Without LFG tools in game, I'd say you'd be spending more time trying to get off the shard/layer rather than playing to begin with.
This assumes you arent using two accounts. This also assumes you arent talking with people on discord. If you are playing with a group of people (most of us will be), it will be fairly apparent which people are in which layer. You dont need to identify the specific layer, you only need to be able to reduce competition... Layers allow players an opportunity to position themselves better. Players can invite me to group to change my layer? Perfect. I'll be using friends invites to shift through layers to find a layer without someone trying to tag my quest mob or at the very least to find a layer with the least competition... This system can and will be abused to dramatically reduce competition at high-traffic points. This is especially valuable as it is not bound to a zone... If I get in the lowest competition layer, I have a passive buff for less competition.
Yup there will be outliers. But I feel as if its becoming a hyperbole as if no one will ever be engaged in PvP combat. To have someone on deck to send you an invite or another account seems like a one off to me. Its not as if you'll be the only lone person on a 3k player layer, as everyone is at the same starting point and by the time we reach Phase 2 the tech will be gone.
To have someone on deck to send you an invite or another account seems like a one off to me.
Does it? I'll be in discord with about 5-6 buds throughout my leveling experience... "Hey Default, toss me an inv real quick?!". Bam. Invited.
This happens all the time in gchat too when you need someone in group to convert to raid or to reset a dungeon... Players have been doing this for years. It takes no time at all, and you lose nothing. You could be in Mulgore leveling a Tauren and I could be in the Barrens trying to get the stolen silver... All it takes is a quick invite and I am in a new layer. This will be very common practice IF this is infact how layers are implemented.
To have someone on deck to send you an invite or another account seems like a one off to me.
Does it? I'll be in discord with about 5-6 buds throughout my leveling experience... "Hey Default, toss me an inv real quick?!". Bam. Invited.
This happens all the time in gchat too when you need someone in group to convert to raid or to reset a dungeon... Players have been doing this for years. It takes no time at all, and you lose nothing. You could be in Mulgore leveling a Tauren and I could be in the Barrens trying to get the stolen silver... All it takes is a quick invite and I am in a new layer. This will be very common practice IF this is infact how layers are implemented.
To me it is, I agreed there will be people that will do it, but I don't think it'll be happening at the rate that would break the game. I want to instill my faith to Blizzard that this is the best effort of recapturing of a special thing to many people. They've stated that when the first world boss comes out, "there must be only 1 world boss."
So at some point I think us players have to understand that the tech is to benefit us while the servers brave the storm of launch. I just want to play Vanilla. If this is literally the closest they can bring us until things smooth out, then they have my $15. I don't want to be staring at a queue or being disconnected for the nth time repeating the former.
To me it is, I agreed there will be people that will do it, but I don't think it'll be happening at the rate that would break the game. I want to instill my faith to Blizzard that this is the best effort of recapturing of a special thing to many people. They've stated that when the first world boss comes out, "there must be only 1 world boss."
So at some point I think us players have to understand that the tech is to benefit us while the servers brave the storm of launch. I just want to play Vanilla. If this is literally the closest they can bring us until things smooth out, then they have my $15. I don't want to be staring at a queue or being disconnected for the nth time repeating the former.
Thats fair. What do you think would create a more authentic experience? One world with dynamic respawns where all players are visible and can interact with an increased mob respawn rate for the first phase (increased based on the amount of players in that specific area) or layering? Having had experienced dynamic respawns on private and sharding on retail, I can say that I feel dynamic respawns are FAR more authentic.
There is no doubt that there is an underlying issue with launch that needs to be addressed. My only concern is that they chose an awful solution to the problem when better solutions exist.
There seems to be so many ways to abuse this.
Even being the whole continent.
I'm gonna play Night Elf. So a Human can just invite me, and bam, i'm in a new Layer.
If i'm on a treasure chest location, maybe the chest is there in the other Layer.
Think about rare mobs, NPCs with limited quantities of items, running away from pvp campers etc.
If getting invited to a group in another layer makes it so you can abuse it, then it shouldn't be there.
