Feedback: Island Expeditions

Community General Discussion
61

They are much better than before and I can’t think of anything about them that is worse. However I still don’t find myself particularly drawn to do them for the sake of fun. Although they are definitely more fun than they used to be.

I think for me personally the problem is the timed nature of them because of the enemy team. I like having the enemy faction sometimes and timed content is fine, but I do feel like these would benefit from a mode that has no effective time limit to race against.

  1. An exploration mode where you have no effective time limit to race against. Perhaps instead there is a single item hidden somewhere on the island and you have to solve puzzles scattered across the island, or find clues to its location, or defeat bosses to unlock (maybe you need to find a certain buff to beat the boss).

  2. More interaction between different mob types and island buffs. Perhaps one type of mob is ridiculously difficult unless you can kill and loot something from some other type of mob. Maybe there is a very difficult demon boss, but if you can kill a wandering warlock (he could be a smart NPC!) on the island you can loot his staff which will reduce the demon’s power.

EDIT:
3. A possible use for the enemy faction in an exploration mode could be that they have arrived on the island for azerite extraction and have set up a little mining operation. They are guarding it. However, you have to get into it and take something from them in order to progress towards your own goal. The enemy faction will leave you alone until you try taking it from them. Once its taken from them they’ll spend the rest of the time trying to hunt you down to take it back.

4 Likes
62

Ive ran roughly over 6500 attempts in IEs and i only have 4 mounts. i know its RNG. but the Mounts still seem too low of a drop rate.

3 Likes
63

I have a few points that I’d like to make, some positive and some negative regarding Islands.

  • Good: The new feel of islands are much better than before, having a nice mix of island inhabitants and them being clustered together are very good changes.

  • Bad: They’re still islands however, they’re not very fun, they heavily punish exploration, and some of the enemy teams are overtuned(like the new Maghar Orc team). It’s kindof insane, tbh, that the enemy teams have all these ridiculous abilities that players don’t have or that none of their skills are on a DR. Looking at the Sneaky Pete team, whatever the orc hunter’s name is has a pet that stuns you every 5 seconds and there’s no DR on it. The Blood DK on the Maghar team hits so hard and has so much CC. There’s honestly no reason that players shouldn’t have access to their PvP talents if the enemy teams are going to be stupid in this regard.

  • Good/Bad: The first week of the patch I got a good amount of rewards for doing Mythic Islands(I’ve still yet to see a Mount, but not that big of a deal). Since that first week my rewards have been far less consistent to the point that last week I did 9 Mythic Islands and 4 Heroic Islands and only got 4 bags/satchels of coins, didn’t get a mount, pet, mog, or quest item. In my honest opinion winning a Mythic Island should guarantee at least 1 reward that isn’t a coin bag.

  • Good/Bad: Treasure Maps were a great addition to Islands. The only thing I hate about them is how varied the rewards can be and how some rewards don’t feel as rewarding. A couple of examples, it’s kindof dumb that you can get green transmog rewards from the maps, sometimes you can sell them, but most of the time you have to relist the item for several weeks on the AH before actually finding someone who wants it. Another example would be the mission for Residuim, I honestly feel like 20-25 residuim is not a good value for this mission as you’re missing out on other strong rewards like a huge amount of AP or Gold.

6 Likes
64
  • I like the treasure map reward for 5000 gold.
  • Tend to do the required amount per week to get the bonus, but then don’t do any more. Combinations of mythic/pvp/heroic/normal
  • Haven’t really noticed a change in rewards. I received a pet once, a few quest turn ins (that make me go all over the world and I just can’t be bothered for the reward) and a few cosmetic pieces.
  • Don’t like the scaled difficulty. Would be better if gear made a noticeable difference. It doesn’t feel good when the mobs hit just as hard if not harder than they did earlier on in the gearing process.
3 Likes
65

Nerubian Islands haven’t spawned in 4 months.

They are needed for 2 achievements (quest item AND pet) and cannot spawn as additional enemies or invasions.

Please fix this. :confused:

Also, Mythic Islands do not feel worth it anymore. The NPC team is insanely difficult to kill and can gather like 1,000 Azerite a minute, yet you gather SLOWER than you do in heroic islands.

Harvesting the Azerite Rupture is never worth it You do not get anywhere near enough Azerite from the enemies it spawns or the rare that spawns that makes up for the amount of time spent wasted killing the mobs. I’ve literally gone from a 3,000 Azerite advantage to being behind 1,000 Azerite cause my team insisted on doing the Azerite Rupture.

