Avnger said:
You're the one that's overreacting... Why do gamers have this propensity towards taking offense when none is being given?
The reason for the ban instead of xp removal is simple: It's easier, less time consuming, and costs less to implement. This XP farming isn't something that can be done by accident, especially with the change to custom skirmish matches. How in God's name is telling gamers "you must play the game to earn xp" some kind of awful insult or totalitarian tactic?
Blizzard DID remove XP rewards; my point is they should have stopped there. Players would have had no incentive to continue, and the "problem" would have solved itself. Taking it a step further with the "nuclear option" of bans is a heavy-handed tactic far in excess of the supposed "cheating" being committed.
Yes the farming was deliberate, but I ask you; how is this any different from, say, getting a friend, family member or roommate to play for you and farm XP when you're away? Or taping the attack button down on the controller and farming XP from low level mobs in a JRPG? It's not like these servers were sabotaging the enjoyment of players who were playing legit matches. Blizzard itself has admitted they suspected something like this would happen with custom servers, so they have no one to blame but themselves for not implementing steps to mitigate this beforehand.
Avnger said:
Also, throwing around the words "skinner box" honestly doesn't make you seem any more intelligent or knowledgeable in these cases. Nearly every single video game ever made has employed some version of a "skinner box." Acting like a first-year philosophy student who knows enough about various terms to smugly use them but not enough to truly understand them doesn't endear you to others.
Smug? Me???
I'll have you know I'm very highly educated. I know words. I have the best words.
...But you're right, I should just go "u sux blizz choke on my Lijang Tower." That would totally get my point across more effectively.
RJ 17 said:
Wow...I don't think even Jim Sterling would jump to a "this is a disgusting form of corporate greed!!!!" conclusion such as that.
Actually he has weighed in on Loot Boxes before, and he does indeed think it's corporate greed.
Bobular said:
I don't see the problem here at all. People doing what is an obvious exploit are getting punished, the people who did this would have known this was, by most definitions, cheating and Blizzard has been clear multiple times what it's stance on cheaters is.
As soon as I heard about people doing idle farms I said to my brother, 'Blizzard will be taking them down hard by the end of the week.' If I knew that from just hearing about them then surely the people running them and using them would have known as well so therefore I have absolutely no sympathy for them.
RJ 17 said:
It's really quite simple: Blizzard said from the very start that they would have a Zero Tolerance Policy against cheating. This was announced and has been an established fact since the launch of the game. XP Farming is a form of cheating. You're earning rewards without having to actually play the game. Zero Tolerance means if you're cheating you're getting banned.
So why are you so surprised that cheaters are getting banned? The reason they're also getting rid of XP from custom games is so that no one bothers creating more programs that cheat in this way.
Thing is, you can't just assume the entire player base knows all about Blizzard's ban-happy mindset. For many people (especially console players),
Overwatch may be the first Blizzard game they've ever played. I myself have very little experience with Blizzard products prior to
Overwatch, mainly consisting of a brief stint in WoW nine years ago (and only because a friend wouldn't stop pestering me about playing with him).
For a bit of perspective, let's compare Blizzard's handling of this with another company and its popular class-based shooter, Valve's
Team Fortress 2. Back when the item drop system was first introduced many players created "idle servers" in order to get said items with minimal effort. One of them even created a third-party "Steamstats" program that allowed players to get items without even having to launch the game. This program violated Steam's Terms of Service and technically was a bannable offense.
Yet Valve didn't resort to that, instead issuing an official in-game warning to players who participated and the removal of any items earned with the program. As for the creator of "Steamstats," he was eventually banned for other similar workarounds...then Valve turned around and hired him for his ingenuity. Eventually idling was rendered moot when Valve introduced a weekly cap for drops, ensuring that players would get approximately the same amount of items, regardless of whether they idled or not.
If Valve, masters of the "hands-off" approach to a fault, could solve the issue in an equitable way, surely Blizzard with its large and active dev team could do the same?
