WoW Classic Season of Mastery Design Intentions and Details

[Lumy]

WoW Classic Season of Mastery Design Intentions and Details

We’ve been very pleased by the reception to our WoW Classic Season of Mastery announcement last week, and we’ve seen a great many questions from players about this new version of WoW Classic. With the Beta now underway, we wanted to take a moment to talk a bit about the philosophy around Seasonal WoW Classic.

Design Intentions

First, it’s important to explain what the Season of Mastery is, a little of what it isn’t, and our overall thoughts about Seasonal WoW Classic. The main goal for the Season of Mastery is provide a WoW Classic experience that brings about “Faster Progression and More Challenging Content”. This is our core design pillar that speaks to many of the changes we’re testing in the Beta, and you can see this reflected in adjustments such as increased quest XP, a 12-month content release cycle, and the Honor System and certain Battlegrounds being available from the launch of the game.

We’re increasing the difficulty of raid encounters, restoring raid mechanics removed in early iterations of certain encounters, and we’re prohibiting the use of world buffs inside raid instances. Of course, these are just the changes we’ve announced so far, and we’re still reviewing feedback and suggestions from the community. There’s certainly room to include additional adjustments if they’re consistent with this season’s design goals.

• While these are significant changes, we want to make it very clear that these adjustments aren’t intended to become a permanent change to all versions of WoW Classic going forward. When the Season of Mastery launches, existing WoW Classic Era realms will remain configured as they are now.

Loot and World Buff Details

There have been a lot of discussions about loot, and specifically the rate at which players can get loot from raids, as we don’t currently have plans to increase that. Part of the challenge of Season of Mastery is the speedy arrival of content throughout the year, and this raises the notion that you may not approach every new challenge with the level of preparation you did in WoW Classic. We feel that loot scarcity was an important part of what made original World of Warcraft challenging and hope to recreate that feeling. Of course, we’ll be watching this closely and are open to adjustments here if we identify a need.

The issues raised by world buff play in WoW Classic have been discussed at great length for years now. We really like the Chronoboon Displacer as a solution to the raid log dilemma, but for the Season of Mastery, world buffs in raids are contrary to the “More Challenging Content” part of our core design pillar. There is a truly great feeling when you get fully buffed and then race through raids to try and beat your best clear time, and we’ll continue to look elsewhere for a place to bring that about again.

• Please note: the Chronoboon Displacer will be present and will function in Season of Mastery. You won’t lose buffs that are stored in the Chronoboon Displacer when you zone into a raid. You will, however, lose your buffs if you restore them from the Displacer while in a raid instance.

Speaking of raids, we’re quite aware of the concerns around the opening of the gates of Ahn Qiraj on a truncated timeframe. We don’t have anything specific planned for that yet, but we do have the ability to accelerate the completion of the War Effort, should the need arise.

The PvP Honor System

Achieving Rank 14 in original World of Warcraft was always meant to be a prestigious accomplishment that few players obtained. We feel that maintaining that level of prestige is important, and we’ve got to consider how it will play out with the Honor system active from the moment Season of Mastery launches. This is especially difficult, considering how powerful the Honor gear is for many classes.

We’ve read many great suggestions from players on how we could improve this system. We’re currently discussing what we could do to fit our goals for Season of Mastery. Please keep your feedback coming!

Looking Forward

Even though we’ve just gotten started with the Beta, many players want to know what might happen after the 12-month schedule is completed. While we don’t have specifics to share now, we’re currently exploring all of our options, especially when it comes to allowing characters to persist in some way when the Season ends. We’ll let you know!

[Biomega]

While I grok their intent and methodology, I fear that we are headed for the Great Loot Drama Apocalypse of 2021/2 with that. Imagine the arguments people will put forth for why THEY deserve a particular piece of loot - rare pieces like Bindings especially - over someone else because of incoming content waves. It'll be... biblical.

