First of all I think boosting as a service for gold is fine. I also think that the advertisement around it ruins the tranquil feeling of wow as an rpg. I would argue for new players its confusing and entirely unnecesary.
Its just hardcore spam, there is a big botting problem which got exasturbated through lvl boosts too.
Now how to solve it?
Simple,
for classic: make a seperate standart Chat-Channel called boosting. Hide the channel and put in an interface option to unhide it. Hide it by default when parental restriction (idk how thats called) are activated.
Any other boosting spam blizzard can ban without having to look into it. This way its easy to round up boosters and their associated accounts (like you get them all in one place).
In retail all they have to do is created a seperate section for the premade group finder and hide it in the same way they do with classic.
Everyone is wins. People who want boosts can get boosts and people who dont want to see the spam dont have to.
A player (new or old) who gets boosted will list a higher key (after the boost) without having the Ilvl for it.So there will need higher ilvl characters to time it or complete and it is a chain reaction.
Because of this i browse so many groups who are not even close ideal to join.
Boosting makes the pug experience even worse.A hunter with a tank looking for a priest to Power Infusion the hunter and boost two 230 ilvl in the group a recent example of mine.
If a player wants to boost a character and his guild helps him is fine.If he wants to pay all the way to boosting i don’t care either.
Boosting and pugging after to take advantage of other players is not.
I doubt a new player would have the gold to buy a boost. Other than the token. Which is a problem created by blizzard. Thats why I am saying keeping it out of sight would be a positiv change for new players without effecting the natural economy of the game. Because banning boosting outright would be trying to micromanage the wow ecosystem, which I dont agree with. Wether its selling BOEs or boosting, I think the biggest reason why boosting works is the weekly chest, not boosting itself. I think if the weekly chest goes away boosting becomes way less efficient.
Everyone is free to decide who they play with. I wouldnt join that group. Neither would you. So I think nobody gets abused there if its opt-in. And apart from a bit of wasted time if someone leaves after seeing the super low dmg no harm done right?
Could be.Whenever i level an alt i downgrade my keys.It takes one or two weeks to reach the 278 vault item.But i do not mind.At least i have my consicience clean.
Ye i also healed last night a 240 around( i don’t remember) deathknight in a 16 .
It was stressful and i had to babysit him spending cooldowns.We even timed it.
You do not mind healing lower ilvls ?Fine by me.
What eh? Learn to speak mate.
And what the hell are you trying to prove linking that?
To get tanks of 236 in 16’s to prove that the healer is able to do it?
Get 236 tanks in all your keys and leave others to to pick higher for theirs.
With a dedicated boosting channel it might be possible to automate this since you have the general wording and keyphrases layed out. All you need is an AI that learns what is and isn’t boosting. Or use the already existing report system. In any case cleaning up is much more black and white, which makes it easier to govern.
I dont have insight into how the implementation inside their system could work. I can only argue the basic premise.
No, that would be way too much support. People just need to report it, so they get banned, and end of story. Also: if you see them linking a website: send it to Blizzard’s anticheat e-mail, so they take the websites down…
You make absolutely no sense.
You talk about high ilvls who do not know their class and you try to make a point about ilvl and keys.
My point is completely different.
I have tested to group with low ilvls anyway and either we did it with extra effort or did not.In the cases where we made it one was the carry but the other players knew the game quite well.
My point is about low ilvls listing keys asking in pug to be carried.That 236 tank could just go to a 16 with 236 healer and 236 dps (only).
Well, if you follow the main char on the .rio link u can see the Dk has another with higher rating (3k1), meaning was not the heal doing all the work. Itlvl helps, ofc, does all the work? hell no.
In the flow with the main thema, im with the op, boost for gold was ingame since release and i think is also an incentive to players , the updates in the LFG tool and chat options are in my oppinion far behind in terms of format and filters. Blizz should keep an eye and renovate the panel with more options. Maybe with the 10.0 and the UI rewamp we get some love.
As a tank, the last xpansion i was boosting keys for gold with friend, and sadly there was no other option than “spam” in the chat and list in the LFG for advertise the carry. As said above, another extra page in the LFG could be a fair beginning.
Boosting is always bad. There is no positive side for the game or the player base in general.
You can easily see how it negatively affects raiding and pvp.
It has become almost impossible to find a raid group. The players you could recruit now just use their gold or money to buy into raids. The minority of them wants to search for a group, improve, and take the time to reach their goals.
In RBG (and Arena) it’s almost impossible to find a group and play successful, because of boosters.
On a regular evening you face one pick up group with people not on voice. And at least one or two groups with people who boost. You see 8 with high mmr and two that really don’t fit into that group and so you end up fighting a 2,3k group with your 1600 mmr.
This whole boosting thing has done massive harm to so many parts of the game.
Time to ban boosting. For gold, for token, for money.
Quick Update, Blizzard seems to be planning to do exactly that. An update to their rules and a dedicated services channel.
Now if they do the same thing for the premade groupfinder we are guchi.
Actually good Job from blizzard.