r/classicwow • u/zhellqq • 16d ago
Forever Beta Feedback Phasing like this is really immersion breaking
I understand why they do it, but it feels like there has to be a more elegant way of handling it, or perhaps a better "overlap" period where someone only moves off your layer when they are no longer visible.
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u/millistra 16d ago
I've noticed this on boats/airships where sometimes you leave with 4 and then arrive with 40.
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u/zhellqq 16d ago
Yeah, like taking a boat somewhere, and then after loading in all your allies are replaced with enemies from nowhere, so anti-classic its crazy
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u/cbartholomew 16d ago
That’s why I enjoy the tram, I can tell awkward jokes and everyone just has to sit there until it’s over
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u/babilonibetyar 16d ago
there will be endless tears and drama with the boats on pvp realms
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u/O-Clock 16d ago
Yeah I was talking to this guy while waiting for the zeppelin. I typed a message just before the loading screen. After that my message was sent to total different players. Super bad.
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u/smpm 16d ago
lol same, I told a guy to follow me to thunderbluff since he was lost and he was gone by the time we got there. Was a fun moment of helping someone that ended up making me look dumb
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u/wookiee-nutsack 16d ago
When you board the train on the station way out where nobody lives but by the final stop you have to fight not to get smushed
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u/birdbud- 16d ago
"we want you to be out in the world"
The world:
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u/Loltoor 16d ago
"The world is the main character"
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u/wookiee-nutsack 16d ago
See how all this visual clutter gets cleared away so you can focus on the world better??
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u/sweltr 16d ago
If you wanted to catch up to someone as they were running out of the city, they would just vanish. Spooky
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u/Remind_Me_Y 16d ago
I was running in Arathi with like 25 people heading to the Wetlands for the sleeping bag quest. I was excited all these people were around me. As soon as I entered the Wetlands I was by myself not one person was with me.
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u/Name835 16d ago
Fuck that sucks - I hate it that theyre not communicating about this to us. They need to fix this shit before launch, they must.
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u/Dyneheart 16d ago
Either we're all Schizophrenic or this is Chromie's "perfect run" and she's micromanaging like its a Starcraft tourney.
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u/FakeSafeWord 16d ago edited 16d ago
That's okay because once on the other side 20 more random friends will spawn in their place!
/s
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u/Jclevs11 16d ago
Nobody likes this
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u/Dynazty 16d ago
People will still find a way to paint us as mentally unstable classic Andy’s lol
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u/ripleyisntreal 16d ago
Why do some of you guys have such a victim complex lol we all see this is an issue and want it fixed. There's no way anyone thinks the layering system is working properly. IMO it's worse than its ever been.
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u/Vyxwop 16d ago
Because this problem has existed in other versions of the game as well and Blizzard, at least as far as I know, hasn't commented on this problem whatsoever.
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u/Whowutwhen 16d ago
This has to be something they’re aware of and aim to do something about right?
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u/Seekzor 16d ago
Yes, they said on one of the podcasts that they are aware of the issue and that it's is not working as intended and working on fixing it.
A lot of people in the community are also unaware that the patch we are on is about three weeks behind internal build.
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u/itsnotthathardtodoit 16d ago
Lots of people don't really want to recognize that occasionally, when a company says a software is in beta, it's actually in beta. This server layering tech is brand new and obviously something they are monitoring very closely as it's vital to the launch of the game going smoothly.
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u/Elegant-Camel8061 15d ago
Right. It’s in beta, which means now is the time to make noise about the things that don’t feel right.
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u/TenshiBR 15d ago
Because most of the time, when they say Beta, it's just a pre-launch glorified demo, in which they never change anything and ignore all feedback. This time, I have to admit they are actually doing things and listening. It's weird!
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u/birdukis 15d ago
in the podcast that was specifically in regards to it happening during world pvp though, they never mentioned cases like op
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u/xXGreco 16d ago
It’s very anti Classic. Anti community. And immersion breaking. I hate it.
