Imagine having 9 different battlegrounds and every one one of them was a capture-the-flag map. Except islands only objective is the longest “fill the bar” quest. When you join a queue to group with strangers to complete timed objectives, give some variety in what the objectives are. MoP scenarios accomplished this by telling stories.
If the sense of exploration is what you want to evoke, queuing for an instance isn’t going to work. Can turn the non-instanced version of these islands into an archipelago and make them like the timeless isle.
3 Likes
Drop rates for the various items need to be higher, first and foremost.
There are far too many things you can get and far too low a chance to get them, and the islands aren’t interesting enough on their own to keep people going back endlessly for a 10% chance at a reward that is completely random anyway.
I would love to see objective variety. They did add the azerite machine there, but that thing’s such a waste of time.
Island Feedback
Positive Changes:
- Chance of drops based on all mobs present on the island
- Mobs aren’t jam packed on all islands
- Quest items are easier to see
Negative changes:
- I miss the old Azerite explosion mobs. I don’t like the new format.
- The little mobs that do the pingpong knock around
- The # of mobs that have to have purges (shields, etc) or be pulled in tiny groups that are impossible to pull in tiny groups.
Pre-Existing Issues that still need to be improved:
- In PVE islands, the enemy faction is constantly breaking player’s CCs with what I’m assuming are PVP trinkets or other functions, but yet players can’t use their PVP talents. If I’m the only player in the area, there are no mobs attacking us, and I use Paralysis on a caster; the enemy caster shouldn’t break free 2 seconds later when I’m at max range from them and not using any AOE abilities.
- The drop rate for dubloons is very random. I think that they should give at least one dubloon per normal island (2 for heroic and 3 for mythic/pvp) with a random chance for more. It is frustrating to do 5 islands and get zero dubloons and one cosmetic item overall for my effort (in addition to the azerite and treasure map).
The main point of IEs is still farming AP, which for me is pointless. Yes, there is a chance I may get a pet or mount of transmog item, but they are very low. Most of times, I won’t get anything out of it but doublons, and the stuff I can buy with those isn’t appealing either.
Atm, IEs are something I do while levelling alts and that’s it. Once they hit 120, I never do them again. Why would I do them instead of a mythic plus? Or raid? Or a BG?
And, once again, the main problem is being forced to stay around the table to queue for it. I even created a post about that: WHY can’t we queue for them from anywhere, like we do for dungeons and pvp? Trust me, I would them a lot more often if I didn’t have to sit in Boralus to queue and wait for them.
1 Like
In the last two weeks (bc I haven’t touched them for some time until then) I received a total of 8 doubloons, 2 rep quest items, and 1 pet. (2 if you count the one my husband gave me)
They still feel dull & repetitive. The only “excitement” that ever happens is when the opposite faction joins in during a huge pull. And even then… They’re just a Zerg around the island. The quest objectives are at least more interesting, but unless you just happen upon them you don’t have time to hunt them down.
I’m doing them for the weekly bc my raid lead wants everyone’s neck to 36 before the new raid. At the moment I don’t see myself doing them anymore after that point because they’re not fun.
Personally I stopped caring about “AP Farming” once the Heart of Azeroth needed a crazy amount to Level up again (40k omg no). So the main reason I would do Islands is for Xmog/Mounts/Pets.
On my Maxed Level Main Character, not too bad farming Normal/Heroic Island with two Random Pugs. However when two friends and myself tried Mythic Islands I was getting rocked again and we didn’t even pull too much. This is even dodging the mechanics you can see you need to get out of. Makes me think you definitely need a Tank or Healer for Mythic Islands still.
On one of my Level 110-119 (Leveling) Character, I haven’t had a problem leveling a little from Normal Islands. The fact that I can just pull whatever, mine Azerite, etc and the loot at the end is now based on what is on the Island is so much better.
Especially with the new Weekly Mission Map added (and Paragon Reps) I’ve felt like at least capping that on my Main Character. I’ve seen more Quest/Pet drops but only just got my first Mount the other week (Twilight Avenger). Thanks for the update though!
Island Expeditions Post changes: ( Conservatively: I’ve at least 400+ runs pre changes and likely between 100-200 post) I’m going to get brutal on the cons, but I feel like that is the feedback you need after “Spending this much time for sometimes nothing and no control over said nothing”. What drives me as a player “Mounts” and rare items since I can’t dedicate specific time to end game raid. I think i’ve lost two or three island expeditions and solely have ran 95% heroic. I’ve bought the 1k dubloon mount and I can buy the 500 mount with no other mount drops…
The good:
- Items seem more attainable, however there is literally no control if you are trying to get something specific.
