WoW Classic Season of Mastery Beta Updates - October 19

[Kralljin]

Missing Shadowfang Keep and Scarlett Monastery though.

I think those are being squashed by the change that you get less XP when a much higher level character is in your group.

[Tealghara]

"High Elf Watchers have made an appearance in the Ironforge Library and Undercity Apothecarium, seeking to chronicle those who bear a “Soul of Iron”."

*Rise an eyebrow.*



If it wasn't for the XP rate boost, I would love all these changes. I've always been a pro-change guy, in the sense changes should improve the Classic experience. The overworld experience, the lore and consistency of the world, not the stuff putting us faster in instances.

[Altariaz]

SoM is shaping up very interestingly. Definitely going to play.
I'd like a little feedback on what might happen to my toon after all content has been released.

[natham]

"High Elf Watchers have made an appearance in the Ironforge Library and Undercity Apothecarium, seeking to chronicle those who bear a “Soul of Iron”."

*Rise an eyebrow.*



If it wasn't for the XP rate boost, I would love all these changes. I've always been a pro-change guy, in the sense changes should improve the Classic experience. The overworld experience, the lore and consistency of the world, not the stuff putting us faster in instances.

I dont see the problem with the xp boost rate when we are talking about limited time cycles. Get over it.

[crusadernero]

My thoughts as well.

The leveling experience from 1-~30 is actually reasonably paced in Classic, it usually starts to fall apart past that where you then had to resort to insane zone hopping in order to get new quests.

I think the Classic leveling experience starts to really drag on from 30 and onwards, there are some points when you enter a certain zone (Tanaris, Searing Gorge, Hinterlands for Horde), there xp increase should kick in, not before.

Agree. I have had no issues leveling 1-30 on any faction or class. After that, it always starts getting slower. Alot of travelling between zones, not really any given zone that fits your level range and so on.

I remember being the same back in vanilla. I actually lvld several characters to 30-40 before finally sticking to 1 class, were I decided to just stick with it.

For us nostalgia hooked people, the first zones are probably the best too. Atleast for me.

[Tealghara]

I dont see the problem with the xp boost rate when we are talking about limited time cycles. Get over it.

I apologize for not sharing your opinion. Yours is obviously superior.

[twothe]

The leveling is the adventure...

No it is not, that's the worst part of the game actually. I levels about every character in WoW Classic to max, I played on various free servers and leveled to max again. When they opened up the first Classic server I could do the quests with my eyes closed. I'd rather have a 100% xp boost, instead of going through all that "click that stuff 30 times" nonsense again. I have absolutely no idea what you people glorify about that nonsensical bullshit they call questing.

[natham]

I apologize for not sharing your opinion. Yours is obviously superior.

No you just don't want to see the reason. If this was FRESH classic with normal rate content release and no ENDing then buffing xp rate make no sense. In this care you have a limited time and of course you will want to go through without the pointless farming. Its not really that faster. The plus is that there are no levels where you run out of quests and have to farm boars for hours (oh how much fun it is).

[Tealghara]

The plus is that there are no levels where you run out of quests and have to farm boars for hours (oh how much fun it is).

Never went through this, maybe you were playing the game wrong?

[crewskater]

However the 40% buff to XP is too much in my opinion. "Adventure Awaits" buff? The leveling is the adventure... Maybe it would feel better if the buff only appeared in the later levels progressivly more? The 1-30 pacing is way too fast and rushed.

But it's not a dealbreaker, if you think it makes this a more successful project with the buff go for it.

Not everyone has the time like you do when it comes to leveling, which by the way isn't end game. It took me almost 168 hours to get my last hunter to 60 which is about average for most people.

- - - Updated - - -

To me, this is the start of 'Classic+' - ways to experiment with the classic shell and change things without #nochanges shrieking... They're already adding new NPCs/abilities/items - if it goes well they will keep going in this direction, probably new content of all sorts.

Classic+ will never happen lol they have TBC and beyond for that. Keep dreaming!

- - - Updated - - -

Never went through this, maybe you were playing the game wrong?

If you don't do any dungeons then it's pretty easy to have to grind mobs.

[Kralljin]

Classic+ will never happen lol they have TBC and beyond for that. Keep dreaming!

Yeah, it's a pipedream like those "Classic Servers", anybody who claims these would be successful is high on nostalgia!

[Tarx]

Nice season good choice for classic. I hope to have a special visual effect to people who reach lvl 60 without die.

[Khaza-R]

"High Elf Watchers have made an appearance in the Ironforge Library and Undercity Apothecarium, seeking to chronicle those who bear a “Soul of Iron”."

*Rise an eyebrow.*



If it wasn't for the XP rate boost, I would love all these changes. I've always been a pro-change guy, in the sense changes should improve the Classic experience. The overworld experience, the lore and consistency of the world, not the stuff putting us faster in instances.

