WoW Classic: Season of Mastery - Official Blizzard Preview

[Lumy]

WoW Classic: Season of Mastery - Official Blizzard Preview
World of Warcraft Classic: Season of Mastery launches this Tuesday, November 16, all around the world at the same time.

A carefully designed Seasonal environment with the goal of “Faster Progression and More Challenging Content” awaits.

New WoW Classic: Season of Mastery realms are open for name reservation, and all realms will go live for play at the same time at 23:00 GMT on November 16.

There are many changes to the WoW Classic experience for Season of Mastery—take a look at what’s in store for your new journey:

Systems

• All characters under level 60 will receive the “Adventure Awaits” buff.
  
  • This buff will increase the experience gained from quest turn-ins by 40%.
    
  • This buff will also grant additional bonus experience to Group and Dungeon Quest turn-ins.
    
• In raid instances, players cannot benefit from world buff effects such as Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer, Warchief’s Blessing, and Spirit of Zandalar.
  
• Buff and debuff limits will be removed.
  
• Players who kill an enemy while in a group with one or more players at a much higher level than the slain enemy will receive significantly less experience.
  
• Calculations used to determine the experience awarded for enemies that have been “tapped” by one player or group but killed by another player or group were adjusted.
  
• The Looking For Group tool from Burning Crusade Classic is present in Season of Mastery.
  
• Chat reporting feedback improvements are available.
  
  • Added in-chat confirmations for players who report misbehavior in chat, as well as for those that someone may report.
    
  • When reporting a player for verbal harassment or other disruptive chat in-game, players will receive a confirmation when there’s an action against the other player.
    
  • When your behavior has moderately changed for the worse, you may receive a warning message so that you can modify your behavior before receiving a penalty.
    
  • When acutely inappropriate behavior from a player is observed, the system may skip a warning and take immediate action.
    
  • /ignore now blocks characters on the ignored player’s WoW account. 
    

Content

• There will be significant adjustments to enemies in Onyxia’s Lair and Molten Core:
  
  • Bosses and other creatures that are part of boss encounters have had their health increased.
    
  • Augmentations to many existing boss mechanics and new mechanics introduced to challenge players in Season of Mastery have been made.
    
• The availability of Mining and Herbalism nodes has been significantly increased in all zones, as well as:
  
• Max-level herbalists have a slight chance to obtain Black Lotus when looting a high-level herbalism node.
  
• Western and Eastern Plaguelands will enjoy new spawns of Plaguebloom.
  
• There have been adjustments and additions to Herbalism nodes in Dungeons.
  
• There’s been an increase in the availability of certain crafting materials such as Elemental Fire, Elemental Earth, and Elemental Water.
  
• High Elf Watchers have appeared in Ironforge and Undercity, seeking to chronicle adventurers who bear a “Soul of Iron”.
  
• Some dungeon enemies have received slight adjustments:
  
• Stratholme – All Undead creatures in Stratholme will now gain immunity to snares 30 seconds after entering combat and gain immunity to roots after an additional 30 seconds of combat.
  
• Maraudon – Many creatures in Maraudon will gain immunity to snares 30 seconds after entering combat and gain immunity to roots after an additional 30 seconds of combat.
  
• Maraudon – 30 seconds after gaining immunity to root effects, enemies gain 50% increased movement speed.
  
• Maraudon and Stratholme – Crowd control of any type (except snares or roots) will reset the snare immunity, root immunity, and speed buffs.
  
  • Zul’Farrak – Zombie Trolls in Zul’Farrak now drop fewer lucrative treasures. Most of the loot previously dropped by Zombie Trolls has been redistributed to other enemies in the dungeon.
    
• The denizens of Blackrock Depths have grown suspicious of criminal activity and will now attempt to stash their most valuable items away if they suspect a thief in their midst.
  
• There’s been a reduction in the cost of training riding skills and purchasing level 40 mounts.
  
