Nite_Moogle

Allowing a per-game cap would prevent this but wouldn't penalize people for getting the same matchups over and over again.

 

Calantus

Why are you so violently opposed to AFKing?

To me, the main reason I can't stand PUG BGs is the pure helplessness of the situation. I can't make alliance win. I just can't. If alliance take their sweet ass time getting to Drekk I can't just whack him down the extra 50% we need to win. If people are leaving everything unguarded I can only guard one of them (which is SF because losing that often forces turtles, which is bad), the others will be lost or not based entirely on factors beyond my control. I can go through the motions and we will win/lose based on what 39 other people do. I can not go through the motions and we will win/lose based on what 39 other people do. When we used to win it was the same. We're going to win if I AFK or if I don't AFK. I just don't see the point in trying when there is no reward for doing so.

I'll play an AB game where I will decide to guard LM and I will hold LM all game against all comers, sometimes nobody comes, sometimes they do. I can win every fight. Every. Single. Fight. I can do my very best... and yet still lose with no way to improve on that. You can work on your character. You can work on your skills and knowledge as a player. You can work on a raid. You can work on an arena team. You can't work on 9/14/39 random players who will be a team for a whole 20 minutes before they are broken up into random games.

It's not about the tedium or wanting to be lazy. I can work through tedium. I have multiple alts. I've grinded honor back in the day. I grinded up CC rep before AQ openned. I used to fish up stonescale eels and farm up gromsblood/gravemoss to help supply out raids. I did all sorts of tedious things to get what I needed. I can take that shit. What I can't take is hopelessness. And that is why I cannot stand PUG BGs enough to not AFK for the massive amount of honor Blizzard requires of me to get the honor gear.

 

Jeffrey

Would still allow premade vs premade honor farming which is something Blizzard absolutely wants to avoid at all costs for some odd reason. Altough it's practically impossible to get it set up with crossrealm BGs now.

 

Ralask

I’m really quite amused at all the people that play this game that complain about repetitive tasks. In every facet of the game I played it all centers around some type of repetitive task. (grinding honor, consumables, farming the same bosses ....etc)

It seems the better people are at arena the less they participate in BG's, I don’t think I have ever seen Noktyn, Kollectiv or Affix do anything but AFK in any pug I have ever been in. Probably the only gladiators I have ever seen play are from cutebabyelephants and the insomnia guys. Don’t know if this is just an alliance problem or maybe just a Bloodlust problem.

 

◊ Vontre

The inherent problem here is that blizzard made an undesirable activity (battlegrounds) a necessary stepping stone for success in a highly desirable activity (arenas). People afking (and yes I've done it myself before) is a direct consequence of poor game design. A long time ago I took the moral high ground on this sort of thing. But, in the end this is just a game, something that's meant to be enjoyed, and it's not my place to berate people for bending the rules in order to get more enjoyment out of the game. It's the direct result of a fundamental design flaw with segmentation. WoW is no longer a unified game, but a linked set of instanced games such as battlegrounds, 5-mans, arenas, world pvp, farming, etc. Requiring players to play through one subgame in order to get to a different subgame is silly. It'd be like making players beat Half Life before they're allowed to play Counterstrike. What purpose does it serve other than to annoy the player? As long as no one is hurt by it, what's the harm in skipping the one game to get to another, even if unintended? I personally don't see any problem with buying consumables to raid either, if I had a 6 figure income I could do this myself. Instead I've decided to severely cut back my raiding time, which irritates my guildmates, and nobody wins.

Re: harm caused by afking in Alterac. It would seem that random distribution of afkers would result in a roughly equal number on each side, which wouldn't skew the balance of the game at all.

www.magegraf.com

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

Elendril

I'm not convinced they're on the same level. Maybe I'm just rationalizing, but shadowmelding at Icewing and periodically recapturing the bunker - while clearly not fully participating - isn't the same as botting or MPQ hacking. The motivation is the same, sure - there is this thing I want that involves an intermediate step I don't enjoy, and I want to circumvent as much of the unpleasantness as I can - but I think there's a big gap between being a less-than-active participant in a battleground and the examples you give.

This raises a relevant question, I think - what is an "acceptable" level of BG participation? It's rare that even when I shadowmeld in Icewing that I end up doing nothing - most games I'll retake the bunker once or twice and kill a handful of people, although admittedly I spend a significant portion of the game in the same spot. I know lots of people "defend Stormpike" or "defend the Aid Station", which in many games can (or at least used to) amount to doing nothing. If someone positions himself such that he is unlikely to be heavily involved in the BG action, is that reasonable?

 

◊ Vontre

Probably because those guys, much like myself, are no longer getting their jollies from curb-stomping randoms who stand no chance of fighting back.

www.magegraf.com

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

Calantus

This is important too. When I say I "AFK" I'm always at the keyboard (except for grabbing a drink/going to toilet/etc) and will either be tabbing in every 2-3 minutes or I'll have WoW open in a window in one corner of my screen and a DVD open in the other. I'll put myself in SF precisely because somebody has to guard it because it is very important, it's very rare it actually does get attacked (so I don't have to do anything for 90% of games), and I can actually influence that one part of the game. My mission is not to kill Drekk, it is to guard SF so the game doesn't turtle. A mission I can actually accomplish. It's no coincidence that doing this also means doing nothing for a long time, but I'm not leeching either.

