Originally Posted by
GoodSyntax
I stopped PvP many seasons ago (back when Nordr first came out).
To be honest, I found that there were several types of PvPers:
Friendly Pro's
This group not only enjoyed PvP, but wanted to build friendships, wanted to improve their skills, was willing to fight or team with anybody, was willing to teach and rarely, if ever, talked trash. At the time, this was a large group, and they were loosely connected in that they respected each other and often balanced out teams simply to enjoy a good fight. This was the group that generally kept PvP matches fun and exciting.
KDR Obsessed
This group only cared about their KDR. This was the group that usually joined with a pack of Warriors, or always joined the team with more players. You could find this type of player spawn farming, hunting exclusively in packs, killing the winner of 1v1 fights, etc., These players were quick to talk trash when they were winning and were equally quick to call in guildmates/friends to stack the deck if they got killed (didn't matter if they lost in a 1v1 or a clash) or thought they could have lost in a battle. Many of these players turned to kill farming to pad their stats out even more, which ultimately made the PvP leaderboards a joke.
PvP Noobs
This group usually came in undergeared, didn't understand how to fight a clash, often ran off on their own (hence were easy pickings), had starter or low end pets, and generally hurt their team instead of helping. Because of their freshness in PvP, these players clearly didn't understand how to fight in a group and generally led to team wipes in clashes. Some of these players kept at it without ever improving, many quit PvP altogether, and a handful joined up with high-powered PvP guilds for protection and typically turned into one of the KDR Obsessed players.
Casual PvPers
This group was usually not the most skilled, but enjoyed joining PvP matches for the camaraderie, were usually pleasant, friendly players, and half the time wound up staying in PvP rooms to chat (weird, I know). You would know what you were joining the moment you entered the room and got a bunch of friend requests, private messages and a fully spammed out chat. Matches with this group usually devolved into a 1v1 room and someone free-flagging with the rest standing around and talking about various topics, usually nothing relevant to the game. A pleasant group, but generally not what you wanted in a PvP match.
Flaggers
This type of player went for the flags immediately. Rarely spoke, didn't kill anything and was only there for flags. This is the type that would end 1v1 matches prematurely, even though everyone in the room would say wait! While there was nothing inherently wrong with this player, it usually meant that you were clashing 4v5, and that your time in the room was going to be limited by however long it took to deliver all flags. I suspect that this group is what caused the free-flagging phenomenon, since it became apparent that to get onto the leaderboard, you needed to get 10k flags, and since everyone else was doing it, many rooms just turned into free flag rooms.
Guild Groupies
This is the group that typically responded to the KDR Obsessed calls for support. This is the player that would join your team and not participate in clashes because they wouldn't kill guildies. Worse, these are also the players that joined, died, and never respawned or respawned and never left the room. Ultimately, these turned into the spot blockers that we all loathe these days.
Unfortunately, the Friendly Pro's have become a very small population in the game, and with their decline, PvP in this game has devolved into gank rooms. There are still a bunch of very respectable players that PvP, but they are the clear minority and the majority that are left over from the early days seem to have a win at all costs mentality. This behavior is the source of all the "PvP Drama".
To be honest, I don't think that there is anything that can be done to improve the situation. As long as people are obsessed with kills, KDR, flag count, guild wars, etc., this can never change without fundamental changes to how PvP is structured. Until STS makes a change to the basic mechanics of PvP, and introduces two different rooms, one where players and teams are completely anonymous (ie., no names, you can't choose your team, auto-rebalancing, etc.) and another room where it is invite-only, our current brand of PvP will remain.
Retiring from PvP today
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