Dungeon Deserter / XP Eliminator Debuffs Needs to Change!

Community General Discussion
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Edit:
I’ve since discovered the reason behind the random vote kicks…
Unbeknownst to me, grouping with others while having my XP locked inflicts a debuff on the rest of the group that severely reduces the XP they gain. So, mystery solved. Though it opens up other issues which i address and comment on further down in the discussion.

Original Post:
I’ve been working on my level 30 Warrior, completing all quests as I go, earning reputations, and collecting gear sets from Classic raids and dungeons. Soon, I’ll move on to The Burning Crusade content, followed by Wrath of the Lich King, and so on. (For those interested, I’ve shared more about my approach in a forum post:

While polishing off quests in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, I’ve been queueing for “Random Classic Dungeons” as both DPS and tank. But, quite literally, 100% of the time, I get in as a tank—after a very long wait, I might add! My average queue time is around 30-40 minutes as a tank :neutral_face:, and the longest I’ve waited so far was about two hours. I guess people only queue for Timewalking dungeons while leveling these days.

Anyway, my Warrior is well-geared from Classic raids, but nothing too extreme—certainly not comparable to level 11 twinking. Yet, for the third or fourth time in the past couple of weeks, I’ve been randomly kicked from a group halfway through an instance. The chat is completely silent; no discussion, no warnings, nothing. I maintain a good pace, no one is over-pulling, and I rarely drop below 50-60% health. Then, out of nowhere, I’m removed from the group without explanation and slapped with a 30-minute Dungeon Deserter debuff.

I’m left scratching my head every time this happens. Is it some kind of bug or glitch? Or is someone in the group initiating a vote kick and at least two other members blindly clicking “Accept”? The only plausible reason I can think of is that someone might be annoyed that I’m a semi-twink tank and potentially out-damaging them. :thinking:

While I understand the intent behind the Dungeon Deserter debuff—to discourage players from leaving groups willy-nilly—it’s incredibly frustrating when it’s applied unfairly. I always check the chat logs afterward, thinking I might have missed some criticism, but there’s nothing… not even a “Hi guys” at the start of the run.

Proposed Changes to the Dungeon Deserter Debuff

To address this issue, I suggest the following changes:

  1. No Dungeon Deserter for Vote Kicks: Players should not receive the Dungeon Deserter debuff if they are removed via a vote kick. Being kicked from the instance is punishment enough, especially if the vote kick is unfounded or unfair.
  2. Retain the Debuff for Voluntary Leaves: The Dungeon Deserter debuff should still apply to players who choose to leave the group on their own.
  3. Reduce the Duration: I’ve mentioned this before in response to other posts—consider reducing the duration of the Dungeon Deserter debuff from 30 minutes to 15 minutes, which is still more than the average time to complete a random dungeon.

Given that dungeon queues are already long enough whilst leveling, and given that there is usually a demand for more tanks… it doesn’t help matters when a capable and willing tank is locked out of dungeons due to the deserter debuff—especially when receiving the debuff out of jealousy or spite, rather than any wrong doing. :disappointed_relieved:

2 Likes
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Clicking no is faster as yes has a CD. Generally this means there should be enough time to contemplate the reason field. Whatever is in it anyway.

There’s more to it.

If there’s no penalty for VTK, hostage takers will just sit there until you kick them. They can requeue free and your group get stalled for eternity. Or as you said it, there’s more then enough demand for tanks. Tanks will just say “oh I don’t need this dungeon, kick me pls so I can requeue fast”.

15 minutes is more then the average time to complete a random dungeon? Are you sure? Would you rather take a 15 minute penalty over doing a dungeon? If the answer is yes, then the penalty is not strong enough.

Proposals so far include but not limited to:

  • “Just remove it” The darkest times will come back again
  • “Reduced cooldowns stacking upwards” so that if you aren’t kicked often, it starts with a minor debuff.
  • “Reduced cooldowns, stacking downwards” so if you’re in a “good” party, then when they surprisepikachu kick you at the end the cooldown is lower.
  • “Warning before Debuff” - When you get removed from dungeon you get a Warning but allows you to requeue, if you get kicked again you get debuffed on subsequent leaves.
  • “Add reporting for kicking” - This is akin FF where they investigate if someone is really, really using votekick so often and gets reported for it that often as well. WoW used to do this.

If you have a proper suggestion, you may submit it through the ingame feedback box. I also would like to know to see if the suggestion can be improved making it into a better experience for everyone involved.

