WoW Forever hotfix lowers zone crowding and tightens PvP faction balance

Blizzard lowered the population of players in congested zones in World of Warcraft Forever in a hotfix deployed last night, and it also made it harder to create characters on the more populous faction on certain PvP rulesets. The studio said it will keep watching how zones feel and make more changes if needed.

The update arrives after Blizzard said World of Warcraft Forever had become the biggest WoW launch in history. That success has filled some zones to the point where players are competing for the same quests and enemies, especially in the opening areas where many characters are trying to progress at once.

Blizzard trims congestion in the busiest zones

The key world change in the hotfix is a reduction in the number of players placed into “various zones where there was significant congestion.” Blizzard’s notes say the change is even larger on the PvP ruleset because players reported feeling overcrowded in several places.

“We’ve made this an even bigger change on the PvP ruleset, following feedback from players that they felt overcrowded in several places.”

That matters because World of Warcraft Forever does not use a wide list of separate servers in the way earlier versions of WoW did. Blizzard has one server divided into rulesets: PvP, PvE, RPPvP, RP and Hardcore. The game then uses layering to place players into different instances of the world. The result is a world that can feel full and active, but launch zones can also become clogged when too many players land in the same areas at once.

The overcrowding has affected different rulesets in different ways. On PvE rulesets, some players have reported trouble finishing quests in early zones because they are competing with dozens of other players for the same enemies and objectives. On PvP rulesets, the problem is tied to faction imbalance as well as player density, which changes how safe or crowded the world feels once characters leave the starting areas.

Faction balance gets stricter on the more popular side

Blizzard Community Manager Kaivax also posted a separate note about faction balance on PvP rulesets. He said balanced factions are important on those servers and described the goal as getting as close to 50/50 as possible.

“It’s vitally important that the PvP rulesets in WoW: Forever have balanced factions.”

Kaivax said the most extreme case in a region is currently “at roughly a 55/45 split,” which is farther from Blizzard’s target than the studio wants. To push that balance closer to even, Blizzard is limiting character creation on the more populous faction in each region. According to Kaivax, that currently means Horde on North American PvP rulesets and Alliance in EU Roleplay-PvP.

He added that the restriction could move to the other faction later if player numbers shift. That leaves Blizzard trying to manage two separate pressures at once: keeping the world crowded enough to feel busy, while preventing one faction from becoming so dominant that it overwhelms the other in the open world.

The imbalance is particularly visible in the US, where Horde is much more popular than Alliance. That leaves Alliance players outnumbered when they are questing in the world, while Horde players can run into another limitation because Blizzard is throttling new character creation to preserve faction balance.

More than a crowding fix

The hotfix is not limited to zone population and faction access. Blizzard’s November 9 notes include a long list of corrections across classes, dungeons, items, quests, enemies and world systems. The patch is broad enough to show that Blizzard is still polishing launch-era issues even as it manages the game’s unusually large population.

• Experience rewarded for all enemy kills in dungeons increased by 50%.
• Alcaz Prison now drops loot from Zarla Ober.
• Blackfathom Deeps received a fix for players becoming unable to release after dying.
• Blackrock Depths now opens the throne room doors properly after a wipe on Emperor Thaurissan, and Heart of the Mountain can be looted more than once.
• The Drowned City creatures were fixed after doing about 30% more damage than intended.
• Deathless Marrow received several tuning changes, including lower health for its creatures and reduced damage or cast frequency on several abilities.
• The Shaper’s Terrace now drops loot and higher-level skinning materials correctly, and Cinder should spawn after players use the Archival Panel.
• Stratholme no longer allows players to mount inside the dungeon.
• Silverpine Forest, Teldrassil, Un’goro Crater and Zephras each received enemy respawn or spawn-time adjustments.

Class fixes were spread widely across the roster as well. Druids received Cooldown Manager and Feral corrections; Hunters were updated so Vulgara the Insatiable and the Shrieklings of Zephras belong to the right pet families; Mages, Paladins, Priests, Shamans, Warlocks and Warriors all got behavior fixes or tool updates. Blizzard also noted that Tauren Cultivation now correctly only goes on cooldown after the cast completes.

Items and quests were touched throughout the patch. Blizzard fixed the Pouch of Violet Dust so it again grants the intended extra hour of Camp Benefits aura duration, restored Waylaid Crates and Craftsman’s Writs inside dungeons, and corrected Berdun’s Trusty Rifle so it no longer has random stats or Bind-on-Equip status. Quest fixes include shared party credit for “The Monster Surfaces,” “Croaky’s Head” and “Elmpaw’s Head,” along with repairs for “The Deathstalkers,” “Jom-jom’s Escape,” “Ever After,” “Unwelcome Guests,” “Find Bingles,” “A Quick Grocery Run,” “Lonebrow’s Journal,” “A Recipe for Death,” “Fetch ‘n’ Fletch,” “Mission: Possible not Probable,” “Bloodmaster’s Ring” and “Feathers in Flight.”

Blizzard also removed an invisible wall blocking the roof of the Alliance base in Warsong Gulch, and fixed a flight path from Camp Taurajo to Thunder Bluff that could unintentionally pass through objects. The hotfix closes with the same message on congestion that led the update: the studio says it will keep monitoring zone feel and make more changes as necessary.

Blizzard said launch night itself went smoothly, with the game running on around 251TB of RAM and over 70,000 CPU cores. That scale helps explain why the studio is trying to keep zones crowded without letting them collapse under the weight of too many players in one place.