r/classicwow • u/DistinctCellar • 2h ago
Forever Beta Feedback How Forever layering feels
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u/joebawca 1h ago
Dang sort of like Guild Wars
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u/Magres 1h ago
I love GW2 and played it until I basically 'beat' it (maxed gear on every class, cleared all the raids for years and years, etc) but the megaserver aspect of it fucking blows. GW2 was my wife's first MMO and she never believed me how much better discrete servers are until she started playing FF14 and discovered the magic of "oh if I hang out in the same spot regularly, there are other people who hang out there too and I'll actually recognize regulars and shit." She loves crafting and has made in-game friends with her 'neighbors' at her favorite crafting spot.
It's wild to me when people act like sharding is just a requirement for an MMO when one of WoW's biggest competitors somehow manages to do discrete servers.
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u/breathingweapon 1h ago
Eh, this exists in GW2 but for actually doing stuff. Commanders will run niche content on a pretty set schedule so if you show up for like, a late night EoD train regularly you get to know the regulars as well.
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u/Magres 54m ago
Event trains were never really my cup of tea, personally. There just wasn't anything I wanted that I couldn't afford with money from fractals, and I did a lot of T4 fractal dailies for my cash flow.
The main time I ever really got to know any names was when I got really into WvW and got to know which doritos sucked and which were any good. Maguuma for life, being the villains of WvW never stopped being fun
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u/Maatix12 11m ago
To be fair, one of the biggest hurdles to FFXIV's raiding scene is the fact that it uses discrete servers, which have limits.
During peak raid times, you either raid with your FC, or you get on Primal before every single server locks up. Because if you don't, you lose access to most of the raid scene, and what's left is... not pretty.
Even then, FFXIV has to shard it's most popular locations on patch days, because it will cause the servers to crash for it's individual, discrete servers to host the number of players they're supposed to be able to host in a single area. Because those areas are instanced away from one another, and the game isn't meant to handle everyone in the same instance of the same zone.
There are benefits and downsides to both methods. I'd love someone to find a middle ground that works, but unless we have a world that houses every single player ever (which no one has been able to manage without it crashing thus far), it just doesn't feel feasible.
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u/UnFelDeZeu 1h ago
Dang sort of like Guild Wars
The game I used to mock as 'not a real MMO'. Oof.
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u/Anthonysan 1h ago
Which is ironic because it has better endgame open world activities than most MMOs including WoW.
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u/stebbeh 1h ago
I still have no idea exactly how it works but I think I did it by accident a few times where I just fished 4 puddles, walked out the zone and back in and there were 4 puddles again. Am I tripping or can this stuff be abused pretty bad?
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u/Kitchen_accessories 1h ago
Every single zone and city has separate shards. Whenever you change zones, you change shards and other players phase in and out.
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u/TheClassicAndyDev 1h ago
That's because it literally is. They just don't render a loading screen and it does it asynchronously.
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u/Kippingthroughlife 48m ago
Why doesn't blizzard just do worldwide shards, or at least content like let's say you have 2,000 people on one shard when that one fills up they get put on another shard
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u/Adventurous-Rate-817 33m ago
The reason is so that they don't need to spin up 200 kalimdors for 200 separate instances of orgrimmar with no one else in any other zones eating server load.
I hate this as much as the next guy but they gotta bite the bullet and link some of these shards together for continuity.
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u/FluffyN00dles 25m ago
They spent the money on this when they had discrete servers and they can spend the money now.
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u/Adventurous-Rate-817 15m ago
Psh I'd be ecstatic but I think we're past that point tbh. We might be able to convince them to link some zones together for shard purposes, but thatll throw their averages off and make zones totally crowded in certain areas.
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u/FluffyN00dles 4m ago
My only hope is enough people bounce off the game that there are only 10 layers max in 6 months and they can implement continent wide layers again.
