Layer Hopping now has Internal Cooldown

[Heidene-kelthuzad]

I think my biggest issue, is that people are very quickly going to start asking for invites to “the real server” then use automation to just never afk out of the game. So you end up with one overly large layer where all the guilds make their guild, then basically a bunch of empty layers.

That’s a good point! It’s also something that happened in the stress tests, and exactly as you said: Some layers were seriously packed, while others in the meantime were super lonely.
People wanted to be where the action was, where the cool people were. As they always want to, of course! I also want to be there. So, we just make that happen somehow as players… in exactly the way you described.

[Ryzix-dragonmaw]

I’ll get there eventually!

Watching the playlist from first episode onward.

[Ryzix-dragonmaw]

I mean that’s literally the first thing I’d try to be honest with you.

Also going to be worse on PvP servers. People will be spamming for invites to the action, and people will just be invite spamming, and kicking until everyones over on that layer.

Numbers win after all.

STV day 3-7 in a nutshell.

[Slientknight-blackrock (Slientknight)]

If people have to go to a non contested city before they can layer hop, do you think that would resolve most issues with it?

I can see how this at first glance might seem appealing as a “fix” to their layering “fix”.

But think about all the situations that are gonna occur in game, where people will want to genuinely group up while they are leveling (on their very slow low level legs running around in a big world). I don’t have time right now to go into details but just imagine you playing the game like you normally would, and find yourself in situations where you’d like to group up, but you have to run back to a zone like that first.

It’s even more immersion breaking, because you get reminded right then and there that this is a game, a fassade, not a world your character lives in. Because in order to move about you have to make use of some abstract tech that can only be used in certain areas, and isn’t integrated into the rest of the game at all (cause it’s temporary, and out of place already).

It’s even gonna lead to people NOT wanting to group up even if they normally would want to, because of this big restriction put on layer hopping, and the extra real effort required on their part to be able to group with someone on a different layer.
You could even have funny, or sad, moments where you wanna group with someone on a different layer, and you ask eachother “so…are you near a non contested city…?” “uhm no, can you run? LOL” (both really don’t wanna run ofc, especially on low levels!). And by the time they finally can group up, any special event that would have needed a group then and there might long be over already. It’s very, very inflexible.

It’s a slippery slope to fix the fix, and so tempting. But doing that will lead to more problems that again need fixing. We’ve been here before unfortunately, not just once

Would you agree or disagree that the proposed change to layer hoping is BETTER than the current implementation?

[Heidene-kelthuzad]

Also going to be worse on PvP servers. People will be spamming for invites to the action, and people will just be invite spamming, and kicking until everyones over on that layer.

Numbers win after all.

And here i was thinking i couldn’t want this thing any less near WoW anymore.

As an avid RP-PvPer type of player this sounds like such a bad experience. It’s even more of a reason for me to wait until layering is gone before i play… cause i’m not gonna support that kinda stuff happening in “World” of Warcraft.

[Heidene-kelthuzad]

Do you mean the internal layer cooldown thing?

[Slientknight-blackrock (Slientknight)]

No, I am referring to requiring an Inn or uncontested city to change layers.

To me personally, I think it is far better than the current implementation, where one can change regardless of their location. For the current implementation would allow one to avoid a PVP scenario, farm extra rare mats, get chests, with very little effort.

[Ryzix-dragonmaw]

With their current system I could sit here and rattle off a rather long list to abuse with it. I haven’t tested the beta but I’d imagine it’s also not going to be that difficult to figure ways to clip through walls with it as well as an example.

How about slowly working your way on top of a roof on a separate layer then phasing back over with an affliction warlock and dot spamming everyone to death out of melee range? Sure you can do this normally… but having a lock just APPEAR out of nowhere and begin doing it… is going to suck.

How about killing people in bootybay then layer hopping to avoid death?

[Slientknight-blackrock (Slientknight)]

I don’t think convenience should even be considered as far as layer hopping goes. I don’t like layering at all, so if it is deemed absolutely necessary, I would rather it be as inconvenient as possible and no where near as exploitable as it is now.

[Vedarian-thunderlord]

And it’s only for the first three weeks.

If you could show me the contract that blizz signed in blood guaranteeing only 3 weeks of layering I would love to see it.

We have no idea how long it’s going to be in place and if the tourists (that blizz is causing by having shared sub) don’t leave like they think, it could be around for quite awhile.

[Pwnsdruid-burning-blade]

It will be longer than three weeks, but its also not implausible that a server could be on a single layer in three weeks. I would prefer more layers over the one by time they get rid of it for phase 2. Just hopefully its not ridiculously high as to be unsustainable economically.

[Vitolri-moon-guard]

We have no idea how long it’s going to be in place and if the tourists (that blizz is causing by having shared sub) don’t leave like they think, it could be around for quite awhile.