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u/Diffusion4Change 16d ago
The problem is no one wants to be on a low pop or medium pop server and then servers die
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u/Broad-Shallot-410 16d ago
I want medium pop. It's honestly the best way to experience the game. You can find people for groups, guilds and raids, but it's not overcrowded. You don't have to fight over every mob tag. When you meet someone on the road it feels more special.
If the server goes below a certain amount of players just merge it with another similar one that has low or medium pop. Doesn't seem that difficult in theory.
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u/apemopo 16d ago
I still remember this night elf warrior from a classic medium pop server in 2019. My gaming group thought we leveled fast and when looking for a player for lbrs this ne warrior appears with both rend swords and full prebis when we were getting our last 60s and first rares. It was one of the first real challenges to tank as a druid against him and he became a visiting legend in our dungeon group whenever we were lacking a dps. He had no respect for aggro and i loved it trying to compete against him and allow him to full nuke.
The interactions in low pop servers feel much more special when youre not bombarded with them all the time.
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u/Accomplished-Fix3996 15d ago
Medium pop is nice, hell even low pop has a lot of up sided. Can just chill by myself and the tiny community of close players. No crowded people stealing my mob tags, etc
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u/birdukis 16d ago
you can have realmless without sharding like this, regular classic layers span the entire continent
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u/ripleyisntreal 16d ago
Yeah but if you layer an entire continent you're gonna have some layers that have no people in certain zones and a lotta people in other zones. I think the dynamic layering is designed to keep every place feeling reasonably populated. Problem is it just doesn't work well right now at all.
Layering should be something you really don't notice.
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u/zigzagofdoom 16d ago
You dont need players EVERYWHERE, you just need players to be noticed. I'm not looking forward to going to out-of-the-way zones like Feralas and see 100 players swarming around me. The duality of remote and popular locations is important too, and unfortunately omega servers with dynamic layering kills this.
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u/missingpiece 16d ago
Exactly this. I don't want Blizzard's fucking algorithm telling how many people I'm "supposed" to be playing around at any given time. What the "optimal" population of STV ought to be. It was so fun playing PvP in Classic to go questing there early in the morning before it became a warzone, then head to a lower population area once people started waking up.
I'm not saying it should simply go back to the old way, I'm saying there's gotta be a better middle-ground than having every single zone effectively be its own instance.
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u/Accomplished-Fix3996 15d ago
I prefer to be on a thousand low pop realms before I go play with this layering crap.
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u/Bohya 16d ago
Then just allow people to swap between servers at will, like in OSRS.
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u/LyyK 16d ago
I think that I'd rather have "worlds" (layers) like in OSRS that you can freely switch between, where each layer has a maximum player count. Other MMOs have been using that system for decades without issues.
If you want to be around a lot of players or find a dungeon group, hop to layer 1. Want to avoid fighting other players for spawns? go to a lower pop layer
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u/jdmassy52 16d ago
Yeah bring us back to the good old days where i could watch the 4 other people on the server walk through the exit without phasing. /s
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u/Arkaden2012 16d ago
I really think blizzard underestimates how much community comes into play in MMOs. Players want to see the same names every time they go to their capitals. Its fun seeing the same guy from level 10 in a level 40 zone a few weeks later, it gives the server some identify. Some people might not agree with this but I also think rivalries formed from fighting the same people in world pvp is integral to making the world feel more alive.
I think we are missing a lot of the small community made "lore" because layering keeps everyone too divided. Gone are the days that you could name drop someone in chat and everyone would immediately know them as the "ganker at bootybay" or what have you. Those types of constant but effortless interactions are what truly make someone feel like they are apart of a world.
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u/Stickz99 15d ago
I’ve been playing a ton of TBC anniversary, and it’s so awesome to see people consistently remaining in the same level range as myself. I love seeing an LFG post from someone I ran a dungeon with 15 levels ago, now for a dungeon that’s in my current level range.
It almost makes you feel like you’re in a “graduating class” of adventurers, so to speak. Even if we don’t all ding 70 at the exact same time or in the same place, there’s this sense of togetherness in spirit, like it was an adventure that we went on together even when our paths diverged.
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u/Kabaal 16d ago
People are right to call them out for the hypocrisy of claiming the World to be the star of the game. And they want the community at the forefront.
