Dishonorable Kills and World PvP
by Elizabeth Harper 
Mar 15th 2006 at 8:00AM
Do you
remember the last time you raided the city of your opposing faction? Me neither. It's those dishonorable
kills - you can't help but pick them up in enemy territory. When Blizzard implemented the honor system several
patches ago, they added the concept of "dishonorable" kills that would lower your honor ranking, mainly for
killing "civilian" NPCs. The problem is that civilian NPCs will assist other NPCs, which leads, nearly
inevitably, to them attacking you when you're fighting in enemy territory. It's so problematic, that various
members of the community have called for the removal of dishonorable kills entirely, but Blizzard seems to have faith
in the system - in fact, they're tweaking it in
1.10 with hopes of reducing the number of DKs received in "friendly" PvP raids.[Fan art by Lan Jun Kang]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
RighteousDork Mar 15th 2006 11:18AM
I've never raided another faction's city so I wouldn't know...Ok that's not entirely true. I did manage to solo my way through Thunder Bluff long enough to get a coin of ancestry. I only had to die like 7 times too.
Anyway, I didn't realize that civilians would start fighting. I assumed they were passive and wouldn't attack unless provoked. That's the way it should be. So even if you're fighting guards, they should just cower and whimper for mercy. They're civilians...that's what civilians do. The baker shouldn't pick up a loaf of bread and go after you.
Leshrac Mar 15th 2006 12:58PM
I haven't personally been involved in too much PvP outside of the random encounters you get in the world, but to me the whole honor/PvP system seems backwards. To me, DKs should come from killing other players that are substantially lower level than you, unless they're attacking you. I think this level difference should be somewhere in the 5-10 lvl range, because that seems to be about where it gets extremely difficult to kill someone if you're by yourself. I'd settle for a 10 lvl difference just to make it so it hurts lvl ?? enemy characters from just going around ganking people of much lower levels.
Civilians should be honorless kills, or at the very least should not attack you (I didn't realize they did). There's nothing dynamic in the game in terms of the war, so wouldn't it be nice to at least create a problem for the enemy faction for a few minutes by taking out their Wind Rider/Gryphon Master? I mean, as long as their is no dynamic changing of territories/bases, something like this would seem to make at least a little sense to me.
But, I think I'm in the minority here... I've never even seen this suggested anywhere.
M0le Mar 15th 2006 8:27PM
I agree with Leshrac if you kill a gray player of the opposing faction unprovoked you should get a DK and nothing else should give you one, killing civilian NPCs doesn't hurt anyone the worst thig that can happen is lowbiew not being able to fly out of the danger zone which happens anyways if an attack on a city is taking place. I was in tarren mill and like 10 60 alliance players were killing any player most ranging from 34-40 and all of whom were complaining that they couldn't fly out due to lag.
Grendalsh Mar 16th 2006 12:09AM
Bring back, o bring back, bring back raiding to me, to me!
Got stuck into a couple XRoads raids before BG opened up. Have 5 PERMANENT DK's from defending myself against whatever was attacking me at the moment. Since then, haven't heard a single cry of RAID ON XX! "World" of Warcraft? Apparently it's more like "Three Valleys of Warcraft" - SWG, AB, and AV.
Until DK's make sense, Warcraft's global combat is a pathetic exercise in Capture the Flag.
Mike Mar 16th 2006 7:52AM
Here's my problem with the DKs on lower lvl characters, and believe me I find it just as annoying as you: if you're a lvl 45 and you see a lvl 32 of the opposing faction wandering around Hillsbrad/Ashenvale/1K Needles you know, just KNOW, that in about 5 minutes somebody in your faction around lvl 28 or so is going to get ALL ganked up. Handing out DKs for higher lvls killing lower lvls just punishes the higher lvl character for helping out the lowbies in his faction by either coming to their aid during a PvP fight or eliminating the threat altogether. In order for it to work effectively, it can't just be an if you kill a lvl X you get a DK.
They should simply make the Civilians non-combatants as suggested above and hand out DKs for killing non-combatants. Maybe, MAYBE, they should give out DKs for killing players that don't fight back, but that would make PvP servers too much like PvE servers.
Leshrac Mar 16th 2006 12:45PM
Well, I suppose I didn't elaborate enough on my view to allow this, as it's actually something I've thought about.
I think "escorts" are just fine. If you want to escort a low level char so that you can kill chars that try to kill him/her, that's fine. Even if you're just walking around and see one of your guys get attacked, that should be fine. I know that this bit of programming could get confusing somewhat quickly, but essentially it should be that if you or someone in your faction near you is being attacked, the attacker is fair game.
Otherwise, it's just being a prick and ruining someone else's day/night. =)
I disagree with Blizzard's view that being "ganked" is just a way of life on a PvP. It's their job to make the game fun, and I don't think most people pick a PvP server just so they can be ganked or start ganking some day. People end up becoming gankers because they were ganked, in some sort of payback.
Random world encounters are actually pretty exciting. I know that I've spent a lot of time in Stranglethorn where I'm just attempting to do my quests and end up getting sidetracked for hours just killing and getting killed by Alliance... THAT'S a lot of fun... What's not fun is just doing your own thing and having some level ?? jackass come by and kill you in 1-2 hits/shots, and then sitting there and camping your corpse. I'm sorry, but Blizzard should discourage, not encourage, that behavior... that really shouldn't be fun for people to even do, but I guess it is for some sociopaths. Is this the market Blizzard is trying to appeal to here?
Over the last few days I have made a conscious decision not to attack anyone 10 levels or more below me. I won't continue the cycle. I hope others will join me. =)
jpc Mar 16th 2006 6:16PM
It's just as much ...un-fun to be ganked by lowere lvl people. 2-3 toons 4-5 lvls lower can take out my cloth wearing butt. And I don't mind that. The bad thing is when you get camped. Getting camped by *any* level is not fun. I think that blizz should make you res with full health/mana and give DK's for campers.
It should be easy enough to make an area indicator that can tell whether a player was killed by the same person in the same place over and over again.
If you lose a fight, and the enemy is of comperable level, they can just camp you to get another HK and to stay safe - think about it, if they camp you, there's less chance that you will heal/rebuff/retank mana and get revenge on them.
~jpc
Mike Mar 16th 2006 6:57PM
Yes, but after you rez there's a period of time during which you are an honorless target, correct? Much like when you land in a Contested Territory via wind rider/bat/griffon. But maybe instead of being honorless, it should be dishonorable. Maybe you should get a DK for killing someone within X seconds of them rezzing.