Why We Lose.
Jul 6, 2013 10:59:59 GMT -5
Post by fozzik on Jul 6, 2013 10:59:59 GMT -5
Last night, I bore witness to almost a perfect illustration of every problem with our server. I'd like to discuss a few of those problems, and maybe even suggest some possible solutions. I don't have all the answers. I'm just some old military grunt with a bit of a wider perspective. I'll toss out some common sense and let the bigger minds figure out the best way to move forward.
The main thing I want to get across is that we are nowhere right now in terms of improving as a server. We are spinning our wheels, doing things very stupidly, and we need a big change.
About two hours before reset last night, basically everyone left WvW, or at least stopped playing seriously. There was a WvW meeting in TeamSpeak that everyone seemed to want to attend. Right about at that same time, a group of about 30 Gates of Madness players entered our borderlands and started hammering our upgraded defenses. For a good hour, there were probably about five people (or less) from our server defending, and GoM methodically took our towers, camps, and then attacked bay. In short order, they were at inner bay and relentlessly built siege and attacked from all sides.
A few more defenders showed up to help, but it was largely too little, too late. We lost the mostly upgraded keep just minutes before reset. "Ah!" You say. No reason to defend or do anything, because "It doesn't matter"...the match is about to reset. Wrong, it does matter. If you don't understand why it matters, then you are part of the problem.
During this entire time I describe above, I got to listen to a steady stream of inane, pointless bullshit being spewed in teamspeak...about how we need to "zerg better"
and how we need to perfect our tactics by emulating high-pop servers, and how Sally called Suzy a name, and why can't she stop? And how all the "lesser" players need to be taught how to play by the military geniuses with the symbols over their heads.
Unbelievable. It would be hilarious in the extreme if it wasn't so incredibly sad. GET OVER YOURSELVES. We could have held bay through reset, had a positive, uplifting experience...just by DOING instead of TALKING.
You want to know why we lose? It's simple.
1. We don't have enough people.
If we don't address this in every meeting, in every thread, in every discussion about our server...we are failing to solve the primary problem and we will never win. We need to be recruiting guilds and individuals, we need to be winning hearts and minds...we need to be petitioning ArenaNet AS A SERVER to do something about the imbalance. We need to hammer, and hammer, and hammer at the not enough people problem, because nothing else stops us from losing. Someone needs to map out the 24 hour day for our server, find the times when we are most thin, and work on filling in the gaps. Coverage is at the heart of a 24-hour, 7-day strategy...which is what we should be concerned with, instead of the petty 2-hour zerging that seems to fill all of our minds right now.
Every advantage that YOU THINK higher-tiered servers have in terms of tactics and strategy is due almost entirely to one simple fact...they have more people. They have the luxury of using terrible tactics and strategy (and they do), we do not.
2. We are penny wise, and dollar foolish.
Most of our commanders don't play enough to have any clue about what really loses us these matches. I know this because I play 6-12 hours almost every day. I see the slow times and the busy times, and I know the players who are truly dedicated by name. Almost all of you think only in terms of what works best RIGHT NOW, what works best during the few hours while you are logged into WvW and leading. Everyone ignores the overall war...the week-long match that we keep losing. We constantly over-extend ourselves during the few hours when our server has full participation, leaving behind a huge area that's completely indefensible for the few stragglers who stay on when you log off. Our tactics need to change, and I don't mean that we need to get better at zerging. I'll talk more about that in a second.
3. Leadership.
When I say leadership, I don't mean guys with 100 gold and a symbol over their head. Again, get over yourself. I hear a lot of commanders whining about players not listening, not following, etc. Guess what? People not listening or following is a problem with YOU, not with them. First rule of leadership...take a look in the mirror.
A leader isn't the guy who knows it all. Based on our current strategy, and the bullshit tactics that you guys are trying to teach and get everyone to use, it's quite clear that you know very little. The problem is that you think you do. The attitudes are what kills us, nearly every single time. Those commanders who are humble and lead by example have very few problems with getting people to listen. A leader is someone who lays a trail, develops tactics that work for their group, and is decisive...not condescending. You want to know why people aren't following? It's because they have common sense and what you're doing doesn't pass the sniff test.
A leader isn't the guy (or gal) who lives the longest because he can outrun all his teammates. "I don't have to be faster than the enemy, just faster than my friends". Every time I'm in a forward position and get left behind to die by a commander, I think twice about following them again. Period. A leader is the person who dies rezzing the last man in his group. You should be the last man/women out, to provide an example of not leaving anyone behind. A leader isn't someone who treats their group like children...assuming there's no way to keep them quiet except to give them candy constantly. Instead, a leader is someone who recognizes the intelligence and strengths of their group, and provides a good example for them to follow.
