Expeditions: party adventures

An expedition is a short adventure for one to five players in a private instance: your party gets its own copy of the map, so nobody else's fight gets in your way. Each run is a chain of rooms. Enter a room to start it. Clear its waves, survive its timer or defeat its boss to open the way forward. Beat the final boss, collect your loot and walk into the exit light.

The Nether and the End are reached through expeditions. Vanilla portals are sealed. Nether and End expeditions run in real Nether and End dimensions, with the same sky, fog and creatures.

A full group starts straight away. A smaller group that meets the expedition's minimum starts after a short wait. When every instance is busy, you keep your place in line. If someone declines a ready check, everyone else goes back to the queue at their old place.

• Your gear is safe. Dying in an expedition never drops items or creates a grave.
• Lives are shared. Every death spends one of the party's lives. When they run out, the run fails.
• Wipes reset the room. If the whole party is down at once, the current room resets and you regroup at the last checkpoint.
• Checkpoints. Clearing a room can move the party's respawn point forward.
• Disconnects. Rejoin within a few minutes and you're put back into the run.

There is also a time limit, shown on the bar at the top of the screen with the current room and lives left.

Modifiers add twists: Fortified (tougher regular enemies), Tyrannical (tougher bosses), Bolstering (enemies grow stronger when allies fall), Volatile (enemies burst after dying) and Timed (finish under par for an extra loot roll). The board shows which apply before you start.

Every player gets their own loot when the final boss falls. Items that don't fit wait until you leave. Expeditions also count towards the season campaign, with harder tiers counting for more. The expedition board shows clear counts and the fastest parties.