not wanting to test or give feedback. knowing that my feedback isnt important. not you, but those who are leads on the dev team. they have already decided what they think we should do.
4 Likes
I like the changes, they do feel better…it would be better if the packs were larger and bigger… being able to mass sustain aoe is what I liked about the older version. But having to go pack to pack to grab them was not.
I did like the addition of the azerite collector, that was nice. I think adding more things other than killing mobs will make islands more fun.
with that being said, islands should have mini games (mario party esque)…
maybe have a crazy random underground network that runs through the islands, to help with exploration. (thinking of the secret/mogushan maze ) but easier…
Instead of the vendor that grants buffs/nukes/ selling dubloons, have them all over the island to be found and used.
1 Like
In the spirit of seeking lost treasures it would be cool if there was like a random transmog box you found, with a fairly high drop rate. Name each box after each expansion, it will contain a random item for your armor/weapon type from that expansion.
These should be in addition to the existing rewards (which could also drop a bit more IMO)
Make the combat less annoying and that sounds like a lot more fun and a cool way to get random old transmogs.
I did enough on each character to unlock the mission building thing, then stopped. I did do some extra on my DK to level, but not since then.
Just not interested in RNG farming in islands.
Worse than 8.0
At least before 8.1 you could round mobs and aoe’m down while kiting because density and mindless melee on them… now you have scattered mobs and 80% of them have some kind of charge ability, push back, stun or worst of all: disorients (typical of those crystal azerite spiders found on every map), making super annoying to round more than 3 or 4 at a time.
Events… of all the events the most annoying is the kvaldir event… especially on a 3 caster match up: no visibility at 5 yards and these kvaldir melee hard plus the archers stomps you form the fog unhindered, the event itself forces you to melee range of them to do something. way too horrible event
As a side note the addition of these azerite machines are terrible too… if the npc capture the point you are forced to travel all the way to stop the extraction everytime making exploration a no-no and if you set your own extraction you are forced to staythere or the npc will come and destroy your extractor and set theirs, thus going back to point 1… no exploration, just a guard duty… those machines must be removed.
All in all the islands expedition were a terrible move from the start… you should saw the scenaios from pandaria and learn from those, they were shorter, more dynamic, story driven and less mindlessly grind.
Cant help you with how to improve them, only pointing the problems so far from my perspective… wishing you all the luck finding a solution for a terrible feature of the expansion, not to mention warfronts… another terrible feature by the way.
The Good IMO:
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I like the Azerite extractor as it provides an objective you have to watch over, though it’s kind of unclear how they work. Some seem to chug along without needing to be babysat. Others spawn waves of adds. Others shut off randomly and must be restarted.
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Mission length seems consistent and not too long or short now.
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The new islands are cool! I like the Worgen/Gilneas themed one a lot. Good architecture that makes use of the Gilneas aesthetic that’s rarely seen.
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I love that we can level up doing islands. It’s a good change of pace from doing quests and dungeons for the last 13-15 years.
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The mission table missions where you receive that drops island loot after doing your IE weekly is excellent. Keep adding bad luck protection like that to the game.
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Thank you for keeping the enemy NPCs. Don’t listen to others about turning IEs into a “slow exploration style event”. Without the enemy NPCs breathing down your back and rushing you along it’d just turn into a big arena where you have no opposition and kill enemies. I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with the idea of a “slow exploration” based mode, but it’d have to have randomly generated terrain which IEs do not have. Turning IEs into that would be like making a dungeon with no bosses. You’d just waltz to the end killing trash then leave. Yawn! A slow exploration mode is a good idea but it’s not what IEs are. Keep pushing the mode into the direction of a “VS” mode. Add ways to distract the NPCs, or summon obstacles/monsters that will distract the enemy island explorers similar to how you could summon things like Ivus the Forst Lord or the Air Strikes in Alterac Valley.
The Bad IMO:
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I kind of dislike how simplified some of the quests became. The old system felt too random where the object to solve the quest could spawn miles away or be hard to see in the terrain, but now the answer is always within inches of the quest. It’s kind of brainless and you may as well remove the key objects. Replace it with a timed minigame/challenge or something instead of picking up a shovel from 2 feet away.
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I really really really don’t like the new loot system. I liked how you could “aim” for certain drops by only killing certain types of enemies. Now that “anything” can drop based on what’s on the island, killed or not killed, it just saturates the loot pool with junk you don’t care for. I also miss the excitement of learning which invaders are invading. It used to mean you had to change your strategy, find the pirate cannon, and get a chance for a Parrot Mount! Now it’s just “oh Pirates. Ignore them. Doesn’t matter if we kill them or not.”
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Doubloons really should drop every time. It’s weird to sometimes get none and sometimes get some. Just drop a steady amount of them, there’s no reason for the RNG.
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Some feedback on when you earned loot would be nice. Just a small message saying “you notice something shiny and toss it into the ship’s treasure room” could get players excited. Adding feedback in general when you make progress would be nice. As it is you feel like you’re left in the dark until the end of the game mode. An old Gamecube Game called Kirby Air Ride had a mode similar to IEs where you compete to gather resources in a city against 3 opponents. If you gained an achievement it’d make a “PING!” sound and you’d know a new vehicle/character would be available after the match. Add something like that to IEs.
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Please slow down on the items that give you quests. No one likes getting a “reward” that forces you to travel to some forgotten far away zone that rewards you with nothing but boring AP. That’s a job, not a reward. Make the reward for completing those quests more interesting, like pets, doubloons, consumables, mounts, etc.
I like having a reason to visit zones outside of the current expansion’s zones, so I was actually excited the first time I had a quest that took me back to Highmountain. I thought maybe it would start a mini quest chain when the NPC started talking about mysterious happenings out in the ocean.