4 Likes
66

I’ve done island expeditions every week since launch. They’ve pretty much been the same since day 1, with the exception of some random pet or quest drop rewards since the recent patch (8.1). The difficulty ( I do heroic version) is the same since day 1, and the required speed you need to run around gathering the required azerite to win the scenario hasn’t changed. It’s still a non-stop kill fest. I was under the impression that the patch was supposed to slow the pace down and add in more fun elements like a variety of little incursions to add flavor to the scenario. I usually run 6 or 7 each week ( for the weekly AP quest no incentive to do more ), depending on the groups i randomly get, and WIN 99% of the time. Since patch 8.1 it seems to me there’s less incursions spawning. Prior to patch 8.1 I was usually getting 4 incursions spawning out of 6. Since patch 8.1 I’ve gotten between 1 an 2 incursions out of 6.

If I was to suggest anything to change:

  1. Slow the flow so it’s not such a kill fest,

  2. Disable the kick function ( except the auto AFK kick, ) to many people are abusing it ( if you don’t do what the majority wants to do an go out on your own to kill things people kick you ) even though you as an individual are contributing to the WIN.

  3. Enable an automatic option to click through a preset conversation text upon entering during the prep period to give the other players within your group a way to express their goals, and suggestions on what each individual wants to achieve ie:

  • kill just the rares
  • do the events when they spawn
  • do the side events an quests
  • set someone out to kill the opposing faction players (PvP) or NPC’s to slow their gathering down ( Which is what i prefer to do )
  • or just KILL kill kill to blast through it ( IMO the most unfun strategy ) - but in the current state of the feature - it is the required strategy.

  1. Add a reward structure to the vendors so people who are unlucky on drops can have a means to obtain the rewards they want by spending the doubloon currency.

  2. Fix and increase the spawn chance and locations of the random events within the scenario to add flavor an fun.

  3. Remove to azerite gathering machines from the scenarios most people ignore them while the opposing NPC’s go after them usually unchallenged - which in turn gives them the advantage and the victory usually because nobody speaks to anyone else - sets a strategy ( least heroic mode an below )

That’ll do it for my feedback on the current state of island expeditions since day 1 they were available through the current iteration since last patch (8.1)

p.s. (OFF TOPIC) fix the forums so replies are only contained within the reply section of peoples posts, and not double posted within the thread itself. which will make conversation flow smoother and more consolidated. In it’s current state especially in heavily commented posts, it’s hard to follow the conversation without getting confused by random replies to comments to much earlier posts which isn’t in any way within context to the current conversation going on at the end of the thread itself. also add a reply count ( ) beside the reply sections in each post to show new reply comments to peoples posts.

3 Likes
67

They’re too unstructured to be fun. I don’t feel like I can employ any significant strategy. Mythic islands can be tough, or not, depending on coordination, but the difficulty is a bit weird.

I really don’t like the disconnect between reward and activity. I wish that opening secret treasure chests in portals did something, not just gave me azerite points.

I do like the objectives and the azerite extractors. It gives some amount of structure to the match. It seems like not enough, but it’s a step in the right direction. I’m not a fan of the quests which are basically “click a person” or “find an item near a person and click them”.

I think that the whole Azerite Power system has issues that build on the Islands issues, especially given that AP is the only reason to do islands apart from specific novelty items.

I also think that Islands seem like a nice alternative to leveling, but when leveling through islands there’s the issue that you don’t get any gear upgrades. It would be nice if there was some kind of smoother transition there.

4 Likes
68

Every island you win should award doubloons.

11 Likes
69

I’m still pretty much ignoring them. They aren’t content I enjoy or find rewarding, so unless a friend needs another person to do them they might as well not be there.

Sometimes, you do things in the game that personally annoy me, and I refrain from using that content just to spite the devs behind it. IE isn’t quite at that point, but that may be because I don’t want to do it anyway.

3 Likes
70

Many of the mobs seem to be doing too much damage right now. At 370 ilvl I can literally get 2-3 shot if I pull just 1 pack of mobs on heroic. Don’t think this should be the case unless it’s mythic. Other than that I feel that the reward drop rate should be buffed by 10-20% because it still feels like I only get one semi-decent drop every 5-10 Island expeditions.

5 Likes
71

The drop rates of the rewards feel like it backs to the first week of BfA. Ive got almost nothing in the last 10 islands.

The damage is still way to high. There shouldnt be multiple deaths every island. Its not a huge problem for me since I know how to use CDs, but the people Im grouped with seem to never survive half the stuff.

I still dont enjoy IEs at all. I do them for the weekly and thats it. Most of the time IE’s just put me in a bad mood either cuz of the people Im grouped with or damage of the mobs, or the opposite faction NPCs constantly attacking, or the entire lack of reward when im done.

Ive said it from day 1, you cant put 3 random people in a zone with no direction other than kill stuff & loot azerite, & expect it to be fun.

10 Likes
72

It’s still terribly boring and annoying. I wish it last 50% shorter. I wish the weekly required only 2x heroic or better still, 1. If it were 1 Mythic, I would do it weekly rather than procrastinate till it rolls over to the following week.

I think it should not allow people to earn AP after they completed their weekly allowance.

Either that, or allow m+ chest to drop AP again.

