Archaeology + Delves: The solution it needs!

[Z3ROR]

It's time that Blizzard is updating the Archaeology profession. They know it they have to at some point, but haven't found the right direction yet. At least, that is what i believe from several interviews i watched over the past few years.

So i was thinking. When archaeologists starts digging they don't always find artifacts and other items. They sometimes find lost houses, caves, tombs, etc... covered by ground. But digging reveals them. Since The War Within we have Delves. And what if those hidden spaces are in fact Delves that we can find. Wouldn't that be awesome? I mean, i think that Delves can be the answer to fix and extend Archaeology.


Artistic impression of this idea:


How would that work?

First you still need to collect the artifacts. At rare occasion you might find a treasure map. This item allows you to search anywhere, not just inside dig sites. Follow the clues on the map to find the delve entrance. This time the hotter/colder game will be harder as well.

[Ealyssa]

Bob <real life guild> "hey I just have a 20 minutes break, I’ll jump in a delve. Oh wait I now have to spend 15/30/60 minutes looking for its entrance"

What an horrible idea…

[deenman]

horrible idea,so you wanna force people who wanna delve to do arheology? and people who wanna do arheology to maybe do delves if you reverse your idea? its fine that we have mines and plants in delves,but its ofc not more productive to go in delves to mine,but arheology is different idk if this is it

[Snes]

Bob <real life guild> "hey I just have a 20 minutes break, I’ll jump in a delve. Oh wait I now have to spend 15/30/60 minutes looking for its entrance"

What an horrible idea…

He's not saying this should replace all delves, you could still just do the standard ones.

I feel like Sniffenseeking in Loamm was a good template for Archaeology.

But I like your idea too, just add some randomly generated Delves to go with the theme (Fossil/Orc/NE/Tolvir/etc).

We got some really jaded people that spend way too long on these forums. So miserable.

[ro9ue]

I think the Archaeology should primarily be finding items out in the open, easter egg style. The UI window should be a place where you "collect" all of the lore you come across. That would include:
- Books and notes you find
- A journal summary for each quest chain you've done
- Doodles and note on any interesting items in the world - like the magnifying glass icon stuff currently in TWW
- Log of all flavor items

If you ever played Elder Scrolls or Destiny, they both have a "Library" tab for all of the in game lore you find. I don't think Blizz needs to force any unique gameplay with it, the survey stuff is annoying. Just allows us to have a log of all of the interesting find we find as we explore the game and do all sorts of content.

Potentially as you accumulate a certain number of items or specific set of entries, you can unlock a meta "secret" or something akin to the secrets of azeroth special quests and get a cosmetic or item.

[Spaceball Prime]

If you want to tie archeology into Delves, I say make it a way to get more keys for delves, the delves themselves could drop items that would lead to dig sites. You would have to figure the clues out to find the sites, you find the site and find items, transmogs, bountiful keys.

[Zodiark]

Bob <real life guild> "hey I just have a 20 minutes break, I’ll jump in a delve. Oh wait I now have to spend 15/30/60 minutes looking for its entrance"

What an horrible idea…

I kinda dig... this idea! See what I did there?

But yeah anyhow I am a RL gamer dad. I have a job and things I do that demand I am always on the move. Right now I'm kinda excited to have THREE full hours to play. This kind of thing I would imagine would be for those times when I have more time to do it. Maybe jump on for a few minutes to search around for clues. Maybe another few short sessions I could uncover the entrance for the Delve. Then when I have at least 20-30 minutes of uninterrupted time I could do said delve.

I don't mind bite sized chunks of gameplay personally. I have a PSVita in my bathroom which I use to play some old classic JRPG's like FF6 or some such. Often times I get little done as I'm only in there maybe 5-10 minutes doing my business. But over the course of several small chunks I have sunk over 100 hours into a game. I even used this method to beat Breath of the Wild on my Switch!

- - - Updated - - -

He's not saying this should replace all delves, you could still just do the standard ones.

I feel like Sniffenseeking in Loamm was a good template for Archaeology.

But I like your idea too, just add some randomly generated Delves to go with the theme (Fossil/Orc/NE/Tolvir/etc).

We got some really jaded people that spend way too long on these forums. So miserable.

Yeah pretty much. This is one of the reasons why after over 10 years I still haven't even hit 1000 posts. Because after a few comments, I'm like yeah, I'm done. Going to play the ACTUAL game now...

[Z3ROR]

He's not saying this should replace all delves, you could still just do the standard ones.

Exactly. I am talking about the Delves-system. Not the Delves that are in the game right now. Blizzard could use the Delves-system to create smaller sized Delves to explore when you find them with Archaeology.

I feel like Sniffenseeking in Loamm was a good template for Archaeology.

But I like your idea too, just add some randomly generated Delves to go with the theme (Fossil/Orc/NE/Tolvir/etc)

Yes, this. There are many caves or indoor spaces created by Blizzard through the year. So it's not that they have to invent the wheel again. For caves they already uses one or two templates for each continent and fill randomly with stuff so they look different each time. That is what they can do here too. And with AI that process can be even made much easier for them. But i leave that to Blizzard to decide.

With the Archaeology-delves the tiers could be increased based on the Archaeology-level for that continent/expansion.

[sam86]

i love archeology as it is right now and just wish they update it for new zones, that's it, even update to DF zones too (forget SL, better delete that exp)

[Just Passing through]

Well - to me "Rolling down in the deeps" and "Delves" ARE archaeology - no "solution" needed.

Doesn't mean they can't expand and likely will. I think "clear all delves and one of them at Tier 8 to unlock a BIG BAD BOSS delve" is already the first step. (at least I think it is how Zekvir works)