Hey all! We NEED to talk! This is a BIG problem!
How do we make professions a core feature again?
Professions are SO important! When we think of the complete fantasy RPG experience, we think race, then specialization, and then career. Our career, our work, our role in the larger economy - this is the most integral part of any MMORPG experience. Therefore any MMO that fails to suck players into the crafting and economy systems from an early level are lacking ONE THIRD of the character fantasy! This is the stuff that helps us to create an emotional connection with our character! No wonder the game feels hollow!!
Back in Vanilla, the professions were coherent, necessary, and provided huge advantages to those who were diligent. While the old profession system was certainly table-toppy and lacked any real engagement other than watching bars fill up again and again, it still gave us that feeling of meaningful work. The table-toppy feeling still remains. Meanwhile the impact of the work required to level professions has been drastically diminished, leading to a “why even bother” mentality. The end result of all of this is a profession system that is unnecessary, non-interactive, and non-coherent. The economy has suffered drastically from this. Transmog and appearance collecting seems to be 90% of the economy now.
When I look at the modern profession system, I see a dinosaur - but not just any dinosaur - a dinosaur that is long dead, being held up by sticks, strings, and duct tape in a museum. Do we try to revive the long-fossilized dinosaur, or do we brainstorm a better system that better exemplifies MEANINGFUL WORK and MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIPS in the current version of the game all the way from level 1 to 120?
I think we are beyond the point of merely tweaking a drop rate here or there, or adding some new max-level band-aid in the new world questing areas… the profession system needs a drastic revamp as soon as possible to justify re-exploring this massive world Blizzard has created. Blizzard has underestimated the importance of career paths in MMOs for far too long and must do something bold to address these dire issues.
A few things I would suggest:
New professions to expand world interaction- (lumberjack, bounty hunter, dungeoneer, farmer, bard, brew master, mason, siege crafter, woodworker, rune crafter, cartographer, to name a few ideas)
Massive re-tuning and re-pacing of recipes and materials across all professions throughout the leveling process. Crafting > Dailies
Revisit the 2 profession restriction and the relationship between crafting vs. gathering vs. secondary
No more BoP materials at max level.
We like having a few BiS slots dedicated to crafting
Give low level characters hard incentives to keeping professions topped.
Proper profession introduction at level 5
Revamp the auction house
OVERALL MISSION: We must return back to square one and recreate that feeling of meaningful work that the old system achieved, but we must also build off of that original table-toppy system by creating more variation in experience and more ways to interact with the world than ever before.
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That’s all I got! Please share your thoughts below!
A dire mistake indeed, as the concept of hunting, gathering, and crafting for a real advantage goes beyond any game - it is embedded in our human psychology to pursue these things. When the work we do no longer creates a valid reward and we are not incentivized to participate in a marketplace, we become isolated. Not to get too deep in the philosophy here, but you can see how this shift away from meaningful work has created a NON HUMAN experience that is extremely hard to feel emotionally attached to.
Hmmm… maybe. I like the idea that profession recipes (in particular, armor) become a big deal again.
But I kinda think the solution to professions will be something like the FFXIV system, where a player could spend their entire time in-game as that profession.
This could be great for a few select bosses - say a robot boss that doesn’t drop loot, but rather drops an engineering recipe that crafts a BiS item! I think at least one slot of our gear should be there for those who want to go ham on professions.
EVERYTHING is crafted. When you fight bosses, and defeat them, you loot from them things like bone, scales, etc, or you can mine ores, and you craft your gear back in town. There’s no such thing as gear drops in that game.
I think a Bounty Hunting profession would be sweet, and it kind of opens up other fantasy aspects to professions such as cartography, dungeoneering, etc. Things that are just UI elements now could evolve into actual professions. Interesting addition to the thread ty. It’s all about creating more fantasy RPG combinations
Unfortunately, in typical Blizzard fashion, they decided to fix “professions feeling mandatory” by making professions almost entirely worthless.
