[WoW] PvP AFK measures are not enough.

[Nar]

Let me start by saying that I am glad that measures were taken to cut back on the rampant AFK's in Battlegrounds, AV in particular. It was frustrating seeing 10+ people on each side doing nothing but reaping rewards.
Having said that, I feel that they were poorly implemented and need a lot of revision to be really effective.
This thread isn't about the balance of AV, how often the Horde or Alliance may win, or any of that crap.

It didn't take long for botters to figure out how to circumvent the system. You'll see them in every AV, they sit by the aid station, occasionally move a few steps, and will cast recall, even when it's completely pointless. I've tried petitioning them, and was told that a player from their own server would have to petition them for action to be taken. Congrats, Cyones on Mediev, you got away with it. It really should not be that easy for botters to get away with something so obviously against the EULA.

Flagging someone as AFK prevents their honor gain until they engage in PvP combat. They still sit there and eat up a spot in a game, sitting AFK in the tunnel. Why can't a player be notified when they are flagged inactive, and removed from the BG with a deserter debuff if they fail to engage in PvP after a couple of minutes warning? Give the spot to someone who actually wants to play, not some ass running a bot. You might actually have some 40 on 40 combat that way. Many people don't bother reporting AFK's because it doesn't really help the situation. It punishes the AFK player / botter who will queue right back up and do it again.

Finally, if a player does zero damage and zero healing, they get zero honor.

What are your thoughts?

[RiskyChris]

Ban the AFKers from BGs for a day when they get booted.

How do we deal with people who "blend in" to look active? No clue, it's a shitty problem.

[Maique]

i once saw a mage in darnassus inside the AV npc casting frost armor over and over again, it was obviously a bot, he would enter AV, come out to darnassus and keep doing it, i reported it, nothing happened, he kept going at it, a couple of days later i see him again, and i report again, and nothing happened, i add him to the friends list, and he was online everyday, so he wasn't banned not even for a couple of days.

i really have no idea why Blizzard does nothing to ban these people...


For me someone that makes 8k honor in a day with 0 HK is harassing other players, and should get a suspension/ban as such...

[Xequecal]

Originally Posted by Maique

i once saw a mage in darnassus inside the AV npc casting frost armor over and over again, it was obviously a bot, he would enter AV, come out to darnassus and keep doing it, i reported it, nothing happened, he kept going at it, a couple of days later i see him again, and i report again, and nothing happened, i add him to the friends list, and he was online everyday, so he wasn't banned not even for a couple of days.

i really have no idea why Blizzard does nothing to ban these people...


For me someone that makes 8k honor in a day with 0 HK is harassing other players, and should get a suspension/ban as such...

Because you can't ban people for not playing the way you want. A lot of these "AFKers" are not botting, they're just leaving the game on while they watch HBO or something. Banning them would be like banning the clueless 70s in full greens that get into heroic groups and waste THEIR time.

[Maique]

Originally Posted by Xequecal

Because you can't ban people for not playing the way you want. A lot of these "AFKers" are not botting, they're just leaving the game on while they watch HBO or something. Banning them would be like banning the clueless 70s in full greens that get into heroic groups and waste THEIR time.

that's a terrible comparison, you are not forced to group with a clueless 70 in greens for a heroic, and the AFKers that are not botting are still harassing the other players, they are making the others that want to play and have a chance at winning, lose.

I didn't say ban people because they are bad players like you suggested, but when a player does BG's one after the other and just stands there leeching, that's harassing in my book.

[Zarcath]

When do we start banning people for being bad at PvPing and ruining your PvP experience?

You want a solution? BG Rankings.

[Lambourne]

I saw 15 AFKs in a single AV last weekend. It's basically back to where it was before. More people seem to be reporting them though, so they adapt. Some move out of the tunnel to "hide" elsewhere. Some stand still for 15 minutes until they get flagged as inactive, then they run midfield to get in combat, and then go afk again till they get flagged again, rinse and repeat. The amount of effort people are willing to put into not playing amazes me.

I think the BG tokens are part of the problem. People are being forced to play a BG they don't like just to get tokens, which may lead some to AFKing. Unpopular BGs should be looked at to make them more attractive to players, people shouldn't be forced into them.

I also think kill honor in AV should be looked at. If you would get 4-5 honor per kill no matter how many other players were nearby, it would reward actively participating far more than it does now. Towers are actually worth fighting over now so even defenders will get something out of it.

[FuckYou]

players should have to achieve a percentage of the average healing done / damage done to get credit for participating.

do 20% of the average hd/dd and get honor. otherwise get a 2 hour deserter debuff.

calculations should take in to account late-comers to the BG and GY / Tower recaps / defenses, and perhaps even proximity to an objective, but this gets a bit complicated.

[Torrid]

I've whined about this before as some of you are aware. Contemplated starting a thread about it myself.

The current anti-AFK measures are a joke. They do not work. At best they maybe halved the AFK rate in AV. But they also INCREASED the AFK rate in other BGs, as some of the AFKers moved there. I've yet to see anybody flagged AFK in a BG that wasn't AV. I've even told my premade of 6 friends to report somebody combined with telling everybody in the BG to report some guy, and he never got flagged. Ridiculous.

