Blizzard’s new Battlegrounds AFK fix needs babysitting?

In a complaint against the Alliance’s diminishing Battlegrounds performance against the now dominating Horde in World of Warcraft, community manager Nethaera reminded of the new AFK fix for the Battlegrounds system. The fix would allow a debuff to be granted to AFKers, often regarded as Honor leechers, to keep such offending players from earning Honor while in Battleground maps.

But there’s a catch: in order for this debuff to work, offended players will have to observe suspected AFKers and then report them to be fair. Once the number of reports reaches a certain amount, the debuff will then be applied and the player reported will no longer earn Honor. This debuff immediately nullifies once the player engages in combat, however.

Now many negative implications have been brought up because of this system. For the most part, players will have to be idle themselves just to observe potential AFKers properly. And the degree to the conditions of AFK are in question, too. Does AFK apply to those avoiding combat altogether? Or those who are simply not moving, yet move after irregular lengths of idle times?

The fix is expected to make landfall in World of Warcraft‘s 2.2.0 patch, which is currently under testing phase at the Public Test Realms.

In a complaint against the Alliance’s diminishing Battlegrounds performance against the now dominating Horde in World of Warcraft, community manager Nethaera reminded of the new AFK fix for the Battlegrounds system. The fix would allow a debuff to be granted to AFKers, often regarded as Honor leechers, to keep such offending players from earning Honor while in Battleground maps.

But there’s a catch: in order for this debuff to work, offended players will have to observe suspected AFKers and then report them to be fair. Once the number of reports reaches a certain amount, the debuff will then be applied and the player reported will no longer earn Honor. This debuff immediately nullifies once the player engages in combat, however.

Now many negative implications have been brought up because of this system. For the most part, players will have to be idle themselves just to observe potential AFKers properly. And the degree to the conditions of AFK are in question, too. Does AFK apply to those avoiding combat altogether? Or those who are simply not moving, yet move after irregular lengths of idle times?

The fix is expected to make landfall in World of Warcraft‘s 2.2.0 patch, which is currently under testing phase at the Public Test Realms.