The Future of Warcraft Announcements -- Professions Update

Speaking of cross profession interaction. Is there any possibility of increasing the number of professions that can be learned by 1 character?

2 Likes

Are there any changes to how the DMF crafting quests work with this? Because I can see these as being potentially interesting (albeit time-specific) specialization options in this system. Or will these remain simple +5 base skillpoints?

The huge focus on group content here worries me. There are a lot of us who donā€™t do group content for many many reasons. I have a whole thread about it. Professions are one way to really engage, develop a character, and be a part of the WoW world, without the group content. It can be a fantastic alternate path to an ā€œend gameā€ for some people.

Exactly. Please be sure that crafters can still do max level crafting with the mats others bring to them, even if they donā€™t do group content themselves.

I want to be able to use that huge 17 year list of tailoring patterns for others. I also want to be able to really focus on my profs vs group content as a viable long term activity.

Will that be possible or will crafting skill on my end be locked behind group content like in Legion?

4 Likes

Im not sure if Im remeber correctly but couldnt you get all the profession stuff from LFG or the AH?

I on theother hand am actually very excited for some profession content both group and solo and everything seems very well thought out

I really really really donā€™t do group content. Especially not LFG with strangers.

I have a very serve anxiety disorder, I am autistic, and have physical issues now too. That is, in part, what my first thread here was about. Dungeon and Raid Solo Accessibility for Old & Current Content

Forced group content, esp when that group is not fun for many, is not cool.

I finally got my purple drake from the holiday events the other day when they removed PvP. I still donā€™t have Kyrian done in SL because dungeon. I have not seen any dungeon or raid content when current since Cata. Yet, I play quite a few hours every week, sometimes every day. The crafting system can be a fantastic end-ish game system for non group folks, esp with the work order system.

10 Likes

I hope you all had a great weekend! Here are some more specific answers to questions since my last post:

Philosophically, we like how optional reagents give lots of different ways to customize crafted gear. We will be trying out various types of optional reagents to see how they feel, so nothing set in stone yet, but I will say we like the way the 9.2 optional reagents let you do something a little more custom with your gear than just set their stats or modify item level.

Just to confirm, Halite is correct. Profession stats are not part of regular gear, but exist on profession gear and in other areas of the profession system. To clarify further, weā€™ve been thinking of your profession ā€œskillā€ (e.g. blacksmithing skill) as your profession ā€œprimary statā€ and these other stats, such as inspiration, as your profession ā€œsecondary statsā€.

We recognize that lots of people see value in increasing the number of professions learned by a single player, and itā€™s something we have definitely discussed. Currently we have no plans to expand this number though. For Dragonflight we are adding significant amounts of new depth and gameplay to professions, so also increasing the number of professions that you can learn on a character at the same time could be a recipe for potentially being overwhelming.

Weā€™d like to see how it feels with these deeper professions. After Dragonflight we all (developers and players alike) might feel very different about multiple professions, as this is going to be an all new experience!

Very cool idea! Weā€™re definitely looking at older sources of skill, skill points, and other profession interactions to figure out how we might want to update them in Dragonflight. The main focus is definitely on Dragonflight professions, but something like updating that DMF quest could go very well with the overall update!

Thank you for your questions Mirasol. This is a tricky needle to thread (insert tailoring joke here) as we want to reward players for doing group content. Instances are a major part of the game, and professions are meant to span pretty much every part of it. We also recognize that, as you say, professions are a great place for those less interested in group content to find a lot of gameplay.

Given that, one of our general goals for professions is that a player can be very successful without needing to set foot in an instance. We recognize that just because you want to craft the dragon head into an epic helmet, you donā€™t necessarily want to be the one to slay that dragon. Those are two very distinct fantasies and splitting those activities has a great deal of value. This is particularly because we want you to be able to think of yourself first and foremost as a scribe, a leatheworker, or any other profession. For some players ideally, their professions should be able to be the most important part of their identity, and where they can choose to spend the majority of their energy!

