Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsWelcome to Alterac Valley, you can go AFK now.
by Elizabeth Harper 
Jul 17th 2007 at 9:10AM
If you don't often visit the PvP battleground Alterac Valley, then you may not know what I'm talking about. But AV seems to be the best place for people to go and collect honor points while safely sitting AFK in at the battleground's starting point. Why Alterac? Well, Alterac offers great honor returns for anyone -- and most of the honor is given out zone-wide, regardless of whether you're near the rest of a group when an objective is captured or a boss is killed. It's just too easy to collect large amounts of honor by just sitting around without doing anything -- much to the chagrin of players who are out there fighting and trying to win the battleground.And while Blizzard has shown themselves quite eager to rid people who are botting or hacking to prevent their AFK flag from coming up when they're not at their keyboard, there's not much they've been able to do about the people who sit in front of their computers watching television and occasionally hitting the space bar. So what's Blizzard to do? There are plenty of suggestions on the PvP forums, though I can't say many of them seem practical. They could remove honor gain from the starting point -- but then players would just learn to idle elsewhere. They could alter the battleground's honor mechanics to give out honor based on a player's range to the objective giving honor -- but this would likely gimp players playing defense by limiting their honor gain (despite the fact that defense makes an important contribution to a match). They could somehow tie honor gains to overall damage or healing done -- though such a change probably isn't a quick fix.
What's your solution to the AV AFK problem?
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
Barnabas Jul 17th 2007 12:50PM
If you don't like the afkers you can fill out a ticket and report them. If they meet the threshold of complaints then Blizzard can just not let them join a new one for a few hours. As long as Blizzard doesn't disclose how many reports you need or their frequency to trigger a ban from joining battlegrounds then it will be less suscepetable to abuse or a workaround. They gave us a report Spam now give us a report AFK. =)
Coherent Jul 17th 2007 12:50PM
The solution seems simple to me. Put an NPC environmental hazard in that attacks anyone who isn't paying attention. Say, small creatures (void critters! malignant cockroaches! snakes!) roaming the edges of the battlefield that will attack anyone standing still.
One critter attacking you doesn't do enough damage to kill you, but they quickly attract others that scale the damage up. Unless you keep moving and actively swat them down, they can build up a large enough force to eat you.
So jumping wouldn't be enough to hold them off, you would need to actually be in motion.
As I said, these critters would stay away from the main battle and defense areas, being frightened by the noise and fighting there. But anywhere quiet or "safe", they would lurk...
Loomi Jul 17th 2007 12:51PM
Just had a funny idea, why not get honour by having to loot the corpses of dead players? I'm all for HKs being more honour and reducing the honour rewards. AV is the dullest bg around there. I prefer going in defence so at least I can see one or two hordies while I'm there.
You can't use dmg and healing tests as I've joined right at the end of the bgs only to be told its over but I imagine thats a problem in itself. Also they'd have to check you werent just healing yourself which they could do as soon as they start and I think that'd include bandaging too.
Zor Jul 17th 2007 1:26PM
bonus honor at actually doing things.
kills, damage, heals, flags taken, flags defended.
and nerf the perfuctory honor given to all
to have a timer.
the faster its won, the more honor.
and in this scenario, the loser gets nada.
discourages HK farming instead of actually doing the goals set forth.
samslaw25 Jul 17th 2007 1:30PM
AFKers are after one thing: honor. Making it worth less to sit in the cave doesn't stop them from getting honor; they just have to do it more often.
What would work best, in my opinion, is if AFKers somehow got negative honor. I'm not sure the system is built to give negatives, but if it actually HURT your honor to sit in the cave, that would solve it a lot quicker than just lowering the amount gained.
Of course, I've no idea how to do that fairly and with no easy avoidance loophole. But I think negative honor gains would be the way to go.
GamerJunkie Jul 17th 2007 1:39PM
You guys all failed Business 101. Blizzard's position on allowing AFK is part of their business plan to keep casuals and lazy gamer subscriptions.