This ‘layering’ shatters both.
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u/Rage_King27 16d ago
100%. I remember me and this other warrior were the two most geared warriors on the server but from different guilds. Anytime we saw each other in capitals we hit each other with the bro /nod or /salute, comment on any new upgrades, or have a small conversation about boss mechanics in relation to warrior DPS or theory-crafting. To me, that is a beautiful part of the game. I know we are in beta but I’m holding my breath to see how it goes.
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u/Ongr 16d ago
I stopped playing way past the point where I was still having fun, near the end of Legion. I was playing the game as a single player game. All my friends had either quit or phased out, and the old server communities were long gone too.
Like, I remember questing as an Orc and running into Night Elves when I hit Ashenvale Forest. We'd grief each other, or quest together and ran into each other in the next zones.
I remember the first time someone showed me WoW, before I played. He went into Warsong Gulch, explained the game for me when he suddenly had to stop himself when he spotted a player with the name 'Appelsap' on the opposing team. Or later, when me and my friends were doing Dailies on Isle of Quel'Danas, where was a Human Warrior named 'Isaac' (iirc) that would grief us. That dude was decked in full t6 gear and rocking both Warglaives.
And at the end of my run, I didn't recognize anyone. Anyone I ran into was from a different server, and I would likely never run into them again.
Sometimes I miss it, but I'm never going back to Azeroth.
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u/Slammybutt 16d ago
It really is an underrated experience even just running into the same guy you saw halfway across the world 10 levels ago by chance.
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u/BobSchwaget 16d ago
I couldn't agree more. I've tried and quickly stopped playing other MMO's because they didn't have that; it's a big part of what kept me coming back to WoW above all the others
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u/PepitoPalote 16d ago
They do know, they spoke about it exactly that at Blizzcon, it doesn’t seem like they know how to make it work.
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u/panspal 16d ago
It's great knowing the reputation of people and guilds on your server. Lets you know who is fun to play around, what person or guild to look out for or having friends you make running into the same player over and over. Shits magical
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u/spn_willow 15d ago
Recently when playing Era, I was so excited because I kept seeing the name of someone who I'd first seen at level 2 or 3. They were clearly leveling at a pretty similar rate as me because I think we were both level 10 or so? And then I saw them one more time later on when I reached another zone. It's a small thing, but it feels really nice!
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u/IamDirtyHippie 15d ago
Drives me nuts is the pvp aspect. If you bank me at a lower level best bet ima go for you everytime I see you as we level, but the likihood of me seeing them again is very slim. Not to mention trying to counter gank high level campers, its impossible.
Nightslayer still has 3 layers at 2am. It's wild. There is no one left
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u/Canadian_Border_Czar 16d ago
You're arguing for something that they're already implementing. They've stated explicitly that the goal is for you to encounter the same people all the time, it's just their current system sucks. It is better in TBC where when running dailies (before it was dead) I would see the same people, good and bad, every day.
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u/nofaxxspitintruflego 16d ago
ppl too busy dooming to even bother with any facts lmao
im still reservedly hyped for forever but ive got no expectations yk, glad if itll turn out great tho
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u/Tavron 15d ago
You mean the thing they haven't been able to fix for more than a decade?
Seems to be like it needs to be argued for until they learn how to do it.
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u/Lord_Seregil 16d ago
For real though. When classic launched I ran into an undead warlock at around level 10, and I kept running into him again and again every so often up until I quit playing around max level. We always stopped and chatted for a minute, usually because we were taking the same ships and Zeppelins, we'd party up sometimes if we were on the same quest, it was really cool and added a lot to the immersion seeing the people around me getting stronger with me. Even though I don't play WoW anymore I still think about that guy every once in a while. The memories you make are truly the best part of the game.
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u/PsychicSweat 16d ago
The one that bugs me the most is when I finish up with a group, leave, and suddenly everyone I was in the group with disappears from my screen.
