Defending objectives a bannable offense?

PVP Battlegrounds
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Hello,

I’ve just read a response from a blizzard employee stating the following

“It is important to keep in mind that a Battleground is a team event. You aren’t there solo, so to a degree, it is often necessary to work with your team. If you are going off by yourself to defend a lone tower, without the support of your team, and you never really encounter anyone else to defend against, well, that really isn’t participating.”

Can Blizzard please clarify? WoWhead is contradicting your statements and I want to be clear on the proper engagement for battlegrounds.

Quotes for each battleground regarding defending
Alterac valley - “Playing defense: There are two places for defenders, there’s those brave few who attempt to defend Balinda/Galvanar, and Backcappers. For the boss defenders, this strategy only works if you have enough people to kill off as many of the other team before the brute force of 40 people running you over kills you. Good strategy if it works, and if it fails it will put a few of your teammates near towers to backcap. As for being a backcapper, it is best to not immediately go backcap, but to first help kill the initial boss, then turn around and run back to the closest tower to the middle and return that to your control. When capturing a tower back, the key is to remove people from the top of the tower, either through killing or knockbacks. Remember that you don’t need to kill their whole party up top, if they have healers that prove to be problematic to kill and you can get the capture off, just remove yourself from the fight and get another tower back, towers take a long time to burn.”

Arathi basin- “Playing Defense: This is perhaps the most boring job in any battleground, as you have multiple nodes the enemy can go after, or if you only have one node remaining they may just not care to overextend. You could sit at a node the entire game and see nobody, or you could be bogged down in constant combat.”

warsong gulch - “Let’s use Warsong Gulch as an example, there are almost always two focal points to this BG, your FC and the EFC. You have to make the decision to stay and defend, or help the offensive team to coordinate a kill and return.”

eye of the storm - "Playing Defense: Unlike in Arathi Basin and Battle for Gilneas, the nodes here are capture by a tug-of-war depending on how many players from each team are in range, becoming captured slowly by whoever has more. this leaves defense with only two ways to stop a capture, call for help and hope to kill them off while you get more people there than they have, or use a knockback class to remove them from the node(You must be up on whichever hill the node is to be aiding the capture) to give yourself progress on the capture bar again.

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the blizzard employee in question is a blind janitor.

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This is a really good question. A lot of people are getting banned for actually doing objectives in the game.

Then its being explained as not following the “feeling” of the team.

Explain to me exactly what the feeling of a team is. 4-5 people running straight to the end and standing there. 4-5 people capping and holding towers offensively. 4-5 people trying to back cap. 15 of so people just zug zuging in the middle. The rest just kind of wondering around between those spots.

Like what exactly is the team going for here? Is there a leader we are suppose to follow? A discord we are all suppose to join and get the feeling right?

Its a very very confusing situation people are getting a month off for.

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I would like an explanation on this situation as well.

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aka, you were reported afk because teams treat it like a vote to kick, not a report for account action. blizzard refuses to admit they made a mistake by automating account bans via the report afk option, so players get banned for no fault of their own and doing things right.

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I am hesitant to validate this post, when people said “Bliz said” with no reference on where to find it or which bliz person said it, I instantly go “Am I being trolled?”

With that said, assuming this is true, I think it probably comes from people reporting players for afking at a defense point and losing the nodes constantly or feeding the enemy team HKs by running off from the group and griefing the team. I don’t think someone sitting a flag in AB, or hanging back to help a flag carrier in WSG, (etc) would get banned. Especially since that can be the most boring, but required jobs in a BG, if anything those folks who volunteer to defend and actually do so are more of a team player than folks who just throw themselves head first into group clashes all the time.

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it was a response from a Forum CS rep named Vrakthris.

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I tend to agree with this feeling. But its just odd that we go with this “feeling of your team” take when its impossible to really know the feeling of your team. If anything you got 30 chiefs screaming to do 5 different things. Do you just flip the coin and hope this one is the bannable feelings so dont go that way but this one here is the feeling so we won’t get banned?

This is why we need direct answers.

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I’m curious as to why US players received a 30 day ban but euro/oce players only received a 7 day ban according this thread People reporting account bans for afk reports in bgs

Not sure why american players(who pay the most for the sub out of any country) have to be punished greater than others? Not seeing the logic here

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I mean that is a very interesting take and its a little in bad taste if that is the case. If it is true then it needs to be addressed for sure.

But where I want to get to the bottom of here is…

What gets you banned in AV? I know the obvious thing like running against the wall in the spawning cave. But what else? Because right now defending objectives seems to be really on the table right now.

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lets start with its not a fair metric because it is impossible to meet all the time. your account relies on someone else’s feelings. lets talk about feelings, ever have a bad day? how about when you wake up? are you grumpy before you’ve had coffee and breakfast? what if you are playing to escape stress from work and life? that stress doesn’t go away just because you logged in.

your account should not rely on if someone else had a jelly donut for breakfast or not.

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The root of the issue here is that for nearly 20 years now - nobody was banned for defending objectives in BGs. What changed? and why weren’t players informed?

WoWhead needs to be changed to inform new players that defending objectives by yourself can result in action against your account.

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the social contract, blizz just told everyone to report anyone causing them to have a bad time. where does that stop? “you took my mining node, now im angry, reported!” on top of telling people to blame others for the hurt caused by their own ego, blizz automated the system so there are no checks and balances against abuse.

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I am not actually for going by the “feeling” of the time. I am actually very confused how or why that is being used in explanations on the CS forums of why people can get banned.

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here’s a thought, “hindering team progress” is a reportable offense.

if i lose an arena match, the other team just literally hindered my progress. per blizzard, i should be reporting every loss and they should be banning every team that doesn’t let me win.

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essentially its blizzards way of saying you were reported because the team reported you. they have this idea that they can stay hands off, and that the report system is a democratic vote, in their eyes if you get reported, it must be because your teammates had valid reason to

and honestly, sometimes you just don’t flow with a team, in those cases, a vote to kick is all that is needed, even deserter is a bit much, but blizz decided to increase the penalty for idk why. but it sure seems like bullying and abuse of power “dance how we like or you get account ban”

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I do agree that is what is going on. But it seems like a very sad state of mob rule which rarely accomplishes its goals. If anything… will make it worse.

Mostly because if you get say 5 reports in a BG which I would say is fairly high for someone not just doing the standing in the spawn cave thing. 5 of 40 is hardly this overwhelming number of people in the BG if you get what I am laying down here.

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Yikes, a little scary that mob rule from bans actually are that effective. Like just 5 randos get mad you are defending a tower can get you 30 days off and miss a launch? That is really really bad.

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there is actively defending (lets say a node in EOTS) when you have the enemy rogue trying to pop you ever so often.
then you have “AFK” defending. Like lets say in AV when your whole team is north and you are in possession of all your towers with full npcs up and all you do is stand there when there is no clear or present danger to the tower. (i assume it would be something the player does every game and is known for it perhaps?)

Although if a tower is getting pumped and your standing there, i dont see how people can know your afk esp if your fighting back.
We all played the game long enough to know when someone is participating or not.

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I do think WE know this. Because we are in the game and actively playing it. I have my doubts some damage/heal parsing bot does though. Because plenty of times, not all, but plenty of times I have ran to a tower, spun it, the archors are toasted before I do anything… and yeah… I then stand there until it burns… then I run forward and about 30 seconds later mounted up the game ends one way or the other.

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