I was under the impression Blizzard had increased drop rates for Island Expedition pets/toys/mounts/etc with 8.1 Did another 12 expeditions without a single drop. Previously I had done close to 100 with nothing but a blue mog item. Any idea when these changes are actually going to be implemented?
3 Likes
It really shows the disconnect between the devs and the players when you have to come here to find out what’s wrong. Does anyone at Blizzard find IEs engaging and entertaining? If they do you should probably send them for a psych eval.
Or are you really just trying to find out what reward level it would take to force players to run through this ridiculous content.
6 Likes
I dont hate them as much as some people. But they are pretty bad. Stop focusing on rewards and reward structure and start focusing on making them fun. If you want them replayable to infinity they had better be engaging and exciting.
Its a click quest with some smart mobs. Thats it. One of the new maps is shiny but nothing about any of this is fun to me. Its chores. The whole game is chores.
Doing the same thing on 5 maps or whatever gets lame on the 3rd go. Especially when its the same stuff we have been doing for 15 years. Dont care how many mounts you throw at it. Nobody cares about ap anymore. Not since concordance. Nobody ever will again. Even if you implemented another concordance style system, we are wise to you now. I will never play your games again while anything resembling ap exists. Nevertheless farm it on mindless grind content to infinity. Artifact/azerite power is futile, which makes content formed around its acquisition equally futile.
3 Likes
Change the guaranteed reward from azerite to dubloons, and put a chunk of it as the booby prize for people who don’t get anything good.
The mobs are hitting too hard, especially the opposing faction ones and the elementals.
Also please remove azerite as THE reward for anything. It’s a stocking full of coal.
2 Likes
Because I am high damage melee class and close to the mobs I get targeted or get aggro and get killed like 1-3 times even with the mobility of a DH. The CC is ridiculous. If it is the AI-Bots I see myself getting all three focusing on me allot. I have been killed more times from being in my eye beam cast and having a mob do 70-100k on heroics against my 372 ilvl.
I just finished an expedition that we were ahead on azerite by 4k. We were at 7k and doing the content fast. In literally 30 seconds the AI bots went from 2600k azerite to 9k and winning. I was Shocked !! like what the hell just happened. How is that even possible ? I have seen other posts on this same issue.
Finally the rewards … I have done over 500 Heroic expeditions. I have gotten mostly pets and allot of repeat. I see low percent of gear and almost always not in my class. Prob 15 pc of gear with maybe 5-6 repeat. Never seen a mount in any of my runs.
The vote to kick has to be fixed. Its being abused by some that think they are getting your loot chance if they boot you at the end or they just do it for many of the dumb reasons mentioned before. Not being by others. Gear level or w/e…
2 Likes
lets not forget they also did another thread asking for feedback pre 8.1
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/feedback-island-expeditions/15394
everyone agreed on the same thing, the insane drop low rate on this… on 8.1 they increased it for only 1 week… but they also buffed the mobs.
What does it take for the devs to just put every single mount, pet, weapon from the entire expansion (future patch mounts,pets,weapons and mogs in the NPC) and make the the dubloons 100% drop rate on all difficulties…
if this is not the way to go then bring the drop rate back to 8.1 launch.
5 Likes
What makes Island Expeditions so uninteresting is that it’s nothing but a “kill everything as fast as you can” fest. I appreciate how you try to make it dynamic by having the invasion/weather effects and the opposing faction but it still boils down to the same thing.
If the Island Expeditions behaved more like MoP styled scenarios with a somewhat more linear path and bosses, I could see myself doing them. But at this point, I will continue to ignore them.
4 Likes
Make a solo mode.
Too much kick abuse and
Conversely afk abuse.
Let us solo them.
6 Likes
You completely suck. Like, suck. I’ve done over 1,000 at this point with ziltch. lol
Rewards just not worth it . Spend more on repair in a bad group . Getting a group is close to impossible for mythics. Might be better as a solo content WITH rewards not RNG badness it is now
3 Likes
Happy New Year to you too.
