Is this really bannable??

[bigpappa]

You specifically used a macro to get around a debuff.
Blizzard said "Players grouping with an XPoff player get a 90% XP debuff"
To which you used a exploit to get around it.

I dont get how you dont understand why you were banned.

It sucks. I get it. Permanent is a giant hammer, should have been like a 1 week ban and most players would have realized oh shit I wont do that again.

That's the thing, I avoided using the macro. I completely agree macro usage shouldn't be allowed at all. All I did was queue to a specific dungeon with my characters and enter if they all popped at the same time. Once inside the dungeon I could then sign up to time waking normally as dungeon group.

 

[wackytabaccy]

I mean it tech is, its just not really considered by most ppl to be worth looking at. I also wouldn't have expected blizzard to ban over it a few months ago but with the influx of 11's and ppl boosting i figured something was going to happen sooner or later. Sucks you got caught up in it though.

That's how they've done it in the past too, they let it build up and catch a bunch at once.

 

[Chops]

Im just arguing Chops opinion that i knew what i was doing and that this is exploit of game mech.

Why did you clear the dungeon on your 70 and then log out before your twink solo'd the last boss?

Because you know that having the 70 triggers legacy loot and then logging out before a boss kill retains legacy loot. When a 20 solos a boss, its *supposed* to be personal loot. You're knowingly and purposefully employing a "creative use of game mechanics" to skirt the intended design. Like come on man, you've been around too long to play stupid.

I dont think any actual person looked at your gameplay and said "oh this guy is abusing legacy loot mechanics". I think the game saw your 20 repeatedly getting legacy loot in the same dungeon over and over again without a high level in the dungeon and some automated process said "thats bot behavior" and you got banned.

 

[Hennelorix]

You still didnt answer why you think that legacy loot is allowed for high level and it is okay, but doing so with this mech for low level is bannable. High level can loot 2 items and this is not problem, but if we talk about low level then it is restricted to do so even if it is "creative use of game mechanics", okay. Im not playing stupid, i just dont think that using it at low level character instead of high level is violation of rules. But i dont want to argue with you, i got your point of view.

 

[Eleven]

You still didnt answer why you think that legacy loot is allowed for high level and it is okay, but doing so with this mech for low level is bannable. High level can loot 2 items and this is not problem, but if we talk about low level then it is restricted to do so even if it is "creative use of game mechanics", okay. Im not playing stupid, i just dont think that using it at low level character instead of high level is violation of rules. But i dont want to argue with you, i got your point of view.

If Blizzard intended for a level 11 to be able to do that, then youd be able to do it without bringing a higher level into the zone.

 

[Hennelorix]

Im done.

 

[Chops]

You still didnt answer why you think that legacy loot is allowed for high level and it is okay, but doing so with this mech for low level is bannable.

thats because im not a WoW game designer and i dont know why they made that choice. The reasoning behind it is also not relevant. I actually agree with you that legacy loot should be available to low levels solo and its silly that its really not

but its intended to not be and skirting intentional game design is generally frowned upon. To put it mildly.

 

[Rahn]

Just my speculation on what's happened is that when the anniversary event launched it opened up TWing to level 10s and F2P having access to the war bank; this incentivized a lot of low level botting, and that's how it's was for months. So to deal with the problem they cut off the warbank from F2P, but still had to deal with the bots. I assume they collected a lot of data on said bots and threw together an algorithm to catch as many of them as possible via similar behaviors across all the bots. Though it seems like some of those bot behaviors also intersect with a lot of twink behaviors, and an algorithm isn't going to distinguish someone twinking from someone doing bot farming.

I can also imagine that during this time Blizzard got a lot of "This person is cheating/hacking" when a level 11 warrior is burning through an instance with no explanation, leaving the rest of the group in the dust (and out of range to get credits on kills for bosses).

So my guess is the ban hammer algorithm is going down on people's accounts who have a lot of 'hacking/cheating' reports on them combined with logged actions indicating abnormal behavior such as dodging the xp debuff, using multiple accounts on a single computer, or instance resetting manipulations.

At this point it's kinda wait and see how wide the algorithm is going to hit.

 

[lofi]

Why did you clear the dungeon on your 70 and then log out before your twink solo'd the last boss?

Because you know that having the 70 triggers legacy loot and then logging out before a boss kill retains legacy loot. When a 20 solos a boss, its *supposed* to be personal loot. You're knowingly and purposefully employing a "creative use of game mechanics" to skirt the intended design. Like come on man, you've been around too long to play stupid.

I dont think any actual person looked at your gameplay and said "oh this guy is abusing legacy loot mechanics". I think the game saw your 20 repeatedly getting legacy loot in the same dungeon over and over again without a high level in the dungeon and some automated process said "thats bot behavior" and you got banned.

Nobody is getting banned for using legacy loot, resetting an instance or using a macro. Let's stop spreading misinformation.