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u/Designer-Prize-3448 16d ago
Bro one time I did that long ass escort quest in red ridge and when we got to the very end my party was disbanded and the fucking guy phased out right before my quest was completed. Rage quitted instantly that night
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u/Cosmic_Jane 15d ago
I hate phasing entirely. I wish there were a no-phasing server. I would play on that one
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u/comradepilo 16d ago
Felt the same way riding boats. I hop on with a certain group of people, loading screen hits and I’m now on a boat with an entirely different group of people
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u/Fig_tree 16d ago
In this specific case, it sucks cause out in front of the org gates is really still part of the orgrimmar social scene. Most notably that's where you can duel. Sucks that you can't sit in the rested XP and watch what's happening outside, maybe go join if you feel brave.
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u/Echo_Origami 15d ago
I was on a boat from booty Bay to Rachet and was having a pretty interesting conversation with another player. Once the loading screen hit, that player vanished and in his place was like ten other players that weren't there before.
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u/yayacocojambo 16d ago
Actually gamebreaking. One of the reasons WoW became great was because unlike other games at the time almost the entire game was 1 instance
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u/thenabi 16d ago
Cant agree hard enough. A coherent, static world is the main thing that makes it an MMO and not just a multiplayer game where everyone sorts into 50-man lobbies
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u/Scary-Photo9440 16d ago
I wonder if someone did a running from one end of the map to the other video in Forever how many times they'd phase in and out lol
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u/Chaosike 16d ago
Had this in SW today, saw a campfire with all the buffs that I needed on my druid, I ran outside of the gates and it phased away and another campfire spawned with buffs I already had better of
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u/SkY4594 16d ago
The sharding per zone system needs to go before release. Make the standard layering of the whole world like they did in Classic and call it a freaking day, this shit looks so ridiculous.
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u/newebay2 16d ago
Classic didn't have mega servers. Layering the whole world is expensive process since zones would have vastly different distributions.
If they do it in forever, it would spawn tons of instances to make the few hot zones not so crowded but rest of the zones would be void of players.
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u/omggga 16d ago
Layering the whole world is expensive process
oh poor blizzard indie company
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u/SockofBadKarma 16d ago edited 16d ago
I don't say this because I think it will be easy or anything. I'm not sure just how complicated it would be to program.
But if they made two changes to sharding in Classic, I suspect it would resolve 99% of the issues we see in clips like these.
Split the shards in the middle of zones at places where the fewest number of players are at any given time, as opposed to the edges of zones.
Implement a rule where a person cannot be sharded if another player exists within 200 yards of them, or when they're in combat (or otherwise, shard all players within 200 yards at the same time).
This would make it so that the seam points would be basically unnoticeable most of the time, and prevent people from popping between shards to escape world PvP and such. If they made a split along, say, the middle of the central pathway in lower Barrens near the dwarf expedition, it is highly unlikely that you'll be in the location where the shard is happening at the same time as someone else. And if they implement a proximity restriction, then people won't watch as other people right beside them pop out of existence.
The sharding is currently noticeable because it's occurring at natural visible breakpoints where people funnel through to get to new areas: boats, city entrances, zone entrances, etc. Throw the shard boundaries out in the middle of nowhere, and suddenly you have way fewer pop-outs.
Edit: Third rule, if you were recently grouped with someone, you cannot be sharded away from that same person after you've left the group for at least 10 minutes. Either you both/all transfer at the same time, or nobody does.
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u/dasvenson 16d ago
And which one of these rules do you break when no one satisfies either rule and you have too many people in a shard? Because if you don't the whole shard will degrade and maybe die.
They've already said what's happening is not intended and not how they want it to work. Why don't we just wait until live until they've actually fixed it rather than constantly bitch about it?
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u/Beknotze 16d ago
Personally im super annoyed by the zone-phasing or whatever its called they doing right now. I love interacting with people in the open world and doing a lil RP here and there. Especially good for this >were< boats... its so fucking annoying to get a new layer every time i travel with a boat/zep
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u/SarahsCuppaTea 16d ago
What is particularly annoying is when players in your party phase out. It makes zero sense that someone in your party would ever be in a different phase.
Happened again last night. Party member made a run to Undercity. They came back to the zone we were questing in but were in another phase. Dropping party and joining up fixes it…but that’s just annoying. You shouldn’t have to disband a party to play with your friends.
