Do you think the best thing to do in that case, in order to preserve the ability of profession collectors to obtain recipes without doing endgame content, might be to find a medium between BoE and BoP, such as a medium droprate, with the first drop being soulbound and the second being BoE if the first was learned?
Ohhh, now that is actually an idea I really like! Rather like the ability to trade personal loot if you already have a higher ilvl item, and it allows “no, I don’t like instances” profession-players to collect the recipes, while still allowing the “professions and raids” player to learn the recipe without feeling like they’ve lost anything. I’d call that an excellent compromise, personally.
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That was my thinking as well. It’s really quite amazing how many good ideas people can come up with when they aren’t tearing each other down and are just having a good discussion and working together to refine ideas!
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Indeed. It’s so nice to be able to find a win-win compromise.
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Do you remember the Green Dragonscale armor patterns in Sunken Temple? They still drop…repeatedly, and are BoP. I took a LW in there yesterday to pick up some scale and I got, I think 9 drops of these patterns during 2 runs. And being BoP they were 50s vendor trash each one. As always, gave me a bit of a chuckle that a BoP should be repeatedly dropped for a toon that not only already has them but they cannot be even given to another LW on my account.
Yeah, that’s still frustrating – the ‘recipe known?’ check seems to have been implemented with WoD due to how the whole profession system in that expansion was designed to be started (e.g. random world drops).
With ST having last been messed with in Cata, I’m not surprised that tech wasn’t extended to it – but it should be, because reasons.
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I don’t know if I fully agree with this not being the time to take things away – if something is truly superfluous, then taking it away is fine. For example, a common argument along these lines is the bonus percentage to XP, Azerite, and War Resources obtained from playing in War Mode. That bonus could easily be argued to be superfluous and in need of removal.
But in this specific case, yes. As I mentioned in my original post, players are going to spend their time in a game that’s fun regardless of conveniences or inconviences. Removing/adding conveniences accomplishes nothing if the core gameplay is not engaging and entertaining.
Right now, the gameplay quite simply is not as good as it was in Legion or Mists of Pandaria. If that is left unaddressed, then every other reduction in convenience is not only a waste of time and resources, it’s doomed to come across as a means to inflate gameplay time without actually expending the effort to improve core class and activity designs.
I’m not asserting that the removal of portals is a means to inflate gameplay time and nothing more, but it’s hard to argue against that under the circumstances.
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So… now that the new portal room is implemented.
I still don’t like the design of the one in Orgrimmar. It’s in an annoying location, and the number of portal alcoves available implies that in future expansions, some of what is currently available will also disappear in order to make space for new portal locations.
I’m having a hard time understanding what the point of this kind of design was. It’s a nice looking room, certainly, but it doesn’t appear to have long-term applications that involve additive design iterations. If there’s a design document or concept art that shows what the plan for future expansions is, I would urge Blizzard to share some of that with us as a community in order to ease our concerns about having this undesirable change repeat itself.
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Well put togeather post. I agree with a lot of it.
The player agency aspect struck a cord with me. Of recent the portal changes have defiantly put a damper on my fun time. Strangely enough it makes my world feel even smaller. I’ve logged on less, avoided activities I routinely did, due to travel and haven’t been able to bring myself to level a zandalari. I really don’t like being corralled into Org. It kinda feel like being handled, I miss the freedom I once felt about choosing my path for the evening.
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It’s not strange at all. Increases to mobility always make the world feel larger. Before being able to drive, most people in the United States are limited to where their feet or a bicycle can safely take them.
Once driving becomes an option, their world becomes significantly larger due to the decrease in the amount of time needed to travel between locations.
This is a pretty basic principle, and is a big part of why the claim that the world feels smaller does not now and has never before rung true with me.
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just isn’t true - expulsom being bop allows people to make gold on selling crafted gear. When everyone has easy access to everything involved with crafted gear - then the market becomes oversaturated. A lot of people won’t make the effort to farm or obtain rare mats which helps prevent oversaturation of the market for gear.
And crafted gear still sells decently.
And people selling carries are doing that because they prefer to sell carries because they are after a quick easy buck - people have been selling carries for many expansions and it doesn’t have a whole lot to do with professions either.
Professions really aren’t as terrible as people claim - people make millions each month selling crafted gear even now.
I actually don’t see much difference in professions from legion, other than professions were a real nuisance to get recipes in legion and they are much easier in BfA.
I really don’t understand why you say materials don’t move well either. I don’t usually sell anything but leather and meat and I have absolutely no problem selling those on my servers. And given the amount of cloth and ore I buy I would have to say those move well too.
this is almost an oxymoron - professions can be easy and profitable for long - it just can’t happen. There has to be a huge amount of friction in professions in order to make gold from them, otherwise, too many people just drive down the price to nothing.
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The only thing I dislike is that the best gear is bind on pickup so only the crafter can use his own best gear. For example my first character I made in WoW was a priest leatherworker and he cannot use almost anything he makes, just sells it or gives it to another of my characters (or someone else’s character). I wish there was a way for the best gear a crafter can make to be given to an alt or even another player’s character, or even sold on auction house, I dunno.
It really doesn’t. Instead of buying Expulsom from crafters (especially those who don’t have much use for it), people are instead buying greens and crafted trash items in bulk for the chance at getting Expulsom.
Do you see how the crafted item simply becomes a middle-man in this order of transactions? It’s a barrier to selling what is actually useful – the Expulsom itself.
Crafter A: makes item
Crafter A: puts on AH
Crafter B: buys item from AH
Crafter B: scraps item
Crafter B: crafts item with Expulsom gained
Would it not be simpler this way:
Crafter A: puts Expulsom on AH
Crafter B: buys Expulsom
Crafter B: crafts item
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that isn’t what happens though.
Crafter A: makes useless items that normally they couldn’t sell then scraps it to get expulsom. They then craft a more valuable item and put it on the auction house to sell.
I have no idea why you think anyone would be stupid enough to buy crafted items on the auction when they can craft them themselves cheaper.
There is no Crafter B involved at all.
There has been a huge market for people buying greens since expansion start for a good reason…time, buy greens scrap for exp. Not everyone plays the bracer flip. It is time consuming.
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Only if one assumes that crafting gear weaker than what drops in LFR is the end goal.
The best items a crafter can make cannot be sold on the AH. Hence, if they do not have enough Expulsom (or other soulbound material) to craft them themselves, they must either buy trash items and hope for Expulsom, or they must buy materials, craft a bunch of trash themselves, and scrap it, again just hoping for Expulsom.
This is why I said that having the materials be soulbound or the crafted items being soulbound is fine, but not both.
Do the 340 craftable items sell? Yes, of course they do. However, they aren’t any sort of good long-term income (eg: crafted legendary items in Legion), and there is again still the middle-man involved.
Personally, I think it’s the end result item that should be BoE – but I’d settle for the materials being BoE.
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The people who are making millions are doing the bracers flips and not complaining crafting professions are useless.
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Yes we have the --time–, not everyone does. Professions could be a lot better than this.
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Doing it because it’s the only thing that works presently is not the same thing as doing it because it’s good design.
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Your idea of a ‘good’ design though would be terrible. Whereas, I actually see nothing wrong with this design.
Normally that green gear you make to level up your professions is useless, this expansion for the first time I can remember it isn’t and I like that.
Professions should take time to do, the last thing they should be is like WoD gardens and mine.
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