If layering will only be for a very limited time, why is it such a point of contention?
There’s 3 reasons why this is the case.
- It makes the world more empty.
For the starting zones, this isn’t an issue at all. In fact, it’s the main reason why this system even exists. People will have much more fun questing in Elwynn Forest or Durotar when they’re not forced into a bottleneck since literally thousands of players are trying to kill the same mob to complete their quest. This will be the case for all 1-12 zones and even some 12-20 zones like The Barrens and Westfall. But when people start reaching Level 20, this solution starts to turn into a problem instead. At this point, people will be far more spread out, with players having many more zones that they can level and grind in, not to mention the various instances. And since the tourists this system is meant to filter will start departing, it means that zones will start feeling much emptier. It’ll be more infuriating to quest when people you otherwise would have grouped up with are instead trapped in another layer. And there’s no reason to filter capital cities. Nobody wants Orgrimmar to feel empty, we want those cities to feel as lively and bustling as possible.
- World PvP will be diminished by layering.
Remember when I said that layering starts having diminishing returns at around Level 20? That’s also when World PvP starts happening as well, as both factions meet in Ashenvale or Hillsbrad Foothills. This means that it’s much less likely to encounter another enemy player and fight them than it would be if layering didn’t exist at this point. It also means that the big world PvP brawls between dozens of players that many people dream of will instead be much smaller and much less frequent, When one does occur, it could be happening right on top of you and you’d never even know it since it’s on another layer.
Additionally, many people (particularly some cowardly streamers) have been using it to escape world PvP scenarios, as they can have someone invite them into a group and more than likely switch layers while doing so. This can be used before they resurrect from death to evade someone who ganked them before or even while they’re already in a fight to phase themselves out and end the battle prematurely.
- Layering can be used to exploit resource gain
There have been clips of streamers using layering to gain multiple Arena Masters in a matter of minutes. Since these layers make the world already emptier, they face less competition getting the first one. But then they can get another one by joining someone else’s group, which switches the layer that streamer is on, and then they can loot another chest. It can give them quite a decent advantage in PvP early on, as Arena Grand Master is quite a good trinket even at Level 60, much less at level 35 or earlier.
This also applies to rare mobs such as Prince Nazjek, or valuable herbs and minerals such as Black Lotus. Abuse of this mechanic will cause exploiters to gain far more gold and sought-after items early on than those who can’t or don’t exploit it. But even for the people that don’t farm these items or mobs, they might still be affected as well. Since there are multiple layers per server, it also means that there can and will be more than one instance of Black Lotus or more than one instance of a rare mob up at any given time, which might just cause inflation of gold for the server. Will this completely destabilize the server-wide economy? No, not really. But it will have a large impact on smaller sub-economies, such as the herb or mineral economies.
There’s a lot of flaws with layering that really need to be dealt with before Classic launches. Many players, including myself, are asking for layering to only be in the 1-20 zones. But that isn’t really layering anymore, just sharding (which they were going to use before in only the starting zones) under a different name.