• Dire Maul will be available at the launch of Season of Mastery.
  
• The Gordok Tribute chest in Dire Maul can no longer be looted by players not on the tap list for King Gordok himself when the encounter is defeated.
  
• Changes made in patch 1.10 to dungeon rewards will be in place at the launch of Season of Mastery, including the availability of Idols, Librams, and Totems, and adjusted drop locations and drop rates of some items such as the Hand of Justice in Blackrock Depths.
  
• Changes and additions made to reputation vendors and item drops in patches 1.6 through 1.11 will be in place at the launch of Season of Mastery, with a few exceptions:
  
  • Items on vendors and items associated with reputations are not accessible until a later content phase, such as the Zandalar Tribe.
    
  • The (world drop) plans for Titanic Leggings and Sageblade will be made available in a future content phase.
    
• Summon elemental Templars and Dukes in the Twilight’s Hammer camps in Silithus to facilitate the completion of the Dungeon Set 2 questlines at the launch of Season of Mastery.
  
• Please note that the rest of the Cenarion Hold and Silithus activities associated with Anh’Qiraj will remain unavailable until the Anh’Qiraj War Effort event kicks off later.
  
• Level 50 class quests will be available at the launch of Season of Mastery.
  
• The healing provided from the Diamond Flask trinket on-use effect no longer benefits from bonus +healing or spell power.

PvP

• We have doubled the maximum amount of weekly ranking progress gained. Dedicated players who consistently finish each week at the top of their realm and faction’s rankings each week can expect to move through the ranks roughly twice as fast as was possible in Original World of Warcraft.
  
• Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, and Alterac Valley are available from the launch of Season of Mastery, including their associated reputations and rewards.
  
• Season of Mastery brings back many Horde and Alliance Guard NPCs removed from Alterac Valley in patch 1.11 of Original World of Warcraft.
  
• At the launch of Season of Mastery, we will enable the World PvP objectives in Eastern Plaguelands.

We’re looking forward to seeing players take on these challenges, especially with the “Soul of Iron” on the line. Don’t forget—when Season of Mastery concludes, you’ll have the option to permanently transfer your character(s) to an existing Classic Era realm in your region. This free service will become available for a limited time when the season concludes.

Keep an eye on the forums and WorldofWarcraft.com for the latest developments.

See you in Azeroth!

[Zader666]

Good thing I didnt do the first one. My body is ready for this one YEEHA !!

[Biomega]

I'm sure the fifteen people or whatever who this is targeted at will be really excited

[McNeil]

I really like all the changes for this version which will make the game a lot better. I wish they also worked a bit on the classes to make some specs more viable

[ExtremelyCrusty]

Incoming 100 players.

[RamGuy]

All these changes are great changes. And good thing they figured out they had to do something with the economy last minute. Having faster levelling but no higher amount of loot or money drops sounded rather terrible for the economy. Not only will a lot of players be unable to keep up with paying for spells and abilities, but being able to afford your mount at level 40 just didn't sound feasible without any adjustments. It still sounds rather rough, they are only tweaking the price of your level 40 mount. You are still going to level quite a bit faster without anything within the game adjusting for this besides the level 40 mount prices.

I still feel like this is way too soon. It's under 1 year since Naxxramas dropped for WoW: Classic. TBC: Classic is still waiting on the long-awaited Black Temple phase, and they will have Sunwell after that one. Feels like a rather awkward timing for this to release already.

People who played WoW: Classic will most likely not be all that tempted to jump in again already. And those who do not worship Vanilla over TBC and WotLK will most likely stay with TBC: Classic which will most likely transition into WotLK: Classic once Sunwell has been out for 4 months+.

Would make much more sense to release Season of Mastery 1,5-2 months after Sunwell releases for TBC: Classic. But that time most TBC: Classic players would feel done with TBC: Classic. It would be more like 14-15 months since WoW: Classic had its Naxxramas release instead of only 11 months like it is now.

