Cross-world Expeditions
and Improved Group Finder
The community was disappointed when Cross World expeditions were moved off the 2023 Roadmap and delayed to an unspecified time. Well, my friends, that time is now. Cross-World Expeditions and Improved Group Finder are due to land on our shores tomorrow, 7 February, along with the Year of the Dragon event.
Improved User Experience
Whether you love or hate the current lobby system, it can’t be said that finding it is a smooth experience. No longer will we need to scan the map and click each expedition icon to check for lobbies or join a dungeon group. Instead, we have a new Activities tab and can access all the expeditions from there, as well as Trials (so far just the Sandworm), 3×3 Arenas, and Outpost Rush. There’s also a link to the Leaderboards, keeping this all neatly in one easily accessible place.
What about M3?
The big stir in the community when the PTR for cross-world Group Finder was released was about M3 being missing from the new feature. This is still the case, however you can continue to form M3 groups through the old Lobby system, which I believe can also be accessed through the improved interface. At least, on the PTR I clicked through to an area that looked just like the old lobbies.
Cross World
Cross world is a great solution to server population issues, even if it is a bit slow in development. For larger regions like Europe and NA East, this means access to a much larger pool of players, which should result in lower wait times for engaging in content. For AP Southeast, this is slightly less exciting for Delosians but should make quite a difference to our Sutekhese kin. Before you get too excited, the H menu is disabled between cross-world players, so no sneaky black market trading in dark places … or sharing of consumables … allowed.
Role selection and bonuses
The new system is built around the Tank, Healer, 3 DPS group structure and there are requirements and bonuses for signing up as a Tank or Healer. These bonuses are quite minor and only just cover respec cost.
- Regular Expeditions – 50 Gold 500 Faction Tokens (2 per day)
- Mutated Expeditions – 100 Gold 1000 Faction Tokens (1 per day)
So you need to run your full quota, 2 regular and 1 mutated, just to cover your respec cost, which is pretty much my only criticism of the new system. It should be 400g in total, so that you can respec back to your preferred role after you’ve done your duty.
It also sounds like you can respec once in the dungeon, which is much better than the alternative, but hopefully people only use this for flexibility and not trolling.
Incentives for using Improved Group Finder
Apart from role bonuses, there are daily caches for completing expeditions using the new Group Finder system.
- For players under level 65, there is a huge XP bonus – 50% of your current level, plus 3 Vials of Azoth (please sell these to my Buy Order if you have no use for them!).
- For level 65 players, there is 400 gold and 15k faction tokens to add to the daily income by doing 2 regular expeditions and 1 mutation.
- For anyone who has unlocked M3, there’s an extra 100 gold Carry Bonus per day for running a mutation.
Paving the way for the future
In the Forged in Aeternum video, it was implied that the code they have created to allow for role selection and checks in the Improved Group Finder system forms a foundation for adding Matchmaking to other game modes. Outpost Rush and Arena players have been asking for matchmaking for some time now, so this looks very promising for them.
The improved user experience and daily incentives to join in group content should see some solid improvement in player retention. While this isn’t really exciting new content, it is much needed infrastructure and a welcome addition to the game.
From the source:
You can visit a direct link here, or read a copy of the news below:
Greetings, Adventurers!
Your favorite Expeditions will offer less wait times and even more rewards when Cross-World Expeditions with Improved Group Finder releases on February 7. Through player feedback, the Activity Finder menu, and our matchmaking system, we have taken big steps toward our vision of more accessible instanced modes. We can’t thank our players enough for their patience as we took the time needed to get these cross-world systems in place. Here’s a walkthrough of each new feature, plus details on our new bonus rewards.
THE ACTIVITY FINDER
First, visit the “Activities” (formerly “Modes”) tab of the in-game Nav Bar. From there, you’ll see a new screen which gathers all of New World’s instanced content in one place for easier access.
CROSS-WORLD EXPEDITIONS
Similar to Outpost Rush, any player from any world within the same region can be matched together to form a new instance. This means significantly less time spent finding groups and more time running Expeditions. You also no longer need to build your own group by hand. These new Activities screens finally allow you to view any Expedition Entrance screen and Lobby Finder from a single list, instead of the Map.