6 Likes
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My comments are all from the perspective of leveling rather than endgame dungeons or Mythic+.

If there were multiple wipes, over-pulling that stressed out the healer, a painfully slow pace (though I personally prefer slower runs but will pick up the pace when pugging), aggro being all over the place, or even some drama in chat, I could understand why a vote kick might be issued.

However, in the situations I’ve experienced, the vote kicks seem to come out of nowhere. The dungeon is going smoothly, I’m setting a good pace, there’s no drama or visible discontent—nothing that would suggest someone in the group is about to be kicked. Then poof—suddenly, I’m back in Felwood, and to add insult to injury, here’s a 30-minute debuff. Enjoy.

This is why even thought it might be a random bug, because the removal just seem so unprompted and unwarranted.

  • How about implementing a system where the first one or two vote kicks don’t apply the Dungeon Deserter debuff? Then, starting from the third vote kick, the debuff would take effect.
    The logic here is that if an individual is consistently getting vote kicked, there’s a higher likelihood that they’re causing an issue. This would also provide some leeway for those who are unfairly or randomly removed from groups, while still maintaining a penalty for repeat offenders.
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My perspective was also from levelling dungeons, back then it wasn’t all roses. We only had Heroics at max level when we got there.

Your suggestion matches the “warning before debuff” suggestion that I picked up from earlier threads, so I suppose you could add that through the ingame suggestion panel too with your own version if you’d like.

Though sometimes, when I get kicked I don’t get debuffed. It’s not very consistent so I’m not sure what happens but I’m happy if I can requeue again :smiley:

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Nice, how lucky are you!:upside_down_face:

It’s odd, really. I practically lived in dungeons during WotLK, Cata, and MoP, and I never once received a vote kick. But in recent years, I seem to get randomly kicked every now and then. It’s such a shame because these experiences have started to deter me from doing content I genuinely enjoy. :disappointed:

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The team may simply remove you because they expect to get more loot or experience.

If this happens often, you should definitely file a report:

  • Every dungeon, create a screenshot with the party.
  • Rename each screenshot according to kick or finish.
  • File a CS complaint about the experience.

You could also create a massive YouTube video about it but I doubt it’s worth the effort. If anything, showing off a couple runs, you can get some feedback maybe.

Over at the Classic forums some people are whining about tanks using sword and board. I didn’t have a single comment in-game, but of course having a 12 levels old weapon makes things difficult.

You are also level locked and that might put you in groups with other level locked people, and-or normal ones who suddenly get no proper loot or xp. If you form your party, it definitely hands out warning. Ultimately, that is a design issue.

In the end, if your compilation is large enough you could file a complaint about losing game time and asking for reimbursement. With a cool head that sounds silly but it’s certainly paperweight and with a hot head right after being removed, unable to play the game, it is a thing. Especially if you have limited time, each Dungeon Deserter is 1 day game time.

Abusing the reporting system is a violation in itself so with a compilation you can easily get all of them suspended.

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You should definitely not file a report as using vote to kick for any or no reason is not against the rules as of this moment. As is evident from many replies and recurring threads about this topic:

The VTK players did not use the report system to VTK you, so they did not abuse the reporting tool.

As for “losing” gametime, I see the angle of that and you could argue it but ultimately I’ve yet to see someone receive “compensation” for being votekicked too often.

Something I may have overlooked is this, if you’re experience locked it may penalise your fellow dungeoneers by design (if they have normal levelling enabled).

Edit: If they did abuse you in another way like chat you can report them seperately for that but as you said:

So it is hard to say besides the potential reduced XP problem what likely the issue is.

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Oh, really? I thought the reduced XP only affected players who manually group with someone who has their XP locked. I didn’t realize that players you encounter randomly through the dungeon tool are also subject to the XP penalty.
Is that really how it works?!

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Ye that is also when you’re auto grouped then you get the 95% penalty. That must be the reason why you’re getting kicked.

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Mystery solved. Though I still don’t understand why Blizzard takes issue with locking XP in this way. At least now I know why the vote kicks are probably happening.

So, essentially, if you enjoy a particular part of the game and want to experience the content a bit longer at the intended level by locking your XP, you’re essentially forced into solo play. Anyone grouping with you—whether intentionally or not—ends up being punished for it.

