Anyone thinking they’ll fix this within 2 months is naive and are ignoring the terrible track record blizzard has of addressing issues and sharding. Layer hopping is easy and I’ll be doing it live when it goes through.
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There isn’t an issue with servers crashing due to a lot of players being in the same area the problem is starting areas were not designed to have so many players in one place.
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Thanks @Fury. I added a link to the second video, which especially demonstrates the problem with WPvP.
I never said not to layer starting areas. I only said they need to avoid laying either the specific area or entire zone that houses an event, world boss, unique npc, etc. It’s too game breaking to have it layer an event or world boss spawn.
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If anyone has more videos of layering exploits or problems, I will add them to this post. Thanks.
-Rares will despawn if you group up with players ON THE SAME LAYER
https://www.twitch.tv/cdewx/clip/SpicyCoyTurtleBrokeBack?
https://www.twitch.tv/asmongold/clip/SassyScaryCaribouTheTarFu?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=63&v=8lH_1kUAA0g
-Enemy players and Players from your own faction will phase in and out ruining pvp. You can also use this to your advantage to escape pvp situations.
https://clips.twitch.tv/MoistSoftGullWholeWheat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fncH0hDFFo&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LItduEtb8ds&feature=youtu.be
Without a doubt, the exploitation needs to be (and can be) addressed. But layering is a must have with million(s) of players wanting to play at launch, instead of the original 300,000 that tried to play on launch 15 years ago.
Blizz should back track a bit. Their idea of sharding the starting zones 1-15 was better
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The time crunch isn’t a good one. They didn’t do the market research necessary to estimate population, and shared sub ensures a healthy dose of rubberneckers from retail.
This is very much a problem that they created for themselves, but since we’re the ones stuck with the ramifications of that bad decision it unfortunately becomes our problem. It is unfortunately, as you said, fewer than three months from launch at this point, and so any meaningful action to estimate initial demand or mitigate tourists would require a time machine. All we have left are band-aids.
Here are my suggestions on what would help to mitigate these problems.
- Make layers discrete, rather than just big shards and only allow transferring from one layer to another inside an Inn or one of the six cities.
- Make characters remember their layer. Only assign them to another on log-in if their previous no longer exists.
- Make layer size dynamic. Three thousand people per layer is a lot more crowded on day one than it is on day five.
- Put a 5, 10, or 15 minute cooldown on switching layers.
Honestly, regular old sharding would be better than this crap, and that’s saying something. At least it would help with overcrowding at launch and could be limited to just the starter zones.
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Added to the post - thanks @Caskaska!
If you loot a node kill an elite or loot the arena chest on layer one and then change to layer 2 that character is locked out of that loot in layer 2 for a period of time. It can be tested in the remaining 2 months until launch.
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Or just lock the layers until they merge them. Still not vanilla - but this is the best solution to all the BS.
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Or just add dynamic respawns to starter zones and let the bottleneck sort itself out.
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Thanks for this. I think we all have plenty of video evidence on the negative affect of layering, something we knew would be a problem from the start.
Why is Blizz so silent on this issue? You’re actually seeing how this tech is bad for the game. Yet crickets from them.
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This makes a serious case for opening with more servers and then merge them over time in the traditional model.
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Maybe is all part of an elaborate plan to get us to want sharding…
Blizz: “Here’s sharding to help with the initial rush”
Community: “No! It’s game breaking!”
Blizz: “Ok then, here’s ‘layering’. (Hehe, we just sharded the entire continent and gave it a different name)
Community: “Oh crap! Give us sharding back, we’ll take it.”
Blizz: “See! You think you don’t, but you do’”
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… i can’t unsee that which i’ve just seen. ![:scream:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/scream.png?v=6" ":scream:")
Okey maaaybe that’s too much chess from Blizzard though ![:smile:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/smile.png?v=6" ":smile:")
Altho it would be very funny if things ended up like that!
This must’ve cost quite a bit to develop, and i think, giving Blizzard the benefit of the doubt, that they did try to tailor things more to classic with layering.
But…as it goes, even if well intentioned, it unfortunately makes the game even more different and not in a good way.
Any solution that deviates from the original games foundations is simply too much.
They’d have to operate within the guidelines of what they have available in terms of organizational tools (that do their job outside of the game) if they want Classic to be truly authentic and minimze all modern impact as much as actually possible.
It’s not an easy, cheap, or simple task - but they can do it, and the core audience will definitely appreciate it a lot if they put in the extra mile to get this 1 special chance right.
Right now the message i get is “You think you want authenticity - but you don’t”.
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Yeah, it would really help if Blizzard would clear things up about their approach soon. Who knows what they’re currently doing and discussing, maybe they haven’t figured it out themselves yet on what to do, and/or how to do things. It’s a sticky situation they are in, so i don’t blame them at all.
I hope though that they’ll manage to find the right way to go for them and for their playerbase, and tell us about it in an amount of time that is not too close to the release date, which is not that far off anymore at this point. ![:+1:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/+1.png?v=6" ":+1:")
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Make it 5 minutes and you can only swap layers every 15 minutes IF AND ONLY IF you are in an inn. If you want to be on the same layer as a friend, join a group and head to an inn (both of you), then both log out for 5 minutes, then log back in and you are both in the same layer.
the asmongold/player grouping on same server and losing the rare spawn is because when they grouped up it switched them in a layer after the group.
I hate layering but I will take it for phase 1 so long as they keep to their “well, we dont see us needing layering after phase 1” BS
Its just… annoying… more than anything game breaking. Randomly switching layers while inside a mine/in combat is kinda ridiculous imho