- Packs seem more oriented and loot/azerite tied to them is obvious.
- There are named rares all over the place which is exciting and there seems to be a ton of different one’s that I’ve not seen spawning.
The bad:
- Why do we see certain named rares exponentially more than others? Goldvein etc… I’m guessing you have a slot in your random generation map that has a lower number of possible spawns making it much more likely to be seen coupled with size to make it appear more often.
- Seafarer’s dubloons were dropping more frequently before the patch.
- The decision to make rep items cost 100 dubloons is kind of crazy to me. For 250 rep which i can do on my app you are saying it’s worth 40-50 island expeditions? Who decided this? If the intention was for people using these that haven’t completed the quest aren’t we smart enough to detect if the quest has been completed and make them cost a lot less? World quests take 2-5 minutes and give 75-275 rep or more. You are saying that 250 rep items are worth 320-400 minutes of my time? Just so you know how I got those numbers 40 runs at 8 minutes. You have the artificial 1 minute queue time I’ve not thrown in. The average is 6-10 minutes a run etc… These are so over priced I still am shaking my head at the cost.
The Ugly:
- Mount drop system is the worst I’ve seen in the history of Wow. Let’s take a 100 variables for someone who loves mounts and throw them all into this thing in which you may have to run 5000 times and to top it off we will add 3 more mounts to make it more impossible to collect all 8 mounts. Without understanding the mechanics of the mount loot table I think I have a really good idea of this and I can tell you it breaks all precedent you’ve previously established with mount drop rates, so I would really like to understand what you were thinking on this one. What is the true drop rate for a mount in an island expedition? You can’t answer this question, because there is no protection from all the variables you have in the system. From what I’ve seen you only have a built in Karma system for players that haven’t played or ran something in awhile and that’s why we’ve seen numerous reports of these dropping for non max level alts and very few in any of these dropping for max lvl characters. Each time I get a personal report from a friend of one of these mounts dropping is on a character they haven’t played in awhile and usually it’s a lower level alt. From the two friends I play with regularly they both got a mount in there first 10 island expeditions when they were low level and hadn’t played in awhile. Same goes for comments on Wowhead.
What logic are you using in regards to mounts? I fear you have logic, but it’s flawed based on your random spawn system and now since every creature on the island is throw into the loot table you’ve made it worse unless the mount roll is on a separate system.
What are the drop rates?
1 in 100 - If so something is broken. Most mounts in the history of wow have followed a system like this given a time commitment.
1 in 1000
1 in 10000?
I can tell you from experience it’s like 1 in 1000 or higher and if that is the case why would you add 3 more mounts to Island Expeditions? Do you expect someone to run it 8k times to obtain all the mounts? Just trying to logically illustrate my frustration.
Edit 1:
2. AI: Once the AI gets so far behind it simply tries to ambush you which only prolongs the match another 30 seconds and is quite frankly annoying.
- If you are going to have AI emulate PVP then enable PVP abilities to better train your players to use them.
Edit 2:
Explanation of frustration:
I’ve read a few comments about there being no problem and they aren’t sure why people would be so mad. Imagine collecting something and the new one’s to come out had no way to clearly obtain them. Whether it be cars, baseball cards, pokemon, portals, a hivemind mount etc… The only reason you play the game is to collect said item and smile after you’ve worked for said item. Imagine the controllers and makers of the game going well I can’t really tell you how to get said item other than play without an explanation of how much I have to play, so I can make a decision to not waste my time or to go for it. This I hope can relate you to the problem of island expeditions when it comes to the RNG rewards. If you have hundreds of variables then you could virtually never get the 1 thing you want and your time commitment is could be infinity with a bad system. Without knowing this Blizz is essentially wasting your time for the only reason you play the game. Imagine going on an a treasure hunt with no clues. Guess what you will never get the treasure or person x might randomly stumble upon it happy as can be and have no idea how they got it.
Solutions:
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Define the system on how the tables work to allow people to predict playtime requirements to see if it’s something they want to work toward.
Risk you have a flawed system in which this can’t be done causing you to rework the whole system.
Risk of you not doing this is a percentage of your player base stays annoyingly mad and eventually breaks at some point.
Risk bad behavior comes from the explanation from the system in which you didn’t intend and people drop groups etc. as they know they have no chance in this instance to get said item.
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Increase the amount of dubloons that drop although you are really discounting the time people have already put in. At least going forward people would be more happy.
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Make players apart of the solution. In business when building a team do you just make changes and implement solutions? If you do I bet you don’t have great adoption of process or procedure. Get feedback take said feedback tweak changes make people “customers” apart of the solution therefor developing something they want to “buy” instead of what you think they want to buy…
As clearly as I can state it:
I want to know the drop rate for mounts. I’ve likely have around 800 runs. Do I need more? Should I expect 10k before I get a mount? Baron Rivendare style? Should I slay 10,000 more boars?
