Profession Knowledge Point Refunds

[Allyriae-feathermoon (Allyriae)]

One of the most popular criticisms of the DF professions system has been the stress of being unable to refund your knowledge points.

Yes, the intent is clear: Meaningful choices that you commit to and can specialize-in throughout the expansion.

However, in-practice this has just created a stressful decision point at best, and ruined professions for many at worst.

The counter-argument I hear for this is twofold:

1.) Respecs would allow everyone to do everything and ruin the economy.

2.) Just max-out your knowledge points and you can do everything.

However, there are two major issues with both of these rebuttals:

1.) I agree that free respecs (like how class talents work) would render the entire system meaningless. Yet there is a simple solution: Time-gate it. If you wanted to be really strict, I’d even be okay with a once-per-season refund. They just need something to prevent professions talent choices from being permanent. We should always be able to undo a mistake.

2.) Maxing-out talent points is not the answer. First of all, on my main, it took me most of DF to fully max-out my profession talent points. That was on my main. Under the current system, that is extremely unlikely to happen on alts. They just get whatever limited points I’ve managed through casual play and that’s all. Their profession talent choices are extremely limited and yet permanent. Maxing talent points is not trivial, and with no current form of catch-up, it makes the entire prospect of fixing problems by applying more points hopeless.

I honestly believe that simply allowing occasional talent point refunds would fix the majority of complaints and trepidation folks have with the new profession system, and I’m holding-out hope that at some point in TWW, they will realize this and make this huge QoL change.

[Jere-llane (Jere)]

For me the pace of maxing out knowledge points felt just about right. I did 30-45 minutes a week across all of my alts (getting 11-14 KP per alt) and was able to max professions midway through season 2 of DF. I think that is pretty reasonable.

I think if they offer a refund it should be far into the expansion so that people don’t swap specs early (S3 maybe?). I really like the way the system gave server identity. I got to be the daggers guy for my server for quite a while and that felt very rewarding, and that was after I messed up and started with a bad spec.

I never feared mistakes because the trees were wide (not deep) so in 2-3 weeks and I could usually fix my mistake.

[Saturnine-dalaran]

I didn’t do enough research into the profession abilities I “should” have picked, at first, and am still trying to get enough points to fix that.

I didn’t care for professions at all in this expansion. I wasn’t able to get to max level except for herbalism, mining, and skinning. Ench, Eng, Tailoring, and Cooking - stuck around halfway completed.

[Allyriae-feathermoon (Allyriae)]

@Saturnine-dalaran

I didn’t care for professions at all in this expansion. I wasn’t able to get to max level except for herbalism, mining, and skinning. Ench, Eng, Tailoring, and Cooking - stuck around halfway completed.

I’m in exactly the same boat.

I think Dragonflight was a great expansion, and the only real issue I had this entire expansion was with the new professions system.

I realize they put a lot of work into revitalizing professions, which is impressive and I’m glad they were willing to make that effort.

I do think the system can be salvaged with but a few changes:

• Allow for time-gated knowledge point refunds so that mistakes aren’t effectively irreversible unless you grind for more knowledge points.
• Implement a late-expansion catch-up mechanic for knowledge points so alts aren’t forever behind (especially after a given expansion is over).
• Improve the time-invested-to-yield ratio by having a greater variety of craftable items beyond a few pieces of gear (which often can be easily replaced with another piece of gear). Have more titles, toys, pets, tmogs, and mounts available exclusively via professions.

If they can implement these changes going forward, I think the new system would work well. Until they do, however, I think I’m about done with professions. They’re too high-effort and low-yield for my interest. I’d rather focus on more rewarding parts of the game.

[Qualanthar-farstriders (Qualanthar)]

@Allyriae-feathermoon

Implement a late-expansion catch-up mechanic for knowledge points so alts aren’t forever behind (especially after a given expansion is over).

They are doing this!

In TWW, knowledge is going to be gated by NPC work orders. If you start late, or had a delay, you see more work orders till you have caught up.

[Cureall-dreadmaul]

@Allyriae-feathermoon

Implement a late-expansion catch-up mechanic for knowledge points so alts aren’t forever behind (especially after a given expansion is over).

@Qualanthar-farstriders

In TWW, knowledge is going to be gated by NPC work orders. If you start late, or had a delay, you see more work orders till you have caught up.

Haven’t seen it myself, but I hope it puts a bit more equivalency between players who mainline WOW and the “drop in and out” types. Everything else about the game is very easy to come-and-go, but crafting currently is on the “leave to play other games for a month == punishment” track.

