Battleground sploitz and Blizzard's responsibility
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 10th 2006 at 6:40PM
Been jumping into PVP as often as I can lately, and I've noticed two little quirks still floating around the PVP system.The first one's fairly harmless. I too wasn't sure how to get out of a battleground until a friend informed me of the /afk trick. You're not allowed to go AFK in a battleground, so just purposely go /afk and Blue will boot you (with a deserter buff that wears off without consequence shortly).
The other exploit is a little more troublesome. Apparently, when a raid leader joins a battleground "as group," members of the group can click the button to join in without the group leader doing so. Which means those members can check the player screen to see if they're up against another premade (by noting if all the other faction's players are from a single server), and if they are, the group leader, still out of BG, can then join another BG (say AV if the original players are in WSG), and then join back to WSG when another instance of it opens up. Understand all that? Basically they're using the fact that a group leader can stay out of a BG to constantly enter and reenter battlegrounds until they're matched up with a nonpremade. Then it's honor farming time, and 3 captures later the process starts all over.
Now, I'd hate to be the tattletale on this, but I'd assume Blizzard knows about both of these "sploitz" (the first one isn't really an exploit in the strictest sense, but it is using an ingame function for a benefit it's not meant to confer). What players have done here is construct their own fixes for Blizzard's "bugs"-- there is no PVP matching system yet, so they've created their own (even though this system matches for the win, not for fairness). And there is no easy command out of the BGs (even /leavebg would be great and easy to implement), so players are using /afk.
Which begs the question: does Blizzard care about the battlegrounds as they are now? Or are they too focused on expansion PVP to fix these "flaws"? And if they are too focused, is that a bad thing? We already know the honor system will be scrapped, as well as the current LFG and most of the PVP system. Does Blizzard have a responsibility to fix what we have, or is it OK that this musical chairs of premades continues until expansion release?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Tricks, Cheats, How-tos, Blizzard, PvP
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
bryne Oct 10th 2006 7:38PM
Neither of these are 'exploits'.
The first one mentioned, the /AFK 'trick', simply duplicates the intended functionality of kicking inactive players out of battlegrounds. The "Deserter" debuff that one receives after doing this prevents you from joining another battlegrounds queue for a full 15 minutes - "shortly" is rather misleading.
The second instance described betrays the author's infamiliarity with the battlegrounds system. The group leader is not limited to queueing for one battleground at a time - they may "join as group" to both WSG and AB at once ("Join as group" is not enabled for AV, so everyone must queue on their own for that battleground). It isn't required that the BG leader stay out of the battleground to do this - and for the 'scouts' who went ahead to check out their opposition, the leader cannot requeue the group for the same battleground until all members are out of the BG, which means they must either a) play the entire game to a win or loss; or b) /afk out of the BG as per above, which also prevents them from joining another BG queue for fifteen minutes. As you can see, waiting 15 minutes between queues (not between games, between the act of actually getting in line for one) quickly becomes impractical to simply ensure yourself the best odds possible.
I understand the submitter's desire to inform the community of the latest and more dire dangers affecting the game and community, but perhaps a little more experience with and understanding of the subject would serve him better in future.
Mike Schramm Oct 10th 2006 7:47PM
Sorry, bryne, didn't explain myself well enough on the second point.
All of the players, when the second battleground is joined, move into the second battleground from the first. No debuff is applied, because the BGs are never left.
Then the group leader, still out of now two BGs, rejoins the first one.
This is a confirmed exploit, because I've been in a group and done it myself. Whether it should be fixed or not is a question. Whether it works is not-- I've done it, it's an exploit.
Aralaz Oct 10th 2006 7:50PM
That's amazing I just wrote nearly the exact same comment as #1 word for word. All that typing for nothing but you summed it up perfectly.
The real exploits involve doing the absolute minimal keystrokes to not be considered /afk. This allows people to leech honor and rep at a ridiculous rate doing absolutely nothing. Put a glass on the up key, watch a movie, get ranks, if a GM stops by say "hi, yes I'm at my keyboard"...too easy. This is something that actually needs to be looked at.
bane2571 Oct 10th 2006 9:19PM
The second issue sounds kind of overly complicated, I mean wouldn't it just be more efficient to do the BG and get the lesser ammount of honour than to mess around jumping from BG to BG trying to find an opponent you can beat?
The first issue is complete BS, AFKing out is a harder way to leave a BG than WALKING OUT THE EXIT. Not to mention just logging out/closing WOW/disconnecting your internet/jumping to another BG/getting summoned out/hearthing/monglade porting/mage portalling. OK sure, I dunno if all of those actually work but being able to leave an instance by sitting around for 5 minutes is far from an exploit.
I came to this article expecting some kind of mention about flag carriers standing in places they shouldn't be able to get to or at the very least a rant on how easy it is to NOT AFK out of a bg even while going off to make a cup of coffee. (paper weights on the forward key should work I think)
Klatz Oct 10th 2006 9:50PM
bane2571 he means typeing /afk it automatically takes you out of the BG.
bane2571 Oct 10th 2006 10:09PM
I realise that, so does walking out the portal or using your hearth stone. There isn't really any difference.
bryne Oct 10th 2006 10:07PM
It's not an exploit, Mike, it's the way that the queueing system was originally intended to work.
You can queue for multiple battlegrounds simultaneously - this was done in an effort to get as many people into as many BGs as possible. Yeah, you can scout games somewhat, but the situation you described is only possible if the second game's queue pops up within two minutes of the first one, which is how long every member of the group has to join a BG once it becomes available. I can probably count on one hand the number of times this has even ever happened in over a year of queueing for battlegrounds.
