Are you ready to catapult your World of Warcraft adventures to exhilarating new heights? Pull up a chair and whet your appetite for adventure as we unwrap the Season of Discovery's treasure trove of enhancements that will transform your gameplay! Today at the Pig and Whistle Inn, we're not just spinning yarns about Azeroth; we're handing you the map to newfound powers and a leveled-up questing experience. From runes that bestow abilities beyond your wildest dreams to the latest developer updates that make leveling a breeze, we've got the insider info that will keep your journey through Azeroth fresh and invigorating.
Grab your tankard and settle in as we break down the incredible XP boost kicking in on the 5th of March. Picture this: you're soaring through levels 1 to 39 at warp speed, thanks to a whopping 100% XP increase, freeing you to explore new classes without the slog. And it doesn't stop there; we're unpacking Azeroth's economy adjustments, where mount costs are slashed, keeping your pockets lined for the more important things—like hoarding every last piece of epic loot you can get your gauntlets on. No guest needed in this episode, just your humble host guiding you through these game-changing developments. So, let the Season of Discovery ignite your passion for WoW all over again, because here at the Pig and Whistle, every revelation is an opportunity for an epic tale!
Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!
Started with a wolf and a woman, hahaha. Hello and welcome to the Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth. As always here at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind, I go through a variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft. To grab a bottle or a pint, sit back and enjoy this midweek episode. We will be going over what Season of Discovery actually has to offer. So, for those that don't know, season of Discovery is a variation of World of Warcraft, of classic World of Warcraft, and it's bringing in loads of different features from other wows and stuff that is not in any of World, in any World of Warcraft at all. So you can go out and discover certain runes that allow you to get powers that are from other expansions or that have never been put in the game. Ones that are from other expansions are stuff like Divine Storm, and ones that haven't been put in the game are stuff like Hamunculife or Priests, where you can spawn small images of yourself and they put on debuffs and all of that stuff.
Speaker 1:
And there has been a massive update for Season of Discovery and this is what it entails. So recently they did go over a sort of developer update for it and they gave us a lot of new information about what is to come in Season of Discovery. Firstly, they're going to be looking at XP buff and leveling. So they're going to be looking at the start of the 5th of March upping the XP buff. So currently it's at 50% increase XP, but now it will be up to 100% and you will have this buff anywhere between levels 1 to 39. This allows you to level very, very fast if you are wanting to do Season of Discovery. Now, this is really good because it allows people to continuously level out. A lot of the biggest problems in Classic was having to level out and it being quite a nuisance, whereas Season of Discovery is cutting down on that and allowing people to explore other classes in Season of Discovery, and this allows it to keep its longevity, as it were. Otherwise, if people can't level at a decent rate, then people will get bored of Season of Discovery relatively quick because, yes, you have your class that's got all your different runes and stuff, but say you wanted to play a Hunter instead and Hunters are usually one of the faster leveling classes. It's still very tough to do so until you hit that level 10 and then you go on and do a lot better essentially with your leveling when you get the pet, but with the 100% increase.
Speaker 1:
This is including questing and they are including other elements to it along with the questing, so you get more gold for your quests as well, which is really good. They are going to be reducing the mount costs at level 40, but we'll get into that in a second. But alongside that they are, like I said, reducing the mount cost. They don't have any changes planned for the epic level 60 mounts, but they're cutting it in terms of half of the cost. I think it's about 100 gold for your level 40 mount. I think it's now going to be about 50 gold, which is really really good because it allows people to not have to just work for gold In Season of Discovery. They can go out and play the game, as it were, and enjoy it a lot more. So Please note the gold will not be in effect at level 40. So they are upping the gold rewards from level 1 to 39 in quests, but when you hit level 40, the quest rewards will not be increased. It will be the same. So please note that. Then they put going forward.
Speaker 1:
We are looking at leveling adjustments for when phase 3 launches and the level cap raises to 50. We'd also like to continue to make mid phase adjustments like this to help smooth over the leveling curve for ults a bit or help those leveling a bit slower to get the nudge over the line. We think ults are great and we want to feel good about them. We think that this will help. That's really really good and this is what something classic I think lacked. I think if classic gave everyone a small XP increase, even if it's like 25 to 50%, back in, you know, 2020, I think that it would have been good and it would have kept the game going a bit longer.