I want to know respective drop rate for pets.
I want to know the drop rate for toys.
I want to know the drop rate for xmog.
1 Like
2 issues I have with them:
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The content itself is just not enjoyable. It’s basically a giant fill the bar quest, that’s also on a timer. I don’t enjoy mindlessly killing mobs over and over with no real end goal. They’re like dungeons with no bosses, no gear, no gold, only trash mobs.
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Given the content is not enjoyable on it’s own merits for me, the only reason I would run it would be for the rewards. However, the time investment to reward ratio is just too low for me to bother. Cosmetics are way too RNG dependent, and the doubloons are way too low a drop rate. That only leaves the weekly azerite, which I acquired more than enough of simply raiding. My guild cleared Heroic Uldir weeks ago, so why would I bother getting more azerite? We don’t do mythic, and at this point we’re all over-geared for normal mode of the next raid anyway.
To sum up, as the Islands currently are, I just have better things to do with my time, both in and out of WoW.
1 Like
Oh, and I forgot to mention, on the monk alt (which wears LEATHER) my treasure map is for a green ilevel 280ish mail chest piece.
wtf?!?
2 Likes
Increase mob density back to where it used to be and like someone above said, too much random cc, the azerite elemental with the blind/daze thing are annoying. I can’t do them on my 110 dh like i used to ![:frowning:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/frowning.png?v=6" ":frowning:")
You put in a token vendor but then dropped tokens to be a random drop. What’s the point of a vendor that you randomly get dubloon for?
You’re still shoving azrtite power down our throats when it’s not a fun reward given the state of the heart And azerite armor. I would take a break from AP rewards on expeditions and instead make item caches and gold as regular rewards.
Add in high end gear drops for mythic islands. You have expansions worth of gear that can drop. Bring back old weapons, gear, trinkets and other items as “relic pieces” that have a higher chance to drop from mythic islands. Gives another avenue for people to gear and gain cool items.
Have lower level versions of these items from heroic level islands.
Problem is the reward for doing islands just isn’t there. Until the heart becomes an actual incentive with traits and something interesting as an investment this forced AP grind in BfA is horrid.
3 Likes
The changes in 8.1 did little to make Island’s more appealing. All that reward and pacing changes in the world will not change the fact that they just aren’t fun.
Every island still seems exactly the same to me. Kill rare mobs, kill the horde once or twice. Click the machine if it appears. Repeat.
They are never challenging with a decent group and are simple frustrating with a bad group. I’m either winning and bored or losing and frustrated. I’m never having fun.
At this point I would rather just see the AP rewards normalized across other kinds of content so these don’t feel mandatory. I would much rather see development resources put on more dungeons then any more islands.
1 Like
Hi,
Though I’ve been playing since WoW first came out, I’m a fairly rare poster to any of the boards. I thought that since I have run many IE’s and have become disappointed in them, I would chime in here. Most of it is to echo what has been previously said. Beyond the mount and general loot drop rate which seems to be very unrewarding, the changes in 8.1 did not seem to foster team play/cooperation. I pug them on heroic and there still seems to be to much quick return involved in running around solo and not enough return to warrant the extra effort involved in cooperation such as in guarding nodes. etc.
The other item I’m disappointed with is the loot drop rate. It seems post 8.1 the drop rate has gone down. And in all the IE’s I’ve run across 5 Characters, I have had no mount drops.
TLDR: I leveled 4 Alt Characters on IE and used to make sure to max out on all 5 of my 120’s each week. I’m motivated by the fun of a team-based challenge and the hope for loot (particularly mounts). At this point the disappointing fun factor vs. the time investment has caused me to stop running them.
Thanks,
The grouping of mobs on the island is much better as there is a clearer delineation of travel vs battle areas. The extractor is lame and lazy, however. Every few group pulls, one random normal/elite mob will still be ridiculously overtuned (a troll caster melting hp or a crab with a one-shot cleave, for examples) with no real way of knowing this before engaging. Islands are still a zerg-fest with no clear understanding about what is the best way to handle any of them. I wish there was a boss or something that unlocked at the end (without a zerg timer) for the winning team that has an extra chance to drop something. Dying results in repair bills yet there is no gold reward to off-set the cost. I’ve received quite a few pets and random green/blue xmog items from the islands although I’ve not once seen a mount; the doubloons earned seem to have been cut in half since the patch which sucks. The addition of the treasure map was a good idea although should result in actual treasure such as unlocking a lucrative gold mission (1-3 k) since this takes significantly longer than a daily WQ emissary to earn; titan residue and other nonsense is not treasure. Otherwise, they are more fun now than previously although there remains zero actual reason to do islands. Azerite Power as a reward does not even register to me as anything; it’s a nonsensical time-gating way to earn abilities we already had in Legion [as I said during the Beta, a level 120 talent should have been implemented instead of AP].