[Kaladnei-khazgoroth]

@Cureall-dreadmaul

currently is on the “leave to play other games for a month == punishment” track.

And you would prefer a ‘The dedicated ones who excel at there craft gets laughed at by the leavers’ track?

[Cureall-dreadmaul]

@Kaladnei-khazgoroth

And you would prefer a ‘The dedicated ones who excel at there craft gets laughed at by the leavers’ track?

The way crafting is going, there’s a lot of insularity. People who play all the time and have an army of alts or a bunch of guildie friends have an internal production line process. Some of the best stuff being put into Crafting Orders only without the AH has accelerated that, and Warbands will accelerate it further.

I have about two characters with decently skilled up crafts and even with the best blacksmith hammer in the game (made it and reforged it myself) and five star tools on my DK I can’t make my own belt clasp/enchant because I don’t have months of knowledge points. Because I alternate this game and FF14. That’s just sad.

There’s nothing wrong with progression but time-gated mechanics need some sort of catchup or it feels like a “keep 'em subbing” attempt to drag people into grinding through many months of subscriptions just to fill a bar.

[Spirits-hellscream]

@Allyriae-feathermoon

The counter-argument I hear for this is twofold:

1.) Respecs would allow everyone to do everything and ruin the economy.

I believe that this is a real reason to not allow it.

@Allyriae-feathermoon

1.) I agree that free respecs (like how class talents work) would render the entire system meaningless. Yet there is a simple solution: Time-gate it. If you wanted to be really strict, I’d even be okay with a once-per-season refund. They just need something to prevent professions talent choices from being permanent. We should always be able to undo a mistake.

I see that you agree. What about losing 30% of your points to respec so it comes at a severe cost?

[Scarfacer-destromath]

@Cureall-dreadmaul

Because I alternate this game and FF14. That’s just sad.

There’s nothing wrong with progression but time-gated mechanics need some sort of catchup or it feels like a “keep 'em subbing” attempt to drag people into grinding through many months of subscriptions just to fill a bar.

Tbh, I dont see how it would be “sad” if Blizzard wants us to stay with WoW instead going to competition and play FF14, I would call it logical.

[Cureall-dreadmaul]

@Scarfacer-destromath

Tbh, I dont see how it would be “sad” if Blizzard wants us to stay with WoW instead going to competition and play FF14, I would call it logical.

Suit yourself, but it was dailies spamming that caused me to quit WoW for years in the first place. Everything else from world quests to (non-mythic) raid prog more or less happens on your own schedule.

They already have a seasonal schedule that makes for catch up points. But all of this is a little weird since I haven’t seen the system discussed above. Personally I don’t want a game that makes me feel like I’m forever and perpetually behind if I unsub for a month, but that’s just me.

[Kaladnei-khazgoroth]

There’s a finality to knowledge points, dedication eventually pays off. You don’t want to do it? Then find yourself a crafter that did.

[Mikoshi-illidan (Mikoshi)]

@Cureall-dreadmaul

Personally I don’t want a game that makes me feel like I’m forever and perpetually behind if I unsub for a month, but that’s just me.

You were never permanently behind, you just didn’t want to engage in the catch up mechanics (dragon knowledge shards).

You could, if you put in the effort, max out your trees in profession, at any point in the expansion, but it was an immensely punishing grind. Hundreds of hours of farming dragon knowledge from adventurer satchels. But it existed, you could always catch up to the baseline.

[Cureall-dreadmaul]

@Mikoshi-illidan

You were never permanently behind, you just didn’t want to engage in the catch up mechanics (dragon knowledge shards).

You could, if you put in the effort, max out your trees in profession, at any point in the expansion, but it was an immensely punishing grind. Hundreds of hours of farming dragon knowledge from adventurer satchels. But it existed, you could always catch up to the baseline.

I don’t understand how it is that me and plenty of other people have talked about this and people are like, “there’s game design/gameplay!” And yeah, but it’s bad game design and gameplay. Look at how many people just gave up on crafting for one thing, and consider what you’re proposing for people who have alts.

C’mon. If you pick up the expansion in it’s second year and sub six months a year, you get, well, I won’t say nothing but certainly not much out of crafting. Not even sure why we’re arguing this when apparently changes are imminent, I should at least see the changes before saying any more on it. But this is the first place I’ve seen where people are trying to defend DF on this point instead of saying, “yeah it was a good start but not perfect yet.”

[Mikoshi-illidan (Mikoshi)]

@Cureall-dreadmaul

If you pick up the expansion in it’s second year and sub six months a year, you get, well, I won’t say nothing but certainly not much out of crafting.