Speaker 1:
To be honest with you, now raid size is changing at level 60, but recently a hot topic of debate is the raid size at level 60 and we've been waiting, watching the commentary on this closely to help quell confusion. Here's a look at exactly what is to expect in the next few phases in terms of raid size. So, as you all know, in classic, raid sizes are usually level 6 or usually 40 man raid, such as molten core, blackwing there, etc. Now recently they've been doing 10 man raid sizes with black fathom, deeps and nomergon. So the yet to be announced level 50 raid, which will most likely be scarlet monastery, let's face it will be a 20 player experience or a 20 man raid, like Zulgarub and Salaman, you know that sort of thing. Mountain court will also be a 20 player experience in season of discovery. Now they're gonna have to obviously redo some of the bosses and stuff. I would imagine, and I think, that they are going to rebrand some of the bosses and, you know, chop and change it, because season of discovery is what that is meant to be. But 20 player experience in molten core, that'll be something, and past that we are still discussing exactly what raiding in the later tiers of season of discovery will look like in terms of raid size.
Speaker 1:
For a bit of background, when we first conceived Season of Discovery, we felt it was a perfectly natural for a version of original World of Warcraft to have faulty player raids. This is particularly because the development time needed to scale them was not planned within the scope or what we set out to accomplish on an aggressive scale here. But mostly people mostly because faulty memories felt like such a defining characteristic of original World were utterly unique to this version of the game. It wasn't really even in consideration to not shrew them entirely. I'm guessing that shrew them, but I think that's a bit of a tie-butt on their era.
Speaker 1:
When we set out to create our level-up raids, however, we did feel that asking people to field faulty players would be a tall ask at level 25. We wanted these first few raids to somewhat easy perform pickup groups for as well. As a result, we decided on 10 player experiences instead of the first two level-up raids. As we played the game ourselves and watched how players approached community building, we've realised that we've set some communities up to potentially struggle, asking them to recruit up from 1 or 2 10 player raid groups to a full 40, should they choose to. As a result, we wanted to make it clear that our plans to start bridging from 10 player raids to higher raid sizes, so they're kind of giving you a heads up for those that just have 10 players in the raid group. Obviously, if you wanted just 10 players in the raid group, it's going to be a bit of a bull ache, but it is what it is. While overhauling all 40 player raids down to 20 would be theoretically possible, this may be prohibitively difficult and detract significantly from the other features and content we have planned to implement in the post-60s season of Discovery. We're doing some investigation now to help us understand what would be needed and what framework of the original WoW data can support in the regard Some features that just cannot currently exist in original WoW as well, such as flex raiding. So we are constrained in exactly what we are able to do here.
Speaker 1:
Mountaincore is definitely unique here in that it is simple enough mathematically or mechanically and under the hood that it would be relatively easy to par down from 20 player experience. That's good. The simpler raids are obviously going to be a bit easier. If you're looking at Thaddeus or Naxoramus or not Thaddeus the four horsemen what you would do is you would rotate healers in and out. What this means is that you'd have eight healers on horsemen and every mark you get, one healer would move to the next boss. With 20 players you're not going to bring eight healers, are you and four tanks, but you need eight tanks as well, because you needed two tanks on each boss. When one tank gets three marks, the other tank comes and tanks it. That kind of deal. Them fights will be a bit difficult, but Mountaincore I can understand being a bit simpler.
Speaker 1:
Itemization changes at level 60. They're basically rehauling a lot of the things here and they're going to be looking at the off specs, such as Feral Druid, probably Shadow Priest, maybe Aflok that kind of deal where you're going to be doing a lot better. Essentially, these itemization changes will help you with that. I mean, they've already started implementing that with the Fo-Rever no, not the Fo-Rever, the Proud Pummeler from Nomeragon for Feral Druids, as it is your best in slot weapon. You don't have to farm them anymore, it is simply just you need one and you're good to go, which is really, really good. So this is very good.
Speaker 1:
Actually, seeding Discovery has Exceeded what I thought it would be, definitely so. I think everyone's enjoying it, which is good. I think the buff is really good. I've seen not many people crying about it. I think people are realizing that this is a sandbox kind of game mode rather than World of Warcraft. Now it is still wow, obviously, but they're taking a lot of elements from other wows and putting it all in one, and I think that it's very good. It's actually standing the test of time relatively well.
Speaker 1:
Season Discovery came out in Latish 2023, if I'm not mistaken and I think it's done really well so far. The endgame will be what's Interesting, because I would love to see them released, like next Ramas and you know, blackwing lair on garage, as well as like Karazhan crypts that they are maybe looking at, you know, they just may be looking at. So I think it'll be really good. I think it's definitely something that is slept on at the moment, especially by me. I haven't really done Season of Discovery. I think I'll probably look to get back into it now purely on the basis of the level boost or the leveling XP boost. That's the one because I think that's a great incentive to actually play and get into the game and, you know, actually start enjoying it and chilling out with it. But we'll see. Anyways, that will do it for this episode.
Speaker 1:
Thank you all very much for listening. Very short one, but there's a lot of stuff that I want to cover on Friday's episode. So be tuned in for that stuff with hero talents, you know, updated roadmaps, all of that stuff. But thank you all very much for listening and go, valor friend. Goodbye all you.