Restricting LFG APIs are horrible mistakes

[ruwshtyb]

To make it easier to group up against harder foes?

Harder foes should be exactly dealt with with no grouping addons right? Then people will start to group. That is how the flawed logic leads to.

And you can already do this to complete world quests, arenas, raids, dungeons etc etc etc etc etc...

Then why it does not apply for normal quests? How are dungeons and LFD/LFR necessary hard?

[rowaasr13]

If they allowed these addons it would be a lot worse since this spam would be created automatically.

It already is through whatever tool like AHK or HID-drivers.

[ruwshtyb]

If they allowed these addons it would be a lot worse since this spam would be created automatically.

They can only restrict the creation part, not the filter part.

If blizzard really wants to fix problems, removing CRZ and sharding first.

[s_bushido]

The server performance issue is exactly what a multi-billion game company should deal with better and optimized code.

If preventing servers from being DDOSed could be fixed by just throwing money at them, they would have done it already. It's much easier to take away players' ability to do it in the first place.

[Ryzeth]

2 players of equal skill aim to get the highest gear ilvl. Both are capable of doing 10-12 keys at the highest.
Player A relies entirely on the weekly chest to get his gear up, since he no longer get upgrades from the dungeons.
Player B spend real money on a tokens which he inturn use to buy a ksm boost. He can now easily outpace player A by doing the same content, how is this not pay to win ? Did he not just pay money to gain an advantage ?

Nope. The definition of p2w is getting an advantange over someone that is exclusively only obtainable by paying. Being limited by player skill does not make something p2w, if they're still able to get those things by simply getting better at the game.

You're also not buying gold from Blizzard, either. Using your logic, every MMO in history is p2w because you could buy boosts/gold from 3rd party websites.

[rowaasr13]

LFG addons constantly pinging the servers were causing the same shit to happen

WTF is "LFG addons constantly pinging the servers" does even mean? All LFG addons only ever created entries in built-in group finder and picked up results from same group finder. Unless you have some addon code to demonstrate - which I highly doubt, as well as I doubt your knowledge of API and ability to read said code at all - then please stop spreading FUD.

[Toybox]

Blizzard want the boosters and spammers to be there. They make blizard too much money. As evident by the blatant pay to win now with the valor. Ksm required to upgrade gear is a boosters wet dream and it will in turn up the sale of tokens by a metric shitton for blizzard.

Blizzard care about Money>players

Or they want to reward people who are good at the game with more ways of gearing up? Is Mythic Raiding P2W because you can buy a boost?

Besides, this whole idea of gear = winning is ridiculous.

[Lochton]

While i tend to agree with most statements saying that things usualy aren't pay to win. Im not so sure about this one. If you are a player who can't do 15's in time, aka ksm. You can now use your real life money, buy a token, spend the token's gold to get the achievement, then you can go back to do your regular gameplay.

That basically means the person can't Play2Win, and thus seeks out another player to apply a boost. Doesn't make it Pay2Win because you can ask another player for a boost. What about the hundreds that do offer KSM for free in communities? What is that then called? Community2Win? Again, you get gold from another player by selling a token, you even pay a security fee for it, you're not getting the gold from Blizzard - if that is Pay2Win, then everything with transfer of currency is Pay2Win because you can obtain the currency from another person.

10's, wq's etc for valor. And now you can use this valor to buy gear upgrades you wouldn't be able to get if you didn't buy the boost. And if a equal player to you do not spend money, he will fall behind.

But if an equal player to me doesn't play the game, he will fall behind too in the first place, and the loop starts where players either seek out a boosting service, or has friends to do it, or applies to a community to do it. The real problem isn't that you can get gold from another player but the people selling boosts - which every game has had since their creation.

I also personaly think this whole 15 in time for 220 is rather weird, you can check this yourself on raider.io, but most people who have done 15's in time, would at best get maybe 1-2 items out of this. The people who really need the 220 gear to even be able to get the KSM in the first place, they can't get it. So who is this really for ?

As for the dividers of Mythic+ upgrade rewards, I don't know. They are there because people started complaining that they couldn't progress their gear further after 15. I, myself, haven't touched a Mythic+ since Shadowlands because I play too many alts, and RaiderIO doesn't like you using too many alts.

[ruwshtyb]

If preventing servers from being DDOSed could be fixed by just throwing money at them, they would have done it already.

As a programmer myself, I see no technical issues on how to deal with this from the server-side. There are many critical servers around the world that accepts 100x burden than Blizzard's servers could deal with.

[rowaasr13]

If preventing servers from being DDOSed could be fixed by just throwing money at them, they would have done it already. It's much easier to take away players' ability to do it in the first place.

