First three rounds of battle grounds are WAY TOO SLOW. I lose interest, speed it up. 15 seconds is all we need to click 1 button for 3 rounds.
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Option A, is to literally force every single other person in the ENTIRE WORLD who plays this game, to play at YOUR specific preferred pace.
Option B, is to alt-tab to something else for 30 seconds.
Wouldnât work in duos. Iâm CONSTANTLY paired with people who make Lifecoach look like Speedy Gonzales. Being handcuffed to people who canât even spend 8 gold in the span of 70+ seconds when they are playing the most straight-forward board imaginable in any given lobby and still have 3 left over, refusing to even roll in their tavern makes me irrationally angry.
Even the first few rounds I am occasionally left in utter disbelief as they canât decide to purchase a minion or even a spell!
This isnât a Hearthstone thing; you took a game seriously while you made a team with a totally random person; no game in the world avoids you being trolled when your team is random people on the internet.
This is especially true if you take ranking seriously but even without it sometimes you will be griefed.
If you want to play any team game seriously: only play it with friends (online or offline friends).
Not everyone is afforded the luxury of friends who play the same things as them.
So by this line of logic, âunless you have friends, you should never expect to participate in ANY game EVER with ANY expectation that there is a mutually-shared goal of attempting to pay the bare amount of attention in hopes of winning or at least doing halfway competentlyâ.
So LoL/DotA? Nope, not allowed to play. Any FPS PvP game ever since online lobbies became a thing? Nope, not allowed to play those either. Frick, at this rate, may as well include board games like playing doubles in Cribbage and god only knows how many other games because Iâm not going to pretend I know them all.
We are in an age where THEORETICALLY you can make friends from the comfort of your own home but reality hardly reflects that. It is generally assumed you had a previously-existing group of likeminded individuals from which networking naturally led to more opportunites to meet more and more people.
However, if youâre not in that situation, itâs like a job demanding you have experience to get the job that PROVIDES THE EXPERIENCE, even if said job is supposedly an âentry-levelâ position. They want to PAY you entry-level wages while expecting veteran-level experience. Similarly, online social networking can quite often be so hazardous as to want to only associate oneself with others at a pre-conceived level and ignores the bonding process that actual friendship entails. Besides, I want to actually go through the process of becoming friendly with others without an axe hovering over me. A âfriendship of convenienceâ for the other side to look at it isnât a real friendship.
Itâs why over so many years of trying to join various online communities based off of suggestions of âjoin this forum/discord/etcâ and then I do, only for there to be almost zero interaction and youâre left to sink or swim because thereâs too many stupid unspoken/unwritten rules and you get nowhere because people hang out in cliques. Thereâs sometimes (rarely) a genuine âlook, letâs get some random interested folks to work on the same goalâ sort of situations but even THEN itâs hyper-dependent on time zones or other availability restrictions and then either it falls apart or one just has to accept they will never be in the right place at the right time.
Making friends online is WAY harder than people like to pretend it is.
I live in a small, rural farming community and as much as I lament that the bias is so much more concentrated in a place like this as opposed to a larger area where people arenât up in each otherâs business 24/7 (for good or for ill), Iâd still argue that the colossal difference of cultivating friendship is still bound by the same principles: you have to know people you already are on good terms with in order to get to know OTHERS you are LIKELY to be on good terms with in the future.
I should not have to treat making friends like an informal job interview. It creates a sickening, impersonal and fear-based incentive to appear âidealâ to complete strangers.
The old casual approach to online presence just doesnât exist as it used to. The same way I made what few online friends I have now isnât reasonably plausible in a constantly moving environment that has overinflated ideas of what is âthe normâ. Maybe Iâm a relic that canât keep up with the times but I tried. I tried SO hard for SO long and Iâve been met with the same conclusion time and again: it doesnât work for me.
Thatâs why I hold what few friendships online and IRL so dear to me. It just so happens we donât play the same things as one another except the small handful of people in the same WoW guild as my main and even then, my sub is lapsed because IRL expenses take priority.
