World of Warcraft just announced Alliance and Horde players will be able to share mob tags in Dragonflight. This is yet another way World of Warcraft is breaking down the walls between the factions.
In World of Warcraft, mob tagging is the process of engaging an enemy, which flags a character for experience, loot, and quest credit when the creature dies. Though Classic WoW only allows a single character and their party to tag a mob with damage, Retail World of Warcraft allows up to five non-grouped individuals of the same faction to share credit with any hostile action. Players beyond those five still get quest credit for named mobs. World bosses and instances are usually exempt from these rules.
However, starting in the Dragonflight Pre-Patch, the same faction requirement is being removed. This means the first five players, regardless of faction, can get full credit for regular mobs, even if some are Alliance and some are Horde. Players in excess of those five will use the same rules as usual. It is important to note this change will not apply to War Mode–those in the active PvP mode will not be able to share mobs with other War Mode players.
In Patch 9.2.5, World of Warcraft took the first major steps of ending the faction war by allowing Alliance and Horde players to group up for dungeons, raids, and PvP. Doing so allows players to communicate and play with their friends regardless of allegiance. The new tagging rules build upon cross-faction play by allowing strangers on the opposite faction to aid each other in battle against various creatures and still get full credit, even in the open world.
Players are elated to see this change coming in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight. While the faction war served its purpose in the past, the long-running MMO has moved into an era of peace–the narrative of Dragonflight even has the Alliance and Horde working together. From a gameplay perspective, it also means players won’t have to compete over monster spawns, especially because Alliance and Horde players share the same quests on the Dragon Isles,
Unfortunately, this new change isn’t without flaw. Some World of Warcraft players are worried the five-character tagging restriction–now with double the players to tag them–will cause mobs in high-traffic areas to be even harder to tag. The five-character limit is to discourage bot farming, so it is imperative to keep, and the process of tagging mobs is still going to be more lenient than it was before. Though the system may not be perfect, it is certainly a step towards making World of Warcraft a better game for everyone.
World of Warcraft is available on PC. Dragonflight launches on November 28.