If you want to effectively lead, win the hearts and minds of your troops. Gain their respect. How? By making smart decisions, leading by example, and respecting them first. Stop talking about it and do it.
As I said, last night before reset was a prime example. Sure, it didn't matter in terms of points...the match was already decided and we couldn't come back in the short remaining time. But it mattered big time to each person who defended their asses off in bay, only to lose a demoralizing defeat at the very last minute. How much more motivated and excited would everyone have been right after reset if they were just coming off of a great and successful keep defense, and had something positive to build on? The irony was incredible as people in the meeting TALKED about how we need to help players have more positive experiences, just as a whole group of us were having the most negative possible experience...simply because leaders on our server seem unable to play and bitch at the same time.
Commanders should concern themselves a little less with spoon-feeding experience and karma to the pack of hanger-ons during our peak times, and think a little more about the poor lonely guy who's going to be trying to maintain a tiny bit of our color on the map after you've gone to bed. We need more people during those off-hours, and the only way we get more people at those times is if THEY have more positive experiences. They need to be able to defend when outnumbered big time, and we need to be recruiting more help for them. If you aren't leaving defensible positions behind when you log off, you didn't lead effectively.
4. Tactics and strategy.
We need our own strategy and tactics. Screw learning from people who have the luxury of huge numbers. The stupid pre-revolutionary crap tactics used by bigger servers are never going to work for us. It only works for them because of sheer numbers. Even reasonably better tactics will beat them almost every single time, if the numbers are even close to even. We need FC tactics because nobody else is in our shoes in terms of population, coverage, and individual player skill.
Just because other people do it, and it works sometimes, doesn't mean it's good. Doesn't mean it's right for us. We need to play smarter. Why not be the only guys doing it better, rather than a smaller group doing it the same and failing repeatedly. We aren't losing because we need to zerg better, we're losing because we're trying to zerg at all. It's not our game.
Only take what we can defend. Secure your backside and your supply. Upgrading and holding is better. Think people won't stick around? If the commander leads by example and has people's respect, they will very quickly follow suit. Let a few people jump over to another map...if the commander stays put, they'll be back before long and helping. Especially once they see that it allows for much fewer to succeed against the opponents' zergs. Our borderlands should be our turf, all week, no question. We should have that entirely and solidly defended before anyone starts screwing around on other maps. You defend effectively by putting people at every entrance, and Nuking the hell out of anyone who enters. Period. It's dramatically easier that way than trying to defend with enemy forces roaming freely around the whole map. When you log in as a commander, the first question should be, "who is defending the entrances of our borderlands?" If there are enough people and it's fully covered, then and only then should you think about pushing into EB or other maps.
Priorities. Which is more important? An upgraded tower in our borderlands or a few random camps (or even a paper tower) in someone else's borderlands? When one of our fortified positions is attacked, EVERYONE should defend it. Right away without a bunch of questioning or attitude. Come running. Show those few dedicated defenders that you've got their back, and they will respect you much more and follow you. Show people that pumping money into upgrades is not entirely futile, and I guarantee you people will do it more often.
Stop running in a big ball and wiping. Sorry, but it's bad tactics, plain and simple. Real life armies stopped doing that hundreds of years ago, because it sucks. Run in a ball, stand in their focused attack, see who dies first... it's idiotic. Maybe you wipe them sometimes...or they wipe you. Only two outcomes is a very poor gamble, especially for a server that is often outnumbered in the open field like we are. You might think it's no big deal to wipe because everyone can just respawn, but take a second to think about the morale of the people following you, and the position of the server as a whole. Getting killed repeatedly is demoralizing, and makes people feel hopeless. Our server is not served at all by losing all of our resources in a forward position in well fell swoop.
Attack from defense. Spreading ourselves really thin by taking one objective after another without leaving any defense behind... it's only a matter of time before you get wiped or you log off and you can be easily countered by a small force moving right behind you and taking back all your paper towers. The server gains points by HOLDING objectives, not by taking them and having them taken back. If you can attack from within an upgraded keep, or stay close to a waypoint, you are much more likely to force the enemy to expend resources while you maintain and bolster your own.
REZZ DOWNED PLAYERS. I can't stress this enough. The stupid zerg-ball tactics that everyone seems to hold up as some kind of military genius seem to require that you leave players down and let them get stomped on by the enemy. There is little in the world more demorilizing than getting smashed and danced on by enemy forces while your own teammates stand next to you (or on top of you) and do nothing. Good groups and guilds NEVER leave a player downed, especially when they are in a forward position. Watch them and see. The minute someone goes down, everyone is all over them, invising them, pushing back enemies, rezzing them quickly. Throwing down AoE and whatever they've got. We should be doing that, too.
