[Classic] PVP like retail (ie no follow?)

[Moorea]

Is it known if classic will have the same new, not like in vanilla, follow/pvp rule ?

I'd love to do BGs and WPVP again and that is a motivation for 5 boxing / keeping 5 subs but I'm worried that they will bend the experience and it won't be the same rules ? Is there an answer on that and will that influence your choices ?
(I guess if we can't pvp I may pick a pve server instead)

[MiRai]

There is no indication that /follow will return to PvP, and the API strings that prevent follow while in PvP combat, were in place in the Classic demo.

I'll continue by saying that, assuming those API strings stay in place, then world PvP is going to be exactly how it is now, with, perhaps, slightly less of a delay to drop combat and bring follow back, due to the lack of sharding.

Now, with that said, does anyone honestly believe that Blizzard will change their stance and allow /follow while in PvP combat, specifically in battlegrounds? If you believe that it's possible, I'd love to hear the reasoning behind it other than, "That's how it was back in Vanilla!" It's clear that there are several things that will be present, in the Classic re-release, that weren't "like Vanilla," so hanging onto that as a reason seems foolish.

Personally, I find that, a majority of multiboxers, just aren't very good at organized PvP (e.g. battlegrounds), outside of, perhaps, Alterac Valley, where they can better blend in with everyone else. So, they end up being more of a detriment to the objectives rather than a benefit, and this is a problem. Throughout the Wrath and Cata expansions, there was no shortage of bad-to-mediocre PvP videos that could be found on YouTube, and only a handful of multiboxers, with nicely geared characters, class comps, and experience, were capable of truly contributing to the objective(s) of any given battleground, while producing a flashy video at the same time.

You have to consider that, outside of those flashy montage videos, how many times does a multiboxer find themselves split up—where half of their team is at the graveyard doing nothing, while the other half is slowly being killed? Or where their entire team is completely CC'd by only one or two players from the opposing team, contributing nothing to the battleground and allowing one-half (WSG) or one-third (AB) of the entire team to be locked down.

I understand that people are passionate about their PvP multiboxing, and might be angry at my above statements. However, if you want to push back on this, then go for it, but you had better have an incredibly strong argument for why it should be allowed, other than, again, "That's how it was in Vanilla," or "Because it would be fun." Personally, I find it difficult to justify a small percentage of multiboxers "having fun," at the cost of the, much larger, solo playerbase that will be trying to, also, enjoy battlegrounds without one-half to one-third of their team being eaten up by an inexperienced 5-boxer, who is just looking to "pwn noobs."

[Tin]

I think there is no chance that follow is comming back in BG.

They are moving everything over to the API they use to day - so they only have to update one anti-cheat/database etc.

Follow was removed because of bots.

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/8087929775?page=6#post-104


We disabled /follow from use in battlegrounds to curb some of the most basic types of bots that use the command. We chose not to communicate it beforehand in attempts to catch as many bots unaware as possible. Removing /follow in battlegrounds is one small change we can make immediately to stop a number of bots, and those that choose to transition to more overt botting methods will have a much higher chance of being caught and banned.

We did consider those who use /follow for other reasons, including multiboxing, before making the change. Multiboxing in battlegrounds has been a long-fought battle within the community, as the effect of multiboxers in those situations is considered unfavorable by many. When we were looking to make a change to disable a command used by bots, which would benefit the game as a whole, we were ok with it also resulting in multiboxing in battlegrounds also going away due to the poor experience it can create for others.

Right now /follow is also disabled in Arenas, but we’re looking to revert that change as bots don’t typically exist in Arenas, and multiboxing in that kind of pre-determined group environment doesn’t tend to be as disruptive.

[Apatheist]

I don't actually care about BG's. BG's and arena ruined WoW PvP IMO. Not to mention dungeon queues and flying mounts.

World PvP in classic was amazing. I'm still hoping PvP follow work in the open world but it seems unlikely.

[Kruschpakx4]

...

In general the problem we always have is, no matter how good or bad the multiboxer is, the amount of people complaining doesnt really change because if you win your opponents complain, if you lose your own team complains. So the boxer can do whatever he wants in battlegrounds there is no way to lessen the overall complains except you play with a full premade.

I'd tend to say that in competitive battlegrounds (premade vs premade) multiboxers are less of a disadvantage since in random battlegrounds the reason you lose arathi is 90% no one bothering to defend flags while the enemy team dodges you and some stealth recaps after you're gone. There was a short time where 15 man RBG was a thing and we managed to get to something around 1800 with 20 games played and we had a 5 dk boxer ,me with 4 ele and a few friends filling the rest. Apart from winning every eots we had like 60% win in arathi in a time where ele shamans were utter garbage so I'd say if you have an entire premade that plays with the boxer and sticks to 3 base in arathi you dont have a disadvantage regardless of the expansion you're playing.

