Strawpoll How many times do you AFK out of a BG In a Week?

[Bdm-darkspear (Bdm)]

About once a week but not because it’s a bad game. Sometimes the toddler will wake up on my last epic game of the night. Nothing much I can do about that lol

That just IRL sometimes nothing can be done about any of that.

[Jadei-shadowsong (Jadei)]

Some things can’t be avoided, but I doubt they are what’s causing 3-4 to leave a 10-15 man on a regular basis. My computer went into random spasms after 8.1.5. All would be fine for a couple of days and then I’d join a bg and the minute I’d engage in combat, my frame rate dropped to 0 and/or I’d dc. I even got a wow error message a few times. Games were unplayable and I really wasn’t helping my group when that happened.

[Eekamouse-sentinels (Eekamouse)]

How do you guys think that size of the BG affects this choice? For example, which size is most tempting to abandon and in which is it least “painful” to stay? Which is the most/least damaging to the team?

I bring this up because it occurs to me that many of us tend to see this issue/non-issue through the lens of our own experience in our personally-preferred battlegrounds. For example, I play vastly more small BG’s than I do epics, but I notice that many players do the opposite.

On the one hand, you could say that each AFK/desertion is potentially more damaging in a 10 man situation, where each player is 1/10th of their team rather than 1/40th. But, in a 10-man, an unlucky but intrepid backfiller probably has more of a chance to actually make an impact on the game, and I think the smaller games are generally more unpredictable, or at least more likely to be stolen by a comeback (one smart play or one dumb mistake).

On the other hand, when the epics spin out into that revolving-door situation, many more players have their queues wasted into backfill, and their queues were probably longer. Also the epic battlegrounds tend to take longer to play out. Multiple wasted queues are even more of a waste. Anecdotally, it seems like in the large-scale format, the /bg chat tends to get heated to another level more often and more quickly, which probably correlates positively with increased desertion. But that could just be my experience in a limited sample size compared to small-scale.

[Bdm-darkspear (Bdm)]

I guess your question It’s more for the ones that AFK I think AFK is bad no matter how you look at it. you AFK out someone got to get backfill in and that could be you.

[Lasagna-frostwolf]

How do you guys think that size of the BG affects this choice? For example, which size is most tempting to abandon and in which is it least “painful” to stay? Which is the most/least damaging to the team?

I think it’s the same. You can feel it immediately in reg BGs and it becomes difficult in places like temple where every body really counts.

In epics one leave starts a landslide most times til you are constantly 5 or 6 people down. A person might not personally feel it as much as a reg BG but there are a lot of DPS races in epics. Boss kills, more bodies for defense, more bodies for base skirmishes. I think some people believe epics have more people so they can skip out and it wont make much difference but it still really does. I’ve seen solo toons turn whole games around.
I think the above excuse is used a lot more to leave epics due to their time length.

Entering an epic and expecting it to be quick is pretty dumb to begin with though.

[Valarien-area-52 (Valarien)]

There needs to be a bigger penalty for frequent deserters. Weeding out the people who quit at the drop of a hat would actually foster a better community.

If a penalty volcano deters you from playing WoW anymore then so be it. Nothing of value will be lost if you are leaving bg’s that much.

i can spend the time just switching to another character and q’ing with that toon instead, might even switch factions

So you can /afk out of that one too and make someone else backfill?

Honestly, just quit. Your attitude wouldn’t be missed.

[Grohg-hyjal]

I find myself leaving BGs constantly nowadays. I have a handful of alts, because I enjoy playing all of the varieties of styles. There’s no matchmaking in random BGs, but more so, it seems like Blizzard tries to make them hilarious unbalanced.

If the game is a complete joke, like my recent 10v10 Kotmogu where 6 alliance were healers, I’ll just leave and hop on an alt. I’m not wasting my time in these games…either Blizzard should do a better job balancing them out or expect the games to 9/10 times end with 1 team stomping the other.

I very rarely see a random BG that ends with a competitive score.

[Bdm-darkspear (Bdm)]

For all the ones that AFK out you should never complain about getting backfill into a losing BG.

[Cornerhustle-tichondrius]

sometimes during an AV that’s lasting for hours I’ll have to take a leak and I’ll try to afk in stealth somewhere nobody will notice me and hit the bathroom real quick and either not make it back in time or get marked as non participating and get knocked out… thats the worst though after I been workin my a** off for an hour then get kicked out for a piss break.

for that reason, if I see someone “idle” in a bg that’s been going on for a while, I’ll check the scoreboard to see if they’ve been participating, and leave them alone if they have.

