Leveling Quick Fixes: Treasure Hunting and Creep Camps

This article is part of a series. Click here to go to the intro article where a table of contents is available.

The act of finding treasure in WoW has gone through two distinct stages that both encourage some form of exploration. The first involved finding a randomly spawned treasure chest in an encampment with randomized goods which would upset modern gamers but is based on a traditional RPG staple of filling enemy camps with loot. In this case, such chests typically required the player to search surroundings that quest objectives lead them to. Fixed treasure spawns were added in Mists of Pandaria and as the name implies, they always spawn in the same area. They often yield roughly the same loot but each character can only loot it once. These treasures are often hidden and require the player to go off the beaten path to find.

Creep camps, which were camps filled with enemies in Warcraft 3, played a similar role in encouraging exploration and often featured exceptionally powerful enemies that dropped useful items. This feature exists to a degree in WoW but even though I have fond memories of finding a treasure-laden camp guarded by quilboar including a rare spawn "leader," such experiences never quite held a candle to similar experiences in Warcraft 3.

Ultimately, I believe the idea of embracing creep camps and discoverable treasures as forms of leveling content makes for a great quick fix that can be implemented in many tiny installments. The result would be a gradual enrichment of the leveling experience that makes it more enjoyable for both new and experienced players by adding a sense of wonder through discovery.

Treasures and Creep Camps as Leveling Content

Treasures, as I've mentioned above, fall under two classifications. Randomly spawned treasure is simple to implement since it's already present and would simply involve adding more locations where treasure chests and other similarly rewarding objects spawn. Treasure spawn rate should also be considered and in my opinion the base rate should be upped substantially in addition to scaling the spawn rate with the amount of players in a given zone.

Fixed spawn treasure would require more care to add since all leveling zones prior to Mists of Pandaria lack such treasures. A good ground rule to follow when adding spawn locations for these treasures is to consider spots that are infrequently explored or would make good areas to hide something in plain sight. Blizzard has already been pretty good about placing fixed spawn treasures though so I'm confidence they can find many places in lower level zones to hide exploration rewards.

Creep camps are a little more complex and require more extensive ground rules. As a general rule, I think they should be visible but out of the way so that questing players can consider the option of checking an unrelated area to see what it has to offer. A few can also be hidden in a manner similar to fixed spawn treasures so that if players can receive a pleasant surprise if they happen upon them. Creep camps can contain typical enemies and destructibles, both of which can yield loot, much like their Warcraft 3 counterparts. However, not all creep camps need to follow this convention and some could instead be filled with neutral or friendly mobs or maybe consist of an empty, ransacked camp with hidden loot and destructible objects.

Creep camps should also have variant details so that each leveling experience in the area can feel a little different even if the player happens upon the same camp. While this can be accomplished by adding timed phase changes like with World Quests initially, a good end goal to strive for is a more organic system where various mobs contest control of a camp from each other. The winners of such conflicts, which should generally be the aggressor if possible, take it over and change aspects of the camp such as the enemy type, rewards, and decorative objects (like banners and destructibles).

Rewards

In general, both treasures and creep camps should have some global rewards that allows for comparison with other leveling activities so players can weigh how they spend their time. With that said, experience outside of killing mobs at a creep camp is not one of those rewards. Instead, I think the global rewards should consist of the Justice Point-like currency I mentioned in my previous article in this series and runes, a consumable inspired by Warcraft 3, WoW Battlegrounds, and a similar feature in recent endgame zones that is instantly used when it is looted or interacted with. The former would be useful for purchasing gear tokens and other goods while the latter provides a personal benefit that is useful for leveling in some way. Examples of rune effects could include healing all nearby players, adding Rested experience, and proving moderate-duration buffs that only work outside of competitive instances. While runes could be made an exclusive reward from treasures and creep camps, similar consumables could be purchasable for the Justice Point-like currency and (eventually) craftable with Inscription.

In terms of specifics, random treasures in particular need a serious overhaul. One aspect of the overhaul is to increase the frequency of discovery, which was addressed in the previous section. However, I think it would also help to improve the loot especially when considering level scaling mechanics are considered. This is why I think loot should either be appropriate to the character's level if it's within the zone's level bracket or based on a random level within the bracket if not. Loot should also be more consistent and typically award at least one uncommon BoE item in addition to the various consumables, reagents, and/or money that the treasure normally yields. The exception to this is objects that are intended to reward specific loot such as the food and drink containers I linked above since the rate of appearance and where they appear are different and can therefore be independently controlled.

Meanwhile, fixed treasures could draw inspiration for rewards from every iteration of fixed treasure. This means loot can range from currency to flavorful vendor junk to toys to gear. To make the process of adding fixed treasures easier, there should be an emphasis on rewards such as the former two since most of the effort spent on implementation would be used to carefully place many treasures instead of determining what they yield. More thoughtfully designed treasure can be added in small amounts periodically or backloaded.

Creep camps will typically have mobs which should yield a slightly enhanced version of their standard rewards (up to a 25% bonus) to compensate for the extra time spent traveling and the fact not every camp will contain killable mobs. Destructibles in the camp may yield loot from the world drop loot table in addition to frequently awarding vendor junk. Creep camps are also an excellent place to put randomly spawned treasure which should contain the standard rewards described above. Finally, if there is time to implement it, creep camps could reward bonus experience in additional ways such as a turn-in quest that can be looted from mobs or destructibles there.

Implementation Logistics

I think implementation of treasures and creep camps is quite cut and dry. Every patch could easily add many random treasure nodes and some fixed treasure nodes. Encampments that are in-game but not seeing a lot of use can be gradually converted into creep camps that initially have static mob spawns with each patch as well. Meanwhile, more demanding work such as the rework of random treasure loot and more intricate creep camp design can be implemented later.

Goals This Feature Accomplishes

Adding both of these features accomplishes one of the goals in the intro article thoroughly which as I've mentioned above repeatedly is immersion primarily through exploration. Much like with rare spawns, players have to be observant outside of the usage of an addon especially when it comes to discovering treasures since even a randomly spawned treasure may be hiding in plain sight. Fixed treasures can improve upon the immersion through their loot since even vendor trash can tell a short story through its flavor text much like with many Pandaria treasures. Creep camps help to give the world more life by showing there's many tiny settlements that are or were full of NPCs doing their own thing.

Both of these features may eventually be able to give way to some practical tutorials. For example, finding a treasure may also require some platforming elements and creep camps may have enemies that provide a mechanical challenge. However, these would take more time and care to develop which is why I opted out of making such suggestions. I also find most of the articles for this series focus more on the idea of producing practical tutorials over enhancing the immersiveness of the leveling experience so hopefully this article balances that out.

To close, I think this is one of the most practical suggestions out of the entire series to implement because it can be done over many small installments without further fragmenting the leveling experience. I do not personally mind if the experience is temporarily fragmented further in favor of a good end goal but having an option like this available allows for plans that don't resort to such a method.