People will ALWAYS AFK out of losses, unless you add Conquest Points to the losing teams side

“Time is money friend.”

It’s also something Blizzard PvP battleground players won’t squander. I love PvP. And as we all know, the game is based on gear. Dying too fast, not healing much, getting 1-shotted by raiders…no body likes having crappy gear in BG’s.

So, if Blizzard understands human nature at all, then for Shadowlands, they need to address the lack of Conquest Points for the teams that lose. Otherwise this (particularly in Epic BG’s):

  1. battle starts, and first battle in WG happens, and half the people leave on the side that did poorly. New people arrive and they don’t have any kills, so they can’t build vehicles. They see that their side is leaving, they joined “mid-game”, they know WG lasts a long time, so they AFK out too.

  2. IoC, it’s usually the hangar fight. IoC doesn’t often take as long, so it’s less of a problem here, but still happens.

  3. AV. Lots of ways it can look bad. Once people who have played enough see the writing on the wall, which reads: “you’ll play 30-45 more minutes, you’ll lose, you’ll get nothing useful for your time”, and they leave. Rinse and repeat with the new arrivals.

  4. it’s less of a problem in regular BG’s. But WSG and Twin Peaks can still take a long time, if the winning team is holding the flag, not trying to cap it. And people will still leave after a battle or two. People who stay on the losing side get nothing useful for their squandered time.

Before you think don’t know what I’m talking about, let’s just say I’ve got 5788 games in IoC and AV across my alts. I used to do AV “honor” weekends for 16 hours each day. LOVE AV! And I’ve got 13291 BG’s total.

And I have absolutely zero problem afking out, and making food, doing quests, going LFR, or any of the other ways I can spend time.

I just think it’s not smart that Blizzard doesn’t value the time of the people who love BG’s. If you offered me 20-40% the Conquest Points to stay on a losing team, I’d stay. The closer you make the game, the more Conquest Points you get.

In the real world, the 2nd place medal isn’t made of dirt. It’s made of Silver. Nor is it made of tinfoil, which is what “honor points” are.

In the real world, you get something for your time and effort. All you have to do is look at the people who /afk out of losing BG’s all of the time, to see the problem the current system has.

You made a gear-based game. Understanding human nature isn’t that hard once you set up that system.

“Time is money friend”. It should be some modicum of Conquest Points too.

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It would also help the situation we are in now where only mouthbreathing knuckledraggers play alliance because they lose all the time and get no rewards.

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Obviously there are losers who make a lot of assumptions about things. I have a winning record in IoC and AV. So…nah.

Don’t be dumber than the evidence. People leave losing BG’s because it’s a waste of time. Not because they are Horde or Alliance.

Also, if you’re worried about people AFKing to get Conquest Points, the system in place of reporting AFKers deals with 95% of that already.

Nobody likes leeches on their team. People report AFK’ers all of the time. So the problem with AFKers sitting there doing nothing for the “free” Conquest Points, is mostly solved by the current system. Let the team vote/kick the AFKers.

For the REAL pro-AFKers, who do the bare minimum, and know how to get the debuff off just in time, you simply need Blizzard to do it’s job when people are reported for being professional-afkers.

If a person keeps getting reported for that in every BG they play…not too hard to figure out.

Just give them a 24 hour ban from BG’s after 1 warning. Then have the 24 hour ban from BG’s double every time they get it again. Problem solved.

After a month, it resets to zero, if they don’t get reported any more.

It’s an easy fix for an obvious problem – give people on the team that loses, SOME amount of Conquest Points. Give pro-AFKers longer bans.

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I could take the losses just fine if I wasn’t having to grind through 10 weeks of the previous season’s gear before I can get ONE upgrade(since I already have 445 or better in nearly every slot).

It was fine before when you bought the prior season with honor and the new season with conquest. You could at least still work towards getting off spec gear when you lost.

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Yeah, dealing with all of the losses, then getting gear in a slot you have better gear in as your only PvP reward option sucks too. BUT, I believe PvP vendors are back in Shadowlands, so that problem at least is solved.

I just think people’s time is not worth nothing. And “honor” is worth nothing. Because, pretty much, in the scheme of a game dependent on gear-score (in many, not all, ways) to succeed at, honor gets you nada. Conquest Points get you better gear.

Nobody expects Nascar to only award money and points to the first place finisher. Nobody expects the 2nd place team in the Superbowl to just get ‘regular season’ pay.

So the entire “people want participation trophy’s” whine that usually happen right about now, ignores these real-world contradictions to that theory.