I believe folks who got banned fall in two categories:
1) player reports -- everyone that queued with randoms falls in this bucket.
2) automation -- either based on metrics (e.g. instances in 24 hours), or detection of multi-boxing (e.g. sending mouse events to all windows at once)

Most folks that were banned probably fall into player reports -- but it does seem that some folks may have been banned by automation as well.

 

[Azeroh]

FYI

https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/automatic-role-check
This is an Automatic Role Checker, which will automatically accept LFG Role Checks, Sign Ups, etc. This was created 4 years ago (2021) and has 30.6k downloads. If this was bannable, then 4 years ago people wouldve been banned for this.

https://wago.io/HyHjIHeKm
Here is a 6 year old WA that automatically accepts the role check in a group, with 4k downloads. The same logic applies.

https://wago.io/7fbVq7lLg
Here is a WA that the same thing. This was created in 2022, with 856 downloads. The same logic applies.

If anybody ever can find any post ever of anybody saying they were banned ever of using these automatic role checkers, please god link them to me. No, you aren't getting banned for using a Automatic Role Checker. No, this isn't simulating multiple key presses.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/policy-update-for-input-broadcasting-may-2021/956613
The screenshot given by Chops is an exerpt of this blue post, and as you can tell from reading it Blizzard is talking about duplicating keypresses onto multiple clients.
The name of the post is "Policy Update for Input Broadcasting". Input Broadcasting is the term.
Here's the exact quote that the Chops quote comes from: "We will now additionally prohibit the use of all software and hardware mechanisms to mirror commands to multiple World of Warcraft accounts at the same time, or to automate or streamline multi-boxing in any way."
I think you could probably tell, by reading, that they are talking about mirroring keypresses to multiple clients. I think you could also maybe tell that perhaps the usage of automate and streamline with the verb multi-boxing means anything that mirrors WoW commands/keypresses.

Simulating Multiple Keypresses is bannable, yes. But it's being defined incorrectly. Pressing some script or macro that does multiple things which you would've had to click otherwise is not simulating those clicks, they're executing Lua inwhich they are calling Lua Functions given to us by Blizzard for us to interface with the game. When Blizzard messes up and some function does something it shouldn't do, Blizzard will stop the function from being able to perform that action or just take the function out of players hands all together. They do not ever BAN people who used that function or addon or macro in any way.

Simulating Multiple Keypresses means to press once (or not at all) and have something else do actual KEY PRESSES (keyboard input/mouse input). AHK, Razer Synapse (Jump Binds) are examples. These are things which SIMULATE the KEY PRESSES, instead of them being created by a real human using a keyboard/mouse. Key presses = Keyboard input (pressing W, pressing 1) and Mouse Input (moving mouse/clicking mouse button 1), not Lua using Lua Functions that Blizzard gives us.

Once again, please prove me wrong. Find anything anywhere of anybody getting banned specifically for using an IN-GAME macro/addon. Having some Macro/Addon which communicates to some third party cheat software does not count, they got banned for using the third party cheat software not the addon that put some pixels on the screen. Using some in-game macro or addon to get to places like OOB Warsong Gulch or GM Island does not count aswell, they were banned for being OOB in PvP or being at GM Island, not the usage of those macros or addons.

 

[lofi]

https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/automatic-role-check
This is an Automatic Role Checker, which will automatically accept LFG Role Checks, Sign Ups, etc. This was created 4 years ago (2021) and has 30.6k downloads. If this was bannable, then 4 years ago people wouldve been banned for this.

I agree that nobody is being banned simply for using an addon or weakaura, but I think Chops has a good point that if you are using it along with multiboxing it could present an issue, e.g. if all your followers accept the role check at the exact same time. I don't suspect this is actually getting folks banned, but it is plausible. Similarly folks have gotten banned while multiboxing on windows with the mouse setting "Sroll inactive windows when hovering over them" enabled (which is enabled by default). This can cause folks to inadvertently broadcast inputs to multiple game clients at once (e.g. if the windows are stacked and there are key binds for mouse wheel). So while any addon or weakaura on its own is not likely to get you banned, we have to be careful with the interactions of these things (and Windows settings) while multi-boxing.

 

[Azeroh]

I agree that nobody is being banned simply for using an addon or weakaura, but I think Chops has a good point that if you are using it along with multiboxing it could present an issue, e.g. if all your followers accept the role check at the exact same time. I don't suspect this is actually getting folks banned, but it is plausible. Similarly folks have gotten banned while multiboxing on windows with the mouse setting "Sroll inactive windows when hovering over them" enabled (which is enabled by default). This can cause folks to inadvertently broadcast inputs to multiple game clients at once (e.g. if the windows are stacked and there are key binds for mouse wheel). So while any addon or weakaura on its own is not likely to get you banned, we have to be careful with the interactions of these things (and Windows settings) while multi-boxing.

You're describing to me people getting banned for multi-boxing. Addons that get you banned when you break the TOS is kind of paradoxical to me.
The next time I see somebody speed, I'll make sure to note what car they're driving. I don't want to drive in a car that'll get me arrested.

