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Honor & PvP

How honour, dishonour and PvP flags work in VMaNGOS (src/game/HonorMgr.cpp).

The Honour Day

Honour is calculated once per week per realm (on the configured maintenance day):

  1. The core stores accumulated honour contribution points (CP) per character in character_honor_cp during the day.
  2. At the weekly maintenance tick the standing calculation runs over all characters, awards ranks/titles and writes history.
  3. The tick date is persisted in saved_variables.

The whole pipeline can be emulated for a specific client timeline using the PvP.Accurate* config toggles (mangosd.conf).

Dishonour & Kills

  • Killing civilians and other dishonourable targets subtracts CP / gives dishonourable kills.
  • PvP.DishonorableKills configures the behaviour.
  • Honour gains scale with the victim's level/rank and group size; the gain formula itself is hardcoded in MaNGOS::Honor::GetHonorGain (Formulas.h), with no rate config options.

PvP Flags

Mechanic Where
Player vs. player flagging UnitDefines.h unit flags; set by attacking, zones, spells
Duel handling core, no DB data
Battlegrounds own flag rules inside instances

DB scripts can toggle PvP state on players with command 86 SET_PVP (DB Script Tables).

Rank System Internals

From HonorMgr.h/.cpp and MaNGOS::Honor::GetHonorGain (Formulas.h):

  • 19 ranks total: 4 negative (dishonour) + 15 positive; the client rank bar visualises -4 … +14.
  • Rank points thresholds: first positive rank at 2000 RP, then one rank per additional 5000 RP; dishonour ranks mirror this downward.
  • Minimum honour kills for ranking: 25 pre-1.10, 15 post-1.10 (MIN_HONOR_KILLS_PRE/POST_1_10).
  • HK diminishing returns: repeated kills of the same victim lose value: 25 % per repeat pre-1.12, 10 % post-1.12 (progression-aware via ACCURATE_PVP_REWARDS).
  • Honour per kill: 
    gain = levelCoeff(killerLevel) × sameVictimPenalty
       × expFactor × e^(0.05331 × victimVisualRank)
       × levelDiffPenalty / groupSize
    with expFactor = 157.4 pre-1.8 and 188.3 after.
  • Dishonourable kills vs civilians grant penalty CP by victim level (10 → capped 100).
  • Weekly tick redistributes standings (DistributeRankPoints), decays inactive players (InactiveDecayRankPoints) and persists rank/RP/standing into the characters columns.