Blizzard don't ban boosting because THEY are the boosters...crazy

[OrangeJuice]

I don't need to know any of the issues you have with removing boosting because removing boosting isn't a valid stance to have.

But you don't even know the reasons I have, so you're uneducated on the topic. The way I see it, you're this dead set in your belief for 1 of 2 reasons. You're either a buyer or seller. I think we can rule out you being a seller, considering how frequently you post on the forums theres absolutely no chance you have the skills or time to be selling anything. That only leaves you being a buyer of boosts.

So you don't care how much damage boosting does to the game because without buying boosts, you'll never see content or be geared. Which is understandable, some people just suck at the game and will always suck. But the negative is that because you're buying boosts to speedrun you through the content, you're spending less time in game; giving you more free time to be here posting on this site. I think this site would benefit greatly if boosting was banned, based on that fact alone.

[Cthulhu 2020]

And to add onto this: According to raider.io, the site that uses the Blizzard API, normal and heroic raiding saw by far the largest percentage drop in player engagement over any other segment of content in the game. All of these new FF players telling me that their raiders would buy mythic carries and then they'd have a hard time filling out a raid... hmm... wonder if there's a connection...

OH BUT WAIT, that data is fake because Bellular reported on it. So it's not real. Because Bellular. *Plugs fingers into ears* lalala can't hear you Blizzard API...

[T-34]

You're right, it's not equivalent. And I was not trying to equate boosting to theft.

It's a demonstration of how "We shouldn't make something against the rules because people will do it anyway" is a bad argument no matter what it applies to. Yes, people will do things if it's against the rules anyway. But it will still deter most people.

And nobody has really convinced me that boosting is GOOD for an MMO, especially when the main (and pretty much only) draw to WoW is its raid progression.

Boosting/helping is allowed in all MMO's. Boosting/carrying is not allowed for RL money in all MMOs. This is not a WoW exclusive issue at all.
At the end of the day the person getting boosted is being carried by people who did the content a long time before on their own.
At the end of the day a person who is getting a boost has gotten the help of other to be mediocre.

If advertising of boosts/carries would be banned in-game just like it has become in the totalitarian state-simulator that so many here love then much of all this whining will stop.
Being mad or jealous at bad players getting the help of others to be mediocre is pathetic beyond belief.

[OrangeJuice]

"Your feelings aren't valid" Man for someone who is incredibly sarcastic about others trying invalidating the feelings of others, you sure are a... what's what H word? Hypocrite?

Blizzard COULD police it.

Also one of the main issues I'm hearing from people coming over to FF, there's an extremely common theme among a lot of them. They'd raid in normal and heroic for a bit, then several of their members would buy mythic carries and not come to raid any more. Most raid groups already have a hard time fielding enough to fill out a raid. The people who boost get their mythic clear and mythic loot. The rest of the people try to recruit until they give up. Some dump back into the cycle of looking for raids. Some just get sick of this and leave. This is not THE reason they quit, but it's one of the things that added to their frustrations. Finding consistent raiding groups in WoW is nigh impossible for many these days.

But yes, please tell me more how their feelings aren't valid. SarcasticWillyWonka.jpg

Big oof on his part LOL.

[Relapses]

"Your feelings aren't valid" Man for someone who is incredibly sarcastic about others trying invalidating the feelings of others, you sure are a... what's what H word? Hypocrite?

Because boosting cannot be removed from the game, any position which supports removing it is flawed. This has nothing to do with feelings or opinions.

[OrangeJuice]

Boosting/helping is allowed in all MMO's. Boosting/carrying is not allowed for RL money in all MMOs. This is not a WoW exclusive issue at all.
At the end of the day the person getting boosted is being carried by people who did the content a long time before on their own.
At the end of the day a person who is getting a boost has gotten the help of other to be mediocre.

If advertising of boosts/carries would be banned in-game just like it has become in the totalitarian state-simulator that so many here love then much of all this whining will stop.
Being mad or jealous at bad players getting the help of others to be mediocre is pathetic beyond belief.

You're twisting it around. They aren't getting help, they're paying other people to do it for them. I sucked at PvP my first season but I played with good players who taught me, and I improved on my own by facing better players until I became the better one. Thats the difference between helping and boosting. Its not fun qing into boosters from 0-2400 that are so bad my team can literally 2v3 them, and then sit 15 min qs from 2400+ because everyone that should be at that level is busy selling boosts.

[chiddie]

That's basically the issue. I am against boosting because it simply promotes a way to play the game where you don't really have to play it, just pay someone to do it for you. Makes the average player worse and the actual interaction between player worse.