If you’re talking about gold/ability to sell stuff. Crafting having value is mutually exclusive with it being easy to get into/catch up. Because the value is inverse to the number of people who got into it. It’s one of those catch 22s that makes crafting /very/ hard to get right, make it too easy and it’s worthless/not worth engaging with, make it too hard and you have a bunch of people complaining they couldn’t do anything.

If you’re talking about personal power, like crafting your own gear, or say engineering in some expansions. It’s pretty clear that blizzard mostly doesn’t want crafting to be required, so it’s all been designed so you don’t need to engage with it at all for whatever power it offers. Case in point, work orders were designed to be race to the bottom/favoring the buyer.

If you sat in valdraken for even 10 minutes asking for a 5 star craft your mats with like 3k gold tip, you’d have found a crafter, because crafting was mega saturated this expansion. I think they mostly got the “difficulty” right, but needed to make it less possible for a single crafter to fulfill the demands of hundreds of people wanting to buy.

[Kaladnei-khazgoroth]

Just give up Mikoshi. He wants his cake and eat it too, then he wants your cake and all your friend’s’s cakes. And even then he will probably complain that the topping isn’t to his liking and blame you.

[Cureall-dreadmaul]

@Mikoshi-illidan

If you’re talking about gold/ability to sell stuff. Crafting having value is mutually exclusive with it being easy to get into/catch up.

Maybe with regionwide stuff, but that’s kind of the problem with regionwide stuff: if the mats go down in price, having a gatherer is a little less valuable. Still, I know MMOs where crafting is still valuable without having to resort to time-gating through as many gates as DF did. I think timegating to flesh out a profession is fine, it discourages the no-lifers, but it should be more like seven weeks than seven months. If you’re doing it the way they’re doing it, you have to have SOME kind of catchup mechanic, otherwise your average person who bought the game after seeing Blizzcon and getting hyped about Warbands has little chance of being relevant for before everything is devalued anyway just for being “old expansion stuff.”

I personally had more time (to run around gathering stuff) than money, had no problem using PSL to see my checklist and get everything for the week. It’s just that it’s spread too thin for someone who isn’t full-time devoted to World of Warcraft as their primary gaming hobby.

@Mikoshi-illidan

If you’re talking about personal power, like crafting your own gear, or say engineering in some expansions. It’s pretty clear that blizzard mostly doesn’t want crafting to be required, so it’s all been designed so you don’t need to engage with it at all for whatever power it offers. Case in point, work orders were designed to be race to the bottom/favoring the buyer.

I’m pretty good with crafted gear being good but rarely BIS, compared to FF14 where if you don’t do savage then crafted gear is basically endgame barring some long grind for tome gear over several weeks per slot.

In my case, my DK is also my blacksmith and his BiS bracer according to WoWhead is crafted by blacksmiths. I followed the WoWhead guide to use my crafter skill points wisely, focusing first on tools. I did find someone on the forums to make me the highest quality smock. I made the highest quality hammer and made and reforged the accessory tool as well. So now, I should be able to make good stuff, right?

Oh, I now need to pour knowledge points into the armorsmithing tree which I’ve ignored entirely thus far. Maybe I spec’ed wrong? But I feel like the points I put into what I’ve done have helped get the skill that I can four-star it without inspiration. Either way, I’m still looking at probably twenty more timegated points before I can make those. I’m bypassing making my own alloys since that would mean KP into smelting and I can just AH those.

I bought DF/TWW almost eight months ago in late December and have bought a sub four times. I’m not even super ultra interested in making gold (what I’ve made was selling stuff I only made for first craft KP and a public crafting order here and there), I’m just not super All About That Life and only have so many weekly resets under my belt.

[Mikoshi-illidan (Mikoshi)]

@Cureall-dreadmaul

Still, I know MMOs where crafting is still valuable without having to resort to time-gating through as many gates as DF did. I think timegating to flesh out a profession is fine, it discourages the no-lifers, but it should be more like seven weeks than seven months. If you’re doing it the way they’re doing it, you have to have SOME kind of catchup mechanic, otherwise your average person who bought the game after seeing Blizzcon and getting hyped about Warbands has little chance of being relevant for before everything is devalued anyway just for being “old expansion stuff.

There are only a few ways to make crafting valuable. All of them involve hard gating how many people are crafting, or how much they can individually craft. That’s hard reality.

You either make the process of leveling up your crafting and absolute slog, which causes many people to give up. Or you time gate it in some fashion. There is NO system where crafting remains valuable, where someone can easily jump in and catch up to people who started at the start.