 

[Chops]

The screenshot given by Chops is an exerpt of this blue post, and as you can tell from reading it Blizzard is talking about duplicating keypresses onto multiple clients.
The name of the post is "Policy Update for Input Broadcasting". Input Broadcasting is the term.
Here's the exact quote that the Chops quote comes from: "We will now additionally prohibit the use of all software and hardware mechanisms to mirror commands to multiple World of Warcraft accounts at the same time, or to automate or streamline multi-boxing in any way."
I think you could probably tell, by reading, that they are talking about mirroring keypresses to multiple clients. I think you could also maybe tell that perhaps the usage of automate and streamline with the verb multi-boxing means anything that mirrors WoW commands/keypresses.

I actually got it from this policy update specific to multiboxing, not a thread specific to input broadcasting. So no, they arent talking about *only* mirroring commands or simulating inputs. They are talking about "all software or hardware mechanisms used to mirror commands to multiple World of Warcraft accounts at the same time, or to automate or streamline multiboxing in any way may result in account penalties."

the ", or" there makes things very clear.

I just really, really need people to understand and accept that Blizzards multiboxing policy is extremely poorly defined and overly broad. I think people knee-jerk to thinking Im defending it when I point out that what they do is technically against TOS and I'm not. I think its a shitty policy. But it exists and it means doing just about anything but manually alt tabbing between accounts on a single monitor can catch a ban

 

[BANKONE]

I actually got it from this policy update specific to multiboxing, not a thread specific to input broadcasting. So no, they arent talking about *only* mirroring commands or simulating inputs. They are talking about "all software or hardware mechanisms used to mirror commands to multiple World of Warcraft accounts at the same time, or to automate or streamline multiboxing in any way may result in account penalties."

the ", or" there makes things very clear.

I just really, really need people to understand and accept that Blizzards multiboxing policy is extremely poorly defined and overly broad. I think people knee-jerk to thinking Im defending it when I point out that what they do is technically against TOS and I'm not. I think its a shitty policy. But it exists and it means doing just about anything but manually alt tabbing between accounts on a single monitor can catch a ban

Idk man. Alt tab is a shortcut. You’d be better off hitting the minimize button on the top

 

[CigNus]

I just really, really need people to understand and accept that Blizzards multiboxing policy is extremely poorly defined and overly broad. I think people knee-jerk to thinking Im defending it when I point out that what they do is technically against TOS and I'm not. I think its a shitty policy. But it exists and it means doing just about anything but manually alt tabbing between accounts on a single monitor can catch a ban

2nd'd

 

[lofi]

means doing just about anything but manually alt tabbing between accounts on a single monitor can catch a ban

I disagree 100% with this. I've always opened windows side-by-side and click between them for multi-boxing and never had an issue.
In fact, related to the "hover inactive windows" issue it may be safer to have them side by side than stacked (using alt+tab).

I prefer to have them side-by-side so that I can keep an eye on my followers and use a macro/keybind to follow the leader when necessary.
For simplicity I add this to my existing mount up macro e.g.:

/follow Leadername
/use [nomounted] Cindermane Charger

 

[Chops]

I disagree 100% with this. I've always opened windows side-by-side and click between them for multi-boxing and never had an issue.

Winterly (and I think Zazzy) caught bans for this

 

[Nezarla]

I used my second account on monday to run myself through BC dungeons for gear, I didn't use any weird logout shenanigans as I didn't even know that was a thing, I manually click the taskbar to open my other window and I manually typed /follow for each dungeon run. If it was a ban for multiboxing, why was only the twink banned, I can still play my other account just fine.

 

[BANKONE]

If blizz didn’t want multiple windows open they’d remove the ability to have windowed graphics options, they’d remove the ability to be logged in on more than one game license on the same bnet, or have multiple instances of the application running on the same machine /s

They won’t. But blizz needs to make a statement or rule update

Straight to perma ban is not okay. Especially for folks who truly weren’t using scum tactics or mechanics

 

[Azeroh]

I actually got it from this policy update specific to multiboxing, not a thread specific to input broadcasting. So no, they arent talking about *only* mirroring commands or simulating inputs. They are talking about "all software or hardware mechanisms used to mirror commands to multiple World of Warcraft accounts at the same time, or to automate or streamline multiboxing in any way may result in account penalties."

the ", or" there makes things very clear.

I just really, really need people to understand and accept that Blizzards multiboxing policy is extremely poorly defined and overly broad. I think people knee-jerk to thinking Im defending it when I point out that what they do is technically against TOS and I'm not. I think its a shitty policy. But it exists and it means doing just about anything but manually alt tabbing between accounts on a single monitor can catch a ban

I know you quoted that.

It's an article, not a policy update. If you will scroll down you will find "For more information on our stance about input broadcasting software, see our official blue post.". That blue post is the one I took the quote from, and that's the quote the article is taking from.

Thanks for providing evidence that people were banned for using macros/addons.