Breakfast Topic: How do you feel after spending time with archaeology?
by Deb Montague 
Nov 16th 2011 at 8:00AM
Right now, I'm taking a break from archaeology. I spent the days between the U.S. holidays of Memorial Day and Labor Day digging from two to six hours, flying up and down Kalimdor, in an attempt to get the Vial of the Sands. I felt someone within my guild should have it. While I had other guild members doing archaeology, they weren't dedicated -- no, the proper term is "crazy" -- enough to spend hours doing this. By the end of August, I didn't care about the items that got me 100 or 200 gold when vendored (Cat Statue with Emerald Eyes and Silver Scroll Case). I just wanted the recipe. Finally, after my fifth canopic jar, there it was. I had all the mats ready, and the day I got it, I could become a dragon.
I almost never use the mount. If someone wants a ride, I transform and we go once or twice around town. But as my permanent ride? No. It's too big and awkward for my tastes.
So was it worth it? Yes, yes it was, but I have been thinking about the archaeology rewards. One of my guild members spent a great deal of time digging in Northrend and has all the purple rewards from that continent. Most people I know do archaeology until they get the Pterrodax Hatchling and the Fossilized Raptor and then quit. They can't stand the grind anymore. I've got the dressing gown and the ring, which have gone to an alt, and I keep The Innkeeper's Daughter in the bank. It was funny at first, but then it just got annoying to have her follow me and then drop over dead when I stopped running.
It seems as if archaeology is a love it or hate it profession. When I ask guild members how they are doing with it, most have given up. They don't like flying all over a continent for a reward they aren't sure of. Even people who I know are completionists have not embraced archaeology as they did cooking or first aid. It seems to rank lower than fishing on the like scale.
We know change to the profession is coming. It's been announced we'll be able to specialize in one culture and dig up only artifacts in that culture. I would have liked that for Tol'vir. It would have made the low drop rate on the recipe akin to running Stratholme for that blasted horse. I can deal with that. It was the need to fly all over Kalimdor that made me feel I was being really stupid for trying to get this.
How has the profession treated you? Do you have everything or did you quit right after you got the raptor mount? Do you think the amount of time you have to spend equals the rewards? Have you even picked it up, or have the horror stories of the long grind caused you to say nope? Do you have a favorite item you've received from archaeology? (Personally, I'm waiting for void storage so I can get these things out of my bags ...)
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Archaeology, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 8)
Taino Nov 16th 2011 8:06AM
I find it mildly annoying. I am still 4 rares from professor and the only epics I have been lucky enough to craft have been the lvl 60 cloth robe and lvl 60 mail helm. Leveling it didn't seem that bad honestly as it filled some of the doldrums I began having with Wow. Not it is just annoying. No mount, and I have not had a rare in almost a month now.
sezen Nov 16th 2011 9:03AM
I'm in the same boat, but I only got those two epics after I decided I wasn't going to roll another alt.
Thundrcrackr Nov 16th 2011 9:27AM
Arch was a huge disappointment for me. There really is no excitement to it and it seems like such a blatant time sink that Blizz tried to pass off as a "cool new profession".
Things i hate about it:
-Getting two grey items in a row is disheartening enough. Getting the SAME grey item two times in a row is soul crushing. This happens to me all the time. I can't believe Blizz didn't add a simple check to make sure it doesn't give you the exact same item twice in a row.
-There is no way to choose the type of sites you dig. Blizz says it favors the types you still have uncompleted rares with, but they could've fooled me. I've been trashing fossil and night elf fragments for months now and still haven't gotten all the troll, dwarf, or tolvir items i need. And does the canopic jar even count as a rare due to the recipe it might contain? I doubt it. Oh, and don't even get me started on how many of those i've opened without getting the recipe.
-There is nothing to do with the grey items other than vendor them. Just a simple thing like repeatable turn-in quests for a little extra gold and skill points would have added a lot of incentive to the profession. Or better yet, make the grey items count as some type of currency you can use to purchase the rare items from an Arch vendor so even if you're horribly unlucky finding rares in the field, you'll at least eventually be able to trade in enough lesser items for them.
