Please remove authenticator group restrictions blizzard

I was providing information. Scoff all you want. Not sure why for the snarky remarks.

Thanks, this will become a good meme. Requirements to use Blizzards party finder vs. FFXIV party finder.

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Nice try gold seller.

Nah.

The boost sellers do not appear to be having much problems creating groups still. Between 2 and 4 in each category, just like in 9.1.0.

You are recommending people who qualify (125% poverty level) use a program meant for essential and emergency phone service to play an online video game. Outside of some that couldnā€™t care less about this sort of thing, Iā€™m surprised you wouldnā€™t realize that reactions would be otherwise overwhelmingly negative from the entirety of the political spectrum.

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Itā€™s not.

What made things difficult for them was level requirements.

They just run authenticators on virtual phones.

What this is doing is making things difficult for customers that donā€™t want cumbersome and difficult to reverse 3rd factor security tied to device that is easily stolen, lost, broken, and frequently replaced.

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How about a solution that doesnā€™t inconvenience anyone who doesnā€™t break the rules?

I donā€™t understand the conviction with which forum goers argue this is the best (or seemingly only) solution that could be thought up to the problem of ads in the LFG.

Itā€™s just kinda silly to believe the existing policy, if it had been properly enforced, would not have had the same (or a better) effect on the problem. Lessening the amount of ads that appear in LFG.

Posting ads in the LFG is against ToS. If you violate ToS you take a penalty. They range from silences (which prevent talking in public channels and LFG posting with an indefinite increase in length) to suspensions to bans.

If they had been enforcing their previous policy (which to my knowledge is still current policy. How the heck are they not immediately actioning the ads that are still getting through??? They canā€™t even pretend to be under the assumption these are being done by hacked/compromised accounts at this stage.) this issue should have been under control. At the very least the accounts engaged with posting ads would have to resort to much of the same tactics they are using to circumvent the new restrictions.

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I just checked and there are only 2 sale runs up for M+ right now. Compared to last week thatā€™s nothing. So something is working.

love the authenticator requirement

keep it, make it apply to more of wow

so worth it to shut out spammers and bad actors

They were enforcing their previous policy.

The problem is that there were potentially hundreds of thousands of reports coming in per day, and the advertisers were using compromised accounts, meaning that attempting to deal with them using the existing tools and systems turned into a game of whack-a-mole. Theyā€™d take down one, and two more would pop up to replace it.

This step theyā€™ve taken is the correct one. Itā€™s significantly reduced the number of advertisements in LFG, which means fewer reports crossing Blizzardā€™s desk. They can work through the backlog of reports, then act on the new ones and snuff out the accounts the advertisers are using much more efficiently than before.

It seems we usually agree on most things so please sate my curiosity. Iā€™m fine with authentication, but not fine tying it to a phone (emulator). Personally my state, local, medical have my cell but they are not going to sell info. Some people donā€™t have cells and donā€™t even want them. What other areas would you like them to wall off if no cell or emulator authentication? You also know that the software could be hijacked by hackers or blizzard could decide to ninja update to access sim and steal data.

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Iā€™m sorry but I believe absolutely none of that given my experience with the game.

There were ad posts in the LFG that just hung out there for a full weekend. Check on Friday, same character with the same listing was still there on Sunday. Anecdotal, but there was absolutely no way that their policy was/is being enforced given the state of LFG. Post Authenticator requirement, how can there possibly still be ads in the LFG that go unactioned for days? Hacked/compromised with an authenticator? lol There can be no doubt those are deliberate posts. Action them!

The argument that ads are often (or even majorly) from compromised accounts sounds like bullocks to me. Blizzard has a history of never wanting to take responsibility for their mistakes and failings. This sounds like an unsubstantiated excuse. (like when they said for years they couldnā€™t make the backpack bigger because of how it was codedā€¦ and then they did. Or how they couldnā€™t make Classic because they couldnā€™t use the old codeā€¦ but of course they did) Even if the accounts were compromised they still should have been actioned during the lengthy time they were running ads, disallowing them to continue with that account, and I just find it hard to believe these serial ad runners (the sellers that even now seem to maintain a presence in the LFG and Trade 24/7) have this inexhaustible amount of compromised accounts they can work with once one gets silenced or suspendedā€¦

I think there are just fewer posts in LFG in general after the patchā€¦ but (itā€™s hard to tell given the current troubled state of the game) if that was a result of this patches changes or just players generally not being active. . .