I still see AFKs well into the double digits in AV.

I like to use the Quake analogy. If you played a game of Quake, and your team had members in it that refused to participate and just took up space, you would get pissed. It's the exact same situation in WoW. Anybody who thinks AFKing is no big deal is a faggot who just wants his welfare epics and doesn't care about PvP.

Originally Posted by Maique

i once saw a mage in darnassus inside the AV npc casting frost armor over and over again, it was obviously a bot, he would enter AV, come out to darnassus and keep doing it, i reported it, nothing happened, he kept going at it, a couple of days later i see him again, and i report again, and nothing happened, i add him to the friends list, and he was online everyday, so he wasn't banned not even for a couple of days.

For me someone that makes 8k honor in a day with 0 HK is harassing other players, and should get a suspension/ban as such...

I've seen a mage on my server do this exact same thing, only he managed something like 14k on a non-AV weekend (with zero HKs) after the report option was put in. About as much proof as you need that the system is ineffective.

I petitioned a GM to do something about him three times. They all told me "thanks for making warcraft a better place" then did absolutely nothing. How do I know they did nothing? Because I /ruded the fucker every time I saw him, and one day he told me how smart he was for botting his honor. I said if he ever got banned, that it would be because of my petition. He then replied with some tell that suggested that he was never contacted by a GM.

So really, fuck WoW's CS in the mother fucking ass. Fuck WoW's devs for not playing their game, and/or not giving a shit about their PvP base.

If Blizzard required everybody to enter PvP combat before becoming eligible to receive any honor in a battleground, it would reduce AFKing by a huge amount, because it would require them to run sophisticated bot programs that could be detected by warden. Currently all you need to bot a BG is something that can right click the screen every minute or so. This is so simple that several software programs or devices can do this and not be caught by warden. Also the more of a pain you make it for the non-botting AFKers, the fewer that will do it.

[Grumpy Old Fart]

Play DAoC until "the next big game" then. I agree with all of the above, and that's what I'm doing. Sure, the game pretty much sucks ass in general compared to more refined games like EQ2 (which has no "fair" PvP option like BGs) and WoW (which, after 3 solid years, gets boring), but at least nobody in the DAoC is getting "free" points like this WoW AFK bullshit and the RvR is modestly entertaining.

The Battlegrounds in DAoC have no "fairness" mechanism to control realm population balance however, and since everybody seems to be cross-realming faggots in that game nowadays, you'll have to learn to STFU and just have as much fun as you can in the intense RvR fights there.

I can't believe I'm actually recommending DAoC. Mythic is immensely incompetent and proven huge lying sleazebags. But, what's a needy MMORPG player to do, until "the next big game"?

[FuckYou]

play wow

[Zerai]

The worst part about it is how obvious it is how to fix it. 0 damage/healing and in game longer than 5 mins. Maybe they got unlucky and joined a game late, give the benefit of the doubt and allow it for like, 5 games, at game 6 if they do it, banned from bgs for a week. Give proper warning. Announce it. And then fuck them.

There is no reason to defend these people. These aren't casual players. Most of the people I see afk aren't wearing greens or even blues, they are wearing full arena gear or full raid gear, they are doing it because they believe it isn't worth their time to play these. Well..fuck them. I don't give a shit. If they all got banned it probably wouldn't hit blizzard's bottom line. Raiders don't quit when they get fucked in the ass, they keep chugging. I know, I was one. I only quit when my friends quit.

Then they have to fix the underlying issue. Someone here mentioned giving honor for practice arenas. That would be a great idea. Then have tokens relate to game length in BGs. Get one token per 5 mins or something and if you win you get some extra. Make WSG tolerable. They also need to add a resource limit to WSG. They added it to AV, now just to add it to WSG.

They just don't give a shit and it's obvious. It's unfortunate that WoW is the best mmos have to offer. It's quite depressing. They have no competition and they know it, so they don't bother fixing shit that's clearly broken.

[Aphextwin]

I agree it is bloody annoying having to deal with these people, its almost as bloody annoying to keep reporting them too. However, I have been using an auto AFK reporting mod for the last few days and it seems to work pretty well. I no longer have to report anyone I let the mod do it.

I'm sure it is not perfect but it is better than nothing, just pisses me off that blizzard can't do a better sodding job with their own game.

I currently use TuringTest AFK Reporter | World of Warcraft @ Curse.com here is another that I have used with good results CattleProd | World of Warcraft @ Curse.com

[Grizzlebeard]

It's been a while since I PvP'ed in WoW but what if they allowed you to PK your own side whilst ensuring the players don't gain any recognition for the kill? Add in a cooldown so you can't kill the same player until say 5 minutes have passed while still giving other players the opportunity to rape their face.

[FuckYou]

the first problem is that not enough people are using the mods or manually reporting.

the second problem is that the real AFKers will run out of the cave and suicide to clear the debuff when (if) they get it.