At level 60, there is trouble in WoW: Shadowlands. New rules for phasing make world quests significantly more complicated.
Update: The issue seems to have been resolved. Blizzard announced in a blue post that grouping in WoW is working as it did before. Only players with different war mode settings should still be unable to see each other. Thanks to our user Peshki for the tip.
Original report: World of Warcraft Shadowlands has successfully completed its first day. Aside from a few minor issues, such as bugs with the PvP vendor, there were few difficulties. However, upon reaching level 60, players have now noticed a problem that is extremely annoying. Completing group quests has become significantly more challenging, as phasing has introduced an additional, frustrating hurdle.
What is the problem? Many world quests in Shadowlands are designed for a group and require 3 to 5 players to successfully defeat the large elite enemies. Finding a group is actually quite simple, as each quest in the quest display has a handy button that helps find players from all possible realms with just a few clicks. However, this no longer works, as it did in Battle for Azeroth.
When you join a group, you no longer automatically switch to the phase of the group leader. Instead, you are often shown that the other players are in a different phase. You cannot see each other, and therefore cannot complete the quest together.
Is this intentional? It appears that this is not a bug, but a deliberate feature. When you hover over the players in the group display, the game reveals that you can only switch to the other group members’ phase when you visit a sanctuary. A sanctuary is a specially protected rest area where no PvP is possible, such as Oribos or the respective sanctuary of the covenant.
Why is this so? Blizzard has not provided an exact reason for this change. However, since the game specifically highlights this with a tooltip, it seems that the change is intentional, leaving room for speculation:
- One possible explanation could be negative experiences in PvP phases (war mode). It was often frustrating when suddenly “out of nowhere” countless enemies would appear and overwhelm players because another player had invited them spontaneously through group search.
- A second reason might be to prevent “server hopping” when farming rare mobs. Many players only joined a group to see if a specific rare mob was currently available on the respective server at a completely different location on the map. This is no longer possible.
What are the consequences? The consequence is that many players are currently frustrated when they join groups for quests. It is extremely annoying not to switch to the other players’ phase immediately. Anyone wanting to complete a group quest together should already look for a group in the sanctuary and plan some travel time afterward.
Simply going to the location of a quest and then looking for a group is not possible – unless you limit yourself to group members from your own realm who are already in the same phase.
If Blizzard changes something here or explains more precisely why this was implemented in the game, we will provide an update.
Another issue when leveling is that you get simply too much XP to see everything.
