Hey folks
Lately I’ve been farming some Archaeology achievements to kill some time till 10.1, also in a recent interview Ion kind of confirmed that they have plans for Archaeology in 10.2. These made me think about few things and changes that I’d like to discus here. It’s a wall please bear with me.
Archaeology lost it’s propose as a chill profession like fishing, sometime between Pandaria and Draenor and kept going the wrong way till they stopped in BFA (technically shadowlands).
By this I mean achievements like The Seat of Knowledge/Draenor Curator and so on. Pristine versions are just annoying and pointless to farm. Since no one can see your collection (expect in Garrison). To fix this problem I’d like to suggest to replace pristine quests with a small conversation between A & B about the thing you just found. Maybe something like Lorewalkers scrolls and lorewalker Cho’s tales. Maybe like Azerite gifts from Islands expeditions in BFA send us to booty bay and a conversation/in-game cinematic between two goblins there instead of storing shiny things in garrison or another room.
If you wana stick to pristine thingy you should change it slighty to something like this random scenario i just made. Lorewalker Cho or Elder Poa from Iskara or the blind djardin guy send us to certain part of world for special treasure/scroll. Imagine this:
Elder Poa: Hey traveler i’ve heard of a story about a place called Ardenweald in the realm of Death. Maybe you can travel there and find scroll of Elune for me.(now a quest pops up and you should farm 400 fragments of drought to make the scroll for him)
(I’d rather farm 500 fragments for one item instead of RNG pristines.)
We should have less RNG with Archaeology as whole. It’s super frustrating when you completed X for 45-50 times and yet haven’t found pristine. Maybe after you found Pristine version of Y or Z there be less chance to get that ones as new project every time you complete a dig site and make a new items.
You should be able to turn items into restored artifacts while moving/flying, the same way you can turn fragments into items. Both are casts but you can do one while moving and cant do the other one. This is a small but QOL change.
Idk if you guys have played Lost Ark but profession system there looks better. After a certain skill with gathering professions there is a small chance to get a buff to earn more stuff for couple of minutes or you can start a minigame to earn more stuff.
Maybe after all these years we should get account wide achievements for archaelogy too. We’ve been there when you’re missing only one prestine on main and got lucky with exactly that one on alt.
Cataclysm items should turn to restored artifacts too.
Please share your ideas about mine or maybe add more to the list, I’d like to see your point of view on this subject too. After a longtime with no Archaelogy i’d rather it comes with a bang or dont even bother coming back.
Interesting. We just talked about how this profession was discontinued for now, yesterday.
I will admit I spent way too long trying to get the Alchemy drake from Uldum. I never got it, and pretty much ended up wasting my time with it in Kalimdor. So much time I could have spent getting artifacts from elsewhere.
The rest of the stuff you mention I can’t even remember. I guess I kinda stopped caring for it after my drake farm failure.
I have been thinking of picking it up again though, but then without drake recipe that never drop hunting.
The most efficient way to farm Stone Drake pattern is farming mantids i believe, i might be wrong. I just want Archaeology back but a fun version of it not just fly around and dig ground
You just need to buy an item from Lorewalkers Reputation called “Mantid Artifact Hunter’s Kit” it makes all your new digsites to be Mantid for next 24 hours.
Having a version of Mantid Artifact Sonic Locator, but for every race would be great. It can be a pain when you’re flying over the large continents (Kalimdor in particular for those pesky Tol’vir ones) and there’s a few different racial dig sites that can appear.
For Dragon Isles, we could have Dragon, djaradin and maybe Titan dig sites.
Possible rewards? Skeletal proto-drake mount, djaradin hearthstone that has an earth/fire animation to it and maybe a toy that turns you into a skeletal drakonid.
Skeletal Proto-Drake sounds really fun. I want Archaeology be more than just few hundred achievement points. I want more lore linked to this profession or at least some hints for future patch/expansions.
It’s really odd that archaeology didn’t turn up on 10.0. They have an archaeology based faction as a major part of the story. There’s little bits of lore that archaeology would be the ideal way to drive the story.
Hopefully they intend on a huge revamp, the current way just doesn’t work. Too much RNG.
They could pair it with Dragon Expedition faction or bring back Brann something similar like they did with Nat Pagle and fishing before. There’s so many ideas and options, they “just” need to be creative.
And since you mentioned RNG and grind with Archeology. I am trying to obtain the Tol’Vir mount and Vial of the Sands I have to say I am a bit frustrated with RNG
Yeah, they made (albeit minor) improvements in the MoP expansion, adding the pristine versions of items on display at the lorewalker place, and generally less huge digsites, that one digsite along half of southern Redridge still haunts my nightmares…
