What Island Expiditions Should have Been

Community General Discussion
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When I think about exploring a new island, I don’t think about running at top speed and murdering as many inhabitants as possible as quickly as possible to fill up my hull with azerite. There is nothing interesting about this.

I mean, I guess you could argue that’s a type of expidition, but for me, it isn’t.

I feel the Island Expeditions should be about exploring these new islands. To search for treasure or meet the local inhabitants (or fight them if necessary).

I think IEs should have been more like the scenario’s in Pandaria. I also feel that in addition to the island and mobs on them being random, the scenario should be random.

Now, I don’t know how possible it is, but one of Diablo’s strengths is that the map for a given dungeon is randomized.

So, if it’s possible, I’d like to see more randomization with the island. The maps can remain the same (per island - still want diff islands), but the goal of each scenario could change. So if your ship lands at island A, you could get one of five different scenarios.

These scenarios or goals should always keep in mind the idea that you are exploring a newly found island. Examples would include:

  1. Treasure Hunt - The Captain of the ship tells you they heard a treasure is on this island and he says to check out this area. And when you go to that area, you have to fight some inhabitants, but you find a second clue. And that clue sends you to another spot and so on until you find the treasure which is guarded by a boss.

The enemy faction might also land and be searching for the treasure…though I’m not really sure how that works. I suppose it works a LOT better if the enemy faction are actual players.

  1. Hunt - In this scenario, you are hunting a specific enemy. Maybe in this case, the enemy faction is who you are hunting. And they are stranded on the island and trying to get out. Maybe they stole something from your faction and your Captain has tracked their ship to this island (where they ran into rocks). In this scenario, you only have so much time to find the target because they are working to get off the island. So you have to search around the island, fighting mobs, avoiding traps, etc until you find them and kill them.

  2. Azerite - Ok, yes, this is what we do now. But maybe in this scenario the mobs don’t drop azerite. The azerite you have to gather is in only a few spots. And in each of those spots are mobs.

  3. Allies - In this one, your Captian instructs you to find a specific tribe of locals. And when you do, they give you some things to do to earn their trust. Like, going to this spot and gathering. Then going to this spot and killing their enemies. And then when you come back, they are being attacked. They tell you that the son or daughter of the cheif has been abducted. So now you have to go chase down the abductors and kill them (boss encounter).

These should each take about 15 minutes to complete. They arent timed though (I mean, there could be one that’s timed, but there has to be a reason) so as to give you the feeling that you are actually exploring a new place. To give you time to look around - maybe take paths to avoid mobs you dont need to fight.

As for rewards, I wouldn’t change much there except that in the case of scenarios with bosses, the boss drops them. And at the very minimum, you ALWAYS get coins.

What do you all think? What would you like to have seen out of IEs? Or do you like them as is?

8 Likes
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Mount %s to not be horribly bad.

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I’m a little sad no one cared. =/

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I think these are pretty good ideas. They sounded like they would work in random groups as well which a lot of these ‘improvements’ don’t. I retract my like of this - I like your ideas if we don’t have to compete against another team npc or players. I hate your ideas if we do.

Oops, OP I didn’t see it two days ago. If you want I can argue with you for an hour to get you more views :wink:

1 Like
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I like your post and agree.

IEs are just… drop in, kill stuff, bye bye. They could’ve been so much more. It’s so real that they don’t feel like an actual expedition, the discovery and investigation of an uncharted or strange piece of land…

There is absolutely nothing to actually FIND. I could see us going in, checking out every cave, behind waterfalls, going through that forest over there, exploring ruins and abandoned structures, looting treasures and stuff… triggering events through this exploration, summoning bosses and whatnot.

I think Blizz is on the right track on this particular feature though, since there ARE some little interesting things, but there is still a long ways to go to fully realize a fun, immersive Expedition concept.

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I agree with you on this. IEs could have been much better. I thought we’d get to explore these islands not do a timed rift type thing. Even the quest that is on the island lacks depth. :frowning:

2 Likes
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I’d have liked it a little more if maybe it was like a warfront where we get 20 people in there are murder as fast as possible while allies are trying to murder the same. Oh wait, i just turned that into seething shore… Ew.

ok, I take that back, remove the other faction from it and we just get in a big ol’ group—because i love big ol’ groups—and turn it into one of those demon invasions from Legion, minus the demons. We farm the azerite, maybe there’s some AI running around.

Or let us go there solo so I dont have to deal with GOGOGO time limits

2 Likes
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THIS. The time limits, man, that’s what really irks me.

I totally understand why they are like that though, most of the playerbase would get bored, I think.

But I would love to be able to go solo or in groups to a totally random place and quest/explore, get some objectives done (events and stuff) and chill out.

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I like your ideas, though I think it’s too late to implement them in Battle for Azeroth. I hope they don’t abandon this style of content, though, and that they refine it in the next expansion (hopefully with some of your ideas).

It might have been neat to see the concepts of Island Expedition combined with the concept of warfronts and battlegrounds. You could que for different group sizes (1, 5, 10, or 25 players) and you’d receive randomized objectives… such as gathering supplies to build a dock and escape, if your team is scuppered on the island [a PvE scenario], or beating the other team to a buried treasure in a scavenger hunt [a PvP scenario].

So I definitely agree with you that the current iteration (Azerite Race) should be only one of many possible goals on an expedition.

2 Likes
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I agree. I’d love to see IEs in the next xpac, but with a completely different style than RUN AND MURDER EVERYTHING IN SIGHT!!!

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions. Hopefully blizz will see this CONSTRUCTIVE criticism and take it to heart.

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This entire game is almost all run and murder though.

I just reread your post though and there is one part I don’t like, you actually want to turn this into PvP competition. That is actually worse than what we currently have since we have a PvE option.

When I first read your suggestions I didn’t even think we needed another group of npc or players competing against us - then I liked your idea. I don’t so much now when I see you want to make this into explore but rush because the other guys will beat you business.

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I got the impression the OP was looking for a PvP option, but not stictly exclusively PvP content. Like, you could join PvE islands which would have objectives A, B, C, D, or E, or you could join PvP islands which would have objectives B, D, F, G, or H. There’d be some overlap, but some of the objectives would be exclusive to one style of play.

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If there is exploration and that kind of thing done, I don’t want to have to rush though.

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No. I do NOT want it to be PVP. I was saying for that particular scenario it would only make sense to have the enemy faction also there hunting the treasure if the enemy faction was actually enemy players and not NPCs. But that would be a PVP IE. Not a PVE IE.

Anyhoo, I was just doing some IEs and I stopped for just a split second and noticed just how cool the island was. The art team did an amazing job, but we just go on our merry way not really able to take it all in as we rush from mob to mob murdering everything in sight.

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see this is the problem here - you have to be able to take the time

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Except you cant currently cause you are racing against the NPCs. So its GO GO GO GO GO GO or be kicked and wait 30 mins to repeat.