[Onikaroshi]

While I grok their intent and methodology, I fear that we are headed for the Great Loot Drama Apocalypse of 2021/2 with that. Imagine the arguments people will put forth for why THEY deserve a particular piece of loot - rare pieces like Bindings especially - over someone else because of incoming content waves. It'll be... biblical.

I predict a support spec revolution, no one is going to be getting gear besides your main tank and your highest DPS classes.

[jackofwind]

While I grok their intent and methodology, I fear that we are headed for the Great Loot Drama Apocalypse of 2021/2 with that. Imagine the arguments people will put forth for why THEY deserve a particular piece of loot - rare pieces like Bindings especially - over someone else because of incoming content waves. It'll be... biblical.

It won't be. People who complain will get dropped, people who perform will get gear. People who pick classes that underperform won't get priority on items items with the accelerated timeline, so most people who really care will play Rogue Mage Warrior Priest.

UBRS is going to be a fucking busy place.

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I predict a support spec revolution, no one is going to be getting gear besides your main tank and your highest DPS classes.

Yeah exactly this. Luckily some classes like Hunters can just sit with their tier gear and perform well relative to their class strength (while still not performing nearly as well as the top DPs classes). But they certainly won't be getting offset items to boost DPS when those items could go to Rogues or Warrs.

[Biomega]

It won't be. People who complain will get dropped, people who perform will get gear. People who pick classes that underperform won't get priority on items items with the accelerated timeline, so most people who really care will play Rogue Mage Warrior Priest.

Oh, I get that. There's easy strategies of how to min/max this.

But try explaining to the shaman or whatever why they aren't getting any loot. There'll be tears and rage aplenty.

[Sin of Pride]

Would be cool if you let people unlock transmog now that we are changing things.

[LedZeppelin]

Someone is really going to do the R14 grind a third time.

May god have mercy on their soul.

[thunderdragon2]

It won't be. People who complain will get dropped, people who perform will get gear. People who pick classes that underperform won't get priority on items items with the accelerated timeline, so most people who really care will play Rogue Mage Warrior Priest.

UBRS is going to be a fucking busy place.

and then you get 2 weeks straight of nothing bar hunter druid and paladin t 1 and 2 drops....yeye fun and yeye more qq

[Chriisto]

Will many people even want to play this? The hardcore private server types may get a kick out of it but I really don't think the average player is going to want to live the vanilla experience again.

[jackofwind]

Will many people even want to play this? The hardcore private server types may get a kick out of it but I really don't think the average player is going to want to live the vanilla experience again.

TBH is Blizzard does variable seasons it could kill off PServers. Most people that chronically play Vanilla want F R E S H pretty much right after BWL, so a fast turnaround and some variety would probably keep that crowd attracted.

It's not a huge fanbase and it doesn't necessarily overlap with retail players, but there's definitely a dedicated group of players who will play Vanilla over and over and over as long as there are F R E S H servers to play on.

[OokOok]

Will many people even want to play this? The hardcore private server types may get a kick out of it but I really don't think the average player is going to want to live the vanilla experience again.

I feel like the vast majority of classics success was the "nostalgia" group, the people who played vanilla and wanted to relive it because they "remembered" it being the best era of wow or the people who never played vanilla but live through others nostalgia from reading posts or watching youtube videos. They've now experienced it, and considering how much the numbers dropped of active users i'd say these nostalgia players didn't last long

Those who did play vanilla now remember how boring and bland it really was. And those who never did but lived it through others, finally got to experience it and needless to say... didn't stick around.

So as you said, it'll just be the hardcore/try hards. People who want to do the level to 60 again to see how fast, or people who just want to level a rogue this time to be the ganker instead of the ganked. Tbc/retail/classic/classic 2.0 it's a lot for people to separate your player base between. Especially considering half the player base in the last 6months fled and has found new homes. My guess is for the first month it will be bumping because of streamers riding the hype train for views, then it will start to die except maybe 1-2 servers.