I was a huge fan of scenarios in Mists. The islands are severely lacking in story, achievement, and non-cosmetic rewards. Bring back 3-man narrative scenarios with the same mob randomness as islands. That would be awesome. Or implement the randomness into dungeons.
What little feedback I have I will share with you.
I’ve done approximately 12 Island Expeditions since 8.1 launched. I’ve only been doing them for the Weekly Treasure Map, and seeing as how I’ve been able to do 2x Treasure Maps thus far, that equates to roughly 12 Island Expeditions.
The rewards I’ve received thus far from the Treasure Maps are 2x Azerite Power (boo, really?)
The rewards I’ve received thus far from 12~x Island Expeditions: 1x Pet, ?x Dubloons, ?x Azerite Power. Nothing more. The Dubloons are very few.
I would recommend bumping the Dubloons reward significantly, both in amount and drop/reward chance. And also expanding on the rewards for the Dubloons. They are pretty lackluster IMO. Please provide more themed transmog gear.
As for the Island Expedition themselves… well, they are kind of boring. Maybe even more boring than the previous iteration. There are less mobs so I spend more time wandering the isle looking for mobs to pull and kill. I’d honestly rather have larger, closer grouped mobs to pull.
It would be my suggestion to add more features to the Islands, such as quests/objects, maybe even some mini-games. I’m not talking mini-games like a turtle made it to the water, or a game of match. I’m thinking something more in-the-moment. A gauntlet, king of the hill, timed events, races… something to attract the fun factor.
Please make them more enjoyable. They are so boring. Please. Get creative.
The simplification of the reward system and the changes to the spawning system do streamline the experience significantly. Ditching the 100% chance of an Azerite eruption and making the invasions happen earlier also helps in making the island expeditions feel less same-y.
The Azerite extractors feel like they are more trouble then they are worth, and the elite Azerite spiders in particular feel overtuned. Last expedition I was in we started falling behind the opposing team because of the mobs spawned by the extractor.
One thing I would suggest, and this would be a fairly major feature, is the addition of friendly factions on the islands. There would be a camp of friendly NPCs who would give you a quest (kill a difficult rare mob, protect them from a few waves of attacks, escort them to your ship for trade/rescue, etc.) that would grant a giant pile of Azrerite upon completion (at least 1k on heroic difficulty), and perhaps some Seafarer’s Dubloons (there needs to be a guaranteed source of them somewhere for them to function has bad luck protection).
I’m thinking friendly factions could include things like non-crazy Shipwrecked survivors, Tol’vir Traders, Tideskorn Vrykul (if they still call themselves that), Red Dragons, etc.
2 Likes
Done a ton of expeditions on several characters. First off the azerite spider dudes and the wind elemental dudes could use a bit of a nerf. I think the overall changes and difficulty is in a good spot. However the vendor should have all the mounts for sale. Also please put the blue parrot bird mount in the game that thing is too sexy and i wants it.
My biggest issue with Island Expeditions is the lack of progression. The rewards are significantly less important.
Any island is the same as the next. The random variation of enemies doesn’t amount to progress because there’s no increment in challenge. So I feel no reason to keep doing islands. I already completed the challenge.
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I agree with most of the folks here on rewards. It does feel better, but ap is the main reason for doing them and as you reach higher levels on the neck even that feels small - especially if your not in to spamming the same thing over and over for incremental gains (in fact it kind of highlights the extreme you guys have taken this reward philosophy to in BfA, feedback I see related to other parts of the game - it would be nice to have more alternatives, or at least a few ways to break it up)
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scaling throughout the game feels messed up, but it plays out in islands as well. 110-116 & 120@340+ normal is pretty easy with a decent group - but 117-120@<340 makes it difficult if you get seperated from your group or die and have to run back from boat. Groups do not communicate well or tend to tolerate mistakes.
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pacing is about the zerg for the most part. Even if you lead, you get left behind if your not keeping pace. I get some people enjoy this, or rush through because they don’t, but they are large-ish exploitable content.
-It would be nice not to be forced out after a win - and if the mobs switched to drops after the timer so you could explore and up your chance at drops at your own pace - normal and heroic dungeons allow this, don’t understand what islands don’t.
- make mythic and PvP queueable. For variety and better rewards for people without regular groups for these things