Changes to Molten Core and Onyxia in Season of Mastery Beta

[Lumy]

Changes to Molten Core and Onyxia in Season of Mastery Beta

Greetings!

First, thank you to everyone who hopped on the Season of Mastery Beta last week and helped us test out our first adjustments to Molten Core and Onyxia.

Going into Season of Mastery, our philosophy was to take a light touch when it came to changes to raid bosses and mechanics, and focus instead on restoring versions of raid bosses that existed in the game at one point or another during the course of original World of Warcraft. As we were peeling back the layers of data from early versions of the game, it became obvious quickly that the list of actual changes to most content in Molten Core and Onyxia was extremely short. Onyxia had a conflagrate/disorient effect on her Fireball attack during the air phase, Golemagg had an Earthquake ability, and Ragnaros did a fire splash more frequently, with a weekly timer to limit the number of attempts a group could make.

Some of these mechanics are more impactful than others, but overall, we suspected that the total impact of the changes would likely not be meaningfully felt by players in 2021 who have an enormous amount of experience in these raids.

Regardless, we were determined to start small and see how it felt first. So for that first round of Beta raid testing, we went with a blanket 100% health buff and that handful of restored mechanics. As we watched Beta testers in-game and listened to the reactions to our changes and restorations, it confirmed what we already thought going into this test – merely raising mob health and restoring a few removed mechanics was not hitting the mark we wanted for a season focused on faster progression and “more challenging” content.

As a result, with the next upcoming Beta build, we’re making some significant adjustments to almost every encounter in Molten Core and Onyxia’s Lair.

To be clear, we don’t intend these or any future changes we make to Season of Mastery raid encounters to increase the difficulty of the content to a point where experienced, prepared raid groups will have to wipe for days or weeks to progress on it. We also don’t intend to change the fights so much that they become completely unrecognizable or fundamentally different from their Classic versions. Our intent is to provide something subtle and fresh to go along with the Season of Mastery that feels very much in keeping with the spirit of the original encounters.

We’ll let you know when we’re ready to update the Season of Mastery Beta, and we’re going to open raid testing again on Thursday at 2:00 p.m. PDT, and we’d love it if you could join us to check out what we’ve been working on.

As always, don’t hesitate to let us know what you think, and please use the in-game bug reporter (default hotkey: F6) to report any bugs you encounter.

Thank you!

-The WoW Classic Team

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Some of these mechanics are more impactful than others, but overall, we suspected that the total impact of the changes would likely not be meaningfully felt by players in 2021 who have an enormous amount of experience in these raids.

...but aren't those kind of players the only ones still playing Classic and not TBC Classic, retail WoW, or any Blizzard games anymore? Is this "Season of Mastery" intended to bring back the casual Classic player? At the moment I don't see how these changes, supposedly not being impactful to the prime and largest audience, are really changing anything.


Unless you look at it like "better than nothing" then, sure, I agree.

[Niwes]

...but aren't those kind of players the only ones still playing Classic and not TBC Classic, retail WoW, or any Blizzard games anymore? Is this "Season of Mastery" intended to bring back the casual Classic player? At the moment I don't see how these changes, supposedly not being impactful to the prime and largest audience, are really changing anything.


Unless you look at it like "better than nothing" then, sure, I agree.

as i said already in another thread, i not really get, who the target audience is.

- the ppl already played Vanilla but not classic?
- the ppl already played Vanilla and classic?
- ppl that never played wow?
- wow retail players never played vanilla and still not played classic?

my problem here is:
- above grp1: most played not classic for reasons. the same reasons they will not play classic MS for.
- above grp2: most played more than enough of org wow now, with vanilla+classic. do they wanna do all this such soon again?
- above grp3: yeah, a 14 year old 2021 kid is FOR SURE attracted by a re-remaster of a 16 year old game.
- above grp4: wow retail players that not played vanilla or classic will do for MS now ? ok.

if they did this in the first place, on classic release. ok. but now?

so, the question, i not fully get, is: WHO will play classic MS ? WHO exactly is the target audience ? i assume, not many.

[Biomega]

At the moment I don't see how these changes, supposedly not being impactful to the prime and largest audience, are really changing anything.

Maybe you've misread the post? They were saying they made those changes thinking it probably wouldn't be enough, and then in testing found out they were right, and therefore they're making BIGGER changes.

EDIT:

as i said already in another thread, i not really get, who the target audience is.
[...]
so, the question, i not fully get, is: WHO will play classic MS ? WHO exactly is the target audience ? i assume, not many.