Playing the system a little bit? Sure, but it's not anywhere near as possible as it was before the Deserter debuff was added and people could /AFK out and requeue to their hearts' content - or even the ACTUAL exploit where players with the debuff could still join "Join as Group" queues simply by being placed in a separate raid party from the group leader. You may need to adjust your definition of "exploit" somewhat.
Cedar Oct 10th 2006 11:12PM
Neither of these are exploits =/ And frankly the author must be very new to PvP.
Mike Schramm Oct 11th 2006 12:21AM
So you're all saying that Blizzard intended for players to be able to scout groups and make sure they're not playing against a premade? bryne you say it takes time, but I'm here to tell you that it doesn't, I farmed a rank of WSG rep in an hour doing this. 2-3 minutes to get into a match, 2-3 minutes to win it and get two marks, done and done. No skill required, it's like an anti-matching system.
That's a broken system. My question is, is Blizzard even going to bother to fix it, or are just going to wait until BC? From what it sounds like, players don't care either, so I guess the answer is wait.
Christopher Oct 11th 2006 1:11AM
I find it much more easy to queue for, all 3, and then join AB, if that's a premade, then join WSG, and if that's a premade, I join av. This way I get the most honor I can get. Because losing in WSG or AB you really get nothing. AV is the only BG you can come out a winner in.
Belthasar Oct 11th 2006 4:34AM
* Leader Queues Warsong Gulch
* Warsong Gulch pops. Your team all solo queues AV and then Scout enters Warsong Gulch. If it is a premade, leader then queues AB. Everyone can take AV to wait if it pops. If it's not a premade they can just swap into WSG, otherwise ...
* Everyone is in AV now if it popped except the leader and the Scout, who waits for the AB pop. Soon as AB pops, Scout goes in to check if it's a premade. (Meanwhile everyone is getting nice AV honor if it's a wait).
* If it's not an AB premade, everyone goes AB (they're either pulled out AV or they are in city).
* If it is a premade, the leader now queues Warsong Gulch again. Everyone can stay in AV, and the Scout stuck in AB by himself can take the WSG and Scout that.
* Repeat. It only takes one or two tries to find an easy 5 minute win. Which is better than waiting out a long, 30-60 min WSG standoff, or letting them win in WSG giving you 0 honor, or a long AB standoff, or letting them win AB giving you 0 honor.
The Scout can be changed every round to give him some random AV honor. Leader could change too. And really the wait is never long for a non-premade.
We have to do it to get the ranks 13/14, but yes we all know it's an exploit of game mechanics.
Swollen Oct 11th 2006 4:40AM
I don't see any problem with either, and they are certainly not exploits. If you /afk out of a bg, you spend time in time out. Doesn't matter how you do it, /afk, go LD, one of your cats relieves itself on your tower, etc... you get the penalty for leaving. Blizzard deemed 15 minutes appropriate punishment. No reason to discuss that farther.
Regarding the second "exploit", I don't see a problem with scouting your matches. If you're one of 10 or 15 people who have gathered together to farm honor, then you're not serving any purpose by banging your head against another premade from a different server. It wastes your time, it wastes their time. For these groups, the goal is to maximize their honor. If ever I am in a pug group, I don't expect to win against a premade. But when I'm running in a guild honor train, we're all there for one reason and thats to pick up quick honor. Occasionally when we feel froggy, we'll grief a premade from a different server, but beyond that there's no reason to stick around.
Reygar Oct 11th 2006 9:35AM
ummm.... this might sound like a stupid question, but since when are pre-mades available on live servers?
and if you are complaining about the BGs on the test server, who cares? they are TEST servers.
Therizo Oct 11th 2006 9:42AM
I think I see where the misunderstanding is. On alliance on my server, ALL the BGs take at least 45 minutes to pop, even in peak on a holiday weekend. AV is usually 1-2 hours on any non-peak time. I'm not sure how this method would be practical in this situation unless there's some timing issue I don't understand with re-queueing Warsongs and Arathis.
Prauche Oct 11th 2006 9:32AM
I find it interesting that all of the comments are about whether or not these items are exploits rather than whether or not it should be dealt with pre-BC.
Honestly, I don't care if they deal with it pre-BC. I have given up on PvP except for AV (as a Tauren I want exalted so I can ride the wolf mount). Besides, it sounds like folks deal with it each in their own ways and don't really care one way or the other, so I suppose if the players don't care, why should Blizz?
Smithra Oct 11th 2006 11:42AM
Reygar (14)
"premade" in this context refers to a premade team, as opposed to a pickup group (Pug). An organized team, often communicating via Ventrilo or other means, can pretty much roll a bunch of random people who don't know each other from Adam. Whereas if they meet a similarly prepared team, it will be a long, slow grind. It used to be that you waited until they used teamwork to crush you and just assumed it was a premade. Now it's easy to tell because you know what server everyone's from and the odds on all your opponents coming from one server without joining as a group are pretty bad.
stapleboy Oct 11th 2006 11:45AM
I'm with ya, Mike. Queueing for battlegrounds in a raid group and using a scout who's not in the leader's party: exploit. Without a matching system, PvP will remain broken until the expansion. I'd think this particular issue would be easy to fix, since they already prevent you from using "Join as Group" when somebody in your group is a deserter. Why not extend it to raids?
Heaven forbid we tick off more of the uber-dorks and risk their $15 a month.
Kaylos Oct 11th 2006 12:15PM
Its very annoying. I only PvP to have good games. Rolling pugs for hours on end hoping for a team to play gets boring. Then a team finally pops, then leaves the BG for another. I think the most fun I had was this last sunday when we could only manage to get 5 people for WSG and then rolled three 10 man pre-mades in a row.
Eddie Oct 11th 2006 1:33PM
Actually, that doesn't beg the question at all.
http://begthequestion.info/