I can't log in right now cuz the queues are huge, so I'm just going to see how much time I can spend replying here. Maybe by the time I finish looking for blue posts and typing I'll be a good chunk closer to being able to log in :lol:
Let me first point out that in vanilla a server with 500 people online generated the same resources as one with 2500.
Next let me point out that layers are based on population.
Therefore a server with a pop of 3k online has 2 layers.
But is generating the resources for 5k.
See the issue?
The first issue I see is your example numbers aren't realistic of the situation at hand.
Layering will be shut off by phase 2. A quick glance at my primary monitor right now shows me at 12,236 in queue trying to get into the server in the first place. There's a lot of people trying to get in. Considering a server with 500 players on it during the time that layering is active isn't relevant. And your estimations of how many players are on each layer is a guess because Blizzard isn't disclosing how many players per layer. But based on what the starting zones all looked like yesterday, it seems like a fair guess that each layer is pretty close to the size of an entire vanilla server.
So the more accurate comparison is a full server with a queue, vs a larger also full server with multiple also full layers also with a queue.
This is closer to 1/1 vs 20/20 then it is to the of doubling the amount of resources per player that you suggest. There's a lot of fudge factor here, somebody will find a way to collect more for themselves by doing something, but the raw number of resources harvested to player ratio is going to be roughly the same.
Layering will be disabled by the time the servers start severely thinning out.
> What exactly are the pop caps for a layer? And extrapolating from that, what are the server pop thresholds roughly indicating (what makes a server low vs medium vs high?)
We're not releasing specific numbers, that will likely change dramatically. Based on the response we got from name reservations, we're anticipating large player populations for some realms initially. This may change as players switch to lower population realms. We'll use layers to help improve performance in the short-term if large groups of players cluster in an area. We hope to reduce the use of layering over time as people spread out in each realm.
And in addition to that, Blizzard will be scaling down the numbers of layers on the fly as players spread out, which will also serve to keep the layers full. Which if anything means that there's going to be too many players and not enough resources, but they also talked about dynamic respawns applying to resource nodes so that's likely kept in check as well.
The other issue is that you are implying that resources spawn at the same rate for a low amount of players as it does for a high amount of players. Blizzard talked about this recently in a blue post as well:
In the original 1.12 data, different spawn regions have different thresholds at which automatic respawning is triggered, but the bug was causing it to ignore these population thresholds. This affects the starting zones more than other zones because they have very aggressive thresholds for triggering respawns, to make sure that you can always progress through your first introduction to the game.
As you level up throughout the later zones, the respawn thresholds aren’t as aggressive, and you start having to compete more in higher level zones. We have verified that we’ve correctly reproduced the 1.12 spawn rates and thresholds throughout the game now, and while the respawn rates you see in Northshire aren’t the same as they are in Un’Goro, they will both be accurate to patch 1.12.
link to bluepost
The same spawn logic applies to mineral nodes, creatures, herbs, etc. Spawn regions can overlap one another, so that creatures and nodes of different types behave differently in the same physical space, and individual spawns, can all have custom overrides. We’re using all the original data to control this behavior.
link to bluepost
The implication being that even on a flat server this stuff is all dynamic.
I don't like layering either but I don't see how it's going to lead to the large imbalance you're talking about.
Let me first point out that in vanilla a server with 500 people online generated the same resources as one with 2500.
Next let me point out that layers are based on population.
Therefore a server with a pop of 3k online has 2 layers.
But is generating the resources for 5k.
See the issue?
Exactly what I was trying to explain earlier, supply will always overcome the demand with the layers. You can already see the price of resources dropping really low and the servers have been out for barely over a day.
Exactly what I was trying to explain earlier, supply will always overcome the demand with the layers. You can already see the price of resources dropping really low and the servers have been out for barely over a day.
The price of a good is set by the buyer, not the seller. Buyers determine what they're willing to pay.