-And what is with the random low level rares that are only usable with a few random classes/specs? I of course got all of those right away which are completely useless to me but have been farming the 359 staff and sword to this day with no avail.
The last thing this game needed was more RNG, and Arch is nothing but 100% RNG.
LynMars Nov 16th 2011 9:45AM
I quit after getting my professor. Even with rares left, it's not worth it anymore. I do have some fun lore and flavor items now, but...
I like some of the other suggestions I'm seeing in the comments for ways to change it. I also think a daily in the capitals that does research-y bookwork minigame stuff, or little item fetches in town (go to the Scribes and get some ink and paper) could be more entertaining than flying back and forth to get more vendor trash and empty canopic jars.
I tried to start arch on some other characters--for one, it'd be perfect for RP reasons--but I just can't do the grin anymore, even as a completionist.
Phoenix Nov 16th 2011 5:50PM
You cannot get 2 same grey items in a row unless you discovered all of them.After you discover all greys then the queue becomes random. I know that from blue posts and experience.
About choosing sites: Didn't they implement in a patch that if you have everything (all greys and rares) of a race it would appear less frequently on the map? It sure doesn't feel like it with Nelvs -.-
VSUReaper Nov 16th 2011 10:39AM
I'm with Lynmars: I got the junk items, but the stuff I want is eluding me.
I have 90% of the rares, missing the staff, 1h sword, 2h sword, the NE trinket, and the AQ mount from Tol'vir.
Every now and then, I get bored enough to go chasing after something, but after about 45 min I remember why I quit it in the first place - takes to long to go from one place to another and then actually finding the items.
If they could change any one thing about it, I would just want the ability to choose what race I was working on. I could stand getting the same grey item again and again, but if I could just systematically focus on that one race until it was all done.... that would make the profession about 100 times better.
Hell, I would understand if it was pick one race and Tol'vir sites would also show up - that would be better than the NE, NE, NE NE, NE, Dwarf, Tolvir, NE, NE, NE, NE, NE, NE, NE, NE, NE, NE, NE, NE, troll, fossil, NE, NE, NE, NE, NE, NE, NE, NE, NE, NE, NE, NE, troll....
devilsei Nov 16th 2011 11:25AM
Thundr, I agree with ya. Fact of the matter was Archaeology was meant to be something more than just a time-sink secondary profession if anyone remembers the Cataclysm trailer. Instead the original idea was dumped, and I'm guessing with the time left Blizzard said "F#$% it" and just threw the current version together hastily. That's how it feels to me at least, bored out of my freaking mind just doing it a few times...
DarkWalker Nov 16th 2011 11:44AM
@Thundrcrackr
Archeology is not just RNG. It's also a hefty dose of pointless travel time.
BTW, both excessive randomness and travel time are among the things I hate the most in any game. guess how I feel about Archeology.
It's the only profession I couldn't bring myself to level. For me, even Fishing was less frustrating than Archeology, and by a wide margin.
Schadenfreude Nov 16th 2011 12:46PM
I'm not going to say that archeology is the least rewarding grind in WoW (that honor probably goes to the old Scepter questline for any of the 39+ people supporting the one person who got to ring the gong), but it is up there.
To improve archeology, I would say that the biggest step would be to eliminate the stupid travel time, and then to reduce the randomness of the dig sites. This could be done through:
a) Make there always be a dig site up for a given race-- this would really help for tol'vir and nerubian, at least in my case, these are the two races I'm most unlucky with, and you could work on a single race exclusively if you wanted to;
b) Make there always be a dig site up /in every zone/ so you can stay in one zone if you wanted to;
c) Make more dig sites be up at a time, plus they take longer to deplete, so less travel time;
d) Make dig sites permanent, all dig sites are always present, but it takes more fragments to complete a given item;
e) Make it much more likely to get a rare project at a higher level.