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u/Shpongolese 16d ago
Yeaaaa hardcore is going to be absolutely cooked if they stick with this shit system
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u/Thekingchem 16d ago
Starting to feel like they should have just given us realms. Where's the benefit?
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u/Gumgums 15d ago
That looks horrible. Has there been any word from Blizzard regarding this?
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u/Xae1yn 15d ago
Just the standard "we've heard you and we're looking into it". Realistically there's nothing they will do though, it's inherent to the sharding system, and they aren't about to rip the system out and replace it before release.
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u/RandySandals 16d ago
Yeah this is so stupid what's the point of seeing anyone at all if you just constantly layer and phase. The sense of community isnt gonna exist in forever at all.
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u/Organic_Kangaroo3812 16d ago
I’m not liking the layers tbh. I’d rather have realms but control the amount when 100% necessary. I prefer 1 world no pop control but I guess that’s impossible. Idk
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u/kittyonkeyboards 16d ago
What if we just made servers / layers something you could switch between freely?
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u/Philmore 16d ago
This seems like the best answer to me. I think Runescape's worlds system works great and has for 20+ years. People can choose if they want a high pop/low pop layer and they could even have layers that are specifically labeled for certain activities like world bosses the same way OSRS does.
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u/timodonie 16d ago edited 16d ago
Yes, and when you do you'd have to sit for 20s just like when logging out. Or perhaps you could only do it in capitals etc. each layer could have a name, just like the servers had. If a layer gets too crowded there would be a qué. You could only invite friends if they were on the same layer, it would be up to the players to coordinate who switches. No more "invite to asmon layer" bullshit. This would be so much better that the current abomination. You would actually understand what's going on and where people are etc. If some big event was planned people could name the layer it was going to take place in etc
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u/lingzhui 16d ago
Yep it's also really jarring when you're talking to people on zeppelins and boats
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u/FakeSafeWord 16d ago
A great fix would be CRZ Affinity aka “Home Layers”
Right now there's 40-51 geographic zones, depending on how major cities are cut up, and however many hundreds of shards(instances) available for each zone, but the zones themselves are seemingly not linked in any way to provide continuity to players which is what is causing all of these problems. Have the system dynamically provide the number of layers needed to support the population and each one has it's own set of tied shards for each of the 40-51 geographic zones.
Each Home Layer would contain a full geographic set of zone shards: one CRZ for Elwynn, one for Westfall, one for Redridge, etc. When you create a character, you're assigned a Home Layer, and the system tries to keep you on that layer across zone transitions whenever possible.
Players could manually select a different preferred Home Layer, potentially with something like a one-hour cooldown to prevent abusing it. Joining a party, PUG, or raid would still temporarily move you to another layer but you don't immediately transition off of that layer if kicked or the party disbands. You would only return to your own layer on reload, hearth out or transitioning to another zone so that you have control of when you transition back to your home layer.
The system would only ever move you elsewhere if your layer's CRZ for that zone is at capacity, restarting, or otherwise having performance problems. If a CRZ develops a problem, it could remove itself from the load-balancing pool while existing players are gradually offloaded to another temporarily selected CRZ that's inserted itself in place of the unavailable CRZ of the home layer. All players should be shuffled to this CRZ if possible for continuity.
If you're temporarily moved away from your Home Layer, the next zone transition or reload attempts to return you to it once the appropriate CRZ is healthy and back in the load-balancing pool.
Low-population layers could also be consolidated. If Home Layer #3443 becomes chronically underpopulated, players could get a notice that it will close in 48 hours and everyone remaining will be moved together to Home Layer #8373. The UI could include an option to migrate immediately. Blizzard could then shut down the unused infrastructure instead of maintaining mostly empty shards.
When you cross a zone boundary, or leave a party, you should generally see the same people. Players disappearing or appearing would mostly be limited to people who had temporarily been placed outside their Home Layer and were returning to it.
It wouldn't eliminate CRZ transitions entirely, but they would become the exception instead of something you seemingly witness every time you cross a zone boundary.