However it's just impossibile to remove it. Players are just hardwired to go the path of least resistance. What was cookie cutter builds became meta and now has become boosts.

EDIT: in an ideal world boosting won't exist, but reality is another thing.

EDIT2: the only real way to make boosting disappear is to make it just useless. Either content is so easy that you don't need people fight for you, or not give any power related reward etc. Basically, drastic changes in the endgame reward loop that we're never going to see.

Your edit 2 nailed the point: the only way to remove boosts is make them useless. That would mean a proper solo path. That will never happen.

So we’ll have to cope with boosting forever.

[Relapses]

Your edit 2 nailed the point: the only way to remove boosts is make them useless. That would mean a proper solo path. That will never happen.

So we’ll have to cope with boosting forever.

"proper solo path"

You do realize what the two Ms in MMO stand for, right?

[Cthulhu 2020]

Because boosting cannot be removed from the game, any position which supports removing it is flawed. This has nothing to do with feelings or opinions.

Boosting can be reduced. Even though it happened back in vanilla, it was policed by Blizzard still, so it had to be VERY under the table and subtle. And most people didn't do it because it wasn't a visible part of the game.

Again, we circle back to "May as well not make something against the rules because people will do it anyway" is a bad argument in its entirety. No matter how you phrase it, it's a terrible argument.

"May as well not make theft illegal, people still gonna steal"
"May as well not make murder illegal, people still gonna kill others"
"May as well not make money laundering illegal, just allow that illegal money to flow cause people gonna do it anyway!"

It's a terrible terrible argument. Making it against the rules and policing it makes it go underground. It reduces the visibility. It removes the validity. It removes Blizzard's tacit acceptance of it. It would reduce it. Nobody is claiming any solution would get rid of it in its entirety, but to deny that making it against the ToS would reduce it is just 1000% wrong, and you know it's wrong.

[chiddie]

"proper solo path"

You do realize what the two Ms in MMO stand for, right?

Yes. That’s why I said it will never happen. But indeed the only way to get rid of boosts is render them useless. And you can turn them useless only if (great) gear comes from other sources also.

[Relapses]

Yes. That’s why I said it will never happen. But indeed the only way to get rid of boosts is render them useless. And you can turn them useless only if (great) gear comes from other sources also.

If you meant to say that the only way to solve boosting is for WoW to be a different game, yeah. I guess. That much is obvious, I don't know why you'd make such an observation.

[DechCJC]

Where's the gold coming from then?

Player A buys token for a boost.

Player B takes the gold and boosts player A.

Player B uses that gold to buy game time, giving the gold back to player A.

Blizzard gets a cut every time this happens. Another factor is the sheer exclusion of gold mounts this expansion, nearly everything costs anima, Stygia or some sort of currency (and they removed the previous ‘gold sink’ mount). Very little gold actually leaves the game, most of it just goes in circles. I suppose the BMAH is the main outlet for gold these days?

[Relapses]

Boosting can be reduced. Even though it happened back in vanilla, it was policed by Blizzard still, so it had to be VERY under the table and subtle. And most people didn't do it because it wasn't a visible part of the game.

Again, we circle back to "May as well not make something against the rules because people will do it anyway" is a bad argument in its entirety. No matter how you phrase it, it's a terrible argument.

"May as well not make theft illegal, people still gonna steal"
"May as well not make murder illegal, people still gonna kill others"
"May as well not make money laundering illegal, just allow that illegal money to flow cause people gonna do it anyway!"

It's a terrible terrible argument. Making it against the rules and policing it makes it go underground. It reduces the visibility. It removes the validity. It removes Blizzard's tacit acceptance of it. It would reduce it. Nobody is claiming any solution would get rid of it in its entirety, but to deny that making it against the ToS would reduce it is just 1000% wrong, and you know it's wrong.

Boosting has never been policed by Blizzard so no fucking idea what you're saying there. Did you mean that they policed gold selling? Because if that's the argument you're going to go with then you will eventually figure why the token got introduced in the first place. (Hint: It was to reduce the gold selling spam.)

- - - Updated - - -

I suppose the BMAH is the main outlet for gold these days?

If you're talking gold sinks, yes. Repair bills are another gold sink but that's hardly relevant. The problem is that two expansions of unchecked gold inflation (WoD/Legion) from mission tables has kind of irreversibly made the token (and everything else) more expensive. The solution to this would be for Blizzard to just do away with gold altogether and introduce a new currency to replace it... but I strongly doubt Blizzard has the balls to do something like this.