If they eliminated all honor leeching method, there would be no incentive for honor farmers and casuals to stay on this game.
Essentially forcing everyone to either "play" or "leave."
Andy Jul 17th 2007 1:34PM
My proposal :
The winning AV team gets full honor (200-600)
The losing team gets 10% of their honor (20-60)
Teams will start on a random side of the map.
I would like a way to /bgkick bad-unproductive-annoying players, but its a PUG, and I can't think of a /bgkick that wouldn't be too easy to exploit-abuse.
Ryan Jul 17th 2007 1:41PM
The answer is simple: a new AV-like battleground, and AV itself is retired so as not to spread out the BG queues too thin.
Ryan Jul 17th 2007 1:57PM
@35 Good luck finding healers then.
Scadam Jul 17th 2007 2:02PM
Voting would never work - it's a nightmare in other multiplayer games i've played. Either it's impossible to pass a vote because not enough people vote (ie. it requires 80% and not enough people understand or choose to vote), or if it's easier to pass a vote it's used to grief other players.
I think the simplest solution would be to force you to leave the cave. You gain no honor until you leave the cave, maybe with a 1 minute debuff so people respawning from genuine fighting don't miss out on honor as they exit. The elites at the entrance are there to prevent spawn camping, so you can still use the cave for protection if you need, but anyone interested in honor will find a way out.
This solution lets the players sort out the afkers themselves. Without the safety of the cave the afkers will die one way or the other. Once regular hiding places are established it will be worth taking a circuit of them to get free honor killing afkers. Or if they hide in the main base they'll either be forced to play defense at some point, or will be killed afk and sent back to the cave. It may only ahve full impact nearer the end of a match, but the afker will either earn no honor or will be forced to fight - once he's been sent to the cave and your base is crawling with the enemy, there's nowhere else to hide. Plus i'm sure we'd see more cave-watching looking for free kills if the afker decides to stand outside or go to a nearby hiding spot.
The only spot i can imagine being relatively safe would be in the primalist/druids cave since they can occassionally have quite strong elites untouched through an entire match. But throw a group of free kills in there and clearing that cave may become part of the regular strategy...
Hybrys Jul 17th 2007 2:09PM
I hide under the bridge when AFKing, and lay Immolation traps that pop up above the bridge. I've now beaten 3/4 anti-AFK methods.
Also, don't hate the player, hate the game. ; )
Hybrys Jul 17th 2007 2:19PM
Also, Meters, cap rewards, loot rewards, and and quick AFK timers would never be implemented. Meters, getting in near the end of a game would cause you to get no honor, and the weaker people may not make the cap. If the cap is too low, someone can take 2 mins, go to SH graveyard, and just die and AFK then.
Cap rewards wouldn't be implemented due to the abuse able from it. Such as, Misdirect a mob onto an allied player, then cap. Or Vanish --> Cap.
Loot rewards wouldn't be implemented since only one person can get the reward from, say, 5 people killing the guy. This promotes everyone to be in melee range. Don't promote melee hunters, and don't jack healers honor.
Quick AFK timers wouldn't work because people often defend flags, thus sitting still for a while.
Aswell, as pointed out, a vote would be too abusable... And if it required a high percentage, who's to say that the AFKers wouldn't make up the entire "No/Miss" percentage?
Chad Jul 17th 2007 6:27PM
Seems easy enough to fix. At the start of each game an item is automatically but into each persons inventory (lets pretend its a flare gun). Every 10 minutes or so the general from your side of the army yells for his troops to signal. You have three minutes to use the flare in your inventory. Failure to use flare will result in a -%25 honor penalty each time you fail to signal. The flare wouldn't be seen by the enemy, thats just an example to keep the item in flavor with the battlegrounds. That way those people guarding towers aren't penalized.
