It appears that Diablo Immortal PvP players who idle in the RPG game’s competitive modes instead of playing are now being punished by Blizzard. Recently, the developer put out a social media post asking Diablo Immortal players to be nice and not go AFK (away from keyboard, a popular term for being inactive), but now it appears to actually be taking action. Following the Diablo Immortal Halloween update, players began to notice that they are receiving warnings if they stand still for too long during Battlegrounds matches.
“You have been consistently idle and are at risk of receiving a penalty. Please consider helping your teammates.” Such are the words of a pop-up shown in a post on the Diablo Immortal Reddit, warning the player that a punishment might be implemented if they do not actively participate in the encounter.
Players report that this punishment manifests as a removal of rewards for that match, along with an enforced cooldown before they are able to join another match. Rather interestingly, one user points out that the specifics of this penalty are corroborated by the Chinese language patch notes for October 11, but at the time of writing the change is still not listed on the bug fixes and patch notes page on the English language Blizzard site.
Other players remark that Blizzard appears to be discouraging players from going AFK in other modes as well with changes made in its latest update. A tweak to the Shadows Assembly event sees Legendary items offered to members of the Diablo Immortal Shadows faction who bless another player during the event, with up to four rewards on offer per day.
It’s not all good news on the Diablo Immortal Battlgrounds front, however. Players report that invisible attacks and players are still prevalent in the competitive modes, and that a bug causing Frozen Heart to freeze its user’s teammates still appears to be present, although the team has acknowledged that it is looking into the issue. It seems like there’s still plenty of fixes to be made on that front, then, but hopefully this change signals a step in the right direction.
Our Diablo Immortal tier list and pick of the best Diablo Immortal builds should help you excel in the fantasy game. Meanwhile, the new Diablo Immortal Telluric Pearls have players worrying that they might be waiting nearly a year to get their hands on a free max rarity Diablo Immortal legendary gem. Blizzard may be tackling AFK players, but it also faces problems with inactive Diablo Immortal clans making it through weekly brackets.