Breakfast Topic: What are your rules of engagement for world PVP?
by Mike W. McVey 
Sep 11th 2011 at 8:00AM
I have found that everyone likes to PVP in different ways. Some like to play in the Arena, some in Rated Battlegrounds, some in regular PVP, and some like to do my favorite -- world PVP! I personally have rules for world PVP:
- I only attack when I am within one level of my prey.
- If they are fighting a mob, I wait until they kill the mob.
- I will not attack if they are less than 90% health/mana.
- I refuse to camp someone.
I realize I am not a typical world PVPer. I know I am not unique in the hundreds of thousands of times that I have been ganked. But even in a game, I have a problem taking out my anger on another human being, even if it just their avatar. Do not get me wrong -- I still get angry. But I take it out in dungeons or battlegrounds.
Do you have any rules of engagement when you PVP?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
John M. Sep 11th 2011 8:07AM
Personaly it all depends on how I'm feeling that day :P
If I'm a bit cranky or in a bad mood, red means dead. But if I'm in a good mood I'll wait for the player to kill the mob.
I do gank players when I see them, but I have one rule and I will always stick to it in world pvp. I never gank in a daily questing area.
It just slows everyone down =)
Pyromelter Sep 11th 2011 9:16AM
I kind of follow this, although with a few addenda:
-If there is more than one of the opposite faction around, and I've got some objective to take care of there, and I feel like I can win, I'll use whatever advantage I have. I want to get my quests done and get out of there. If that means rocking out some poor lowbie green-clad mage, I'm going to do it. (That said, you're generally right about questing areas - live and let live. It's more like we're all doing our grinding, and can't be bothered to pvp).
-The other thing is that if I see someone and I think I can take them, I want them to make the first move. I want that rogue to open me. I want that warrior to charge. I want them to get the first shot, so that when I pound them into dust, they'll know it wasn't just from me getting the first shot in.
Den Sep 11th 2011 11:29AM
I also play it by ear, but my rules are much more lax and more like suggestions:
1. No killing during an escort quest.
2. No camping unless I've been camped (and even then it's short term at best).
3. If it's with someone in "my area" but I don't want to really start a fight, give them a "warning shot" (something that'll scare them, show them I mean business, but by infrequently attacking in an obvious manner, lets them know that they need to move on).
However, this is also based on server health. The alliance on my server were dying at Cata's launch, so my guild discouraged world pvp just to give the chance for the alliance to thrive a bit. If they started a fight, we'd bring enough to fight back, not massacre them (most of the time). However, when they started to pick up but, overall, not pvp, we came down on them hard, including lowbies so they would bring their main/friends/guildies. The overall goal is to keep world pvp alive on the server, rather than get my jollies (unless it's chain deathgrips across zones- that's just fun ^_^ )
Frank-potato Sep 11th 2011 2:54PM
These are my rules:
1. Rules depend strictly on the class im playing @ the moment.
ex. Paladin, Warrior, Death Knight (With these classes im very "honorable", i never attack anyone unless im attacked first, mainly because they are all tanks and basically attacking me is like attacking a concrete wall...i'll crush you no matter how hard you come at me)
ex. Rogue, Mage, ShadowPriest (These classes were bred for only one purpose....assasination) Policy: Stab/Freeze/Blast first, ask questions later (usually the question being : U MAD BRO? LOLZ?)
Masarah Sep 11th 2011 5:51PM
Because I play on a PvE realm my rules are simple:
If you flagged yourself for PvP then you get exactly what you asked for at any time. I dont care if your half dead already from fighting the mob, you asked to be attacked by flagging PvP so I'm going to oblige you.
Sinthar Sep 12th 2011 8:58AM
My rules - simple - I hate PVP. Unless forced into it - i wouldnt initiate it, even if there was an easy kill. That said, if I am protecting a guildie or friend from a larger pack of people, I will do it, and surprisingly effectively. Lastly when I was doing my For the XXX - I would pvp then - as people defending certain bosses would come in, to find I was waiting for them. I one shotted 12 people in a row that way.
So my rules are in defence (of others who are out numbered, or guildies, or friends) or
During achievements
I dont gank, camp or ambush in any circumstances EVER.
Imnick Sep 11th 2011 8:08AM
Anyone who's turned red and I know I can kill
I am really a PvE player so pretty much the only time I will bother attacking someone is when it violates your first and third rules :U
I never camp anyone though, I like to think it just teaches them not to run around PvP marked on a PvE server but probably it's just me being mean to people
Felix_rew Sep 11th 2011 8:10AM
I don't attack them if they're in combat, or lower than 80%. jp, I always let them know I'm there and that they'43 going to die, with /wave and /doom, I don't gang.
But I'll break all these if I think they deserve it, or are attacking a settlement.
