Let's Save Professions!

Community General Discussion
1

It’s not too late to make requests or offer suggestions and any others sort of (constructive) feedback on the state of professions with Shadowlands still far off, under heavy development.

What sort of changes would you like to see with professions?

Here are my thoughts…

  • Please stop putting archeology zones in over crowded, mobby areas. I would actually want to do it if it were more relaxing like fishing and I didn’t have to kill 40 spiders every 2 steps I take.

  • Can we please have more fishing skills and more unique items to fish up? You know… some real incentive!

  • I feel that cooking has gotten too complicated and convoluted with all the weird vendor ingredients needed and the star system. I used to love cooking and now I hate it.

  • Most primary professions have become very underwhelming and unrewarding. I feel as though by the time you get the gear, it’s too weak and other items sell so poorly it’s no longer a reliable way to make gold, even if you are willing to put in the time. I also hate the star system bloat which just makes everything messy and confusing.

  • Thank you for giving key making back to blacksmiths. Very much like!

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2

I enjoy how MoP did cooking.

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3

Proffs suck plain and simple… require too many materials to skill up and give too little in return when breaking down. I used to love doing proffs but since Legion I haven’t really bothered and in BfA I’ve only casually thrown supplies at two characters.

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4

Yes, this! So much this! I meant to mention it but forgot. I don’t want to use 40 ore to craft some lame green gauntlets. Geebus!

Me too! I used to really enjoy professions and spent a lot of time on them. They were my only reason for alts too and main source of income. Now, bleh. It’s just a clusterfluff with no worthwhile payoff. I can’t be bothered.

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5

Let’s get rid of ranks for professions. It was a good trial. But failed miserably.

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6

The best way to save professions art this point is cosmetics: transmogs, pets, mounts. If we had player housing it would be even better because professions could also make decorations and furnishings.

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7

The thing with this is that it’s based on the content you’re doing. Not pushing organized raiding? Probably going to be working toward lower end crafted gear.

(I don’t remember how Mythic+ plays into the acquisition of those mats, if at all. Crafting has never really been my thing.)

I don’t have a problem with the concept. It’s the same as how Titan Residuum costs differ greatly based on ilvl because different levels of M+ have different amounts of currency you’re earning. That’s fine.

The issue here is that BfA spits so much high quality loot at players from mundane sources that the “lower end” of crafted gear is kind of swallowed up in the same way LFR, Normal raiding, and any non-M+ dungeons are.

That aside, I just want to talk more generally about profession/crafting systems in MMOs as the apply to the gearing process.

I don’t get how there can be a perfect system.

There’s like… 3 routes I see off the top my of my head.

  1. Crafting is fairly accessible as it’s own activity but as a result crafts lower-end items.
  2. Crafting is fairly accessible as it’s own activity but still remains competitive with higher-end endgame content rewards.
  3. Crafting is less accessible as it’s own activity but as a result crafts higher-end items.

With Route #1, crafters get mad that something they enjoy isn’t impactful.

With Route #2, crafters are happy but it hurts motivation to push harder content.

With Route #3, crafters are mad because they have to participate in content that isn’t profession-related to craft impactful items.

Aaaand now that I’ve typed all this and thought some more, maybe the best option would be something more like…

  1. Crafting is fairly accessible as it’s own activity and remains competitive with higher-end endgame content rewards, but such impactful items are heavily timegated.

With Route #4, the time gate would come from something crafting related, unlike #3 which is time gated by raid lockouts and such. Crafters wouldn’t have to go run Eternal Palace in WoW, but they would still have a similar lockout on key material(s) for impactful items. Leave materials with an NPC/Forge/Whatever to be worked, which you can pick up on Tuesday or something.

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8

I agree with all of this. MoP and even Cata professions were awesome. I could go out flying and herb/mine at my leisure, and make some gold crafting items with what I collected. Waiting for a dungeon? Fish while you wait. Waiting for the raid to log on and get ready? Go out digging for Archeology and hope for a mount!

You’d think that with Blizzard’s emphasis on the time played metric that professions would be a much bigger part of the product.

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9

I want my crafters to be able to make relevant leveling gear. As it is in most cases by the time they can equip it they have better stuff. So I end up making it just for a point.

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10

Ok not gonna lie if carpentry was added along with player housing I might be too busy with that to even notice Part II pathfinder wasn’t out lol.

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11

I want a mason/carpenter.

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12

But making professions great again would require a higher the average IQ… and I don’t think a certain company has that anymore.

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13

I have really enjoyed similar systems in other games where you could craft extremely good items, but the trade off was that gathering the mats was somewhat exhaustive.

Really, you should be able to get good items through crafting OR pvp OR raiding. Perhaps not head to toe high end gear from crafting alone, but a couple of fun items at least.

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As someone who has all the professions, I would really like all soulbound materials become account bound.

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15

In order to save most progressions blizzard needs to kill the concept of quick and easy insta loot. It doesn’t matter how involved you make progressions if everything they make is comparable to gear you loot off the ground doing dailies,.

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16

That’s a good point.

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17

The most retarded thing they did to professions was require bop dungeon and raid mats. That’s what killed professions for me.

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18

Both of these sum the issue up well for me.

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19

100% with you. only reason i have my engy lev at max is for makin mounts. got minnin max caz i was gettin ore for engy

also with you in housing, its prob the best way to save professions

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20

fail. there’s nothing in the raids worth making except vantas runes. not a single person i know even bothers with crafted gear, and vantas runes are a once a week use-case. almsot everyone in the raid is an alchemist or enchanter or jewelcrafter because smithing, leatherworking, and tailoring are just NOT WORTH a damn. engineering provides jeeves for repairs and between that and the mammoth mounts that’s more than enough.

the only thing crafting is good for is if you have the gold to powerlevel it on your alts to make them some BoP gear right as a fresh 120, but even that’s not worth it as a a round of world quests in nazjatar will get you a full set of benthics to send those alts.