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Youâre fighting with windmills. Iâm not stopping the solution to random players on the internet ruining your team game.
Iâm saying the solution to random players ruining games of teams does not exist as long as they remain random.
Wow, itâs almost like they were too lazy to implement the BARE MINIMUM of a report feature for afk/trollingâŚ
Blizzard can already access data to see play patterns or we wouldnât see action against botting in the other modes.
Should reporting have been implented since Day 1, it would have been perfectly expected and normal that if someone were to consistently get reports for inactivity, theyâd have a larger grace period to account for genuine connection problems but eventually, again, with CONSISTENT reporting, reach a point where theyâd be given a warning for it.
If it continued, theyâd be restricted just from the duos mode for an escalating number of days, reaching, letâs sayâŚfor argumentâs sake, 60 days, and if it STILL continues? Suspension from the Hearthstone client outright. Make this known upfront in the warnings and people would fix their lack of attention and/or stop playing under circumstances they already know put their account at risk.
Iâm being MORE than generous as Iâm suggesting a much more lenient approach than the overwhelming majority of games out there take this sort of thing.
Trolling/sabotage would escalate much more quickly, however. That is deliberate and would require an actual description box to be filled out detailing why you believe someone is intentionally doing one thing or another.
But no. No one on the Heartstone/Battlegrounds team has even ACKNOWLEDGED that afk/trolling is even something that happens. They have been 100% radio-silent since before the mode even debuted when people were asking about potential issues as such.
Games from indie developers who donât make a single dang penny because they just want people to play their games, period, have more foresight than the people in charge of Battlegrounds. The fact they aggressively attempt to monetize the mode while sticking their fingers in their ears and going âlalalalalalalala WE CANâT HEAR YOU lalalalalalalalalaâ at actually anything that would make it genuinely FUNCTIONAL at the most fundamental level speaks to the sheer incompetence going on at Blizzard.
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Youâre not solving that issue with bans. In competitive games youâre often trolled by the other person just not playing well; you will never get any game to ban people for playing badly even if there are hints they do it on purpose; this isnât just a Hearthstone thing: no game will ever do that (or at least they wonât do it successfully).
Why you may ask; because you canât decide on whether someone is playing badly on purpose or accidentally (or because they were sick or because they disconnected or because theyâre bad); ask any experienced players in any other game of teams and see how easy it is for their game to ban people for just playing âbadlyâ.
Thatâs just false and shows your ignorance to competitive team-based games.
Iâm wondering if you have EVER played other online games. There is almost always a point where things reach critical mass and people do get restricted access to accounts, if not banned.
Sure, there will always be false positives and people get upset because they got âfalsely flaggedâ. However, if youâre creating a negative enough play experience for others on a (ONCE AGAIN, REPEATING MYSELF) âconsistentâ basis, that is why an increasing penalty volcano of warnings and actions would be implemented. There would be PLENTY of time and opportunity for personal issues to be addressed before further engaging in the mode. It would be the userâs CHOICE to take the risk of not resolving outstanding external factors.
Even the most pedestrian of examples is in a game like League of Legends. Simply choosing to decline a lobby queue enough times will eventually trigger restrictions on your account, let alone dodging when in the lobby or, worse yet, disconnecting in a game, be it deliberate or due to legitimate technical issues.
Itâs also easier for more parties involved to witness and record malicious behaviour in a game like LoL (and adjacent) than Hearthstone modes can for the sake of convenience but the internal data for simpler games and their associated modes still EXISTS and can be analyzed all the same.
In a game of Battlegrounds Duos, selling your entire board and just spam rolling to buy the 3-health cost spell that gives 1 mana is the most obvious of Battlegrounds deliberately poor play and youâre trying to argue that and similar circumstances as âYOU DONâT KNOW IF THATâS TROLLINGâ.
If youâre that dense, youâre genuinely hopeless.
