More Alterac Valley changes on the horizon
by Amanda Miller 
Jan 7th 2008 at 5:14PM
When the ability to report a player as AFK was first introduced, there were mixed reactions. The tool did seem to reduce the volume of moochers in any given battleground, but it also put the onus on the honest, responsible fighters to take the time to locate and report the individual.
Because of the fact that no action would be taken against any AFK'd player until a sufficient number of reports had been received, AFK'ing continued, and went back on the rise. To combat this, Blizzard hotfixed the reports, lowering the threshold required before the debuff would be planted.
Of course, this is still inadequate. Many AFK'd players are not away from their keyboards at all. They're watching TV or a movie, and should a flag pop up on their heads, they'll just hit something or jump off a cliff and magically, their flag will disappear. Mooching honor and hindering the team will continue.
In addition, many claim that the debuff is simply not enough, because although it prevents them from gaining undeserved honor, they are still holding their team back.
What could really be done to squash this trend once and for all? The forums and our comment boxes have been hopping with ideas, and we have compiled some of the best and most interesting ones.
Drysc recently commented on the situation, but was expectedly vague. Although "fairly substantial" changes to Alterac Valley are definitely on the way in "a future patch", no details about what these changes will entail were leaked. The hope, Drysc remarked, is that they will "address some of the balance and play issues". Hopefully, these new developments will help us win the war against AFK'ers, as David Bowers points out, we really have no other option.
While we may not know how effective these changes are going to be, we can at least take solace in the fact that improvements are in fact, on the way. Do you have high hopes for this future patch, or are you remaining skeptical?
Filed under: Patches, News items, PvP, Buffs, Forums, Battlegrounds
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Baluki Jan 7th 2008 5:21PM
Good. Can't wait to see it.
I also hope they do something to make the turn-ins relevant again.
Solex Jan 8th 2008 8:35AM
So the allies in the Rampage battle group tend to dominate wsg ab and eots to the point where eots is a joke, you'll spawn and they simply wait below for you and gank you. Any horde on Cho'Gall will tell you the same thing. BUT we shine in AV, I think it's the horde mentality. No catch and hold just a long road of slaughter, it's awesome when you think about it 30 or so horde taurens, trolls, blood elves, orcs and undead mounted on all types of beasts hauling ass down the valley demolishing everything and winning! Every time it's a win. Even though they can take wsg and ab and eots THEY COULD NEVER TAKE OUR AV!!!! But then it happened... the alliance of the Rampage battle group has been boycotting AV battle ground 9 despite complete dominance in the other 3 bg's as a result the queue for AV is now about an hour and a half with no signs of slowing down. They simply turtle the whole thing and have been doing so since before Christmas. I'm sure you think I'm just QQing and that's fair enough but I can't count how many times I've lept from the rock in eots to be met by a premade down below waiting for me or ran across the wsg field and getting slagged by another group of allies and getting slagged by the same allies again because they're spawn camping. I miss my av... the only bg that we stood a chance in and the allies want that too.
Naix Jan 8th 2008 10:46AM
I feel you pain my rampage battle group brother. I have been puging ABs and eots the last few days. I really need some AV marks and the Alliance refuses to play. Don't they rem the days of Horde getting crushed over and over because of 1 GY advantage? Now we have some balance and Horde are actually winning. So they stop because its unfair. I say Blizzard group more AV servers of battle groups together. This will show the alliance they can not push you around.
Thepitt Jan 8th 2008 1:02PM
This was originally supposed to be about the AFKer problem and has turned into a QQ contest about which faction rules which BG's.
For AFKERs, the debuff should actually boot the person from the BG and give them a traitor debuff that keeps them from joining a BG for 24 hours. Problem solved.