Ryan2844 Jul 17th 2007 4:13PM
I think it should be as simple as:
If Damage
Zbeebs Jul 17th 2007 4:40PM
Remove the NPC guards from the starting caves and put up "Free Honor Points" signs pointing to them.
dean.speedway Jul 17th 2007 8:29PM
Make pvp BGs less of a grind.
40 minutes + in WSG to earn what will probably be 1 mark of honour in a PUG is way too long. Set a time limit on the length the BG will run. If it is more than 30 minutes (or whatever) it is a draw and both sides get 1 Mark of Honour. I reckon you'll see some furious endgame scurrying and less hiding the flag at the back if there is a concrete endpoint. I played some WSG over the last weekend where rounds went for over 70 minutes. In the end people were saying 'let them cap' 'let this be over'
vlad Jul 18th 2007 1:55PM
@3 i see people just sitting there healing all the afk'ers
Steve Jul 23rd 2007 8:00PM
A lot of you had great ideas, but to be honest... This was not a problem before 2.0. The old honor system worked best, where you have to get ranks to get gear. These ranks were attained by honor.
Since the release of burning crusade, I can understand the change... even now!-- it takes forever and a day to get the honor for your PvP Gear. Most people dont have the time to do this, so they sit in an AV and check on it every 3-4 minutes.
I play both factions. Alliance and Horde. On my 70 alliance priest, I notice about 5-6 alliance AFKers(it could be from the 1:1.4 ally:horde ratio in my battlegroup). On my 70 horde druid, I've been in an AV with over 25 AFKers.
In my opinion there is no way to stop AFKing. I remember grinding to Marshal on my priest, it took forever but the games were always balanced out, people were grinding kills for honor instead of finishing the game. The way it is now, you just never notice the unbalance in the map for AV. As a proud alliance player, I love sitting at Stormpike with 9-10 other people choking the horde off while two paladins cap both Frostwolf Towers and the GY because the archers in the horde tower cannot shoot the person capturing the relief hut. I love how when I switch to offense, I can bypass two lieutenants of the horde, and all their non-elite mobs in their base.
The only way to fix AFKers(contradictive) is to REVAMP the entire AV, make it more playable. I find myself sometimes AFKing because alliance have already capped 3 GY's and Frostwolf. When the horde have barely capped Stonehearth. It's very unmotivational.
Crack down on all the gold-selling website, including those which sell Honor. When all that is left is 3-4 people sitting the cave.. eventually they'll start to turn and realize then can actually do something.
The caves around AV, make the mobs not drop anything. The only reason to be in there is for a quest. Don't whine about durability, the quest reward covers that and more.
Doeg Aug 3rd 2007 10:11AM
Welcome to AFK Valley...
First of all, this is a problem that is long overdue for a solution.
Second, GM interaction is the most expensive solution.
Third, the problem is, as someone pointed out, a combination of laziness and the fact that honor in TBC is now just another grind. I thought it was a bad idea back when 2.0 was dropped in, and this has proven my main point by turning AV into a PvE race rather than a PvP BG.
Probably the cheapest and most mindless solution (kind of like choosing from bad options) is to change the honor award ratios so that AV is the lowest. In a way that makes sense since AV involves a lot of PvE. The logical nerf would be to deeply cut PvE objective bonuses. Another such solution could be to only award bonus honor to those who complete the BG. But I don't really like the easy solution, though honor really should be better balanced.
Personally I'd like to flesh this automated concept out:
A debuff on a timer (maybe 15 seconds) that would begin ticking down when one was not in the proximity of an enemy or objective. So a player would be forced to move to a contested objective, enemy NPC, or enemy player or be tagged with a deserter no-honor debuff that could only be removed with combat damage or healing combat damage (damage source tracking should be pretty easy). Sorry, but falling damage or killing a ram or wolf does not count. Finally, remaining in AV with a deserter debuff causes player death in 60 seconds, counting as a PvE death (repair cost incurred).
PJ Aug 6th 2007 10:41AM
Or just get over it.