Topic
RealID and Random Battlegrounds
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Edited by Belvar on 21/02/12 17:01 (UTC)
Recent weeks have seen an increase in the number of Battlegrounds where either the Alliance team or the Horde team have faced a Pre-made group of players. Many times this exceeds 5 players, the current limit set against Realm groups. This increase has co-incided with the increase of forum posts where in game RealID swaps have been arranged to create larger teams/RealID .
The purpose of this RealID grouping seems to fall into 2 distinct camps. The first, where Premades are going up against opposing Premades in BGs like AV and, by all accounts, having a great time. The second is where the Premades purpose is to farm Honour kills for the Honour Kills achievements and this is where some fundamental gameplay issue reside. As a customer I find it difficult, when coming across an opposing Premade Team in Random Battlegrounds who have the sole purpose of "farming", to appreciate PVP when spawning is pointless. I have read the terms and conditions that relate specifically to this point and I will quote for reference purposes at the bottom of this post. Now whilst the T&C clearly state that Corpse/Graveyard camping is permitted, and is reasonable to expect under certain circumstances, for example particularily good enemy composition or fellow team players that are in the process of "gearing up" can lead to a match where you are effectivly "farmed". The instances of this occuring are entirely random. However Random Battlegrounds, where you are consistently farmed, are caused by design and intent of the Premade team. These teams are composed of balanced class combinations, generally well geared and possibly in communication via 3rd party VOIP programs. In all, none of this is against the T&C except in the fact that it gives the Premade team and each individual player of that team a "competetive advantage" over the opposing random team. If there were no other options for Premade teams ie:- Rated battlegrounds or War game options this entire post would be moot. As these options exist for premade teams I believe that the current terms and conditions are being breached when relating to gameplay. I would like to have clarification of the terms and conditions relating to this gameplay issue. "3. Rules Related to Game Play. Game play is what World of Warcraft is all about. Accordingly, the rules that govern game play in World of Warcraft are taken very seriously by Blizzard Entertainment. Note that Blizzard Entertainment considers all valid play styles in World of Warcraft to be part of the game, and not harassment, so player-killing the enemies of your race and/or alliance, including gravestone and/or corpse camping, is considered a part of the game. Because World of Warcraft is a "player vs. player" game, you should always remember to protect yourself in areas where the members of hostile races can attack you, rather than contacting Blizzard Entertainment's in-game customer service representatives, referred to herein as "Game Masters," for help when you have been killed by an enemy of your race. Nonetheless, certain acts go beyond what is "fair" and are considered serious violations of these Terms of Use. Those acts include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following: (1) Using or exploiting errors in design, features which have not been documented, and/or "program bugs" to gain access that is otherwise not available, or to obtain a competitive advantage over other players. (2) Connecting, or creating tools that allow you to connect, to World of Warcraft's proprietary interface or interfaces, other than those explicitly provided by Blizzard Entertainment for your use. (3) Using tools that hack or otherwise alter the World of Warcraft client or server software. (4) Using software products that "packet sniff" or provide scripting and/or macroing to obtain information from World of Warcraft. (5) Anything that Blizzard Entertainment considers contrary to the "essence" of World of Warcraft." Edit: Typo |
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Don't get me wrong, I abhor the bullying implicit in 'farming noobs'
However, you haven't raised any point that undeniably goes against the TOS. Bliz appears to be adopting a 'wait and see' approach in the hope that the hoo-ha will die down or developments will occur in player-organisation that make action unnecessary. Clearly, something needs to be done but that doesn't necessarily mean Bliz have to do it. There is a strong possibility that organised faction groupings will be created spontaneously in response to the pressure. That would be a positive development. Personally, I would be very pleased to see more organised 'warfare' in the battlegrounds. The present form of confused anarchy is highly frustrating to people who are familiar with tactics. It leads to a lot of ill-tempered exchanges, not entirely down to 'kids'. |
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Edited by Belvar on 21/02/12 18:12 (UTC)
To clarify the point where I believe the T&C are potentially in question is here:
(1) Using or exploiting errors in design, features which have not been documented, and/or "program bugs" to gain access that is otherwise not available, or to obtain a competitive advantage over other players. The RealID feature is potentially being exploited to circumvent the current Realm limitation of 5 per group join of a battleground. I dont believe that the purpose of the ReadID feature documents that you can use it to get around the 5 group limit nor does it deny the feasability of acting in such a fashion. The fact it is being employed, not to achieve battleground objectives, but to farm Honour Kills leads me to the conclusion that it is solely to gain an advantage over the opposing team. To be honest my question for Customer Services is more about validating my interpretation rather then actually stating the point that it is in contravention of the T&C. Edit:Typos..again |
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Sadly, my post has been redirected from the Customer Services forum into the PVP forum, not my intention as I'm sure you have seen enough of these type of posts here.
