Nearly 20 years ago, a game called Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory was being tested. The game had two mechanically identical sub-machine guns, the only differences being cosmetic (their in-game models and sound effects.) However, even those the guns were functionally identical…one was actually performing better. How? Why?
It turns out people “felt” one was better because it sounded stronger. That is it. People thought their gun was stronger, so they were more aggressive and got more kills…while others using the different identical gun thought it was weaker…so they played more defensive and ended up dying more.
Player perception has real, tangible effects…even if they’re based in reality or not.
I think this is what is happening in Alterac Valley right now. I know its not an exact 1:1 comparison, but I think the power of mind-set should not be overlooked. Alliance are queuing up convinced they’re going to lose because they’re at a disadvantage…and why wouldn’t they think that, they have been losing. So now they’re in the fight convinced they’re all ready on the back foot, so why should they try…they’re just going to lose anyways, right? And they self-fulfill their own prophecy.
With Wolfenstein, all they had to do was change the sound effect, unfortunately I don’t see such an easy fix to the perception problem that exists now…other than just bringing to light just how powerful mind-set is.
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Yep, we humans are not nearly as rational as we delude ourselves into believing.
Good lesson for gaming and for life. Bravo OP.
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Will of the Forsaken is actually a pretty large factor though. Fear is one of the most powerful abilities in the game for large scale pvp. Being able to force the other teams line to split up and even cause some of them to run deep in to the enemies line and dying quickly can make or break a battle. Undead seems to be by far the most popular race for horde so this allows horde to break alliance lines with fear, but alliance unable to do the same thing back due to 60%ish percent of the horde being able to immediatly break out of it. I do agree with your point to some extent, but this analogy puts both guns as completely equal in performance, but for this particular situation, horde’s racials clearly outperform alliance’s in pvp. Obviously better gear and skill can still allow alliance to win, but when you pick 40 random alliance and 40 random horde to face each other, horde will usually come out with the advantage due to better racials AND this self defeatest AFK/Quest attitude that alliance PUGs have.
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I would argue that in large-scale battles, Fear Ward is vastly superior to WotF in terms of effectiveness. But my point is, that if you’re going into a big battle all ready expecting to lose…for any reason…you will find a way to make it happen.
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Wolfenstein:Enemy Territory was such a great mod.
Medic4Life
“They’ve broken into the bank – protect the gold!”
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Fear Ward is only usable by Dwarf priests and it has a cooldown after it pops. MAY have 3 dwarf priests in a whole AV.
I am not denying your arguement. Just stating that it is not 100% of the story here. Horde have a clear advantage with pvp racials that factors in to things.
On the other hand, Fear Ward.
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This isn’t supposed to be an argument about racials. But being able to give fear immunity to anyone…at range, on a 30 second cooldown is huge. You are going into fights with the assumption the other side has “a clear advantage” when its a lot more nuanced than that.
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Fear bombs are easy to cast and are on demand. Fear wards will never be on everyone and is not a common buff.
Will of the Foresaken is only usable by Undead and only on that players own character.
Blockquote Fear bombs are easy to cast and are on demand. Fear wards will never be on everyone and is not a common buff.
Well there is your problem…
Not every Horde has Will, and it isn’t always up. It’s up to you to plan for those fear bombs, if someone doesn’t have Ward up (when available) that is on you not Will of the Foresaken.
You are also ignoring the fact Pallies effectively have a fear cancel for themselves (an anything cancel really) and you are better set up for defensive dispels than the Horde is as well. The Horde is more offensive and obviously windfury and other benefits of shaman balance out Pally benefits, but it’s not like they have bubble, and freedom.
I’m not suggesting Will, Hardiness or other Horde racials aren’t fantastic, they are, it’s just they are single abilities and have work arounds.
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Flasks and raid consumes are available too in bgs. Do you expect alliance to flask for av because it’s available? I guess alliance can’t complain because it’s our fault we don’t flask and use all raid consumes.
Fear ward, though available, is not expected/common. Wotf is.
Do you see how what you’re saying is similar to the above?
Fear Ward not being common is on you, not us or will of the foresaken.
When I played Ally it was required any (Dwarf) Priest who played with us used it every cool down. I was often ridiculed for being NE in this regard.
Blockquote Flasks and raid consumes are available too in bgs. Do you expect alliance to flask for av because it’s available? I guess alliance can’t complain because it’s our fault we don’t flask and use all raid consumes.
Kinda yeah. Ive gone up against teams that flask and unless we out play them we don’t deserve to win those fights if my team doesn’t do the same. The games with that level of consume though aren’t common and while you may encounter them from time to time most teams aren’t wasting consumes on matches they know they will win. They are saving that cost for the teams that do (generally)
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Maybe fixing the severe disadvantages that Alliance have would change this perception?
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I think you’re still missing the point that all the well geared alliance went to warsong gulch. The same ones that benefited with easy ranks by spamming premades day in and day out. All that gear left av even though it was acquired by the same instance. Meanwhile quite a bit of horde rankers still utilize av and wsg premades are a smaller percentage of the pvp population.
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I agree with this. And i think it is one of the few legitimate reasons why the Alliance are having a rough time in AV.
It’s really only locks/mages that are undead though. This is a really weak argument, honestly.
This is like having horde rogues complaining about dwarfs + stoneform - the bane of horde rogues everywhere. Everyone needs to stop.
Plus, fearward, no CD from every dwarf preist. Please stop with this.
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OMG Wolfenstein? You make me feel very old. Yes I agree.
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i mean, the maps arent identical. they arent even close, in fact. the alliance side of the map has some serious issues as outlined in this image, and thats not even taking into consideration that you can easily bypass the dunbaldar bridge entirely by wall walking into the alliance base from behind.
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