You flagging yourself is only to allow you to attack. That is all it does. You are not protected in any way in a PVP zone.
The more you know…
Even a Game Dev said “It’s no place for honor, it’s a place for slaughter!” So yeah, if you don’t wanna die, don’t go there. 
" During today’s developer livestream, associate game director Joseph Piepiroa confirmed that Diablo 4’s PvP areas won’t protect solo players from being ganked by bigger squads, although there will be “bucketing” in place to prevent super high-level players from killing low-level players.
“The fields of hatred that we have in D4 are not a place for honor, they are a place for slaughter, so if you go into those places you need to be mindful that you are entering a chaotic realm of danger and threat. That’s the fantasy. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
“There are things in place in terms of how we bucket players by level to ensure that you’re not always going up against really really high level players at a very very low level. But in terms of like, ‘I’m walking into this space, is there any guarantee that there aren’t three people roaming around this area looking to gank lonely people like me?’ The answer is, there is no mechanic in place to prevent that from occurring, so you need to be mindful of that when you’re walking around here.”"
Nice thanks for the supporting info.
Not only can you be attacked anytime but when you ‘extract’ your shards it alerts others on the map that you’re extracting painting you as a bounty target essentially as if you’re killed they get your shards.
I don’t PVP at all for the record. However, I completely understand what the zones are, what they’re for, and leave people to do PVP there.
Why dont we have a dedicated PVP forum section yet?
They shouldn’t have added PvE content in the zone then it would be a non-issue.
I have like 53K shards saved after last night. Super fun and scary farming in the PvP zones. Reminds me of being on a PvP server in WoW like 16 years ago never knowing if someone is going to roll through and wreck you.
Only complaint is the MTX vendors just show the symbol of the stuff you can buy and not how it actually looks in game.
The PvP armor gear is just recolored gear you can get from drops supposedly so not interested in that. But I was trying to see what the mount bardings look like and so far the only ones that have been posted are the 85K ones. From the images the 40K ones actually look like they might be nice but I guess no one has bought them yet because they wanted the top end ones.
Should be like the regular stable vendor where you can actually see what the mounts, barding, and trophies look like before you buy them.
It’s not an issue if you don’t go into the zone.
There are just a few Lilith altars in each zone. Two at most I think. Easy to run in and get them if you aren’t on a HC server. Everything else you can skip.
3 in one zone 1 in the other, that’s it.
I’m fine with PvP zones existing. Remove all Renown objectives, dungeons, or anything else that’s not entirely PvP specific from those zones. If you want to PvP, that’s cool. PvE players shouldn’t be required to subject themselves to the most toxic members of the gaming community for any reason.
No, if you want those things you have to go into the zone for them.
It’s not going to destroy your entire life to die 1 or 2 times to get them.
pvp zones are fine and all but they shouldn’t put lilith statues in there if they don’t want people upset about being targeted for pvp.
I don’t think they care if you are upset. It’s 2 tiny zones.
If you really want them you will go get them.
A bit of a selfish attitude though ain’t it? Why force people into gameplay they don’t care about just so someone can get their rocks off. It’s kind of silly.
I despise open-world PVP in any RPG, including ARPGs. It turns into a “crapshow” no matter what you do; someone is going to have a bigger group than you, or a better PVP-Focused build, or more CC, or some “crappier” tactic like stunning you, DPSing and then mounting away until their CC is back up.
If you want PVP in an RPG game, add an arena. Fair fights, entirely voluntary, with no mass ganks and minimal “bullcrappery”.
(Why the hell are we not allowed to curse in a freaking Diablo Forum…)
I encountered no one in my time in the zones to get the altars, get over it.
You don’t have to do PVP you can just skip those statues or go at a time you can easily get them.
Stop pretending riding on your horse to click a statue is hard.
No one believes you.
What is cute is that anyone thinks there are enough people who care about PvP in this type of game to form an actual “squad”.