r/classicwow • u/Tankbot85 • 23h ago
Forever Beta Feedback Please fix before launch. Unacceptable for a living breathing world.
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u/Kengion 22h ago
You're right, we need to take back Lordaeron from the unliving unbreathing forsaken, for humanity.
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u/crayonflop3 23h ago
Agreed this is by far the most important issue that needs to be addressed.
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u/Lochen9 20h ago
0% chance this will be fixed by launch. Would require a massive overhaul on how the game works on the backend.
It is what it is, and we can’t have it all. Still rather have this immersion break than have to be on a dead server cause you guessed wrong
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u/styuone 17h ago
You’re right. The technology simply doesn’t exist and it just cannot be done. Especially for a billion dollar enterprise with unlimited resources, we should stop hoping for basic levels of immersion in an MMO.
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u/h0rny3dging 17h ago
Why spend that money when millions of people eat up the minimum effort slop without question for years on end with the GUARENTEE they will do it again.
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u/Hypermetz 19h ago
They could have used layering from classic era instead of sharding from retail. It's not like they don't already have a solution for this.
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u/Vebio 17h ago
Funny thing is, on retail i observe the same people every day in silvermoon, sometimes even different zones. There seems to be some kind of "home" layer. I observed that some weeks ago when i spotted some random druid almost every day.
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u/Zargabraath 8h ago
blizzard could simply make server transfers free with a long cooldown instead of fucking over the game because they're too lazy and/or incompetent to manage server populations and faction balance
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u/Laggo 19h ago
why are you just making stuff up, they've already said they've made improvements that will come with the launch and there is further work to be done
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u/Affectionate-Pickle0 19h ago
I mean yeah but they could do small changes to it so it is not nearly as jarring. Like you only see people in the next "shard" if you're going to be put in said shard. That would already remove a ton of the phasing issues.
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u/Professional_Day8274 14h ago
It’s is so immersion breaking
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u/Eatpineapplerightnow 13h ago
if it was just that... This is gamebreaking
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u/BLFOURDE 13h ago
How?
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u/Eatpineapplerightnow 13h ago
If I want to gan..-i mean talk to you, I dont want you to disappear. imagine city raids
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u/Mercadi 22h ago
We're like: "Hey guys, what's happening? ...oh"
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u/Tankbot85 22h ago
A few minutes after this someone set up a campfire outside. Sweet, run out, it all disappeares. Gee, thanks blizz.
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u/Pleiadez 19h ago
Its confirmed every zone is a seperate server. No more one world:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VvMZsDIJ7IY&list=LL&index=1&pp=iAQBsAgC
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u/MizmoDLX 17h ago
You could still fix it or at least drastically improve it. Just preassign people close to the borders within a certain timeframe to the same server. Then you will only encounter this if you are unlucky and change just during the switch of the timeframe window.
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u/d3agl3uk 17h ago
That's absolutely fine though, they clearly already have the city and the outside zone active at a time, so they are able to show both servers at the same time. The issue is that for some reason it swaps to a new server when you cross the border rather than keeping the active one.
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u/gouranga_eatsoup 16h ago
because there are 50 Undercity shards, and only 6 Trisfal glades shards. Its allways gonna swap u.
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u/Usermctaken 16h ago
Then maybe the game should show the players the shard they are actually going to land on, instead of another random shard.
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u/Fit_Mushroom_4087 15h ago
And what will people outside of the city see then? Only people who will appear on their shart when they go out of the city? that means each shart will see people from 50/6 = 8 or 9 different sharts.
Lets say undercity sharts 1 through 8 map to trisfal shart 1. from trisfal shart 1 you can see people on undercity shart 1 and undercity shart 2. But people on those sharts can't see each other.This is fundamentally unsolvable problem. You cannot have world continuity and integrity across zones with vastly different shart counts.
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u/perrapys 12h ago
Is there a reason why one layer does not apply to one entire continent?
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u/APXOHT_BETPA 7h ago
This feels like a personal "f*ck you" from the game, it makes you feel like you are "that" guy who shows up at the party and everybody quickly disappears because they don't want to be near you lol
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u/SuiBee_ 5h ago
That's called being insecure.
Nevermind, I forgot i'm on reddit.
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u/Automatic_Loss_2837 15h ago
What is even worse is that some people think this is oke and doesnt require fixing.