[Kralljin]

Will many people even want to play this? The hardcore private server types may get a kick out of it but I really don't think the average player is going to want to live the vanilla experience again.

I will probably just play for the launch itself.

I did Classic endgame ad nauseam, the endgame isn't something i'm really interested in unless Blizzard puts a huge spin on it, the TBC endgame is frankly a more iterated version of Classic's endgame.

The leveling experience however, when basically everybody is leveling, that's something i'm interested because that's something you didn't really get anymore on Classic a few months after launch, especially as mage boosting started to take over.

It's just cool to walk into Westfall / Barrens for the first time, see so many people spamming "LFG / LFM WC / DM" and you wanting to get to the proper level so you can join in on the fun or just being able to do most Elite quests rather easily because there are just more people out in the world doing this sort of thing.
That experience is just difficult to get post launch weeks / months.

I feel like the vast majority of classics success was the "nostalgia" group, the people who played vanilla and wanted to relive it because they "remembered"

Considering Classic saw a massive raiding activity even ~6 months after launch (altough certainly aided by the pandemic), this whole "it actually was just nostalgia" talk should really stop.

[huehuehue]

YEP. It's been working out for blizz so far when they go with their design over what the players want.

No increased loot drops. This will bring down everyone's experience dealing with this bs in their guild. Lets be real blizz, it won't be hard this time around either, so just let the players have their fun.

[Dartakan]

They should go even further and make spec changes, to make most of them a lot more viable.

[StillMcfuu]

Instead of increasing loot drops, they should just halve the lockout length, IE you can do double the amount of raids. Even if a guild didn't go hard, they could still benefit from members pugging and or getting to fresh clear specific raids twice vs once and another raid.

I also think Blizz should really lean into different types of seasonal servers. The majority of the player base is gone forever from retail, but Classic - Wrath has the potential to bring some of them back. The chances of retail getting back players that quit years ago is slim to none.

[RemasteredClassic]

If they try to milk us in anyway on top of the monthly sub, it’s going to be the end.

[Utrrabbit]

Will many people even want to play this? The hardcore private server types may get a kick out of it but I really don't think the average player is going to want to live the vanilla experience again.

Most pservers had a turn around of only 3 to 4 months from start to finish. 12 months is acfually about 3x longer than what most pserver players are used to.

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YEP. It's been working out for blizz so far when they go with their design over what the players want.

No increased loot drops. This will bring down everyone's experience dealing with this bs in their guild. Lets be real blizz, it won't be hard this time around either, so just let the players have their fun.

Huh? 99% of what they have done is WHAT THE PLAYERBASE HAS ASKED FOR. Using your logic does not make sense as the changes in retail is because they listened to the playerbase.

Try thinking first.

[Chilela]

It won't be. People who complain will get dropped, people who perform will get gear. People who pick classes that underperform won't get priority on items items with the accelerated timeline, so most people who really care will play Rogue Mage Warrior Priest.

UBRS is going to be a fucking busy place.

I wouldn't be surprised if a few "non-viable" specs in Classic Era become more useful in Season of Mastery, due to the removal of the debuff limit in raids. Granted, Arms warriors aren't going to magically leapfrog Fury warriors due to Mortal Strike becoming usable, but it may shift some more "niche" classes. I'd wager the minmaxers are gonna roll with the "proven" builds early on regardless, for sure.

[Amarys]

So they want to release classic every year then? I guess expected too much from them..

I mean is continuation of Classic so difficult then? Separate game with the old design philosophy. Instead, what they're doing is "Skyrim for your fridge" again, only this time they're probably gonna add all the shortcuts, catch ups, cash shop and everything that make the retail bad.

[javierdsv]

all versions of WoW Classic going forward.

Those are the magic words. They will keep milking it to eternity. I just hope they decide on Classic+ and add some actual substantial changes. Like balancing classes, a new story or stuff like that.