I’ve played expeditions a decent amount and have unlocked all 8 current grid points & gotten ~61k tech-remnants (TR), so here’s my general feedback for the mode.
I want to start by saying that I enjoy the mode despite its faults, and that the mode is quite refreshing compared to the main game mode and the last 2 (more like 1.5) modes we’ve gotten: havoc has good things going for it (the spawns) but is mostly buried beneath layers upon layers of obtuse & unnecessary systems and badly designed modifiers, and mortis trials is straight up just boring and/or cheesy for the most part.
Expeditions however, is different. There’s extreme CQB mixed horde clearing for doing objectives on POIs, and there’s also long range combat against ranged elites. Neither truly outmatches the other and players have to think about both, which is really cool. Unlike havoc where the problems are intertwined with the mode’s fundamental designs, expeditions’ issues can largely be fixed.
First off, the mode needs polish, badly. I’ve ran into a significant number of mission aborts (before hotfix 1.11.1) and crashes (after hotfix 1.11.1), both of which I’ve reported on the forums already. This needs to be addressed quickly because the mode’s core progression hinges entirely upon a team’s ability to extract.
Secondly, while there is a good gameplay loop here, the meta progression is unintuitive and largely meaningless. For example, you can’t unlock later grid points without playing specific grid points before it, so you could be quick playing for several hours but actually unlocking no new grid points.
Tech-remnants are also weird. For starters, they don’t seem to scale up in quantity between difficulties, so the current fastest way to grind TR and unlock grid points & complete penances is to speedrun POIs on malice difficulty… which is not that fun for long time players. This has to be a major design oversight, and I believe TR should scale up in quantity as difficulty increases, with auric being at least twice of what malice offers.
This mode also lacks a real endgame. There’s no driving force behind each run, because TR is ultimately used just for unlocking grid points and getting penances. It’s a number that goes up but that number is largely meaningless, and doesn’t tie into the game’s overall player progression. It would be great if TR was made into a currency where you can purchase player upgrades (specific to the expeditions game mode) and item upgrades (improving your existing weapons & curios).
Curios’ meta progression has been sorely lacking since the crafting update overhauled weapon crafting, and it still largely revolves around RNG gambling, which doesn’t respect the player’s time or effort. Allowing players to spend the TR they extract from expeditions to improve their curios to their max value (+17% toughness, +21% health and +3 stamina) at 430 rating would be a major gamechanger for player progression.
Beyond curios, it would also help if TR could be spent to improve weapons, and I don’t mean it as an alternative to the current weapon crafting, but a step beyond. I don’t think it would be completely ridiculous to allow players to get 5x80 stat weapons (no dump stat, essentially) from spending TR. It would be a significant enough driving force for long time players to grind the mode and max out their gear, without actually significantly affecting weapon balance, since most weapons’ dump stats are mobility / defences / collateral.
Thoughts and/or feedback are welcome 