Scouting Map Missions
The third system that every Covenant has is a Scouting Map. This is an extension of the Mission System that we first introduced back in Warlords of Draenor, and we have kind of tinkered with that formula a couple of times since then, and I think the basic loop there is that we have moved away from its central importance that we have had in Warlords, and I think that we are not looking to go back to the Warlords era version of this being a source of the best raid gear in the game, or what have you; but it’s an outlet for some storytelling.
Some offline progression. So you have something waiting for you where you login and something that you can maybe check in on in shorter sessions; but we want to add more depth to the system than what we had in the last couple of expansions.
What we have previously really is just it boils down to a coin flip, you are doing a simple matching game, matching counters to threats, and maybe you have got up to a 170% success chance to get your bonus reward, and hope you get lucky, and really if you didn’t because I think you could have done better, you don’t think you did right or wrong, and it’s either you succeed or fail.
We want to re-envision the foundations of that system to be something that is a better analog to the fantasy that we are trying to convey. The way a mission works in Warcraft isn’t a coin flip. The way combat works in Warcraft when you are sending these champions out into a dangerous area isn’t success or failure. It is nuanced gameplay with tanks and healers and melee dps and ranged dps as a party of combatants fight a bunch of enemies; and so this is an abstracted form of that type of combat.
It still will happen while you are offline, but there is a turn-based system here where you will level up your Soulbinds, recruit additional champions, and ventures to bolster their ranks and send troops custom based on your Covenant out to complete these missions and obviously, bring some of that sweet loot that you are looking for.
There is a lot of depth to the system, we are going to have an early peek at it in our next couple of builds, and we will continue to add more breath to it over the course of the Beta.
Really curious to hear initial hands-on impressions, and as always with all of our features, we want to jump in and react quickly to whatever feedback we hear.
As before, adventures will also be supported in our mobile companion app, which will be updated for Shadowlands at the time of the expansion’s release.
NEXT: COVENANT SANCTUMS
| SHADOWLANDS DEVELOPER UPDATE TRANSCRIPT | |||
| 1. Shadowlands Collector's Edition | 2. Shadowlands Alpha Recap | 3. Shadowlands Beta | 4. Covenants |
| 5. Soulbinds | 6. Conduits | 7. Renown | 8. Upgrade Sanctum |
| 9. Anima Conductor | 10. Scouting Map Missions | 11. Covenant Sanctums | 12. Theater of Pain |
| 13. Return to the Maw | 14. The Road Ahead | ||
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