layering = realm hopping on WOW BETA abuse

[Dahij]

I can tell you from my experience on the Beta, just walk into the Undercity. At the entrance where the zone changes, stop and sit there. You will see every person being phased between Tirisfal Glades and Undercity. It is a rather disjointed experience, and NOT what is advertised.

Like I said in a previous post, don't cry about it and report it as a bug, you know, the reason they have a beta.

[Antility]

You're the one that is mistaken. The person you quoted is correct. Layering is in starting areas for initial rush at launch. There will not be layering or phasing in any other zones. And at some point in the near future after launch even that will go away as less people roll/re-roll into starting areas. This has been repeated numerous times by Blizzard.

Took all of 3 seconds to find the information:

How Long Will Layering Be Used?
If you dislike layering, worry not. Layering will only be used for a couple of weeks or maybe a month at the start of Classic WoW, in order to balance the huge influx of players in the same zones. Once the situation reaches a controlled state, it will be completely disabled and realms will once more have one instance of themselves. Layering also will not happen after Phase 1, the importance of that being that Phase 2 is planned to introduce the World Boss Kazzak, with the Green Dragons being released later on, both of which would make layering a tool to disrupt the flow of World Bosses in Classic.

You are completely wrong. Not much else to say about the matter.

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skip to 4:300. layering covers the entire continent. more layers are created when the maximum number of players fills up 1 layer. It's for the entire continent, not just starter zones.

[HordeFanboy]

Layering=Sharding so should be terminated

[MardestyGSOG]

Layering=Sharding so should be terminated

wrong
/10char

[Velerios]

Layering=Sharding so should be terminated

Nope, it isn't. Still what blizzard should simply do is disabling layering in Stranglethorn. Since both abuseable events (fishing, arena) are there, disable it in Stranglethorn and fixed.

[Topornic]

layers on hopping on beta... coool story bro... Probably def get fixed before retail release.

>Implying Blizzard cares about beta feedback.

[Annelie]

Like I said in a previous post, don't cry about it and report it as a bug, you know, the reason they have a beta.

But it is not a bug. It is the system they are using, it works like that and it is intended.

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Nope, it isn't. Still what blizzard should simply do is disabling layering in Stranglethorn. Since both abuseable events (fishing, arena) are there, disable it in Stranglethorn and fixed.

Not all resources and recipies and what not is in STV.

[Nestoras]

This is getting bad really fast.

[Doctor Funkenstein]

4) You can abuse the shit out of it.

For what, exactly? No one gives a flying fuck about gathering.

[Velerios]

But it is not a bug. It is the system they are using, it works like that and it is intended.

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Not all resources and recipies and what not is in STV.

Yes and no; ressource-hopping isn't an issue, because just because there are multiple layers does not mean that when you farmed on layer 1, on layer 2 everything is available. That's more of an theoretical issue than a real one, because every layer everything will be farmed. Do you have possible 2 more enemies when you switch a layer? Maybe yes, maybe no, the same goes for gathering nodes.

So no, this is a theoretical issue more than a real one. But events are different, other than in this zone, there are no events that could be abused.

[Annelie]

Yes and no; ressource-hopping isn't an issue, because just because there are multiple layers does not mean that when you farmed on layer 1, on layer 2 everything is available. That's more of an theoretical issue than a real one, because every layer everything will be farmed. Do you have possible 2 more enemies when you switch a layer? Maybe yes, maybe no, the same goes for gathering nodes.

So no, this is a theoretical issue more than a real one. But events are different, other than in this zone, there are no events that could be abused.

It is a massive issue. You can gather a lot more resources by layerhopping than if you are not. Even if not all mines/herbs are up at all layers. Same with mobs. 3 chances is better than one. And the people using one layer will have to compete with people layerhopping for resources.

THere is nothing in STV that is affected more than any other zone. Every zone has things you want that layerhopping will make changes to.

[Velerios]

It is: Arena, Fishing Tournament: both are events that can be easily abused. compared to gather a single node more, this is a big issue.

Another solution for blizzard could be to make Layer-hopping not worth it: After you hopped a realm, you can't change the layer for 1 hour, if you do it again for 2 hours, 4 hours and so on. Every day the cd gets reduced by 1 hour up to a minimum of 1 hour.

[Annelie]

It is: Arena, Fishing Tournament: both are events that can be easily abused. compared to gather a single node more, this is a big issue.

Another solution for blizzard could be to make Layer-hopping not worth it: After you hopped a realm, you can't change the layer for 1 hour, if you do it again for 2 hours, 4 hours and so on. Every day the cd gets reduced by 1 hour up to a minimum of 1 hour.

They do not give any reward that is gamebreaking or anything like that, so there is no reason to turn off layering in those zones unless you turn it off in all of them. It is not a big issue, breaking the economy and the even playingfield will be a big issue and layerhopping for resources and what not is affecting that.

Or they can just have different realms and then at P2 merge all the realms to get a decent population.

