Battlegrounds - Abuse of the AFK system

[daviddoran]

So the last 3 AVs in a row I happen to end up joining someone else's "premade" which these days are cross realm, organized over vent, and full of assholes. Every time I keep getting mass reported afk, so I have to just suicide myself into oncoming horde just to stay in combat. I can't be useful like this, and all I am is a speed bump in front of 40 horde...

I tried reporting it via in game system, but they thought it was talking about the false emote that says that "name has reported you afk, type /afk to clear it" or some such, and that that cant boot me from the game. But I am getting the "infactive" debuff and you have like one minute to get into combat (on each toon btw) or you get ported out, and you get a deserter debuff. so instead of a tower defending, bunker storming one man wrecking crew, i'm brought down to nearly useless just so i can keep in the game.....

Do I have any recourse? like reporting players by name? I thought about making a wow forums qq post but that wont do any good, only possibly make boxing more in the spotlight....

ARGH

/rant over

[Sajuuk]

Spam Rick Astley's "never gonna give you up" in BG chat until they stop bothering.

[Zal]

stop defending and go on the offensive to where you can fight alliance err horde, whatever your opposing faction is. btw it only takes 3 or 4 reports to make someone afk. So do what i do and report them back after they get a cave rez. no way in heck they'll be in combat in time. Did that once i laughed very hard when half my AV group "left the battle.":D

[daviddoran]

I'd love to on the offensive, but when the fight starts out and im already flagged, i dont have time to wait for a GY to cap, so unless im within a minutes ride from something to keep me in combat. First time it happened we had just capped east and west towers, and the relief hut, and were waiting for the timers, so I couldnt stay, and horde was all offensive so there was nobody to keep in combat with, so I went to the mine to stay in combat, but 2 got booted, and i just gave up.....

I guess ill just have to fight fire with fire, and boot as many others as I can.... is there any way to mark afk other than right clicking their unitframe?

[HPAVC]

The addon that does that is pretty lame. I would definitely report it.

I would omit multiboxing from my ticket.

I would try chatting with one of the people that reported you and play up any vulgarity they use in chat.

[Naysayer]

Cap snowfall and force a turtle. that'll teach them not to mess with you. Also, fight back, and spam report them afk with your group of five. Other than that, you could just waste 5 spots and only bother to remove the buff while you hope they lose. Premades hate losing.

Edit: doh, you're alliance. Cap stonehearth gy and hold it.

[Naysayer]

I'd love to on the offensive, but when the fight starts out and im already flagged, i dont have time to wait for a GY to cap, so unless im within a minutes ride from something to keep me in combat. First time it happened we had just capped east and west towers, and the relief hut, and were waiting for the timers, so I couldnt stay, and horde was all offensive so there was nobody to keep in combat with, so I went to the mine to stay in combat, but 2 got booted, and i just gave up.....

I guess ill just have to fight fire with fire, and boot as many others as I can.... is there any way to mark afk other than right clicking their unitframe?

The mine won't keep you from getting booted. Find enemy players.

[heyaz]

I just hearth back to base over and over and spam stuff to get rid of debuff. If people wanna report me afk and force me to do that nonsense then it's their fault that I can't conribute.

[daviddoran]

hearth back to base? how?

[Mooni]

By using Frostwolf Insignia (or whatever the alliance equivalent is)
Frostwolf Insignia Rank 6

You have to pick up the quest in Alterac Mountains north of Tarren Mill, then win one, then you get the rank 1 insig. To get rank 6 you just have to faction up with Stormpike or Frostwolf.

[Altsoba]

It happened a lot in Nightfall EU BG before Russian realms appeared. Russians were very aggressive PvP players and made a lot of premades. That was their default behavior towards "foreign" players. It happened to a lot of people. They seemed to like me though as it never happened to me.

What I'd do:

FRAPS every single moment from the start of the BG, get the best cuttest screenshots after to show a GM. Even those with only one brain cell would see the sequencing and immediately understand what went on.