If nobody has any money, then nobody is going to pay high prices for goods and services. As the monetary base inflates, people are willing to pay higher prices to obtain goods and services.
There isn't enough money in the system to support high prices for anything at the moment.
The price of a good is set by the buyer, not the seller.
Wrong. The competition to sell things is incredible, have you ever spent some time observing the AH? I have, people just keep cutting the prices, by a copper, by a few silver, sometimes gold for the more pricey items, because they want gold faster. Until the average price becomes the lowest price possible for it to be worth selling on the AH.
Just today I saw some guys selling bags and plants at a price lower than vendor price in AH.
And it's not a question of new server/empty pockets. It was the same on private servers.
The price of a good is set by the buyer, not the seller.
Wrong. The competition to sell things is incredible, have you ever spent some time observing the AH? I have, people just keep cutting the prices, by a copper, by a few silver, sometimes gold for the more pricey items, because they want gold faster. Until the average price becomes the lowest price possible for it to be worth selling on the AH.
Just today I saw some guys selling bags and plants at a price lower than vendor price in AH.
And it's not a question of new server/empty pockets. It was the same on private servers.
Ok, I'll give there - seller competition sets the bottom end of the price and what the buyer is willing to pay limits the upper end of a price.
But there's yet another factor to the value of an item - low demand.
Low demand will look like fierce competition on a server with (15,000? 25,000? 40,000?) players all sharing the same auction hall trying to sell to a playerbase which isn't buying anything at the moment.
Sounds to me like there's more people interested in selling than people interesting in buying. The people who got into the servers today are the same guys who parked at the login screens 2 hours in advance yesterday to get in. They aren't exactly the stop & smell the roses & buy the best gear you can get for your level & level-your-professions-along-the-way types of players. The great login screen barrier is filtering out the tourists and the casuals. The only people who got in are all busy power leveling their way to 60 right now and trying to unload their wares on the auction hall at the same time :lol:
The people willing to sit in queue for 6 hours are trying to rush to 60, not buy goods and services. The players who want to buy things to keep their professions up to date along the way are going to wait a couple of weeks for the queues to die down.
I can't log in right now cuz the queues are huge, so I'm just going to see how much time I can spend replying here. Maybe by the time I finish looking for blue posts and typing I'll be a good chunk closer to being able to log in :lol:
Let me first point out that in vanilla a server with 500 people online generated the same resources as one with 2500.
Next let me point out that layers are based on population.
Therefore a server with a pop of 3k online has 2 layers.
But is generating the resources for 5k.
See the issue?
The first issue I see is your example numbers aren't realistic of the situation at hand.
Layering will be shut off by phase 2. A quick glance at my primary monitor right now shows me at 12,236 in queue trying to get into the server in the first place. There's a lot of people trying to get in. Considering a server with 500 players on it during the time that layering is active isn't relevant. And your estimations of how many players are on each layer is a guess because Blizzard isn't disclosing how many players per layer. But based on what the starting zones all looked like yesterday, it seems like a fair guess that each layer is pretty close to the size of an entire vanilla server.
So the more accurate comparison is a full server with a queue, vs a larger also full server with multiple also full layers also with a queue.
This is closer to 1/1 vs 20/20 then it is to the of doubling the amount of resources per player that you suggest. There's a lot of fudge factor here, somebody will find a way to collect more for themselves by doing something, but the raw number of resources harvested to player ratio is going to be roughly the same.
Layering will be disabled by the time the servers start severely thinning out.
> What exactly are the pop caps for a layer? And extrapolating from that, what are the server pop thresholds roughly indicating (what makes a server low vs medium vs high?)
We're not releasing specific numbers, that will likely change dramatically. Based on the response we got from name reservations, we're anticipating large player populations for some realms initially. This may change as players switch to lower population realms. We'll use layers to help improve performance in the short-term if large groups of players cluster in an area. We hope to reduce the use of layering over time as people spread out in each realm.