It's better for people to have a harder experience in the first few days or weeks with less mobs, more competition and everything, than having it so we're swamped by people making more money, more items and abusing the system. I feel like the impact in the long term with Layering is a snowball effect.
Experienced players will abuse it and get more money, more gear faster. More money means more manipulation of auction house.
Jumping between layers to farm mobs and gear.
Idk... I wish they gave us more information or a video explaining more things about layering.
To me it is, I agreed there will be people that will do it, but I don't think it'll be happening at the rate that would break the game. I want to instill my faith to Blizzard that this is the best effort of recapturing of a special thing to many people. They've stated that when the first world boss comes out, "there must be only 1 world boss."
So at some point I think us players have to understand that the tech is to benefit us while the servers brave the storm of launch. I just want to play Vanilla. If this is literally the closest they can bring us until things smooth out, then they have my $15. I don't want to be staring at a queue or being disconnected for the nth time repeating the former.
Thats fair. What do you think would create a more authentic experience? One world with dynamic respawns where all players are visible and can interact with an increased mob respawn rate for the first phase (increased based on the amount of players in that specific area) or layering? Having had experienced dynamic respawns on private and sharding on retail, I can say that I feel dynamic respawns are FAR more authentic.
There is no doubt that there is an underlying issue with launch that needs to be addressed. My only concern is that they chose an awful solution to the problem when better solutions exist.
More authentic?
I don't think you can gauge that question. What period of authenticity of Vanilla? Launch, 3 months in, or 2 years in? The amount of people within zones for the purpose of leveling and the amount of available resources varies between time frames.
Tangent thought.. if you saw +20k players all at once split between 2-4 zones. Do you think you'd be able to have a chance to recognize a name?
For me it's a good thing, only big problem is people transporting between layers to have an advantage like rare spawns, gathering nodes, avoiding big crowd etc. But for me it's required for start of Classic, this will help launch problems but will be not required in a long term becouse of people population will decline near Phase 2 of Classic.
Rip Tidal Charm rarity.
Rip Node$ worth
Rip Devilsaur control
Rip Tidal Charm rarity.
Rip Node$ worth
Rip Devilsaur control
People are pretty negative about layering, but it is vastly better than sharding and it is temporary! If it lasts a month, a LOT of people won't even be 60 yet, I don't see this being a huge issue. 10,000 players in starter zones and in queue is worse than layering.
Rip Tidal Charm rarity.
Rip Node$ worth
Rip Devilsaur control
People are pretty negative about layering, but it is vastly better than sharding and it is temporary! If it lasts a month, a LOT of people won't even be 60 yet, I don't see this being a huge issue. 10,000 players in starter zones and in queue is worse than layering.
At least sharding as proposed by blizzard would have been limited to low level zones, wouldnt affect world pvp, or rare resources.
Layering checks all 3.
At least sharding as proposed by blizzard would have been limited to low level zones, wouldnt affect world pvp, or rare resources.
Layering checks all 3.
I don't think there is quite enough info yet to jump to conclusions. I think there will be restrictions on how often and when you can switch layers from group invites. I really don't think it will be a huge issue, you have to remember its an entire continent that is layered and has 3,000 players. I just think people are trying to make mountains out of mole hills here. Be excited, you're going to be running around leveling with 3,000 other people at a time on your layer.
Tangent thought.. if you saw +20k players all at once split between 2-4 zones. Do you think you'd be able to have a chance to recognize a name?
More of a chance than if they were invisible to you... Leveling with phantoms is less appealing than leveling with a crowd in my opinion.
why the hell do they not cap the servers? Layering sound as bad as phasing in Mop were you could not see player if they did not do certain quests.
So i have to hope to get on a "low" pop server that do not reach the 3k often.
Calm down people. You speak as if switching layers will be easy. With each accomodating 3k players, I think it's safe to say it won't be that easy to switch layers. I think they just want everyone to be able to play and not wait 2 hours in queue to Hogger.
if it works like blizz say it is hard but with the history of phasing and others things blizz tried we have to see