It took almost 4 months for Blizzard to explain Island Expeditions

Community General Discussion
101

For what it’s worth, I actually really liked figuring out how Islands Work and I think the game needs more mystery.

The main problem was the scope and droprate. I know Islands are something we’ll be doing all expansion long so we’ll have plenty of chances but tons of items with a small chance to drop wasn’t the best implementation of something like this.

102

Ah, but my good troll comrade, you have to remember that beta is primarily a marketing device these days, not an actual testing process because: (a) it’s just beta, things will change, so we’re only looking for game breaking bugs and little blue/white checkered boxes, (b) only a small subset of players even try out the beta and they aren’t representative of the player base as a whole, (c ) any data from the beta is invalid because the data size is small and the players participating aren’t the average player, and (d) the negative feedback from those in the beta are just the vocal minority and changes can’t be justified based on what those people say.

/moo :cow:

103

Also, if you body looted things then people would start farming particular rares and leaving the islands when they had died causing a large number of broken groups.

1 Like
104

explanation unclear on island expeditions.
Currently in an alternate Azeroth where the factions are reversed. Horde is Alliance and Alliance is Horde.

Queen Sylvanas just convinced packhunter Greymane to take up arms against the Tyrant Anduin as she is unable to bring him down due to his damning connection to the light.

105

No one likes RNG on top of RNG on top of RNG. If I want something let me target farm it. Stop giving me cancer with your vaguely worded system.

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106

This is kind of an unbelievable exchange to me. This stuff is not hard to foresee.

What are the RNG drop rates? Is there bad luck protection on anything? Do you only get some tiny sliver of a chance applied to an entire island loot table? Is there any way for a player to actually target a particular thing they’re after? Any way for a player to control what island type or what island invasion they’ll get? Do the developers not understand how to practically think through the consequences of their designs anymore?

It is so incredibly easy to tell whether a system will please collectors or infuriate them, and everything about Island Expeditions points towards them remaining infuriating.

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107

The problem is that the guy who was going to do the explanation was moved over to their mobile phone division.

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108

I wouldn’t take the frustration with the players personally, it’s simply that Lore has promised us better communication for the last five years, and that hasn’t been delivered AT ALL.

Honestly, if we atleast got some frequent form of back and forth, I doubt the backlash with BFA would be quite as bad as it is now. Just feels like ‘the team’ is just doing whatever without any thought or reason behind it.

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109

the Moral to be taken from this is;

if you make a system with zero information on how it works, people will make their own theories on it. and punish other players who don’t conform to their idea of how it works.

as others have stated, none of this would have been necessary if it was competently explained at the beginning

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110

So is the best way to get rewards killing rares and opening chests by them?

111

Thank you for this response Bornakk.

I think that the ‘mystery’ side of it created a complete disincentive to participate in that content too much, I mean don’t get me wrong, a lot of people do like surprises, but I think as players we also like clear goals in game to work towards in our free time…

Like maybe you could have reputations by doing expeditions, that have specific pet/mount rewards or something like that…even specific quest chains that they lead to…that would be a big incentive to do the content a lot more. For me, I quite enjoyed it when I do an expedition and then get a quest to go to Moonglade to question why the druid creatures on the island attacked me, I think that was cool, if that quest chain had been a bit longer that would have helped too I think.

The expeditions aren’t bad or anything, it’s just yeah, the reward structure is a bit out of whack.

I think that’s the key point, we as players, like structure?

112

Are you going to completely ignore the second paragraph where RNG is going to be even worse about getting items?

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113

So just be clear - Each person will get their own separate chance at loot correct? People won’t get more chance at loot themselves if there are just two of them right?

114

garbage change to a garbage system in a garbage xpac. bfa is seriously killing my will to play this game. legion was the complete opposite, despite its flaws.

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115

Kill rares, do quests. Get rewards. I never had to guess how it works.

116

Maybe all depends on RNG

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117

And in doing so players have been turning on each other. Well done. lol

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118

Everyone understood that when there was a rare in front of them they ought to kill it. What I believe few understood then or now is how to reliably make it to that final invasion where the rares appear. There’s probably lots of people who’ve never seen it even once.

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119

I got Squawks yesterday, so I’m good either way now. Though it’ll be nice to just do whatever come patch time and not worry about if the other people are “doing it wrong” (though I never really cared about that either).

120

Name one system in the game that hasn’t been heavily detailed and explained.

2 Likes