Camping Lowbies on a PvP server

[Locruid]

this has been going on FAR Longer than WoW. EVERY SINGLE mmorpg or hell ANY multiplayer game for that matter ALWAYS has at least one person who camps low level people. Been going on for at least 20 yrs, I don't see it stopping anytime soon.

[OzoAndIndi]

Well, PvP is PvP after all. Yeah, some people are real jerks about it, who need a video game to make them feel strong, and I'm not going to say "oh yeah, that's all great, keep it up!," but people have to know what they're getting into when they join such servers.

If they wanted to add a penalty, I dunno...then after a certain amount of player-caused deaths from a person of a certain number of levels higher or more, make it trigger some kind of god mode on the lowbie for 5 or 10 min, only useable against the player that caused it to trigger. They want to enjoy PvP against lowbies, well what the heck, give the lowbie the chance to chase down and annihilate the ganker a time or two in return.

[Planetarism]

I love trolls, so I think it's ok if they try to.

Can't camp the savvy like me though, I just pop an Invis potion & poof you can't find my lowbie, awww ;p

[Teebu]

Normally I would take the side of the Camper on a PvP server (PvP on a PvP Server), but for this question I will stay neutral.

Do you think there should be penalties / mechanics in place to limit the amount of camping a player can do to another player on a PvP server?

Camping is defined as the act of killing a player, and then staying around to find the player when they res, and kill them again and again and again.

For example, if a level 90 is continuously killing a level 25 in a contested territory, what if after say 5 kills of the player, the 90 gets a debuff that downgrades their items / level to the same level as the 25, so at least the 25 has a chance to fight back?

You say you are staying neutral yet you want to punish the level 90? How mighty neutral of you. To be honest most world PvP has been unfair, from Rogues stunning you when farming mobs, to that mage polymorphing you, pyroing and then PoM-pyroing for a instant death. Or now, people flying down and destroying lower geared people.

It will never be 100% fair, even at the same level so I don't think trying to balance it out (even the most extreme situations) would be in order.

[Deleted]

While I have no tolerance for PVPers, lowbies on PVP servers deserve to suffer just as much as everyone else on those servers. We from the PVE servers are looking down on PVP server dwellers and all we have to say to them is: Suffer well, you had it coming.

[Deja Thoris]

Blizz's biggest problem at the moment is attracting fresh players. While I've got nothing against people that get their jollies camping newbies I hope Blizz realise it doesn't help bring people to the game. Leveling is shit anyway, even worse if you just have people sneezing on you and your lowbie head flies off.

It might be time for them to revisit this. Something like only allowing people to engage in level appropriate combat within brackets or scaling people down would be a decent start and the only people who would complain are the gankers. Not sure I give too much weight to their voice. Long term players would still have a skill and gear advantage but the field would be somewhat less uneven.

[Zantera]

Being ganked and corpsecamped is part of a PVP-server, just like being stabbed or gangraped is part of life.

[KungFuFanta]

No. The only thing it is likely to do is make the person being ganked think all players are assholes like the ganker and probably just stop playing. Whether they wanted PvP or not. Ganking is not true PvP, imo.

1. If you encounter people who are assholes in real life, you either get back at them or ignore them, you don't run away, if you do that you'll run away all your life.

2. If they stop playing that's not my problem, it means they're too weak to live on a PVP server anyway, and will probably level up to complain how high level zones are also gankable, instead of nurturing groups to quest together. I can see sometime in the future Blizzard will probably somehow limit PVP on PVP servers because of this constant whining from a minority.

3. Whether you want PVP or not is not an option on a PVP server. The only point of a PVP server is to live in constant fear for your life wherever you go, otherwise you roll PVE and do BGs/Arenas/voluntary world PVP.

4. When WoW came out there were no BGs, no arenas. There was only world PVP, and ganking is a part of that. If you gank a low level player it teaches them to be cautious, the only kind of pointless thing to do is to chase around a low level player for a period of time. You kill them once because you see them, you move on. It is however acceptable to chase a player around if you're the same level and gear, otherwise if you're full BOA and the other player is regular gear it's almost like doing high level ganking.

Welcome to the World of Warcraft, PVP server edition, this has been your friendly reality check.

[Madwolf]

The last time I played the game, I would camp new questers for hours on end. I even had one guy get on a same faction toon and yell at me and tell me im an ass for continuing to kill him and he was new to the server blah blah blah.

I think putting in a penalty would be the wrong choice, because it effectually changes the PvP server into a semi care bear PvE server.

I just don't see the fun in this at all. I mean a few times makes me giggle, but for hours? There was an entire guild that camped the Thrallmar on Korgath for about 6 months.

What fun is the game if there is no threat of getting beat? I mean I understand it being fun for a bit, but for hours? I feel like that's playing Hearthstone on Practice mode.