As someone who leveled to 35 in the beta, I can say even the 40% quest bonus isn't super noticeable. Its not like retail where you can churn around 20 quests in an hour.

It just actually makes quests feel worth doing. Especially some of the most tedious ones. Overall I think its a positive change and doesn't strongly impact the feel of leveling in vanilla.

[Dzonathan]

The EXP nerf with high level mages boosting was enough.
The snare immunity only hurts regular players.

Here's why:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oS_oCeXgZE

[crewskater]

Yeah, it's a pipedream like those "Classic Servers", anybody who claims these would be successful is high on nostalgia!

Feel free to correct me when that happens. At least Classic servers happened...

[Kralljin]

Feel free to correct me when that happens. At least Classic servers happened...

Yeah and it took them like 4 years, that's however the issue with the word "never".

All those subs from Classic are on borrowed time, i think i'm not engaging in any wild speculation that the interest past Wotlk will decline, Classic Wotlk will likely be over in the next 3-4 years - then what?

Either Blizzard manages to bring Retail into a position where that "Classic audience" will want to play that again without alienating the current Retail audience or they're going to lose a sizeable chunk of those players, because the people interested in replaying the same content over and over again with minor changes isn't very huge.

The only option then left would be to engage any sort of Classic+ experiment to retain those players.
I'm not saying Classic+ WILL happen, but Blizzard WILL lose a sizeable chunk of players if they don't present those players anything that's up to their taste.

[RamGuy]

As someone who leveled to 35 in the beta, I can say even the 40% quest bonus isn't super noticeable. Its not like retail where you can churn around 20 quests in an hour.

It just actually makes quests feel worth doing. Especially some of the most tedious ones. Overall I think its a positive change and doesn't strongly impact the feel of leveling in vanilla.

I haven't spent much time on the BETA. But I would think the more tedious and grindy quests would have less value with +40% EXP to Quests?

In WoW: Classic there are tons of tedious and grindy quests where you are pretty much killing the same mobs over, and over again for almost one hour. You get more and more of these quests as the levelling continues. The only reason why it made sense to complete some of these quests was that they were a part of a quest chain providing decent loot or simply because grinding mobs is actually one of the best parts of gaining EXP as a result of EXP from Quests in the original state of Vanilla was too low. It didn't really matter how long it took to finish a quest, the money/loot and EXP per hour you got from grinding those mobs that never drops the quest items you need didn't really lower your EXP per hour in any drastic way.

With +40% EXP only for Quests and not for killing mobs this should change with Season of Mastery? Where this one tedious quest that took me 60 min and 100 mobs to kill before I got all my drops gave me decent EXP per hour, this balance should be completely different with Season of Mastery as sticking with quests you can do fast and efficiently should be far more effective for your EXP per hour as a result of all those quests receiving +40% EXP.

I can't wrap my head around how it would be even possible for only providing a major boost to EXP from quests and nothing else would make grindy and tedious quests more worth it?


With +40% EXP to quests everyone will need to do less within the game before reaching level 60. I don't think the change will be dramatic as the way from 1-60 in Vanilla is rather time-consuming and you don't really spend most of your time handing in quests. You spent most of your time travelling and killing mobs. So it's not like this would be anywhere close to meaning you'll hit level 60 40% faster. But it should result in people being more likely to skip the more tedious quests as they are simply not worth it anymore if you could do 3-5 other quests in the same time as you spend on that one tedious one. And even though Vanilla is lacking in overall quests, you start noticing it from level 30+ there are still enough to get you to level 60 if you are willing to change zones often and with the EXP boost you will need lower number of quests to reach level 60 compared to what you did in Classic so you could easily skip the worst and most tedious quests without having to worry about running out of quests before hitting level 60.

- - - Updated - - -

I do think that Blizzard is moving in the right direction with all these changes, and thus far they are stilling continuing on the correct path. I had expected them to start making silly decisions by now as I've grown accustomed to Blizzard somehow always managing to drop the ball at some point. But this is looking really promising and it keeps looking even more promising by every update.

I'm still worried about money. As someone who isn't really hardcore, but just one that loves to play Classic because of the slow-pace of the game, the simple rotations, simple mechanics and the community it delivers I'm afraid that Blizzard doesn't take into account how faster levelling without boosting drops at all will make the already rather strict economy when levelling your first (and perhaps only) character. Normally you will have to make sacrifices to make sure you can afford your mount at level 40. If you are one that spend some money on stuff on the auction house, you don't bother too much with farming professions while levelling and you want to dip your toes in different skills and whatnot and perhaps you die a few times over so those repair bills start stacking up it sounds rather rough to not try to boost loot/money drops to offset the fact that we are going to level faster.

