As a Lore nerd and completionist I have a unquenchable desire to uncover every artifact available in archaeology. In fact most of my time spent in Cataclysm has been doing archaeology. I level to 82 and 84-85 almost solely through archaeology, and at the beginning had a rapid string of rare artifacts pop up. With all the time spent with this profession I do have my qualms with it. The method of gathering artifacts through the hot and cold style surveying doen't bother me, and neither does the traveling from one dig site to another, but there are things I think could make the game more exciting and enjoyable particularly for Lore lovers.
First off lets get rid of the cooldown on Survey The cooldown is a artificial limitation that does not need to exist. The mechanics of surveying and the nature of archaeology prevent people from rapid fire surveying which would be less productive than in most cases anyway. Instead all it does I artificially increase the time it takes to find an artifact once your close. With the increased finding range that was added earlier in the year this was less of an issue. If, however, you are at the edge of the green zone it could result in gathering your fragments taking much more time than it realistically should.
My next issue lies in the random nature of dig sites. Random dig sites is alright, it is a good way to keep the profession too monotonous, but it suddenly becomes and issue when you happen upon a rare artifact. Suddenly you need 150 dwarf artifact, and you have no dwarf dig sites. This forces you to dig up other sites until a Dwarf site spawns. My the ability to spawn a dig site of a specific race is something that would greatly benefit archaeology. My solution, another rare artifact. Ancient Draenei/Orcish Dowsing kit. This artifact would basically let you use a number of uncommon fragments to spawn a specific dig site. Personally i would gladly sacrifice some Nerubian obelisks to spawn a nerubian site on demand. I'd even pay gold, so purchasing a reagent from a vendor or something is not out of the question. Placing them in outland adds something worth getting to the races with limited offering and places a level cap on the divination ability. However it's not a recipe you learn from a trainer, you discover it like any other artifact.
Lastly is the random nature of rare artifacts. Archaeology in the real world does possess a factor of luck, but there is also exstensive research involved. World of Warcraft is filled with little lore bits scattered around the world on grey items and in books. To remove a bit of the RNG from archaeology, interacting with these items good grant archaeologist an item or buff. Going to a proper dig site like a troll site in Tanaris after reading the Ancient Tablet would give you the chance to find a rare (blue) fragment. Give it a fairly high chance like 33% so it's not guaranteed but a still high. The Blue artifacts would be used and have a chance of activating a rare artifact or breaking creating a bunch of uncommon artifacts. Though this is still very much dependent on luck it give players more control, or at least a sense of control, over finding rare artifacts. At the same time it enhances the lore aspect of archaeology.
First off lets get rid of the cooldown on Survey The cooldown is a artificial limitation that does not need to exist. The mechanics of surveying and the nature of archaeology prevent people from rapid fire surveying which would be less productive than in most cases anyway. Instead all it does I artificially increase the time it takes to find an artifact once your close. With the increased finding range that was added earlier in the year this was less of an issue. If, however, you are at the edge of the green zone it could result in gathering your fragments taking much more time than it realistically should.
My next issue lies in the random nature of dig sites. Random dig sites is alright, it is a good way to keep the profession too monotonous, but it suddenly becomes and issue when you happen upon a rare artifact. Suddenly you need 150 dwarf artifact, and you have no dwarf dig sites. This forces you to dig up other sites until a Dwarf site spawns. My the ability to spawn a dig site of a specific race is something that would greatly benefit archaeology. My solution, another rare artifact. Ancient Draenei/Orcish Dowsing kit. This artifact would basically let you use a number of uncommon fragments to spawn a specific dig site. Personally i would gladly sacrifice some Nerubian obelisks to spawn a nerubian site on demand. I'd even pay gold, so purchasing a reagent from a vendor or something is not out of the question. Placing them in outland adds something worth getting to the races with limited offering and places a level cap on the divination ability. However it's not a recipe you learn from a trainer, you discover it like any other artifact.
Lastly is the random nature of rare artifacts. Archaeology in the real world does possess a factor of luck, but there is also exstensive research involved. World of Warcraft is filled with little lore bits scattered around the world on grey items and in books. To remove a bit of the RNG from archaeology, interacting with these items good grant archaeologist an item or buff. Going to a proper dig site like a troll site in Tanaris after reading the Ancient Tablet would give you the chance to find a rare (blue) fragment. Give it a fairly high chance like 33% so it's not guaranteed but a still high. The Blue artifacts would be used and have a chance of activating a rare artifact or breaking creating a bunch of uncommon artifacts. Though this is still very much dependent on luck it give players more control, or at least a sense of control, over finding rare artifacts. At the same time it enhances the lore aspect of archaeology.
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