The point being is that, in a competitive setting, whether deliberate or accidental, you are still impacting others in one way or another. Some are more mild inconveniences while others are a direct impact on the gameplay itself.
Donât come at me with the flagrant lie that itâs too hard for a system to implement. Itâs been going on for so many years now in other games that, while there are absolutely different threshold criteria to be met, it most CERTAINLY exists.
(Edit: Also, real quick here: you seem to be under some bizarre illusion that âtrollingâ can encompass genuine mistakes. How far removed from reality are you that the term âtrollingâ has exited the space of âintentional disruptionâ to even POSSIBLY hold an umbrella over âno idea what theyâre doingâ? This is easily dispelled by the internal data showing play patterns and, once more, I did put forth the idea of using an actual description box for reporters to detail their REASONING as to why they would report as âtrollingâ. Insufficient reasoning would discard the report immediately, resulting in zero penalty. Most issues can be summarized in 265 characters or less.)
Iâm only mentioning this because I see in you the road I went down the past few months, and Iâd rather you not go wrong as I did: Carnivore is a VERY difficult person to debate with on here.
I donât know their preferred pronouns but Iâm positive theyâre actually highly intelligent. And Iâm sure theyâre a good person outside of these forums. Iâm not saying that âjust becauseâ - there are plenty of others on my blocklist Iâd have nothing good to say at all about. To the contrary, I think if Carnivore and I ever met in person, weâd probably get along.
But you will NOT be satisfied continuing down this road with these marathon post sessions. Better to cut and run now, mitigate the effort sink.
It just doesnât work in the context youâre describing; you want to ban people who very randomly match with you specifically in very random ways through the entire ladder; you have a certain complexity in your scenario that needs many stars to align to do what you want.1) You are just 1 person and the likelihood many others will report the same person for banning is just very low (you will not match with them more than once usually); 2) They may play 1 game badly or they may let their psychology run wild for 1 game so reporting them once will likely do nothing at all; 3) Itâs unclear from the get go if they even violate the TOS in the first place since we donât know if you get upset just because someone is inexperienced or doesnât want to play like you.
Hence itâs me who wonders instead if you have played other team games; adjacent to this sub-franchise I wonder if youâre played its sister sub-franchise in Warcraft: WoW; in there raiding or 5man or pvp can be a very competitive setting but getting the GMs to ban people for playing badly is not just hard: itâs practically impossible: they will just refuse.
Thatâs a very egotist way to say, you couldnât convince me. Bring arguments instead of ad homs (in whatever other threads you refer to).
AFK reporting is easy: itâs a black/white scenario: intent doesnât matter. Enough AFK reports with an established pattern would trigger warnings/actions on the account.
Iâm not going to repeat myself for a third time on how using a summary explanation which would be required to trigger investigation of play pattern for trolling.
I have already stated I play WoW and you donât NEED GM intervention because itâs a self-moderated issue. You donât live up to the teamâs expectations? You get benched or otherwise removed and someone else replaces your position and it doesnât matter if itâs an established group (guild or otherwise) or if itâs a PuG. Again, self-moderated problem.
You DARE to make such a hilariously bad comparison? Thanks for proving you are talking out your behind.
They want to argue for the sake of being argumentative. They donât care about bettering the situation for everyone involved. Itâs similar to people who are perfectly content in their lives because there might be something that inconveniences them at some rare point, if at all, but it ultimately not being something they have any real vested interest in. The traditional âI got mine so eff everyone elseâ mindset.
You seem to be talking to the mirror. You continually insult me and just used the phrase âYou DARE to make such a hilariously bad comparisonâ.
Itâs you who wants automatic obedience; your suggestion wonât solve your problem; play team games with friends if you want more peace.
Thatâs apples and oranges. There you have a majority vote. Here you are 50-50 so you canât reasonably be expected to ban or even just kick people with only 50% of the vote (itâs not even fair).