And in relation to my comment above I do find it strange that Blizzard would not boost the drop rates of certain quest items. With a boost to EXP from quests the more tedious and grindy quests becomes even less attractive for players to deal with. Seems silly to not try to balance this by trying to make sure that those quests normally taking you 45-60 min to grind is taking 25-40 min to grind.


I also think that they are taking the easy way out when it comes to levelling. I do understand why +EXP to Quests makes perfect sense. The content is condensed as this is supposed to be a limited run that will reset at a certain point and every content phase is being released faster. When everything else is moving faster, keeping the exact same levelling speed wouldn't make sense. And by boosting EXP from quests while they are now also trying to limit boosting it would make a lot more players actually play the game instead of getting boosted which is great.

But just putting +40% EXP to quests is a very cheap and easy way to go by it. I do love Classic levelling. I think it's the best part of the entire experience. But lets face it. Levelling in Vanilla doesn't feel complete and balanced. It's all great from 1-30, you have decent amount of quest, the flow feel consistent taking you from zone to zone. From 30+ it starts to break up, you start to have limited areas in various zones that want you to do this amount of quests to then shuffle you into another zone to do this amount of quests there only to send you back to where you were earlier. And this becomes worse for every level you gain beyond level 30. When you reach level 40+ it starts to become rather insane how you start to have so many quests that wants you to spend some insane amounts of time just travelling from one area to the next. You start to spend a whole bunch of time idling while using flight paths. And the quests becomes more and more grindy.

There is a reason why Blizzard actually spent time going back improving on the 1-60 levelling content during TBC. It wasn't finished. I'm not saying we should get everything from TBC like mounts at level 30, less EXP needed to reach level 60 etc. But having all the additional quests, quest hubs and optimisations from TBC would be great and a much better solution than simply adding +40% EXP from quests. At least that's my opinion.

[Khaza-R]

I haven't spent much time on the BETA. But I would think the more tedious and grindy quests would have less value with +40% EXP to Quests?

This is true but I assume people already skip the worst offenders anyway. Something like the Rageclaw quest in Teldrassil is never worth doing because of the terrible drop rate. But there's also some quests that benefit from the increase. Take for example the Charred Vale quests. I normally skip them because its not significant enough to spend time traveling there. But this playthrough I gave it a shot and it felt worth because the chain gave me about 1.5 levels worth of EXP in total.

As you stated in your post - I think 1-30 is fine as well and doesn't really need the bonus. I've suggest that the EXP bonus ramp up with each level bracket to make leveling more fluid. 35-50 is the most egregious offender which could potentially be helped by an increased exp bonus.

I'm still worried about money. As someone who isn't really hardcore, but just one that loves to play Classic because of the slow-pace of the game, the simple rotations, simple mechanics and the community it delivers I'm afraid that Blizzard doesn't take into account how faster levelling without boosting drops at all will make the already rather strict economy when levelling your first (and perhaps only) character. Normally you will have to make sacrifices to make sure you can afford your mount at level 40. If you are one that spend some money on stuff on the auction house, you don't bother too much with farming professions while levelling and you want to dip your toes in different skills and whatnot and perhaps you die a few times over so those repair bills start stacking up it sounds rather rough to not try to boost loot/money drops to offset the fact that we are going to level faster.

This is another very valid point to raise. I am not sure how they could remedy it other than maybe giving a discount on skills and mounts. In beta I was generated gold well enough but its really tough to say that will be the case with release. For one there wasn't as much suppliers so you could take up alc and make a lot of gold every day. Aside from that we also don't know how bad botting will be in release. I am hoping SoM is just popular enough to fly under their radar but I imagine that's an unlikely outcome.

There is a reason why Blizzard actually spent time going back improving on the 1-60 levelling content during TBC. It wasn't finished. I'm not saying we should get everything from TBC like mounts at level 30, less EXP needed to reach level 60 etc. But having all the additional quests, quest hubs and optimisations from TBC would be great and a much better solution than simply adding +40% EXP from quests. At least that's my opinion.

This is a fairly good suggestion. I mean obviously adding some of the hubs that include Blood Elves and Draenei might no work. But adding the hub in Dustwallow for instance would help the 30-40 bracket.

[Yooginava182]

It's "fresh" servers. It will start at "phase 1" but it will go faster this time, Naxx will be out within a year after it's released. We don't know what happens after the year is over. Probably the success of the project will determine the next steps.

If it's successful, Blizzard will invest in new content so people can continue playting their character in new content?
If it's unsuccessful, it will go into Diablo 3 mode, releasing new "seasons" every now and then with no real new content added.
My interpitation.

I really dont understand the mindset of them adding new content like dungeons, raids and zones into classic wow when they have retail for that reason...

[Kralljin]

I really dont understand the mindset of them adding new content like dungeons, raids and zones into classic wow when they have retail for that reason...

Some players aren't a huge fan of the modern design of Retail.