#0 - Feb. 1, 2008, 6:12 p.m.
Currently, diminishing returns are applied to all honorable kills. What diminishing returns mean for honor is that each subsequent kill of the same target will reward you with less and less honor; 10% less per kill to be exact. One of the major downsides to diminishing returns is that the calculations, for potentially hundreds of thousands of players, is too intense to do real time, so they are calculated during off-peak hours. This in turn requires that the honor you gain be temporarily displayed as "estimated" until the calculations are run. It's a system that we've certainly improved (moving the calculation from weekly to daily) but we've still always disliked. It creates a very uninteresting and sometimes aggravating or confusing detachment from your achievements and the actual reward.
The reason for diminishing returns has always been to avoid the potential exploitation of the honor system. As the game has evolved, especially the honor and battleground systems, exploitation of an honor system without diminishing returns would no longer be considered a lucrative alternative to simply participating in a battleground normally. We've also greatly improved our ability to monitor and track exploitation of this nature.
We've reached a point where we're now confident that applying diminishing returns to honor is no longer necessary, and we're currently planning to remove it with the 2.4 patch.
With this change we’re including a few restrictions as well though: Players that have the resurrection sickness debuff will not be worth any honor, and if a player dies 50 times or more during a battleground they won’t be worth any honor for the remainder of that battle.
What the removal of diminishing returns means for you is that as soon as you defeat an opponent that rewards you honor, you will receive that honor, and you will be able to spend it right then. There will no longer be an estimate, and you will no longer need to wait until the next day until you can actually spend it. Your achievements through honor-based PvP will be instantaneous.