You'd get much more of the community continuity of traditional realms while retaining most of the scalability, performance, and infrastructure-cost advantages of the current CRZ system.
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u/dam4076 16d ago
Kind of like OSRS's worlds, with a bit of sharding for party changes.
Sounds a lot better than what currently is happening.
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u/KanedaSyndrome 16d ago edited 16d ago
We just need layers and no voluntary layer swapping. You choose a weekly layer and it acts as a realm for a week. At the weekly reset the layer survives if enough play on it, if not, the players are bumped into another layer together as a cohort so their realm dynamic doesn't get ruined.
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u/FakeSafeWord 16d ago edited 16d ago
That's very similar to what I've proposed except with once a week forced shuffling/decohesion instead of once every 1-3 months or whatever to Blizzard needs to reshuffle and offload chronically low pop layers.
With mine, there's still a chance, however unlikely that you meet someone at lvl 10, and run into them again at lvl 25 a week later and again at 40 two weeks after that because you both have had the same home layer the entire time.
Players having a way to voluntarily switch home layers once an hour, out of combat, 10 second cast or requiring being in an inn, offers no meaningful exploitation options to the player and no disadvantage to blizzard. If a layer gets flagged for offloading due to chronic low pop, blizz would just have it not be available for home layer selection.
I'll take either over the implementation they have now but it will take at least 6 months for the hype to die down to need to start taking layers offline to save money.
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u/DaRubyRacer 16d ago
Layering is a huge problem
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u/zhellqq 16d ago
It's not layering like on the classic servers, those didn't have this issue as they were region wide. This is more like the sharding that has been in retail for ages..
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u/ikemayelixfay 16d ago
Even retail sharding isn't this bad.
I know they said they were trying some new tech for this, but I really hope they can work out most of the kinks before launch. Right now it feels like the worst iteration.
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u/JohnHurts 16d ago
Duell in front of OG!
Yeah, wait, I'm coming out...
NOOOOO, my friend is gone
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u/zhellqq 16d ago
This was the exact scenario, I saw there were a bunch of people dueling in preparation for the tournament, so I figured I'd go there as well - not a single person standing out there..
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u/EmbarrassedTapWater 16d ago
This is the biggest flaw in forever so far. Almost enough to make me lose interest. I know that's bit dramatic but this really kills the whole mmo vibe for me
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u/PsilocybeTampanensi 16d ago
weve had layering without this right?
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u/zhellqq 16d ago
Yep, this looks more like the retail sharding that has been part of the reason why the world is dead there :)
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u/bemysandwich264 16d ago
its because it is retail sharding. They said at Blizzcon that the base of WoW Forever is the retail Client. It appears that they just kept a lot of systems from that client (probably because it was less work that way, since the team was small and wowf was barely 2 years in development). I assume thats why we got sharding, the retail UI and the SD models, which are retail models with classic textures, etc.
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u/zhellqq 16d ago
I see your point, but these things are not related. The client just shows what the server on Blizzards end sends you. Most likely all versions of WoW use the same backbone but with different configurations. I think the more reasonable conclusion is that they have used the retail server configuration as a base with some adjustments.
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u/Forumguy69 16d ago
this is the worst and it will be thru out the entire game
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u/Name835 16d ago
To me, this will kill Forever. It is that simple - this is absolutely horrendous.
And the fact that there is no RP-PVP, that too.
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u/Forumguy69 16d ago
100% and if you pick a pvp server it will be even worst, mid fight every 1 gone, or you doing a quest suddenly 4 players appear infront of you makes the world feel none existance
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u/shawesome420 16d ago
OG wow player here, coming back from a 15ish year break to play forever. Despite all the ups and downs the layering is by FAR the worst part about Forever. Its completely immersion breaking and makes pvp servers feel awful. There was something cool and really fun about having separate dedicated servers. If anything at all changes I hope so bad they bring back the servers. FUCK LAYERING.
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u/SomeStarcraftDude 16d ago
I had a group and some other group wanted to join for the quest, when they left their own group one of them vanished into a different phase.
Also on the boat you don't arrive with the same people which is horrible.
