Blizzard Design Intentions on WoW Classic Season of Mastery

The most important factor in any MMORPG is the community, and there are major questions about how Blizzard will handle that with WoW Classic. What should we expect to see happen here?

Blizzard has released a new blog, titled “World of Warcraft Classic: Design Intentions on WoW Classic Season of Mastery” which discusses the upcoming changes to the game. Read more in detail here: world of warcraft classic.

Hello once more! We’d want to follow up on our design goals, explain certain subjects that have come up, and respond to concerns we’ve received from Beta testers now that we’ve completed our Beta testing period. Changes to the content The choice to make the Dungeon Set 2 (AKA “tier 0.5”) questlines accessible at launch is one of the more remarkable aspects of our content stages. We also changed the availability of a number of dungeon and reputation goods, allowing them to be obtained sooner than in the original World of Warcraft. The majority of the adjustments and additions to boss loot tables, reputation dealers, and other sources of gear were created later in the original World of Warcraft to cover a clear vacuum in suitable late-game pre-raid or resistance gear. With Season of Mastery’s increased content release cadence, moving these adjustments to Phase 1 makes sense. As players prepare for late-game content, this will give greater diversity and value in the things accessible. This also offers players additional objectives to strive for, as well as more intriguing gear possibilities for several classes and specifications early on. In that vein, we’ve made the following changes to the material that will be accessible during Season of Mastery Phase 1: The Twilight’s Hammer camps in Silithus may be used to summon elemental Templars and Dukes to help complete the Dungeon Set 2 questlines at the start of Season of Mastery.

Please note that until the Anh’Qiraj War Effort event begins, the remainder of the Cenarion Hold and Silithus activities linked with Anh’Qiraj will be inaccessible.

At the start of Season of Mastery, Level 50 Class missions will be accessible. At the start of Season of Mastery, Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, and Alterac Valley will all be accessible. At the start of Season of Mastery, the World PvP goals in Eastern Plaguelands will be activated. There are no major changes to the classes. Class is the prism through which we perceive World of Warcraft, and for many players, the way their preferred class plays is a big part of their recollections of a certain period in the game’s history. The ability to relive and remaster the gameplay that previous versions of WoW offered is a huge part of what makes WoW Classic unique, and bringing it back for users to enjoy is a significant element of the WoW Classic project. We don’t want to create a scenario where frequent balance adjustments are required and players are left wondering what’s going on with their class from week to week, therefore we don’t want to create a situation where players are left wondering what’s going on with their class from week to week. Of course, bug patches are always possible, but in general, the Classic courses will be the classes you encounter again this season. So, although we understand that some players would want to see a version of Classic with changes to basic class toolkits, it is not in our plans for this season. We’ve also received fears that raid bosses’ increased health would further restrict class variety. Warriors and rogues, in particular, have been praised for their ability to battle for lengthy periods of time without running out of mana. We understand your concern, however the goal of raising raid monster health is to compensate for the increased itemization on gear and enhanced talents offered by the 1.12 version of goods and classes. We want to make sure that players remain in battle long enough to interact with boss mechanics, and we anticipate that the encounter adjustments will spark new raid tactics. According to our observations from last week’s Molten Core and Onyxia beta testing, parties that stacked warriors and rogues struggled more than those with a larger range of classes. There are a lot of unknowns there, particularly given their equipment and the fact that they were fighting for the first time, but it gave us optimism that we were on the right course. However, we’ll keep an eye on things and, if necessary, make more modifications if we’re erroneous. In the end, Season of Mastery has no intention of particularly excluding any class or playstyle from any piece of raid content, and we anticipate that the Season of Mastery raid content will be completed with a broad range of raid compositions. This isn’t to say that we anticipate every single spec to be completely represented at all levels of play, but we do hope that everything seems familiar while moving at a faster speed and with new difficulties to solve in order to conquer the game’s hurdles. PvP Honor SystemAfter much thought, we decided to enhance the pace at which players progress through the PvP Honor System. The system continues to operate in much the same way as previously, pitting players within a faction/realm against one another and calculating a “anticipated rank” based on weekly contributions. Each week, after calculating your predicted rank, you would shift 20% of the gap between your present rank and your expected rank in WoW Classic. For Season of Mastery, we’re boosting that to 40% each week. In WoW Classic, the top-ranked player would have a “anticipated honor” of 65,000 honor, which would take 12 weeks to earn the 60,000 Honor required to reach Rank 14 (assuming they stayed at Rank #1 for the whole 12 weeks). In Season of Mastery, a player may climb through those rankings in as little as six weeks. Reaching Rank 14 will be a challenging and competitive road to follow, much as it was in WoW Classic and the original World of Warcraft. To be the person that contributes the most Honor each week, you must defeat members of your own group. The difficulty of obtaining Grand Marshall or High Warlord varies greatly depending on other players’ activity, therefore there’s no certainty that any individual player will be able to accomplish any given rank. We’re merely speeding it up to keep up with the rest of the season’s content unlocks. Looking Ahead Finally, many Classic players have inquired as to what will occur at the conclusion of the Season of Mastery, and the following is the response. When Season of Mastery is through, you’ll have the option of permanently transferring your character to a Classic Era realm in your area. At the end of the season, this free service will be accessible for a short period. While the precise destination world and dates are unknown at this time, you’ll have plenty of time to relocate your character before the Season of Mastery realms are permanently closed. Thank you very much for your feedback, reports, and comments. We’ve had a great time with Beta testers over the previous several weeks, and we’re looking forward to joining you on November 16 for the Season of Mastery! -WoW Classic’s Development Team