[Tyris Flare]

It's a terrible terrible argument. Making it against the rules and policing it makes it go underground. It reduces the visibility. It removes the validity. It removes Blizzard's tacit acceptance of it. It would reduce it. Nobody is claiming any solution would get rid of it in its entirety, but to deny that making it against the ToS would reduce it is just 1000% wrong, and you know it's wrong.

I described this before, but I actually think it is a reasonable ethical position to say you'd rather pay some poor 20 year old under the table in real money to get gladiator (or whatever) than let the mafia/Activision take a cut. Probably not a popular position though.

In any event, I do think the visibility is a major issue; again, it's like decriminalizing drugs but not selling them at CVS. People don't get punished for having them, but it is still annoying to get them. A good middle ground solution.

All that being said though, I don't think you can make any direct correlations with raid clears dropping and boosting. Boosting has been professionalized for a while now. I think it's just as plausible that the tier kind of sucks, especially the gem system - it's basically impossible to start late and be competitive. Pretty sure this is the motivation for them saying they want people to get Tier sets quickly in 9.2. It's terrible if it is difficult to actually participate in the seasonal reward

[Cthulhu 2020]

I described this before, but I actually think it is a reasonable ethical position to say you'd rather pay some poor 20 year old under the table in real money to get gladiator (or whatever) than let the mafia/Activision take a cut. Probably not a popular position though.

I agree, more or less. As much as I dislike boosting, I'd much rather the kids with too much time and too little money get that boosting cash. Someone might try to misconstrue this as an endorsement of boosting, but as a person I'm able to see the "Well if we can't get rid of the evil, may as well look for the silver lining."

In any event, I do think the visibility is a major issue; again, it's like decriminalizing drugs but not selling them at CVS. People don't get punished for having them, but it is still annoying to get them. A good middle ground solution.

Visibility is one of the biggest issues yeah.

All that being said though, I don't think you can make any direct correlations with raid clears dropping and boosting. Boosting has been professionalized for a while now. I think it's just as plausible that the tier kind of sucks, especially the gem system - it's basically impossible to start late and be competitive. Pretty sure this is the motivation for them saying they want people to get Tier sets quickly in 9.2. It's terrible if it is difficult to actually participate in the seasonal reward

There's no way a link between boosting and a drop in normal/heroic raiding can be absolutely proven. All I've heard are anecdotal stories from new FF players telling me that they were tired of jumping from raid group to raid group, where 2-3 weeks in the raid would lose some of its better players to being boosted. Said players effectively being "done" with the tier don't raid any more, and the raid disbands. Players jump back into looking for a new raid, and keep doing this until they quit.

Though certainly, the latest tier looks like absolute garbage, so I do not deny that that's a big factor.

Mythic raiding saw the smallest drop, but still saw a drop. Meaning that mythic raiders don't really seem deterred by bad raids, and also I think it does somewhat hint that boosting is affecting normal and heroic at least to some degree.


Honestly, I'm interested to see what's coming in 10.0. Does Blizzard have big enough balls to roll out more monetization, such as season passes? Or are they going to go into damage control mode and try to actually improve the game? Or are they simply going to begin phasing in managed decline?

[Tyris Flare]

I think it's because (guess) people who raid mythic in general are more likely to keep up on the gem upgrading train, but heroic raiders especially are just inherently going to be less consistent/interested/whatever. And it is a massive time-gated problem that frankly doesn't get enough attention for how stupid it is. I mean not only do you need the gear to socket, you need the 9 gems from the raid AND you need to upgrade all of them.

And it's not a minor bonus, either. The set bonuses add an absolutely stupid amount of output.

I think that is far more demoralizing of a setup to casual raiders, basically. You can't even just grab a friend with decent m+ gear to fill in now - they won't have the gems and they'll be a carry even if they are a good player. Just absolutely awful for so many reasons.

And worst of all, they are just flat damage and not even interesting.

[chiddie]

If you meant to say that the only way to solve boosting is for WoW to be a different game, yeah. I guess. That much is obvious, I don't know why you'd make such an observation.

It would be different only if your fun comes from seeing the majority go around naked while you’re dressed like a Gold Saint.

[Coldkil]

If you go back a few pages, this was already discussed. Apparently the valid cure for boosting is to give everybody full Mythic BiS as a reward for typing in your username and password. And Mythic raiders will apparently be perfectly okay if the only thing they get for completing the hardest difficulty content in the game is a cool transmog. As somebody who remembers CModes and how completely ineffective they were as a motivating factor for people who play this game I guess I'm in the minority for calling this a very, very bad idea.