[Naysayer]

It happened a lot in Nightfall EU BG before Russian realms appeared. Russians were very aggressive PvP players and made a lot of premades. That was their default behavior towards "foreign" players. It happened to a lot of people. They seemed to like me though as it never happened to me.

What I'd do:

FRAPS every single moment from the start of the BG, get the best cuttest screenshots after to show a GM. Even those with only one brain cell would see the sequencing and immediately understand what went on.

I didn't know GM's even looked at submitted screenshots. I thought it was completely off limits.

[heyaz]

I don't think GM's look at anything

They are probably blind and use screen readers to hear your tells

[Altsoba]

I didn't know GM's even looked at submitted screenshots. I thought it was completely off limits.

If they don't it means they have ways of verifying the abuse without them.

[HPAVC]

I didn't know GM's even looked at submitted screenshots. I thought it was completely off limits.

I have asked 'do you want a screen shot?' and gotten 'sure' for a response, uploads to imageshack seemed to be fine.

[Naysayer]

I have asked 'do you want a screen shot?' and gotten 'sure' for a response, uploads to imageshack seemed to be fine.


They use their own logs, they won't accept screenshots or video as proof of any kind of abuse or accusation against other players.

They will look at them if it's something simple like a UI issue or "i'm lost" harmless kind of thing.

EDIT:

Vulgar language and verbal harassment can absolutely represent a violation of our policies. Should you witness a player using that kind of language, under any circumstances, please feel free to submit an in-game petition notifying us of the name of the player, and noting what they said.

Our Game Masters will be more than happy to investigate and take appropriate action. Unfortunately, we are unable to accept screenshots as evidence for a wide variety of reasons, but we do have powerful tools at our disposal to use in pursuit of such an investigation.

Also, due to our privacy policies, we'll be unable to notify you of the actions taken against another player's account.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11676470140&postId=118545890470&sid=1#1049

[HPAVC]

They use their own logs, they won't accept screenshots or video as proof of any kind of abuse or accusation against other players. They will look at them if it's something simple like a UI issue or "i'm lost" harmless kind of thing.

I was commenting that they do look at screen shots, sure its great that some photoshopped image wont get someone banned. What my experience was with the screen shot was from above was I opened a ticket about a bug in strat when you did it too fast and the event was bugged and Ramsmtein wouldnt spawn, I asked about sending a screen shot he said sure, he then made a casual comment about me having a character bolting cloth while the other was fighting.

I have also submitted shots of people wall hacking and the GM has made similar observations.

[Iceorbz]

Not much you can do, they dont wan't you in the premade so they will tell their whole group to report you. Could always sign up on your x-reamlms site at xrealms.org and run av premades with them.

[Lax]

It's not a violation of WoW's Terms of Use (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html) to harass anyone unless it is specifically through Chat. According to the rules, it's perfectly okay to spam someone with guild charters, duels, group/raid invites and indeed the battleground AFK reporting. The only difference is harassment from AFK reporting can't be handled by a UI addon.

Unless a lot of people complain about this type of problem, Blizzard isn't likely to do much about it. Annoying? Quite. Easy for Blizzard to fix? Not particularly. They would first have to adjust the rules to prohibit this type of harassment, and then it'd be handled on a case by case basis, and even then it would probably be difficult to differentiate between an actual AFK report and harassment.

Sucks. Hope it doesn't happen too often

[TheBigBB]

This sucks. The only good way I can think of to avoid this is to not make cute boxer-obvious names. If all your characters are named something completely different, people will have issues finding them on the character screen. In fact, just having a mixed team walking around towns and stuff, people rarely notice me. All the characters are inside the moonkin. :-P

[Catamer]

I suggest the same thing, get the insignia that lets you port back to the begining and prevent them from taking your own commander. with rank 6 you can continuously port back. I think it's lots of fun depending on your team. my 5x shaman and the stench of lightning fried horde ....