I also don't really get what the goal is here. If this was some kind of Classic Hard Mode with brutally hard raids you actually needed to progress on, I might be interested; but they're very clearly saying that's not their goal. So I'm not sure who they're trying to rope in here, people who quit Classic because they ran out of stuff to do I guess?

[Niwes]

Maybe you've misread the post? They were saying they made those changes thinking it probably wouldn't be enough, and then in testing found out they were right, and therefore they're making BIGGER changes.

EDIT:


I also don't really get what the goal is here. If this was some kind of Classic Hard Mode with brutally hard raids you actually needed to progress on, I might be interested; but they're very clearly saying that's not their goal. So I'm not sure who they're trying to rope in here, people who quit Classic because they ran out of stuff to do I guess?

yes, thats all clear. but for WHO ?

WHERE are these ppls, that form the target audience of wow classic MS ?

and where can i find at least 10 of them ?

- - - Updated - - -

Maybe you've misread the post? They were saying they made those changes thinking it probably wouldn't be enough, and then in testing found out they were right, and therefore they're making BIGGER changes.

EDIT:


I also don't really get what the goal is here. If this was some kind of Classic Hard Mode with brutally hard raids you actually needed to progress on, I might be interested; but they're very clearly saying that's not their goal. So I'm not sure who they're trying to rope in here, people who quit Classic because they ran out of stuff to do I guess?

yep, same here.

[Xyrax]

Ohh this is exciting. I can only imagine the changes to future raid tiers also. Especially stuff like ZG and AQ20 that don't get a lot of the main attention. It should be really interesting.

[Sensa1]

yes, thats all clear. but for WHO ?

WHERE are these ppls, that form the target audience of wow classic MS ?

and where can i find at least 10 of them ?

- - - Updated - - -



yep, same here.

I never played the private classic servers but it was my understanding that the raids had been made tougher on those servers to give players somewhat of a challenge...and there was a substantial subset (or at least enough of a subset) of players that kept those servers healthy. If my recollection is correct Blizz is trying to appeal to that sub-group...a sub-group not likely playing retail...that require minimal effort on Blizz's part to attract (tune raids, ramp up lvl exp all that's really required), if they correctly mimic the private server difficulty, and who start paying a $15 sub fee again...its a win-win no brainer for Blizzard

[Irefusetodie]

Can't wait for Word of Warcraft: Classic (Season of Mastery) NG+ (Remastered) edition.

[LedZeppelin]

its just a revamped classic wow whats not to understand?

[Mojo03]

as i said already in another thread, i not really get, who the target audience is.

- the ppl already played Vanilla but not classic?
- the ppl already played Vanilla and classic?
- ppl that never played wow?
- wow retail players never played vanilla and still not played classic?

my problem here is:
- above grp1: most played not classic for reasons. the same reasons they will not play classic MS for.
- above grp2: most played more than enough of org wow now, with vanilla+classic. do they wanna do all this such soon again?
- above grp3: yeah, a 14 year old 2021 kid is FOR SURE attracted by a re-remaster of a 16 year old game.
- above grp4: wow retail players that not played vanilla or classic will do for MS now ? ok.

if they did this in the first place, on classic release. ok. but now?

so, the question, i not fully get, is: WHO will play classic MS ? WHO exactly is the target audience ? i assume, not many.

It’s a super inexpensive way to extend the life of the game and experiment.

They’re just throwing darts and seeing if any sticks with people.

Why not? There is literally almost nothing to lose.

[Cosmic Janitor]

yes, thats all clear. but for WHO ?

WHERE are these ppls, that form the target audience of wow classic MS ?

and where can i find at least 10 of them ?

- - - Updated - - -

yep, same here.

In short I think it's aimed at the pserver crowd.

[Niwes]

I never played the private classic servers but it was my understanding that the raids had been made tougher on those servers to give players somewhat of a challenge...and there was a substantial subset (or at least enough of a subset) of players that kept those servers healthy. If my recollection is correct Blizz is trying to appeal to that sub-group...a sub-group not likely playing retail...that require minimal effort on Blizz's part to attract (tune raids, ramp up lvl exp all that's really required), if they correctly mimic the private server difficulty, and who start paying a $15 sub fee again...its a win-win no brainer for Blizzard

get what you mean. but i assume 50% of that ppl already did this on private servers the years before Classic that often, that they have no interests in doing it again. of the other 50% i would say 45% already played Classic. 3% of the last 5% have no interests at all (getting old or whatever). makes a 2% target audience. 2% of classic community.

dont get me wrong. i totally agree to what you said. but imo the amount of ppl you described can 2021/2022 not even fill 1 realm. i just can not imagine myself, that there are 10.000-100.000 ppls out there, still interesting in doing that again and again and again. i just can not imagine that these ppl (that are still interested in doing all that Vanilla/Classic thing a third, or fourth, or fifth time, for Mastery Seasons) are that many.

so i am not sure here, if this is really that great benefit for blizz, even for the „small“ investment. nor i am sure, to what audience Blizzard is targeting to, at all.

