Battle for Ashenvale: Season of Discovery Updates, Layers, and Fixes

Greetings fellow gamers! Today we have an important update from Blizzard regarding the Battle for Ashenvale in the Season of Discovery. In their recent Blue Post, Blizzard shares their intent behind the Battle, the technical details of how it functions, and the issues that have arisen. They also outline the upcoming fixes and changes they will be implementing. So let's dive in and get all the details!

The Intent Behind the Battle for Ashenvale

The main goal of the Battle for Ashenvale was to incentivize players to engage in PvP combat by offering compelling rewards such as Warsong Gulch reputation and a special mount. The developers wanted Ashenvale to become a hotbed for non-stop PvP action, especially since it is a highly contested zone with multiple quest hubs and an "end-game" raid for level 25 players. The event itself focuses on PvE content, but the lead-up and aftermath of each battle were designed to encourage continuous PvP battles. According to Blizzard, this aspect has been a great success.

How the Battle for Ashenvale Works

To understand the issues at hand, let's take a closer look at how the Battle for Ashenvale functions under the hood:

• The Lead-up Phase

During this phase, a counter tracks the number of PvP and PvE kills in the zone. When the counter reaches a certain threshold, the battle begins. This is shown on-screen with a percentage counter UI element in the top-middle of the Heads-Up Display (HUD).

• The Battle Phase

Once the battle begins, three Lieutenants spawn for each faction, along with a general. Players' objectives are to eliminate the opposing lieutenants and then defeat the enemy general. Once this is accomplished, the battle ends and the cycle repeats.

The Issues and Challenges

Blizzard acknowledges that there have been several issues with the Battle for Ashenvale due to conflicts between different systems and unintended interactions. Here are the main problems they have identified:

• Being Removed from Your Current Layer Mid-Battle

The layering system, which allows for more players on a single realm, sometimes caused players to be unexpectedly moved to a different layer during a battle. This happened when a layer reached maximum capacity and needed to balance the population to prevent performance issues. Even players in groups or engaged in combat could be moved.

• Progress Counter Resetting During the Lead-up Phase

The progress counter, which represents the total progress across all layers, would reset or drop to a lower percentage when new layers entered the lead-up phase. This confusion occurred as a result of the system aiming to synchronize battles across all layers and prevent players from hopping between layers to exploit the event.

• Battles Becoming Stalled and Objective Trackers Not Responding

Multiple layers finishing their battles at different times during the ramp-up phase could cause battles on slower layers to break and enter a restart loop. When a layer automatically retired, the total number of kills required would decrease, but the progress needed for the next battle would suddenly spike, more likely leading to battles restarting while others were ongoing.

The Path Forward

Blizzard is aware of these issues and is actively working on fixes to improve the Battle for Ashenvale. Here's what they have planned:

• Stopping Dynamic Layer Retirements

From now on, the layer manager will no longer dynamically retire layers, even during off-peak times. While this may make the world feel more empty during certain hours, it will prevent players from being suddenly moved to different layers mid-battle.

• Increasing the Number of Kills Needed for Each Layer

To regulate the overall realm percentage and avoid rapid progress during the ramp-up phase, Blizzard will be increasing the number of kills required for each layer in the battle.

These changes will help stabilize the system and prevent battles from stalling or resetting. However, Blizzard acknowledges that this is not a perfect solution and they may consider a redesign of the system in the future to address the remaining issues.

In conclusion, Blizzard appreciates the dedication of the players during the Season of Discovery and the Battle for Ashenvale. They admit that the lack of a Public Test Realm may have contributed to some of the issues encountered, but they are committed to learning from the experience and making future phases even better. Stay tuned for further updates and have fun exploring the world of WoW Classic!