Every character on our WvW map is an actual human person...playing a game to have fun and be part of a team. Commanders need to think of them that way. Give them the benefit of the doubt in terms of intelligence and common sense, and recognize that you're going to have to earn their respect if you want them to follow you. Maybe you wouldn't have to keep your caps lock on quite so much, and maybe you'd have a shorter list of imagined grievances at each server meeting, if you took some of what I've said to heart.
The main thing I want to get across is that we are nowhere right now in terms of improving as a server. We are spinning our wheels, doing things very stupidly, and we need a big change.
About two hours before reset last night, basically everyone left WvW, or at least stopped playing seriously. There was a WvW meeting in TeamSpeak that everyone seemed to want to attend. Right about at that same time, a group of about 30 Gates of Madness players entered our borderlands and started hammering our upgraded defenses. For a good hour, there were probably about five people (or less) from our server defending, and GoM methodically took our towers, camps, and then attacked bay. In short order, they were at inner bay and relentlessly built siege and attacked from all sides.
A few more defenders showed up to help, but it was largely too little, too late. We lost the mostly upgraded keep just minutes before reset. "Ah!" You say. No reason to defend or do anything, because "It doesn't matter"...the match is about to reset. Wrong, it does matter. If you don't understand why it matters, then you are part of the problem.
During this entire time I describe above, I got to listen to a steady stream of inane, pointless bullshit being spewed in teamspeak...about how we need to "zerg better"
and how we need to perfect our tactics by emulating high-pop servers, and how Sally called Suzy a name, and why can't she stop? And how all the "lesser" players need to be taught how to play by the military geniuses with the symbols over their heads.Unbelievable. It would be hilarious in the extreme if it wasn't so incredibly sad. GET OVER YOURSELVES. We could have held bay through reset, had a positive, uplifting experience...just by DOING instead of TALKING.
You want to know why we lose? It's simple.
1. We don't have enough people.
If we don't address this in every meeting, in every thread, in every discussion about our server...we are failing to solve the primary problem and we will never win. We need to be recruiting guilds and individuals, we need to be winning hearts and minds...we need to be petitioning ArenaNet AS A SERVER to do something about the imbalance. We need to hammer, and hammer, and hammer at the not enough people problem, because nothing else stops us from losing. Someone needs to map out the 24 hour day for our server, find the times when we are most thin, and work on filling in the gaps. Coverage is at the heart of a 24-hour, 7-day strategy...which is what we should be concerned with, instead of the petty 2-hour zerging that seems to fill all of our minds right now.
Every advantage that YOU THINK higher-tiered servers have in terms of tactics and strategy is due almost entirely to one simple fact...they have more people. They have the luxury of using terrible tactics and strategy (and they do), we do not.
2. We are penny wise, and dollar foolish.
Most of our commanders don't play enough to have any clue about what really loses us these matches. I know this because I play 6-12 hours almost every day. I see the slow times and the busy times, and I know the players who are truly dedicated by name. Almost all of you think only in terms of what works best RIGHT NOW, what works best during the few hours while you are logged into WvW and leading. Everyone ignores the overall war...the week-long match that we keep losing. We constantly over-extend ourselves during the few hours when our server has full participation, leaving behind a huge area that's completely indefensible for the few stragglers who stay on when you log off. Our tactics need to change, and I don't mean that we need to get better at zerging. I'll talk more about that in a second.
3. Leadership.
When I say leadership, I don't mean guys with 100 gold and a symbol over their head. Again, get over yourself. I hear a lot of commanders whining about players not listening, not following, etc. Guess what? People not listening or following is a problem with YOU, not with them. First rule of leadership...take a look in the mirror.
A leader isn't the guy who knows it all. Based on our current strategy, and the bullshit tactics that you guys are trying to teach and get everyone to use, it's quite clear that you know very little. The problem is that you think you do. The attitudes are what kills us, nearly every single time. Those commanders who are humble and lead by example have very few problems with getting people to listen. A leader is someone who lays a trail, develops tactics that work for their group, and is decisive...not condescending. You want to know why people aren't following? It's because they have common sense and what you're doing doesn't pass the sniff test.
A leader isn't the guy (or gal) who lives the longest because he can outrun all his teammates. "I don't have to be faster than the enemy, just faster than my friends". Every time I'm in a forward position and get left behind to die by a commander, I think twice about following them again. Period. A leader is the person who dies rezzing the last man in his group. You should be the last man/women out, to provide an example of not leaving anyone behind. A leader isn't someone who treats their group like children...assuming there's no way to keep them quiet except to give them candy constantly. Instead, a leader is someone who recognizes the intelligence and strengths of their group, and provides a good example for them to follow.
If you want to effectively lead, win the hearts and minds of your troops. Gain their respect. How? By making smart decisions, leading by example, and respecting them first. Stop talking about it and do it.
