Layer-hopping hotfixed to add increasing delays

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Since I've seen some folks complaining lately about not getting their toons onto the same layer and such, I thought this change to the Classic realms might be relevant, at least to future play. This apparently went live ~September 7th after the server restarts.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/new-increasing-cooldown-for-changing-layers/290703


We recently developed a hotfix that restricts frequent layer-hopping, without impacting those who simply wish to play with their friends. Following realm restarts earlier today, this hotfix is now live in all realms in the Americas and Oceania region.

Now, each time a player moves to a new layer, there will be an increasing amount of time before that player can move to another layer. If a player moves between layers multiple times over a short timeframe, the cooldown can increase to a duration of several minutes (or longer) before they can change layers again. The cooldown will then decrease over time for players who don’t change layers.


This hotfix will become active in other regions following their next realm restarts.


Thank you!
This will probably cause issues if you are frequently hopping layers to accelerate farming of certain things.

[Mercbeast]

Layers should have only applied up to the level 20-30 zones to begin with. The economy on most servers is absolutely ruined already due to people farming more, for example, devilsaurs in 2 weeks, than people could have farmed in classic in 6 months.

[MiRai]

The economy on most servers is absolutely ruined already due to people farming more, for example, devilsaurs in 2 weeks, than people could have farmed in classic in 6 months.
Blizzard has publicly stated that they don't believe that to be the case, though.


We’ve been monitoring players’ use of layers, and we agree that we should add a delay between subsequent layer transfers. Under the hood we have all the controls I talked about in the Reddit AMA before launch, a few secret weapons we haven’t discussed publicly, and we’re working on deploying some additional controls to further restrain layering from being exploitable.

However, we also want to assure you that the issue is a much smaller problem than some people are claiming. We’ve been closely monitoring the effect layering is having on economies and other aspects of the game, and many of the stories we see posted are wildly inaccurate. We’ve seen screenshots of banks full of rare crafting materials, which we’ve investigated and proved false.

Another popular theory is that you can determine your current layer by doing a /who in a capital city, and comparing the results against the /who your friend does. That doesn’t work because /who returns results from the entire realm, not just from your layer, and if the result set is too large it truncates the results before sorting them. This means every player gets different results, but those differences in result set have nothing to do with which layer you’re on. This has led some people to claim that they’ve discovered dozens of layers per realm, but that claim is completely false.
All realms have a single-digit number of layers. Most of them have a low single-digit number.

Rest assured that there are not people running around with banks full of (Thorium) Arcane Crystals or Black Lotus.


https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/layer-switching-is-the-problem-not-layering-itself/286941/20

[Mercbeast]

They would say that though wouldn't they. You can see the effect of this on Herod for example. High quality stuff is around in abundance. It doesn't have to be dedicated farmers with bank vaults full of Devilsaur Leather either. It's just the general availability to anyone at any time. I remember farming devilsaurs in vanilla in december 2004. They were never up, so I guess you could call what I did, hunting, not farming.

Now, if you don't see the devilsaurs up, jump layer. Still not up? Jump another layer. Even if you don't personally find and kill them, guess what, someone is, and from 1 instance of ungoro, we have many, that are up constantly, and the devilsaurs, for example, are being killed constantly on most if not all of those.

Blizzard can say whatever they want about "the implications of the economy". It's nonsense. If you have 1 zone, producing say, 40 devilsaur leather a day, versus how every many layers exist, say 20 (I have no idea how many), guess what, roughly 20x as much devilsaur leather is coming out of Ungoro day to day, than did 15 years ago.

[MiRai]

I don't have a horse in the race, but I'll just play devil's advocate here...


I remember farming devilsaurs in vanilla in december 2004. They were never up, so I guess you could call what I did, hunting, not farming.
Two things...

1) It's a proven fact that peoples' memories are terrible. Not only has this been shown by many on the Classic WoW sub-forum (on Blizzard's site), but eyewitness testimony (normally from an event that took place much earlier than 15 years ago), has been repeatedly shown as an unreliable form of evidence, in a court of law.
2) We're playing a version from September 2006, and in those 19 months from what you remember in December 2004, spawn rates related to Devilsaurs could've changed in that time.


Now, if you don't see the devilsaurs up, jump layer. Still not up? Jump another layer. Even if you don't personally find and kill them, guess what, someone is, and from 1 instance of ungoro, we have many, that are up constantly, and the devilsaurs, for example, are being killed constantly on most if not all of those.

Blizzard can say whatever they want about "the implications of the economy". It's nonsense. If you have 1 zone, producing say, 40 devilsaur leather a day, versus how every many layers exist, say 20 (I have no idea how many), guess what, roughly 20x as much devilsaur leather is coming out of Ungoro day to day, than did 15 years ago.
To just quote Blizzard again (from the same post up above):


All realms have a single-digit number of layers. Most of them have a low single-digit number.
Why would they even say that if it was any other number? Is this all a conspiracy cover-up by Blizzard, or are people not actually abusing these things like some others believe?

Could an alternative explanation be that because there are currently more people on these Classic realms than any Vanilla realm had ever seen, this causes an increased spawn rate, which, in turn, increases the amount of materials on the auction house?

[Hardcore Scape]

I don't have a horse in the race, but I'll just play devil's advocate here...


Two things...

1) It's a proven fact that peoples' memories are terrible. Not only has this been shown by many on the Classic WoW sub-forum (on Blizzard's site), but eyewitness testimony (normally from an event that took place much earlier than 15 years ago), has been repeatedly shown as an unreliable form of evidence, in a court of law.
2) We're playing a version from September 2006, and in those 19 months from what you remember in December 2004, spawn rates related to Devilsaurs could've changed in that time.


To just quote Blizzard again (from the same post up above):


Why would they even say that if it was any other number? Is this all a conspiracy cover-up by Blizzard, or are people not actually abusing these things like some others believe?

Could an alternative explanation be that because there are currently more people on these Classic realms than any Vanilla realm had ever seen, this causes an increased spawn rate, which, in turn, increases the amount of materials on the auction house?

Not only this, but what increase in hides there is from layers is actually needed when dealing with the crazy numbers of people on realms today. Supply and demand will end up the same.

[Apatheist]

You can see the effect of this on Herod for example. High quality stuff is around in abundance.

Classic has just launched and the hype is fresh, there are no expansion zones to spread out player activity and there are relatively few "rare" resources you can farm that aren't gated either behind a cooldown or raid reset so everybody that can farm those items is.

I think what you're seeing is simply a matter of player concentration and knowledge. In vanilla things occurred more organically because it took most people a lot longer to get to 60 and not many knew exactly where/how/what to farm. I'd be shocked if there weren't a ton more resources available.

The number of players leveling through dungeons also increases the volume of BoE's on AH significantly.