Blizzard Isn't Happy About Overwatch Players Abusing XP Gain in Custom Games

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Blizzard Isn't Happy About Overwatch Players Abusing XP Gain in Custom Games

//cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/1387/1387877.jpgSome Overwatch players are abusing custom games to gain XP while AFK, and Blizzard isn't happy about it.

Recently, Blizzard added the ability to share your Overwatch custom games with anyone using the new server browser [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/169495-Blizzard-Adding-Custom-Server-Browser-Permanent-CTF-Mode-to-Overwatch], and more importantly, the ability to earn XP in those games. Unfortunately, as often happens, a few people are abusing the feature and trying to ruin it for the rest of us. What are they doing? Well, they're setting up Skirmish matches that they could AFK in and still get XP.

Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan is making it crystal clear that Blizzard does not approve of this practice. In a forum post [https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20753626867] yesterday, Kaplan said that when Blizzard introduced the new system, it "knew that there was the potential for this system to be exploited, but we wanted to give everyone the benefit of the doubt before becoming overly restrictive with the system." Of course, now that players have exploited it, Blizzard is taking steps to prevent it. Kaplan wrote,

"As some of you have noticed, Skirmish in Custom Game no longer rewards experience. Also, the AFK timer is now in place in Skirmish mode (in Custom Game only). This change is rolling out over a 24 hour period and should be live in all regions by the end of today."

That's not all. Blizzard is also starting to take disciplinary actions against the people abusing the feature. What sort of actions? Well, anyone who participates in this sort of exploit risks having their account banned. Kaplan wrote,

"If you create a Custom Game that in any way encourages players to gain experience while inactive, you risk having your account banned. If you join any game mode - including Custom Games - with the intent of gaining experience while being inactive, you risk having your account banned. Also, do not name your Custom Game that in anyway even implies that gaining experience while inactive is OK - please do not even do this as a joke - because you are putting yourself at risk of having your account banned."

Kaplan also said that this is just the first step in an escalation plan to deal with the issue. The final step of that plan will be the removal of experience gain in custom games. Kaplan says that he doesn't want to get to that point, though. To that end, he asks the community to assist in stopping the behavior. "Do not create Custom Games with the intent of gaining experience while inactive. Don't join those games. Don't jokingly put those names in your own Custom Games. And report players who are abusing the system."

While it's certainly not the first time that players have abused a system and caused it to be tweaked or removed, it's still disappointing. On behalf of Overwatch players everywhere, cut it out.

Permalink

 

[Neverhoodian]

Translation: "We don't want players finding ways around our Skinner Box casino scam, so we're going the full nuclear option of bans instead of taking a more measured and equitable response. Now keep buying Loot Boxes, sheep!"

If Blizzard suspected something like this was going to happen, then they have nobody to blame but themselves for not taking steps to prevent it beforehand. I can understand actions like removing XP rewards, but banning people outright for using a system Blizzard themselves put into place is a disgusting display of corporate greed run amok.

This only strengthens my resolve to never spend a single cent on Loot Boxes. This type of "Fee to Pay" RNG system has no place in a full-priced game.

 

[Steven Bogos]

This is like TF2's idle servers for hats all over again. I don't really see what the big deal is. If people want to spend their time sitting AFK in a server for XP, why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't they be able to maximise their XP gain?

 

[fix-the-spade]

I remember when this happened in Team Fortress 2, I got a little Halo out of it for being a good boy and not tampering with the game files.

I have to laugh at this, whilst on the surface it's a crackdown on people abusing the game, their only 'crime' is exploiting the available options to avoid the micro transactions.

God forbid players figure out a way to get loot boxes without paying for them! A more community minded way to do it this would just be a limit on XP or drops that can be gained in any 24 hour period. Idlers would still be able to their daily idle for an hour or whatever per day, but wouldn't cripple Blizzard's in game store.

Stuff like this is a symptom of Free 2 Play mechanics being present in full priced games, it doesn't affect the average player's experience in the slightest, although I'm sure Blizzard don't see it that way.

 

[Thurston]

People look for efficiency. Most gain of something they want (xp->Loot boxes), with the least expenditure of valued resources (time). Did Blizzard think farming would not happen? Of course it would!

Custom games are a great idea, but xp farming is inevitable. Thinking otherwise strikes me as naive.

 

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

i'm having zero understanding the idea of this.

So you're not playing a game you presumably enjoy, to earn XP and loot boxes slowly, for a meaningless number (especially with smurf accounts) and cosmetic items, that nobody cares about except you and you'll likely use to play the game legitimately which gives you more XP anyway?

I have almost 50 loot boxes stocked from actually playing the game. It's not like these things are hard to earn while actually playing. Why would you want to earn these any other way than playing if you like the game enough to want to earn their loot boxes?

