I’m planning to play SOM with the goal of completing all content. However, I have a job and can’t no life this game.
If I only play 1 character and it takes me 2 months to level him to 60, will I have enough time to get through all of the end game content? This would include PVP, raiding, developing all professions to max level and getting exalted with Darnassus through selective questing (which is more time consuming).
Unfortunately, Blizzard never told us approximately how much time we need to invest in order to complete all content within a 12 month period. I think it’s only fair that people know the answer to this question before getting involved in a substantial time investment.
They nerfed the experience required to level so that should help you. How many hours a week do you think you will realistically be able to play? There’s a difference between 2 hours a week and 20 for example.
I’ll put it to you this way. I won’t be playing SoM because a 12 month cadence is far too short to justify any strong time invest. It’ll simply be over too quick. 16-18 months and I would play. Your average ranker can take 6 months to get r14 depending on their irl occupation. That’s cool, so a few months later the servers over. Nice rank!
Maybe 2 hours a day, 5 days a week. Maybe not even that often. Has Blizzard informed us that we will only have 12 months to play and that’s all or will content be stretched out over 12 months and we have more time than that?
You might be ok with 10 hours a week or so. Maybe play when SoM comes out and see how fast things are going for you then? Especially if you already have the WoW sub.
That’s the problem with Blizzard and Season of Mastery. They haven’t informed us how often/how many hours we need to put into the game to get through all content. I understand everyone’s experience is different but some general guidance based upon average player times would be welcome and most helpful.
Well the raids will be put far quicker and they’re buffing raid HP and there are no world buffs. You can safely assume your raids will be longer and you’ll need more than 2 raid days later on
Here’s what I really need to know: Will SOM end after 12 months has completed or will content be rolled out over a 12 month period and players will be allowed to play for a period of time afterwards? Maybe at least 3 months longer?
I think the leveling period will be ok. In Classic, I played very casually and got to 60 in maybe 4-6 weeks (while most of my friends got there in 1-2 lol). We know that SoM will bring an increased leveling pace and while we don’t know exactly to what extent, I believe it will be, at a minimum, no slower than TBC.
So if you want a good gauge of a worst case scenario, jump on TBC Classic and level a character while you wait for SoM. That should give you an inkling of whether or not you think its worth investing the time in SoM when it comes out. Though do keep in mind a few things…
SoM will likely have a high initial population, which means dungeon spam should be viable.
If your goal is to complete all content in SoM, you will probably be expected to commit more effort than my extremely casual playstyle of Classic leveling I mentioned above.
How this plays out exactly remains to be seen, but I honestly think you’ll be ok on the leveling front.
I do worry a bit that the pace will get bogged down a bit by gear checks though. Since the content timeline is halved but the drop rate remains the same, I’m concerned that we might hit a few progression walls. Blizzard commented on this and said that currently, their intent is to make things more challenging by making gear harder to come by. I think this is actually ok as a general stance, but I’m worried about fights like Vael (which was a big gear check in OG Vanilla for my guild) being difficult to surpass until your guild gears up a bit, but having that time pressure of the next phase looming. They did also say they were going to keep an eye on this though.
SoM feels like a big experiment, and I heartily approve of this approach! However, I think it’s going to hinge a lot on how involved Blizzard intends to be over the lifetime of this experiment. If they go hands off and comms dark, I think the player base isn’t going to have a very fun time. If they stay involved in the process and work with the players to find the right balance as we go, even though SoM may not be the smoothest experience I think this has the potential to set up a great approach to seasonal content for WoW Classic.
I doubt more than 5% of SoM players are going to even clear all content. Wouldn’t be surprised if its so difficult that its only a fraction of a percent this season.
It’s one of those things where if you have to ask if its possible then it probably isn’t
I appreciate the time you spent addressing my issue. The bottom line here is lack of transparency from Blizzard. Too often, we end up speculating on important matters that should have been addressed up front!
I generally do agree with you that Blizzard could be better with communication; however, I do see an improvement lately and that’s promising!
Regardless though, in this particular case I think we have all the information they do… or at least, within reason. We know that some kind of accelerated leveling experience will be present in SoM, but we don’t know to what extent. I don’t think they do either, given that they’ve been playing with the values on the beta.
Until they land on a pace they like, I don’t think anybody can say with certainty how long the leveling phase of SoM is expected to take. Even then it’s going to be really subjective! People in Classic hit 60 in a couple of days. Most people spending all their normal gaming hours and hardcore following guides did it in 1-2 weeks. I didn’t spend all my gaming hours, didn’t follow any guides didn’t use Questie, leveled as a healer, did my professions, mostly enjoyed the experience, did it in a month (ish).
Out of curiosity, how long did it take you to level your first character to 60 in Classic?
Yea, that second character definitely slows things down haha. If I just guess and half that amount, that puts you in the same 4 to 6 week time frame that I landed in, so we level at the same pace. Maybe we can be leveling buddies!
I don’t know what the average difference, percentage wise, is between a Classic Era and a Classic TBC character is, but otherwise people might know. I suspect it’s anywhere between 20% and 40%. So you might land in the 3-5 week range instead, which is still a fair chunk of the time frame… but also not really any different than Classic was to begin with.
I think if you want more out of it, you’ll have to change your leveling approach. Whether or not that appeals to you, or is something you actually want to do or not, is up to you. Given the nature of how SoM is looking like its going to be though, being a late comer to the content isn’t actually going to be a problem. Gear is going to come slowly and the emphasis will be on pre-BiS, class choice, raid comp, consumables, and mastery of your class and mechanics.
people will say “we don’t know it’s a TOTAL MYSSTERRYYYY” but the truth is that it’s extremely obvious the servers will be up longer than 12 months. you think they’re gonna release naxx and then shut down the servers completely just 2 months after? it’s not happening that way.
Blizzard intentionally used the wording “roughly two month phases” which indicates it could easily be 2-3 month phases. Previous poster made some good points.