And in addition to that, Blizzard will be scaling down the numbers of layers on the fly as players spread out, which will also serve to keep the layers full. Which if anything means that there's going to be too many players and not enough resources, but they also talked about dynamic respawns applying to resource nodes so that's likely kept in check as well.
The other issue is that you are implying that resources spawn at the same rate for a low amount of players as it does for a high amount of players. Blizzard talked about this recently in a blue post as well:
In the original 1.12 data, different spawn regions have different thresholds at which automatic respawning is triggered, but the bug was causing it to ignore these population thresholds. This affects the starting zones more than other zones because they have very aggressive thresholds for triggering respawns, to make sure that you can always progress through your first introduction to the game.
As you level up throughout the later zones, the respawn thresholds aren’t as aggressive, and you start having to compete more in higher level zones. We have verified that we’ve correctly reproduced the 1.12 spawn rates and thresholds throughout the game now, and while the respawn rates you see in Northshire aren’t the same as they are in Un’Goro, they will both be accurate to patch 1.12.
link to bluepost
The same spawn logic applies to mineral nodes, creatures, herbs, etc. Spawn regions can overlap one another, so that creatures and nodes of different types behave differently in the same physical space, and individual spawns, can all have custom overrides. We’re using all the original data to control this behavior.
link to bluepost
The implication being that even on a flat server this stuff is all dynamic.
I don't like layering either but I don't see how it's going to lead to the large imbalance you're talking about.
Did i say it would lead to large imbalances? No. I said it would negatively impact the game. Which is true.
Layering is awful and I'll not be touching classic until the abomination is gone.
Ok, I'll give there - seller competition sets the bottom end of the price and what the buyer is willing to pay limits the upper end of a price.
But there's yet another factor to the value of an item - low demand.
Sounds to me like there's more people interested in selling than people interesting in buying. The people who got into the servers today are the same guys who parked at the login screens 2 hours in advance yesterday to get in. They aren't exactly the stop & smell the roses & buy the best gear you can get for your level & level-your-professions-along-the-way types of players. The great login screen barrier is filtering out the tourists and the casuals. The only people who got in are all busy power leveling their way to 60 right now and trying to unload their wares on the auction hall at the same time :lol:
The people willing to sit in queue for 6 hours are trying to rush to 60, not buy goods and services. The players who want to buy things to keep their professions up to date along the way are going to wait a couple of weeks for the queues to die down.
For sure, early on people aren't as interested in buying, most people knew before jumping into the fresh servers that gathering professions weren't going to be profitable for a while, because all the gold was in the mob's pockets and it takes a while for the players to take enough of it to afford to spend it. I took Herbalism only because I'm planning to get 2-3 characters to up Alchemy and I don't really have any issue leveling my prof.
But in the long term, there will be another problem. Sure, whether it's a fresh or old server Peacebloom sells for barely over vendor price, so having more of it because of layering isn't a big deal, hell, it's even better to up your other prof.
But what about Black Lotus? Arcane Crystal, Devilsaur Leather, Felcloth and all the rest I can't remember right now. Each layer adds another 100% resources to the realm.
And I'm pretty sure we will see many people reaching 300 profession before Phase 2, actually people are starting to reach the 30s 2 days in, you only need level 35 to get to 300 in a profession.
I'm pretty sure we will see many people reaching 300 profession before Phase 2, actually people are starting to reach the 30s 2 days in, you only need level 35 to get to 300 in a profession.
Sure, but those initial professions won't be level 300 in engineering, blacksmithing, or leatherworking. Not over the next week or so anyway. They'll be level 300 in a gathering profession, because everybody is gathering stuff right now and nobody is buying. Give it a week and you'll probably see people start to care about the manufacturing professions. That will result in a boom in demand for the goods required to level those professions and make their items.
But what about Black Lotus? Arcane Crystal, Devilsaur Leather, Felcloth and all the rest I can't remember right now. Each layer adds another 100% resources to the realm.