Puzzles Sep 11th 2011 9:16AM
Personally, I don't really World PvP at all. Sometimes it's a necessity, for example doing daily quests in the Molten Front or doing World Events. Mostly I try to avoid it, because if someone decided to come and kill me while I'm grinding, it's a quick "some ally is stopping me from getting my title, wanna kill him?" in guild chat, Have Group Will Travel, and 10 Hordes are killing his ass non-stop. Don't want that happening to me.
(On a completely unrelated note, we managed to keep a hunter dead for 15minutes until he was forced to relog, because he was keeping one of our guildies from turning in the quests that would ding him 85. Poor guy.)
Pyromelter Sep 11th 2011 9:18AM
You got revenge on someone camping your friend and/or a questgiver. Nothing to feel sorry for.
All is fair in love and war(craft).
Lsprof4 Sep 11th 2011 11:12AM
Why in the world... of Warcraft... would you have to apologize for that?
wow Sep 12th 2011 10:56AM
Puzzles:
You have nothing to apologize for. I remember back in the BC/Wrath days when the Horde on my server would relentlessly attack the Westfall settlement. THere were many times I couldn't hand in quests, coz they were just standing there waiting for the respawns.
I say nuke'em until they glow and shoot them in the dark. ;)
I also can't tolerate ganking, just pisses me off to no end.
Shinanji
Knob Sep 11th 2011 8:13AM
I don't try and kill anyone when I'm questing. If someone tries to kill me and I end up killing that person instead, I then proceed to camp him till either he or I gets bored. He wanted to start it himself so he better be prepared to corpse run a lot.
Fletcher Sep 11th 2011 8:15AM
I don't do world PVP, with the following caveats:
- If you are roflstomping lowbies like an honorless cur
- If you are killing NPCs like an honorless cur
- If you are standing between me and 1/4th of a Black War Bear
Tfish92 Sep 11th 2011 8:17AM
Back in wrath I was really into world pvp. On my server the horde outnumbers the alliance greatly, and I see alliance getting ganked left and right whenever they are leveling or out trying to do dailies. So I leveled up an alliance priest, and arena geared up. As soon as I was pvp geared out I just road around horde areas ganking and camping as much as I possibly could. The goal was to take the fight back to the horde, since it seemed as if no alliance knew how to fight back. My priest became fairly infamous amongst the horde, and I would get hunting parties chasing after me soon after ganking 2 or 3 people.
The best part was getting on my horde and feeding the people chasing after my priest misinformation and continuing my ganking. For several months during wrath Gadgetzan was my Gothem City, and the alliance were it's people.
Once Cata came along and world flight was introduced it made it pretty hard to run, hide, or pick off hunting parties, and took most of the fun out of it.
I was the hero that faction deserved, but I was no longer the hero that faction needed right now.
Jex Sep 11th 2011 8:21AM
See all the comments on the Encrypted Text column this post is referencing?
I was one of the people who thought griefing players trying to get their dailies done was fairly naff.
World PVP in general is fine by me - that's the point of a pvp server, after all. Players need to make their own decisions re. what is and isn't reasonable behaviour and if you close read Blizzard's description of PVP server that's pretty much their stance too. Blizzard can't intervene constantly to stop players ganking someone fifty levels below them: that would wreck the emergent gameplay that's at the heart of world pvp. But that doesn't mean the players suddenly lose all responsibility for their own behaviour. Imo, if you're willfully turning some lowby's playtime into a repeated corpse-run, you're a bit of a douche whether Blizzard can stop you or not.
Pyromelter Sep 11th 2011 9:21AM
"Imo, if you're willfully turning some lowby's playtime into a repeated corpse-run, you're a bit of a douche whether Blizzard can stop you or not."
Yeah, this is something I never understood - what's the point of doing that? You might as well be killing level 5 boars. I guess people like that just like trolling or something, I dunno, always seemed really strange why people would even consider doing that.
raposo02790 Sep 11th 2011 8:21AM
Survive
Arrohon Sep 11th 2011 8:28AM
Considering I play on an RP server I don't really do any world pvp. If I do it's with the rule that if you're flagged you're fair game. If a level 78 is questing around Icecrown and is flagged, I have no qualms about killing him. The only way he could've gotten flagged without manually turning it on is action on a flagged player or a BG. Either way he knew that he would walk away flagged and vulnerable. I refuse to camp anyone though. One death is enough unless they come after me.
Konataismine Sep 11th 2011 8:30AM
Red=Dead. Though, as I'm an RP-PvPer, there a a few guilds I announce myself to, and give them the chance to face me honorably, and some guilds I go out of my way to kill, but other than that, red=dead. My only rule is, I don't corpse camp for longer than 5 minutes. Unless he's been ganking a guilde or something. And no /spit. We're the Horde, we're better than that. :P