Professions - Salvaging items

[Ghorak-laughing-skull]

This might already be in the works for 10.0, and the profession updates coming with Dragonflight. I haven’t seen anything included in the announcements, but I thought I’d make a topic about it, to see what people think.

This is partially inspired by the Scrapper that was a thing during Battle for Azeroth. The intent with the post is to build on the base idea behind it, and to see what could be done with the individual professions we have in the game.

Salvaging items

Allow players to salvage existing equippable items of the same type as what they can craft through their chosen profession(s).

• Tailors - Could salvage cloth items.
• Leatherworkers - Could salvage leather/mail items.
• Blacksmiths - Could salvage plate items. Perhaps even certain weapons(melee).
• Enchanters - Already have a version of this, though it could be further developed as well.
• Jewelcrafters - Could salvage necks, rings, trinkets and such.
• Engineers - Could salvage ranged weapons and trinkets. Potentially also certain other items.

As usual, the quality of the item salvaged determines what you can get from it, in terms of materials. And as always, the higher your skill level is, the more you can get from salvaging as well.

While leveling up a profession vs. when at max skill level

While you’re not at full skill level, you should still be able to salvage certain items. As per what we’ve seen in the announcements, things like your Resourcefulness or Inspiration levels could increase the chance of gaining additional skill points, or more materials.

At max skill level, salvaging an item could potentially even allow you to learn how to craft that specific item, at the same item level as the one you had. Same thing as above, your Resourcefulness and Inspiration levels could determine the likelihood of you learning how to do so. A potential benefit from this would be another way for professions to stay more relevant even later on in an expansion.

Some restrictions should/could be:

• Tier pieces and similar. You shouldn’t be able to learn how to craft those.
• If you learn how to craft an item from, as an example, a raid, then any and all such item you do craft should be Bind on Pickup, meaning you will only be able to craft it for yourself, or through the new work order feature, for other players. In order for the Auction House to not be flooded by these items.

Example

Take a blacksmith, they’ve gotten a piece of gear as a drop from a raid boss. They then proceed to salvage said piece. It just so happens that they are at max skill level in Blacksmithing, so this time, they learn how to craft this particular piece of gear, initially at the same item level as it currently was.

(From what I’ve heard, the idea seems to be that you will be able to craft high quality items through professions, perhaps even at the same level as(or close to) Mythic quality. If you, based on the idea above, learn how to craft an item you got from Normal difficulty, then maybe you will eventually be able to also craft it at Heroic, or even Mythic quality.)

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If this has already been suggested before, fair enough. I do hope though that it could potentially inspire something for the future of our professions.

Thoughts?

[longWriter-205129 (longWriter)]

Overall, I like this concept, but I have a few thoughts to add:

Let’s not have something like Expulsom or Obliterum associated with this system—a reagent you can only get by scrapping items! Obliterum led to some degenerate gameplay IMO, where we crafted items just to destroy them. And while Expulsom didn’t have the same problems, it still rubbed me the wrong way. (I’m so hoping we get elemental reagents in Dragonflight instead of reagents like Expulsom!!)

Another thought is: I’d prefer it if engineers had a little more they could deconstruct besides just ranged weapons and trinkets; I’d add one-handed maces and maybe one-handed axes to the mix. There’s no reason more than one profession shouldn’t be allowed to salvage the same kind of item, though I’ll admit it makes sense to only allow one profession to gain the ability to craft the item from salvaging it.

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

Tier pieces and similar. You shouldn’t be able to learn how to craft those.

I disagree to an extent: if you could salvage a tier piece from a previous expansion and learn how to craft something cosmetic that looks just like it, that would be a very rewarding and profession-relevance-building thing!

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

If you learn how to craft an item from, as an example, a raid, then any and all such item you do craft should be Bind on Pickup, meaning you will only be able to craft it for yourself, or through the new work order feature, for other players. In order for the Auction House to not be flooded by these items.

My first thought in reaction to this: I feel like this is six one way, half a dozen the other: the work order system is just another way for players to sell items, after all, so is it really that different from selling finished items on the AH?

My second thought: it’s very different, and it’s much better, too! All too often, the AH had the final product sell for less than the items that composed it! If buyers need to bring those reagents, themselves, then what you’re saying here will mean an end to that final-product-is-cheaper problem!

I’m not sure if that’s what you were aiming for, but the point is, I love the idea!

@Ghorak-laughing-skull

Enchanters - Already have a version of this, though it could be further developed as well.

Hmm…about enchanters: maybe they’d get more materials and more kinds of materials from salvaging staffs, trinkets, and wands than they would from disenchanting them? Maybe other types of weapons should be added to that—or even better, disenchanting/salvaging any gear that’s been enchanted has these effects?

[Ghorak-laughing-skull]

@Longwriter-stormrage

Let’s not have something like Expulsom or Obliterum associated with this system—a reagent you can only get by scrapping items! Obliterum led to some degenerate gameplay IMO, where we crafted items just to destroy them. And while Expulsom didn’t have the same problems, it still rubbed me the wrong way.

