There’s lots of things they could be doing but have decided they don’t want to. Archeology is just one of many things they regret putting in the game, like flying, Silvermoon and Exodar.
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Would you believe me?
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Most definitely!
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It’s really not hard.
Just that Blizzard abandoned it for no reason, because to them, the cool pets and mounts you’re getting are “tOo EaSy” probably, in terms of them getting you to spend money/time on it.
NOTICE THAT THE IN-GAME STORE APPEARED AND THAT ARCHAEOLOGY DISAPPEARED AT EXACTLY AROUND THE SAME TIME, IN WARLORDS OF DRAENOR, HMM…
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Arch stuck around through Legion, though.
Also, the in-game-shop was added in Wrath.
Yeah, but I’d argue they kinda semi-abandoned it since Cata.
None of the expansions past then award mounts, of which Cataclysm had several from archaeology.
Just compare them by expansion. https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Archaeology_rewards
You’re right about the store, I’m getting it confused with WoW Token
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Nope, sorry, in order to like something you must no-life it until your fingers bleed and your butt fuses to your computer chair or else you’re just being contrarian. 
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Archaeology also has some nice qualities that I wish other gathering professions would adopt.
Mainly, the “nodes” you gather with it are personal to you specifically, meaning they can’t e.g. be taken by other players while you’re fighting mobs, and trains of gathering bots can’t strip a zone and leave nothing for legitimate players. The old way with shared nodes can remain in War Mode (where competition is a more important part of the game) but there’s no reason ore and herb nodes can’t be personal outside of war mode.
Making other gathering professions have personal nodes also means that node positions vary between players which destroys the efficiency of bot trains — right now a herd of bots can march up to a single node and gather it up to 10 times, and personal nodes would break that. Efficiency of real players would be unaffected (or if anything improved since they’re not fighting over nodes any more) while bot efficiency would be cut to a small fraction of what it is currently.
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It gets worse the deeper you go into it. No end in sight to turn the corner on the elusive rare solve you are digging for.
According to the collective minds at WoWhead both in comments and those writing guides, dig sites (Cata dig sites anyway) are supposed to proc more often based on the solves you are missing. In my experience that isn’t the case. I was missing just finishing Tol’vir and Troll for so long. I would spend hours at a time jockeying up and down EK and Kalimdor to proc those sites. 90% of the time it was all Dwarf/Fossil/Night Elf and the Nerubians reared their ugly collective heads in Eastern Plaguelands. My character had all the solves otherwise on everyone else.
I found the easiest way was to just dig in Pandaria with Mantid, the only downside is … 1 crate is 1/5-1/6th of a solve. Those boxes give pittance compared to actually getting dig sites to proc.
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Archaeology could be a good way to bring old stuff back too 
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Man, looking back through this thread sort of scares me. When Thallia, Briselody and I agree on something, one of two things has happened:
- Hell has frozen over. Permanently. It has reached absolute zero and there is no going back
or
- Blizzard royally screwed up
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Agreed. 
Such a wasted opportunity. I don’t even mind how it functions as-is.
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The issue is though that for a system that is Archeology, RNG is a pretty good way to showcase it, because you can’t really plan for what you are going to uncover, but you can’t have too much RNG either because that makes it a whole lot less fun
Archeology is fun, and it is my favourite non-primary profession in the game … but I don’t know what a good solution of it would be to make it both retain the feel of uncovering unknown artifacts, and also make it a good gameplay system for people to enjoy
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Why does it even have to be reworked? A lot of us enjoy it as it is. If Blizz thinks they have to rework it into something everyone loves they’re doomed to fail. How hard would it really have been to stick in some dig sites and a few interesting items in SL and DF?
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I think they want to re do the whole system. As in figure out a new mechanic for it as well as revamp its rewards. It’s the most forgettable profession maybe you plus 10% of everyone that plays the game even give half a care about it.
A few good points were made earlier in the thread. Brewa had a solid point about the interface of it feeling monotonous. The red light/green light hot/cold could definitely be improved upon.
As far as keeping with it’s RNG, I would create a way to extend the Mantid Artifact Sonic Locator that you can buy from Brann Bronzebeard in the Vale to a new vendor item that is available to make any archaeological dig site the primary spawn for 24 hours. All the original implemented Cataclysm Archaeology stuff is really the most sought after and the ones that are entirely RNG restrictive. Tol’vir and Troll being the most, but the Nerubians have the puzzle box of Yogg Saron. Fossil has the mount + toy + shield mog. The Night Elves and Dwarves have a bevy of unique toys + transmog. I’m not including Legion in this because Legion solves are guaranteed based on the questline available.
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What they should do is just make it so all digsites are constantly up so you can target and farm them
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This thread inspired me to finish up the Drust stuff. I forgot how easy BFA arch was. Even better than the Mantid method
I like your name
Biggest problem is the Archaeology quest giver in the Darkmoon Faire only accepts the most common fossils to turn in and level up Archaeology. WoD Ashran had an NPC that would trade these common fossils for other goods making Archaeology more accessible.
Second problem is there is not enough interesting mounts, pets and toys in Archaelogy to make it more worthwhile. It is so bad that the Archaeology trainer in Oribos makes a joke how there is no ancient fossils to dig up in Shadowlands. Zereth Mortis and Korthia should be completely covered in fossils.
Third problem is the developers deliberately put archaeology zones in high areas of hostile NPCs. Having to place a light detector and walk an unknown distance fifteen times just to get a random fossil is terrible.
Solution? Make fossiles tradeable in the AH and sold by Vendors with currency. Cut down the amount of time a toon has to search for a fossil. Add fossils that can be traded in to an Archaeology NPC for mounts, pets and toys that are no longer available in the game or from Classic to BfA expansions.
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