Poltergeist Nov 16th 2011 2:03PM
As mentioned above, Archaeology was always meant to be the new secondary that complemented the dropped Path of the Titans feature. What we have in game was a last minute Hail Mary by the devs. All of the rewards from Archaeology could have been added as fishing drops around the newly redone zones, all the way up to level 85 bodies of water. Would have made fishing more appealing. Instead, we were left with something even more boring than fishing ever was.
I'm guessing that a revamp of the whole profession is on the table with Mists, considering how well it COULD tie into the new pet battle system if done correctly.
Pyromelter Nov 16th 2011 2:40PM
Blizz should have scrapped archaeology when they scrapped path of the titans. it went from being a really cool side game to being just another grind.
Talia Nov 16th 2011 3:47PM
From Thundrcrackr: "Blizz says it favors the types you still have uncompleted rares with, but they could've fooled me. "
This is exactly my issue with it. I was SO HAPPY to get that last NE rare; not because I wanted it, but I would finally get to cut down on the NE digsites! (See VSUReaper's comment.) Except it didn't. All I want is the Crawling Claw, and I go through so many stretches of "nothin' but Night Elf", not to mention the other dirty sites creeping in there.
I've actually thought of asking on the forums if that idea got scrapped, or missed in the code, or if I'm missing a rare, or.... something. 'Cause it's sure not working.
Mummrah Nov 16th 2011 7:53PM
They need to add to the low lvl NE dress and the ench shaman/hunter helm a +10% to XP so that anyone who has them will actually use them since it's also probably pretty likely (I think anyway) that they would have access to the heirloom helm and probably already have the heirloom cloth robe. I used the dressing gown on my mage until level 63 just for a new look for my character but went back to the heirloom after only 2 levels b/c its stats were better by then.
Eyhk Nov 17th 2011 12:48PM
I think one way they could make it better would be to have each artifact show up EXACTLY ONCE until ALL artifacts in that category were found. That way there is a known upper bound to the amount of misery you take before getting what you want.
That, and quests from certain lesser artifacts that award you more fragments.
Jamie Nov 16th 2011 8:07AM
Pretty much... Befuddled:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-DuOkGMF58&t=1m00s
Literaltruth Nov 16th 2011 8:07AM
Most of the time I trust Blizzard to know what they are doing. I think that most of the changes made to the game are probably for the better overall. However, archeology is one of the few things that's made me think that sometimes they just don't.
They say all the time now that their main priority is that things be fun. But I've never known anyone to describe Archeology as anything but a soul-destroying grind. And if you ever have someone describe archeology to you, it's immediately obvious that it's not a fun thing to do. I don't understand how Blizzard could have imagined that Archeology would be something that people would actually find in any way enjoyable.
They would have been much better spending the development time that went into it on making fishing more enjoyable - as they said they were going to and then never mentioned again. Making one dull profession into a fun profession would have been much better than adding in a second, arguably even duller, secondary profession.
Jamie Nov 16th 2011 8:08AM
Soooooo we're just straight up ignoring Fishing here or what?
Jamie Nov 16th 2011 8:09AM
Wow learn to read Jamie! Fishing was mentioned...
MattKrotzer Nov 16th 2011 8:10AM
Hey, they said they were going to improve fishing, and they did! We got a bobber icon on mouseover, and then a hook!
Those are way more exciting than the silly gear that used to pop up!
...and now I feel like Mon Mothma. "Many man-hours died to bring us this new feature..."
zweitblom Nov 16th 2011 8:36AM
I know I am repeating myself - but hell, if Blizzard can, I can - but I still think that Blizzard's way to 'make fishing more fun' simply involved coming up with Archaeology.
While you can't catch 200g fish and the (very) occasional epic, at least fishing gives you benefits from level 6 onwards, doesn't involve hours of travel, has guaranteed results, has two weekly contests, a lot more *fun* achievements connected to it (I mean, come on, one of them is fishing up a bobdarn *raid boss*), daily quests on all three 'continents' with rewards that can easily amount up to 200g *a day* (hellooo Dalaran).
That said - I did all the Archeology achievements. But it's something that I - well, did. I am still cooking and doing fishing, yet I do not see me doing any digging anymore, because it's - well - kinda pointless.