Interesting that there was no reply from Customer Services as to the reason why it has been redirected either. |
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The RealID feature is potentially being exploited to circumvent the current Realm limitation of 5 per group join of a battleground. That's really more of the Preform AV Enabler addon I think. Blizzard refuse to comment on this, all they do is offer pasted replys of "please post any suggestions on the forum". |
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Sadly, my post has been redirected from the Customer Services forum into the PVP forum, not my intention as I'm sure you have seen enough of these type of posts here. That's interesting Belvar as I had been contemplating to try that after Dalrian commented on it as perhaps being more effective. I guess we'll just continue on this forum then :). |
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Edited by Belvar on 21/02/12 21:05 (UTC)
As I understand the RealID groups they can be full raids that join the selected BG. The difference witht the Enabler Addon is it sychronises join times of small groups and/or individuals and attempts to line them up so they are all called at the same time.
The very reason I put the post in the Customer Support forum. |
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This really isnt an exploit of anything, and it doesnt have anything to do with real ID, it was done before. its true that its been happening more here in the new year, but its not real ID that is the problem in any way.
And it isnt the AV enabler either, since you could easily have people queue by themself on a simple command. I agree that doing this isnt intended, but neither does it break any rules, the only thing you do is queue up at the same time, you could do that both without addons and real ID. I understand why peopel dont like it, but dont blame real ID for it, because its not because of that. |
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Prior to patch 4.3.2 you could not join BGs cross Realm with RealID. However in Patch 4.3.2 release... "You can now form same-faction raids with Real ID friends, allowing you to enter Raid Finder in groups larger than 5, run older normal or heroic raids, or participate in Battlegrounds." You can now join a BG as a RealID raid group, even as far as 40-Man AV. There is no problem per se with this feature except where it is used for Honour Kill farming as described in the OP. This is why you will have seen an increase in its occurance since the new year. |
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This really isnt an exploit of anything, and it doesnt have anything to do with real ID, it was done before. its true that its been happening more here in the new year, but its not real ID that is the problem in any way. Contradicting yourself left and right. You 'agree that doing this is not intended' and that it 'is happening more now' but despite the fact that all the people on the the Forums forming premades ask for Real-ID and to have AV-Enabler (etc.), you claim Real ID and the add-on have nothing to do with Real ID premades using said add-on. Come one, cut the crap. What we see is the perfect storm: yes you can selectively queue Groups to bypass the 5 man limit, but that means potentially missing a lot of 'pops', which is why the Add-On was created (queue times); yes AV Enabler has been around for years but it still required you to actually have a full Raid to queue with in the first place on your Realm, something most people couldn't accomplish (the main reason why Rated BG's have been such a dismal failure in attendence numbers) lo and behold, cross-server Real ID Grouping solved that little pickle, now you don't need to form a raid on one sever but can plaster your privacy details on the Forum asking for more people to join in silver-platter HK-whoring for the impaired. Add to this the WSG-GY screw up that only arguably solved one issue but made the other issue it tried to solve (spawncamping by the opposite team) even worse instead, and we have the current situation. In the past singular parts may not have been an issue, in the perfect storm they are. Also: these premades exceeding the maximum of 5 members are specifically created to spawncamp other players, which is a far cry from PvP. It's not meeting a stronger team, it's facing a team that has no intention of playing ball but instead wants to cripple the opposing players. And while the first may not be griefing and against the ToS, the later - especially given the privacy issues plastering Real ID's over the web carry, and I won't even get started about minors doing so - very well maybe. |
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And before some [insert expletive of choice] starts 'hurdurr the WSG GY wasn't to prevent spawncamping trolololol'', from the belly of the Beast:
Takralus 3/3/2011 http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/859356879?page=1#7 (bolding mine)
Two targets, one arguably hit, the other way missed by a long-shot (as people predicted). |
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All input is appreciated and welcomed although the preference is for a neutral tone, from all participants, to try and prevent another disappearing thread trick ;)
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Could somebody explain to me how lowering of graveyards was supposed to reduce the amount of camping in WSG?