[KungFuFanta]

Being ganked and corpsecamped is part of a PVP-server, just like being stabbed or gangraped is part of life.

Except on a PVP server you don't even suffer emotional scars or really die, you just respawn, so it's even better than real life. You can actually get your revenge once you level up.

[Cheekun]

I don't even see how getting spawn camped is even an issue. It's actually surprisingly easy to get away from most players even without switching to a high level toon to fight them off. Generally i que and quest, just taking a que will often keep me away from the camper long enough for him to move on, on his own. Sometimes i can just sneak off by rezzing far enough from my body, other times i just switch toons for 10~ minutes.

Granted, i don't play on PvP servers to get ganked but its really not that bad. I play on a PvP server to occasionally fight random alliance i come across just for the thrill of it. Ganking is just a minimally small drawback to that end.

[Nights]

Well even on pvp serv u can still report player for corpse camping if he gank with much higher lv

[Iceman2500]

Blizz's biggest problem at the moment is attracting fresh players. While I've got nothing against people that get their jollies camping newbies I hope Blizz realise it doesn't help bring people to the game. Leveling is shit anyway, even worse if you just have people sneezing on you and your lowbie head flies off.

It might be time for them to revisit this. Something like only allowing people to engage in level appropriate combat within brackets or scaling people down would be a decent start and the only people who would complain are the gankers. Not sure I give too much weight to their voice. Long term players would still have a skill and gear advantage but the field would be somewhat less uneven.

When you start adding restrictions to the open world, it's no longer "open". New players should know what "PvP server" means and Blizzard even explains it for them.

[Deja Thoris]

When you start adding restrictions to the open world, it's no longer "open". New players should know what "PvP server" means and Blizzard even explains it for them.

Then it shouldn't be open. It's a shit system that serves what purpose exactly?

[KungFuFanta]

Then it shouldn't be open. It's a shit system that serves what purpose exactly?

Wait what?

World of Warcraft gives you freedom of choice of whether or not you want to participate in this system, whether you think it's shit or not.

You want to encroach upon other players' freedom in an ecosystem that doesn't even affect you?

The purpose is Warcraft. What is YOUR purpose exactly?

[melodramocracy]

Getting ganked at low levels nurtures inside you the hate necessary to stimulate a healthy Warcraft environment when you get to the max level.

Or it simply bores you to death, and makes you realize that this game is probably one of the poorest representations of PvP in the genre. Don't make the mistake that dying in PvP strikes 'fear' into anyone, or that folks who dislike ganking are carebears. This is risk-free gaming, every last player here is a carebear.

All getting ganked does is point out how utterly devoid of skill the higher level player is. Spare me the excuse book, as they're all theoretical scenarios at best that rarely occur. Here's what actually happens on PvP servers, and yes I spent quite a while on a high pop (and rather balanced) one.

Ally and horde low areas (10-20) get camped fairly regularly. Folks will ask for help, rarely getting help because.. well, because low areas aren't where level 90's hang out doing nothing. Boring. Get one shot, leave town, and simply move on with whatever you were doing. Whoo, you sure showed me.

"Ah, but higher zones must be more exciting, right?" You'd think, sure. But on a daily basis, you could sit back and watch at the horde pvp vendor on the wall, as 15 or so half afk players would get steamrolled by a pack of alliance players. Vendors would disappear, and horde players would simply res, mount up, and wait for the allies to get bored and leave (even if there were equal numbers of players), rather than engaging in world pvp. Bitching the whole time, of course, about not being able to turn in their honor points.

Well over 2/3rds of the time that you DO see another player = to your level out and about, neither will attack the other. Because really, folks just want to get on with what they're doing, rather than start some pointless exercise.

Riveting stuff, truly.

[Deja Thoris]

Wait what?

World of Warcraft gives you freedom of choice of whether or not you want to participate in this system, whether you think it's shit or not.

You want to encroach upon other players' freedom in an ecosystem that doesn't even affect you?

The purpose is Warcraft. What is YOUR purpose exactly?

So have war on a slightly more even footing or are you scared? I suspect that's the case since you seem to be vehemently opposed to anything approaching a fight that may just be fair. That's warcraft, not gankthenoobiecraft.

[mizeri]

you get that done to you, you grow to hate the other faction, even in real life, you get to higher level and you get to do it to the lowbies, the cycle continues.

[Grimbold21]

Is PvP defined as a fair confrontation between players of same level?

[Massanti]

what WoW needs is more "hillsbrad" moments. Getting ganked back in the day (yea sorry.. i started in vanilla) got ppl to report that kind of stuff to friends/guilds and those ppl would come and kick the gankers ass, which eventually leads to more ppl from both factions coming and fight a war that would last for hours. good times.. anyway yea as many ppl have said. PvP servers are PvP servers. we just need more friends and guildies to actually like us enough to come to the rescue.