Very much agree with this. There can very well be such reagents, just that anyone should be able to get them, from boss kills/M+ chests/WQs, anything related to endgame really. I don’t want anything the likes of which to only be obtainable via salvaging/scrapping. I would prefer if it’s more user friendly, even when you look at it as part of the newly proposed work order-system.

@Longwriter-stormrage

Another thought is: I’d prefer it if engineers had a little more they could deconstruct besides just ranged weapons and trinkets; I’d add one-handed maces and maybe one-handed axes to the mix. There’s no reason more than one profession shouldn’t be allowed to salvage the same kind of item, though I’ll admit it makes sense to only allow one profession to gain the ability to craft the item from salvaging it.

Was thinking about this, and yeah, it could be an issue in certain cases. You could have a particular profession(like Blacksmithing), where you can always salvage/scrap all items associated with that profession, but if you’re an armorsmith, you could obtain more materials from salvaging armor pieces, and vice versa with weapons. For Engineers, you could have it so they obtain a larger amount of materials per item salvaged, by default.

And there are also other things that could be done ofc.

@Longwriter-stormrage

I disagree to an extent: if you could salvage a tier piece from a previous expansion and learn how to craft something cosmetic that looks just like it, that would be a very rewarding and profession-relevance-building thing!

Agreed. Was mostly thinking of Tier from the current season. I did also include the word “could” in the title, as I wasn’t sure of whether the above was the right way to go about it.

@Longwriter-stormrage

My first thought in reaction to this: I feel like this is six one way, half a dozen the other: the work order system is just another way for players to sell items, after all, so is it really that different from selling finished items on the AH?

Hmm, sort of, but also not really.

@Longwriter-stormrage

My second thought: it’s very different, and it’s much better, too! All too often, the AH had the final product sell for less than the items that composed it! If buyers need to bring those reagents, themselves, then what you’re saying here will mean an end to that final-product-is-cheaper problem!

I’m not sure if that’s what you were aiming for, but the point is, I love the idea!

That was part of it, indeed.

@Longwriter-stormrage

Hmm…about enchanters: maybe they’d get more materials and more kinds of materials from salvaging staffs, trinkets, and wands than they would from disenchanting them? Maybe other types of weapons should be added to that—or even better, disenchanting/salvaging any gear that’s been enchanted has these effects?

I’d say that Enchanters already have a base version of this. It’s mostly about adapting it to the proposed changes I mentioned previously. An idea that might be a bit out there could be that Enchanters could be able to disenchant certain items with special Equip effects or similar, and in that way, learn how to make either the same effect themselves, or one similar to it.

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This is the Professions subforum, so it’s not exactly the most commonly visited one. It would be fun if this topic, or something similar to it could be brought to the Community Council for some further discussion.

[longWriter-205129 (longWriter)]

Yeah; I wish there were more discussion here—especially since professions and profession specializations are going to be an important part of Dragonflight.

I kind of wish they’d put me on the CC; I’ve been a professions junkie since Cataclysm.

[Ghorak-laughing-skull]

@Longwriter-stormrage

Yeah; I wish there were more discussion here—especially since professions and profession specializations are going to be an important part of Dragonflight.

I kind of wish they’d put me on the CC; I’ve been a professions junkie since Cataclysm

There’s been a topic about the changes to professions for DF, in the CC forum. The newly announced feature that is “re-crafting” sounds interesting. Although, I wish we could also get something like the above, so that you could do more than simply vendoring certain items.

Hopefully, what has been announced so far, it turns out well. And that there’s yet more to come in this area.

[Ashwalker-exodar]

The changes coming to the professions is a big thing, being able to specialize what I want to do is a big plus. Having a dedicated item slot for the crafting/gathering gear is a feature that I am surprised didn’t come before Dragonflight, but it certainly is a welcome change. There is one thing that I would like to see come to the crafting professions. With enchanting when an item is broken down you get dust of some sort whether it be magic dust or gloom dust whatever zone you are in. I think that the other professions would benefit from this as well. By allowing other professions to break down whatever they make or find as we play and get back a portion of the mats used to make said item would be a big help. Right now, the recipes in shadowlands require a lot of mats to make. On my tailor I need a bare minimum of 10 tidespray linen and 10 Nylon thread for one item. Some require more mats and more than just cloth and thread as all professions.

I have spent hours in the last few days trying to get the tidespray linen to craft that it isn’t fun. I would rather spend my time out in the world actually progressing and not worry about getting enough mats for my professions. I am sure the other professions require the same number of mats, but the herbalists and miners only need to go out into the world and their mats are out there in the open. Any of the professions that require cloth have to rely on rng to get their mats. Its off putting when I spend two hours farming mats and only get enough to craft two pieces. It makes me wonder why I even bother with professions in the first place.