Doing the Math on the New Honor Kill Decay Rate
by Mike Schramm 
Aug 8th 2006 at 9:00PM
There's lots of questions going around on the changes in the Honor system coming up in patch 1.12, but not a lot of clear answers, so let's pull out the old nerdulator and crunch some numbers.First, if you're just wondering what the story is and don't care much about the numbers, the news is good for most of you. Basically, you'll be able to get more kills on the same person before they're worth no honor at all. Additionally, Blizz is changing the honor curve a bit-- even though there's no numbers on that yet, they say it's "to allow more people into the ranks." So we assume that's good news for most of us-- if you're one of those players who farms honor in the battleground for forty hours a week, you're probably not real happy about that, because there will be more higher ranks walking around. But then again, you were probably one of the kids who messed up the grading curve for the rest of us in math class.
But speaking of math class, let's see what they're actually doing with the "diminishing returns" on honor kills. Currently (before 1.12), there is a diminishing return of 25% every time a PVP player gets killed. That is, the first time they're killed, 100% honor is given (the actual number of honor is based on all kinds of other factors-- the ranks and levels of the players involved, whether you're in a group or raid, and a few other things). Then, the second time they're killed, 75% honor is given, then 50%, 25%, and on the fifth time they're killed, no honor is given. But in 1.12, we're told that the diminishing return will fall back to 10% per kill. The first kill, then, will grant 100%, but the second will grant 90%, then 80%, and so on and so forth. Which means you'll be able to kill the same player more times, while still gaining honor.
So the big question is, how much more honor will we get? (We told you we were pulling out the nerdulator for a reason.) Just for calculation, let's use an honor score of 100. Under the system before 1.12 (the formula is 2.5x, if you want to get really nerdy about it), you'll get 100 + 75 + 50 + 25 + 0 = 250 honor before your target is honorless. Under 1.12 (formula: 5.5x), you'll get 100 + 90 + 80 + 70 + 60 + 50 + 40 + 30 + 20 + 10 + 0 = 550. That's a whopping 220% more honor before every kill goes honorless. Sounds nice! Except that everybody else is getting honor at the same accelerated rate, too. So not so fast on shopping for that new High Warlord gear. Blizzard's updating of the ranks curve will help get you the rank you want, but the new honor kill decay rate just means there's lots more points for everybody to fight over.
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Economy, PvP
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Nathan Aug 9th 2006 2:23AM
Actually, "Blizzard's updating of the ranks curve will help get you the rank you want, but the new honor decay rate just means there's lots more points for everybody to fight over." is incorrect.
Currently every week, before your contribution points get added in, they subtract 20% of your total contributition points(what you have overall).
IE
rank 10 =40,000 contribution points
= 8,000 Contribution points that are subtracted from your 40000 to start with (only if you make that much, if not blizzard is nice enough to only let you lose 10% of your contribution points MAX a week).
OK, so now we have 32,000 contribution points.
Say you got 1st place for your server.
That is 14,000 contribution points(approx)
14,000-8,000=6,000
NEW contribution points
40,000 plus 6,000=46,000 TOTAL contribution points.
rank11=45,000, thus you gain a rank and have 10% of the next rank..
The equation works the same regardless of your rank.
NOW, the rumor I have heard is 15% decay of honor every week instead of the 20%. 5% may not seem like alot, but it is actually a massive amount.
Start out with 40,000 from last week.
40,000x.15=6,000 subtracted
40,000-6,000=34,000
Assumed rank 1 again=14,000
14,000+34,000=48,000 total
50=rank 12
Thus, you gained almost 2 complete ranks in 1 week.
Potentially you could go from rank 11-14 in 3 weeks.
Again the 5% decrease in decay is a rumor, but this is how the numbers work.
It doesn't mean more points to fight over, it means you lose less each week.
elizabeth Aug 9th 2006 3:32AM
A reduction in the amount of honor decaying each week, while it would be verrrry nice, is at this point still rumor, and unconfirmed by any Blizzard sources. The decay reduction that has been mentioned/confirmed by Blizzard is the HK decay - the number of times you can kill a player before you receive no honor from them. It was 25% (meaning 25% less honor per kill, until you got to zero honor), and in 1.12 it will be 10%.
mike Aug 9th 2006 8:59AM
Elizabeth is right, this is about the HK decay rate, not the honor decay rate. I updated that last sentence to clarify.
Lokim Aug 9th 2006 9:31AM
This implies that it will become acceptable to camp people longer outside of battlegrounds. It used to be after four kills you were only doing it to be mean. Now you've got 10 kills before you're only doing it to be mean.
jpc Aug 9th 2006 1:49PM
4 is right. It sucks mostly. In BG's there's no decay, so it doesn't affect that. This change really only helps corpse campers. GG Blizz.
Narjung Aug 27th 2006 1:26PM
5 is wrong, honor decay also occurs inside BG's, and having played on 3 pvp servers to level 60 I've never once been camped so someone could get thier 4 kill max on me and then let go. Pretty much you either get camped until you escape or you get killed once and its over. The one negative is that previously kills yielded little total honor so it was in everyones best interests to complete objective (i.e. guard the flag in AB), now you can get quite a bit of honor for killing people making it less likely morons will do anyting but HK farm.