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It’s a super inexpensive way to extend the life of the game and experiment.

They’re just throwing darts and seeing if any sticks with people.

Why not? There is literally almost nothing to lose.

when i look at, how less content exists in retail and combine this with the fact, that they invest even way less into Classic, i am not sure about that („nothing to lose“).

i mean this company is greedy af and even save the last penny or press the last penny out of wallets. i am not sure if Bobby is that happy when they invested even lousy 50.000-100.000 into Classic, but get 10.000 out of it in the end.

normally i would say „ofc they (a multibillion dollar company) dont care about such peanuts“. but when i look at shadowlands and Blizz overall, i am not sure about that, cause of their infinite greed.

and besides all that: what information they get out of that „throwing darts experiment“ when just a very very low amount of players showing up there ? they have no clue if this means „ppl dont like challenging classic“ or if this means „ppl already played it to death and have no more interest“. so what they get out of it ?

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In short I think it's aimed at the pserver crowd.

2 questions:

1)
how big is the pserver crowd in general?

2)
how much of them, and/or of the wow classic crowd, will play all that again, for the Xth time?

[Mojo03]

when i look at, how less content exists in retail and combine this with the fact, that they invest even way less into Classic, i am not sure about that („nothing to lose“).

i mean this company is greedy af and even save the last penny or press the last penny out of wallets. i am not sure if Bobby is that happy when they invested even lousy 50.000-100.000 into Classic, but get 10.000 out of it in the end.

normally i would say „ofc they (a multibillion dollar company) dont care about such peanuts“. but when i look at shadowlands and Blizz overall, i am not sure about that, cause of their infinite greed.

and besides all that: what information they get out of that „throwing darts experiment“ when just a very very low amount of players showing up there ? they have no clue if this means „ppl dont like challenging classic“ or if this means „ppl already played it to death and have no more interest“. so what they get out of it ?

- - - Updated - - -

- Classic and retail are totally different teams with totally different budgets. They don't affect each other.

- Lets go even further and say they invest $150,000 into it. They would need to get 10,000 subs over an entire year to break even, which is nothing. This thing needs 10,001 subs to make a profit, which is a guarantee. Like I said, they have nothing to lose.

- They've done a risk assessment and determined there is enough interest in something like this. How? Couldn't tell you.

- Information is valuable. By doing stuff like this they learn as a company what works and doesn't work with this classic games sorta reimagined seasonal thing, which can be applied to more seasons and even other games in the future. (D2R is ripe for this kind of thing too)

[Tealghara]

There is (was) some guilds on pservers who used to compete on each server reboot to get servers first.

I don't know if this concerns a lot of people and if this still happening to this day.

[crewskater]

...but aren't those kind of players the only ones still playing Classic and not TBC Classic, retail WoW, or any Blizzard games anymore? Is this "Season of Mastery" intended to bring back the casual Classic player? At the moment I don't see how these changes, supposedly not being impactful to the prime and largest audience, are really changing anything.


Unless you look at it like "better than nothing" then, sure, I agree.

Of course there's someone complaining about good changes being made.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Of course there's someone complaining about good changes being made.

I wasn't complaining. I was posing a question.


Awkward on your part.

[crewskater]

I wasn't complaining. I was posing a question.


Awkward on your part.

Sure looks like complaining in the form of a question. Nothing awkward here bud.

[Kralljin]

- the ppl already played Vanilla but not classic?
- the ppl already played Vanilla and classic?
- ppl that never played wow?
- wow retail players never played vanilla and still not played classic?

How about: People that want to play Classic but aren't interested in servers that are already at Phase 6 with a completely scattered community due to server merges and all content available?

Some people want to play Classic again, because they prefer it , it's not a huge audience but one that exists and it's not like Blizzard heavily investing into this, so what's the harm?

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Sure looks like complaining in the form of a question. Nothing awkward here bud.

Sad for you.

[Niwes]

How about: People that want to play Classic but aren't interested in servers that are already at Phase 6 with a completely scattered community due to server merges and all content available?

Some people want to play Classic again, because they prefer it , it's not a huge audience but one that exists and it's not like Blizzard heavily investing into this, so what's the harm?

i dont say it harms anything in any way. i just asked myself for what target audience this is. and y, i assume the audience you described is the target audience. and it is a rather small one, i assume. a few thousand ppl, if i had to guess.