wackytabaccy
Member
Shoot I've had people straight up write "I'm leaving this toon here don't vote kick him", people weren't even trying to hide it in the least bit.
Is this really bannable??
- Thread starter bigpappa
- Start date
Krater
Member
Do they really not give a pro-rated refund when they ban you with so much time remaining? That's crazy, if they don't reverse your ban you should totally do a chargeback if your credit card company will let you.
Rahn
Member
I did rule out being reported by other players as a factor because there's no way for any one of us to know.
Besides that, who would admit to making other players in a run angry if they're trying to appeal a ban?
Kekeke
New Member
We can't know anything for sure, but it seems, people that did avoid the xp debuff and got caught while doing it, are getting confirmation of their bans. This is in line with what I heard a gm stated in an appeal reply regarding the reason being the xp debuff exploit and getting reported while doing it. Why hacking/cheating? Maybe it's simply the category the bans goes under because it's what they got reported for. I observed that other people that did legacy loot or 5 client solo dungeons are getting generally unbanned, but we still don't know if there are multiple ban reasons, and it's likely to be so. Another common thing, is that the majority of people that doesn't do public queues, seems to be untouched, most likely because they didn't get reported.
I still think a perma ban for this kind of exploit is a big punishment, and the whole communication regarding this issue, or rather the absence of communication, is pretty embarassing. My opinion on this, but it's pure speculation, is that they have absolutely no way of distinguishing a player that met a xp locked twink randomly, and queued with them again, from a player that obviously exploited the thing on purpose, so the ban net was pretty wide, and only now, after checking each situation, are they deciding the extend of the exploit and if the ban has to be confirmed or revoked. I don't know how much the behavior during these runs affects the result, I can imagine glory pulling, absolutely speeding the hell out of the dungeon, one button spamming or being rude towards others are not elements that help your case during review phase, but honestly that's fair, if you want to solo content, go solo it and leave randoms out of it. I'm sorry if you lost an old account doing this, maybe try to appeal again, or wait for official communication if we ever get some.
I still think a perma ban for this kind of exploit is a big punishment, and the whole communication regarding this issue, or rather the absence of communication, is pretty embarassing. My opinion on this, but it's pure speculation, is that they have absolutely no way of distinguishing a player that met a xp locked twink randomly, and queued with them again, from a player that obviously exploited the thing on purpose, so the ban net was pretty wide, and only now, after checking each situation, are they deciding the extend of the exploit and if the ban has to be confirmed or revoked. I don't know how much the behavior during these runs affects the result, I can imagine glory pulling, absolutely speeding the hell out of the dungeon, one button spamming or being rude towards others are not elements that help your case during review phase, but honestly that's fair, if you want to solo content, go solo it and leave randoms out of it. I'm sorry if you lost an old account doing this, maybe try to appeal again, or wait for official communication if we ever get some.
cletus
Member
Summarizing some points from the Blizzard forums, this is how ludicrous the situation is:
- It's OK to queue and get grouped with a random twink and get no XP penalty
- It's NOT OK to coordinate queues or otherwise get into a group with a twink in a way to avoid the XP debuff
- It is OK if the twink is a level 20 on an F2P/Vet account or a level 70 on an account without TWW because there' s no debuff
- It is OK for a highly geared 80 to group wtih friends and clear TW dungeons fast
There's a thread on the Community Council forums that quoted a Reddit post and further examined the absurdity, namely that this only seems to apply if you're boosting your own toons. If you boost a friend's toons and they boost yours, you seem to be OK.
So Blizzrad have, with no communication, instituted a policy where you can't boost your own toons but people who sell boosts are compoletely fine and it's also fine if it's a level 20 or 70 with no XP lock. And for that you can get a permaban, even as the first action taken against your account.
This policy has the usual serf-brain simpleton bootlickers defending it on the forums.. For me, it's like giving a permaban to the people who escaped Pandaria during MoP Remix, something clearly known to be unintentional and requiring intentional and clever use of game mechanics to gain an advantage. Did people get permabans for that? Not AFAIK.
All of this to level slightly faster when TW isn't even the best way to level and when Blizzard (through the TWW prepatch event and MoP Remix) has made levelling absolutely trivial, like speed levelers got 10-70 in under 30 minutes in Remix and 4 hours of flying between objectives with no combat whatsoever (other than tagging the big boss) in the prepatch event would take you from 10-70.
Yes, the whole thing is absurd.
Waiwhat
Queue BG !
Still no GF is what your saying ?
Spazzrella
Member
TBF, I was boosting my own toons (5 wow accounts under 1 bnet account) and I didn't get banned. 11 twink full screen on one monitor, other 4 on second monitor. I used WowOpenBox to place / control the windows. The toons on follow use a macro to follow me that I stick on a button bound to a mouse button, so I just hover over that window and click it. And I used the macro to get past the XP eliminated debuff. I also had an addon (not a weakaura) that would auto accept both the invite and the role check. But I clicked enter dungeon manually.
As for my twinks, they are semi BiS (I had the neck with 3 gems, I had the waist, shoulders, and chest with sockets/gems). I ran the two SL gems for speed and HP regen. I run at 149% (though since I took my toons with me (for loot reasons) and didn't leave them at the beginning, isn't gaining me a lot, I have to constantly stop for them to catch up).