Given that, we are discussing how to achieve both the goals of having group content being rewarding to a player with professions, and avoiding it being required to be successful in your profession.

You will absolutely be able to max your professionsā€™ skills, and very successfully specialize without setting foot in an instance in Dragonflight. The vast majority of recipes will continue to be acquirable through outside play as well. It is possible though, that some recipes will come from dungeons or raid. These are great places thematically to acquire some recipes, and become a cool reward for doing that content. That said, we are currently thinking that perhaps many, if not all of these recipes will not be soulbound, so you could ask someone to go into an instance to get them for you, or buy them off the AH.

Will guilds have dedicated crafters that donā€™t even raid with them, but are there fulfilling the fantasy and role of crafting awesome gear for their guild? We donā€™t know, but that would certainly be neat!

Anyway, I hope that answers your question in a way that is satisfactory!

12 Likes

The past expansions have seen two professions removed. First Aid removed totally, and Archeology halted. I understand maybe not having more than two main professions, but is it possible to replace those missing ones with one or two gathering options? That way a person could still be an Alchemist/Inscriptionist + pick flowers.

Exactly! I want the identity to be that of the craftperson in town who is there when the adventurers return.

Excellent. That is very good to hear. That makes it casual/solo accessible.

This is reasonable. It is not uncommon for some patterns only to be found deep in the dragonā€™s lair where it has been sequestered away for 1000 years. That we might be able to buy those patterns is a great compromise.

Mostly :slight_smile: But I do have a few more.

  1. I might have overlooked the answer, but will patterns/recipes from older expansions be part of the work order system? Can players put in that request for a missing transmog item, pet, etc that a crafter can make?

  2. Is there going to be any overhaul to the Crafting inventory system? My bags and bank are very very full. I am at the point I want a crafting bank with a tab for each expansion just about. This gets worse every expansion where we have expansion specific things for various new systems.

9 Likes

This seems like the key to making professions enjoyable for everyone! I think BoE recipes are a great idea, and thereā€™s also been some talk of soulbound reagents, perhaps having some of those drop from dungeons and raids might be a good way to make them feel relevant to crafters as well?


Speaking of recipes; seeing that the crafting system is going to become more elaborate with specialisations, stats and gear, it might be more interesting to play professions on alts as well. These days I only have one of each profession because collecting recipes is a real pain, especially if theyā€™re locked behind timegating, rare drops or such. Itā€™s fine doing it once, but when youā€™re doing it more than once to get a recipe you can already craft on your main, it feels a little pointless to put your energy into that.

Are there any considerations for letting learned recipes be account-wide, or otherwise shareable with alts of the same profession?

1 Like

Iā€™m glad this isnā€™t a firm no. I would like to see another option added (maybe limit 2 gathering/crafting and 1 other?) But I also understand the reasoning youā€™re giving for the increased depth.

2 Likes

This level of communication is insane hope you know myself and a bunch of my friends super pumped about this stuff because of the conversation going on

8 Likes

Like Letholas, itā€™s good itā€™s not a firm no, but I am curious - have you guys re-visited the plan you guys mentioned during Shadowlands Beta of making the 3 Gathering Professions into secondary professions?

It feelsā€¦ weird that my character, that has helped kill a Titan and an Eternal Oneā€¦ doesnā€™t know how to pick a flower.

And it feels bad to be a profession that relies on the gathering professions compared to Tailoring/Enchanting, cause youā€™re essentially locked into that second profession unless you want to buy all the mats or farm them on another character.

2 Likes

And a few more answersā€¦

This is TBD. There is definitely value to giving access to many of the older recipes through crafting orders, but given that this is a brand new system, we are likely going to want to work out the kinks for Dragonflight recipes before expanding too much into the massive amount of old content!

We are definitely aware that inventory space is an issue and are currently looking into what we can do here!

This isnā€™t in our current plans for professions as we are concentrating on other aspects of the profession system for the moment, sorry.

