This is a really stupid loot system to have in an instance where you are trying to outpace the other team.
Yeah. I don't like it. To get loot (or a chance for it) we need to ignore the race with the other faction and focus on rares and events while still winning the race.
Just a theory. I have gotten plenty of rewards and haven’t killed the “required” mobs. I think wowhead really shouldn’t be publishing unconfirmed theory’s without getting it confirmed by blizzard first.
1. It is confirmed by almost everyone, who tried it it.2. Almost every creature, except crocolisks, bears, wolfs, and azerite elementals give loot (other elementals do), that's why people getting loot even if not following this strat. It is hard to do IE without killing anything. But if someone will say that he got loot after afking whole run, with 0 azerite collected, then probably there are some minimum loot chance guaranteed per run.3. You are getting loot if you loose, probably the same chance as if you win. Also with this strat you getting quests for 700 AP very often, so it compensates not getting AP for the win. But if you have enoughgear, it is still easy to do this strat, and still win, at least on heroic.4. If you do this strat on Normal, and getting no loot, try it on Heroic. Though the guide says difficulty doesn't matter, Normal has much lower loot per run. Maybe loot per time is close, or equal, but if you like to see loot at the end of each run more frequently, Normal looks less fun.5. There is 2 types of runs now, for "Cap", and for "Rares". If you solo queue and get 2 randoms, you still need to agree on something, cause it is group content. If you want to do only "Cap", or only "Rares", it is much better option to join, or to make a premade for it. That's mean if you join random queue you probably should be ready to do either option. If all 3 people agree with some strat, it is good, and lucky. If it is 2-1, and 1 don't follow 2 others, well it depends on people and situations, but it is legit option to kick in this case.
Il make more than 50 islands, maybe more than 100, il exp my alt like this from 110 to 120, just Island exp, doing marks,killing same mobs, not looting azerite and i get only cosmetic head 2x for all time that i do all this islands.. !
Even knowing this, the drop rates are apparently low to non-existant. I have never seen anything at all drop, even with targetting more specific mobs recently or running normal expeditions. I run about 5-10 a week to get the bar filled up, and clearly that's not enough to get any real chance at loot (but really, 7 a week is a chore already, it feels like a really long quest area but even less interesting, or a normal mode dungeon without bosses)It's such an annoying design, and so easy to make it more interesting. Up the droprates drastically so you at least get a decent chance at *something* every week by doing the ~7 required runs. Make the dubloons currency for buying the same items. Make a solo version. Delete all the pointless critters from the islands (I think they are actually doing that one).
If this really is the case, it seems like a very broken system that wasn't very well thought out. Collectors are a niche audience, and most pugs pugs don't give a damn. I guarantee that if you random queued and said "let's target some pirates to see if we can get Squawks," you'll get ignored.Further exacerbating the issue is the fact that the expeditions are designed with a bit of a passive time limit: collect more azerite than the other guys. If the main goal is to collect more azerite than the other team and you're doing that by any means necessary, you're going to miss a lot of the enemies that provide these rewards, assuming that any of this is factual.So not only did Blizzard not consider the lack of consideration from pugs, they also didn't consider that the widespread placement of enemies on the map has inadvertently made certain reward-targeting virtually impossible.I usually don't hound Blizzard for their creative decisions and I try to give them as much understanding as I can about why they chose to do things. But this is the opposite of productive. It seems almost like it was designed to punish collectors rather than reward them. It's like they're dangling those rewards in front of players and telling them to take a dive, then yanking it away before they can reach it.Now, if there's a reward that drops from a dungeon or raid and I can't yet acquire it in this expansion, I try to farm it in future ones. If they decide to leave Island Expeditions like this, I really hope they apologetically give collectors the option to solo them in the future.Again, that's assuming that the theory holds water. We need a lot more evidence and data before we can really confirm it... but I wouldn't decline the theory just yet, either. This seems like the sort of thing Blizzard would do, to be honest.
I had a pirate invasion, I took the portal (cannon) to get on the ship then killed the pirate captain, I was rewarded with Squawks at the end. Another run i had the fire volcano invasion and got a fire elemental pet. Killed vrykuls and got Plundered Blade of Northern KingsKilled pirates and got scuttle crab minion. Barnaby minion. Octopus minion. Killed mogus and got green quality mogu plate themed transmog items. I have leveled 2 characters from 110-120 doing only Island Expeditions. I don’t think this is theory. Seems pretty confirmed. At least from my experience. So far all loots seems tied to the invasion mob themes.
now the question is this true?
Can anyone confirm drops from characters below 120? I remember getting drops on my DK when leveling to 120. But that was two weeks ago. Now I'm leveling my Warlock and so far from 110-115, I haven't gotten a single drop, after farming rares nonstop on islands. Did they nerf drops below 120? Seems odd to do 50 islands in a row with no drops, when a couple weeks ago I was getting loot every other on my other chars.
What a great at-a-glance guide, thanks so much for the time put into it! I haven't had much time to do IEs so this combined with an urge to level an alt this way provides some much-needed motivation to give them a solid go and a way to make it more fun :)EDIT: Words are hard. <3
It's very good theory based on evidence but it's not accurate. I got a crab pet previously without killing (or evens seeing a crab on the island).I have now just got Snapper (the turtle pet, listed as a turtle drop and we did not kill any turtles - not sure there were any on island)This is a simplistic view of how loot is working and is probably right 90% of the time but there is more to this than killing the right mobs. It's completely feasible that some things are based on which island rather than which mobs you kill.Also may just be that some mobs drop things you wouldn't immediately associate with them. Of course if you got loot when killing mobs or opening chest rather than at the end, this would be an awful lot more transparent for players.
One of the quest items is "Vorus'arak's Carapace" and there are several reports of getting it after killing a rare named "Vorus'arak" (surprise!).Only one data point of many in line with this theory, both personally-experienced and external, but it seems unlikely they'd only have a single quest item tied to a specific named mob.
I got Squawks yesterday from a Mogu invasion....i send an e-mail on wowhead about that...