AFKZero – not a solution, but maybe a stopgap
AFKZero is a very simple application with only one purpose – to publicly shame those who enter Alterac Valley solely with the intent to leech honor while staying in the cave or elsewhere.
To this goal, AFKZero traverses the scoreboard and finds players who meet three criteria – more than 100 bonus honor, no damage done, no healing done. The list of such players can then be either just enumerated locally (on your screen) or sent to the Battleground.
This is a first, 20 minute code, start at something I was wanting to write since the new honor system was released – a meshed shaming and blacklisting application. Version 1.0 will not only list and print the offenders, it will also sync offender lists between players who have the AddOn installed, allowing those who are on the same realm as the offender to take appropriate action (imagine my surprise to be informed by a beta test version of 1.0, that one of my former guildies is a honor leech).
There will be some common criticisms of this. First, of course, the fact that anyone can evade the AddOn by simply killing a wolf/ram and add to the damage done listing. That is correct and something I might make configurable in the next version, maybe a threshold of 2x Ram/Wolf or so…
Secondly the reverse criticism. There’s the AFKers whiny response that, indeed, they are not “idle” but are “coordinating” assaults from the cave. It’s a hollow defense and anyone who’s been in an AV since the honor changes knows that. Secondly the “defender” defense. People will claim they are “on D” and not seeing any movement yet. After 100 honor, Horde is usually past Stonehearth (no idea about Alliance, I’d assume the same distance) and Alliance is on Galv. With Alliance on Galv any defender worth his or her salt will be there, stalling Alliance approaches by helping Galv. If that’s not the case it’s akin to AFKing, just outside the cave.
Under all circumstances, you do have the ability to simply show and verify AFK behavior. Print the offenders to the screen and verify they’re really AFK and not “defending the poison goods vendor” or something equally pathetic.
Usage:
Drag the AFKZero folder into your Interface/AddOns directory. In-game type /zero show (or /afkzero show) to locally display all offenders. If you are comfortable with the list, you may report it to /bg by typing /zero avreport.
That’s it so far. Enjoy. If you happen to hate AV AFKers as much as we do, would like to be in a guild with people who love to code, love to theorycraft, and love to progress (all the while not having a GM, long story), come to Kul’Tiras (US), Horde site and look us up. We’re always in the market for more cool people.
You can find AFKZero on Curse Gaming.
One thing you should consider if you haven’t done so already — the situation where a player enters into AV a few minutes before it ends.
There is the rare occasion where a player can enter into AV close to the end and where they will not have any damage simply because they were in transit from the main GY to where ever the action was (usually at the opposite end of the map).
The AFK problem exists primarily because it is worthwhile to do so. Blizzard nerfed honor from individual HKs to the point that the difference between going out there and actually killing people, and just sitting back and absorbing the objective honor is negligible.
AV is just generally a poorly thought out BG.
Not sure I like the criteria for determining an AFKer, but sounds like it’s a good step in the right direction!
(Don’t forget about that small handful of players who goes straight to farming wolves/rams for the riders, and/or other objectives that don’t require them to do damage)
@ian: Wolf/Ram kills are creating damage done and remove you from being reported. I’ve thought about this for over an hour and can’t come up with any beneficial activity that doesn’t refect on the leader board, even if you just run around and collect blood you won’t be able to do so without tossing a heal or assisting someone in a pickle for more than ten minutes.
@bendyr: actually, I have to respectfully disagree. The afk problem seems to primarily exist because people consider it worthwhile to get “phat epix” for relatively low prices. I consider it worthwhile to kick some behind, have fun doing PvP and PvE objectives at the same time, and to win. Those people are the same who sit out raids until the boss they want is on farm, collect DKP while having someone else on /follow, or apply to guilds to get better loot instead of being involved, being ingenious, being skilled. I doubt that’s the kind of people anyone would want in their guild, which is why the sync option will be up in the next version allowing guilds to remove leeches like that who are in it for the wrong reasons.
@michael: anyone joining the game later won’t have the necessary prereq honor to be listed. To accumulate 100 honor you’d have to stay idle for more than 70 percent of the game, right now.
Killing the wolves/rams is only half of the quest, you also have to capture (25 of) them as well (in the process of which you do not do any damage)
This is considering Ram Riders are still an option. It’ll be once a game goes over the 30 minute mark which, according to all the games listed on Rupture less than five percent do. Again, in that case use your judgment and, in the next version, exclude some of the people with 0 damage done. It’s still highly unlikely that someone will do it, if someone does it it’s a judgment call.
What guild on Kul Tiras are you from? Just wondering because I also play on Kul Tiras.
Are you a hunter? The name “Billy” brings me to one particular Alliance hunter we love to hunt down. Anyhow, I am in Ratchet Heavy Industries on the Horde side.
Jonas- I don’t think the two things we’ve said are exclusive; what I meant to say is that Blizzard has not figured out a way to remove the incentive to AFK.
Now- I think this AFKZero is a step in the right direction, but the problem is that it’s a very fine line. Without widespread adoption, I don’t think it will have any effect, and if it becomes widely adopted, It wouldn’t be long before people could spoof or modify the addon to report people they didn’t like, just out of spite or grief.
I hope Blizzard can find an official way to solve the Cave defender problem, as it’s the most frustrating thing about Horde AV right now.
No my full name in-game is Darkbilly I am also a Horde player. :P
I rather get the list of suspects than to have a bunch of douches douching it up in the fucking cave.
This is an awesome step in the right direction and somebody at blizz needs to see the idea.
They should get rid of Instance pvp above level60.
Blizard should not look to add more instance PvP like Eye of storm. I have played Eye of storm in Beta and the non instance based pvp areas such as the one in Nagrand called Halaa and liked them both. The differents is that Halaa adds to world content and Eye of storm takes players away from outlands. This can not end up being a good thing.
I’m on alliance side we have some slackers also, but its more than common to me to reach already capped IB flag without any damage and over 100 honor, because i always defend SF gy until it’s ours and safe, it’s a strategic point of success and i always do it i never go to galv, guess i’ll be unfairly called a honor leecher.