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u/Major-Bookkeeper8974 16d ago
Oh my lord, the boats.
Took the boat from Booty Bay surrounded by Alliance friendlies.
Phased into the Barrens surrounded by Horde enemies.
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u/CLYDEFR000G 16d ago
This is why they want us out in the open world and not stuck in dungeons!!!’ They love seeing the community disappear and want us to experience that feeling!!!!!!
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u/Bitter_Addition7031 16d ago
I hate it. I want small servers back.
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u/Extra_Secret_404 16d ago
Same, been playing exclusively on small servers since 2019 Classic and it's the best way to experience the game. Every interaction matters, people are actual people and not a means to an end, you know all the guilds on your server and what their ambitions/achievements are.
If Forever keeps that impersonal, big city-like megaserver feel then I'll probably just stop playing WoW for good, might be for the best anyway.
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u/NarwhalOk964 16d ago
This will never happen and there’s a reason behind it. People tend to quit when pop declines. The way they are doing it, the servers will be populated forever . Fresh blood will arrive every few months upon new content release and when they start seeing decline after 3-4 years they most probably gonna break their promise again and release a new forever server lol. Never ending cycle.
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u/zhellqq 16d ago
I'd much rather have what we had on the classic megaservers with region-wide layers instead of whatever the hell this is..
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u/Longjumping-Car-8367 16d ago
Small servers is not the answer. Nothing worse than dead servers or imbalanced servers. I don't understand why you can't just load in onto a layer and then never leave that layer unless joining a group with a friend.
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u/Tuisto05 16d ago
Immersion breaking is when you're 50 seconds into your campfire buff, minding your own business, and you get an invite from LFG for that Deadmines run you wanted and you hit accept and then all of a sudden the campfire disappears and you have to build a whole new fn campfire and waste another fishbowl and loadstone.
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u/Worldly-Shop-3850 16d ago
Players shouldn’t be phased out when moving from one zone to another on foot. That should only happen when you take flight path
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u/Evilson007 16d ago
That's a good compromise, or phasing should occur if you can't see a player. I imagine that'd be a more complex solution compared to phasing during flight paths but obviously the most immersive breaking effect is phasing happening right before players eyes
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u/flyingtiger188 16d ago
Would love a selectable layering, and none of this people phase in/out before your eyes nonstop junk. Give it a 1hr cool down and can only be done at an innkeeper. Have a list of layers and tell you the population on that layer/in that zone to a reasonable degree (eg low/medium/high/full). Probably could keep the wold refresh pop-ups, but make them optional. Eg if I am questing in an area without competition I don't want to phase, but often I get phased and now everything around me is dead.
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u/BakuretsuGirl16 16d ago
The phasing has been probably the most annoying part of Forever, I really hope there's something they can do to limit it more
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u/joshank1313 15d ago edited 15d ago
I was getting the popup like 5-6 times in a 2 hour session, can’t freaking meet or talk with people if I phase out of the layer so many times. In other games you can select your own layer. Blizzard should only change if when people logout or there is an issue.
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u/Albert3232 16d ago
I might be overreacting but I'm seriously considering whether to play this game at launch if they don't do something about this sharding/layering feature.
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u/jaasian 16d ago
Regardless I wouldn’t play at launch the servers will have crazy ques and zones will be packed like sardines for the first week
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u/superanonguy321 16d ago
Its worse on alliance horde edges... People will wait on one side knowing the other faction wont see them til too late.
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u/edwardsamson 16d ago
Dont you love walking out of Org and seeing a fully pimped out campfire setup only for it phase away to a single campfire and tent (or none at all) when you step from that dark grey stone to the crusty dried up ground of Durotar?
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u/Miserable-Yak-4804 16d ago
i like how i'm fighing a named mob then it phases and the full health version aggros and destroys me while i'm low mana
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u/Jedariuz 16d ago
So this happened to me yesterday, I was in a WC group, after a long slog and finishing the dungeon, 3 of us stayed to go outside and look for Mad Magglish. Finally managed to find that bastard and killed him. I went down to to loot...
