PvP Season 7 is in full swing and I'm taking part in it as usual. I wouldn't do so if I didn't enjoy PvP, but even with the best will in the world, PvP can also be filled with frustrations sometimes. Inspired by some of those feelings, I bring you a list of ten different types of annoying PvP match that I regularly come across in my journeys.
Note that this is not a top ten list because the severity of annoyance with each of these types of match can vary a lot depending on the exact circumstances of the situation, and you can have both mild cases and ones that are really bloody annoying in each category.
The one that's doomed from the start due to numbers
By that I mean the number of people on each team, not dps numbers. This is more likely to happen in arenas than in warzones and mostly happens in lower level PvP, though it can technically happen in any mode depending on your luck. If the difference is only one person and the skill difference between the teams is big enough, you can still have an interesting match sometimes, but there's nothing quite like starting an arena with only one other person on your team vs. a full group of four, or the game pitting you against three enemies all by yourself. You just know it's not gonna happen no matter what. (Though the other day I was put into an arena by myself vs. three opponents and actually managed to kill one of them before they killed me - I considered that a win on a personal level.)
The one where desync keeps screwing you over
Mostly this happens in Huttball. I've written about desync in the past, and I remember they even took two of the Huttball maps out of the game for a while to "fix" them, though I don't think that ultimately went anywhere. It's not always equally bad, but there are definitely times when you desperately want to intercept the ball carrier but the game just can't decide what floor they are even on until after they've already scored.
The one where your whole team is just clueless
Everyone's got to start learning at some point, and I can't hold it against anyone if they don't know the rules and objectives of each warzone on day one. Nonetheless, being saddled with a whole team of players like that at once can be frustrating. The prime example I always think of for this was an Odessen Proving Grounds match that started with the southern and middle nodes active... and the moment the spawn point opened, everyone but me ran north, where there was... nothing. I just knew right then that I wasn't in for a good time. I mean, I couldn't even be mad, but it sure is deflating to be literally the only person in a team of eight going for the objective while the other seven bumble around in the middle of nowhere.
The one where you're just getting completely steamrolled
Whether it's because you're up against a premade or the matchmaker is just doing its usual thing of not giving a damn, it's not very fun to be in a match where you basically get murdered the moment you come out of the spawn point. If you're lucky, at least it'll be over quickly, but if you're unlucky, you might end up against a premade that intentionally tries to draw things out so they can farm more numbers before finishing you off.
The one where your team is trying but just not good enough
This is a very peculiar kind of annoyance because when both teams are trying but one is just a bit better, that should make for a good match, right? Even if you lose in the end, at least you had a chance? Well... I'd say that's true in principle, but there' a certain point where it can in fact make the match extra annoying, when you can tell that everyone is really trying but then you always get foiled at the last moment anyway, and still lose the Huttball match 0-6 or whatever. It's like you get your hopes up over and over again just to have them dashed repeatedly. This kind of match doesn't so much leave you mad at your team mates, but more like you're going insane from a terrible itch that you just can't scratch.
The one where people are going crazy with the insults
Honestly, I never quite got the idea of "smack talk" in PvP. I get that it's a thing that some people like, but I'm more in camp "good sportsmanship" where you try to not take it personally and treat everyone involved with respect, which is kind of the opposite really. Anyway, usually the sorts of comments I'm thinking of here wouldn't even remotely qualify for friendly banter anyway and just involve people outright yelling insults at each other. I'm not so thin-skinned that I consider a match immediately ruined if someone starts ranting, but depending on the intensity and how many people are doing it, it can definitely bring the vibe down. Though I've learned that /ignore really does help here.
The one where you're in a warzone with damage farmers
Look, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with just wanting to beat up the enemy, but there's arenas for that, right? Warzones have objectives for a reason, and it's very frustrating when the majority of your team is not on board with that. In fact, it's quite ironic how sometimes being in a warzone with a bunch of elite damage farmers is almost indistinguishable from being in one with a bunch of complete noobs. The only difference is that when you look at the scoreboard at the end, the veterans will have some big numbers and will presumably pat each other on the back about how well they did spamming AoE at the spawn for the entire duration of the match. However, you yourself will still end up just as frustrated being literally the only person going for the objective and ending up easily foiled by the enemy. The rare amusing exception to this is if both teams are damage farmers, and you can do objectives pretty much undisturbed while they all brawl in mid.
The one where you meet "that one guy"
Who's "that one guy", you might ask? The answer is: your nemesis, at least for the duration of the match. It doesn't matter what else is going on, you keep running into that one person and they piss you off every time! The prime example I always remember when thinking of this was a Huttball match where a Shadow was pretty much solo-running the ball for the enemy and would always have the perfect counter to every attempt of mine to stop him. It was so frustrating! More recently, I played a few matches on Star Forge where this one tank seemed to be absolutely intent on spending the entirety of each match crawling up my rear, no matter where on the map I went. I was healing, and to a certain degree getting focused as a healer is normal, but there were other healers on my team and yet that person was always on me. It's not even that I got killed all the time or anything, but it got very annoying rather quickly to be the target of seemingly every single stun and interrupt of that guy for the entire match.
The one where people give up and go AFK the moment the enemy gets ahead
I tend to think of AFKers in PvP as the bane of my existence, and a couple of seasons ago I ran into them quite frequently, but recently things have fortunately been better on that front and I haven't encountered that nearly as often. Interestingly, often when I hear people talk about AFKers, the blame gets (rightly or wrongly) put on people who actually don't like PvP and just queue up for certain rewards, hoping they'll get by just sitting in stealth for the entire match. I mention this because while I have no doubt that this does happen sometimes, my personal experience has been almost the opposite, that AFKers are often very much into PvP in general and may even be skilled players, but they just absolutely cannot deal with losing and will stop trying the moment their team falls behind, and then just stand in a corner while complaining about how much everyone but them sucks. In arenas this is often even worse, where you'll see certain people kill themselves with /stuck in the spawn at the start of the second round if their team lost the first round.
The one where you just need that one win or have been waiting forever
I think I've occasionally mentioned before how the way daily and weekly missions reset since 7.0 has made me feel more pressured for time when it comes to completing them, and that I actually often have more fun PvPing when I'm not trying to tick any boxes. As it is though, spending a lot of time in the queue and running out of time to, say, complete a daily, really ramps up the pressure for the match to be good when it finally pops, and there's nothing quite like the despair you feel when you've waited half an hour or longer to get into a game and then it just goes sideways immediately and you know it's going to be a waste of time.