[thinus]

It's not a violation of WoW's Terms of Use (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html) to harass anyone unless it is specifically through Chat. According to the rules, it's perfectly okay to spam someone with guild charters, duels, group/raid invites and indeed the battleground AFK reporting. The only difference is harassment from AFK reporting can't be handled by a UI addon.

I think your interpretation is simplistic.


Rules Related to "Chat" and Interaction With Other Users. Communicating in-game with other Users and Blizzard representatives, whether by text, voice or any other method, is an integral part of the Game and the Service and is referred to here as "Chat."

Flagging you as AFK can be argued as an interaction with you and it is a disruptive effect. You can block most types of harassment with a /ignore. You can also block guild charter spam and duels with native UI settings. You can't prevent someone from flagging you as AFK.

Also:

Rules Related to Game Play. Game play is what World of Warcraft is all about, and Blizzard strictly enforces the rules that govern game play. Blizzard considers most conduct to be part of the Game, and not harassment, so player-killing the enemies of your race and/or alliance, including gravestone and/or corpse camping, is considered a part of the Game. Because the Game is a "player vs. player" game, you should always remember to protect yourself in areas where the members of hostile races can attack you, rather than contacting Blizzard's in-game customer service representatives for help when you have been killed by an enemy of your race. Nonetheless, certain acts go beyond what is "fair" and are considered serious violations of these Terms of Use. Those acts include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following:
(i) Using or exploiting errors in design, features which have not been documented, and/or "program bugs" to gain access that is otherwise not available, or to obtain a competitive advantage over other players;

(ii) Conduct prohibited by the EULA or elsewhere in these Terms of Use; and

(iii) Anything that Blizzard considers contrary to the "essence" of the Game.

AFK reporting you can easily be justified as an exploit of an error in design (unintended use of the AFK mechanism) to gain a competitive advantage over you. They earn honor and you get stuck with 15 min deserter flags.

There is currently a macro doing the rounds where the entire raid is reported as AFK. If you are repeatedly flagged as AFK by someone try and get the logs or screenshots of it and submit a harassment ticket with the log entries. In my experience Blizzard is not very tolerant of any kind of harassment or abuse and if it is one person or a guild doing this all the time then I am convinced the GM will ask them to cease and desist which should be enough to stop them doing it.

Just remember that you are not doing the GMs job. The information you give to the GM is that you are being targeted by other players and you provide proof in the form of chat log entries or screenshots. Then you let the GM talk to them about it. If the GM sounds doubtful then ask him if it is their official stance that it is OK for other players to target and disrupt your gameplay in this way.

[valkry]

DAVID, Atox here from frostmourne, we have met a few times in AV. I know your problem mate and I have experienced it myself. They tried to report me as idle but I just akept attacking horde to clear it. I spose that is all you can do and seeing as they are a premade, you don't have to camp a tower or bunker as they will do it so you get a nice honour fillled win anyway.

I actually have joined up with them before, on Bloodlust battlegroup it is called "QQ cross realm premade AV" but stopped after the first game when the organiser told us to "report everyone AFK who isn't in our premade so we can get our guys in" which is just being a tool.

At the start, if you notice them not lining up at the gate, go and stand with them (they report everyone past the last lamp post in the cave). That might save you.

Some of them spam the emote saying ur afk and to type /afk to remove it, THIS is reportable, feel free to open a ticket about that.

They failed to get me kicked and I managed to get about 10 of them kicked (I fought back after i got reported idle), then I went on their vent and told them it's pointless to keep reporting someone who knows how to remove it and won't fall for their tricks, and I hope their 10 players with the deserter debuff are having a nice time.

[Naysayer]

Dave, just bring a mage and open a bunch of portals at the AV gate

You know a good bunch of idiots will click on them....

you're 2 years too late.

[daviddoran]

the direbrew remote doesn't work anymore either.