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u/USSGoat 14m ago
World wide shards is layers
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u/Kippingthroughlife 10m ago
I mean yes but it's one consistent layer where players wouldnt phase in and out at random
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u/hoticehunter 6m ago
"Worldwide shards" are referred to as layers. It's how it works on Era/Hardcore currently.
Layers introduce their own issues, mostly related to limiting gathering supply, and not helping with truly congested areas as much as sharding.
There's pros and cons to each solution. It's not a clear cut answer. Unless Blizzard does realms but allows for seamless realm transfers (not paywalling us).
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u/FireResistant 45m ago
The layering is such a bummer man, i went into the stress test to see how crazy launch would be and get a game plan... i was in an MMO for about 2 quests and then i got dragged into a single player RPG... all alone by myself... maybe 1 or 2 others.
It sucks, it isnt what an MMO is about, i dont want to be in a dead world on launch, they need to not spin up so many layers or be afraid to have a crowded world. I don't care if levelling is less efficient or frustrating... actually i'm actively looking for that friction to build memories and sink the time into, not have it glide past while i spend my time alone in a vast world.
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u/DylRar 1h ago
What was the big problem with a bunch of separate servers again? Some would get clusterfucked? Who cares? Why can't we just choose one universe instead of constantly traveling through the multiverse when we play?
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u/PompeiiSketches 1h ago
Traditional servers with proactive population balance for pvp servers and quick mergers to address population issues is the best option. 2019 classic servers felt very populated. We have better hardware today and the servers could probably support even higher pops.
This mega server stuff sucks and if they cant fix layering it is going to be such a bummer.
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u/Spetz1992 1h ago
That would imply them having to work, monitor and be proactive, which we know is something impossible.
We will take the layering and we will like it.
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u/NiewinterNacht 1h ago
Can't work against human nature, this is the best solution.
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u/Kitchen_accessories 1h ago
The layering system in Classic was the best solution. I have no idea why it can’t simply be scaled up with a “home layer” concept that sticks you with the same people most of the time.
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u/RefrigeratorWhich943 48m ago
This. They just need to prune the servers with low pop and enforce faction balancing. If they have a hard time getting people to switch from a over populated server, offer free barbershop stuff (hair, gender, race changes etc)
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u/AnEthiopianBoy 14m ago
Hell, the faction imbalance snowball in 2019 classic wasn’t even started naturally, it was Blizzard that fucked it up. They let some servers get too big, so they opened free transfers off… and so whichever faction was just slightly behind started moving leading to the first major one faction servers. And that naturally fucked the servers everyone went to, which then led to the small factions leaving after paid transfers opened, which just snowballed the whole way down.
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u/Gullible_Fennel7028 1h ago
There idea was that it would both stop overcrowded zones and also dead zones, making the world always feel alive. Instead of there being 10 people in Desolane spread over 10 different servers, you can put them all in the one server and it feels like an MMO instead of a single player game. In practice the constant layering every time you travel anywhere makes it feel like a bunch of instances, ruining the open world seamless connected world feeling.
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u/kowaletm 1h ago
I understand that is their reasoning, but why does everywhere need to be populated? Shouldn't Desolace be... desolate??
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u/TheClassicAndyDev 1h ago
People are too stupid to realize that they jave already fixed low server populations. I have no idea. Their cognitive dissonance is unfathomable.
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u/NiewinterNacht 1h ago
People like playing on the most popular server, which is why this new architecture makes sense.
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u/Which_Decision4460 1h ago
Never been on a dead server have you?
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u/Ramplicity 1h ago
Blizzard can offer mergers and transfers for no cost anytime they like, this isn’t a good argument for megaservers
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u/Moltarrr 1h ago
The transfers are a pain.
First because by the time Blizz gives them for free, it is already too late and the server is super dead.
Second, transfering is painful, the guild is lost and must be recreated (and maybe with another name if it's already in use), including muling all the guild bank items by hand.
