastly outnumbered.

Yesterday, we were literally wiped off the map. Red (including MAG) took our keep on EBG, then pinned us to the spawn point while the green team went around the flipped the map.

This happened last link as well: the other two teams consistently working together to keep us down.

Like I said in my last WvW post, this wouldn’t be problematic if all players got the chance to be part of the winning side once in a while. You would THINK that ArenaNet would want all its customers in competitive areas to have fun, but I’m starting to think that isn’t true; that ArenaNet employees are lazy utilitarians who really only cater to the largest groups of people. If you aren’t in a HUGE guild, then you’re going to consistently be placed on teams designed to lose.

We’ve rarely had a commander on the map. When we aren’t outnumbered, our maps are largely filled with AFK players just standing around waiting for reward track points. When we DO have a commander, it’s often a hidden tag that wants “comms only” players. In other words, if you aren’t on Discord and in their voice chat, then they don’t want you to play with them. Which is fine. Given our losing record, it’s STUPID, but it’s fine.

I mean, unless the other guys show up unequipped and with empty skill bars, you’re going to have run-backs. Who would you rather have running back to the tag: members your core group, or a bunch of eager pugs? Chess requires pawns. So let us noobs learn by failure… and be the run-backs. If we wind up dead, well, at least we must have drawn some of the fire.

Losing is part of gaming. If you don’t lose, then victories mean nothing. If you’re part of a 50+ person zerg taking on a group of 10 players, then winning is a foregone conclusion. Which is why I don’t respect the MAG guild, as that is all they do. It’s still not cheating. It’s just sh***ty.

I don’t know how other players on the Lutgardis Conservatory team feel about any of this. I don’t recognize any of the names from the last link, though I do recognize some of the names. Speculating, I would say the vibe is more “resigned” than “disheartened”. I do know that the way Arena balances the servers has reduced LC this linke to mostly PPT for much of the day (pay-per-tick: taking land only when enemy players aren’t around and only battling npcs) or insta-death.)

In other words, we might as well be PvE players at this point, as we’re effectively shut out of competing with the other teams.

WvW has been in “beta testing” since I started this account: over two years. They’ve made little progress. In truth, I don’t think they care one whit about Guild Wars 2 competitive play AT ALL. I think all their beta testing and fudging around with the competitive play areas is just experimentation to decide how to implement those features in Guild Wars 3. That could just be my cynical nature. I’m not anti ArenaNet by any means. I’ve just worked in development (though not in gaming). I just know – as you do – that it’s the ledgers that drive a corporation forward, not the creative team.

In other words, I’m starting to really not enjoy Guild Wars 2 at this point. I’m bored with the mechanics of open world. I like the World Bosses. The story instances have grown into a ridiculous series of area effects and just…. senseless mechanics, like dragging boulders around to get to keys to… you know, phone game crap.

But as ArenaNet is nothing more than another corporation, I don’t expect any of this to change until people stop complaining about it and start looking for other places to spend their gaming hours. ArenaNet doesn’t care how any of their customers think or feel about the game. They just look at the number of people playing, and the number of hours those people spend logged in. As long as that puts them in the green, then why would they spend all the time and energy necessary to change things? Why care if players like a game, when they are clearly addicted to it anyway?

(for the record, I think most WvW players do enjoy it, but then most aren’t always on the losing team.)

Guildies are the best group of online players I’ve ever seen, save perhaps Final Fintasy. They’re largely helpful and courteous. Even friendly. I recently met someone in WvW who handed me my ass several times in a 1:1 encounter, and then sent me a message and offered to help me with my build, or with my dueling skills. I haven’t taken her up on the offer yet, because I still can’t do comms and think her guild probably requires it (most do). I don’t want to waste her time, and I think I need to get over my natural nervous twitches in PvP situations before I can expect to get better. That’s just going to take time, or it isn’t going to happen.

So I’m not bashing other WvW players for the situation on Lutgardis Conservatory this link. Like I said, I’m still a noob and I suck at PvP. I don’t think I’ve reached the perspective that would be necessary to criticize how anyone else plays, given that most of them have much more experience than I do. I’m bashing the lack of players engaging on LC this week, and ArenaNet’s inability to successfully pit teams against each other where any of the teams has a chance of winning, rather than the only two teams with large enough guilds to win ganging up on the third to manipulate the rankings.

I mean, WvW loot is good, but it isn’t THAT good.

Yet here I am writing about it while still logged in, so who am I to expect change?