I like the islands for leveling alts and hanging out with friends in a casual environment. I seem to only get pets, which are really cool now that they can be traded.
It would be nice if there was some bad luck protection for mounts…kind of like in the last expac for legendaries.
-YGBB
1 Like
Ok, I know a lot of people don’t like these at all, but personally I really like these. I like the fact its a different island, different theme, different enemies every time. I enjoy them, but I got two suggestions.
One, I think you outta buff the rewards. It feels completely underwhelming when you just gathered an entire island of Azerite for your faction, to only get like 100 AP. I say you def bump rewards. Hell, throw some gold in there to help the pirate theme.
Two, the pvp island is by far the best and feels the most challenging. Definitely increase the difficulty of your AI. I want to be challenged to get this stuff, not a cake walk like warfronts.
1 Like
To Tormento, wondering if you had to be max level to acquire items. (My attempt to quote was…interesting. =)
You definitely don’t have to be 120 to obtain something besides azerite clusters or xp. I’ve gotten a pet and transmog gear on the lowest of queueable characters, 110.
Doubloons, though, are being dispensed like a life-saving drug some pharmaceutical entrepreneur has artifically jacked up to a million bucks a pill. On normal difficulty (which is all you can queue for with anything but 120 characters) the doubloons feel next to non-existent. To me, the doubloons should almost always be handed out. We used to buy 10 minute buffs with our doubloons, for cryin’ out loud! Now I hoard them like a jealous, crabby old dragon.
But you don’t have to be 120 to get items. It’s just that loot seems so rare since 8.1 that it’s harder to figure out what you’ll get at all. Loot lightning does strike, however. I got a cute and menacing scorpion pet yesterday on my 110 that I gave to my hubby since I’d seen it around 4k on the AH and snapped it up already.
While it’s not needed anymore since loot tables are supposed to have everything any particular island has on any mob, I still enjoy using an add-on named Ahoy! because you get a little list of what the island might reward you with. Seeing the list as I target a mob or elite gives me something more tangible to hope for. Best of luck with your island leveling and hopefully you’ll see loot dropping on the under 120 set very soon!
2 Likes
I’ve done them for the weekly since 8.1. I was expecting to do them more, but the lack of getting anything has turned me off. So at this point I do them for the mission table reward and call it for the week. It is a shame really, I really want the pets. I actually only want the pets, but at this point I’ve gotten lots of rep, transmogs, and mounts but only 3 pets. You know, it would be nice to target what I want. At this point, the items I want still feel unobtainable and makes the whole event seem like a colossal waste of time. I do like the mission table reward, but the titanium residuum is pointless for me, those pissed me off and felt like more wasted effort.
Edit: ohh and the healer hatred in them is frustrating. And getting paired with multiple healers and tanks is unbearable.
2 Likes
They are very boring and unrewarding, Dabloon acquisition rate is super rare and needs to be fixed, i dont know about mythics (couldnt care to find 2 other people for this content) but heroics are very unrewarding and only do them for the weekly mission quest which has also turned into a frustating experience because ive gotten missions for green transmog armor that doesnt sell for even 100g.
1 Like
Rewards - a few pets, some gear, and az quests. (I’m not in it for the rewards, really)
IEs, to me, feel like they have gotten worse.
Reasons :
The speed race to AZ cap feels increased. There is no opportunity to go off the path even a little (unlike pre 8.1) to find things - like quests for help, shrines, or rare mobs)
The new Islands look cool, but can’t spend the time looking at them (exploring).
FATION NPC’s -
The faction NPC’s play like they are juiced up on 5 cans of red bull, 3 hot pockets, and a line of crack. They ‘feel’ like they respawn instantly, while players have spawn timers. They appear to be able to cast while moving AND jumping. And worse of all, they seems to all have single and AOE stun spells that do not suffer from diminishing affect - the way player stun spells work against other players.
