WoW: Season of Discovery devs reveal plans for bursty PvP and survivability gear

The increased powers on offer to World of Warcraft: Season of Discovery players has led to some fairly short PvP encounters in some cases. Now, the developers have shared their plans for the game moving forward.

For those who are yet to jump into the game, Season of Discovery has turned Classic WoW classes into wrecking balls, in a lot of cases. The Rune Engraving has allowed them to augment their armor pieces with new abilities discovered across Azeroth.

In addition, Season of Discovery also features a staggered leveling system. This initially capped players at Level 25, before they advanced to 40 in the current phase. This makes it more difficult to build into survivability before the game reaches its final phase at Level 60.

Now, senior developers behind the game have confirmed their plans for this moving forward.

More survivability gear options are likely coming to Season of Discovery

In an interview with Dexerto, Senior Game Producer Josh Greenfield spoke to us about the nature of PvP and their plans for Season of Discovery from here. He explained the difficulty of balancing between the different types of player and the systems introduced in the game more generally.

“Things like that are something that we’re always looking at. We knew it would be pretty bursty, especially since we’re in a little bit of a weird spot right now because your gear selection while leveling is a little bit more narrow than it is at max level,” he said.

“Max level in original WoW is very bursty, too. If you’re a fresh 60 mage going into a battleground, it’s very easy to get one shot by a Mortal Strike Warrior or something, right? These PvP events may have a lot of different types of players participating in them. There are players who are diehard PvPers, and they’re gearing properly. They’re taking the steps needed to ensure success.

“Then there’s Joe Blow who’s like ‘I’ll check this thing out.’ Then it’s like, ‘Oh, I’m getting blasted.’ So I think the main lesson we have from this is, with this player power increase, we definitely want to offer more options for gear in future phases that help you be able to survive a little longer.”

More survival options will inevitably please players of traditionally squishy classes. Additionally, later phases should alleviate the problem by their very nature. With two more to go before the endgame, PvP is likely to remain a central focus.