Throwing at servers some algorithms that aren't O(n²) instead of money is generally better idea to fix that problem.

[Lochton]

Harder foes should be exactly dealt with with no grouping addons right? Then people will start to group. That is how the flawed logic leads to.

Why need a grouping addon when you have the system as it is now? Even so, people already group up without the LFG tool already.

Then why it does not apply for normal quests?

Because I guess World Quests of the normal kind is considered so simple that if you want a group, you could go search for one?

How are dungeons and LFD/LFR necessary hard?

People wish to search for groups for multiple runs, this was also common with the addons as well as without them?

- - - Updated - - -

If they allowed these addons it would be a lot worse since this spam would be created automatically.

One of the blessings of blocking that API, spam has been much less since. And if it comes, they seem to hammer it down fast again.

- - - Updated - - -

If preventing servers from being DDOSed could be fixed by just throwing money at them, they would have done it already. It's much easier to take away players' ability to do it in the first place.

If only, if only.

[Zephire]

Indeed not. I hardly see spammers in the LFG tool anymore. They are really hammering down in there, wish they would in trade chat too though.

Which they're doing the opposite of. Didn't they, when telling ad in LFG had to go, that it's okay to use trade chat for boosting?

[Lochton]

Which they're doing the opposite of. Didn't they, when telling ad in LFG had to go, that it's okay to use trade chat for boosting?

Well, before the API was restricted, you could also have an addon spam post. After the restriction, the boost spam came more into trade chat. The issue is just that, the boosters that boost for gold, as it is not breaking any rules - and they know it. Of course, depending on how the spam is where the trick is. As said earlier, we won last year when Blizzard stated that using an account only for advertising was not permitted anymore, giving players a little victory in the mess the boosters make but we are still a long way. A lot of boosters don't post enough to be caught by the automated spam security which is where it has to rely on players to aggressively report, sending the account to review - most of the time alas, they get sent back because boosting for gold is not breaking rules.

[intenz]

[QUOTE=ruwshtyb;53031527]

Mythic keystone is another horrible system. They killed raiding.

I will take M+ all day long over raiding

[Twdft]

Boosters and sellers who do it for gold aka make blizz money don't post in the lfg tool because it's a great way to get banned and silenced.

Not really. When I run a couple m+ on my trash hunter I start the gaming session by reporting all spammers, they get silenced to me as long as I don't log out. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one reporting. So how come these fuckers can sit 4 days in the tool?

[Lei]

Yes, because if you manually sign up to a group, you can't afk or just cast mind sear on one of the guy, being totally useless. (You can see this in "elite" wqs today btw)
As an elemental shaman whenever I joined into one of these wq groups, 80% of the time melee completed the WQ, because by the time I casted a single chain lightning, the mobs were dead. And when I was on my hunter with casters, I was the one completing the wq mainly. Whoever gets mad about this should go to therapy to search for some childhood trauma or some shit. Imagine being so insecure about others pulling their weight in a trivial group activity that you rather hard-handicap yourself just to MAYBE lessen others' """bad behavior""". It was faster, it was easier, even with "carrying" people. And that was the devs problem. See how the wqs are devolving expansion after expansion.

I could also save hard to get activity searches and the addon told me there is a group for it (Tanaan jungle times with the cage rares for example), I didn't have to type them in one by one. It was a godsend.

[CharlieIrwin]

Yeah. I heard that argument from a lot of people too. I personally agree with that. However, i do not want to spread conspiracy theory here. I would like to see a concrete solution from blizzard.

[Schizoide]

Did you actually try it recently? The only change today is that you now have to type 5 (five) digits of quest ID manually. THEN you can "go to loo and add-on would invite everyone who signs up and come back with WQ completed." This is the only tiny difference now. This and big wall of WTS shitspam, obviously typed in through external keyboard automation.

Unfortunately, requiring that additional step killed grouping up for WQs. You can do it, but the vast majority of the time nobody will join. This was of course Blizzard's intent, whether you agree with it or not.

[rowaasr13]

Unfortunately, requiring that additional step killed grouping up for WQs. You can do it, but the vast majority of the time nobody will join. This was of course Blizzard's intent, whether you agree with it or not.

But it can be easily disproven by simply logging into game and actually trying it. Install WorldQuestsList, go into current calling area and check it out - you'll need less than a minute than fill out a complete group. Of course trying it in the middle of the night or on some quest with useless reward in non-calling zone will be much slower because people simply don't play it at all, but that's exactly the same way it worked before.

[Schizoide]

I tried it a bunch of times over the past two years and nobody ever joined. I used that exact addon. Maybe I just got unlucky, but it's certainly not like back in legion.