Why doesn't blizzard crack down on boosters abusing lfg?

[Lorgar Aurelian]

They could stop or slow boosting in PvP by simply disallowing characters who have earned a maximum CR of 1400/1600/1800/2100 from queueing with anyone below those cutoffs.

That’s an awful idea if you wanted to play with friends in Alts or who were just getting into a pvp season you’d need a whole new toon.

[Temp name]

They could stop or slow boosting in PvP by simply disallowing characters who have earned a maximum CR of 1400/1600/1800/2100 from queueing with anyone below those cutoffs.

And now boosting PvP just requires 2 characters, one above that CR, and one below

Also it's now significantly harder for people to play with friends

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I don't think it can be automated without innocent accounts falling under the ban wave, since there're a lot of streamers advertising their channel, legit gold boosting communities showing their discord info and etc.
Manual monitoring is resource consuming and can be prone to human error.

Even though I skip the WTS titles, when I mouseover, I see only boosting for gold.

Just skip them, there's plenty of groups actually doing the content. Also accept the fact that boosting existed and will continue to exist, look away and move on.

There are no innocents who do that, because it's all not allowed to advertise in the LFG window, that's what trade chat is for

[TheRevenantHero]

They don't. It is a player to player transaction that Blizzard facilitates for a $5 fee. The player that earned the gold trades it for the other players $15 gift card (game time or blizzard balance).

Except they absolutely are selling the gold to players. you can try and say "It's the players selling the tokens!" but that's utterly asinine. They are literally supplying it to the players, knowing they will sell them. It's purpose is either for players to have WoW time or sell it for in game gold. Saying Blizzard has no hand in gold selling is just ridiculous.

[Very Tired]

Literally wouldn't even take a single full intern to solve this problem. Just need to write a few lines of code that auto shadowban any posts using the same copy and pasted message all of those groups have in common. Take a few seconds to adjust the message criteria every so often when the spammer catch when and change it. Or maybe do something even more obvious and not allow non-max level characters to advertise groups for mythic+.

Paying for a single partial intern isn't in any a huge cost for a company as large as Blizzard, and it would sure as heck take less work then having existing GMs reviewing every player report. So no one should really be saying its because Blizz is to cheap to pay people.

[WinningOne]

Advertising for them on the group finder tool is against the rules.

https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/187406

Advertisements are not allowed in the Group Finder. The Group Finder is intended to help players find active groups that are being formed and advertisements make it difficult to find relevant groups.

On my server no one actually cares about the boosting spam. When this policy you cited was first changed I logged into classic and spent the evening trying to get players to report everyone who was still spamming LFG for boosts. I announced it in general chat and if someone challenged me on whether it was true I would send them the internet link so they could check it out themselves. I spent about 90 minutes doing it and no one cared. Eventually I was told to drop it. So, at least on my server, we had a chance to do something about it and everyone decided not to bother.

[rhorle]

Except they absolutely are selling the gold to players. you can try and say "It's the players selling the tokens!" but that's utterly asinine. They are literally supplying it to the players, knowing they will sell them. It's purpose is either for players to have WoW time or sell it for in game gold. Saying Blizzard has no hand in gold selling is just ridiculous.

Blizzard doesn't supply the gold though. Another player supplies the gold when they purchase it from the AH. If no one purchases the token then no gold is given to the player that posted the token on the AH. Blizzard has a hand in it but they do not supply the gold. Simple facts.

[schwarzkopf]

Pure greed.

Absolutely correct - some players put their own greedy ambitions ahead of the enjoyment of others.

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Why would they want to deter boosting in any way? Whales buying tokens to get gold for boosts are likely the driving force behind WoW's profits.

You do realise that you buy tokens off other players.

[Temp name]

You do realise that you buy tokens off other players.

Blizzard still makes money on tokens though
They cost 20 dollars to buy, but the person paying gold for them only get 15 dollars of value meaning it's 5 dollars of pure profit per token sold.

[sam86]

they NEVER will, this is why many whales buy tokens and give blizz insane profit even when wow has less subs than classic era
what ? u want them to actually make a good game to increase profit instead of abuse gambling and superiority complex emotions in humans? blasphemy
next u'll expect Bobby to not fire 10% of staff like his semi-annual hobby and increase his already highest CEO in usa gaming history bonus salary even more

[ohwell]

Because they don't want to pay GMs. Same reason they got rid of master loot. Same reason botting is out of fucking control. Pure greed.

I mean the whole layoff wave they talked about was mostly like PR type people from what I recall reading.

[schwarzkopf]

he is ignoring the first half of the transaction, where somebody buys the Token from Blizzard for $20.

No - they buy the token from another player, that's the way the system works. Blizzard is the FOREX trader.

[Lochton]

All it would take is one intern banning people spamming WTS groups and they could easily make the system far more useable without their games grouping tool resembling a gold selling site.

Why don't they do it?

They actually do crack down on them, just not hard enough. And there is not enough staff to monitor LFG all the time, so they expect us to report them, which is sad.

[Kumorii]

Because they probably are.

But it can only be done when they they put up the group in lfg breaking the rules. Which means someone has to see it before anything can be done. There isn't much preemptive measure that can be done. The "crime" has to be committed first.

[Lochton]

Because they don't want to pay GMs. Same reason they got rid of master loot. Same reason botting is out of fucking control. Pure greed.

Botting has been out of control since TBC.

