Forced Layer swap broke completion of an escort quest

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Similar to the thread about tickets, I did submit a bug report right away, but when that didn’t generate any response had tried to make a ticket the other day and ran into a dead end because my issue apparently wasn’t an option the GM could resolve?

Anyway, long story short, I was literally several steps from the very very slow NPC completing the “Free From the Hold” escort from Northwatch to Ratchet on my SoD druid when suddenly I was layer shifted away from the NPC. 15 soul-sucking minutes of an already not great escort quest just wiped out.

There is zero chance I’m doing it again - once out of the Hold, most of the quest mobs are gray so it’s not like it’s hard getting through there, but aside from the walk being insanely long the NPC aggros to everything, even mobs that would not have attacked it.

The quest remains in my log, neither marked as ‘failed’ or ‘complete.’ Hoping to determine a path for it to be resolved.

I mean, I would also like to see the forced layer shifting resolved as it has killed or near-killed me a few times as well, but in particular I would like to see the quest satisfied.

thanks

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To be frank; you have to do the quest again. Assumingly, it’s still in your quest log, you just get the NPC once more. A GM won’t be able to help in this regard as you’re within your power to redo it.

Not wanting to do a quest isn’t a reason for a GM to help with. Even than, they have no power of sharding/layering program.

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Bug Reports are one-way reporting. Devs almost never respond to them. By posting there you’re just reporting the bug so that they can look into it and eventually work on a fix. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean a fix is imminent, as bugs are triaged.

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I’m afraid the only way you will receive credit for the quest is by completing the quest again successfully. A Game Master will not be able to provide quest completion credit to you.

This post may interest you then.

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Well, I appreciate that you responded but if that is ultimately the response then perhaps SOD just isn’t for me. I don’t think that’s acceptable as a customer to say “Yes, we could readily fix this issue we created but we won’t because you can redo it yourself.”

I do realize there’s some irony/hypocrisy - if it had been a random d/c I probably would just have accepted it as bad luck, though in that scenario I might have been able to log back in quickly enough to salvage it, whereas with a layer shift you’re just hosed with no recourse at all.

I did read Aggrend’s post, and honestly, while I’m glad they’re looking at the issue, I’m not sure if that will make things better or worse for players like me who mostly play solo in the open world and are drawn to classic for that experience with the world.

There’s no way for me as a player to know whether the issue was that my layer was retired, or if the layer persisted but I was moved because of others’ grouping/ungrouping.

The focus in the post seems to me to be on the impacts to the Ashenvale event, and a focus on prio for party/raids to make those stable. That could, as a result, in theory make things less stable for single players who may be deprioritized further if the layers have set caps which to my understanding they do. It’s just basic math.

It would be like being at a restaurant and having them repeatedly move you around the restaurant as other patrons came in. No one would go for that, but that’s how I hear Aggrend describing their focus in this space.

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A better description is if your restaurant was on a boat, and a party of two invited eight more on. Eight singles would be moved to another boat to accommodate that larger party. They would be moved to keep the boat from sinking.

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That isn’t what I said, Miwa. Game Masters are generally hands off any quests, unless there is a verified bug that they have been given the policies, tools, and procedures to address.

They cannot provide credit for a quest you may have completed, if something didn’t happen. As you said, it would be similar to a disconnect in this case.

Did you read the entire post, specifically the following?

I"m not a Game Developers but to me that sounds like what seems to have happened to you, shouldn’t happen anymore. Granted, only time will tell, that is the nature of games.

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Ok, but in that scenario presumably they would talk amongst themselves on how best to arrange it, and inconveniences caused by moving could be addressed.

@Vrakthris:“Did you read the entire post, specifically the following?”

I did, I even specifically responded to that. I have no way of knowing if this instance (or others) of my being shifted had to do with a layer being retired, or if I was on a layer that was full and I was being moved to accommodate a forming party.

Edit - Re-reading the whole thing again, I would say the majority of shifts I’ve had were not “off-peak” so if I am reading Aggrend accurately I should assume were not stemming from layers being retired, but instead from shuffling the deck of players on.

