Because right now…it’s terribad. First I’m pointing out the main problems with BFA crafting:
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Crafted gear is the same ilevel, or lower, than the drops from the dungeons/raids needed to be run for the crafted gears’ mats. These mats are also BoP, and the items they make are BoP, so what sense is there in even making these items? You are more likely to receive a better drop from the dungeon/raid before coming anywhere close to making the item.
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Crafted leveling gear (aka, non-120 stuff) is (more or less) equivalent to what you would get from your FIRST quests into 110-120 content. They are soon outstripped by quest rewards as you level and the quest reward quality goes up. This is coupled with the problem that it takes so many mats to level professions and the reality (not problem, persay) that leveling is so fast, that you are way outstripping your ability to make your own gear.
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Getting the secondary stats you want on a piece is random. You might have to blow through the mats for 20 items before you get that one you really care for.
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Some materials are only dropped in dungeons and raids, where players who hate this content can’t/won’t get to it. Similarly, some recipes are locked behind quests or random procs.
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Recipe improvements only mean the mat cost of crafted items is lower. This is really only useful if you were wanting to produce the items en masse (and there’s very little reason for wanting this with the uselessness of most crafted gear) or if you wanted a less painful way to grind skill, which…is kind of backwards too–as you outlevel the lower-mat-cost recipe or are already at max crafting when you get it. I feel like they dropped the ball here on the obvious way to build in an upgradeable system to crafting, but more on that later.
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The stat crunch has broken many old recipes from vanilla and other expansions. Example: the dynamite you can craft at level 5 only does 3 damage. (Perspective: Mobs at this level have something like 500-800 health and your abilities do something like 30 damage each if not more.) This is coupled with the reality (again, not a problem persay) that it is not needed to gain crafting skill in all these old areas to level the current content’s crafting. Overall, outside of tmog or achievement OCD, this makes crafting that’s not for the current content useless, and further compounds issues like lower level crafting mats not being sellable and new players missing out on a potentially enjoyable/lucrative/helpful-to-their-friends part of the game.
I can’t comprehend how some of these things passed testing because basic math…? But at any rate…we’re going to be constructive here, so here’s some ideas to correct these problems.
Idea #1: Raise ALL the iLevels!
Raise ilevels across the board of crafted gear. A player that spends hours leveling their crafting should be able to compete with a player who spends hours in a dungeon, raid, doing WQs, or doing PvP (rated or non-). Time is money, or rather effort, that should still be rewarded!
Idea 2: Less Soulbinding
Make the best gear not BoP, or at least BoA instead. Then there is conceivably some use in using crafting to gear alts, if not your friends.
Idea 3: Bind-to-Guild and Bind-to-BTag?
If throwing good crafted gear on the market is really such a concern (and I’d argue it isn’t: these things drive player economies), then let’s introduce a new mechanic. Bind-to-Btag-Friends or Bind-to-Guild. Slide in a requirement there that the Bnet friends must be your friends for at least two weeks or so, and your guildies must have a rep of at least Honored or something, so its not easily by-passable.
Idea 4: Stars Should = Meaningful Upgrades
Replace the stars-mean-less-crafting-mats-needed with actual upgrades. THIS is where you can make getting those stars feel meaningful, as well as give players the chance to make gear that actually matters, in a way that doesn’t trivialize the various other methods of obtaining gear, as time is still necessary to get the goods.
Idea 5: Give non-BFA Crafting a Facelift
Make crafted gear at the lower levels equal or even better than heirloom gear. For better or for worse, twinks will love you. I also do not see this as an imbalance–if a player wants to sacrifice some expensive mats and extra time to get their crafting skill up to par, they should be rewarded for that effort, even if the reward is temporary once they gain a few more levels. It also helps new players to be able to get right into the game as it makes their skills relevant to old players as well. Crafting mats will also sell better for those lower levels, helping the player economy.
Idea 6: Relevant to the Content it Comes From
I’m not actually against the idea of certain recipes or crafting mats being locked behind certain content–this has been a WoW staple forever, since those vanilla Engineering and Blacksmithing recipes in BRD and BRS–BUT I would put an eye towards making these locked recipes and mats most meaningful from the content you get it from. AS AN EXAMPLE…gear with mats from raids should be equal to or even better than the loot typically dropped from those raids, or at least BoA/BoE so they can be sent to ungeared alts and new raid members. Trinkets with great procs for PvP should have their recipes sold on the PvP vendor. Items that are useful in several modes of gameplay (say, mount speed increases) should then be baseline off the crafting trainer.
Idea 7: Less Random Stats, or Even Single Statted Gear
Instead of random-stat recipes, again break these recipes out into different recipes. For instance, you could craft Monel-Hardened Gauntlets of Haste and Versatility (or whatever the combined name is–I’m blanking) AND Monel-Hardened Gauntlets of Haste and Mastery…and all the others. I realize this would make one recipe into 16+…so you may also consider having crafting be the only place you can get gear that only stacks one secondary stat. (Meaning, raid gear might give you something with +110 vers and +110 mastery…crafting could give you something that is +220 mastery alone.) This would help to incentivize crafting again for min-maxers.
Any other ideas? Critiques on these? Please post! And if you like this, please upvote! Let’s get these devs listening on a system that has arguably been broken since Cataclysm.