The games I AFK south of DMSB are when I'm a little late and get cut off from the offence. Seriously, you miss out by like 10-15 seconds and all of a sudden you're getting deathcoiled and intercepted by horde cutting off allliance stragglers. I can't stop the horde advance, and being hidden lets me take back DMSB. With the speed of Vann kills taking the bunker back usually means horde don't get to destroy it. This is pretty-much leeching with a small contribution at the end but oh well.

 

Ralask

Actually its probably more of the reverse why you and others like you dont participate. Getting crushed by people you deem inferior might be more than your ego can handle.

 

Nite_Moogle

In AV this issue is primarily a function of the zone's huge size and less-than-great design where 2 uncontested people can capture a graveyard from NPCs 100% of the time with kite & cap. In AV, AB, or EotS if you're sitting all by your lonesome at a real objective sooner or later somebody will come knocking eventually. If the NPCs guarding the flags actually took some amount of actual effort to overcome you could more safely leave them undefended and the "afk defending" argument would lose a lot of weight.

This is a stupid trolling post. We haven't seen a discussion this good in the PVP forum in a long time and you're ruining it.

 

khalid

I think why I (and many others) are bothered so much by the AFKers is that many of us find some of the BGs fun. I find AV fun not because I can "own noobs" but because of the unpredictable nature.

I usually do AV with 2 or 3 others and we will run up to SP and try to cap it right away. If there are defenders we can have a good fight, or we could hit 10 defenders and get wiped. We can then go O and take Icewing again, or maybe run to AS and try to cap it.

The bottom line is, many of us find AV fun and the AFKers ruin it. How would you like 5man arena if 2 or 3 of the people in the game AFKed all the time? That is just how we feel about people AFKing in AV.


Btw, I would strongly suggest people that are upset about AFKers to get the Cattleprod mod. It makes it so you dont even have to worry about reporting the afkers.

 

Ralask

What would be actual effort? A Galv or Belinda style boss at every flag? Making the NPC's defending the flag difficult would make the the problem worse than it already is. The NPC's are basically their so people cant solo cap or provide some help to small forces guarding the flag. Your suggestion would make it 35 people attacking each others end bosses. In any of the BG maps, WSG being the exception if you take out defending you just have two forces zerging each other which is not the purpose of the maps.

 

◊ Vontre

Well that only tends to happen when outnumbered, which is often the case in pug battlegrounds, but yes that's a big part of it too.

www.magegraf.com

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

◊ Praetorian

No, they don't afk because they're worried they might lose or something. They afk because actually playing for their honor is "beneath them" and they only care about the end result. People who are exclusively invested in PvP these days tend to buy and sell accounts, afk bot, etc., a tremendous amount. Certainly more than the average WoW player. Probably because they don't care about the rest of the game, just their own little niche. Look at how Blizzard's account restrictions on their official 5v5 tournament decimated the ladder, and how few teams really didn't have any members who were playing on an account that wasn't originally theirs. I don't have much respect for that view.

As for AV, if you defend specific points that need to be defended but don't run around, then you're contributing. If you join, run yourself to a tower to "defend" and then turn on an afk script while you watch TV, then you're not.

Of course a lot of this is changing in 2.3 anyway, but I resent anyone who's doing little more than leeching the honor that's being earned by others. I realize that I'm in a minority with how I approach BGs (I come out of a 15min AV loss that netted me 375 bonus honor feeling irritated but will be happy after a 40min AV win that netted me 300 bonus honor), but it doesn't stop me from resenting people who take advantage of the loopholes in the system instead of adhering to the spirit of the game.

 

Myonax

Thats a cop-out. I have come into WSG where alliance is up 2-0, I stay on defense and horde pulls out a win. I have been in ABs where we were losing, and afker gets booted and one new horde comes in and the tide changes. In AVs I have an exact routine and barring one side doing something completely retarded nets me at least 40 extra honor per game. I go straight to SH bunker and grab the lt that patrols up top and drag him to the GY, about half the AVs he doesn't get killed because he isn't in the direct path of horde. As soon as all the LTs are dead I go straight to Alliances mine via the high road and take the mine. By that time horde almost always has stormpike and alliance has aid. I join the main horde forces and race alliance to kill Drek. For 15 minutes of work I know I am going to probably get 40 extra honor. Win or lose.

I am with Praetorian on this one, if you don't participate in the BG you don't deserve the honor and I definitely don't want your guild tag associating you with mine.

 

Nite_Moogle

I was thinking of something a little more simple such as making the guards tougher so they'd be roughly a match for a kara-geared player each and have them do something intelligent regarding flag defense. Like, run back to the flag when someone starts capturing it instead of chasing some retard on a horse while his buddy captures the flag.