… Blizzard and their fun police. :roll_eyes:

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I think it was primarily an issue in the lower Classics by higher level toons boosting them relatively “safely” through the dungeon granting insane amounts of XP which was not the intended feature. It was first reported in Hardcore I think and they then decided to roll this out to all versions.

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The original idea was anti-twink. Not sure it matters now, maybe.

Your queue times may be due to two things:

  • Level lock (the game tries to find level lock people first)
  • Double role. When I did the same in WLK, I got a quick tank, a slower tank, a really slow tank, and eventually a long dps queue. Same with dungeons, it weighs dungeons based on recent ones, so you can totally end up in SFK at 28, which resulted in getting kicked as a tank. That was a fun morning of not playing. (Looks like it’s improved in Classic, though, since people don’t seem to mind having someone higher level.)

The optimum way to do dungeons is to flip-flop Chromie time, doing everything at a high level or lock at an appropriate level and get boosted.

I think Chromie time is intentionally left in a semi-useful state, to be frank. They can say it is there, but they still want you to play the newest content, because.

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you do not get them in that mode.

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To be constantly kicked suggests there is something bigger going on with how you play. If you are sitting in a timewalking phase, then unless that expansion is on the timewalking dungeon event, the queues will be lengthy.

My advice is to get to max level and then go back to the dungeons/raids and farm them on your own as you’ll 1-shot everything.

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Last time Berny logged in cata, Berny joined a heroic dungeon as a heal and deserted just when the first boss fight began.

Please remove deserter debuff, so Berny can return and continue doing that.

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Why not put in a ticket to find out why you were kicked. They might not tell you why but they’ll be able to tell you if you were kicked.

If this happens regularly then you must be doing something to annoy people; generally people dont care as long as it is getting done.

You might not see what you are doing as wrong but others might. My experience people generally ignore feedback, particularly tanks. It’s just as easy to kick someone than to call them out on something.

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I got an issue with this though lol they allow paid boosts… but no noes trying to boost your alt… you need to jump through hoops to do it.

  • “Warning before Debuff” - When you get removed from dungeon you get a Warning but allows you to requeue, if you get kicked again you get debuffed on subsequent leaves.

I would expand on that and have the reason shown to the player. More you get kicked the more timer you got.

But on the flip side more you vote kick the less you can call a vote.

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Tanked on an alt on random hc, and a dps kicked me because i didnt pull 600 mob like he did.

Also he had a choice to que up as a tank, but whatever.

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^^ That approach sounds pretty dull, to be honest. Plus, I already have plenty of high-level characters. I enjoy playing the content at the intended level bracket, using actual gear drops obtained through the experience.

^^ Well, I discovered the reason behind the random vote kicks. And no, I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Unbeknownst to me, grouping with others while having my XP locked inflicts a debuff on the rest of the group that severely reduces the XP they gain.

Since most players use the random dungeon queue for fast and easy XP, having their XP nerfed is a massive turn-off, hence the vote kicks.

It’s a dumb and lazy system, to say the least. This is Blizzard’s way of trying to deter or break boosting. Essentially, in some level brackets—like level 10/11—the scaling is so broken that players create twinks on trial accounts to boost their own characters, friends, or randoms through dungeons for rapid alt leveling.

Instead of addressing the broken scaling, Blizzard simply applies the “XP Eliminator” debuff to characters with XP lock. This debuff spreads to any player grouped with them, whether intentional or not.

Players using the LFD system have no control over who they get grouped with. Additionally, characters with an XP lock at levels 30 or 40 are nowhere near as busted as level 10/11 twinks.

So yeah, it’s a very lazy and far-from-ideal fix in my opinion.

P.S — Also, I don’t get what all the fuss is about when it comes to boosting or speed leveling anyway. It’s not like leveling is particularly slow these days; in fact, it’s pretty easy to level a character from 1 to 60/70 in 10-15 hours without really trying to speed run. So, reducing that to, say, 6 or 8 hours through boosting isn’t really an issue. I could potentially understand if boosting gave this massive significant edge, but it’s just a few hours you’re trimming. But apparently, that warrants the fun police and the nerf hammer. :confused:

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That is not the reason.

The reason is that the “we should hang leavers by their thumbs” crybaby croud makes way too much noise. They cant simply shrug these things off and they always claim its some sort of plague that happens all the time (when it dosent)…

So yeah… that is the reason. And any changes other than deleting your account permanently for leaving 1 dungeon for any reason (justified or not) will not be accepted by that croud. And they will continue to cry and whine about it.