All of this would also give Blizzard 3-5 months of additional time to make changes to Season of Mastery. Don't get me wrong, all of these changes are good changes. But it still feels rather lacklustre, it is not enough to warrant a new run of WoW: Classic only 11 months after Naxxramas got released in WoW: Classic. It's just too little for players that finished WoW: Classic less than a year ago so for a release with such a low number of impactful changes it needs to be spaced out more so people who love Vanilla actually get a chance to re-build their appetite before this new season kicks off. Not to mention how strange it seems to separate Classic players between three different versions of the game: WoW: Classic Era, TBC: Classic and WoW: Classic Season of Mastery.


Doesn't help that the flow of information feels rushed as well. Less than three weeks from suddenly dropping the announcement of Season of Mastery releasing until it goes live. I know a lot of people that love Classic and fancied the idea of Season of Mastery. But none of them has even gotten around to grasping the fact that is releasing tomorrow. The flow of information and the lack of time people, friends and guilds have in order to prepare for this is just staggering. Blizzard is limiting the potential of Season of Mastery by rushing all this in such a way. What warrants all of this to be pushed in such a rapid fashion? Why not have it release in mid-December giving players ample time to prepare?

[Cosmic Janitor]

Man I can't wait for the launch numbers, because I'm still not entirely sure where the target demographic for all of this is hiding. Even if this would somehow resonate with all the private server people, I haven't seen a decent argument why they should quit those and play Blizzard's time-limited version instead.

[Saradain]

What is the point of nerfing all the curious ways of gold making? To force everyone "enjoy" plain gathering professions?

[GratsDing45]

I'm sure the fifteen people or whatever who this is targeted at will be really excited

Fine by me. People ruin classic

[Chend]

WTF 40%?

Might as well just let us create level 60's

Or have like 20x experience.

Just go all out, make it all about the endgame.

[Vintersol]

Season of Dead Horse...

[Puupi]

I'd be surprised if they even get a single server with healthy population per region. Who is this made for?

[starkey]

I'd be surprised if they even get a single server with healthy population per region. Who is this made for?

Streamers and the unemployed.

[dwarven]

Season of Zzzzz

[Chend]

Who is this made for?

Nobody. People who wanted to play Classic wanted no changes. These are a lot of changes. The actual people, that love classic, have moved on to private servers.

[Kralljin]

What is the point of nerfing all the curious ways of gold making? To force everyone "enjoy" plain gathering professions?

Mostly to stomp botters from farming gold, which pretty much has been the majority of characters engaging in raw gold farming.

Additionally, to stop boosting, because the XP reduction doesn't apply to mobs at aren't grey to level 60.

[ClassicPeon]

WTF 40%?

Might as well just let us create level 60's

Or have like 20x experience.

Just go all out, make it all about the endgame.

Most of the experience gain in classic wow comes from grinding mobs.

The xp gain is from quest hand ins.

its not a 40% increase to leveling speed.

[Grimbold21]

Nobody. People who wanted to play Classic wanted no changes. These are a lot of changes. The actual people, that love classic, have moved on to private servers.

Aren't there a whole bunch of private servers which essentially redo the whole game? Ascension comes to mind

[ClassicPeon]

Streamers and the unemployed.

Genuinely curious here. Why would increased leveling speed cater more towards people with unlimited sparetime then the older classic experience where leveling took a full week of ingame playing time?

- - - Updated - - -

Nobody. People who wanted to play Classic wanted no changes. These are a lot of changes. The actual people, that love classic, have moved on to private servers.

And this has been debunked so many times its riduculous people even try this narrative anymore

[Chend]

Most of the experience gain in classic wow comes from grinding mobs.

The xp gain is from quest hand ins.

its not a 40% increase to leveling speed.

Then what's the point?

The point is to increase leveling. If the effect is negligible, then you might as well just not do it.

And this has been debunked so many times its riduculous people even try this narrative anymore

Nonsense.