As I said, last night before reset was a prime example. Sure, it didn't matter in terms of points...the match was already decided and we couldn't come back in the short remaining time. But it mattered big time to each person who defended their asses off in bay, only to lose a demoralizing defeat at the very last minute. How much more motivated and excited would everyone have been right after reset if they were just coming off of a great and successful keep defense, and had something positive to build on? The irony was incredible as people in the meeting TALKED about how we need to help players have more positive experiences, just as a whole group of us were having the most negative possible experience...simply because leaders on our server seem unable to play and bitch at the same time.
Commanders should concern themselves a little less with spoon-feeding experience and karma to the pack of hanger-ons during our peak times, and think a little more about the poor lonely guy who's going to be trying to maintain a tiny bit of our color on the map after you've gone to bed. We need more people during those off-hours, and the only way we get more people at those times is if THEY have more positive experiences. They need to be able to defend when outnumbered big time, and we need to be recruiting more help for them. If you aren't leaving defensible positions behind when you log off, you didn't lead effectively.
4. Tactics and strategy.
We need our own strategy and tactics. Screw learning from people who have the luxury of huge numbers. The stupid pre-revolutionary crap tactics used by bigger servers are never going to work for us. It only works for them because of sheer numbers. Even reasonably better tactics will beat them almost every single time, if the numbers are even close to even. We need FC tactics because nobody else is in our shoes in terms of population, coverage, and individual player skill.
Just because other people do it, and it works sometimes, doesn't mean it's good. Doesn't mean it's right for us. We need to play smarter. Why not be the only guys doing it better, rather than a smaller group doing it the same and failing repeatedly. We aren't losing because we need to zerg better, we're losing because we're trying to zerg at all. It's not our game.
Only take what we can defend. Secure your backside and your supply. Upgrading and holding is better. Think people won't stick around? If the commander leads by example and has people's respect, they will very quickly follow suit. Let a few people jump over to another map...if the commander stays put, they'll be back before long and helping. Especially once they see that it allows for much fewer to succeed against the opponents' zergs. Our borderlands should be our turf, all week, no question. We should have that entirely and solidly defended before anyone starts screwing around on other maps. You defend effectively by putting people at every entrance, and Nuking the hell out of anyone who enters. Period. It's dramatically easier that way than trying to defend with enemy forces roaming freely around the whole map. When you log in as a commander, the first question should be, "who is defending the entrances of our borderlands?" If there are enough people and it's fully covered, then and only then should you think about pushing into EB or other maps.
Priorities. Which is more important? An upgraded tower in our borderlands or a few random camps (or even a paper tower) in someone else's borderlands? When one of our fortified positions is attacked, EVERYONE should defend it. Right away without a bunch of questioning or attitude. Come running. Show those few dedicated defenders that you've got their back, and they will respect you much more and follow you. Show people that pumping money into upgrades is not entirely futile, and I guarantee you people will do it more often.
Stop running in a big ball and wiping. Sorry, but it's bad tactics, plain and simple. Real life armies stopped doing that hundreds of years ago, because it sucks. Run in a ball, stand in their focused attack, see who dies first... it's idiotic. Maybe you wipe them sometimes...or they wipe you. Only two outcomes is a very poor gamble, especially for a server that is often outnumbered in the open field like we are. You might think it's no big deal to wipe because everyone can just respawn, but take a second to think about the morale of the people following you, and the position of the server as a whole. Getting killed repeatedly is demoralizing, and makes people feel hopeless. Our server is not served at all by losing all of our resources in a forward position in well fell swoop.
Attack from defense. Spreading ourselves really thin by taking one objective after another without leaving any defense behind... it's only a matter of time before you get wiped or you log off and you can be easily countered by a small force moving right behind you and taking back all your paper towers. The server gains points by HOLDING objectives, not by taking them and having them taken back. If you can attack from within an upgraded keep, or stay close to a waypoint, you are much more likely to force the enemy to expend resources while you maintain and bolster your own.
REZZ DOWNED PLAYERS. I can't stress this enough. The stupid zerg-ball tactics that everyone seems to hold up as some kind of military genius seem to require that you leave players down and let them get stomped on by the enemy. There is little in the world more demorilizing than getting smashed and danced on by enemy forces while your own teammates stand next to you (or on top of you) and do nothing. Good groups and guilds NEVER leave a player downed, especially when they are in a forward position. Watch them and see. The minute someone goes down, everyone is all over them, invising them, pushing back enemies, rezzing them quickly. Throwing down AoE and whatever they've got. We should be doing that, too.
Every character on our WvW map is an actual human person...playing a game to have fun and be part of a team. Commanders need to think of them that way. Give them the benefit of the doubt in terms of intelligence and common sense, and recognize that you're going to have to earn their respect if you want them to follow you. Maybe you wouldn't have to keep your caps lock on quite so much, and maybe you'd have a shorter list of imagined grievances at each server meeting, if you took some of what I've said to heart.
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