The state of AVA combat in Imperial City (and Cyrodiil to a lesser extent) is becoming an actual joke.

The number of times we see a group of .. "enemy" and "Friendly" players, just standing around shoulder to shoulder watching or preparing to "have a honorable duel" (as I was once whispered for daring to.... engage in AVA PVP combat), or hopping up and down on a capture flag "Fighting" only for the "Friendly" alliance player to then step back out of combat and watch as you get killed by the enemy if you decide to help your Alliance win the alliance war (Dueling again), or even "Friendly players" shooting at your stealthed location to give away your position to the enemies is now at a ridiculous level.

It has gone from a rare occurrence to many times a day and is a reason most players will shy away from AVA zones, especially IC where betrayal literally costs you Tel Var.

A solution is simple, Much like when the punishment for AFK players at Dolmens was introduced that spawned damage areas under them, You implement a similar thing to IC, "The Ire of Whitestrake" An Oblivion damage DoT that slowly stacks on any player foolish enough to anger Pelinal himself by turning against his brothers in arms.

The Debuff could be triggered by proximity and non combat status to enemy players, so if a player flees they get a debuff preventing them from combat for minutes (to inconvenience them from setting up the duel after they sell a friendly out) and another debuff that any group of opposing players standing observing combat, or out of combat together for a certain amount of time will get a increasing oblivion damage DoT, maybe even reduce their healing received too to prevent it becoming a mitigatable thing.

In short, You need to do something in the AVA zones, because AVA is barely happening there unless you just find a zerg that doesn't care about the duels.

Sincerely a 10 year player.