For the QQing about who wins what the most. I recently transfered from Area 52 to Quel 'Dorei. I am now in a new Battle Group as a result. On Area 52, that Battle Group seems to have a better win it and hold it mentality and had a 60-40 ally win average in the AB and EoS. but a 40-60 win/loss in AV and WSG. now i have seen a drastic difference in the Battle Group that Quel 'Dorei is in. AV is 80-20 win for the Ally's, while AB, EoS, and WSG is 20-80 win/loss for ally's.
Basically, it depends on the mind set of your Battlegroup. I dont see where any BG is really tipped in one sides favor. It's all about the team work of that side in that BG.
I still want to delete someone else's toon on my team when they are fighting on the raod way away from the towers or the flag on EoS. Drives me nuts that they can't understand the simple dynamics of that BG.
Solex Jan 8th 2008 4:44PM
At 4
Point is.... I haven't seen AV since late November and since the afk problem lies mostly in there, as far as I'm concerned there is no afk problem there's an ally whining and screwing everyone over problem since they can't get honor they've decided no one will. I've held a pretty healthy respect for the allies in my battle group, especially my server where they're outnumbered it seems like they're all good at pvp and with good reason, (even though i'm begining to think half of them are ne male wars with full s2) I mean most people horde side will tell you trying to get 3 people to STAY at mine is almost impossible but now that the only place horde could reliably get honor is being boycotted, what's the point?
adam3039 Jan 7th 2008 5:33PM
Thank god. Alliance are boycotting AV on our realm. Crazy queues!
Kesh Jan 7th 2008 5:46PM
About the only thing they could do is to boot the player from the Battleground after a certain threshold of complaints. Players booted like that should lose all Honor gained in that BG, and possibly have a debuff that prevents them from joining that BG for the rest of the day.
Richard Jan 8th 2008 9:55AM
The problem with this idea (and exactly why Blizz will NEVER do this) is that it's waaaaay too easy to be exploited by asshats.
You and 10 of your friends all queue up at the same time, find some poor schmuck you don't like (or just some random Joe), and get them removed.
I can see the forum posts already.
Jasperwind Jan 7th 2008 5:47PM
In a way I don't see the problem (but in a bigger way I do). I don't do PvP much, but one day I was giving AB a go. Well, about 10+ minutes into it, my wife cuts her finger REALLY bad with a razor blade. I immediately jump up and go help her. When I come back and I'm sitting in front of the guy on the horse with a Deserter debuff. I'm thinking.... ok, it's fair to kick me out. But then i had to wait about 15 minutes or so get get back in. There are *some* people that go AFK that really do have emergencies.
Imogynn Jan 7th 2008 8:45PM
Jasperwind...
That wasn't something a player did. If you are away from the keyboard for an extended period of time you go into AFK (same if you type /AFK). If you go active in a BG you are kicked by the game engine.
Baluki Jan 7th 2008 8:45PM
I just don't believe that this "Alliance is losing in AV" problem is real. It works fine in every other battlegroup. The real problem is that the Alliance in your battlegroup have a defeatist attitude, so of course they're going to lose more often.
Want to see it done right? Transfer to a Cyclone battlegroup server. Queues are almost always less than 3 mins (at least for Horde) and you win about 50% of the time.
The problem isn't AV. The problem is the players.
Gareth Jan 8th 2008 4:27AM
Well I've had to nip off rarely for real life events, so while I do hate afk'ers I guess you have to allow for a couple of afk's a day. In you case if you got back to pvp someone you could just remove the debuff and get on with the battleground as you didn't need to quit. And even the deserter debuff is a gentle 15 minutes anyway so its no big deal.
My real bone is with the leechers of course, losing in AV is extra painful now with the lack of honour if you cannot defend/assault, and watching 11 nerds sitting in a cave who could have made a difference really annoys me.
Now what I would like here is the option to report and also to add them to my ignore list automatically if thats the third afk in a day. I'd need a bigger ignore list, and I'd also need the old AV back where it was a local server event, but I bet afk'ers wouldn't be so keen to welfare their epics.