It is the biggest issue I have with forever and its not even close.
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u/nazaguerrero 17h ago
I'm like: oh shit nice! a camp next to the entrance
*dissapear in front of your face* 😭
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u/DreadRobertz 10h ago
You know I don’t think this would be such a problem if the layer they switched you to wasn’t always empty. Maybe idk.
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u/Terrible_Tadpole_861 9h ago
Nah, a more persistent world around you is cool.
Just do the layering when you log on, or when you join a group on another layer.
Besides that, don't layer us
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u/DreadRobertz 7h ago
I completely agree, I want the persistence as well, I’m just saying that it’s SO NOTICEABLE, because for some reason it feels like you go from layer 1 to layer 9 every time lol
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u/schitzo-kalypso 22h ago
Megaserver was a mistake if this is the way to """solve""" populated areas
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u/waffle-crispy 22h ago
Question for those following the infra of WoW closer: why can't they just implement dynamic interest management if the server pressure is the issue?
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u/XyrasTheHealer 21h ago
It’s been a voiced issue since before even legion days, at this point I would have to HOPE it’s a core issue with the game being so old. I would hope
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u/yesayeti 18h ago
I’m sorry but this just looks so ass. How anyone can defend this is beyond me.
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u/Rubzje 18h ago
I wonder why they even chose sharding to begin with. No one can think this is a good idea, right?
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u/TheBungler2 17h ago
It is a good idea for the problem they want to solve. It's just 'not a good idea' in terms of seeing people dissapear at zone borders.
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u/Aelig_ 16h ago
It's a good idea to solve 2 problems:
1) people don't want to be on a dead server and don't want to move.
2) paying for server compute you don't need most of the time.
It's kind of the only way to solve those 2 problems together. The question is whether or not they are the right problems.
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u/Patient-Definition96 15h ago
Number one can be solved by a server merge. Server compute can be adjusted or killed by the solution to number one.
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u/Aelig_ 15h ago
I was under the impression that people didn't like server merge.
And server merge doesn't really solve problem 2 compared to what they're doing.
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u/brothediscpriest 18h ago
Because their servers can only hold up to 10 layers before crashing.
10 layers wouldnt be enough with 1 server. Would need hundreds of layers
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u/Akumati 22h ago
It's been an issue for years. Blizzard always ignores it.
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u/Heccer 22h ago
The problem is that this is not the layering they had before for Classic. Layers used to be applied for the whole open world but the new version is sharding every zone separately
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u/Jclevs11 22h ago
I remember everyone getting pissed but we thought it was sharding. People should be mad
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u/Xae1yn 21h ago
It was sharding in the classic beta, they came up with layering because of the backlash.
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u/Frosty-Ad1071 17h ago
Add instance portals to zones. Bare minimum add them to cities and small loading screen to go with it. If the game is meant to be instanced be clear about it
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u/colorless_green_idea 13h ago
Yeah it would be much less jarring at least if they did this
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u/ThisAd1371 17h ago
guys it dont matter how much you post these videos about sharding dev team is in too deep atm to change it they´re not gonna rework their entire network in 2 weeks
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u/Heathens-_- 10h ago
I don't really understand why they can't just have a ton of different servers available for each mode and have your character be able to enter any of the servers. Maybe theres 10 PvP servers and 10 PvE and 10 RP. If Illidan or whatever for some reason is High or at Capacity, then take your character over to Malfurion or Stormrage and just do it there, but at least then you'd know that the people you're playing with in your servers are there to play with you.
"What happens when you're trying to 40 people on and 27 of them are on a server at full capacity?"
Just have to switch to one of the lower pop servers or plan around popular play times to login prior and be ready to raid.
So many solutions for a game that is supposed to feel like it's world is consistent and alive, that don't make it feel like you're just running into ghost who disappear into the ground when you get too far.
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u/Debt-Then 8h ago
The mega server with layering is the cheaper option. We live in a capitalist society where profit is king. Blizzard is owned by capitalists, and so we are stuck with the layers. I swear 99% of the people on this sub have zero class consciousness, hence all the posts about this system. The capitalists don’t care about immersion in a video game, they just want to see those dollar signs. It sucks but it’s the reality that we all must face. Complaining about it is futile. If you really want change, start organizing IRL.
