Agreed. These were the only real changes that they really needed… at all.
Though, I gotta be honest… I’d LOVE to see a legion style quest line for each Profession… Like… “The Quest for the Legendary Wailing Wok of Pandaria”. It’ll never happen, but it’d be fun…
Wowhead had this when Df launched, although it was hidden among the profession guide as a button.
Exactly the words I’d use to describe the bizarre lengthy grindy talent trees. You could throw away 3/4ths of the allocation system and it would still be ridiculously convoluted.
Outside of a couple gathering professions I never bothered with professions. People post about this, or that feeling like chores, wq’s etc, etc. That is exactly how I feel about videogame profs lol.
You assume too much. I would never buy tokens to purchase mats off the AH to level any profession. That’s counterproductive when I can farm everything myself. This thread isn’t a complaint about the progression of leveling professions, it’s about the heavy handed overkill of Blizzard adding too much fluff for many players to weed through who simply want to craft something that’s useful to them or something they can sell to recoup their time and effort.
Part of the problem is a lot of it is pointless.
Example, there’s no way to guarantee that you can make a rank three phial. You need an inspired craft.
But the bonus you get from an inspired craft is so great that the quality of mats and most of the knowledge you spent to increase your skill don’t matter. You can dump most of it and still be in the situation of, rank2 without inspiration, rank 3 with it.
A lot of good ideas implemented in absolutely the worst possible way. Strikes me as a lot of good ideas on paper handed to an intern that had no comprehension of the purpose or the why behind any of it.
I don’t look at it from a game design perspective, I look at it from a corporate politics perspective. When you are doing a job that the people above you don’t understand, admitting you made a mistake is risky. Sticking to your guns and not admitting you may be at fault means there’s a good chance the bean counters won’t have a clue what the problem is, and you and your team are safe.
I like the ideas, but they probably should have been something added incrementally through the expansion and fully implemented for next one. It was too much of a radical info dump for most people.
But then, I’m an alchemist, so what do I know? 
That’s what I end up doing every expansion. Work on profs a little, realize the cost and time needed isn’t worth it compared to just buying the stuff I need on the AH.
Profession system is fine outside of being bottlenecked leveling said profession for choosing the pathway you wanted to go.
DF was just released few months ago. What years are you talking about? I dont care on what you do. Me, my flasks/phials, potions, Mastery Food plus Feast just currently are doing fine for my progression.
I dont have yet Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power… never won it yet from a dice roll. But I am fine using lower version Elemental Potion of Power… better than nothing… better than Zero in Crafting.
On crafting gear, btw, i also make alchemy trinket… it so happened the trinket i have is way better. But I was able to use my crafted trinket for few weeks before I got a better one. I am not racing thru the content so I should be fine. You guys, have done KSM in one week. You dont need a lot of stuff in the game. And you complain crafting is useless.
Here is that asking for “relevant” crafted items again. Legendary crafted items were there in Shadowlands and all it created were whinings. Base material price at skyrocket price dictated by the players… not the game. Keep on whining. Whatever Blizz do with the game, everyone would still whine.
I hated the new system until I started to figure it out. Now what I hate is not having the option to do a one time respec to correct learning mistakes. I get that I’ll be able to put points where I want them eventually, but resisting the urge to craft myself a sword before I can do so skillfully is a daily battle of will.
Professions arent complicated, but I do agree on a respec option for specializations. Either a one time, or a once a month. Something.
Absolute horse ***** you get WAY more money(even after the honeymoon period) with gathering. The only exception is if people constantly send you personal work orders or your guild is generous. Not everyone is going to have that luxury. The entire system dumps on new players alone and not much on returning players IF they have gold.
I’m no longer doing professions because people want excessive $$$ from clicking a button with their max level profession they got from abusing broken crap early at the start of the xpac. Then, making my own stuff is absolutely awful even if I gather all the mats myself. Half the stuff I want I need alts for. NP! I have plenty already at 70. But… NPCs for things like Earthen Soul that require you to have at least one other person is straight cheeks. If you want anything from professions, its better to farm mats, sell them, and use gold.
Dual gathering for the win
Tbh i like that they can be an end game on their own now. They really needed more depth.
Might focus more on them when i get really frustrated with M+
Players need to learn about the crafting system.
If only we had something that would teach them.
Wait. There was! the quests you just completed without reading.
Watch some video on youtube now to catch up.
I don’t think so. Most players know the in and outs now. As long as they keep this system and add to it, it will work out just fine.
if you can craft an upgrade why wait? you can use the sword now and then recraft it later when you have more skill.
At the start people were trying to get R5 right away but most are realizing better to just get one made at a lower quality and then recraft later.
The system isnt hard to figure out but its still a stupid system, Ive maxed my BS skill, completely filled the weaponsmith and hammer control trees, I have maxed out tools and still for some reason today it wouldnt let me take a recraft order with a concentrated infusion set to rank 4 because I apparently dont have the skill required? I cant possibly get any better at my skill. I have to assume it bugged or something otherwise the system is just ridiculously broke.
If they wanted to get to here, they should have made gradual changes to crafting to get to this point.
Going all-in from day one of the expansion on:
Was a huge mistake. People could’ve gotten used to these concepts over time, but backing up a dumpster to the game and unloading it all at the same time in a big pile on day one has left people floundering and not able to catch up even on basic understanding unless crafting is their endgame. And then even for those people, they introduced an entirely new selling system that is vastly more limited than just the free market on the AH that they have to dedicate their time to, advertising their services.
It’s like twelve people had ideas and they threw in ALL of them.