Thanks for all the advice. It didn't happen again today, so hopefully these run ins will be the exception rather than the rule.

[Budkin]

I get so many hks no way you ever get afk flagged lol .I'm going for my 100k life time hks title 75k + atm :D They love me on my battle group i haven't had any hate in a long time kinda nice .

[Hurricane]

Valkry how the hell did you find their vent chanel :P

[shaeman]

They still do it in Dalaran with WG pops....

Do people still wait at the portal for WG now - I thought they had changed it to teleport you there instantly if you got chosen. (although I should say I haven't done WG since the changes to BG's).

[Alemi]

EDIT: Holy shit, Vyndree's post is almost 2 years old. Ya.... this problem has been around for awhile.

Vyndree's advice is still sound today:

Wow. I remember that thread. Hard to believe it was that long ago. Now, I feel old. Thanks Fur! :)

There's just the one striking difference between than and now... the old afk system would flag you as unable to get honor but it would not boot you from the game, or give you a deserter debuff. And you didn't have a ticking time bomb on you while you're trying to get into combat. And in some BGs, it's just not that easy, considering most of the time you'll get it while dead at a graveyard and there's 15-30 of your precious seconds.

It's just frustrating.

[Ualaa]

Every time it happens, I'd open a ticket.
Don't need to mention that you were boxing.

Just pick one toon, mention you were actively participating in the BG.
And that you were flagged as AFK.
Ask if this type of harrassment is ok with Blizzard.

The squeeky wheel gets the grease.

[valkry]

I joined up one time with my main but stopped after the second match after I realised what they were doing (reporting people afk to remove them even if they are active). It's dispicable and an abuse of a function not intended for that kind of use.

[valkry]

Dave, just bring a mage and open a bunch of portals at the AV gate

You know a good bunch of idiots will click on them....
Sry Fur, but that is against the ToS and you guys drag on about setting a good example for others who watch this community, encouraging people to break the ToS is not a good example I would think.

[Ualaa]

While quite funny, we don't want to break the ToS to get back at people who are doing the same to us.

For AV, I like the trinket idea.
Assuming porting back clears the AFK thing.

A macro, letting people know they should report this "griefing behavior" is a good idea too.
When enough people pester the GM's with tickets, they'll look into it.

[HPAVC]

I joined up one time with my main but stopped after the second match after I realised what they were doing (reporting people afk to remove them even if they are active). It's dispicable and an abuse of a function not intended for that kind of use.

The addon on wowinterface/curse that reports everyone that isn't you (or other stupid stuff) is pretty popular. The comments are a flame war of praise for getting rid of AFK'ers and threats from people it hurts.

You have to think that in a full AV group with someone reporting constantly that Blizzard just has a broken system that it would allow someone to perform this action hundreds of times.

[Ualaa]

They should modify it, so you can report one person per battleground.
And if the person is booted, then you can report another.
But if they participate and are not AFK leaches, then you cannot report others this BG.

Or limit it so you can do a maximum of 5 reports or some such.
But if you do more then that, you yourself are auto ejected.
With the message like, "You're reporting others and not contributing, enjoy your deserter debuff".

We can wish...

[thinus]

They should modify it, so you can report one person per battleground.
And if the person is booted, then you can report another.
But if they participate and are not AFK leaches, then you cannot report others this BG.

Or limit it so you can do a maximum of 5 reports or some such.
But if you do more then that, you yourself are auto ejected.
With the message like, "You're reporting others and not contributing, enjoy your deserter debuff".

We can wish...

Blizzard just needs to pull their fingers out of their arses and address the reasons people are AFKing BGs in the first place. Leaving it up to their mature and responsible userbase to police themselves was never a very bright idea, was it?

[Velassra]

Now you have dipshits on the forum demanding Blizzard do 72 hour deserter buffs for people booted AFK from bg's. Even single boxing I run into this. I've gotted it alot as I hit the GY at SH, usually w/ a Stormpike turtle.