And why did they even let XP for custom games anyway? This seemed obvious unless your idea was to recreate one of the preexisting brawls that custom matches sought to replace, in which case give those people a template and only give XP for those matches.

 

[Janaschi]

This is like TF2's idle servers for hats all over again. I don't really see what the big deal is. If people want to spend their time sitting AFK in a server for XP, why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't they be able to maximise their XP gain?

Because it's Blizzard's/ActiVision's game; hence, they can do whatever they want, in regards to keeping the game in-line with their personal code of social ethics. Maybe smaller companies couldn't get away with this sort of thing, but we all know that it won't negatively impact Blizzard's community-base.

People can criticize it all they like, but I can actually respect them for sticking to their guns, and weeding out the players too damn dumb or ignorant to understand the established actions regularly taken against exploiters.

Want to positively exploit the game? Blizzard, quite literally, pays people to do it. So go through the proper channels, or else there is no ground to stand on for complaining about the consequences.

 

[Bindal]

i'm having zero understanding the idea of this.

So you're not playing a game you presumably enjoy, to earn XP and loot boxes slowly, for a meaningless number (especially with smurf accounts) and cosmetic items, that nobody cares about except you and you'll likely use to play the game legitimately which gives you more XP anyway?

It's more about "idling for EXP while not playing at the moment to begin with" - I mean, if you aren't going to play right now for one reason or another, you can at least make it profitable (by getting EXP and hence loot boxes), right? Which overall cuts down on time to earn EXP for Lootboxes in normal games, granting you these things a lot faster or at least more often overall.

Not that hard of a concept to understand, actually. Or did you think these people REPLACED the gameplay with idling for cosmetics?

 

[Neverhoodian]

This is like TF2's idle servers for hats all over again. I don't really see what the big deal is. If people want to spend their time sitting AFK in a server for XP, why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't they be able to maximise their XP gain?

Because it's Blizzard's/ActiVision's game; hence, they can do whatever they want, in regards to keeping the game in-line with their personal code of social ethics. Maybe smaller companies couldn't get away with this sort of thing, but we all know that it won't negatively impact Blizzard's community-base.

People can criticize it all they like, but I can actually respect them for sticking to their guns, and weeding out the players too damn dumb or ignorant to understand the established actions regularly taken against exploiters.

Want to positively exploit the game? Blizzard, quite literally, pays people to do it. So go through the proper channels, or else there is no ground to stand on for complaining about the consequences.

If Blizzard didn't want people to exploit the XP system, then they shouldn't have knowingly given players the tools to do so in the first place. Turning around and banning people for using said tools is just a dick move.

To add to Mr. Bogos' comment, Valve knew for years that people were idling in TF2 for hats, yet the only time they took punitive action was when people started using the third party Steamstats program that violated Steam's ToS. Even then they didn't ban people outright for it, instead issuing in-game warnings to offenders and removing any items earned with the program. Players got the message and abandoned Steamstats overnight. Eventually a weekly cap on items was implemented, essentially rendering idle servers useless. I'll take that over banning people any day.

Activision/Blizzard is free to do whatever they like of course, and people can spend their money on whatever they want. Just don't expect me to start applauding them for perpetuating trends in gaming that I find distasteful.

 

[Erttheking]

My sympathy for Blizzard in this regard is limited. It's not like Hearthstone where cheap grinding could potentially upset the balance of the game, it just gives people more cosmetics, that's the only benefit to it, and those are cosmetics I'm still pissed that Blizzard is trying to nickle and dime out of us. So yeah. They're mainly pissed that people have found a way around their microtransactions.

 

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

i'm having zero understanding the idea of this.

So you're not playing a game you presumably enjoy, to earn XP and loot boxes slowly, for a meaningless number (especially with smurf accounts) and cosmetic items, that nobody cares about except you and you'll likely use to play the game legitimately which gives you more XP anyway?

It's more about "idling for EXP while not playing at the moment to begin with" - I mean, if you aren't going to play right now for one reason or another, you can at least make it profitable (by getting EXP and hence loot boxes), right? Which overall cuts down on time to earn EXP for Lootboxes in normal games, granting you these things a lot faster or at least more often overall.

Not that hard of a concept to understand, actually. Or did you think these people REPLACED the gameplay with idling for cosmetics?

...No. No, that's freaking stupid.

 

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

i'm having zero understanding the idea of this.

So you're not playing a game you presumably enjoy, to earn XP and loot boxes slowly, for a meaningless number (especially with smurf accounts) and cosmetic items, that nobody cares about except you and you'll likely use to play the game legitimately which gives you more XP anyway?

It's more about "idling for EXP while not playing at the moment to begin with" - I mean, if you aren't going to play right now for one reason or another, you can at least make it profitable (by getting EXP and hence loot boxes), right? Which overall cuts down on time to earn EXP for Lootboxes in normal games, granting you these things a lot faster or at least more often overall.

