Seeing as many players are using the Layering jump technique, and Blizzard hasn’t commented, fixed, or addressed it any manner. Is it okay for me to start doing it?
I don’t see how it would be fair to be issued a temp ban, roll back, or any real discipline since there’s nothing in the ToS (that I know of) preventing this “clever mechanic.”
So the disclaimer part, I will be layer jumping. Blizzard praised Jokerd for his use of it, so I guess its fair game.
blizzard ToS has a disclaimer that makes “abusing” game mechanics in “unintended ways” a considerable exploit and its up to their interpretation.
Be it a bug, or a poorly implemented mechanic they plan to change internally.
They communicated that the sole purpose to layering was to reduce server stress during phase 1 because so many players in the earlier zones of the game at the same time.
I don’t believe they will take action against the masses, but if someone is heavily influencing the economy of the game, it’s plausible for action to be taken.
blizzard has taken action against players trying to control the market/auction house at extreme levels multiple times before.
its different if you change layers to avoid someone camping you here or there, or to find a place where quest mobs are less competed for versus a player swapping layers every 1 minute and gathering hundreds of materials in a really short amount of time, like never possible before.
Exactly. I found it to be a conflict of interest though when they gave Jokerd credit for a clear exploit of the tool. It makes sense to jump to a less crowded area, but to jump for respawns, nodes, and what not I think that is where the line is grey.
But again, I think the lines grey but Blizzard acts as if its not. Otherwise one would assume Jokerd gets rerolled or special privileges to keep his 60.
If Blizzard didn’t want you swapping layers all that often, they’d limit it. They added limitations to how frequently you can swap layers after feedback from the beta. Any swapping within those limitations is acceptable, no matter why you’re doing it.
Here’s the thing: if this was unintended, Blizz would have done something to make it impossible. It’s not hard to slap a 10 minute cool-down on changing layers, but Blizzard chose not to.
I think it’s clear that Blizz doesn’t consider this an exploit. If they do they will implement a change, but considering the breadth of “abuse” no one is likely to ever see any kind of punishment, as the practice is nearly becoming ubiquitous.
My only worry is that whenever they change their mind about layering jumps, who gets in trouble for whats considered abuse and what was considered fair game.
If you use it to level up for a while quietly, get a bit of extra gold from farming cloth and lower level mats I’m sure you’ll be fine.
If you’re talking in general chat asking to be layered, using it to non-stop grind your level, grab up timed respawn rare resources and recipes, quests and Chests to make a ton of gold- I am PRETTY sure you’re going to end up getting caught up in the incoming MASSIVE wave of character rollbacks that is inevitable. I personally cannot WAIT to see the sea of tears that washes over the forums when their level 60 Mages and Warlocks with 800+ spare gold are suddenly nerfed back down to level 21 with 83 silver to their name.
You’re absolutely wrong. Exploiting mechanics like this is indeed agains the TOS. However, given the outcry and the silence from Blizz, I am u sure how they aren’t just making this worse. Their silence is endorsement, whether they wish it or not. You still may get hit with the ban hammer, and if you do this you should, but my faith in Blizz has all but set beyond the horizon.
But they congratulated someone who did it an excessive amount of times. Are they going to tell him “LOLOLO jk, Jokerd you’re banned.” I would think it’s against ToS but every action Blizzard has taken this far has me thinking the opposite.
also the layering mechanic is a complex one to deal with.
adding cooldowns and other more severe restrictions would negatively impact many players who want to simply party with their friends, but happen to run across that “layer mechanic”.
For example, i believe Athene was once banned/rolled back for “exploiting” the game by using an “intended” game feature. That feature was to aggro alot of mobs while in a group, and then the other players in the group left the part, so Athene gained all the experience. This gave him an interesting advantage in the race for leveling. He was eventually punished.
This was a mechanic created blizz intentionally, but used in an unintended way to “gain unfair massive advantage”.
This in a nutshell.
I personally cannot WAIT to see the sea of tears that washes over the forums when their level 60 Mages and Warlocks with 800+ spare gold are suddenly nerfed back down to level 21 with 83 silver to their name.
You’re going to be waiting a long time then. To the best of my knowledge Blizz has never done a rollback for anything.
I would not do that.
It is too obvious that it is something they can’t let go, even though layering eventually ends. As in your case, everyone will just start doing it unless they make examples out of people.
Accidental gain is different from you doing it to farm gold, or something. I’d be very careful. At some point some clever guy at Blizzard might say, “oh yeah, I can do a script that just takes that ill gotten gain from them, so there is no need for a rollback…”
The weirdest thing is, they let that thing go after the beta. How did they not know?
Did they know that he exploited layer hopping at the time they congratulated him? Or did a social media person just rush to congratulate the first 60 to be part of the hype? I doubt they began inspecting footage prior to offering congratulations. You can’t use that as them explicitly endorsing the practice.
They’d have to, I’d think. It was just way too fast.
But at this point with everyone understanding the mechanics of layering, its a tool we can use and people do use. Look in any chat for more then 5 mins and you’ll see a handful of request for layer invites.
And what do they determine as “ill gotten gains”? Jokerd had 400+ gold when he hit level 60.
He had over a quarter million people watching him hit level 60. I’m sure someone there was well aware of what he was doing.
Anyone who thinks Blizzard, on the release of a very successful, heralded even, launch of Classic is going to allow players to teleport around and farm mats and nodes all day using 3rd party addons without repercussion.
Farming nodes/mats/spawns using a millisecond-based layer teleporter addon is an abuse of a mechanic that was not intended and therefore an exploit.
This can’t possibly be under debate.
You aren’t abusing anything. Every player has access and they aren’t doing anything to get around the mechanic. It simply exists. If there was a cooldown and people were getting around it that would be different
#MyClassic
You’re telling me they just have some random Joe in there that has no presence of mind in whats going around in their job capacity? “Oh look a guy hit 60, gratz”.
There were huge events for this. They knew.
My bet is that before 5 p.m. Friday, California time, they’ll issue a bunch of bans for people abusing layering to farm nodes. And they’ll make a statement about it.
I don’t think there will be bans for use of layering to get mob respawns for leveling. If they were going to punish that they would’ve done so already. But I could be wrong.