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u/Odd-Client-1218 6h ago
It really is wild to me how gamers forget that these companies are businesses that want money. They don't care otherwise.
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u/Mad_For_Nothing 17h ago
This is simple to fix.
Connect the city and neighboring starter zone, so you never see the dramatic disappearance when people leave the city.
The rest of the zone crossings are far less populated and pronounced.
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u/FaithlessnessOk7988 16h ago
Then starter zones will be empty because the majority of players on that shard will be in the capital city
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u/Wheler 21h ago
legit makes me not want to play until it's fixed
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u/girlsareicky 20h ago
... you'll be waiting a while
This is how it's worked in retail for about a decade. People were loud and complained then too
Eventually everyone just gave up and accepted it
This is not something they can "fix" in a week, and I doubt they can even fix it at all. This is the reality of the mega server in wow
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u/TappityTapTapOut 18h ago
I quit over it and won’t be coming back until it’s fixed so that works for me I guess.
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u/Wheler 20h ago
they will fix it or people will quit
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u/TimewarpingSeaTurtle 19h ago
I'm not gonna quit over this shit lmao. Does it suck? Yeah, a little. Not enough to make me not wanna play.
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u/Kabaal 13h ago
2004: One seamless world. No loading screens other than between continents and instances.
2026: Butchered world cut up into dozens and dozens of shards. Players disappearing and reappearing around you constantly.
How in 22 years did they actually regress?
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u/wozniattack 17h ago
Blizzard simply doesn’t want any Massively Multiplayer their Online game.
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u/Calarann 21h ago
They already confirmed more than once that they are working on it.
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u/usernameenjoyer1 20h ago
Sharding has been broken for 9 years in retail, you really think theyre that interested? The more attention this gets the better.
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u/lib___ 19h ago
those are just meaningless words. also... think about why it is this way in the first place. because they have no idea what they are doing
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u/Yakuzanjin 16h ago
If say all zones attached to capital cities were merged rather than separate zoning, would people be happy with that?
I appreciate out in the world when you run barrens to ashenvale for example there's no continuity, but maybe just the capital city changes would be okay due to the sheer volume of players in and outside the city
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u/Mean-Worldliness-801 12h ago
This will not be fixed, nor will it ever be addressed. Thank you, see you on launch day.
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u/hiirogen 11h ago
What's super fun is when you're an Alliance player trying to run RoL. From the outside it seems nice and quiet so you run in, then you layer and there's 500 horde all trying to get a hit in before you die.
I'm sure it's similar for Horde trying to run the IF one.
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u/ChamicusPrime 10h ago
I hate that it happens in between boat rides because the people i roleplay with disappear and it just jars the whole experience
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u/Some_thing_to_do 10h ago
Blizzard seems to be listening for once. I'm sure this will be fixed eventually. Have some patience
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u/Bohya 9h ago
They won't. It's working as intented according to Activision-Blizzard.
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u/fearloathing1 9h ago
I really didnt have much issue with layering til last night and got layered mid a long escort quest. Finished it and no credit
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u/Previous-Load7571 18h ago edited 17h ago
Without knowing how backend works and what it would require to implement this solution, it's pretty straightforward conceptually: layer only once nobody or only small number of players are in visible radius of your character, or if you have to force it, move everyone in visible radius of your shard to the same shard. An easier alternative would be to not have shards for each zone, but rather regions, that would connect cities to outside zones and etc.
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u/FuckUniqNames 17h ago
I never understand why do we see one shared, but then join another? Why not just show the shard we are actually joining?
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u/thiswebsiteisadump 22h ago
We still need one of these posts for thunder bluff and darnassus. We've only had the exact same post for orgrimmar (several times), stormwind, ironforge and now the undercity so far. The devs won't know about it in the rest of the world if we dont keep posting
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u/Noccternal 13h ago
I don’t think the argument here is “get rid of layering” it’s the situations where layering detracts from the experience like this. Maybe you’re pvping and walk over a border. Oops, your fight is nonexistent. Big PvP event at a major city? The raid group can walk outside and disappear to reset.
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u/slothson 21h ago
There is no fixing this. This is how it works in a "single" server game.
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u/Lazyleader 20h ago
Not true, other games fix it by having stable selectable layers
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u/WonderingOctopus 17h ago
Heck, you could even have a smaller version of the layering system.
Anything but this aweful sharding crap.
