Knowledge Point catch up should be percentage based

Gameplay Professions
1

As the Topic states … KP should be a percentage base catch up until you are within a certain distance to the current cap.

Say for instance you just started a character (or added an alt) … you could be roughly 500 KP behind everyone else’s profession knowledge. The current catch up, from what I read is 36 (or 38) points a week, will never get you to the rest of the player base. However, if instead of a set number of catch up points per week, a percentage was used than the further away you are the more catch up you would receive. I don’t think this should be offered with a percentage of acuity as well, that should remain the same to stop people from abusing the catch up mechanic.

With no actual understanding of the numbers, I would wonder if a 20 - 25% catch up until you are about 2 weeks behind would work. So using the 500 KP example above and a 25% catchup a character would get 150 KP in the first week, and then 88 the next week, and so on. Until the KP was about 75 KP away, and then it would revert to the current system.

This would allow you to be close to those that have been playing without needing to do unreasonable, and expensive, amounts of crafts, daily.

Just a suggestion, but something needs to be done for catchup as the current system is not enough.

2

So just to clarify, the amount of catch-up IS based upon how far you are behind.

4 weeks behind= 3 flickers per day
2 weeks behind = 2 flickers per day
1 week behind = 1 flicker per day
Once you hit the amount of points available in one week of weeklies, the catch-up stops.

The amount of points in a week is different for different crafters (because some tree sizes are bigger than others), so not every crafter gets 38 points.

Should it be more? Perhaps. But do you really want to do 4 extra patron orders every day? Idk what’s your perspective? Adding another layer to this wouldn’t be too much coding, but changing the system entirely would be much more work. If you want this, it would not be something they would typically do mid-expansion.

I do not expect them to run this catch-up system as is next expansion. For one thing I pointed out to them some pretty bad exploits that would allow you to complete the tree in 30-50% less time. They never clarified to me that this issue was a genuine exploit, so I won’t discuss how to do it, obviously. But it’s serious enough that I can’t see how they can continue with this model next expansion. Unless what I found was intentional (I doubt it).

3

It is an interesting idea, but I think it is not a feasible one during TWW.

Problem the first: the end state of KP continues to increase after a profession reaches its mathematical end point. Right now that would mean a player starting Engineering or Alchemy today would completely fill their wheels in six weeks. A month from now in five weeks, and about six weeks after that in a month. That would slowly apply to more and more professions for the next year of this expansion. While in some ways it seems like it would be nice, it would be a nightmare for practical implementation because Blizzard does not want players finishing their professions in one month.

Problem the second: Acuity is supposed to be tied to KP gains because of all the things that are purchased with it. 900 Acuity is for tools. 1000 Acuity for the books. Depending on profession there can be up to 2400 Acuity (might be more now with 11.1) for recipes. If people execute their KP gain to ‘catch up’ without the corresponding Acuity, the forums will explode with people rightfully claiming they cannot earn the Acuity to purchase the secondary and tertiary items for their professions.

Problem the third: How would you implement the increase? Adding additional Patron Orders would overwhelm the players you are trying to help. 50 Orders per day? The people who need it would say ‘nope, too many, not doing it.’ Add a multiplier to each KP item? Possible, but depending on the multiplier people who don’t want to spend the time and effort are still going to say ‘it’s not fast enough’ or ‘it’s not worth the cost’ and still not engage.

Because there is still an outlying question you do not address: What is the purpose of this?

Completing for the sake of completing is one thing, but it is not a good enough reason for such a major change. I am completing multiple crafters KP even though I do not have to because the points I am filling out now are irrelevant to my ability to use or apply the profession. Since completion for completions sake is optional, why should Blizzard accelerate KP accrual when the current ‘catch-up’ system is already in place and can reduce the time required to complete by 30-50% from day 1 crafters?

To ‘compete’ with first day crafters seems like it should be valid, but it shows a lack of understanding of the crafting system rather than being a meaningful argument. Any player can start a profession and on their first day make at least one item at max rank. Some professions even more. Can a day 1 player make more? yes. But not for long as with the current bonuses the new crafter is gaining more than a wheel per week. If they put a modicum of thought into planning their KP investment, they can be tied in production capability, not capacity but capability, in less than a month.

So casuals can make gold. I despise this argument because it shows even less understanding of the game and the crafting system. Not everyone can make gold through professions. If everyone was capable of making everything, no one would make money by crafting. The people who got there first would have whatever they made by being early, but the latecomers would actually make nothing because the market would be overwhelmed by crafters until the servers reached a functional 1:1 ratio of crafters to consumers. It is already happening to an extent, but accelerating it even more? ka-boom.

What end is your idea and recommendation trying to accomplish?

It is a nice idea that I sort of like, but I don’t see the need for it.

2 Likes
4

KP catch up should be reworked (simplified) - it is way too opaque, gated and subject to randomness.

But I don’t see it changing - Blizzard loves crafting being as obtuse, gated, costly, and time consuming as possible while providing useful equipment as a means to monetize gear.

5

It is absolutely unclear, you are 100% correct. From the hidden currency to the wobbly logic they’re using, they did not make it easy to figure out. Worse, they made it unintuitive. Like they know that we will do all our weekly things on Tuesday. Why build a system that actively gives you less points if you do all the things on Tuesday?

If you do figure it out it is really awesome. It cuts the effort you need to spend in terms of time and gold. It’s cut my time that I spend on patron orders down to 10 minutes to do all the crafters I have. I don’t sweat treasures. I can skip any order and the catch-up system has my back.

The thing is though, the logic itself has a huge flaw. I can’t see a way to fix it and keep the flexibility they have in it. Like every profession could have been finished by now (blacksmithing included) if everyone was using the issue that causes your catch-up knowledge to be given when it shouldn’t. We’d all be at negative 100+ catch-up. (You can get -6 per week max x 33 weeks = -198 possible points).

If they keep it this way next expansion, everyone that knows the exploit and uses it ( you can totally do it by accident) will be that much more ahead.

6

That post, was in February 2025 and TWW started in what August 2024? That is 7 months of head scratching about how I was always short of 2-4 catchups :thinking: Dunno if I could have finished BS, but I’d sure feel a lot less silly!

7

So those in the post are regular catch-up.

I’m taking about getting your catch-up value to go negative. So, not catch-up at all. You’d get ahead of even someone who had their value at 0 from the beginning.

8

Ah, I dun know that one. Smells dodgy with a whiff of naughty… I WILL try to go for delaying the Tuesday habit from the start next exp for sure though. Should be enough.

9

Yeah I sent blizzard a detailed bug report.

10

Catch up for DF profession knowledge please…? It’s obsolete content but completion for completion’s sake is a valid argument - especially given how absurdly bloated the blacksmithing tree is compared to engineering for example.