Third, there are gold limits you can transfer with, you end up having to buy expensive stuff to sell after the transfer (losing gold in the buy/sell process) or you have to transfer gold to other users that have room and get it back later, risking to lose it if they just go to another server or change name and disappear.
Fourth, your character name might be in use in the server you are transfering to, and you are forced to change it.
In 2019 classic I had to transfer not once, not twice, but three times! It just plain sucked.
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u/Extension-Bed-7300 1h ago
That's because they do it strategically to sell server transfers
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u/Ramplicity 45m ago
Bingo. The suits in upper management would never jeopardize a (comparatively minuscule) revenue stream even if it hurts the long term health of the game. Literally no other game I’ve ever heard of charges for such a simple action as changing servers. It costs nothing, in fact it probably makes money long term due to people not quitting the game as a result of dead servers
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u/DrainTheMuck 41m ago
Uhh so how does this fit in to them obliterating paid transfers by making it one mega server?
I don’t see how “they want money from paid transfers” is an argument for why they chose to do a mega server instead of separate servers that give free transfers if your server dies off.
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u/Mjolnoggy 11m ago
>Uhh so how does this fit in to them obliterating paid transfers by making it one mega server?
Because they save more money than they stand to gain.
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u/hatethemobileapp 5m ago
All of those are solved with a server or layer selector. Names are region wide, so are guild names and the last real issue is gold transfers because obviously dead realms could stock up on black lotus and crash the target server economy.
So the real difference would be that there are some more dead areas where you could select the populated layer for that zone. The reason we don’t want layers that you can select with dead areas is so excess node and creature spawns can’t be abused by small groups farming excess materials.
I’d suggest dynamic spawn times so that dead zones have nodes that deplete and stay depleted for much longer based on player pop. That would be the only other real solution, which they sort of have already with dynamic spawns on populated shards.
There will always be some sort of tradeoff sadly
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u/RefrigeratorWhich943 47m ago
All the reasons you listed are small potatoes
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u/Moltarrr 26m ago
Not really, lots of people just drop out of the game as the server they play on dies, and there is no free transfer on the horizon.
If I recall correctly, transfers are $25 per character.
Maybe they do it the first time, but a second time is a no go for many.
When a server dies, it can stay like that for months until free transfers come. I've been there: No people to replace the players that dropped or paid a transfer, no people to pug, auction house is dead, not even people to run a simple dungeon lol.
Basically an MMO Game becomes just an O Game.
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u/canitnerd 24m ago
First because by the time Blizz gives them for free, it is already too late and the server is super dead.
Cool, so do them earlier. Instead of merging 10 dead servers together months after everyone has transferred off merge pairs of medium pop servers the second they get to the right pop number.
Second, transfering is painful, the guild is lost and must be recreated
Cool, so add the guild transfer feature retail has had for years.
Third, there are gold limits you can transfer with, you end up having to buy expensive stuff to sell after the transfer (losing gold in the buy/sell process) or you have to transfer gold to other users that have room and get it back later, risking to lose it if they just go to another server or change name and disappear.
Cool, so remove those gold transfer limits. If you cant transfer at will and only when curated transfers open/realm merges happen there is no need for the economic protections.
Fourth, your character name might be in use in the server you are transfering to, and you are forced to change it.
Cool, so use region wide names like forever is already planning to do.
All of those problems are trivially solved. What ISN'T trivial is making this godawful sharded megaserver situation work.
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u/Moltarrr 16m ago
Yeah, there are probably many ways to face this situation, I was just pointing out to the other commenter that "free transfers and mergers" are not a magically seamless solution, they have a lot of friction.
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u/Which_Decision4460 1h ago
So I got to roll the dice again just because you guys don't like seeing people disappear?
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u/TheClassicAndyDev 1h ago
They already have fixed this.
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u/Ibekinkyy 12m ago
Could you explain the fix they have implemented? All I've seen are the border's moved a hundred feet or so.
