Jump to content
FORUMS
Sign in to follow this  
Staff

WoW Classic Season of Mastery Design Intentions and Details

Recommended Posts

61121-free-character-transfers-now-avail

Blizzard go into the details of the WoW Classic Season of Mastery that in beta right now, talking about their intentions for the new fresh start including PvP, loot, world buffs, challenging content, the content release cycle and more!

Blizzard LogoSeason of Mastery (Source)

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!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
Sign in to follow this  

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.

  • Similar Content

    • By Stan
      You can customize your Human and Worgen forms separately in Cataclysm Classic.
      Cataclysm Classic comes with a neat quality of life update which hasn't been included in the game when the expansion originally launched. MrGM discovered you can customize your Worgen and Human forms separately.
      Placeholder for tweet 1768027181718905136
    • By Starym
      Today's SoD hotfixes bring Hunter and Mage changes, as well as Arathi Basin reputation gear adjustments, and a Wrath Classic fix for certain DoTs affecting players.
      March 12 (Source)
      WoW Classic: Season of Discovery
      Class restrictions on Arathi Basin reputation armor rewards have been lifted on all Classic Era and Season of Discovery realms. Fixed a bug causing Blood for the Blood Loa stacks to not be exchanged when the battle is not active. Hunter Steady Shot damage increased to 75% weapon damage (was 60%). Rune of the Trapper icon should no longer be a question mark. Mage Living Flame movement speed adjusted to 86% of normal player movement speed (was 100%). Living Flame duration reduced 10 seconds (was 20 seconds) Living Flame cooldown reduced to 30 seconds (was 60 seconds). Wrath of the Lich King Classic
      Fixed an issue with Piercing Shots, Deep Wounds, and Ignite that causes them to sometimes do too much damage to players.
    • By Stan
      Four years ago, Blizzard decided to remove the word "b****" along with its audio sound from the dialogue between Garrosh and Sylvanas. But now, it's made a comeback in Cataclysm Classic!

      The initial decision to cut the word came after Steve Dansuer, the then Lead Narrative Designer, received feedback from a team member who overheard the voice line while playing the game with his child.
      Steve agreed that removing the word didn't detract from Garrosh's message and went ahead with the edit.
      Placeholder for tweet 1298728022653075456 Now, with Cataclysm Classic, players have noticed the line's return, which isn't surprising since it was originally included in Cataclysm. You can check out the entire dialogue, thanks to N_Tys26.
      Placeholder for tweet 1766198235700580807 It remains to be seen whether Blizzard will decide to remove the line once more. Given WoW's ESRB rating of "T" for Teen, what are your thoughts on this? Share your opinions in the comments below.
    • By Staff
      Blizzard will be removing the class requirements from Arathi basic reputation rewards. The change is coming in the next few days and will affect both Season of Discovery and Classic Era. 
      Arathi Basin Sets (Source)
      Greetings,
      We’ve seen a lot of feedback and comments recently on the Arathi Basin reputation rewards, and we wanted to let you know about a change that is coming sometime within the next few days to live realms via hotfix.
      We are going to go ahead and remove the class restrictions from Arathi Basin reputation reward 3-piece armor sets. We’ve read your feedback around this issue and we largely agree that these restrictions are fairly arbitrary and felt like this would be a good change for the game overall to allow for a bit more flexibility in PvP gearing.
      We also wanted to point out that this adjustment will also extend to WoW Classic Era realms. In discussing whether we should keep this as a Season-only change or extend it to Era, we felt that this would be strictly additive to the experience of those playing on Era realms as well.
      We appreciate the feedback we’ve received on this issue so far. Thank you and have a great weekend!
      -The WoW Classic Dev Team
    • By Staff
      The base Cataclysm Classic game only requires an subscription, but for the latest Classic installment, two upgrades are available. Let's explore the benefits that each version offers.
      Blazing Heroic Pack costs $29.99 and this version comes with the Avatar of Flame Flying Mount, the Runebound Firelord Flying Mount in Retail WoW, Lil'Wrathion Pet, Lil'Wrathion Pet in Retail WoW, Twilight's Hammer Regalia Transmog Set, and the Town-In-A-Box Starter Set Toy.  Blazing Epic Upgrade costs $79.99 and includes everything what's included in the Blazing Heroic Pack plus a Level 80 Character Boost and 30 Days of Game Time. (Source)
      Cataclysm Classic is now in closed beta. It's not too late to reignite the fire and help usher in a new Azeroth when you sign up to join the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Classic™ beta before it hits the servers in 2024.
      Sign Up Now
      From the fires of destruction, a new Azeroth arises. Following Deathwing the Destroyer's cataclysmic entrance, which left a festering wound across Azeroth, heroes are called once again to experience a dramatically reforged Azeroth and defend it from utter devastation.
      Players can tackle this milestone expansion again with new quality-of-life changes, including a faster content cadence, improved leveling experience, expanded Collections UI, and more!
      Access to Cataclysm Classic will be included with a World of Warcraft Subscription or Game Time. A cache of amenities awaits those who pursue the Blazing Epic Upgrade, including a Level 80 Character Boost, Ragnaros-inspired mount, Lil'Wrathion pet, and more!
      Upgrade Today!
       *Available on or before August 31, 2024. Requires World of Warcraft Subscription or Game Time.
×
×
  • Create New...