Ronie Jan 7th 2008 5:49PM
On my server, the AFK people are not the reason for the AV boycott. The Alliance does not want to play a match for a good 45-60 minutes to inevitably lose and get a meager 60 or so honor. Back when it was more common for the Horde to get smashed into the ground in AV, we continued to play because we could rake in upwards of 250 honor even when we lost. With the recent changes, 60 for the losers and 600 for the winners just isn't enough to motivate people to play. It is degrading. As a Horde player, I've given up on AV as well in its current state. I loved the huge chunks of honor, but I can see why the people wouldn't want to play AV anymore.
kenney Jan 7th 2008 6:17PM
wow, thank you for being rational about this. This is really one of the very few posts from a horde perspective that acknowledges that a loss today isn't the same as a loss pre 2.3
Grimtar Jan 7th 2008 6:53PM
If your AVs last more than 20 minutes, then ur doin it rong.
Rudi Jan 7th 2008 7:50PM
Yep, excellent response from the horde side. As an Alli player who actually really enjoys AV I hate what it's become; 30 minutes of people complaining about how much Alli suck, taking a loss and 60 honor. That is awful so I don't do it any more.
Good_Idea Jan 7th 2008 7:53PM
On Cyclone, our AVs last 10-20 minutes max, and both sides have a good chance of winning. Mostly we go offense, but sometimes we have defensive game. The winning team gets around 500 honor, the losing team around 250 honor. It's fairly win-win for both sides.
The reason why Alliance is not going to AV on some battlegroups is that the Horde are crushing them defensively. Stop crushing them and they'll come back, play more O and everyone wins and has a good time.
Just a suggestion.
thebvp Jan 7th 2008 6:21PM
Personally, I would much rather have blizzard go down hard on AFKers than easy, even if it affects me. Other companies have done it and I really don’t mind if I get caught up in the net every now and then. They have a few options:
1) No honor gained for nothing done. This is the easiest way to solve the problem. Allow players to designate objectives for themselves and earn honor from it. “Quests” would cash in automatically at the end of a BG or when X task is completed. New quests could be scrolled through via a separate BG quest interface (hotkeyable and quickly accessable). Defend a graveyard, earn X honor based on how many of the opposite faction you kill within X radius of a gy flag. Recap a GY or tower, earn X honor. If you’re complaining that you don’t get honor for standing around a flag for 10 minutes, maybe you should try defending another flag. I’m sure someone would design some sort of interface to automatically scroll between active objectives. Maybe teammates could even see who was doing what and parties could be changed dynamically so, for example, if you and the shadow priest next to you started taking out a tower, you’d get mana from VT.
Implement some sort of punkbuster-like solution. Punkbuster isn’t the best, but it’s a hell of a lot better than anything Blizzard has come up with. No honor gained from the inactive debuff isn’t enough. Have it boot them from the BG, cause deserter, or even disconnect them. Personally, I’d much rather just have it d/c me and I’d be fine with it happening every now and then. It would also force those watching movies to do more than just move their toons once they were caught.
pantear Jan 8th 2008 10:31AM
That will require someone in Blizz HQ to monitor each game. There are times where you can get 0 dam/0 healing because you were stuck defending mine and no Alliance/Horde even suggested to check it.
Nelson Jan 7th 2008 6:27PM
The AFK problem is deeply broken. The underlying issue is that Season 1 and Vindicator's PvP gear is very very good, better than anything you get in PvE until after Karazhan. And you can grind the honor for that gear solo. And in AV you don't even have to be very good to get that honor; even a decent loss in a quick BG still gets you 200 honor in 15 minutes. And if you have reasonably good teams you can easily clear 1000 honor / hour.
The devs jokingly called this gear "welfare epics", but that's exactly what they are. I regularly see level 61 toons in Alterac Valley, just laying down the honor so they can be extremely well geared out the moment they ding 70. It's cheapened the PvE gear progression.
The AFK problem is just a symptom of the larger problem that battleground honor is too valuable.