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u/Sryzon 16h ago edited 16h ago
It works in Runescape because the world is designed to disperse the playerbase relatively evenly throughout the world.
It works in Maplestory and Guild Wars 1 because there's loading screens between zones.
WoW has neither loading screens nor a balanced world. There will always be significantly more people in cities and starting zones than high level zones.
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u/lumpy999 5h ago
I'm happy people are finally getting annoyed with sharding. I used to get hated into oblivion, for preferring unstable servers that are actually CONNECTED, vs this disjointed annoying tech.
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u/ElderTreefluff 4h ago
Keep complaining about it and eventually it might get “fixed” or significantly better, but there’s almost no chance it will improve much by launch, which is coming very soon.
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u/nekomata_58 4h ago
I still dont see why they need to auto-layer anything, except for when joining groups. Imo they need to just provide a layer selector.
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u/Proper-Foot2971 3h ago
This might be my literal only real complain about WoW Forever right now aside from the fact it seems like servers are not truly cross-region (i.e. there are regional megaservers rather than global megaservers). I don't think they will fix it before release or even very shortly after, but I genuinely hope they will be able to figure out the solution within the next months and communicate it with us.
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u/Sneaky_Rhin0 3h ago
I've been saying this ever since layering was first introduced: layering does far more harm to the game than good. At this point, it almost feels like the system is designed to prevent the world from actually feeling alive rather than making it a better experience.
The fact that players can be randomly pulled away from an active world simply by zoning in and out of a city is ridiculous. And what's even worse is that we apparently can't even have multiple full raid groups fighting in the same zone without massive lag, crashes, or any number of other issues rendering the game practically unplayable. We've seen this happen repeatedly, including on streams.
Other games manage large-scale player interactions just fine, so why is Blizzard still struggling with something that should be a fundamental part of an MMO? Instead of constantly introducing more layers to work around these limitations, perhaps it's time to actually address the underlying infrastructure and server performance. Someone at Blizzard seriously needs to switch the data centers from energy-saving mode to performance mode.
What's particularly alarming is that we're this close to release and still encountering entirely new issues that feel like something straight out of an early alpha test. At this point, even AI-generated spaghetti code would do a better job.
And someone needs to say it. I'm sorry if this upsets the more defensive players who feel compelled to justify every decision Blizzard makes, but this has gone on for far too long. Layering is actively undermining what makes an MMO feel like an MMO, and constantly defending these shortcomings isn't doing the game or its community any favors.
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u/IdempodentFlux 3h ago
I feel like it should be easy to identify players who have no players within view, mark them as eligible for re layer, and move them. I feel like if they prioritized moving players with no visible other players it would make a big difference
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u/Immediate_Rent_213 1h ago
Last night I happily strode out of stormwind when I saw a massive group of people dueling that I wanted to join. Right as I walked out the gates every single one of them disappeared and it was just me. Alone.
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u/TougherOnSquids 20h ago
I think a temporary fix of extending the threshold where layering happens would be good for launch until they can find a real solution.
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u/Nealliam 20h ago
It looks to me like the cities have all the layers piled on top of each other and when you leave those extra layers get peeled away. I don't think there's too much they can do about it without overpopulating the zones and making it hard to level. Maybe they can extend the city layer boundary a bit outside so that all the layers can still duel each other outside the gates?
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u/Important_Peak_4781 18h ago
Hello can I ask what UI are you using I really like the mininalistic look. Also agree with the post, I am not playing in beta but seeing multiple posts like this is really sad to see.
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u/PilsnerDk 17h ago
I think this is impossible to "fix"; it's fundamentally inherent to the way Retail works, and Forever is essentially Retail client/server with old content, graphics and different game mechanics.
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u/KidPeco 17h ago
Just give us a pop up "this area is currently at its maximum, do you want to switch?" or something like that
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u/toneyhauk 17h ago
Nah of all the complaints on this sub THIS is crazy, and needs to be fixed. Lets focus on this shit over models having arms bent at a 84 degree angle instead of an 86 please.
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u/MixAmbitious307 16h ago
Alas we have to make a quick reality check.
Blizzard pushed hard on an aggressive 8-week release cadence, and it completely backfired with back-to-back buggy launches in Retail. So, let's not delude ourself that the same software house would magically release something polished like... like the good Blizzard of its glory days and their “When it is ready” policy.