Note: You can still build your own Expedition group, enter Expeditions manually, and use the lobby-based group finder if you prefer.
HOW TO PLAY CROSS-WORLD EXPEDITIONS
If you’re playing solo, or in a group of 4 or less Adventurers, you can enter the cross-world Expedition group finder in one of two ways.
Click Random to enter a queue for every Expedition you can currently access. This is the quickest way to find a group and grants a bonus upon completion (2x daily).
Use the check-boxes on the left of each Expedition to make a specific Expedition list and then click the Queue button. There is no daily bonus for this option, but you’ll have more control over the selected Expedition.
CHOOSE A ROLE
Before you can enter the Expedition queue, you’ll need to choose a role. We introduced group roles along with our lobby-based group finder, but they were optional. Now they are mandatory since our Expeditions are designed around the classic trinity of DPS/tank/healer and there is no group leader to enforce this balance in the new system. This means that each Expedition group must consist of 3 DPS, 1 tank, and 1 healer.
Any player who signs up as a tank or healer will receive an additional role bonus when finishing the Expedition. In order to sign up as a tank or healer, you must pass a requirement check. These vary depending on the Expedition.
When entering as a group, all players must choose a role. The role selection screen will display each player’s selection.
WAIT IN THE QUEUE
The queue is similar to 3v3 Arenas, visible from both in-game and the Activity Finder. You won’t be able to accept invites from other modes or enter a different queue, while waiting for a cross-world Expedition. Currently, the only information displayed in the queue is elapsed time—we will add more visibility to the queue status in a future update.
BUFFS AND BACKFILLS
Once inside the Expedition, your random group will receive a 15% damage, healing, and max HP buff to compensate for the lack of familiarity when playing together.
If a group member drops, you won’t be able to send invites from inside a cross-world Expedition. Instead, after the dropped player’s 3 minute re-join grace period ends, the queue system will find the first available backfill. Backfills will always have the same role as the player who left. Players that prefer to avoid backfilling roles can opt-out of joining in-progress Expeditions via the toggle beneath the Queue button.
DESERTER PENALTY
Players that leave the Expedition after 10 minutes without going through a group-voted Abandon will receive the Deserter Penalty. This penalty prevents players from queuing again for 10 minutes (this value may change). To initiate an Abandon Expedition vote, use the “…” menu in the Group HUD, or find the Abandon button on the Map screen of in the “Backfilling…” HUD.
MUTATED EXPEDITIONS
Mutated Expeditions function like normal Expeditions, except for the following differences:
Elite (M3) difficulty is not available through the cross-world group finder. The main reason is to keep M3 competitive and maintain highly coordinated team play. You can still use the lobby-based group finder for M3s.
Anyone placed into a difficulty level lower than what they’ve unlocked will earn a carry bonus upon completion of the Expedition.
The Random daily bonus is available once daily.
Entrance criteria and role selection validation are much more stringent.
Note: Rise of the Angry Earth is required to experience Mutated Expeditions.
BONUS REWARDS
Keep an eye out for Daily, Role, and Carry bonus rewards at the end of the Expedition. Each one will be added to your inventory upon completion. Note that XP rewards are instantly received when defeating the final boss.
Rewards with daily limits reset at 5 AM local time. For example, if a player earns their second Expedition Bonus Cache at 4:58 AM, they’ll be able to earn another at 5:01 AM. The following values may change based on player feedback.
NORMAL EXPEDITIONS
Expedition Bonus Cache (2x daily)
If player is under Level 65:
50% XP of current level – Granted upon Expedition completion
3 Vials of Azoth
If player is Level 65:
125 Gold
2500 Faction Tokens
Expedition Role Bonus Cache (2x daily)
50 Gold
500 Faction Tokens
MUTATED EXPEDITIONS
Mutator Bonus Cache (1x daily)
150 Gold
10000 Faction Tokens
Mutator Role Bonus Cache (1x daily)
100 Gold
1000 Faction Tokens
Mutator Carry Bonus Cache (1x daily)
100 Gold
Thanks for your support and we’ll see you in Aeternum!
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