Impossible patron orders

Gameplay Professions
1

A few days ago I checked my patron orders and there was one for Blood Knight’s Impetus. Part of the reward for this order is a Glimmer of Midnight Blacksmithing Knowledge which awards 2 KP. It’s also an impossible craft. The plan for this weapon drops from the raid which isn’t open yet so there’s no way to craft it (and if you think i’m going buy a reagent bag with the hopes the plans are in it, you’re insane).

So I decided I would open a ticket, detail the issue, and say I expect a Glimmer in my mailbox. The first response was support cannot give players KP (not what I asked for) and that this is a bug so I should submit a bug report.

I replied support does have the ability to give players items, they choose not to. This is the next reply I received:

This is Game Master Tyastynu, here to assist you with your concern regarding the Patron Order.

You’re right, we do have the ability to grant the item however, this ability can’t be used anytime we want. I believe you can understand that we have to maintain fairness between all of our players, so we can’t grant items to some and others not.

The Voidspire is one of three raids featured in the first season of the Midnight expansion which should be available next week. If we granted the Glimmer to you, it will be unfair to other players, Don’t you agree?

Hoping for your kind understanding and patience.

Best regards,
Thank you for subscribing to GM public opinion forums: Beware of the undercity ghosts! They don’t take kindly to strangers
GM Tyastynu

First, Voidspire does not open next week. It opens on March 17th and the patron order will expire by then. Second, if we’re talking about fairness, is it fair I get an impossible order when other blacksmith’s do not. That was the gist of my response. The final response I received from a “GM” was to submit feedback on the forums or in game…

So here’s my feedback on the forums.

I honestly didn’t expect to receive the Glimmer (or even a patron order I could actually complete for the glimmer) because I think we all know support is a joke compared to what it used to be. But the fact that one suggestion was to just wait for the raid shows how out of touch they are. Lets say the raid did open tomorrow, there’s no guarantee the plan drops and I get it. Is there also an expectation that I fork over however much gold someone wants for it? (It’s 800,000g on Area-52 at the moment). Sure, I’ll get the missed KP drip fed to me as Flickers but that’s not the point. This same issue happened to me in TWW and I just rolled with it. But this time, there was over a year to fix the issue and I’m fairly certain there was a post saying it was fixed, but it’s still a problem.

3 Likes
2

While I sort of agree, I also sort of don’t.

This early in the expansion, plenty of Blacksmiths, and other crafters, received Patron Orders that it is mathematically impossible to fill (my 2nd BS received Epic orders for two armors from different sub-specialties, a weapon, a tool, and an accessory). Granted that is because of KP limits and the requirements to allocate them in different places to learn the recipes instead of physically impossible. But does it really matter if something is physically impossible or mathematically impossible? It is still impossible.

This is the basic problem with the crafting order list: the list contains every Season 1 item without regard for source, KP acquisition, or player capability.

And as you pointed out, someone rolled blind luck to acquire the recipe before the raid is out so it is just as ‘possible’ as every other BS recipe.

Could Blizzard time delay when certain items enter the Patron Order pool? Sure, but with how much effort and at what cost? Extra code is still extra code. And even something simple can affect other things that Blizzard (and us the players) doesn’t want it to.

The system is designed, as you also pointed out, to rectify this issue over time. So what change(s) should Blizzard make to how Patron Orders work to prevent this issue in the future?

And yes, I have thought about this very question. Every solution I’ve been able to think up is more complicated than simply letting every recipe be available from the get go no matter how annoying it is for the players who luck out and get the ‘impossible’ requests.

2 Likes
3

Unfortunately, you’ve already shown that it isn’t impossible. It’s improbable you’d get it out of the bag, but it’s not like it is some completely unavailable item.

A glimmer is knowledge points.

It’s not impossible. It’s as fair as any inherently randomized system can be.

4

I would have been okay with an order I couldn’t do because I didn’t spend the KP to unlock the recipe. I get why the patron order system can’t really work around that. But you can absolutely turn off stuff that requires a raid drop. And if Blizz’s thought is well go gamba on reagent bags or buy it off the AH, they’re out of touch.

I do believe the catch up system for crafting professions needs a rework. Drip feeding patron orders just isn’t it.

1 Like
5

My JC got 6 patron orders for glimmers of knowledge and they were ALL locked behind epic recipes or furniture I haven’t unlocked. Blizz could program this to be a bit more of a ratio or feel less terrible…they just won’t. The random gating can feel extremely bad a times.

6

my alchemist is looking at both the Entropic Illuminant and Silvermoon Spire Fountain in the patron order work list. come on, really? the fountain is the bigger offender, tying a +2 knowledge item to it. imo the patrons should NEVER be asking for drop patterns, let alone rare bop patterns. :slightly_frowning_face:

2 Likes
7

I couldn’t agree more. My tailor currently has the Sunfire Silk Spellthread as a patron crafting order. The recipe drops from Fallen-King Salhadaar in The Voidspire, making the order impossible to complete. I’m guessing Season 1 patron crafting orders are all random from any recipes that are available during the season. It wouldn’t be a huge undertaking for the devs to omit certain recipes and give everyone a fair chance at completing patron orders. It feels bad when an order shows up that isn’t a guaranteed drop or at least gated behind knowledge. Blizzard really needs to fine tune this crafting issue.

8

[quote=“Solaria, post:2, topic:2268702, username:Solaria-uther”]

Could Blizzard time delay when certain items enter the Patron Order pool? Sure, but with how much effort and at what cost? Extra code is still extra code. And even something simple can affect other things that Blizzard (and us the players) doesn’t want it to.

[/quote]

Considering how they’ve time-delayed virtually everything else, this is not a robust code change. They had to put in more effort to reduce the rewards on delves and m0 than a release date on these items would take.

I’m convinced they just go out of their way to make crafting miserable.

9

I am so behind on my blacksmith points. I either can’t craft patron orders due to not having the specialization ulocked, or the recipie isn’t available to even get.

I don’t know how these people in trade have so many recipies unlocked across 3 or 4 professions. I can barely keep up with one.

10

Submit feedback to forums that they rarely respond to or ignore. The Money we pay should have constant monitoring and interaction on the forums.

11

No it’s not, but thank you for your inherently randomized opinion.