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  1. #1

    Archaeology: The Most boring profession

    Hey all, been playing World of Warcraft since the beginning. When Blizzard announced Archaeology I was excited, seemed like it could be fun (boy, was I wrong). When the profession launched, I quickly capped it and went about trying to farm items of use (Zin'Rokh comes to mind). I never was able to get a Zin'Rokh. I took a break after ~300 Troll solves early Cata. In Mists of Pandaria, I leveled it to cap and briefly tried to get Zin'Rokh again (As a troll warrior, what would be more awesome and accurate than having a true troll warrior theme going). Once again, it's come to either quit or lose my sanity. I'm certain I can't be the only one who found Arch boring as can be. I started thinking about Archaeology now, the problems with the current design, and ways to improve it and was looking for some feedback before posting it on the official forums (where it will likely get a standard working as intended response or something but still)

    The Current Archaeology Profession
    Travel around the continents, stopping at dig sites. 4 Dig Sites per continent are active, 6 digs available per site (up from earlier 3 per site). Players have no control which dig sites spawn. Each site is one of the races available on the continent. Players collect fragments and keystones and use these to recreate ancient items, potentially rare items. Overall, this leads to a very dull profession. Most of the time spent is traveling

    Problems with the Current Model
    The main problems with the current model are threefold.
    1. Random dig sites. Lore-wise, is there any reason that we should be forced to randomly travel across the world to dig sites of every race? Why do we have to do Dwarves, or Fossil sites when all we want is Troll? or Night Elf? Why are we forced to go to sites we don't care about.
    2. Completed races. Building off the first issue. Why are we forced to do Dwarf solves and sites when we have done ALL archaeology solves? I finished Dwarf, Mogu, and Fossils already. Yet whenever I did on Pandaria, I still can discover Mogu dig sites. I am still forced to do Fossil or Dwarf dig sites for no reason beyond the site came up.
    3. Boredom. All your time in this profession is spent traveling. A small part is finding fragments. An absolutely tiny portion is solving and actually getting the ancient item. This does not make for an interesting time nor profession.

    Ways to improve Archaeology
    1. Already started, but the random battles upon finding an item that has started on Pandaria. It means you do more than travel and search. Perhaps improve on this with the possibility of finding 'rare' or 'champion' version of these. Make them like the Pandaria champions where they are slightly difficult, with each race having a set combination of abilities and the champions spawn on their race locations. Have these drop a large amount of fragments or keystones.
    2. Have the ability to toggle races off. Give the option to toggle off racial dig sites you don't want. If I only want Troll dig sites, why do I have to go to the other races dig sites? There is no logical answer to this!
    A sub-shoot of the previous idea. Once you finish all solves of a races, you can toggle them off. Why should players be forced to solve races which give them nothing but trash to sell? why can't they focus on races they haven't completely finished?

    Thanks for reading, leave suggestions on how to improve Arch, improve my suggestions, and thoughts on the profession in general. Thanks!
    Last edited by Mithistormer; 2012-11-09 at 12:05 AM.

  2. #2
    The only time I've ever devoted to it I found relaxin. There was no pressure to perform. There was no annoying person talking or yelling. Nothing. Just you and your favorite mount. After a while it can become tedious.

    I've never gotten very far because my play time is limited and arch is the last thing I wanna spend it on but it's not for everyone.
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  3. #3
    Well, when you're just doing it as a time release, it might not be too bad, but when you want a specific item, that's when things get annoying. I spend my time on the Eastern Kingdoms getting mostly Fossil and Dwarf dig sites when I have both done. The occasional Night Elf, Troll, and Nerubian but most of the time its the ones I have done, it's just tiring knowing there is nothing new to discover for them yet still being forced to do them.

    I agree though, it is something that is entirely (well largely) your own pace which is nice.

  4. #4
    Deleted
    My only issue with archaeology right now is that there are no rewards worth the time to get them. The ilvl 359 were nice for fresh 85s at the begin of Cata. Right now there is nothing remotely usable, not even decent vanity items.

  5. #5
    Archeology is really great imo, too bad they nerfed it so hard compared to what it was after release.

    My only issue with archaeology right now is that there are no rewards worth the time to get them. The ilvl 359 were nice for fresh 85s at the begin of Cata. Right now there is nothing remotely usable, not even decent vanity items.
    So true, no idea why they changed it. Probably due to complaints of good items coming from such time-consuming profession. I also dont like the fact that like 80% of pandaren digsites are mogu making it a real pain in the ass to solve pandaren artifacts

  6. #6
    Exactly my sentiments OP, I farmed for Jin'Rokh, 475 solves and absolutely nothing. I vowed that day never to ever dig a day more in my life.

  7. #7
    The worst for me is fishing. At least archaeology breaks up the monotony a bit. Fishing is just ... i dunno terrible. I've played wow since vanilla and i think my highest fisherman is 320 or something like that.

    It'd be nice if they implemented some fishing mini games as well as archaeology mini games. I dunno why it has to be a monotonous "dig dig, move, dig dig, move" type of game.

  8. #8
    Archeology is probably the most interesting profession.

    Other professions all you do is get mats and make stuff or just farm mats, this is so much better.
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  9. #9
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Roest View Post
    Right now there is nothing remotely usable, not even decent vanity items.
    The MOP items are perfectly usable. My main still hasn't found a replacement for the offhand and the heroic ilevel spear usable while leveling is prettymuch BIS until heroics, even for str classes.