Personally I don't mind what they're doing with follow in classic since grinding r14 with 4 or 5 toons is some next level bullshit that I dont have time for, but considering that serious classic pvpers will always form premades, I think ppl will be less upset when facing multiboxers that have their own premade with them. Mostly because the boxer can't roll over a good premade in the first place and because your own premade will hardly go on the forums to complain about you when losing. Ofc if you go random bgs without premade in classic its your own fault :)

[Apatheist]

In my experience it's the opposite. Can't count the amount of BG's I've lost because a bunch of quest geared bums follow me around gawking instead of defending or doing something useful. I'll run around and wipe all the enemy off a point, capture it, then 30 seconds after I leave it gets recaptured.

As a boxer all you need is 2-3 rogues that know how to defend a point without dying and you can do pretty well.

[ebony]

as well blizzard already said that most the current "bot" tools will be in classic..

saying that as hp/mana pvp tanets are not in use in classic then what triggers "pvp" combat is not needed so maybe we could have follow wpvp



Its very hard to tell and on the demo there was noway to get ally and horde chars to graver to test and dualing was unable to test follow.

we know if they have a beta and i will be testing it as soon as i can....

[Kruschpakx4]

In my experience it's the opposite. Can't count the amount of BG's I've lost because a bunch of quest geared bums follow me around gawking instead of defending or doing something useful. I'll run around and wipe all the enemy off a point, capture it, then 30 seconds after I leave it gets recaptured.


the sad part is those ppl have an equal voice on the forums and make it seem like they lost because of you

however back in late wrath when I had all the gear i started splitting toons worked out well in arathi like having 1 shaman defending flag while 3 others push bases ...its chaotic in the beginning but when you're used to it it's really strong because shaman in ghostwolf can't be sapped and back then we were quite tanky so it bought valueable time until others or myself came for help... and in the usual bg scenario where not everyone is full geared 3 ele shamans could easily oneshot ppl with lava burst

although nowadays you probably get banned for that since they would argue you can't be at 2 places at the same time

[sethlan]

We wait and see... The only bg that i would Q for it be AV with 5 chars max. Grinding that honor....

[stubbadub3000]

I agree with MiRai, the more I think about it the more I come to the conclusion that /follow in pvp will function exactly the way it does in retail. This not only reduces botting efficiency, but will also reduce the number of tickets submitted by people killed by multi-boxers.

Imagine trying to level during Phase 2 in STV when Prepared is on the other faction :/

[Moorea]

I wish a compromise would be to limit follow to party (and not raid, ie 5 max)

[Kruschpakx4]

I wish a compromise would be to limit follow to party (and not raid, ie 5 max)

not to bash large scale multiboxers here but i think the most negativity was drawn to us when ppl like swifty brought attention to 40 boxers, prepared defending alterac boss for hours and that whole ashran debacle when devs were confronted with boxers was the beginning of the end, so I would agree that limiting multiboxing to 5 characters in some way would've been a good solution to keep pvp complains about boxing under the radar

if the point didn't come across, pls everyone dont go for multibox ganking on the classic beta if follow works...again remember ashran.

[ebony]

to be fair i take IWT over follow at least we can play melee teams easyer and i can still do wpvp like live or though its just raid teams ganking the other side... the same thing boxers did......

[Kruschpakx4]

it's beyond me either but we have to live with the fact that low level ganking and corpse camping by regular groups of people is allowed but doing the same with multiboxing isn't...so better not draw attention to it in the beta in case they overlook that or simply don't see it as a problem

and IWT is nice and all but i really dont want to be in blackrock mountain pvping without follow on the chains with enough lava beneath it that you will most likely have to resurrect twice to get out

[Gramzngunz]

I've been out of the boxing game since Cata launched, but I knew they killed /follow in BGs and Arena.

I've been dabbling w/ the idea of getting back in for world pvp in Classic.

Are you guys saying they killed /follow in open world as well when you enter combat as well? So it's dead in BGs, arena, and wpvp?!?!

[nodoze]

I've been out of the boxing game since Cata launched, but I knew they killed /follow in BGs and Arena.

I've been dabbling w/ the idea of getting back in for world pvp in Classic.

Are you guys saying they killed /follow in open world as well when you enter combat as well? So it's dead in BGs, arena, and wpvp?!?!My understanding is that follow:

-IS working for WPVP;
-is NOT working for BGs;

There are no Arenas currently announced...

[Tsazao]

/follow not working in BG is going to impact my team choosing. I was hoping to get to do 5x r13 as priest+mages. Currently just waiting out if it changes between the betas to choose.

[Mercbeast]

My understanding is that follow:

-IS working for WPVP;
-is NOT working for BGs;

There are no Arenas currently announced...

Can someone confirm this?

This is pretty big, won't really impact me overall, but QOL it will be annoying if follow breaks in wpvp. I don't intend to do any wpvp with a 5man unless I absolutely have to, since I'm just going to be instancing.

[Moorea]

Can someone confirm this?

not sure how many threads and how many times in each of those threads this needs to be repeated but YES as of today (and it can change tomorrow)

in classic stress test and beta:

follow works everywhere, all the time, except in BG

(ie including in out of bg pvp like gurubashi etc)


ps: technically it may have changed today and I don't know about it as I don't have beta, which ends in a week anyway, so the next stress test will be a chance to see the final setup, but again I suppose they can change it anytime (and we should lobby for BG to be added too #nochanges)