No longer needing this post, found some more videos on where i was getting flagged, its clearly a bug as many have mentioned online. This area yeah its a free for all area, but its not made very clear or documented by blizzard , theres no map markers nothing.
Likely free for all area. Look for a buff.
I should add, there is at least 1 free for all area in each zone.
Hi, I apologize for the delay. But a free for all area on the road itself? I thought roads are supposed to be a safe area? Every time this has happened, I was on the road. I only take the roads as it was deemed safe. There was no buff, just suddenly i was flagged and on the road. No quest,no world quest either. I do not PVP anymore so I am very careful about avoiding it as much as possible now.
The only way you can auto flag PVP is in a PVP zone. That’s it. If you got flagged automatically, you were in a PVP zone.
They can’t attack you unless you are flagged.
Roads are not “safe” in a PVP zone. And yes, there are roads leading into and out of PVP zones. So you just ventured too close.
Roads are “safer” but not necessarily entirely safe.
I’ve seen mention of PvP flagging happening around or above Dreamsong Fenn, but I don’t know if that is attached to a World Quest or another event, or considered a bug. If you encounter it again it might help to have more specifics.
There’s roads in Nazjatar that challenge the notion of safe.
Ultimately there’s no real way to tell what happened, until you do it again
I recommend using a coordinates addon so you can report the exact location where this took place.
But I wasn’t in Nazjatar? I was in ardenwald.
It doesn’t matter where you roam, the road is not as safe as you pictured it. Tread carefully.
There are certain places in Shadowlands that are free-for-all PvP areas, and I think there’s one in each zone. Ardenweald’s is northwest-ish from what I recall. You’ll see a buff showing it when you’re in the zone that’s free-for-all.
I haven’t found one of these myself in SL, although I don’t really go looking for them either. But at least in the last couple of expansions, FFA PvP areas had a warning and a 10- or 15- second countdown to allow you to leave before being flagged. Is this not the case for SL?
Doesn’t seem to be the case for Shadowlands! At least, not that I’ve noticed. I’ve certainly been yeeted off the edge in Bastion’s center by rogues often enough. 
Nope, no warning at all. I’ve run into the FFA area in Ardenweald, and as I crossed a bridge in Revendreth (somewhere in the NW corner-ish.)
Same here. I only knew because some random pvp talent popped up in the middle of my screen.
The FFA PvP areas in SL zones are only supposed to be enforced in War Mode, for the WM exclusive quests.
What’s worse is that people not in War Mode get absolutely no warning of being abruptly FFA flagged, other than the easily missable and quiet fanfare, while players in war mode get someone screaming in their ear to do the relevant world quest.
Yeah, WOW has always had an issue with surprise flagging players for PVP when they never want that game type. Warmode was supposed to fix it but it is still too easy to get flagged without you actually choosing to be so
Warmode was meant to incentivize PVP play style by chosing to flag when PVP servers were retired. PVP flagging did not change in the base game, but it is harder now then in the old days to accidentally flag, but Warmode never was meant to never keep you from flagging if you were not paying attention.
You are mistaken. Warmode is a very different thing than PVP areas.
PVP areas auto flag anyone who enters the area… as intended. It’s not a surprise… a sound plays and your flagged visibly in the game interface.
Warmode places you in PVP status all the time until disabled (sans sanctuary zones).
Two entirely different things.
https://youtu.be/BvZNVqsGLR8
this video pretty much points out what my issue is. Except, i got no FFA buff, i was just suddenly flagged. I don’t like how people are pointing out i’m doing something wrong when i’m walking into a zone that is not clearly documented or marked as a FFA area or zone. I don’t do world pvp or play in warmode. So thats why i made this post to get help on the clear issue of this zone.
All you can really do is put in a Bug Report, if you believe it’s a bug.
I did, since that type of Free For All area is usually marked for a world quest of some kind, and there’s never any world quest that’s visible for it.
I almost always have it happen when I run through that area, but my server group is usually low population and was never heavy into PvP, so we all just seem to ignore it.