Okay, so this is a list of observations I’ve made since the Pre-Patch dropped, on things that seem to be broken or having unintended consequences that I suspect were not thought about. Or in some cases, issues facing a particular kind of server.
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Trade skill: Enchanting–Certain materials are now likely unfarmable at high levels. I have a Warlock, who I just got to Level 50. On a whim, I decided to go back and collect some old Tailoring/Enchanting patterns I’d missed through reputations and what not as well as some transmog appearances. Now, with the way the new scaling works in all of the Original WoW zones, all those enemies and all those quest rewards scale to be appropriate for around “level 30.” This also seems to affect random green drops. The problem I noticed is that when you then DISENCHANT those items…the materials you get are based on the item’s level. (Case in point: I disenchanted a set of cloth boots that were a quest reward in Elwynn Forest, and got Infinite Dust, which is the Wrath material used to make Imbued Frostweave Bolts.) This means that it is almost impossible for a high level character to say…pick up enchanting as a brand new skill, and actually farm stuff for it. Not that many people will, but its clearly not a “working as intended” issue. It also means that if you want to collect certain materials for an enchant, you may well and truly be SoL. (Again, not an issue for a lot of people, but still a potential problem, especially on RP servers.) Not sure if this is the only trade skill affected, but I wanted to point it out.
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The world at large now segregates people into two groups in a way that even partying up with someone does not solve: Level 50, and EVERYONE ELSE. The only place that I’ve found–and its only on an RP server that I’ve tested it–that this doesnt apply is capital cities, like Stormwind. Whether thats unique to RP servers because our Capitals are forcibly dephased, or if its just Capitals as a whole, I’m not sure. This makes it difficult to group up and do anything, whether its “get a guild charter signature” or give someone a ride, or things like “Roleplay anywhere other than SW city” if you arent in the same ‘grouping.’
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Loot drops in the world: As an observation, there seems to be cases where the way mob loot tables have been affected by this new system have made it so that there are mobs now that used to drop certain things that no longer drop any loot at all. Not even money or vendor trash. (This is particularly true for things in original WoW content that once dropped stuff in the 40-55 level range, like felcloth.)
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Capital Cities on RP servers are buggier than its ever been, and I’m not sure how much that has to do with volume of people and how much is the patch having unintended consequences because the RP Server settings override the programming that wants to separate the area into multiple phases. But its never been this bad–10-20 seconds for vendors to respond to something, 30-seconds or more on getting mailed items from a mail box, and a weird bug where it will load in all the people, and if you move a little bit, or turn your camera, the game will “unload” them from your view and then try to load them in again visually. (again, it resembles the way phasing looks, so I’m wondering if its a conflict there.)
(Notations: Yes, checked and updated my drivers, checked my internet connection, tried it with all addons disabled, and even tested on two different computers, one with brand new components versus one that is several years old. I even checked with other people living in different locations around the country/world, and they’ve got the city lag too.)