Layering vs. No Layering (Post Stress-Test) - Which is Better?

[Hypêrspace-dalaran (Hypêrspace)]

i had a very similar soltuion as layering, though in my scenario, you could see the layers at the server selection and select which one you wanted to be on. so i’m not against the idea of layering. i am just a problem solver. if people are wanting the launch to feel like vanilla, login queues will do the trick lol overcrowded starting areas. cant complete quests. etc. if comfortable pop for northshire is 10 players, make sure there’s 50, then login queue the rest.

[Fâng-area-52 (Fâng)]

After much thought, I’m a big fan of layering and I think it’s quite brilliant.

[Anzsu-drenden]

Option 1:
No layering. Thousands of people in one zone fighting for mobs that take 330 seconds to respawn. Queue times out the @$$, (possibly hours). But, if you and your friend manage to log on at the same time, you’ll see each other and be able to not complete quests for hours together in a zone populated enough to be a major Chinese city.

Option 2:
They layer, allowing a still huge amount of players to be present across the entire continent, and there are less ridiculous queue times and more people can experience the game. But, maybe your friend can’t see you so you have to invite them and then they appear.

I gotta say, option 2 really does sound like much more solid gameplay.

And before somebody says “They released plenty of expansions without sharding (which isn’t layering) or layering”, yes they did, and they weren’t classic servers. They had dynamic respawns and a lot more servers. And the releases were STILL rough as hell lol

i never fought with people over mobs. why is this a common complaint? i either asked for a group invite or i was patient and waited my turn. of course, i wasnt a hard core raider that was rushing to end game but still. most of the time, people make it harder on themselves and then ask for blizzard to fix the problem. which isnt them, obviously /s.

[Ratchter-emerald-dream]

Is this still an issue with people?

[Teedo-jubeithos (Teedo)]

We about to find out - Layering hasn’t been required yet in the Beta as population has been low(even though there was a few incidents of people clearing an area, then randomly being phased into a fully untouched one and pulling like 8 mobs).

With the stresstest, we will really see if it is as problematic as people are worried it will be, or if this is a pointless hullabaloo

[Crooge-medivh]

If there is layering in the Closed Beta, I haven’t noticed it.

World seems lively and active to me. And I see the same names running around a lot, which is a good sign.

[Mickymoo-black-dragonflight]

Which is better? Layering.

[Mickymoo-black-dragonflight]

You forgot gold farmers, random disconnects, lagging into mobs, warping, and getting stuck in loot position.

[Crumbs-saurfang (Crumbs)]

I enjoy the chaos. I’m not fussed about completing quests straight away. The chaos is part of the fun. It’s not like theres a rush to 60 lol. We could be 60 for 4 years for all we know. May as well take it slow and enjoy the journey.

[Kologne-emerald-dream]

So now that the stress test has been done. What are our feelings about layering?

[Eloraell-moon-guard]

What are our feelings about layering?

Needs work.

[Kologne-emerald-dream]

Needs work.

Okay, but why? “Needs work” isn’t very helpful. What exactly did you notice that needed work?

[Eloraell-moon-guard]

From some people’s reports the same issue with jumping layers unexpectedly or without changing a group, still happened.

And the login server still can’t handle the load.

Against the original topic, Layering is still the better option (once it works).

[Zydas-sargeras]

From what I understand layering was causing the server to show as offline for people not in the “main” layer. So that needs to be resolved for sure

[Erotgus-illidan]

Im chinese and I find option 1 is very offensive nah jk
I vote option2, thank you.

[Katerina-mannoroth]

I really didn’t realize that people wanted a rough launch where they couldn’t complete quests (or even get onto the server) for hours.
I’m not mocking you either, I genuinely didn’t realize this was a side to the argument.

Believe it or not, there are people who have advocated for exactly that.

[Katerina-mannoroth]

Yes, I read it. You didn’t say all that. If the server has 10k concurrent players on it then that’s fine isn’t it? It’s not like there are 1,000 players in each starting area. Even you have to acknowledge that that sounds pretty crazy.

Except you’re missing something.

Each “layer” can handle a full “vanilla” realm population. And they only cover a continent. So Eastern Kingdoms can have 2,500 to 3,000 players on a single layer, and Kalimdor can have 2,500 to 3,000 players on a single layer as well.

At three starting zones per continent, that works out to an average of between 800 to 1,000 players per starting zone. Assuming even population distributions. Otherwise more layers get spawned for whichever one is uneven(heavily populated).

[Åpocalypse-illidan (Åpocalypse)]

Part of the issue is that layering is kind of useless compared to sharding…

For example the pvp beta realm atm… has so many people in barrens that it’s crashing every 3-5minutes… and even before the stress test realms went up was getting 3-5 second lag spikes ~twice an hour.

What it doesn’t have, however, is 3k people in the barrens, so it will never “layer out”…

I don’t like layering as a solution in general, but it’s also only a solution for overall realm populations, and is doing absolutely nothing useful regarding the population bomb/bottlenecks that can occur naturally via quest paths.

EDIT: For clarity, my post isn’t in ANY way meant to be a vote in support of either layering or sharding… I don’t think either have a place in classic…just pointing out that layering is pretty damn worthless thus far.

[Ohshiftson-area-52]

EDIT: Now that there has been a stress test, what are our feeling on it?

Same feelings I had before. It wasn’t in vanilla, therefore shouldn’t be in Classic.

As for the merits of the system itself… I still don’t like it. I didn’t like it in retail when they called it sharding, and I don’t like it in Classic when they call it layering.

Knowing that there are thousands of other players on another phase of existence standing right where I am is really annoying and immersion breaking.

Being invited from shard to shard, people disappearing and reappearing constantly, etc. It’s awful.

[Caargon-wyrmrest-accord (Caargon)]

Whatever it takes to make the launch an experience which is even playable, much less enjoyable.

Anyone remember BC day? An entire servers population (minus blood elves) crammed into a single zone on a single continent. It was a disaster of lag, crashes, Q times and waiting for quest objectives to respawn.