Since this is a game, that requires a lot of time, giving people nothing useful in an epic-length BG, or even in a regular BG, rewards /afk, more than it rewards “participation”.

I just AFK’d out of an Ashran after the first battle. Looked at the reinforcements, checked the healing stats and dmg stats…wasnt’ worth staying 20 minutes to find out I would get nothing useful.

Switched to an alt, doing some WQ’s since 2 of the last 3 days missions had gear-drop as a reward for doing 4 quests in each zone.

“Time is money friend.”. And if you spend it wisely, it’s better gear, too :stuck_out_tongue:

Sorry I’m a little confused, you are suggesting “guaranteed” conquest points “just for showing up” to random bgs?? :rofl:

Sadly, that would make the do-nothing afker problem even worse than it already is in Alliance epics.

Without a good enough reward, most people just don’t care/stop trying to win (human nature like you mentioned).

And of course, those “professional” afkers (I’m quite familiar with these types :roll_eyes: ) that afk in turrets or by graveyards in Alliance epics would NOT go away. In fact, there would probably be more of them. Such a change might even attract more bots and multi-boxers into Alliance epics.

Yeah it’s super annoying, I know exactly what you’re talking about…

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I don’t think OP is asking for free conquest. They’re just highlighting how bad the current system is. There’s no reason to stick out a loss other than the deserter. So when the bg will clearly go on for more than another 15 minutes, there’s no point in hanging around.

I’ve seen people say to increase the debuff but that’s not going to fix the issue. Losing sucks(and it should) but spending 45 minutes in a losing bg and to only have a chance at an RNG box with 32g and worthless marks of honor doesn’t cut it.

It has created a flux of people subjectively deciding when it’s a loss and leaving. Leavers has never been this much of an issue until Legion and BFA. It’s clearly a problem with their reward system.

Oh man I loved the CTA weekends. When it was my favorite bg in the list, it was que after que after que after que and losses happened but so what, it wasn’t a complete waste of time.

Classic Ashran, there are enough people leaving and joining so regularly that it looks like someone spilled a package of skittles when you press M

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Given that there’s a weekly cap for CQ and more than one way to get it, you can’t really outwin more than 500 in a given week if you’re current.

"People will ALWAYS AFK out of losses, unless you add Conquest Points to the losing teams side"

I don’t.
I am there because I want to PvP, not because I need conquest points or any other carrot on a stick.

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Pretty sure you didn’t read my post. The easy solution for pro-AFKers (or any consistent AFKer) is listed there. The penalties are bans from BG’s for (each consecutive infraction) 1 day, 2 days, 4 days, 8 days, 16 days, 32 days, 64 days, etc. Not just because a person goes inactive once or twice. Real life happens.

That penalty happens to people who 1) have a ton of people reporting them AFK and 2) who’s BG logs show they were AFK. These people get the special 24 hour penalty, and every time they are AFK after that, they get it again, and it doubles in duration. This removes AFKers from our hair, and incentivizes them to actually play a little in Battlegrounds.

Solves the problem of amateur and pro-AFKers who do it consistently. I very specifically said Blizzard simply needs to look at who gets the most reports (whether or not the Debuff occurs – since we both understand pro-AFK’ers game the system), analyze their BG logs and give the geometrically-increasing penalty to them.

I play Epics every day. The AFKer problem isn’t overly bad. People call them out, AFKer’s get booted. It’s worse late at night (after midnight PST), but not that hard to monitor.

So no, there’s not really a reward for AFKers if Blizzard monitors who gets reported. Even if they make it to the end of a BG, if they were reported for AFKing again and again, their Conquest Points would be “on reserve” until their Battleground log was reviewed. If they were AFKing, they don’t get the points.

Otherwise, everyone with average or better gear, who need Conquest Points, and have a lack of infinite-time-resources, will just /afk out. It’s not my opinion. Happens all of the time.

I prefer the problem of identifying AFK’ers quickly, than making every losing BG a waste of time.

Most are just there for the cp reward. It’s never ending so you will see people come and go constantly.

“I am there because I want to PvP, not because I need conquest points or any other carrot on a stick.”

Yeah, me too. And after you lose 10 BG’s in a row, and don’t get CP, you’ve wasted all of that time.

Being in denial that the game is – if not gear-dependent, at least gear-score-relevant – doesn’t really fix the /afk problem that the current system causes.

You need to recognized that it matters not one tiny bit why YOU play. This will help you understand the issue. And the issue is obvious to most players, because tons of players leave BG’s that are obvious-losses to be, rather than waste their time.

