The other night some of my clan members were thinking back upon the Albion event with reverence and awe. Depending what side you were predominately on, you could have memories of glory and victory versus ones of futility and loss. Albion was a polarizing event, but at the beginning before anyone really became aware of the preordained lop sided reality there was a lot of Axis players who fought like dogs, only to lose again and again. I know because I was one of them. I remember thinking how it could be that I and many others who were (are) good pilots could keep losing at what was an insane pace. I started seeing pilots who I had flown with in many battle start to show up on the Allies team. It is easy to play around with the concepts of "winning" and "having fun" as if they are mutually exclusive somehow, as if you can have either and that is all that matters. Yet the reality on the other hand is that losing and not having fun always go together. So back when the Albion event was going on, it was just a matter of an individual's personal tolerance for losing that kept them playing the Axis. At the time I rationalized it as "I'm going to go out there regardless of the odds or outcome and give them Hell". That worked for a few days until I started to think about getting double crates and then started to moonlight playing the Allies. It amazes me that no lesson was learned from Albion. Not just with War Gaming but also with the players. As an event, Albion was go to down in history as a lop sided slaughter, with some players still celebrating those fond memories of winning and double crates, and others, well not such good memories, a lot of loses in vain.
Fast forward to the latest and greatest "Bomber Escort Event". This event is so lop sided it almost makes Albion look fair. Like Albion (at the time) there are people who are raving and praising how utterly great this event is. Like going into a casino and winning 95% of your pulls on a slot machine. Who would not like that? Winning is fun and easy!!! Conversely losing is demoralizing and psychologically hard. The human mentality adjusts, once the reality was determined that bombers and attack planes could win at 95%-100% rates, players flocked to these planes to get in on it. Players who still liked flying fighters and heavies teamed up with bombers and attack planes and got in on the attacking side. This weekend the game we call Warplanes gave and gave and gave, to the attackers. People on the defending side had 95%-100% loss rates and playing the defenders seemed futile. I realize that a few egotistical door knobs might pipe in and state how they won playing as the defenders, and maybe they won their share, but only because they had the skill and advantages to overcome the rigged battle. The vast majority of pilots are not in that category of skill.
What also amazes me is the attitudes of all the people who are basically padding their win rates at paces not seen since Albion. "Bomber Escort is the greatest thing ever!" and "It is so much fun". The fun part is knowing that your practically not going to lose. Very little if any empathy for the poor slobs on the defending side who got loss after loss. "That is their fault for not playing bomber or attack plane and not teaming up". Seems like "seal clubbing" by any other name, it's smell is not so sweet. Legal seal clubbing, institutionalized by War Gaming as an official event. If you know your odds of winning is 9 out of 10, how can you in good conscience feel good about defeating the other team? It is because the human psyche doesn't care about a fair fight. I've read most of the recent posts, some very well written, but very few with any conscious. I guess that reminder is up to me.
I watched this event progress through out this past weekend. I started seeing players on the defense teams doing things that were counter productive to getting their victory, like going after human player bombers and attack planes, spending all their time shooting down other fighters and not attacking the bomber groups. For a while I could not understand the mind set, was this sheer incompetence? I assumed that anyone playing on the defenders team was in it to win. Then I slowly realized that players had given up on the very idea of winning and were just playing for their own stats or other goals. This attitude of playing but not for the win only perpetuated the lop sided winning versus losing. Players were making the best of it, disregarding their possibilities to win, and just pursuing their own goals and motives.
My esteemed forum colleague Greg Pattinson wrote a nice piece called "Bomber Escort - Stop trying to win and have fun". I appreciate what Greg has put forth and the spirit to what he is getting at. I was forced to think about winning and losing versus having fun. How schizophrenic it is to have an event that is meant for two sides to compete yet if you follow what Greg is advocating, just don't worry about the winning, just have fun doing whatever. I get it, I really do. We often tell out children, just go out there and do the best you can, that is all that matters. That makes us feel good as parents, we don't then have to address the prime question about winners and losers. There eventually does come a point in which the reality of competition and winning and losing matters, usually in high school. Of course we all know what the real adult world is like, and the competition that is forced upon us all at times. My counter point to Greg, if this game is not about winning, then what is it about? My counter point also goes to War Gaming, what is this game really about? You can win and have fun. True. You can also have fun as Greg describes and throw winning to the breeze. Can you lose and have fun? I suppose if you rationalize it that way and you buffer your emotions about losing. When ever you have two teams and only one team wins, I would put forth that winning is the prime directive. Fun is whatever you personally make it, but if you are on a team and the goal is to win, then that is your duty, to help your team win. Greg is glorifying the obvious, and it is a popular view among players who have profited in the win column. Keep in mind for every win you achieved, someone else received a loss and I would argue a loss that they could do little about.
In conclusion. If players have had fun, I can appreciate that for what it is at face value. On that level then maybe War Gaming had some success. On the other hand, if creating events that are mass losses for one side and an ever flow of victories for the other, that somehow that translates into equal opportunity and fair play I am dumbfounded. There is something about not knowing certain outcomes that makes things worth while. Like not knowing the end to a book or movie. It can be fun to overwhelmingly win, but time after time after time, how long does it take for your conscious to question what you are doing? Or is it the consensus of the majority that we take all we can and worry little about who we take it from? There is the rub and why these types of games can be so schizophrenic. We all understanding winning and losing on a fair (as fair as it can get) playing field, and we have argued to have that fair playing field, haven't we, but then when the playing field is not fair how much conscious do we put forth? Can we say "We honestly beat you fair and square?".
I gained somewhere around 100 wins this past weekend. Remarkable. I know others have gained many more than that. The easiest 100 wins I have ever had in this game. I was playing at a rigged table, one I could not lose at. People have accused me of being pompous, arrogant, and full of bluster, just to name a few. Yet I have the capacity to know the difference between things that are honestly earned and things that are contrived and convoluted. I think at the very least we all deserve an explanation as to the reasoning and logic behind this past weekend's event. Is the true enjoyment of creating events for us not knowing yourselves (WG) what is going to happen? Or did you just conclude that if you create rigged and lop sided events that enough players will be happy and declare it a great success, and that is all that matters. Just enough "coal to stoke the fire" to keep things going. I wonder if I am the only one having trouble philosophically with this past event???
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Prenzlau
Edited by Prenzlau, 08 October 2018 - 09:39 PM.