To illustrate that: imagine there are 100 players, the number doesn’t really matter, it scales easy enough.
If you set the bar low enough, all 100 of those players would engage in the crafting, and there would be no customers for anyone. On the other end of the extreme, it’s so punishing, so awful to craft, that only 1 of the 100 can craft, and he can take the other 99 for endless currency.

Good MMOs design crafting in a way that a minority engage in the crafting, I don’t pretend to know what magic percentage is best, but anything more than 50/50 crafters vs consumers means at least some of those crafters won’t find any value, because theres no customers for them. Your complaint ultimately is that you are on the wrong side of that ratio, you want to be on the crafting side of it, but also make gold from selling things, which is quite literally impossible if your ability/willingness to engage is on the lower end of the scale, because that means too many crafters not enough consumers is the state of the game.

@Cureall-dreadmaul

I followed the WoWhead guide

I’m going to be real with you, you’ll never make appreciable gold following guides, because everyone else is following those guides. It’s why the various gold making content creators rarely put out anything useful. If everyone is doing something, it’s not worth the effort, and if some streamer/guide is talking about it, everyone is doing it.

You’ll find much better luck just sitting down, and reading through the trees. Really understanding crafting is how you make gold with it. The more you understand it, the more likely you’ll see something that wasn’t ruined by a wowhead guide super saturating the market.

[Cureall-dreadmaul]

@Kaladnei-khazgoroth

Just give up Mikoshi. He wants his cake and eat it too, then he wants your cake and all your friend’s’s cakes. And even then he will probably complain that the topping isn’t to his liking and blame you.

I’m fairly straightforward: I gave up on WoW many years ago until being advised to come back again, and part of the reason I left was hard time-gated stuff in a subscription-based game that went what was beyond reasonable. I completed dailies like a job for my Flameward Hippogryph, which is about when I wore myself out of that sort of thing. I avoided the “big budget mobile game” era of Legion-BFA entirely, quitting for ten years at the end of Pandaria.

I don’t have a problem grinding to a certain extent (as the Hippogryph proves.) I have a problem feeling like I’m being soaked for long term subbing.

@Mikoshi-illidan

There are only a few ways to make crafting valuable. All of them involve hard gating how many people are crafting, or how much they can individually craft. That’s hard reality.

Right, I remember in Pandaria when Transmute: Living Steel was on a daily cooldown and a big part of the expense of getting my Sky Golem. And that’s fine. The part where the recipe itself was only learned randomly from using other recipes was always baloney, but limiting how much people can put out there a day makes sense.

@Mikoshi-illidan

You either make the process of leveling up your crafting and absolute slog, which causes many people to give up. Or you time gate it in some fashion. There is NO system where crafting remains valuable, where someone can easily jump in and catch up to people who started at the start.

I remember the slog days, I smelted plenty of fel iron and cobalt to reach Cata and onward. However, I was able to play like a man possessed and bang it out over a holiday weekend, or take my time if that’s what I really wanted to do.

What I want is a way to get much of the way faster, though not all the way without putting some effort in. But also by the end of an expansion this stuff should just make everybody equal, like the Ishgard construction thing in FF14 where at the end of Shadowbringers they made a crafter zone full of unique rewards and crafter specific quests that became THE way to level up crafters to their pinnacle, but it was also at the end of an expansion. It shouldn’t be that I have to put in forty weeks at the start of the expansion, or forty weeks at the end of the expansion.

@Mikoshi-illidan

you want to be on the crafting side of it, but also make gold from selling things (…) you’ll never make appreciable gold following guides

You assume I care about farming gold when I’m more interested in having some sort of practical use for the skills I’m investing in. There was a reason I said I was interested in a bracer: It’s a BOP I wanted to make for myself, farming gold wasn’t involved in this at all.

[Allyriae-feathermoon (Allyriae)]

One perspective that I would like to add to this is that of players wanting to max-out professions for legacy content.

There has been much discussion about the impact of KP refunds on the economy when the profession tree is current, but what about after that?

We have an excellent chance to see this happen now that Dragonflight is over.

Does anyone take issue with being able to do a KP refund on DF profession talent trees at this point?

Why would we want to when it’s irrelevant for current content? Does it matter at that point?

I would suggest that some players enjoy catching-up on professions later, after the rush, so long as it’s not too grindy and can be done solo. Is there harm in allowing latecomer characters to max-out these trees or the profession skill level after an expansion has passed?

Are we saying there’s now some sort of prestige to maxing-out a profession when it’s current?

Just something to consider.

I still think that we should have some degree of limited respecs while the content is current, but after it’s current? I would argue they should just let it go and let players do whatever they want.