Time isn’t a “carrot”. It’s something we all have in finite amounts.

Pay attention your next Battleground, particularly epic BG’s, and see how many leave when the first few minutes indicate it’s going to be a loss.

Those people didn’t leave because they needed carrots.

They left because they have a finite amount of playtime, and aren’t stupid enough to squander it on a loss that gives them nothing useful, for their time and effort.

I’ve only done 13k+ BG’s. I love BG’s. I don’t love wasting time. Gear matters. PvP is more fun with better gear. And obviously tons of people /afk out, because time matters to them too.

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I agree that the current PvP rewards system is pretty bad, but it’s also something we can’t really do anything about - it’s up to ion (or devs) to fix it/make it more rewarding in the future.

And you are absolutely right, most casuals are just there for the reward. Nobody wants to waste their time for nothing in return.

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I’ve never lost 10 in a row but on the streaks which I have lost I never considered it a waste. I am there to PvP. Even if I lose I still PvP’d and enjoy it 99% of the time.

You say they didn’t leave because of carrots but then you say they left because a loss gives them nothing.
That’s what a carrot on a stick is.
If they aren’t there for PvP then they’re there for the carrot. If they leave because the first team fight was lost then they’re there for a carrot. If you’re AFKing out because “it’s a waste of time” then you’re there for the carrot.

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That is exactly what it says. :man_shrugging:
No carrots for free.

lol … so tell me, how do you really feel? :laughing:

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Blockquote You say they didn’t leave because of carrots but then you say they left because a loss gives them nothing.
That’s what a carrot on a stick is.
If they aren’t there for PvP then they’re there for the carrot. If they leave because the first team fight was lost then they’re there for a carrot. If you’re AFKing out because “it’s a waste of time” then you’re there for the carrot.

No, it’s not a “reward for the sake of reward”. You’re confused. A carrot is a treat. At least in the metaphor used…

Gear actually does something. It makes you more resilient, and more able to do what your class does, in the PvP world you “enjoy”.

I mean, unless you’re the one person in WoW, who plays in a gear set of ilvl 225 greens, because, you know, getting stomped at PvP is “fun”… Is that you? Oh, so no, you actually use the gear you get, because it makes PvP more fun.

But we all already knew that. :stuck_out_tongue:

See, like most people, you don’t realize how far your metaphor of a “carrot” fails.

Not just because PvP success, is gear-score-reliant/relevant. Not just because PvP is more FUN when you die less and heal/do-damage more.

But the 3rd reason you fail to understand the problem, is that human beings have a more important “carrot”. Their precious time.

Failure to understand the value of this actual commodity, is why you fail to understand why large volumes of people leave BG’s en masse, when the handwriting of a time-wasting loss is on the wall. Why you think this is about the “carrot” of gear, and you fail to understand the carrot is not wasting time

Unless you’re in greens and blues, and a potential gear-drop-box from a loss, is good enough for you, it’s a huge waste of time.

I’ve got 13k games that say I love PvP.

And yet I don’t like getting something worthwhile, for playing well and playing hard in a loss. And I’m not alone. All of the people who /afk out of time-wasting-losses, agree. How you use your time is what matters even more.

That experience also lets me know PvP is more fun when you don’t get rofl-stomped game after game.

Conquest Points aren’t “carrots”. Because they actually are determinant if you get better gear or not. If you’re able to help your team more or not.

And if you understand the concept of a feedback loop, you understand why not giving Conquest Points to people for their time and effort (and in my opinion, for how close the game is, should determine the percentage you get in a loss), can exacerbate the issue. While it wastes peoples times.

(But not you, right? You PvP in Blue and Green gear, for the “fun” of it, even though you’ve got Epic gear, yeah? )

I mean, the people who /afk out understand this problem.

The “carrot” they chase, isn’t Conquest Points. It’s non-wasted time. And that their time invested, returns something for their effort.

I said the range of Conquest Points should be 20-40% of what the victor gets. Based on closeness of score.

That, imo, would keep people playing who love PvP. But it’s not so lucrative to provide that much motivation to AFK.

And as I said before, it’s easy to fix that AFK problem.

It’s what they understand, and you don’t.

the irony …

some play for rewards
some play for fun

each to their own :sunglasses:

Blockquoteyou fail to understand

The fact that you make it an “either/or” thing, makes me think you fail to understand.

Ahhh, the “irony”.

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You know you can cap cp without even doing a random bg, right?