When it turned out that the whole thing was just “here’s some azerite, bye,” I was very disappointed. I’d love if the island quests led to actual content rather than just making me a glorified delivery service.
7 Likes
It’s much easier getting them done without having to aim for rares for the mounts and pet drops. It’s more like when we first started them we’re all basically on the same page get things down as fast as possible and not let the Alliance get ahead of us. I’m enjoying them I’ve gotten a couple of pets and really really love my Kakapoo!! ![:parrot:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/parrot.png?v=6" ":parrot:")
![:sparkling_heart:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/sparkling_heart.png?v=6" ":sparkling_heart:")
If I could add my own personal complaint…sorry we can’t take our time and do more exploring. Even solo exploring just to see everything there.
The random aspects seem almost entirely cosmetic.
You have different looking Islands, and different creature types, but in the end it’s the same spam on EVERY one.
The point is the actual hook, the objective itself, is limited to ONE and for many it’s an annoying one at that. ‘Fill the bar’ quests are tedious after the 50th time, especially ones that are a race where you can’t even relax or mix things up because it’s effectively timed against the other team.
The rewards vs azerite is critical for one main reason: when you finish them you want something in your hands.
Doubloons as a currency - you can work towards buying a reward.
Azerite: you feel as if you have nothing to show for it. The neck is a passive and unlike the AP rewards in Legion, you more or less get nothing. No new abilities, no new passives, no actives, no buffs.
Rewards from IE need to be TANGIBLE. Thats the key element.
My experience: I have capped every week on my main and used them intermittently when leveling on alts.
What I think:
Rewards: I have pretty much all the azerite I need at this point. While I like the weekly bonus to keep the azerite flowing, The end of match reward would be better if every win you got some loot, even if it was just a pack of doubloons. (this has been a bit better in 8.1). Would be great if the harder the difficulty the higher the chance your reward would be a mount / pet. Lower difficulties rewarded the quest items / xmog (don’t really need AP much any more).
Queues: Solo queues are needed for mythic / PvP with highish item level requirements (thinking 465 mythic / 480 PvP). For PvP would be great for a separate queue for queuing with a team(no ilvl req) vs queing solo. Team makeup should be 2 dps and 1 healer or tank. Also I would do them more while leveling or WQ if I could queue not in my hub city.
Quoted for Truth
3 Likes
The main problem for me is the fact that mounts are still very hard to drop right now. First you need to have the luck to find the mobs that trigger the chance to drop the mount, and then, if you are EXTREMELY lucky, you may get the mount.
Don’t get me wrong, i think they need to be rare. But the way it is right now it’s ridicolous. People spaming islands with one character, having 2k + islands completed with only 1 or 2 mounts is just not right.
I’v been farming islands all day multiboxing with 3 alts each islands (so 3x the odds) and even though i have almost 5k attempts on islands i only (or luckly) have 5 mounts. And i know people with more attempts and less mounts than that.
One thing that could help that is a way to players “lure” the type of monsters they want spawn in they islands. It’s very frustrating complete 20 islands without a single pirate or twilight drakes invasions, and that’s a real issue.
I also think you could buff a little the treasure map chances of getting an item quest, instead of the regular AP/residuum/5k gold.
There’s a lot of empty wasted time that you get no loot. I was simply trying for dubloons for the albatross, and I went half a dozen with just ap. I’m not saying hand us everything we want that islands can drop, but it’s demoralizing getting nothing repeatedly. We need bad luck protection, or something. I’ve done likely over a thousand and I have nowhere near the loot available. I understand it’s a time sink, but as it stands it’s a pretty impossible mountain to climb for us collectors.
3 Likes
I like not having to worry about killing specific things with the hope of a reward, and I’m glad for the changes to events and not always having the eruption event. The reward frequency feels a bit low-ish still. Think I agree with others that dubloons would be a nice guaranteed pity prize, considering the vendor is a thing.
1 Like
Unpopular opinion, but I actually enjoy IE, as long as I do them in moderation. That being said, I would love if they were fun enough to really focus on, like dungeons. Also unpopular opinion - I don’t mind the RNG of the islands. I mean, it doesn’t feel great to get a paltry amount of AP only, but when you do get a real reward, the feeling is pretty great.
Rewards are also an issue though. There are some cool things you get can, sure. There are some cool things you can get for dubloons, sure. What would REALLY make Islands Expeditions more popular and fun (I hope) is more cosmetics. I know from personal experience the amount of work that goes into creating a new piece of armor, or a weapon, but to have unique pieces of armor and weapons that were themed around the specific island that you were on would be amazing, imo.
Islands are still a slog. They are nothing but a race to the end, because it’s basically a timer-based system (i.e.; fill the bar). They are still terrible, they are still not fun, and they will still continue to drive down enjoyment of this expansion as the sole, efficient source of AP.
If, like Legion, there were multiple ways to farm AP at a relatively similar pace, people could choose the content they want to do, Islands would be fine (though nothing more than glorified timer scenarios in the end). They fail to capture the “explore new uncharted areas” feel that was promised.
4 Likes
I have done about 6 of them in 8.1 and didn’t get anything but azerite or a rep quest. No dubloons when dubloons count.
I actually would do more of these but I can’t stand the carrying of healers or the lvls 116-119 who still have legion greens.
1 Like
Geez this is really easy for most people to do since that takes two weeks and very often is done prior to 120.
Personally I enjoy them right now.
My one significant critique is that you don’t allow us to queue for PVP islands solo. There is no rating or ranking system, so I’m not sure why you won’t allow this. Personally, I’d find it a lot more interesting and would likely pursue it as stand-alone content if I could queue solo for PVP and assuming there was a robust enough reward system.
Cheers.
2 Likes