Not that hard of a concept to understand, actually. Or did you think these people REPLACED the gameplay with idling for cosmetics?

I messed up with posting though, so I guess I'm stupid too.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

"Oh no! They're avoiding the excruciatingly slow XP grind that's designed to annoy them enough to use the cash shop! How dare they!"

 

[Janaschi]

This is like TF2's idle servers for hats all over again. I don't really see what the big deal is. If people want to spend their time sitting AFK in a server for XP, why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't they be able to maximise their XP gain?

Because it's Blizzard's/ActiVision's game; hence, they can do whatever they want, in regards to keeping the game in-line with their personal code of social ethics. Maybe smaller companies couldn't get away with this sort of thing, but we all know that it won't negatively impact Blizzard's community-base.

People can criticize it all they like, but I can actually respect them for sticking to their guns, and weeding out the players too damn dumb or ignorant to understand the established actions regularly taken against exploiters.

Want to positively exploit the game? Blizzard, quite literally, pays people to do it. So go through the proper channels, or else there is no ground to stand on for complaining about the consequences.

If Blizzard didn't want people to exploit the XP system, then they shouldn't have knowingly given players the tools to do so in the first place. Turning around and banning people for using said tools is just a dick move.

To add to Mr. Bogos' comment, Valve knew for years that people were idling in TF2 for hats, yet the only time they took punitive action was when people started using the third party Steamstats program that violated Steam's ToS. Even then they didn't ban people outright for it, instead issuing in-game warnings to offenders and removing any items earned with the program. Players got the message and abandoned Steamstats overnight. Eventually a weekly cap on items was implemented, essentially rendering idle servers useless. I'll take that over banning people any day.

Activision/Blizzard is free to do whatever they like of course, and people can spend their money on whatever they want. Just don't expect me to start applauding them for perpetuating trends in gaming that I find distasteful.

In any game, there will always be exploits. And for multiplayer games in particular, taking advantage of said exploits, has a very real chance of souring the overall player experience, which can ultimately be detrimental towards a game's future growth/success.

The subjectivity, in this case, tilts towards a crystal clear choice and consequence system, rendering other perspectives moot, since they are not the ones making the decisions.

People with tunnel-vision, are only going to look at this in a very small way, and criticize Blizzard/ActiVision for preventing players from avoiding unnecessary grind. But the truth of the matter, is that exploiting the game is... exploiting the game. People can play semantics on that until they are blue in the face, but it means absolutely nothing, because this is a very black/white matter. I normally disagree with that reasoning, but there are always exceptions to every rule, and this one is certainly an exception.

So... it really has nothing to do with whether you or others approve. It has everything to do with keeping everyone on the same level, and giving players a clear consequence for their choices, should they choose to do things differently. And, to be perfectly frank, a good portion of the gaming community needs more exposure to consequences.

 

[Lightspeaker]

My sympathy for Blizzard in this regard is limited. It's not like Hearthstone where cheap grinding could potentially upset the balance of the game, it just gives people more cosmetics, that's the only benefit to it, and those are cosmetics I'm still pissed that Blizzard is trying to nickle and dime out of us. So yeah. They're mainly pissed that people have found a way around their microtransactions.

Basically this.

"Oh no! They're avoiding the excruciatingly slow XP grind that's designed to annoy them enough to use the cash shop! How dare they!"

In fairness its not actually THAT slow. Levels come at a fairly quick rate plus they kick out another three boxes weekly one per 3 wins on any game mode in the 'Arcade'. But its still utter nonsense having this kind of system in a paid-for game.

I have very little sympathy for Blizzard here.

 

[IceForce]

I don't really see what the big deal is. If people want to spend their time sitting AFK in a server for XP, why shouldn't they?

They're not "spending their time", though. This is something that people leave running while they're asleep/away/whatever. It's not like they're sitting staring at their screen while this is going on.

 

[Janaschi]

I don't really see what the big deal is. If people want to spend their time sitting AFK in a server for XP, why shouldn't they?

They're not "spending their time", though. This is something that people leave running while they're asleep/away/whatever. It's not like they're sitting staring at their screen while this is going on.

Or are they?

 

[IceForce]

I don't really see what the big deal is. If people want to spend their time sitting AFK in a server for XP, why shouldn't they?

They're not "spending their time", though. This is something that people leave running while they're asleep/away/whatever. It's not like they're sitting staring at their screen while this is going on.

Or are they?

Well, some of the arguments I'm seeing in favor of the XP farmers is that they're doing their farming instead of playing the game (and therefore it should be allowed). Which, in most cases, I don't think is true. Because you can still play the game normally during the time you normally would, but leave the game open in an AFK match overnight or while you're otherwise not there.

Point is, I dunno where some people are getting this 'mutually exclusive' mindset from.

 

[Avnger]

Said this in the other thread:

When did telling gamers "you have to play the game to earn xp" become some corporate totalitarian action?