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u/Mr_Pastee 1h ago
Just make one extra realm with a 10k player cap for all the people who hate megaservers. We're adults, we can decide if we want to risk playing on a "dead server".
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u/NiewinterNacht 1h ago
People don't play on a dead servers is the issue, which is why this is the best solution.
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u/andynator1000 36m ago
10k player cap is a megaserver and there would still need to at least be layering.
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u/abs0lutelyharam 53m ago
The only solution i feel they can implement is for example having 10 different layers you can choose from in game. You pick layer 6 you stay there it's population is capped at whatever they want it to be for that "world" layer. You can choose to switch to another layer whenever you want.
This allows each layer to develop their own identities to a degree much like old servers did but if they need to due to increasing or lowering populations can merge layers.
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u/No_Dog8604 52m ago
That little button beside your party member that says you can’t see them.
Make it interactive ffs, you push it, that players comes to your layer. That’s the minimum that should happen.
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u/tentongeek 10m ago
I was sitting 2 feet from a player in the same room, in the same party, but we couldn't get the same layer to sync up.
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u/Any_Obligation1479 1h ago
Layering is fixable. This insane dungeon Xp nerf is some stupid design pillar that will kill dungeons on release and make tank and healers harder to find than where's wallee
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u/Resident_Captain8698 1h ago
Are all these posts from bots or something? Like as recently just before beta went down for stresstest i walked in and outside stormwind and didnt have one single player phase, yes the system needs work but its not that bad lol
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u/Ibekinkyy 5m ago
That's because they moved the border a hundred feet closer to Goldshire. It's still the exact same issue, just in a different spot now.
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u/NiewinterNacht 1h ago
Nah, some YouTuber made a popular video about it and now redditors feel they need to post "their opinion" they just happened to form after watching the video.
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u/Right_Comb4885 1h ago
When there's less people it won't be as noticeable. If they added in remote dungeons you'd have people disappearing and reappearing from dungeons. I'm sure they'll find some way to tweak it so it's not so noticable.
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u/tear_atheri 53m ago
respecfully, there's no way to do 'not noticeable' sharding.
if i can't run from the top of the continent to another following rexxar or whoever, if there are different people on the boat when i get to the other side, if i can't walk out of a city and duel, if i can't kite some dragon from halfway across the world to a city, or call for help two zones over by going back to stormwind and actually be able to go back to the fight
there's no situation where sharding allows things like this, so there's no situation where sharding can work 'unnoticed'
they need to go back to 2019 classic layers or something better or older, like discrete servers
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u/Right_Comb4885 35m ago
Never said 'not noticable', I said that 'it's not so noticable'. People are going to be aware of it, just less so. I'm not saying it's going to be fixed when beta is done, but they have said they realize it's a issue and trying different things. We'll have to wait and see or just go to Classic. I'm fine waiting to see what they do and if I don't like it I can just bounce on out of there.
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u/VirtU_Art 31m ago
I was playing on the stress test earlier, got out of the starter zone and there was almost no people around me. Went over to burn some plans or whatever, and saw a 2-3 people infront of me doing the same. I approached them and boom, they disappeared and in their place 3 mobs who murdered me.
Imagine if this was hardcore.
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u/Right_Comb4885 24m ago
Guess you got the cool kid layer. I had hundreds of people in mine. Of course it's the test, not live servers so they were testing different things. Kept getting server announcements telling us what they were doing. I was on the EU server test though. Probably more people on the NA server.
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u/Loyalist_Pig 1h ago
I think this is the case. I also think in the long term it will work out really nicely for people like me who only play during witching hours, as those hours will be more populated with other freaks like me lol
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u/_SleeZy_ 1h ago
For me this is rather the opposite what i want. I enjoy playing 03-04-05 in the mornin before work and be able to farm decently in the remote areas and feel like there's noone up. If the server keep making sure there's always 15 people everywhere i'm it takes away from that.