Whoops inventory full can't loot, I went into my inventory and quickly got rid of a couple items, then tried to click on the corpse...but nope, corpse was gone, my group already disbanded and I was booted to another layer.
Talk about immersion breaking. To add insult to injury, all the mobs around there were all back in the new layer...great.
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u/dartheduardo 16d ago
When it REALLY sucks is after you die. I don't think it is supposed to work like this. I understand spawn rates, but I died twice last night on the quest outside of Ratchet to kill the tower guards at the keep. I soloed the first tower and got stuck on the stairs and died to the last mob. Ran back, rezzed and BOOM, phased and everything respawned.
I didn't make it out, but I did kill the target. Same thing happened on the second tower.
It's irritating.
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u/pioneer9k 16d ago
Yeah stuff sometimes respawns like 30 seconds later and now you’re getting rushed 7 fresh mobs that you just killed and were recovering from lol
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u/Calbob123 16d ago
Yeah I’ve had a few times where I’m chatting to someone in /s from the zeppelin and we get to org and phase from eachother
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u/Bobstalgia 16d ago
I dont understand why they dont do world select like runescape that can only be changed in a rested area.
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u/Instagibbed_1994 16d ago
Last night I had a warrior make this last second epic jump from the tower onto the UC zepplin. No one else noticed it, but I wasnt going to let him keep the excitement to himself. I told him i witnessed his deeds. I was going to keep talking to him, but he phased out when we went to the UC zone from Durotar.
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u/door_of_doom 16d ago
Yeah, I agree 100%. I hope that they can find a way to structure a better balance between server architecture and real-world experience.
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u/Phrongly 16d ago
Noticed this a bunch of times. People keep popping in and out of existence, you don't even know who you can invite to party before they disappear. That's depressing.
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u/NumaNuma92 16d ago
The phasing is very noticable between the border of Elwynn Forest and Redridge, i’ve seen plenty of horde dance between layers by going back and forth.
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u/Truethrowawaychest1 16d ago
My favorite part about phasing is when you spot a gathering node on the minimap that's across a border zone and when you get to it it disappears, and then you go back to what you're doing and it reappears, taunting you
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u/Itchyclunge 16d ago
Noooo just realised that this is going to impact the ability to just hang out and duel outside org/sw. Probably my favourite thing to do in this game
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u/blessed-- 16d ago
bro is standing at the entrance staring at a wall and says "my immersion" brother u can fuck right off
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u/natural_disaster0 16d ago
Honestly the realmless thing has been the biggest L of Forever so far. I wish they could rethink it.
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u/NightTrauma 16d ago
I grouped up with a player to do a tough quest and as soon as we ungrouped afterwards, I watched him disappear right in front of me, mobs and new players phased in all around me and I had to run for my priest life.
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u/Sp0range 16d ago
and the boats as well. hopping onto a boat/zeppelin with someone and having a chat only to load in with complete randos and your acquaintance nowhere in sight.
It's very jarring and immersion-breaking.
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u/t3hWheez 16d ago
If you see someone they should never phase in and out!!!! If you can’t do it we should go back to servers!
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u/UncleJack16 16d ago
yeah its honestly awful, a server used to feel like a world in itself, you knew the people and everyone was seeing same thigns that you were, this just makes it feel like all so fake
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u/Kabaal 16d ago
Wtf are these comments? How are people defending this?
Man, the retail masses have really flooded this subreddit. They’re used to just bending over and taking whatever Blizz has to offer.
Some people have higher expectations.
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u/00365 16d ago
As another post put it, this isn't layering, this is sharding. It's anti-social be ause it suddenly changes who you are around at sny time, making people around you feel like meaningless NPCs.
We want layers we can voluntarily swap to, not a fractured experience.
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u/flyingtiger188 16d ago
The blimps/boats are probably the worst experience for this. You leave on a boat that's empty only to cross to the other continent and now you're on a boat that is jam packed full of people that weren't there 10 seconds ago.
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u/Derek114811 16d ago
I remember, back in 2004, how one of the biggest selling points of WoW was there is no loading screens. It’s all seamless. How the times have changed lol
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u/BDObadguy 16d ago
This is basically an instance portal without the swirly bit.