[Ualaa]

Deserter needs to work a little differently.

If you're standing around doing nothing.
At a tower/graveyard you have capped, but not yet captured/destroyed.
Same idea for attacking an npc who is an objective like Galv/Belinda.
You should be immune to being AFK flagged.

If you have healed a friendly or damaged a hostile player within say 3 minutes.
Or if you were killed by a hostile in that same timeframe, you should also be immune.

One solution would be to give everyone a 5 min debuff as the gates open.
Or whatever time it takes to get to the Field of Strife (etc for the given BG).
So unless you're active from the start, you're booted as a non-contributer.
Once you move into the fight, the debuff goes.
And once you stop pursuing objectives or battling the enemy, your debuff (say 2 minutes) appears again.

Not sure that that is perfect, but its better then being tagged by other players.

[daviddoran]

The way it works is probably fine, but for larger bgs the timer needs to be longer. And start the timer on everyone right at the start, and if they don't move to a key checkpoint they get booted.

I got the trinkets (which incidentally caused me to be useless for 10 minutes running through the damn harpy cave, and i could have been reported any moment....) and it's awesome! Porting in, dropping totems, and 5 thunderstorms later have led to a win rather than
a turtle.

I also started running with a Druid friend healing which makes me invincible. He's gonna be my arena healer too so hopefully I'll get a decent arena rating now.

[daviddoran]

I thought of the perfect way to solve the afk problem. When a player gets marked AFK, they receive a captcha image on screen and they have to type in whatever is shown. If they do so, they are therefor not afk and not a bot, and are immune to the debuff for 4 minutes.

Thoughts?

[Ualaa]

I'd think...

A debuff AFK timer off the bat.
Which goes away, when you cap a graveyard/flag.
Or are at one which hasn't been destroyed/captured.
Or you are at Galv/Belinda, guarding/slaying.

And comes back, when you leave a tower, captain, graveyard etc.
And begins to count down again.

But which goes away, if you engage the enemy.
Which would include healing friendly who are in combat with the opposite faction.
Or being damaged by the opposite faction, etc.

Often enough that you're forced to be involved in something that is beneficial to your team.
Short enough that you cannot be alt-tabbing in and out.
Long enough that if you aren't afk, you'll never be flagged afk.

Well, it would be nice anyway.

[daviddoran]

ya.. and when all five of your characters get different images you'll be pissed off. lol

well as long as you were immune to getting it again after a few applications, id be ok with it.

[Ualaa]

If you could be hit with the tag, marked by other players, only once per BG and then were immune, that would be nice.

Alternatively, if a player marks you as AFK more then once, and you're not AFK, they should get a penalty of some sort.

[suicidesspyder]

I say u should be marked afk until u as horde reach ibgy or as alliance reach shgy. Although, when doing this you will be mark for 3 minutes of inactivity after that. Why ok most bots or afkers dont leave start am i right. Well say they do they get past that position then go afk. Then for some odd reason they get killed by other side sent back to start area. Well obv they have 3 minutes to get into combat or bye bye.

Ive seen some people purposely move to bal and galvs area then go afk there. Then thats all they do get there go afk and nothing. I got afk for 1 min cause some play happened on a sports game i get booted. Also if your in pvp it should be once afk gone but 3 minutes will allow some of us some leway to get somewhere.

As for lets say arathi if your not in combat or sitting at a flag u should get booted. I see there lots going afk in start or running down sides of mountains. You should be booted within a min of the game starting if you have not passed by the first area or in combat. When i mean first area i mean within 40 yards of it.

WSG i have never seen afkers cause its either they get killed and rez camped or get attacked within a minute.

SOA you must get to the gates or thru not to be counted afk. Only people i see afk there stay on boat or get in water behind boat so they dont die.

Other then that i dont know what else could be done or like said if you are reported afk there must be something that pops up that you have to click. But when it does its always a random pop up not in the same area.