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Since patch 9.1.5, BOTH Blizzard authenticator and phone notification is required to make say something meaningful on custom group finder.

Authenticator requires Apple or Android machine (or a physical dongle), and phone notification requires to be in certain country and it is not always working if one uses prepaid plans.

  • If this meant to be preventing overflowing spams, then everyone reports that it was not successful.
  • If Blizzard wanted to encourage players to use more security options, it should be like giving more benefit like backpack size provided now.
  • If some restriction is seriously required to discourage spam, then in-game record like account-wide playtime can be easily applied.

I think this policy that muzzle players just make some good players frustrating, while it will never make those donā€™t have trouble with the requirement happier. I hope that developers will seriously reconsider the policy, or at least either option can let us speak freely.

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yeah i agree, it could use iteration

but i like the idea because it has really cut down spam in my game

you gotta understand iā€™ve been using this thing almost since they created it and it isnā€™t any hassle to use or anything - just standard 2FA

but I do agree that they need to possibly generate more iterations of it to fit with some demographics that may not have access or have other genuine issues

security will always be an issue but it is definitely better than an absence of 2FA - I meant more like under 20ā€™s (the free accounts) and maybe the auction house or pvp

thereā€™s a mix of responders to this, some of peeps that are abusing the system and just trying to generate negativity towards it, and some are peeps having genuine issues using it although they like the idea of blocking out bad actors

i personally draw the line at rootkit style drm systems and rootkit anti-cheat stuff - mainly because rootkit access is just the worst possible vulnerability

saying some people donā€™t have cell phones is a strawman argument, shouldnā€™t even bring that one up - so is the hijacking. But some peeps having issues where their phone canā€™t use it is a legitimate issue. Bliz could always add regular email 2FA as an alternative but you are right that they probably like the app because they use it to track to a degree. On modern phone you can block an app from operating/tracking except when you use it and you only use the authenticator about once every 2-4 month, sometimes less.

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What part of, potentially hundreds of thousands of reports per day was not clear? Each of those required an investigation before action could be taken to make sure they were not false flags. Itā€™s not an automated system that handles this, these are real people looking into these reports and they can only handle so many per day.

So it may take some time for the one spammer you report to get dealt with, depending on how many reports were lodged ahead of yours.

I agree mostly with your sentiments, but after all that has gone on this SMS notification thing has really irked me. Iā€™ve said this in another thread, but blizzard knows everything about me. I have given them every piece of information I have about myself to them, including state issued ID. I am still unable to edit text fields in the group finder because I use a MVNO to save money on cell service. Iā€™ve had the same number for years and the excuse that ā€œbecause its a VoIP numberā€ its not secure is bs.

This is just me grumbling, but Iā€™ve put up with a lot from blizzard lately. This just seems like another slap in the face by them. They most likely didnā€™t intend for people like me to not to be able to use their service but it definitely feels like Iā€™m being made out to be an advertisement spammer because my phone number isnā€™t acceptable. Losing me as a subscriber isnā€™t going to cause them to bat an eye. Iā€™ve been enjoying their games for decades now, and it just makes me feel sad that they are not willing to come up with a solution for the minority of players that fall through the cracks of their system.

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I have the same problem OP. I had opened my account in the US and have sionce moved to Hong Kong. I have an authenticator app on an old iPOD Touch, but no SMS protect. My account is still linked to US and have not changed it to HK for reasons regarding payment and not wanting to have redirection issues to Taiwanese WOW (since I cant speak or read Chinese). But since the account is US based it wont let me add my HK Phone number (plus HK phone numbers are 8 digits long, not 7), so, no SMS protect for me.

And now the LFD restriction, not that much of an issue at the monent since I run keys with guildies, but still, worried in the future might be more of a PITA

the LFG TOOL is part of the game no?
Iā€™m not experiencing it. when I open it up, it shows lock icons.
Only F2P games have lock icon and WoW is a premium game.
If WoW is F2P then by all mean, put locks/authenticate every aspect of the game.

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But this is disingenuous. You can use the LFG tool, you can even list your own groups, you just canā€™t add CUSTOM TEXT if youā€™re listing a Dungeon or Raid. Everything that someone would need to know will be auto filled in for you.

but how does the game know i need MEGA PUMPERS ONLY NO BADS for my 15 SD