I guess I’m not confident this is going to be a fix for me and doesn’t make me feel like I won’t keep running into this.

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But that’s not what Vrakthris is implying by linking that post. They are saying that Blizzard is aware of the headaches caused by the layering, and they are taking steps to fix it. So hopefully, if you attempt it again, you won’t experience the same issue and can successfully complete it.

And neither does Vrakthris, or any GM who may look at your ticket. That’s simply not the point. Whatever the reason may be, you didn’t complete the quest, so a GM cannot do it for you.

We all understand the frustration, how slow those escort quests are, and even how much it diminishes your enjoyment. But a GM cannot simply mark a quest complete for you, unless there’s a verified bug AND there’s specific direction from the Developers.

Understandable, but you won’t know until you try again. I wish you the best of luck, and I hope you get it done the second time.

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I’m aware that Vrakthris as an individual is not saying that and has a position with defined roles and boundaries on authority, I’m saying that, from my perspective as a consumer the company via their structure is effectively saying that to me as their customer. They’re asking me to invest my time to resolve their error because they don’t have any mechanisms to resolve issues like this.

Saying “this position doesn’t have the authority and the devs obviously won’t” is circular - these are not laws of nature you’re describing, they’re institutional/organizational choices.

I’m not mad, I’m just coming to accept the product vision and function is not in line with an experience that’s worth my time and money. Maybe they will fix it, and maybe they won’t, idk.

There’s zero chance I’m doing that escort again. Even by classic escort standards it’s just not well designed, and not fun, and no I guess I don’t trust that I won’t just get phased again because it’s the Barrens and there are lots of groups forming and unforming for WC, and RFK, and group quests, and moving in/out of Ashenvale, etc.

I really don’t think that the “retirements” are driving my experience, particularly in that zone. But hopefully you’re right and they resolve it for whoever comes next.

Edit - Just one last point. I played from 2005-2011, and again more or less uninterrupted from 2019 to present. This is maybe the third time I’ve ever tried to make a ticket in all that time.

I can accept a lot, but by the same token, when I do think something is serious to me and the way I engage with and enjoy the game I guess I want to know it’s heard, and I really don’t think I can say that here. They are dealing with layering, but I’m not sure they’re hearing the mostly-solo player experience if this is the way they’re framing resolving the problem.

It’s fine, life moves on. Enjoy!

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It’s a development issue so the Devs are the only ones who can change it. File a bug report, make a suggestion, give feedback, tweet @WarcraftDevs.

GMs don’t make those changes. They can only do what the Devs allow them to do. Since I started playing in 2005, if something can be done again then that is the solution the Devs want used. There are only a few quests that a GM is permitted to complete for players. To my knowledge there are no escort quests in that very limited list.

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Yes and no. GMs are not allowed to complete quests for you, except in VERY rare documented instances approved by Devs. Those are situations where the quest itself is bugged and they need to move you to the next stage. Again, super rare.

Your case is not due to a quest bug itself. When you complete a quest a flag is set on your account for that quest. Yes/no. If yes a GM may be able to help move someone to a next step. If the completion flag is not set, for ANY reason, the GM can’t complete the quest for you.

You are required to complete the quest. What you are asking for is a service that they don’t offer. Like getting disconnected on a long quest chain and having to repeat part of it. Having to repeat an Achievement attempt because a boss bugged. Those are things the GMs can’t grant you - they can’t give you a completion flag that you did not earn just like they can’t give someone loot that is not in the logs.

We see it with boss kills too. “I almost killed the boss but it bugged. Item has a 100% drop rate why can’t the GM just give it to me??”. Well, player did not actually kill the boss and have the item in their loot logs - and GMs are not allowed to just provide loot.

Logs, it always comes down to logs. Your quest was not flagged complete. Period. They are not allowed to do that for you.

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I don’t think I could have put it better, so I think we’ll leave it with that.

Thanks, all. Good luck to you, Miwa.

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