Winning an arena game through psychology

Hey everyone!

​Even though I don't usually post a lot about gaming, I am an avid gamer and have been so for as long as I can remember. One of the games that I spent most time playing, which many others have done so also is World of Warcraft. Talking to another Steemian on Steemit the other day and reminissing about the game reminded me of this one epic arena game that I wanted to share with you.

​First off for the ones who don't know about it, some information on how it works.

​World of Warcraft is an MMORPG where players play a character of 10 different classes online. They level them up through questing and killing monsters and in the end-game they can do PvE (Player vs Environment) which is basically killing bigger monsters with a group of 10-40 people or PvP (Player vs Player) which is the competetive scene where they can do Battlegrounds (instances of players fighting vs eachother over objectives) or Arena that is a rated PvP last man standing wins.

​

​(A screenshot of what the game looks like in that specific Arena map, take notice to the player to the right that has died and how it shows his username above him, we'll get to that later in the story)

​In Arena you can play 2v2, 3v3 or 5v5 and to understand my story and the mechanics involved, some classes are healers, some damage dealers and sometimes there can even be tanks which are the ones supposed to be taking the heavy damage. Most are geared differently depending on their specialization. If one player happens to die in Arena, the healer or class that has a resurrection spell is able to revive that player but to be able to do that you need 6 seconds to get out of combat (not having cast any spells that affect the enemy team) and then cast a 10 second resurrection spell without getting interrupted by the enemy or entering combat.

​Now that we have the basics out of the way, let's get into what happened in this particular game.

​___

​It was season 3 of Arena in The Burning Crusade expansion of WoW and I was playing with a buddy from the same guild. He was playing a Warrior class and I was on a Druid healing in 2v2. Arena's are rated by points where everyone starts at a certain amount and for each win depending on the other teams rating you gain points and lose points the same way after a loss. Not only did you get some flashy titles by finishing the season with a high rating, but you were also able to buy some restricted gear that depended on your rating. It was the first time for my druid getting to 2000 rating so I could buy this shiny shoulders.

​

​We were only one win away from reaching the rating and calling it a night after a very long session and many games getting there from 1850 rating. We had met a lot of teams that were playing double damage dealers without healers so we were hoping to face those again but of course as luck would have it we met a mirror team that were also playing Druid & Warrior.

​The fight starts, we try our playstyle of rotating crowd-control spells, both of us doing damage to pressure them, using offensive cyclones and everything but the game was as even as it could get. To be able to visualize it if you have never played the game before, here is a video you can check through where they are also facing a mirror team Druid & Warrior.

​

​We decide to save up on all our cooldowns and stay alive while they blow theirs after about 15 minutes of going back and forth and somehow we finally manage to get it right with some added damage from my side as the healer onto their warrior. He dies and just as I'm about to get super happy about finally achieving the rating I notice that my own teammates health was super-low, I had focused way too hard at dealing damage while their healer was now finishing off my warrior teammate. As soon as I'm about to cast a 1.5 sec Regrowth on him my spell gets cancelled due to him dying. Panic ensues.

​For a few minutes we try our hardest to deal damage to one another but being healers our healing power is way more effective, so much so that our Lifebloom stacks alone out-heal all focus of doing damage to the other. What now?

The game is already 20 minutes in and we start trying to crowd-control the other by casting Cyclones and Entangling Roots at one another, running as far as possible and trying to cast a resurrection spell onto our dead teammates. Both being Druids and able to enter travel form to move faster it makes it impossible to throw a 10 sec cast after getting out of combat for 6 sec to get the other player revived. Worst part was that both Warrior's corpses are close to one another.

​Neither of us wanting to give up we keep playing and interrupting each others attempts at reviving their partner. My buddy is getting tired and so was I, knowing that if we just leave this game the other team will win and we won't have the energy to play more that night thus not getting the required rating for the shoulders. Since enemy players in the Arena are not able to communicate with another, no matter which faction they are on, I tell my friend to log onto his other account, create a character on their realm quick and contact them seeing if they are willing to leave since we were one win away from getting the rating.

​He finally manages to get contact to the other warrior from their team and he tells him that they are in the same position, also one win away from the rating. They talk for a bit and then the other warrior says that he is going to sleep and doesn't care anymore, but that his friend is very stubborn and will probably not do the same.

​In the picture above where I mentioned the username thing, you can tell if a player is not "there" anymore if the username gets removed and the corpse turns into bones which means he won't be able to be revived anymore. My friend contacts their healer next and asks him if it wouldn't be fair to leave now due to his chances of getting a revive in are gone since his friend has logged out, but no, he wants to play the patient game of me leaving instead and says something like he "had just woken up, so good luck to you two".

​It was 4 am and the Arena game had gone on for over 1 hour now as back then there was no time limit on the games. My friend gives up and goes to sleep, so now its just me and him, no one able to do anything but run around and attempt to bring the others health down knowing it is impossible with us both being healers. Both playing the waiting game and hoping the other will give up, realizing how much time we have already wasted and how bad it would feel to give up now it just felt like it was never going to end with both thinking the same way.

​That's where I came up with something else instead. I remember it had been over 100 minutes in the game when I logged onto my other account, quickly created a level 1 character and contacted him on it - while still in the game on my main account. Talked to him for a while and tried to tell him how I will definitely not be the one to give up first so he is just wasting his time and that he will be the one losing in the end but to no avail. He was indeed very stubborn. Reality was that I was dead tired and so sleepy that I almost fell asleep on the keyboard, but I really didn't want to be the loser in this scenario, the next thing I told him was this.

​"You know what, I'm just going to go AFK for a while, put an autoclicker on my Lifebloom so you can't kill me and then start playing on my other account on another PC instead where I'm leveling up this Warlock to play with some IRL friends of mine. Have fun waiting around!"

​I was trying to make it seem like he would be the one wasting more time than me, since in the game there is a thing called Global Cooldown that won't let you cast a spell more often than once every 1.5 seconds, you could spam a spell and it would always cast it after that time while the other player couldn't tell if it was being cast manually or if it was automated. He responded with:

​"Yeah do that, I will report you for botting then and have a Game Master kick you out of the Arena."

​I only replied with "Good luck with that. ;)"

​20 minutes pass while I haven't moved an inch just pressing the same key over and over while watching the other druid try to bring me down to 0 health with no chance and I get a whisper from a GM:

"Hello! This is Game Master Randomname, are you there?"

Now I try to figure out how to reply to him while not dying, so I start typing while clicking with my mouse on that one spell that was keeping me alive while still pretending I am AFK.

"Yeah, why?"

"This user just sent out a report saying you were not present anymore and something about an auto clicker..."

"No, I've been here all the time - I just want him to think I am not here so he will finally give up and leave."

"Oh okay, carry on then. :)"

​I am not sure what happened after that, what the Game Master replied to the other user or if he told on me, but 15 minutes later the player finally vanishes from in front of me and I have never been as relieved as I was that night. I quickly log into that level 1 character again and just reply to him with "HAHAHAH I was there all along!" but never received a reply. Don't know if he left cause of a connection issue, or if he was less stubborn then me. I just knew I won one of the most boring Arena games of all time as I went to purchase my new Shoulder item and directly after fell asleep.

​The lengths we go for in-game items in a virtual world.

---

​

​

​