If anyone can come up with a logical theory, then we can continue on to discussing the problem of Real ID premades, becuase it is clear to me that whoever is responsible for battleground PvP in this game, is a complete and utter moron. As such, this premade problem a lot of you are having won't go away, as we are dealing with cretins. This is me being neutral. |
It was designed to stop flag carriers sitting/camping on their graveyard during Rated Battlegrounds. |
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Edited by Freemann on 21/02/12 23:37 (UTC)
Could somebody explain to me how lowering of graveyards was supposed to reduce the amount of camping in WSG? Yeah that is why I linked the whole Thread, it makes for an interesting read (as do the Threads of that time-span in general) as you see people first cheering at the annoucnement, then, as time passes by and the plans unfold, ask that very same question, only to descent into utter revulsion when it actually goes live. Yasueh (who from what I heared now is mostly active in the US on a 'Pay What's It Objectively Worth' Account ; I've used neutral words, not Yasueh's ^_^) had an interesting theory, namely that instead of treating it as a coding issue, they (tried to) tackle camping as a simple lay-out/art issue. I'll see if I can dig that particular post up again. EDIT: got it http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2123453199 comment #18 |
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Edited by Azgáloth on 22/02/12 00:41 (UTC)
Could somebody explain to me how lowering of graveyards was supposed to reduce the amount of camping in WSG? Yeah mate, i know,it was a rhetorical question. I find official posts declaring the days of gy camping coming to an abrupt end after their 'improvements' hilarious. There should be two maps - the old one for normal wsg, and the new lowered gys for RBGs. EotS was changed in this manner, why not WSG? Another obvious solution that has been suggested many times and will be ignored. To address your post Freeman, and in fact Yesuehs - i don't agree that such a rich company has no programmers skilled enough to handle something like this. I simply conclude that they don't care enough to do it, as they know people will play anyway. Financial cynicism at its worst. |
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Essentially:
- It may be PvP technically by nature, you are still killing other players in a PvP environment, right? However, it is not competitive PvP because it does not put you up against players that that stand much of a chance against a coordinated and organised premade group of forty people against your team against almost any random team, unless they are filled with truly exceptional rare cases - These premades, for more than the large part, are completely ignoring every other objective in the map in favour of completely overwhelming random groups and farming them until they either quit the map out of boredom or frustration against something they cannot be reasonably expected to play against. No flag captures, no base defence, no tower capping... Just wham, bam, thank you for the easy HK's ma'am. Arguing that wins by killing are possible in AV and IoC is a moot point: the reinforcement limit was meant to stop a single 40 man battleground from lasting for literally DAYS, therfore making it more accessable for players. Ironically, these premades are making it more unaccessable for your average player - Random battlegrounds should be exactly that; quick, accessable games for casual and fun PvP, although there was an existing, limiting option to group with a few friends at most, even if the Preform addon has been useable for years, and allowed to be used, it hasn't been used at the wider than ever extent it has before, creating a poisonous atmosphere on the forums and indeed, leaving a bad taste in peoples mouths regarding Blizzard's regard to PvP (once again) and people wondering why fellow PvP'ers have so much contempt for others wanting a fair fight for people. No one on the random battleground queue should expect, nor deserve, to go up against premades which they are powerless against which are neither quick, nor accessable. - The usage of the combination of the new feature of Real ID and the Preform addon is dubious at best. A common phrase on the forums at the moment is 'but real ID only makes it easier to do what you could have done before'; but you shouldn't be able to do it AT ALL. Premades should logically fight other Premades, hence there's Rated Battlegrounds and Wargames (good effort in trying to make it more popular, Martenus). No one has any issue with Real ID rated bg groups, nor the Wargames, and should be encouraged (if people keep their real IDs shared only with each other in the game). - Reasons why people should be allowed to keep doing it mostly centre around the following... : 1: we can do it 2: it's fun 3: we don't like to lose (ie: it gives us a massive advantage over most other players) 4: it was taking too long to get achievements and we're impatient 5: we like to have a laugh at other peoples expense Right away, 5 is against the terms of use. 3 is understandable to an extent.. yes, no one likes to lose, but to make yourselves practically unbeatable unless you come up against another premade team just sucks out the fun of COMPETITIVE PvP and then to try and point out that it gives you said massive advantage (I could go and find some 'we win almost 100% of battles' quotes but I'm sure you've already seen those) as a valid reason when anything that gives you a massive advantage over other players in a competitive environment (pve or pvp) normally gets you banned, it raises a few eyebrows. The others have been covered by other posts and I am running out of time before maintainence. - Finally, new features bring new problems. I would like to personally thank fellow posters who have tried to be reasonable and post constructively over the week, as I'm hopeful that the powers that be are able to absorb the information and opinions given and come to a suitable conclusion and solution. I'm sure we all remember the Raid Finder loot exploits, which resulted in temp bans. I don't personally want to see anyone banned, but I don't want to see a new feature that SHOULD have been an excellent addition to the game be mired down by people who wish to use it for less than savoury practices either. |
