WvW is lots of fun. You dont even have to be on the winning side to enjoy it. I play for Isle of Janthir so I know. We dont have a lot of people, but we work together. It’s all about working together. That includes small and big groups. One person can make a difference if they know what to do. Killing other players is fun but you contribute the most to your team if you help take areas and defend them. Somtimes running is your best option. It can take you a long time to get back to an area if you die. I dont understand though why a big group would retreat. If you have skilled players you can defeat a group twice your size. One reason I can thing of for a large group to retreat is that they have to defend a tower or keep from the invading forces and they are going to re group behind the walls and defend from that point.
WvW is all about tactics. If you dont know what is going on use the map chat and find out. For instance today I was asked to watch one of our towers due to a large force advancing, I know it sounds boring considering we havent seen any invader activity in the area for a good 20 min. The invaders ended up attacking one of our keeps. I would have been fun to join in on the fight. Our group headed out to defend it. The invaders at the keep ended up breaking and disappeared. All of a sudden they where at our doors trying to ram down our gate. There where just two of us holding the tower. We unleashed our arrows on the battering rams and invaders at the gate. We where able to hold them off till our main force came to the rescue. If no one would have been at the tower we would have lost it.
Just my two cents worth.