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its not breaking the rules at all inless its money based that is why

Advertisement in the group finder tool is against the rules. Advertisement in trade chat from a secondary account is as well while you do whatever on your main, is against the rules as well.

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Don't they sell gold? Are 100% of the tokens sold by players? I find it hard to believe that every single token that has been sold was purchased by someone.

All the token trades are player-supplied. Else we wouldn't see times where there are no tokens at all, which has happened about 4-5 times since it was released.

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it's ok because it's for gold which blizzard now sells to players.

Blizzard doesn't sell gold, and no, it is against the rules Blizzard made to advertise in LFG. They have always been too low on handling with their support staff.

[froschhure]

Cause these people generate token. Which is a win for blizz and they don't want to get rid of their free "chinafarmers" . Booster believe they are superior, when in reality they are Trading their time for a currency worth less than 20 eur.
Why would they want to "crack them down".

[Lochton]

I don't think it can be automated without innocent accounts falling under the ban wave, since there're a lot of streamers advertising their channel, legit gold boosting communities showing their discord info and etc.
Manual monitoring is resource consuming and can be prone to human error.

Even though I skip the WTS titles, when I mouseover, I see only boosting for gold.

Just skip them, there's plenty of groups actually doing the content. Also accept the fact that boosting existed and will continue to exist, look away and move on.

In this topic, there are no innocents. It is against the rules to do any form of advertisement in the LFG system.

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Except they absolutely are selling the gold to players. you can try and say "It's the players selling the tokens!" but that's utterly asinine. They are literally supplying it to the players, knowing they will sell them. It's purpose is either for players to have WoW time or sell it for in game gold. Saying Blizzard has no hand in gold selling is just ridiculous.

Ugh. Let's just make it technical facts already.

Do Blizzard supply you with a function you select purchase of gold of a quantity or bulk, yes or no? No.
Does Blizzard generate gold from handing in a token to an NPC, yes or no? No.
Do you achieve methods of gaining gold from Blizzard by purchasing an item, yes or no? No.
Do you achieve the ability to trade real money for an in-game product made for trade, yes or no? Yes.
Does this product supply you with gold from Blizzard, or a Blizzard vendor, yes or no? No.
Do you achieve methods of gaining gold in trade from another player by selling the product that you originally purchased from Blizzard, yes or no? Yes.

Does this, and the comment the response was direct to go off subject from the actual topic with a chance of derailing, yes or no? Yes.

The end of this communication. Sticking to the topic from now on.

[TheRevenantHero]

Blizzard doesn't supply the gold though. Another player supplies the gold when they purchase it from the AH. If no one purchases the token then no gold is given to the player that posted the token on the AH. Blizzard has a hand in it but they do not supply the gold. Simple facts.

Except they do supply the gold because it's their coding that makes the gold. They create the sources for grinding the gold. Saying they have no hand on it is utterly asinine and is just you trying desperately to avoid saying anything negative about Blizzard.

[Lochton]

On my server no one actually cares about the boosting spam. When this policy you cited was first changed I logged into classic and spent the evening trying to get players to report everyone who was still spamming LFG for boosts. I announced it in general chat and if someone challenged me on whether it was true I would send them the internet link so they could check it out themselves. I spent about 90 minutes doing it and no one cared. Eventually I was told to drop it. So, at least on my server, we had a chance to do something about it and everyone decided not to bother.

I don't attempt to chant the rules to others, I just try to do my part. Many have given up on the spammers. Waiting for them to be handled by a GM coming through. Just like in the old days.

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Why would they want to deter boosting in any way? Whales buying tokens to get gold for boosts are likely the driving force behind WoW's profits.

They are not deterring it?

You may freely boost from your primary functioning account on the public channels. Just not in LFG for obvious reasons, or from secondary accounts while you as a player do something else on your primary.

[TheRevenantHero]

In this topic, there are no innocents. It is against the rules to do any form of advertisement in the LFG system.

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Ugh. Let's just make it technical facts already.

Do Blizzard supply you with a function you select purchase of gold of a quantity or bulk, yes or no? No.
Does Blizzard generate gold from handing in a token to an NPC, yes or no? No.
Do you achieve methods of gaining gold from Blizzard by purchasing an item, yes or no? No.
Do you achieve the ability to trade real money for an in-game product made for trade, yes or no? Yes.
Does this product supply you with gold from Blizzard, or a Blizzard vendor, yes or no? No.
Do you achieve methods of gaining gold in trade from another player by selling the product that you originally purchased from Blizzard, yes or no? Yes.

Does this, and the comment the response was direct to go off subject from the actual topic with a chance of derailing, yes or no? Yes.

The end of this communication. Sticking to the topic from now on.

Blizzard is creating inflation in the game by allowing players to sell tokens for gold. This has caused more people to buy tokens and then buy boosts from raiding guilds. And then because more people are buying those boosts, more people are spamming advertisements now than they ever have before.

So Blizzard literally created the problem.

[Lochton]

they NEVER will, this is why many whales buy tokens and give blizz insane profit even when wow has less subs than classic era
what ? u want them to actually make a good game to increase profit instead of abuse gambling and superiority complex emotions in humans? blasphemy
next u'll expect Bobby to not fire 10% of staff like his semi-annual hobby and increase his already highest CEO in usa gaming history bonus salary even more

Eh, we do not know the correct sub numbers, though?