So I just got suspended for “PvP Non-Participation/Exploitation” in AV, and I honestly have no idea what Blizzard thinks I did wrong. Every game I go to Snowfall Graveyard and cap the flag. That’s it. It’s not against the rules. I don’t AFK, I don’t bot, I don’t sit there doing nothing — I cap Snowfall because it’s a smart and strategic play in the current AV meta.
With how fast AV games are right now (typically 6 minutes), nobody on Alliance ever caps Snowfall. But in the 1 out of 10 games where Horde wipes on Van and a turtle happens, having Snowfall capped literally saves the game. I’ve prevented countless turtles solo by doing this. It increases honor per hour for everyone. It’s not flashy PvP, but it’s tactically valuable and it helps the team.
The Horde doesn’t always contest it, but when they do, I fight. If anyone checks logs, they’ll see I absolutely engage in PvP when Horde show up. I fully participate when there’s PvP to be had. I just focus on an objective most people ignore because it matters.
To make things worse, I tried to appeal the ban and the appeal form is just stuck on a spinning screen after I hit submit. So I cancelled my account. This is absolutely ridiculous — being banned for actually helping my team win games in a way that’s currently viable and important in the meta.
If anyone else has been wrongly hit with a suspension for something like this, let me know. But Blizzard really needs to get their act together here.
So. It is a well known fact, that snowfall graveyard capture by horde directly hurts the team’s chances on offense, as it forces any dead alliance players to rez at either SPGY or Cave, thus creating a strong defensive wall that can stall horde offensive progress, and the game.
In all likelihood, YOU knew this before you capped it, hence reports for “gameplay sabotage” being actually pretty justifiable, since you almost assuredly knew what you where doing was going to cause a stalemate/turtle and where actively sabotaging the team’s chances at ending the game in a victory win condition. This would be no different than holding a flag in wsg and refusing to capture it…
THAT BEING SAID, players shouldn’t have to resort to using the report system to fix an obvious flaw in the map/game design itself in the first place. The very fact that capturing a graveyard in AV can actively HURT your team is a pretty damn big problem that can, and should have been addressed over a decade ago. These kinds of issues are one of the bigger points of contention with vanilla “purists”… The OG game wasn’t flawless, and there where things like that should have been fixed. FWIW, the exact same problem occured in the Wrath BG “Strand of the Ancients”, where any offensive team that captured the Southern Graveyard nearly garunteed their own team’s loss (because now the defending team spawns in a significantly stronger position)
TLDR you probably deserved it for constantly capping Snowfall as Horde, but it never would have been an issue in the first place if the company “running” the game actually did their damn jobs.
My mistake then (though the above point stands for any horde who eat a ban over capping snowfall, because I KNOW horde is extremely trigger happy over reporting for other horde capping that particular gy)
Not really sure from the alliance perspective why capping it would have any negative impact at all for the team, to justify getting reported… especially when the current meta Alliance rarely even seem to attempt for Drek (most raids seemingly farm the horde equivalent of Lts/towers then gy camp horde rezzing at SHGY or IBGY)… I’ve seen more than a few horde wipes on vann (usually too many people near Balinda or a bad pull in the north on vann) where the alliance are no where near in a position to end the game themselves.
That’s not a problem. The actual problem is that they banned tons of innocent players because of their spaghetti code. And now they don’t even admit it.
I digress, Man…listen as an OG Vanilla '04 player with a CE account. Once one of my myriad of alts that are from 22-52 (7 in total) hit 60 and I get a suspension for PVP’ing in AV…One less sub.
This META BS…Listen, If I pay for a service that doesn’t state that I MUST play the META and not cap or PvP in a BG and I get suspended…As an OG CE (collectors Edition) Vanilla WoW player, if my 20yrs old account gets suspended for some (mentioned above) Blizz/Microsoft products won’t get my money, ever. Even newer subscribers shouldn’t be dealing with this BS.
Again, in this hypothetical I’m talking a horde player capping snowfall (which is apparently not what the OP was)…
People are actively capping the base to “troll” the other horde players and stall the game, because capping it as horde actively hurts your team. Such people can, and should be reported/banned. Again, it would be no different than intentionally holding the flag in WSG with no intention of ever even attempting to capture it, or intentionally chain wiping a dungeon group.
And again, it’s still ultimately Blizzard’s responsibility to fix the broken graveyard, because the only two people capping it for horde:
1: People who know better and are doing it to harm upwards of 79 other people
2: People who genuinely have no idea and are going to get caught up in a report frenzy
Neither of those situations is good for the health of the game.
It’s unfortunate IF you’ve been unjustly actioned, however seeing as how you’ve already cancelled your subscription there’s probably no point pursuing the appeal process.
I’m interested to see if/when a blue poster comes in with more info
Good luck!
Let’s just be super clear, this is not a ban/suspension worthy offense. The only reason that would even enter someone’s mind is because people are acting like cattle running to the trough.
Holding the flag outside the playable part of the map in WSG - ban/suspension worthy.
The “meta” could be to cap snowfall (on Horde), wipe Alliance mid/Galv and farm HKs for 5 minutes 30 seconds, and then go zerg rush Vann with all 40. Just like you can’t get a ban/suspension for camping someone all day on a PVP server, capping a graveyard isn’t worth their time to even look into.
The only things that should be ban/suspension worthy in a BG are being habitually AFK, map abuse and running your mouth calling people bad words.
Update:
I’ve tried submitting an appeal through the support site, and it’s completely bugged.
Tried different browsers, cleared cache and cookies, restarted — no dice. Here’s what happens:
I write up the appeal and hit submit.
After 2–3 minutes of loading, it finally takes me to a “Are you sure you want to submit?” page.
I click yes.
It loads again for 2–3 minutes…
Then dumps me back to the original form like I never submitted anything.
Oh, and now it just says: “You can’t submit this ticket. An error has occurred. This may be a temporary error, so please try again later.”
Been “trying again later” for a full day.
So I’m banned for playing the objective and can’t even appeal because the support site is on strike too. Love that.
Anyone from Blizzard know how I’m actually supposed to resolve this?
Classic gaslighting comment. It’s like complaining that your partner doesn’t pay you enough attention, so they start to pay you attention by abusing you, and telling the victim “well this is what you asked for right?”
Banning people who legit AFK is obviously a good thing, however it’s very clear they have an automated system that is being abused and people who are legit playing are stitll being banned.
Most BGs now will have at least one person requesting others in the BG report someone for gameplay sabotage simply because they recalled or are PvPing.
Analogies on the internet are almost always hilariously terrible, but “people getting banned for non participation in a video game, as requested, is exactly like being in an abusive relationship” is a whole new level of hilariously terrible
