I am looking for some assistance, I was recently banned on one of my accounts on 5/13, and the email provided says that I was “exploiting in a battleground.” I am unaware of any exploits that I had committed, and the only thing I could think of doing was being AFK for around 2 minutes in one of my games.
Ive sent in multiple tickets to customer support, simply asking for clarification on why I was banned, and they have flat out not told me why I was banned, and simply say “the action will not be reversed.” Im not asking for it to be reversed, im asking what I did wrong so that I dont do it again. I dont care about the ban, ill take it on the nose as I had to have done something wrong. I just want to know what I did so I dont make that mistake again and end up banned again.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can get this information? Its becoming very frustrating. I’ve been playing since 2004, and have always received great customer service, but it seems like the once time it really matters, I dont get any customer service at all. Thank you all for your help
I definitely wont rule this out, and have planned to be way more diligent about making sure im fair with that to my teammates. Im leaning towards that being the cause, but I just want to make sure im thinking of all possibilities because I dont want to end up in this situation again.
First off always appeal, you can keep appealing until they said the decision is final.
Exploiting in a BG is a weird category I haven’t seen come up before. It could be the case where they used the wrong category and it was meant to be AFK/Non-participation for the action which happens from time to time. First offence is generally 2 week suspension. If it is actually for exploits in BG’s avoid stuff like going out of bounds etc with “creative use of mechanics” or bugs in BG’s.
When it comes to suspensions, with the exception for Profanity/Toxicity (which they will provide the chats if requested), Blizzard won’t share details as to why you received a suspension.
If you’re afk in BGs for an excessive amount you definitely will be actioned, now how much time and amount of matches your afk in a bg is excessive is at blizzards control.
Now if you were defending a graveyard or any other location when everyone else was at the boss then that will definitely get you in trouble. Stay with the group and do the objectives that everyone else is doing, don’t go doing things the way you want.
All you can do is appeal in a ticket and ask for the suspension to be looked at. Do not lawyer the case with them only explain facts.
Just have a look in these very forums and you’ll see what others have experienced from being afk in bgs to understand why it’s a big problem and also why you where actioned.
The ones I’ve seen come through here have, according to the Blue responses I’ve seen, done zero dps and heals for many entire matches. In at least one post, they have done this for more than 50% of matches looked at and all the rest were a good amount above the line that Blizz draws (and whatever other metrics they use).
So basically, even when ‘guarding/defending’ is the excuse, the suspension is from multiple matches with zero dps and heals exceeding whatever games played ratio is in place. Most recently appear to be in classic and involve AV grinding for R14 because parsing or something.
The best way to avoid this appears to be actually play the BG you sign up for, it being near impossible to have zero dps and heals if actually played.
The way to be fair to your teammates is to stay with them and help them try to win. Any ideas/thoughts/secondhand tips that you may have about the “meta” are irrelevant.
Stay with the team and do damage/healing. Literally the only expectation.
It’s ok to cap a graveyard by yourself. What’s NOT ok is after that happens, to stay there when noone’s attacking it - that’s non participation. Cap it if you want but after that you need to move on wth the group.
When you participate in BGs, what do you typically do, do you pursue objectives, follow the Zerg, stand on AFK hill? You don’t need to worry about being AFK for a few minutes, but you would want to be concerned about things like capping snow fall, then “guarding” it all game where you don’t really participate and do no damage/healing in 10 out of 11 games. While they haven’t give us actual numbers, I suspect if you do no damage/healing in over 50% of the bgs and if someone reports you, you’re at risk.
Additionally, you mention “one of my accounts”, do you play all these accounts individually, or do you multi-box? While its not against the rules, assuming you don’t use “software” to do it, its difficult to stay active in PvP on more then one account at a time, and its easy to end up with one active account, and a tag along account, which really does nothing but follow you around, maybe occasionally healing, but where that character is essentially AFK in many BGs.
While hopefully the forum agents might be able to provide insight, if you give your typical play style people maybe can help identify what might be causing the problem so you can avoid it going forward, as sometimes its easier for others to see what your doing/missing than yourself.
You’re correct, but you don’t have to be reported to get actioned for this. It’s one of the things Blizzard is looking for on their own and doing ban waves for.
You’re probably not going to get the answer you want. Blizzard doesn’t provide any details of a suspension or ban other than the general category. In your case the general category is “Exploiting in a battleground”. They’re NOT going to say on XX/XX/XX date we found that you were using XYZ terrain exploit or we found that you were afk for and did 0 dps on the following dates. The reason they won’t tell you is because this is the type of information that botting and power leveling communities would love to have in order to alter their actions to avoid future detection.
One of the SFAs here may be able to take a peek and give you a rough idea or tell you whether or not you were given the correct category in your email, but a response from Blizzard on this forum is never guaranteed.
They’re not required to give specifics, but the Blues here are pretty darn good about clearing up issues with misconceptions about account penalties.
This isn’t just for AV. Non-participation has been against the rules for as long as I can remember.
If you feel that there should be rules posted about it, you can certainly suggest it be included via the in-game suggestion feature or by posting in one of the PVP forums.
The message said exploitation and not “PvP Non-Participation/Exploitation” ? If so, I am sorry for the confusion, while we generally do not provide specific details, the category is a usually a little bit more specific for these cases.
From what I can see, Zerogh, the issue was simply not participating for multiple games.
Because it is listed within the End User License Agreement and applies to every battleground, not just the one.
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 point is to work and play as a team, not run off and do your own thing by sitting somewhere and doing nothing.
And penalties stack. Blizzard doesn’t list what sort of penalties will apply, because it is fairly obvious: Action will be taken against the account for violation of the EULA/CoC or any other policies. So, if it is not the first offense, penalties will increase in length.
First offense is 2 weeks which is absolutely insane but not really the point.
OP was frustrated because he had to come in here and have a blue post explain what he did wrong. I had to do the same thing. Blizzard is banning people for one specific thing (zero damage / healing in a specific amount of games). That would’ve been nice to know before half the server got smacked with a 2 week ban out of nowhere.
It being vague is on purpose, if they specifically laid out the minimum to not get actioned a ton of people would just do the minimum, which is not good for the game.
Nothing of this is new btw. It’s been like this forever. Its also almost impossible to do 0 damage and 0 healing for multiple games in a row if you are actively playing the battleground.