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u/Right_Comb4885 1h ago
Haha, yeah. I work night shift so I usually play all night on the weekends. I've played on servers that slowly died before the merging, so having a steady population of people to interact with, quest with and dungeon with will make the world feel more alive. So when the servers peak with 500 layers in a zone or 50 layers, you'll see people jumping about as it spread them into appropriate amount of players. It's not perfect but I appreciate them trying new things to keep the world alive.
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u/Lerched 5 Stage Sage 2h ago
Man, blizzard really cooked huh. You guys have had 3 complaints and they’re deadass the most minor things.
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u/watchwhereyouspit 1h ago
You consider layering a non issue? For me it's a step backwards and destroys the open world nature of the game I adore
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u/Lerched 5 Stage Sage 1h ago
Layering will not matter in a month. It’s a solution for launch and then you’ll never notice it. You guys are focusing on nothing burgers because you have nothing else to complain about
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u/watchwhereyouspit 1h ago
What makes you say that? My understanding is that each zone is its own server, all culminating together as one mega server. This is a foundational system that would last well past launch.
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u/Best-Egg453 1h ago
Anyone who played classic and had the novaworldbuffs add-on likely knows that at peak times, there were possibly as many (if not more) as 10-12 layers in city zones like SW or Org. This isn't a realmless issue, and purely a sharding issue. When you have 5000 people logged in and in Stormwind, sharding is the answer if you dont want mega lag. If they made stormwind a bigger scale then what it is, and make it more like 2 miles long instead of 100 yards, it would likely reduce lag
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u/Lerched 5 Stage Sage 1h ago
Well, no it isn’t. But more importantly, it is only firing as hard as it is because there are so many people in so few zones. Eventually the leveling curve will flatten a bit, over population will die down, and it’ll stop happening as frequently. It’s only been a problem on beta because the level cap is so easy to hit.
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u/watchwhereyouspit 1h ago
I believe you're thinking the layering/sharing that exists in classic/vanilla is the same as what's being used in Forever. That's not true. Forever is using megaservers, that's why the issue of seeing players phase in/out is far more egregious this time around.
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u/Lerched 5 Stage Sage 1h ago
No, I just understand functionally there’s very little difference.
This is an over population caused issue. Once everyone isn’t hanging out in 4 zones, it won’t happen as often.
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u/Ibekinkyy 2m ago
That's just absolutely not true, but I can see you don't care to research or listen.
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u/Geringverdiener089 1h ago
Auf PvP Servern ist das System trotzdem nicht tragbar sofern sie es noch nicht hinbekommen das ein anderer Spieler nicht weggelayert wird falls man an einem zonenübergang kämpft. Und das man auf den Schiffen auch mit den selben Leuten im Schiff ankommt wie man auch losfährt das killt die Immersion komplett.
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u/andynator1000 1h ago
Sharding will be in the game forever. It's going to be worse at launch, but a year from now it's still going to be a regular feature in the game. You aren't just going to notice it on launch.
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u/Lerched 5 Stage Sage 1h ago
Sharding has been in every classic version. Launch is the only time zones will be as packed, eventually things like this will stop happening.
You guys don’t understand the tech, and because of that you don’t understand the obvious reasons why it’ll be a nonissue like a week after launch.
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u/DistinctCellar 1h ago
Sharding has never been in classic wow. You're thinking of layering, which is the whole realm being split into a layer. Sharding is each zone. They use sharding in retail. Maybe go and research the tech you seem to know so much about brotha.
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u/andynator1000 1h ago
I do understand the tech. You don't understand how putting every player on 3 realms changes how noticeable sharding is.
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u/TheOldSkywalker 1h ago
you're just giving them the benefit of the doubt there's no evidence to support that. but there is evidence to the contrary: the beta we've been playing the past month
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u/Lerched 5 Stage Sage 1h ago
No, I just understand math. 👍
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u/TheOldSkywalker 1h ago
you're not as smart as you think you are </3
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u/Lerched 5 Stage Sage 1h ago
Which, of course, is why you can’t technically prove me wrong with the actual way it works and why it won’t work the way like you can log into retail right now and see it work.