Whereâs the insult? Do you even know what the definition of âinsultâ is? Or is it just like how you canât even be bothered with knowing the meaning of the word âtrollngâ? Point out where I supposedly insulted you. I told you factual statements and you donât like it. You donât HAVE to like what I say about you but claiming Iâm insulting you is a blatant lie on your part. Calling you a liar is also not an insult, despite what you may have led yourself to believe.
You are playing the role of a professional victim because you donât like that I am holding you to the fabrications and mental gymnastics youâve conjured up for yourself, demonstrating here you have no idea what youâre talking about.
Additionally, YOU ARE THE ONE who brought the WoW-based comparison into the conversation and now youâre backtracking as if you werenât just using it as a (horrifically terrible) defence to try backing up your perspective before I shut that down.
Itâs also NOT a 50-50 vote with reporting if it were implemented in duos because itâs not a vote at all. Warnings and account actions would only come about after the system has received enough credible data of establishing a pattern of player behaviour over the course of a substantial amount of games and individual players affected. I donât know what the specific numbers would have to be in order for there to justify triggering said warnings and actions on any given account. Iâm not going to claim I am someone with the relevant background to provide anything outside of arbitrary numbers for the sake of mere examples but it is 100% within Blizzardâs ability (and, by extension, Microsoftâs) to implement a reasonable cutoff point in any such designed report system.
Whether itâs 30 AFK reports within a 50-game window of one another or perhaps including variables such as time elapsed between reports or some other variation they have a multitude of other sources to divine inspiration from, it is easily doable and the fact that it wasnât is nothing short of laziness on Blizzardâs part. Malicious gameplay would be more nuanced but it wouldnât be so much as even remotely outside comprehensible levels to figure out sensible parameters when they have all the data collection and ability to analyze it they could ever need to show who is actually abusing the mode in order to intentionally cause their duo partners distress.
Not to necessarily place the label of âlazinessâ on the individuals who do the frontline work on the battlegrounds mode but ultimately whomever was in charge of the project and green-lit the mode as launch-ready. They never should have released the mode without, at least, the most rudimentary groundwork of a report feature or at least had plans to roll one out shortly after launch, which by now we all know was not the case.
I barely gave 10 seconds to your posts. Calm down. Youâre fighting with windmills since even if you DO manage to ban people who play badly: youâre not fixing your real problem: team games arenât going to go well as long as youâre playing with randoms if you care about winning so much.
Itâs more about strictly win/loss management. Itâs about holding SOME level of personal responsibility onto players who create disruptions.
Letâs say, for example, someone who KNOWS their connection to the battlenet client is shaky at best. They queue duos, DELIBERATELY, instead of solo. They are unable to play at a fundamentally basic level of expectations as everyone else is and are, by proxy, not playing the game. They may as well be AFK or trolling or disconnected outright but they REMAIN in the game and do not forfeit, causing a deliberately long, drawn-out loss that wastes the time of the person assigned to be their duo. Sure, the other person could quit out instead, but that would still be the FAULT of the person who selfishly queued for the team mode and has now inflicted damage on the rating of the duo, who is now at that point a victim because they have to bear the ENTIRE amount of MMR rating PLUS a penalty fee for early forfeiture while the shoddy connection selfish player gets to then leave without incurring ANY penalty whatsoever.
They made a decision knowing the likely outcome and are simply, in the current system, able to repeat this endlessly. There are no consequences to their actions.
This is but a mere taste of what is wrong with the lack of a report feature as it now stands.
People need to be held accountable or we may as well not even ATTEMPT to legitimize the duos mode in any way, shape, or form. Blizzard created the mode, meaning they WANT to legitimize it as an alternative way to play but until they implement the ability to report teammates, regardless of the reasons, no one has any INCENTIVE to consider duos worthwhile enough to build anything meaningful around it.
If they play with bad connections and generally badly: they will drop MMR and rating.
Hence they will play more likely with others of lower MMR and Rating.
Blizzard wonât ban those and itâs not even a majority vote in duos.