Yeah it wasn't a proposal, it was just a statement. If there's a valuable reward, there will be people willing to pay for a boost. If there's no valuable reward, there's no boost but also no partecipation. It simply won't work.

I can be against boosts, but i know facts talk by themselves. In the end, WoW becomes exactly the game people play due to how they play it.

EDIT: and as you said later (and i agree with) changes required to nullify boosting would be so heavy and impactful that it would be a completely different game. GW2 comes to mind with its fully horizontal progression

EDIT2: if we take cmodes in mop, despite them being just a cosmetic reward, boosting was rampant there aswell. Just much less people cared about it.

[Raelbo]

Boosting has grown recently, and most people are just sick with the game.

Correlation vs causation fallacy.

The integrity of raiding and raid gear going down the shitter has certainly been one factor for many people I've known. It's not been the cornerstone, nor has it been the straw that broke the camel, but it's a weight against WoW for them all the same

Even then, I suspect this is more an issue of false perceptions than reality. When people are sick of the game they tend to imagine all kinds of shit to back their narrative, just as you're doing here.

"The credit card didn't kill the boss, the player did!"

I...

Just wow.

I don't really know how to respond to this other than I can't believe you ACTUALLY said something like this.

Well yeah, that's not surprising. You've not really shown much ability to put together arguments here, only to make assertions that you think are self evident, when really, they're not.

Yes, of course, the credit card doesn't do the carrying. But the player's corpse gets dragged across the finish line by everyone else in the raid.

Dude, this in an MMO. Players' corpses are dragged across the finish line by other players ALL THE TIME. It's part an parcel of the MMO experience. And players will carry/be carried by other players under all sorts of arrangements, of which paying by gold (of which some small fraction is funded by tokens) is just one such arrangement. And while I totally agree that ideally people should be doing content on the basis of such things as friendship and loyalty and team spirit, you have given absolutely no reason why anyone should be concerned about any other type of arrangement that was agreed to, without duress, by two consenting parties.

And while you're perfectly entitled to not like such an arrangement, the solution couldn't be simpler: Don't partake in it, either as a booster or boostee. Stop trying to force your own petty views on how things should be on everyone else.

You also underestimate how many under table deals happen in the boosting community. Plenty of guilds just straight up accept paypal, and when a carry happens the player hands over a token amount of gold which is later traded back just so they can hide among all the other gold buyers.

1) I've made no comment regarding my estimates on how many under-the-table deals happen
2) I have zero reason to believe your estimates given your tendency to make unsubstantiated claims combined with your very clear anti-Blizzard bias and frequent use of exaggeration.

Furthermore, credit card -> WoW token -> gold still ultimately counts as credit card.

My comment was never arguing against the fact that a credit card is used. It was about what it buys (either directly or indirectly). And that is the help of other players. And the distinction between buying the help of other players and buying a literal bypass of content is important. For a start it places some pretty major constraints on what can and cannot be bypassed...

Sure, the few remaining players in the game I imagine have no issue with boosting, WoW token, bad design, sexual harassment, or anything else.

Oh, so now I am in favour of sexual harassment because I don't take issue with boosting or the WoW token? And you have the gall to try and tell me that my arguments are flabbergasting?

The poster I was responding to was trying to find some weird ass hypocrisy or maybe lack of consistent logic between the two statements that the WoW token is both simultaneously driving people away but was also super popular and bought a ton so that must mean that there are tons of people subbing through WoW token! Except for the fact that, ya know, a lot of that WoW token business goes into the store.

I am fully aware of what you responded to. I am not that lazy that I don't bother to check what I am responding to. I stand by my response to you.

Yep, and we should make theft legal too, because making it illegal won't stop people from doing it.

Disingenuous analogy. Theft would be analogous to 3rd party goldseller activity (botting, account hacking etc). Boosting is literally people helping other people for money. It's like hiring a maid to clean your home, or a gardener to cut your lawn. Why you see fit to compare it to a criminal activity when you've done zero to substantiate that viewpoint boggles the mind.

- - - Updated - - -

Why do people think that this "point" means anything?

Because it has huge implications for effect the token has on the game.

It doesn't matter where it came from, if I am able to buy gold with irl money than the games economy is fkd up. Full stop.

Well you're wrong. Where it came from directly affects whether or not it fucks up the game economy. My argument would be that, if anything, tokens actually help to stimulate the economy - which is a good thing.

[Relapses]

EDIT2: if we take cmodes in mop, despite them being just a cosmetic reward, boosting was rampant there aswell. Just much less people cared about it.

Right -- it's a solution that not only fundamentally changes how the game plays...but also doesn't really fix the issue with boosting. In other words -- not a solution.