[Cornerhustle-tichondrius]

@ those who voted “i’m going down with the ship”… do you value your time? I’m just curious

trying your hardest against an opponent that’s much stronger than you is a great way to improve your skills. I learned this at a very young age while playing sports.

if you only stick around for the easy wins, how you gonna improve your game?

edit: plus, I’m a rogue, so even if we’re getting steamrolled I can still usually find someone away from the pack to solo or go for a 1v2 and take a node solo. then even though we still lost, I feel like I accomplished something so I don’t sweat the loss.

[Skinwälker-echo-isles (Skinwälker)]

I don’t think I’ve ever left by choice. Chat can be very entertaining in a losing game so it’s usually a win-win for me.

[Chroesire-bleeding-hollow (Chroesire)]

Also people who leave BGs and then complain about being backfills are funny.

If I had my way, deserters would be restricted to backfilling only until they stick out an entire game.

[Chroesire-bleeding-hollow (Chroesire)]

@ those who voted “i’m going down with the ship”… do you value your time? I’m just curious

Queuing only for wins is a ridiculous notion. Of course I want to win, but random BGs are gonna be random and as such by queueing I acknowledge that the game has a high chance of being a loss.

Furthermore, lots of games where a third of the initial roster AFK’d out early on end up being wins. Games can be turned around, and as much as I value my own time it’d be pretty darn crappy of me to not at least try to make the game worth everybody else’s time and turn it around. What’s a single player’s time and sub fee in the face of those of 9, 14, or 39 others? Unless I’m a high ranking executive who probably shouldn’t be playing WoW anyway, how could the value of my time possibly outweigh the collective value of that of my teammates?

[Bdm-darkspear (Bdm)]

Since I made this poll I think it’s got a little worse It seems more and more are AFK out.

P.s I’m going to blame on WG.

[Gdtroll-illidan (Gdtroll)]

Can confirm, I afk out like 90% of the time when I end up in a WG

Especially if it’s an “in progress” losing WG, if I get dropped into an “in progress” losing WG? That’s an insta-afk out

[Bdm-darkspear (Bdm)]

I know you don’t wanna hear this, but they should make the deserter account wide and make it 35min. Trust me, I thought about AFK out many times in that BG I just can’t bring myself to do it.

[Gdtroll-illidan (Gdtroll)]

I know you don’t wanna hear this, but they should make the deserter account wide and make it 35min. Trust me, I thought about AFK out many times in that BG I just can’t bring myself to do it.

I like you but… bad mage, bad

“Account wide deserter” and similar extreme punishments (such as the laughable “24 hour deserter” idea), will not stop people from leaving

Even if they don’t leave, they will just afk in a safe spot until the loss is over, they will just refuse to fight - so the team will still be “down” 1 player even if that player didn’t actually leave. That’s probably what I would do anyways, just refuse to fight until it’s over

Also, any such change would disproportionately affect Alliance since they are the ones quitting in droves usually (in epic bgs anyway).

[Tomten-arygos (Tomten)]

Even if they don’t leave, they will just afk in a safe spot until the loss is over, they will just refuse to fight - so the team will still be “down” 1 player even if that player didn’t actually leave. That’s probably what I would do anyways, just refuse to fight until it’s ove

Although I do understand that there are sometimes when dropping out of games is just something you have to do, I also think that the fair punishment for someone who just stays in a BG but doesn’t participate is, at the least, permanent deletion of their account.

[Grohg-hyjal]

Well, especially over the last 2 weeks, I think I’ve left most of my games. I don’t know if Fortnite servers have been down or something, but most of the horde players have been particularly bad the last couple of weeks.

When people don’t play objectives (aka they are just selfish, going for HKs on roads and such), I’ll just afk out. It’s just as bad not playing the actual game. If the mode is Capture the Flag…there’s only 2 things that need to be done…get the flag, return the flag. I won’t subject myself to the badness of these players more than I need to.

If my leaving gets those folks upset, all the better. I feel bad for the 1 or 2 players in there that are actually trying, but tough…they should just leave too, instead of being all ‘righteous’ or w/e this reason is to stay and get rekt.

[Bdm-darkspear (Bdm)]

The AFK rate is going through the roof something’s gotta be done. I’m trying not to be rude here 'cause I like you, but AFK Is quitting for some of us that don’t like to quit you make it hard on us.

Let me ask you this, have you ever quit Southshore v’s Tarren Mill?