PVPlab

If you’ve pvp’d in the battlegrounds for any length of time, you’ve probably run into one particularly frustrating problem. There you are in Warsong Gulch, scrambling to get help the carrier get back to your base before he gets stomped into the dirt, and you get cut down in the process. Back to the spirit healer you go, noticing that some of your fellow players are about to spawn as well. So you figure strength in number, I’ll just wait for them so we can move as a group…except they don’t move. After about 10 seconds you realize the player isn’t actually there, or running around in a circle like an idiot. Fed up, you run off into the fray alone, knowing full well that you’re probably going to get crushed by the opposition that has people actually participating in the fight.

AFKing in the Battlegrounds is still a widespread problem, despite a recent crackdown by Blizzard, many players still enter the BGs with absolutely no intention of doing anything except hitting the space bar occasionally (or worse, use a botting program to keep them in combat). Blizzard’s attempt to have players enforce the rules themselves by marking players as inactive hasn’t deterred the practice. After all what’s the real consequence? Most of the time players don’t even bother reporting someone afk, and players usually notice that their character has been marked, run them into combat, die, and go back to afking again. With a toothless tiger enforcement from players and sporadic at best punishment from Blizzard, afk players makes the whole pvp experience frustrating and removes the fun, competitive aspect of the fight.

As a result many players take the “if you can’t beat em, join em” approach, and the spread continues. Its a tricky situation that’s not easily dealt with, and Blizzard has been dragging its feet in dealing with the problem directly. Players, on the other hand, have come up with their own “proper” solutions to the problem. Here’s some I’ve nabbed from the forums:

• Let Players Kick AFKers: I don’t think I need to explain the potential abuse of a system like this, but plenty come to mind. Players could get kicked for no reason if the power goes to the BG leader. If a voting system is put in place, you’ll either need so few votes that you run into the same problem above or so many that you’ll never get enough votes to kick players who are blatantly afking. While it would be the most direct way to deal with the problem while putting the ball in out court instead of Blizzard’s, I don’t really see it as a viable option.
• Modify The Rewards System: I found an interesting suggestion on the forums recently. Basically the player suggests that we put rewards in place based on effort rather than just being there. This means that if your team fought tooth and nail against a pre-made to hold one node, you’d get your mark. If you roll over and let them 5-cap, however, then you don’t get anything at all. I think it might strike a good balance between rewarding losers for doing nothing and the system we have now. Given the tendency of most alliance teams to….not do so well in the battlegrounds, it would still reward those who fight without taking out any reason to play at all. I mean as an Alliance player if they took out marks as a reward for losing Warsong Gulch, I’d probably never enter that place ever again. This would need some tweaking to get the rewards right, to be sure, but it has to be better than what we have now.

Ultimately I think there’s no perfect solution for afking in the battlegrounds. Too much enforcement could result in punishing innocent players, but not enough and we’ll have too many afkers clogging up the battlegrounds. Blizzard has to walk a fine line, encouraging players to work toward winning while also stepping up enforcement and punishing afkers on a regular basis. Suggestions? Potential flaws in changing the current system? Any other feedback? Feel free to let me know.