LOSES SINCE PATCH 8.1 -
Since 8.1 none of the islands I have played have lasted long enough for portals to spawn. Several have not even had invasions by other npc types. (This is while playing on Heroic mode)
RECOMMENDATIONS:
You have a great idea with IEs. They are a better 3 man version of MoP Scenarios. But, with the rush to cap AZ, all of the things you are putting into the IEs are being lost/not played with.
If you want to keep the Faction NPCs, then just make it a rush to claim as much AZ in a time period, but allow the players to use their PVP talents while in the IE.
Please, for the amount of time spent designing and building these IE, you need to find a PVE questing style mode, so the player base can enjoy it.
My suggestion is to remove the Faction NPCs, keep the Island NPCs as strong as they are, perhaps add 1 island Boss type. And leave all the invasions, portals, and rescue quests on the Island.
Give the PVE a HARD timer. And the amount they farm in that time will be the amount the players get as a reward. Current IE take less than 10 minutes now.
Maybe try a pre-patch test to see about a PVE 7-10 iE with no faction npcs.
If it works without the Faction NPCs, you could use the IEs in future expansions with only a little need to alter the formula for the expansions story line.
The island expedition is an oxy-moron in itself. There is not enough time to have the expedition, exploring and finding new things. The same “rush” mentality seems to apply to the island expeditions as do the dungeons. Mostly because people may feel that doing the island is a chore required simply to increase azerite collection/AP.
The rewards for doing the island are super lack luster considering you have to rush though it or you will lose due to the enemy faction rushing through it as well. The island is beautiful, graphics are awesome but I’m a bit jaded because after doing 4 of them in Heroic mode, I ended up with 3 dubloons and the statutory azerite for collecting 36k. Received no loot whatsoever and the first 3 islands I received nothing at all. Not even the satisfaction of admiring the beauty and appreciating the time that was put into making such a beautiful instance to play in.
I’ve seen quests (exclamation marks) on the islands but have never been able to experience them because of the aforementioned "rush/hurry up) and get it done mentality. I can’t even tell if the island expeditions have anything to do with the story at all. Seems its just something to keep you busy.
4 Likes
Island Expeditions are still vapid . You go in to battle for Azerlite just to finish with nothing to show for it . It’s a Azerlite grind that will never be fun or exciting until they put in drops or end rewards that benefit the player not the account ie pets/mounts .
Nothing say’s boring that seeing 2500 Azerlite reward or a stupid Treasure Map that gives a bonus follower mission . I don’t think even 20% of subs do follower missions . Blizzard said they would make missions more lucrative by increasing gold missions . Seriously what a … joke. Goes from 100 to 130ish . That is a piss poor increase coming out of Legion missions with 500-1500g missions .
If you expect players to do Expeditions then we as players expect Island Expeditions to be a god damn Expedition . Not a mini dungeon that you run fast kill and onto the next set in hopes you cleared enough to get something that won’t make you depressed at the end . It’s like Blizzard isn’t even trying to make an engaging game that rewards players by time spent .
Let’s not get into how they were purposely made to be boring for players who have nothing better to do after grinding out WQ’s , Dungeons and Raids . Only the players who want that extra % of Azerlite will do these . Not the majority .
In the end imho Island Expeditions are a waste of time based off the reward system and how so damn tone deaf Blizzard is when it comes to what players want and don’t want .
Remember when J.Allen Brack said " You think you want it but you really don’t " about classic . Well this time around I believe it’s You don’t want it but we’re giving it to you any way .
That’s how I feel about Island Expeditions and all of this Xpac so far.
3 Likes
I just ran four more islands (heroic) just for the heck of it. Only one did I receive anything and it was a few doubloons. I ran four the day before yesterday and the same thing.
I don’t know what happened but originally right after 8.1, drops were great, now they are very scarce.
If you want players to run these you need to make them worthwhile. Tell me Blizzard would you do the same thing over and over for nothing?
3 Likes
Drop rate appears to be fixed as of last night (might have been earlier). Back to week 1 of 8.1 drop rates, though I’m not sure exactly what they tweaked or when it happened. Again though, nobody at Blizz even bothering to tell us when things are changing - and that frustrates me more than the tinkering.
1 Like