The simple fact is, for a certain percentage of dedicated min/maxers, anything that offers any benefit at all is going to be viewed as mandatory. You can’t design the entire game around that type of mindset, though, or you wind up with what we have: a game where everything feels gutted and unrewarding.
Hey Hardwire, thanks for your thoughts. I find it funny that Blizzard would create a game that implies working towards endless progression, preparation, and self-improvement, but then they completely remove all incentive to do so. WoW is the kind of game that should reward a player for leveling their professions when the other guy did not.
LFG, heirlooms, and other factors lead to insanely fast leveling speeds. Rather than retune the old recipes and materials and skillups to match this new pace, they just gutted the professions all together, effectively removing 1/3 of the RPG fantasy experience from the player. Overnight, WoW went from an MMORPG with a bustling economy that rewarded hard work, to an appearance collecting circus MMO with zero incentive to choose a career. Just mash buttons like Diablo 3!
they are currently being used largely to push players into raiding and other activities, instead of letting players enjoy the professions for themselves
I miss the old style of professions with something essential or a strong QoL benefit, and you could literally grind them up brute force in a day if you had enough gold
was a pain but that system motivated me to have one of every profession on my alts
the new system makes me mostly ignore professions, they are grinds without any reward unless you grind /timeplayed to get the scarce limited mats for the worthwhile stuff. It doesn’t feel like a profession, it feels like a raiding addon.
If anything, the changes to professions - separating them by expansion - have encouraged players to dip in and out of whatever profession is seen as most profitable. There’s no more incentive to value your professions, because you can just pick up a new one and start crafting current content gear immediately.
I would love to see professions revitalized so that items with actual value can be crafted, but the entire “throw away the old stuff, only this patch matters” mindset of the development team would have to be changed for that to happen.
they are currently being used largely to push players into raiding and other activities, instead of letting players enjoy the professions for themselves
I miss the old style of professions with something essential or a strong QoL benefit, and you could literally grind them up brute force in a day if you had enough gold
was a pain but that system motivated me to have one of every profession on my alts
the new system makes me mostly ignore professions, they are grinds without any reward unless you grind /timeplayed to get the scarce limited mats for the worthwhile stuff. It doesn’t feel like a profession, it feels like a raiding addon.
Catering to people who just want to grind professions at max level was a bad idea in the end. I think the expansion-specific leveling seems like a good idea at first, but ultimately leads to lazy behavior and confusion. Not only this - you have no attachment to the careers you do end up choosing because you can just start a new one and only level BFA content and be fine. You are correct - professions are no longer decided on at an early level and organically worked up alongside other progression systems as you level - it is as I said - a dinosaur… a shell of its former self in a game that has evolved around professions not with them.
Let’s all shed a single manly tear in solidarity
If anything, the changes to professions - separating them by expansion - have encouraged players to dip in and out of whatever profession is seen as most profitable. There’s no more incentive to value your professions, because you can just pick up a new one and start crafting current content gear immediately.
I would love to see professions revitalized so that items with actual value can be crafted, but the entire “throw away the old stuff, only this patch matters” mindset of the development team would have to be changed for that to happen.
Now I’m depressed.
@Hardwire You raise an amazing point, that professions matter a lot more when we can’t just switch between them willy nilly. Blizzard thinks we want more options and flexibility, and we do, but not by this metric. We want flexibility in choice, but then once we make our choice, we want that choice to matter and stick with us as we build a relationship to our character. This feels sappy or nerdy, but I am trying to understand the psychology of wanting to log into a character each and every day to play. When work is meaningless, we have no desire to log in. And this issue of meaningless work needs to be addressed, since the game in its current state is not a human game made for human players with human psychology in mind.
The devs reduced the need for professions for raiders (fewer gem slots, fewer armor slots that can be enchanted) because farming the gold to pay for gems, flasks, enchants, etc was cutting into their raiding time too much. The devs also started selling game time tokens so people could practically buy gold. I’m thinking the two groups of devs weren’t communicating effectively.
I just miss professions being… fun. A little side game for every character as I leveled them up, you know? I just miss that, though having a BC-like crafting system again would be fantastic for me at max level.