I never did any of the other things you can do while farming gear on your twink to increase my drop rates or to reset the instance. I just ran in, killed, ran out, reset. I did this mostly while at work, so there were forced breaks already which worked out well, I never once hit the 10 per hour limit.
Also for clarity, my toons were on follow, and I made sure they didn't go AFK, and that they looted each boss (click on window, loot boss, click follow macro). I leveled 100+ toons from 70+ to 80 this way. The biggest pain was the amount of time it takes for a queue to pop when you queue with an XP off character.
For me, going forward I will be using a level 70 on another bnet account (I have multiple bnet accounts, all have same info (name, address, billing, etc.) for RAF reasons over the years), as even while I was safe in this pass, the risk isn't worth it anymore, and the level 70 I have is geared enough that the time per run is near the same (especially since I bring my toons with me and don't leave them at the entrance, it's not geared out for speed, it was just a toon that got KSM in DF S4 and has the leggo). And the best thing, the queues pop instantly with the 70 (as XP isn't off, the toon is max level). And my 70 toon also isn't a Demon hunter, and I won't be doing any of the fly through walls to last boss and kill it in 20 seconds like I have read in other threads is possible.
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cletus
Member
Side note: You can just type type /follow <charname>. There's no need for clearing and setting targets.
bigpappa
Member
I think you may have just got lucky to avoid this wave, cuz you did a whole lot more things than I did lol
bigpappa
Member
I can play your accounts for you if you wish, I'm sure it'll come
Spazzrella
Member
I've had bad issues with that in the past, clearing the target, and then targeting separately ensures I get the right person.
Spazzrella
Member
Short of the macro to bypass the experience eliminated debuff (which is silly in the first place, look at that list cletus posted), I did nothing that's even remotely a grey area imo, there's people who would say auto accepting an invite or auto accepting the role check is "automation." Either way, for now I've just moved forward with my level 70 and I removed the auto accept invite / role check addon. ZERO GREY AREAS, and I'm still pumping my toons to 80.
Personally, I think the one thing I did that made me safe, I NEVER QUEUED INTO A RANDOM, I only queued with myself. There was never a chance for a single report against me.
cletus
Member
Not sure if you understand my point but you can just do:
/follow twink1
instead of:
/target twink1
/follow
Or is there another reason why you want your twink targeted? Assisting? Healing?
parry10359
Member
Sorry I might have been able to state it better.
I agree that there was no way for any one of us to know report counts, I was more saying that since mass reporting is almost certainly a big part of what happened, then ruling it out basically makes the whole endeavor futile, I'd think. That being said I never turn down a good data table.
And I wasn't saying anyone would admit it to Blizzard as I agree that wouldn't help an appeal, but you never know they might admit it here or in a dm for the purposes of the data. It's no more or less reliable than any other information you would get, right?
Either way if people are getting unbanned I guess it's somewhat sorted out, though it gives even more credence to the idea that it was an organized reporting blast from disgruntled players.
The only other possibility that comes close to the hodgepodge data we have and the quick and numerous reversals, even accounting for like 50%+ e-fibbing, is that blizz did overtune some detection and it was triggering hacks for people with multiple windows that was like picking up a window or mouse scroll setting, but then a lot of people who weren't banned, like me, should have been, and importantly, it also should have hit more general wow users who multi-box but not with twinks. The venn diagram of multi-boxers and twinkers is not a perfect overlap, and I'm hearing nothing from non-twink multi-boxers about bans, unless I missed it. Everyone who was hit in the ban seemed to think it was because of their twink in the blizzard forumns. So I'd say the "new agressive detection theory" takes a plausible 2nd place and the "guild/community/discord pissed about twinks theory" takes 1st. It would probably take 50 people or less to throw out the kind of reporting in a day that would lead to the number of people posting their bans. This was not a huge number of people posting about bans.
wackytabaccy
Member
Lot of people blitz them publicly and still are here **puts on tin foil hat** (intense murder mystery music) I wonder why, why I say, why?!
bigpappa
Member
Not unbanned
Zly
Grandfathered
Blizzard always supplies the reason for the ban in the email they send you. For whatever reason twinks were falsely flagged(of course some not falsely), thankfully most seem to have their accounts back. But it had nothing to do with any macro, addon or whatever. Generally, they just hotfix those to not work anymore or fix them and give a slap on the hand 4 day ban. Below is what's covered in the bans people received.
Here’s its confirmation email:
Exploitative Activity: Unauthorized Cheat Programs (Hacks)
Yet another cheating related WoW ban. This originates from any other software that interferes with WoW and is seen as a cheat. Even if it’s not one.Here’s its confirmation email:
So, just like the above WoW ban reasons, this happens due to cheating detection (bots, hacks, rotation helpers, etc.). But, Exploitative Activity: Unauthorized Cheat Programs also happens due to:
- multiboxing software (which is now against the rules);
- character model changers (tMorph, jMorph, iMorph, etc.);
- ConsolePort (albeit as a false positive);
- coding software and automation tools.