Despite Blizzard’s successful attempt to balance factions on realms in World of Warcraft: Season of Discovery, some players have been complaining of being vastly outnumbered in Ashenvale. Now, the developers have directly confirmed the cause.
The new Ashenvale open-world PvP event is one of the flagship activities introduced in Season of Discovery. This non-instanced event is triggered by PvP activity between the two factions, altering the zone and adding camps and objectives for players to complete.
The event takes on a format similar to Alterac Valley, with the player’s ultimate goal being to kill a commander NPC to win. Along the way, there are other NPCs to fight, culminating in a genuinely memorable PvPvE activity.
Unfortunately, players have complained of being vastly outnumbered in the event despite server faction balancing. Now, the developers have confirmed why this may happen and what the plan is moving forward.
Layering in Ashenvale is the cause of imbalance during the activity
In a post on Twitter, Senior Game Producer Josh Greenfield confirmed that the layering system, which allows for far larger servers, is the chief driving force behind faction imbalances when they occur in Ashenvale.
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Wanted to quote this so it bubbles up for emphasis. This is true. While overall population (active logged-in players, no created characters) is balanced, there are some definite issues with layering impacting Ashenvale. Here's a quick explanation of what's happening: 1/8 https://t.co/s2Ikd8PbJn
— Josh Greenfield (@AggrendWoW) December 11, 2023
In the extended thread, Greenfield detailed the significant issues and confirmed that the development is actively working to address many of these. One area that is causing major consternation is players who are forced to change layers mid-combat. This occurs when the layer hits a critical mass, and they are actively trying to stop this from happening.
The other major problem that can entirely change the result of a battle is the % complete mechanic. This number can be inaccurate because the progress is tracked across layers. This can cause progress to lower incorrectly on some layers.
Greenfield closed the thread by confirming his hope that some fixes will start to roll out over the next few days and continue from there.
It would be fair to say that response time from the development team on Season of Discovery is arguably the best it has ever been in any flavor of WoW. If they can continue in the same vein, there is little reason to think they won’t be able to alter the Ashenvale experience promptly.