And we also have to consider the "GTA 6 panic".
I don't wanna kill hype for people who're eager to see Forevrer, but expecting that the problems that WoW has (bugs, bots, etc.) will be in Forever aswell is probably better that thinking Forever will be magically bug free, has not even one bot, etc.
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u/Cole-Cash 16h ago
I really like the concept of sharding because it keeps zones and cities feeling alive and populated. But they really need to make it as seamless and unnoticeable as possible
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u/onedash 16h ago
At this point why cant we manually change to layers to find people after we leave a zone/city and people disappear?
Obviously exploitable for farm but if you recently hopped layer or multiple one you just dont get killcredit/xp/questcredit at all for a time
Also cant switch when in combat or after just left combat like in pvp to escape people
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u/icswcshadow 15h ago
It seem like its zone based, so leaving UC its very noticeable. I think they should just do a check if there are players nearby keep you on the same layer for now. After 15 Minutes or so it could do the whole "the world around you will be reset" thing. Its not flawless but less jarring. Would also fix the pvp problems at zone crossings where the enemy player would be on another layer when crossing.
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u/Mr_Alucardo 14h ago
How to fix this without overpopulating Quest locations? Remember waiting 2 hours for 1 Quest mob.
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u/Bitter-Wallaby6639 14h ago
Problem is not the shard tech itself, its how its handled and how the handover works. In the Video mostlikely either 2 things happened:
You entered a layer which was at. Its max and so you got layered instantly. Solution would be to sync layers at a choke point, like an elevator, where you will continue in the same layer with the people you see on the elevator. Or extend layering over city bounds.
You had an layer from before, and it temporarily overwritten by the city and you returned once you exited. Solution would be to preview you layer when looking out the gates.
I has something to do with the new people IDs, which they mentioned during Blizzcon. The part they implemented so that likelihood of meeting the same people again is higher, giving you consistency in the world, but if this would be the result as show in your clip, I think then this feature needs more work.
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u/Neogie 14h ago
It’s Beta, they are using scalable testing resources to host the system. Not an issue. Learn what Beta is and networking, and how companies implement testing resources.
Before you say, “It’s Blizzard”, everyone is affected by the cost of memory right now hosting data centers. On prem systems cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more, and clouds into the millions over time.
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u/_nitsu 14h ago
It's embarrassing. Millions of new people are going to see my favorite game in a couple weeks and it's this
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u/biggestMug 13h ago
I just want to be able to get on the same fucking layer as my IRL peeps I'm supposed to play with.
I couldn't even get someone in the same room as me on the same layer after multiple attempts and different strategies.
Suuuuuper frustrating.
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u/MarkLambertMusic 13h ago
This is why I'm going to continue spending most of my WoW time on TBC Anniversary. This mega-server phasing crap is immersion breaking.
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u/LessRespects 12h ago
Why not just set layer on login, every time someone logs in send them to the least populated layer, and keep them there until they log out or join a group? Like RuneScapes worlds but without manual selection list.
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u/crazymonkey202 12h ago
The best they're going to do is just move the transition point so you don't see people outside before it swaps you.
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u/gubigubi 11h ago
Might as well be playing Guildwars 1
This layering/sharding what ever this is, this tech is absolutely dog shit ass.
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u/ProceduralShooter 11h ago
they should have a cooldown timer or something when two players come withing a certain range of each other they are locked on the same shard together until that timer expires. If they come into contact before the timer is up, it resets.
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u/Bialcohool 10h ago
They really messed up the engineering of sharding, the thought the "per zone" sharding was going to be good but it isn't so now they have to re-engineer it to make it immersive without breaking the one ruleset -> one megaserver.
I don't envy them, this is going to take a massive amount of resources and time to make it right while tanking the neverending waves of complaints.
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u/ENDrain93 9h ago
I have a really simple solution.
Don't layer people within adjacent shards. Only layer people 2 or more shards away.
Like, you know how in single player games they split level on rooms or zones and only update the current zone (where player is) and adjacent ones? Like chunks in Minecraft. That, but for layering. Only layer characters that are 2 or more shards away from each other. Characters in adjacent shards (i.e. a shard where you can see even if not being there) are never layered away from each other.
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u/GruulNinja 21h ago
Not gonna happen. It's gonna launch like this until they figure it out like 6 months from now