Each layer also adds 100% more players to the realm as well. It roughly ends up being a wash. The size of the entire market grows along with it. Once all of those players hit 60 and start focusing on leveling up Engineering, Alchemy, etc you will see an enormous demand swell from players all across these megaservers and prices will increase greatly. Every 100% extra players on each layer are going to need 100% extra black lotus, arcane crystals, devilsaur leather, and felcloth and if those 100% extra items weren't there then the prices would be absolutely astronomical.
I'm pretty sure we will see many people reaching 300 profession before Phase 2, actually people are starting to reach the 30s 2 days in, you only need level 35 to get to 300 in a profession.
Sure, but those initial professions won't be level 300 in engineering, blacksmithing, or leatherworking. Not over the next week or so anyway. They'll be level 300 in a gathering profession, because everybody is gathering stuff right now and nobody is buying. Give it a week and you'll probably see people start to care about the manufacturing professions. That will result in a boom in demand for the goods required to level those professions and make their items.
But what about Black Lotus? Arcane Crystal, Devilsaur Leather, Felcloth and all the rest I can't remember right now. Each layer adds another 100% resources to the realm.
Each layer also adds 100% more players to the realm as well. It roughly ends up being a wash. The size of the entire market grows along with it. Once all of those players hit 60 and start focusing on leveling up Engineering, Alchemy, etc you will see an enormous demand swell from players all across these megaservers and prices will increase greatly. Every 100% extra players on each layer are going to need 100% extra black lotus, arcane crystals, devilsaur leather, and felcloth and if those 100% extra items weren't there then the prices would be absolutely astronomical.
Thats not true. Like you said. We dont know layer size. They could be 1500 people.
That said each layer doesnt add 100% more people. It adds POTENTIALLY 100% more people.
Each layer also adds 100% more players to the realm as well. It roughly ends up being a wash. The size of the entire market grows along with it. Once all of those players hit 60 and start focusing on leveling up Engineering, Alchemy, etc you will see an enormous demand swell from players all across these megaservers and prices will increase greatly. Every 100% extra players on each layer are going to need 100% extra black lotus, arcane crystals, devilsaur leather, and felcloth and if those 100% extra items weren't there then the prices would be absolutely astronomical.
Thats not true. Like you said. We dont know layer size. They could be 1500 people.
That said each layer doesnt add 100% more people. It adds POTENTIALLY 100% more people.
I'll give you that.
We also must say that each layer potentially adds 100% more resources. This, too, can also scale downwards with population.
We also don't know that each layer adds 100% more resources. Blizzard says they have dynamic respawns, and this system was in place in Vanilla as well. Twice the instances of nodes with lower respawn times yields less than twice the output.
If each layer does not add 100% more players, then the respawn timers for resource nodes could be slower too since there would be less people around.
Layering is not negatively impacting wpvp or rare resources.
It will. Player a will jump player b.
Player b will run away while getting his friend to invite him to a group, layer hopping.
As for rare resources. More resources on a server then intended.
They have already stated that this is not possible, as wpvp puts like a 3 minute debuff on you that stops you from hopping layers.
As for the resources, Pippina has already disapproved that like 10 times in this thread.
You repeatedly doomposting doesn't change the fact that blizzard already addressed every concern you have raised in their ama the other day.
Layering is not negatively impacting wpvp or rare resources.
It will. Player a will jump player b.
Player b will run away while getting his friend to invite him to a group, layer hopping.
As for rare resources. More resources on a server then intended.
They have already stated that this is not possible, as wpvp puts like a 3 minute debuff on you that stops you from hopping layers.
As for the resources, Pippina has already disapproved that like 10 times in this thread.
You repeatedly doomposting doesn't change the fact that blizzard already addressed every concern you have raised in their ama the other day.
Just because its not having a massive difference doesn't mean it isnt impacting it.
And dynamic spawns in vanilla did not work like it does in modern wow. Its more of a slight alter as opposed to just refreshing as fast as possible.
You might see a few minutes shaved off that long black lotus respawn.