Not sure if this post is allowed or posted in the correct subject ,
(Anniversary Realms)
I’ve been playing a lot of Alterac Valley
Some games I go south , some I stay north and defend depends on what mood I’m in at that time
Currently AB WSG isn’t popping for me only form of PvP I can get is defending north
I get whispers saying I’m sabotaging the game I always here other players getting upset if I’m north and will report me , surely this isn’t a valid report
I’m just PvPing in a battleground ?
These players strongly believe you can be account actioned for being north and not following the player Meta ,
Why hasn’t blizzard put out a statement to clarify if this will get you an account action
To clear this confusion
Are you ‘defending’ objectives that aren’t being attacked or contested? That tends to be considered non-participation, and has appropriately resulted in account penalties.
Battlegrounds are a team effort. You are part of a team. If the team is following a strategy and you’re off doing your own thing, that can be an issue, yes.
Not being with the pack absolutely does open you up to being sanctioned. It’s a hot topic, but there was recently a sizable ban wave hitting people for non-participation again. If people are running the sanctified yet polarizing “Meta”, you run with them. There isn’t really any justification for not. You may prefer a different playstyle, but PvP is a team event. You need to be with your team.
They grab data from an average of games played over a period. They can see how much damage you do and don’t do. Just hanging up to defend a node that doesn’t really require defense? You open yourself up to be reported.
Blizzard has been clear, both in their policies and actions, that non-participation in team events does result in a penalty.
The End User License Agreement (EULA) is the contract that covers our player obligations and Blizzard’s obligations. It requires us to follow the rules, policies, and Code of Conduct.
Under the prohibited things listed in the EULA is deliberate inactivity:
Harassment, “griefing,” abusive behavior or chat, conduct intended to unreasonably undermine or disrupt the Game experiences of others, deliberate inactivity or disconnecting, and/or any other activity which violates Blizzard’s Codes of Conduct or In-Game Policies.
The EULA points you to the Code of Conduct for all Blizzard games
Beyond the conversation of “defending” and “the meta”, this right here is your issue. Your “mood” is irrelevant. You joined a team event, where you need to work with the other players on your team to attempt to win.
If you’re “not in the mood” to play the BG with your team and help them win, then do not join the queue. If you join the queue, then you need to work as part of the team.
You will not be actioned for not playing the PvP, that is simply a scare people like to try and push to get people to conform. There are plenty of people who choose not to play the meta. Now that said, people can report you, but unless you do something nothing will likely happen. There are two types of reports that typically come out of BGs
Chat Penalties, this is the likely the most common one used against people who dislike the meta. It doesn’t require mass reporting, all it requires is for you to get into a toxic conversation or swear, if you take part and contribute to this, they simply report you, and if you violated the TOS, you will get a vacation. My personal advice, don’t communicate with people trying to bait you. Limit communications in BGs to important information, or which is pertinent to the game, especially if you’re not with the META. If your forcing a turtle, then swearing in Chat, you have only yourself to blame.
AFK/Non Participation, this one is less likely to get you unless you’re actually not participating. Unlike Chat penalties this one would not be actioned by a GM, but by the Hacks team. For these penalties when reported you will get added to a list where you then have your data pulled in a report, as part of this report there are metrics which define if you are essentially AFK. While we don’t know very much about the data, one thing that has been mentioned is you probably should be participating either with damage or healing in at least 50% of your games. So for example, don’t go to a graveyard that you know nobody ever goes to and “guard” it every game. If your actually defending, and killing players or in actual combat however in almost every game, you wont need to worry.
For any action to be verified, all it takes is one report.
Um, I do think it is actually GM’s that deal with non-particapation, as it isn’t anything along the line of cheating/exploiting/hacking or Real Money Trading, but I don’t want to make this judgement as I do not have a source to back this up.
Its possible that a GM looks at this, but based on blue responses, and how we have seen it occur, it appears to be done in batches based on a periodic report that gets run, those types of actions are typically done by the hacks team, and its more metric/algorithm based, this is unlike chat penalties which actually requires people to interpret text. However differentiating the teams isn’t that big of a deal, and I am interpreting it more on how Blizzard seems to take actions.
I think the key is people need to be active, if people find themselves sitting around patiently waiting for nobody to fight them each game, thats going to put them at risk, getting on their horse and riding to a different area instead of sitting in the cave but doing nothing doesn’t make them any less AFK.
Take objectives and then move on to stay with the group, if you are staying at say a GY trying to defend something that no one is attacking and hasn’t since you took the GY then you’re not participating, and would be flagged for non participation if reported. It’s not hard to just follow the group and take objectives together and it’s a lot more fun.
So what I’m gathering from people here is to give in to being bullied by other players.
There’s a reason why you get a buff called “Defender” when you’re defending a point… they WANT people defending. You get extra honor for it. NOT defending points opens them up to stealthers just taking them for free.
Honestly reporting for people defending needs to be actionable against the reporter. You people are literally saying “You have to play the game the way I want you to play” which is something Blizzard has gotten away from in the last few years. This mentality IS bullying.
Not really. Are you trying to “bully” others into letting you get rewards for defending something that’s not under attack? Are you “bullying” others into playing ‘your way’?
No? It’s about participating. Thankfully, what they are actually looking for doesn’t rely on reports from any player. Blizzard’s game = Blizzard’s rules. They are looking for players where the majority of their games have zero healing and zero damage. That’s simply non-participation.
Stop “bullying” people into not-participating so that you don’t get into trouble?!? Sounds silly right?
And if you’re just defending when nobody is around, you’re basically not participating. The point of queuing for any battleground is to work as a team. if all you’re going to do is to defend an objective when there is nobody around, then people can report you for it, and if Blizzard agrees (assuming it happens most games, not just one), you’ll could face actions for nonparticipation. That is not bullying.
You’re expected to work as a team in a Battleground if queuing for a battleground. Working as a group in group content is the aim of the game. Not going solo and doing absolutely nothing.
It doesn’t matter what you’re doing as long as you’re doing damage and/or healing. Standing around “defending” something that isn’t being attacked is non-participation.
Defending a tower until it burns is necessary even if it isn’t being attacked. There is no way to know if stealthers are waiting for you to leave to recap an undefended tower.
If your goal is to sit at a tower and do nothing, and continue to do so for a majority of your games, then had action taken against you, well, we’ve tried warning you. It is even listed in the EULA about this sort of behaviour.
I defend towers all the time until they burn and have never had any non participation action against me. Abandoning a tower before it burns just to run to the end and stand there is how a lot of games end up as a loss.
You’re one of the lucky ones, then. When those ban waves swing through? You can just watch people going postal about being suspended for their playstyle of guarding X point. There have been people hit multiple times by these banwaves for not learning the first time.
It’s a team event. If you’re not with the team, you open yourself to sanction just as easily as you do for toxicity and language.