 

telcontar

A basic ethical principle is that whatever you do, you do for all mankind. By acting, you are deeming your actions universal. Anyone in your exact position should do the exact same thing. By this principle, AFKing is wrong. Were everyone to AFK, no one would get any honor. Certainly this principle is debated, but many of the people in this thread are implicitly agreeing with it (which points to it being intuitive), and it has been supported by philosophers such as Kant and Sartre.

This sounds grandiose and over the top, I am sure, but as long as you are playing with other real people, ethics will apply to video games, and wrong and right will exist.

As a side note - How wrong is it? Not that wrong, in my opinion. At most, you've caused a loss of 4k honor or so (spread out over 40 people).

 

Ralask

I think it depends on the map and the intentions. Your intention is to have the least possible participation while earning max honor in AV. If all 40 people take your approach then the team loses and you get 0 honor. If your intention is to provide some strategic advantage than that is acceptable participation. Their isn’t a good answer to your question its like what is art and what is vulgar? I don’t have a direct definition I just know it when I see it.

 

Ralask

Why not just give the guards the ability to net or make the process of capping a aggro gain.

 

Aphyrax

(Full disclosure - I actually do play in BGs, but I can see the TV from my computer so I pay maybe 50% attention, which is still enough to top the healing charts most of the time).

The problem with your position is that "not participating" is the same as quitting the game. For you that might not be a problem, but Blizzard wants my money.

I did stop raiding because I could not and did not want to keep up with what was required. The last thing that stands between me and cancelling is arena. I really like arena. No other game delivers that kind of PvP. But there are things that I resent, the biggest being the badge requirement for the new cloak. I can still stand BGs enough to actually play but I only actively play one character these days. Grinding honor on more than one? Eeeek.

Hopefully Blizzard takes the number of AFKers as a sign that the system is broken. If so AFKers did all of us a favor. You once said "it has come to the point where I do not even question the expense [of consumables] anymore". Well I always question having to do useless crap.

When presented with the requirement to do things you don't like, the options are

a) Suck it up
b) Cheese around it
c) Quit the game

I will not do a). Blizzard does not want me to do c). So, since they are apparently in no hurry to fix it I can only presume that they condone me doing b).

 

Merple

It'd be hard to prioritize aggro. Two people touch the flag, the second one runs, and you've got the exact same scenario as you do now.

-In our country, any CBC reporter can dream of becoming head of state.

 

Ralask

What Blizzard wants is for you to consume as many parts of the game as you can. No company wants you using just one product, they want as many hooks in you as they can. Blizzard does not intend for you to log on do 10 games and log off each week. If people think thats the model they want it isn't. By making people who want to be competitive in arena partake in several different parts of the game its better for them in the long run because they get a more engaged base. As a company they could care less about a customer like yourself, they have millions like you. Customers like you quit and activate constantly. What they want more of is those that consume many areas of the game because those are the customers the know they have for long term profit which helps their stock price.

 

• Juice

I'd submit that you only do B because it is available, not because you "will not do" option A. When WOtLK comes out and the level cap is moved to 80, the arena requirements will likely be moved to lvl 80 with it. I predict you will suck it up and grind out another 10 levels and the appropriate honor to get into the lvl 80 arena, and then enjoy the pvp centric portion of the game again. I believe if you had the option to cheese the leveling process, you'd take it, but since you don't you'll take option A. [not you Aphyrax, but the royal 'you' of the random AFKer with the A-B-C attitude]

If option B didn't exist you would either exercise option A or option D: Continue enjoying pvp even if you're 4% behind in gear because you don't want to do unfun stuff.


----

As a person who plays in all the BGs I enter, I think AFKers are generally a scourge. I'd prefer to be able to vote-kick them, though I don't kid myself that such a feature wouldn't be misused by the masses.

----


The poster above me is absolutely right. The underlying cause for all Blizzard's moves is gross profit. Many of the questions people ask about why Blizzard does this or does that can be answered correctly with dollar signs.

 

Lookit

Maybe you missed the anti-AFK measures in 2.2? Thinking that Blizzard implicitly condones AFKing is nothing more than a deluded rationalization. They explicitly oppose it.

I'm hard-pressed to sympathize with anyone trying to rationalize AFKing. To me it seems fairly cut and dry: you are letting other people do your work for you, you are trying to get something for nothing, you are leeching. You are quantifiably lessening your team's chances of success.

 

Aphyrax

Since we don't pay them by the hour they don't need us to play a lot. In fact they make more money if we play less. Also, what about the people who quit because they are forced to participate? Those don't make them any money.

The naive theory would be to say that a customer who is "prodded" to participate in more aspects of the game will subscribe longer because he is less likely to get bored.

The cynical theory would be that they envisioned heroics as the casual end game and are now presented with the problem that all the good players have moved past them, making it very hard for the casuals to find competent groups. So they force the good players back into the heroics via required gear, making us hand hold the casuals through their content.

I am a cynic.