Randomly switched layers during STV event and now there's no STV event?

[Dannydots-living-flame]

So I was playing the STV event, I randomly got layer switched… we have 20 minutes left on the event and the layer I went to had no event whatsoever, all horde were green to me.

I tried to join my friends party, but i couldn’t go to their layer… i tried relogging, rejoining etc but i was stuck on this layer. So not only can i not do the event through no fault of my own, I am unable to join my other 4 team mates at all.

What on earth is going on??

[Saneko-ragnaros (Saneko)]

Just layer manager saying its too busy so they needed to offload some peeps and won’t let anyone back in.

@Aggrend-1483

The layer manager is a system that controls layers, spins them up as needed, and decides which layer players logging in will be assigned to. The layer manager will try not to move you to a new layer unless certain thresholds are crossed. In normal times outside of major events and launch windows, this almost never happens.

When the world begins to fill on an individual layer and that layer begins reaching a critical mass however, the system may at times try to load balance the population on that individual layer to an existing layer or a brand new layer if all others are full, which at times means moving people onto a relatively empty layer. The layer manager system does have some safeguards to prevent you from too many jarring layering incidents, such as preferring NOT to move people that are in a group with each other, or that are in combat. Ideally, what will happen when a group is formed is that a re-evaluation will happen when people leave and join, and the layer manager will attempt to get everyone onto the same layer and keep them there until they all log out.

The snag we run into with the Battle of Ashenvale however, is that often times a great many people are joining groups, often times using external tools like discord to coordinate. When a player leader organizes several full raids to all congregate on one layer, that layer may hit a threshold and start trying to not add more people to that layer. For a time it will continue to allow more people to join to not break up groups, but there is a point when it reaches its absolute maximum and on the next evaluation the manager will forcibly move people off of the layer to balance the load and prevent a crash or other severe performance drops. This means that even players that were grouped and would normally be protected from being moved because they are grouped may also be moved as an emergency measure. This has been one cause for players unceremoniously being booted to a different layer; the layer simply got too full and stopped caring whether you were grouped or in combat or not.

@Daannyy-living-flame

event wasn’t active on the layer I was given?

Zone status is not maintained while switching layers and isn’t considered when moving players. You may however suggest that they should but I don’t think they do this as it may overload multiple layers at once decreasing overall realm stability.

But still worth a try.

@Daannyy-living-flame

players could be prevented from doing the event and surely that’s not something Blizzard would want?

Already happened during layering at Battle for Ashenvale.

[Daannyy-living-flame]

And what about the fact the event wasn’t active on the layer I was given?

[Daannyy-living-flame]

None of that makes sense though, i don’t see why the layer I would be moved to would not have the event on it, otherwise any extra new layers made after the event begins means 100s if not 1000s of players could be prevented from doing the event and surely that’s not something Blizzard would want?