4 Likes
73

The enemy “PVP” team feels overtuned. Since the expedition changes, they hit harder and have more health. Same goes for most of the trash on the island, but that’s less of an issue because of the absence of most PVP-style behaviors - chain CC’ing, blinking away, etc.

The dubloon drop rate seems abysmal, but since the albatross mount is a joke anyway maybe you’re saving me some time farming.

I agree with previous sentiment about adding a rotating vendor to let you farm up what you really want. I am so burned out on the RNG aspect of this game; don’t get me started on Legion paragon caches I’m still grinding for mounts to this day.

Also, I would love the ability to requeue with a group rather than the island ends and it autodisbands. Once in a while I’m solo queueing and run into a pair of people duo-queueing and we work really well together, but when that island ends it’s like SEE YA. Sure most times a pug barely gets it together but once in a great while you just click with strangers!

5 Likes
74

The first two weeks of Islands in 8.1 felt terrific. Very welcome changes to the system overall. The elimination of the ‘scorecard’ loot system also eliminated the need for groups to target specific mobs for loot, and now all groups have one goal in mind: Finish the island asap, which I believe was the intended method. More invasions makes things dynamic and interesting to the point that no two islands feel the same. I love all the new NPC types and I’m excited to see where we will be going next and what we will be seeing.

But something seems to have changed in the last couple weeks internally with the way loot works (a change that I imagine was done to eliminate AFK island farming), and now -everyone- is getting less loot as a result. If the increased chance at loot at the start of 8.1 was unintentional, and has been reduced - that’s fine… however:

If you make changes to the loot system, document it somewhere. Either on the forums, in the patch notes, or on the twitter feed - I don’t care. Just tell us what you are doing. I’ve devoted a substantial amount of time to Islands since the expansion came out (in fact, its taken up about 80% of my time in BFA at 120), the least you can do is tell us what changes are being made and why.

As far as changes I’d like to see, a new set of pets and quest items for the new mob types with their own Achievements ( ‘Tell me Another Tale’ and ‘I’m STILL here for the Pets’ - Naturally). I’d also like to suggest a diminishing returns applied to Mob and Enemy AI crowd control effects. And for the PvP islands, allow the system to pit two Horde or Alliance teams against one another if there aren’t enough of one faction in the queue. 30-60 minute queue times for Horde because nobody on Alliance are running them…

Thanks.

3 Likes
75

Oh! I forgot. FFS please adjust where the azerite extractor can spawn. It should never be allowed to generate right near the enemy, or even your, ship. I have had this happen too many times and all it does is turn into “everybody sit on the extractor and do nothing else.” And THAT is tremendously boring.

2 Likes
76

They seem to provide a different experience every run. Prior to 8.1 the routine was known (go for the elites,get erruption etc…). Now i just focus on the mobs amd killing the opposite faction if its a close one which it usually isnt on normal. Also the arrangement od mobs and az crystals seems a bit more randomized than before which is good.
They still dont feel quite as rewarding as they shuld be, i cant put my finger on it

77

100% would not do islands if it wasn’t the most efficient way to farm AP

3 Likes
78

The changes were a big step in the right direction. I went from not doing them in the 2 months leading up to 8.1 (not even to cap) to capping 5 characters per week since 8.1. They’re not as miserable as the feature you released at launch.

The issue remaining is: enemies still do frustrating CC. I know it’s a shocker, but the fun thing about islands or dungeons is pulling huge and managing to AoE everything down. That’s fun. Everything else is just in the way of that. Obviously islands need to do fight back and make doing big pulls challenging, but damage isn’t my issue: being chain CC’d because I got bad mob spawns is. Having to side step 15 different blast indicators on the ground is challenging and rewarding. Being forced to memorize specific mob names which do a 6 second disorient and dying if I accidentally pull one isn’t, it’s just frustrating and forces progress to a halt.

9 Likes
79

It certainly feels like I’m getting less cosmetic/pet rewards in 8.1 than I did in 8.0, and that’s really a “not fun” factor.

The fact that the dubloons are both for island items as well as cosmetics is kind of lame too, since sometimes you don’t get enough back to recoup the losses of buying the items.

2 Likes
80

I realized I never got that part done so last nite, went and queued for island expeditions - got 3 different ones. One I did before. Of the other two, got one achievement. The other successful island didn’t trigger the completion achieve.

I opened a ticket but that one, a player dc’d and had to be kicked. We got a new person and finished it…is the achievement for success with the same group you started with?

I’ve only done 7 expeditions so far so probably 4/5 or 3/5. I don’t know where to go or what exactly is happening inside so I just follow someone and kill whatever he pulled. Not even opening chests or mining much - don’t want to be left behind and get lost.

It’s weird in those. Not quite a dungeon, no clear indicators of what to do so I’m always surprised that we won. >_<

ps. I did get a new pet somewhere in the 3 I did so that was a plus.