Classic would hit 15-16 layers in cities at peak times. You never noticed unless you had an add on. This will not matter once the players have started spreading into the world.
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u/TheOldSkywalker 1h ago
"you can't technically prove me wrong" you are insufferable
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u/Lerched 5 Stage Sage 1h ago
As in, with the actual technical mechanics, twin. Not some technicality.
I know you just want to argue, and not think critically, but at least don’t ignore 2/3 of the comment to make a bad point anyone with a 3rd grade education would see doesn’t apply to what I’m saying.
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u/canitnerd 16m ago
Layering will not matter in a month. It’s a solution for launch and then you’ll never notice it.
Was true when it was 2-3 layers on launch in 2019 or whatever but it is NOT true on this megaserver. I would be SHOCKED if this thing ever gets under ~10 layers worth of people, you WILL notice it and it will be heavily abusable.
Also it's noticeable even if there are 10 other people online. It doesn't matter how many shards are active, because changing zones changes shards you will always have jankiness and zone borders. You cannot kite stuff over them, you can't have NPCs that path past them like Rexxar or certain escorts, any 1v1 pvp fight near a border becomes a complete fucking mess. Constantly seeing your opponent disappear and require re-targeting when you cross the border after him isn't exactly fun gameplay.
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u/TheBungler2 28m ago
This is exactly what I've been thinking to. If this is the only thing people have to complain about, things are looking so good.
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u/Rohnur 2h ago
Funny because a lot of MMOs have their cities instanced.
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u/DistinctCellar 1h ago
Yeah, what separated WoW from other MMO's is now not a thing. They've gone backwards.
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u/Such-Information7068 1h ago
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u/DistinctCellar 1h ago
I know it's being talked about a lot, but the more noise we make, the more chance of them fixing it there is. Your reply is pretty original too.
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u/sknilegap 1h ago
Ignore him, keep making noise. They need to fix this. It is one of the worst thing about Retail.
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u/NiewinterNacht 1h ago
Yeah, we all watched that video. Need to make a post, because the video formed my opinion as well!
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u/Such-Information7068 59m ago
You know how many times I walk out of a city in classic? Once, before I have flight points.
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u/Imaginary_Round_8666 43m ago
PLEASE LET US SELECT THE LAYER WE PLAY IN LIKE LAYER 1-10 OR HOWEVER MANY NEEDED AND HAVE THE WORLD SEAMLESSLY EXIST PER LAYER SO THESE HIDDEN LOADING SCREENS DONT EXIST TY
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u/NiewinterNacht 1h ago
Yes, we all know you watched that video and now that is your talking point you need to post to reddit.
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u/DistinctCellar 1h ago
What video? I just logged into the stress test to see what oceanic layers were like, and as I moved from Durotar to Org, everyone refreshed into another layer. Not great. I went from seeing around 50 people to 3.
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u/NiewinterNacht 1h ago
Oh for sure man, really believe you. Totally wasn't prompted by that video that people posted incessantly in this sub. Very much your original opinion!
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u/lukinator1 21m ago
I have (and other people) had this same opinion since 2019 and I honestly I have no idea what video you're talking about
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u/nameisinappropriate 1h ago edited 1h ago
Must be exhausting to be your mother's having to make sure your tendies are served up on your special plate every time because somehow they don't taste right if they're not on your dinosaur plate.
I wish my life was vapid enough for this to be THE thing I tantrum about. Honestly y'all are adults now. Be better.
Edit: ooh this one really made the neets angry
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u/Cold-Engineering-960 1h ago
If this is what you think a tantrum is; never have kids. You’ll probably end up throwing them out the window
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u/Magus02 2h ago
you literally change servers when you change zones. everything IS instanced