[Cracked]

Hm, the issue here is that this is not an exploit. This seems to be working as intended from the description of how layers work. This was always going to be an issue, but I suspect the hope was that if there's ~ same number of people in each layer then no layer is inherently better to be on, thus hopping wouldn't be necessarily profitable.

[Dahij]

But it is not a bug. It is the system they are using, it works like that and it is intended.

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Not all resources and recipies and what not is in STV.

If it's not working the way they have said it's supposed to work, then it's clearly bugged and not intended.

[Annelie]

If it's not working the way they have said it's supposed to work, then it's clearly bugged and not intended.

It is working exactly as they said it should.

[Dahij]

It is working exactly as they said it should.

If things are randomly phasing away, then it is not working as they said it should. They said each layer will be pretty much like a stand-alone realm, just that you have the possibility of grouping with friends on other layers, which would make you switch to that layer. If you never group with anyone then nothing should phase away except for players who join groups on other layers.

[Miena]

If things are randomly phasing away, then it is not working as they said it should. They said each layer will be pretty much like a stand-alone realm, just that you have the possibility of grouping with friends on other layers, which would make you switch to that layer. If you never group with anyone then nothing should phase away except for players who join groups on other layers.

Phasing like situations will happen even with having layering work as intended. I was in the stress tests and observed this myself, and it's working just like they said aside from a weird bug at the SW gate.
Let me explain why you'll see phasing like this with this system:

Layers are dynamic. Meaning, each time you start a new play session, you'll be put into a layer appropriate to the current populations demands of the realm.

As an example:

Let's say there are 4 layers currently running.

>You start a new play session, and get put into layer 4 alongside a whole other set of currently active players.

>After say 30 mins, you log out, and come back an hour later.

>You start a new play session, but the realm's active population dipped down, so now there's only 2 layers active.

>You get put into layer 2, and a whole new set of players await you. Layer 4 as you knew it before doesn't exist anymore, and all the
still active players have been shuffled around accordingly to populate the remaining 2 layers.

This is why when you're in a layer that starts to get emptied out, once it reaches a certain threshold you'll be transferred with all the remaining players over to the next best layer still up and running.
During that transfer you can see a transition happening, as mobs phase out. In case it gets too full, and you're being pulled over to the new layer along with other solo players, you'll see players who get to stay in the previous layer phase out, and also mobs will disappear.

If your current layer gets too full (because people are grouping up/big guilds logged into this layer/raids are forming) and you're solo, you'll get switched over to a new layer before anyone else does who is grouped in your layer, has a guild online in it, or has formed a raid in that layer.

This is because there needs to be a prio to make sure people who group up/form a raid/are in a guild don't get split apart when a new layer is formed or gets emptied out. Of course at some point those become vulnerable to being switched too depending on the population demands.

Then on top of that, there's the phasing visual again whenever people group up with someone from a different layer, be it you grouping up, or you seeing someone else group up. Either way, there's a clear transition.

Last but not least, if you get a dc when you were grouped up into a different layer, upon logging back in you'll see a transition again that will show you changing layers with a phase like visual. That can happen because when you start a new play session (and a dc apparently also counts as a new one) depending on what's going on population wise on your realm, you'll be reassigned as needed.

TL;DR:

Total phasing situations that can occur with layering working as intended:

You group up into a different layer: phase
You see someone else group up into a different layer: phase
Your layer gets too emtpy and you're being shuffled over to the next best active layer: phase
Your layer gets too full and since you're solo, you're being pushed out to a new layer first to make sure groups/raids/guilds can stay: phase
You get a dc, and upon logging back in you get assigned to a new layer: phase

I'm gonna leave it up to you to estimate just how many times these situations will occur in the live game, and therefore how many times you'll see people phase in and out of the world, including yourself in the first few weeks and months of the game.

[Velerios]

Total phasing situations that can occur with layering working as intended: [/B]

You group up into a different layer: phase
You see someone else group up into a different layer: phase
Your layer gets too emtpy and you're being shuffled over to the next best active layer: phase
Your layer gets too full and since you're solo, you're being pushed out to a new layer first to make sure groups/raids/guilds can stay: phase
You get a dc, and upon logging back in you get assigned to a new layer: phase

I'm gonna leave it up to you to estimate just how many times these situations will occur in the live game, and therefore how many times you'll see people phase in and out of the world, including yourself in the first few weeks and months of the game.

Both of the things underlined above should simply not happen; blizzard at least said that layers should let people stay in the layer they were, not shuffle them as much as sharding does now, and the last 2 points are the crap we have now with sharding. (and relogging should normally also not remove someone from the layer, at least when you relog within the same timeframe as we have now with people getting thrown out from the game while in a dungeon-queue.

How in the end it works: i sadly have no idea, couldn't test it this time, because blizz hates EU ;-)

[oplawlz]

>Implying Blizzard cares about beta feedback.

Right? It's like people think somehow the blizzard making classic is different than the blizzard making retail.

What really amuses me is how they rebranded sharding and sheep actually bought it. I wonder if these folks are going to go around praising EA for their all new "surprise mechanics" too xD