Them directly saying it can’t work in phase 2, which is at most, 2 months away, if I recall correctly. So they might be wrong at 3 weeks. But it won’t be any longer than P2

[Heidene-kelthuzad]

For the current implementation would allow one to avoid a PVP scenario, farm extra rare mats, get chests, with very little effort.

The big problem is that layering inherently brings so many different gameplay issues and changes with it, that they’ve recognized are significant to the point where they’re already trying to fix their fix with another fix. (for example the internal cooldown thing, which we don’t even know yet how that’s supposed to work, and if it’d help at all)

If they chose the additional fix of “change your layer in a rested/uncontested zone”, this is now going to lead to even more new issues and changes popping up in actual gameplay than were already present in the beginning.

Yes, it will target the specific situation of abuse of layer hopping, and for that one specific situation of abuse it will help with preventing those abuses better, absolutely.

But at what cost?

Now, if i have to run to the inn/city everytime to group up even as a cute innocent player, the game is even further removed from the original, and because it is, that means it’s also further removed from the original game design.
Because of this, it will then in turn lead to a whole set of new issues, as the base foundations of the game start to shift into a completely non intended direction (because you’re normally supposed to be able to group up very easily, and at the spot, with anyone around you in the world).

So then you have layerings inherent new set of issues that already change the foundation of the game, on top of another deviation from the games original design intentions as in the layer hop bandaid fix.
Because everything in WoW is so delicately intertwined, all these deviations from the original design are actually going to be game breaking.

It’s a neverending effort: “Fix” server health temporarily through in game measures aka layering, break the game.
“Fix” issues with this server health tool (layering) by putting in restrictions the player has to be able to handle, and then break the game some more.
“Fix” issues now caused by both of these measures, and the game is gonna become even more unrecognizable really quickly.
And when you reach that point (which was already reached with layering)… you have BFA. Lol. But really, what do you do?

Meanwhile, the players are the ones who have to put up with all this “fixing” left and right, and their tolerance is already very low. Blizzard, and dare i say even players are tunnel visioning so hard on the tech side of things, they forget about their own experience in the game they’re supposed to get to enjoy for what it was, aka Vanilla (Classic).
(I gotta get going now lol, i’ll be sure to come back later again to reply!)

[Slientknight-blackrock (Slientknight)]

I think that is more of a convenience argument. If they want layer hopping to be a thing and be even slightly plausible, You would need a sort of device to transfer you to a parallel world. you wouldn’t just be doing it at whim. It would make far more sense for someone to have to go to a particular place to transfer to the parallel world, to be dematerialized and rematerialized wouldn’t it? Also watch out for your doppelganger so you don’t explode each other!

[Pwnsdruid-burning-blade]

Meanwhile, the players are the ones who have to put up with all this “fixing” left and right, and their tolerance is already very low. Blizzard, and dare i say even players are tunnel visioning so hard on the tech side of things, they forget about their own experience in the game they’re supposed to get to enjoy for what it was, aka Vanilla (Classic).

Don’t speak for me =P. Even while I have made suggestions to improve on issues, I have also focused on planning out how I will enjoy playing Classic. Each change does adjust how I approach it though which is fine. Sometimes people have to look at something and say “This is fine” or “I can’t handle this”. If you can’t, then figure out when it will reach “This is fine”. If it can’t reach that point, then you have choices based on that.

For me, I don’t like the idea of layering. But I can say I am fine with it for being a short term solution to problems. I was not ok with layer hopping, but they are working on making it appropriately restrictive which makes me feel fine with it.

[Studmuffyn-veknilash (Studmuffyn)]

the tourists (that blizz is causing by having shared sub) don’t leave like they think

not all ‘tourists’ will be from current WoW.

[Ryzix-dragonmaw]

What about the otherwise useless meeting stones?

I mean… they are meeting stones… Why not just make them magically extra-dimensional meeting stones?

Functional, and lore friendlier at least.

[Slientknight-blackrock (Slientknight)]

the tourists (that blizz is causing by having shared sub) don’t leave like they think

not all ‘tourists’ will be from current WoW.

He didn’t say “all”, he is referencing the ones being created by blizzard. Strawman.

[Pwnsdruid-burning-blade]

that are generally guarded by waves of elites for you to get through solo… this is fine XD

[Vedarian-thunderlord]

Them directly saying it can’t work in phase 2, which is at most, 2 months away, if I recall correctly. So they might be wrong at 3 weeks. But it won’t be any longer than P2

They also said directly that we weren’t getting sharding in Classic Wow, that they were going to replicate the classic experience as close as possible.

Then they said directly that we were getting sharding, but just in the starting zones.

Then they said directly that we aren’t getting that, but we’re getting layering across the whole world.

Then they said directly it will only be here till phase 2.

Forgive me if I don’t exactly trust anything they say.