Honestly, the best use of professions has been Method’s system of making their alts craft gear so their ilvl was high enough to loot trade gear away.
That’s the pinnacle of crafting professions use this expansion.
You make good points.
I get your concern about lost mats for nothing.
Combat has risk. Some of the risk is trivial, some is downright deadly.
But an optional risk-reward system might be a good compromise.
If I just use the mats for a mageweave bag–4 bolts of mageweave and 2 silken thread, then I get a plain mageweave bag.
But if I have upgraded the recipe, then I can make cosmetic color variations of the bag.
Or if I have added further experimentation slots, then I might be able to get a bigger mageweave bag or one that can function like a parachute.
The possibilities are endless.
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This is kind of what I meant when I mentioned massive overhauls. It would be awesome be able to use a bag as a parachute, but the game as it currently exists isn’t capable of that.
The on-use effect of a bag is… your character equips it. The on-use effect of an equipped bag is… the bag opens.
There aren’t any on-use items or spells in this game that immediately come to mind that have more than one function, and the few that could be argued that way (such as the Engineering Tool of the Trade coming in 8.1.5) doesn’t actually have more than one effect, but rather has an effect that randomly casts a single spell.
WoW’s item and spell system is very binary, and generally doesn’t have the capability of considering context. One can build macros to get around that limitation to an extent, but it’s part of how the game is built.
I really like your suggestion about optional crafting material slots, although the question that raises is one of resolving the interface. If they go that route, they’ll need to have a universal crafting UI with a set number of slots and a few optional what-if slots. That could work, but it would also make existing recipes much more cumbersome to use.
I’m trying to think of a way to reconcile the root idea you’ve put forward here with the limitations of the game, but it’s late at night, and my brain isn’t running on full steam right now.
Thank you for your kind thoughts. It’s late here too.
I want professions to be interesting. Now they are as interesting as watching lint dry.
You are so right that the existing crafting system isn’t designed like this, but Blizzard needs to bring back their A game to game design.
A further morsel to chew on:
What if I added Stonescale Oil to my mageweave bag recipe?
Could it harden the bag? What effect would a hardened bag have?
Even if my suggestions built nothing more than a cosmetic mechanic into crafting, I think it would revitalize crafting in a big way.
I’d agree, although in that case, I don’t think bags are necessarily the right example to use. A cosmetic change to an item that doesn’t show up on your character when you have it equipped isn’t the best argument for convincing Blizzard to add additional character customization options via professions.
Yes, all the major armor pieces need to be the focus of this kind of design.
Another thing I think would be neat would be a LW recipe that changes the colors of your mounts’ saddles. Like, if you added red dye to a Coarse Leather Barding, instead of just making your character immune to being dazed while mounted for its duration, it could also change the color of the mount’s saddle, reins, or other accessories.
I don’t think that’ll happen either with the limitations of mount models/textures in the game, but it’d be cool.
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Agreed, the number of players that would go hardcore in color coordinating their mogs and mounts would not be trivial.
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But why that mandated the outright removal of the perks still baffles me. I mean, there’s LOTS of stuff that’s mandatory to raid. Levelling, for example. Is that to be eliminated as well, because raiders “feel forced” to do it? 
Jokes aside, my problem here is the raid-centric design that permeates the game to its core. The goal of removing all player agency from raid preparations has gotten to such a micro-managey point, the entire rest of the game in the vast world outside raids has been rendered impotent and meaningless. The “world” of Warcraft is now just a staging area for the raids. A great big lobby where you’ll do what you’re told and only be given the tools the devs want you to have in order to commence their latest raid challenge - even if you have no intention of participating in raiding at all.
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I definitely don’t feel that the design of the game is deliberately raid-centric, but some of the design decisions do push players in that direction. The endgame has been whittled down to Rated PvP, Mythic +, and Raids. While each of those things is good in its own way, there are all kinds of players in this game:
• Auction House enthusiasts
• Pet collectors
• Transmog collectors
• Rare item hoarders
• Achievement hunters
• Completionists
The way the game is currently designed and is slated to be designed going forward appears to cut into those alternative methods of enjoying the game, and what I’m having trouble understanding is why.
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What Blizzard should have done with the new portal room was have it phased to you, with a single, center platform, and a mage standing nearby. You talk to said mage, and click on a dialogue box to get him to cast a portal on the platform to where you wanted to go. Nice, simple, no lag, no players standing on top of portals. All the portals could be included. No reason to cut anything out.
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That’s kind of what I’m getting at, yeah – but I really really don’t want to involve phasing in it if at all possible. Too much room for stuff to break.
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This is exactly the sort of thing they should have done.
How WoW does portal travel is like having a door with 15 handles (or however many portals there are). You don’t need 15 handles on the door; you just need a door with one handle that accesses 15 portals.
In ESO when you click a wayshrine, it shows you the world map and you select which wayshrine you want to go to. Click, and go there. It’s really not that difficult to work out. But can’t the devs in WoW manage that?
I dunno if anyone remembers but there used to be two portals on the wharf on Darkmoon Island, one for Alliance and one for Horde. Then they removed the two faction-centric portals and made one portal which automatically took you back to the other side for your faction. So they can reorganise portal structures.
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I don’t think anyone is foolish enough to assert that they can’t manage it. But it’s important to consider how they manage it. Either way, it’s clear that removing conveniences is a bad plan, and there are plenty of good ideas in this thread alone that could serve as viable and even inexpensive alternatives.
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I feel the biggest problem with Garrisons is they tried to make it a core part of the expansion. Player housing needs to be completely separate and completely optional. That way it can be built upon and added to over course of the game’s lifetime. So even if it did just start with the 1 architecture style they could add on as the game progressed. That could even be something you earn. Like exalted with Highmountain rep earns you their architecture and zandalari rep brings zandalari style buildings.
The reason it should be optional is 1. some people just dont care and dont want to do it and 2. even for those that do enjoy the idea of player housing, if they’re forced to keep up or progress so quickly in order to keep up turns it into a chore.
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This is a pretty good point, too.
I honestly think that a lot of Blizzard’s issues with WoW’s design stem from an odd need for the majority of players to engage with everything they add to the game.
You’re right that not everyone cares about housing. So, in order to justify the development expense of Garrisons, they were made a core part of the expansion.
I hope that soon Blizzard can go back to just adding stuff to the game because it’s fun, not necessarily because it serves a purpose.
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Saw a tweet this morning from Yth talking about how they did see the posts, tweets, threads on reddit etc and they were discussed in meetings. Of course we as players never know this.
I hole this is the case with this post. There have been some great ideas, expansion upon current ideas, and most importantly civil discussion on the subject.
I think we all feel strongly something needs to be done. What exactly, these ideas? Others j have read? I don’t know. But it would be worthwhile for Blizzard to take note and open a line of dialogue in the very least. Or let the players know their concerns have been heard in this matter.
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Blizzard. Hire this man. Seriously. Damn well written post.
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Impressive. Well thought out and worth the read. Let’s hope the devs think so too.
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I just wanted to say that I’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of positive support this thread has gotten. I know that most of the posts in it have been me running my mouth, but it’s really been surprising that I haven’t seen any overly negative posts, trolling, and other such things.
Thank you to everyone who has contributed thus far, and everyone who chooses to contribute going forward for keeping the discussion productive and civil!
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