Setting specific objects to follow along a path

user,

You can obtain the desired (undistorted) appearance with a customized use of blending, the required effort depending on whether the circles are to remain close together as in your screenshot.

Are you talking just about circles? Or do you have many kind of different objects?

You can try with blends, but the problem is to sort out the distance between them. There really is no solution. The Astute Graphics plugins. I seem to remember that I suaed a script from this way back then, but it's not available anymore and might have only worked for certain objects anyway.