    That said - I agree that isn't enough.

    I'm also unsure how I feel about MOP archaeology - the rare items in MOP were incredibly easy to get, far easier than any other race, which means you quickly enough up "done" with MOP archaeology, but have a heap of achievements tempting you to dig up useless crap that has no "maybe I'll get that tol'vir mount" carrot on a stick incentive to go for.

    Crate of arch fragments needs to be upgraded too, spending a crate to get 1 dig worth of fragments is arse, especially when they're stuck on your main, would be cool if they could be sold / used for alts.

    I've also constantly been disappointed by the "lore" we got, none if it seems really relevant, it's mostly either a) gag text making a joke of dubious quality, or b) lore about characters invented purely for the arch prof. I'd be happier to see some arch items that told me something about the lore that mattered, something about an important warcraft event etc, something that I could read while flying to the next digsite and be interested.
    Last edited by mmoc1571eb5575; 2012-11-09 at 04:00 PM.

  10. #10
    Archaeology is not the most boring.

    That honour easily goes to fishing, which outside of changing WHAT you catch, you could stand in one spot and go from 1-600 in a capital city if you wanted to.

    That being said...

    1: Archaeology has no "epic item rewards" like it did in Cata cause Blizzard saw that everyone focused on getting those items, like it was mandatory to progression. It's a freaking secondary skill, not a primary profession. It shouldn't be awarding you BiS items for initial tier.
    2: That being said, they did the right thing with Archaeology rare items in Mists. Aside from the target dummy (which is nice, can practice on a dummy ANYWHERE in Pandaria, no dealing with crowds), the other 3 are ilevel 463 blues, but only level 85 to equip. Great alt items (in the case of the offhand and polearm, potentially good pre-raid slot items for the respective classes too).
    3: Pandaria archaeology isn't so bad now, cause it is ONLY these two races here. Cataclysm's was a bit of a mess, with 4-6 races on a given continent (excluding Outlands). Additionally, most Pandaren and Mogu sites are far smaller than many of the old sites (Lakkari Tar Pits anyone?).
    4: Resulting items not being worth gold now, but used as currency to allow you to buy fragments of all other races is great. Means you can farm Tol'vir, without digging a single site. RNG gone from that aspect.
    5: We do now get little surprise attacks on occasion when digging in Pandaria, so that breaks things up a little (and rewards you with essentially an extra dig).

    It's not meant to be the most engaging. Hell, I'm pretty sure if they could, Blizzard would change cooking to not give any meaningful buffs, but that would be far too late to do now. It's a secondary skill. Don't like it, don't do it.

    Frankly, it's more entertaining than fishing (albeit, that doesn't take much), and now moreso than before, it is there to give us extra lore. Which is done through the journal (that any completed item refers you to now) and through the Pristine items you find and put on display at the Lorewalker's chamber.
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  11. #11
    Archeology is the best secondary profession, I lvled 80-84 pretty much just Arch.
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  12. #12
    I like archaeology, but my inability to get the 359 troll sword was hugely frustrating. That was fixed in MoP, in fact the rare drops came quite easy. I'm just going to consider myself as very lucky rather than say it was too easy. If we were looking to improve archeology, I need some new rares to find. Tmog gear seems like the way to go. It would also get rid of all the high-priced greens cluttering the auction house.

    Working on the troll sword is too much of a sore spot to still properly motivate me. Those stacks of MoP artifacts just lead to more commons, lol.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Azerate View Post
    Archeology is really great imo, too bad they nerfed it so hard compared to what it was after release.
    So true, no idea why they changed it. Probably due to complaints of good items coming from such time-consuming profession.
    Archeology was never intended to gear up, it was a mistake on their part to add equipment in first place. However I agree that new vanity items are a bit lackluster.
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  14. #14
    If I compare archaeology to other secondary professions then I can only draw a single conclusion.

    Archaeology overall is much better then cooking (since the introduction of feast I cook allot less), fishing (fishing for mounts isn't fun) and FA (first aid probably died when WOTLK launched).

  15. #15
    I am Murloc! Kuja's Avatar
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    Obviously you haven't tried fishing. I just have to resort to a fish bot everytime I need to level it for some reason <.< At least with archy you may get loot. With fishing, all you get is crappy fish.

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  16. #16
    When Archeology was added, I expected lots of cool lore to be uncovered and explained, and possibly even some cut-scenes showing past events etc, but what we ended up getting was just another gathering profession. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

    WTB Brann Bronzebeard!
    Last edited by Rayr1fe; 2012-11-09 at 11:18 PM.

  17. #17
    I am somewhat dissapointed with arch in mist. Just not enough cool stuff to keep digging.

  18. #18
    Archaeology is the saddest, most boring excuse for exploration and lore they could have possibly implemented.

    Who honestly sat down and said "I bet they'll love flying from one end of the continent to the other following a pole, for hours on end."

  19. #19
    Certainly some suggestions that should be considered.

  20. #20
    Mechagnome Yerbury's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by OneSent View Post
    Who honestly sat down and said "I bet they'll love flying from one end of the continent to the other following a pole, for hours on end."
    Probably the same people who suggested that running the same heroics, farming the same motes, fishing the same pools and playing the same AH would be equally enticing. One man's trash is another man's treasure, and what may be monotonous to you could well be satisfying and rewarding to someone else.
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