Glad to be part of the conversation. We are all players too, but hearing what the wider audience thinks is incredibly valuable to making a great game, so thanks for reading and responding, both on this forum and elsewhere!

We havenā€™t discussed the details of gathering as much with you all yet, but I will note that we are adding quite a bit of depth to gathering as well, so we are not currently considering making the gathering professions secondary.

11 Likes

I saw an interesting post over on the General Discussion Forum and wanted to provide some feedback regarding the post over there in this thread as it pertains to this particular topic!

The first thing noted in the thread was to remove the Daily along with Weekly lockouts for materials for profession related items from older expansions!

My Thoughts: I strongly agree with this. I donā€™t see why materials from older expansions should be gated behind Dailies or Weekly lockouts still. Such materials Iā€™m referring to are the Cooking Daily currencies from the Dailies for the Cooking profession.

Instead of only being able to do (1) Cooking Daily from a city of your choice from your Alliance or Horde capital cities, You should be able to complete each Cooking Daily each day from every city. This would make getting the Cooking Materials to level up your older Cooking Recipes quicker.

Same with leveling up Fishing as well for doing the Fishing Daily Quests. You should be able to do all of them rather than just the (1) from your Alliance or Horde capital cities.

On top of this, Any materials that have a limit you can make per day and/or week should be removed from older professions. I donā€™t see the reasoning why there should be a limit on those still. Have the limit only on gear that is relevant to the current expansion and then when that expansion ends remove the said restrictions then.

Second thing mentioned was to remove Bind on Pickup on crafted gear from older expansions and older dropped recipes!

My Thoughts: This would be yet another nice thing to see happen in-game. There is a lot of transmog collectors out there such as myself as I enjoy collecting stuff in-game. There is a lot of older gear however that you cannot get however unless you learn the profession and then the recipe to create the gear as they are Bind on Pickup still.

If you have other professions and donā€™t wish to drop it just to learn these specific pieces of gear, Then this is an issue. Older gear shouldnā€™t be Bind on Pickup when created with older profession recipes.

Last thing mentioned in the thread is to restore the ā€œUpgradeā€ forms for Warlords of Draenor crafted gear and weapons.

My Thoughts: This should have been resolved quite some time ago. Iā€™m unsure as to why it hasnā€™t as of yet. Iā€™m one of those players that did not manage to collect all of those appearances back then, And at this current time, Iā€™m now unable to.

I do know this was promised to be resolved in Battle for Azeroth as mentioned in the thread over on the General Discussion Forum. So Iā€™m really hoping this is fixed in Dragon Flight!

For those wondering which thread Iā€™m referring to, It is This One! Feel free to read it and see the comments by the rest of the World of Warcraft Community. I hope the WoW Development Team reads it as well for some further feedback! :slight_smile:

4 Likes

That makes sense! I hope itā€™s something that can be considered for the future :>

1 Like

The cooldown removal used to be an actual thing: Arcanite, Mooncloth, Primal mightā€¦ they used to have a loooong cooldown and now they have none. I can somewhat understand that not removing all these old cooldowns could be related to the fact that some of the items created using the mats that can only be produced with a 24h+ cooldown might still be relevant. For example, Sky Golems still sell because theyā€™re actually still useful, because you will not get dismounted when herbing. Theyā€™d still sell if Jardā€™s cooldown was removed but the margins would shrink considerably. As this sounds a lot like artificial scarcity, then yea, I agree - let the people craft as much old stuff as they can.

This was also brought up in the Collectors Wish List for Professions thread, and I think unless these old crafted items are changed to BoE, they should at the very least be something you could put a craft order in for. I also hope this system wonā€™t work like the AH, where I canā€™t buy my own auctions on an alt - if I have the leatherworking pattern on my shammy, please allow her to see (and fulfil) my rogue altā€™s crafting request.

1 Like

I know this reply isnā€™t like a commitment or anything, but it feels great to know that it at least sounds cool? : D

One of the things I really enjoyed in Legion was that the artifact quests often took my characters back to older zones - it made the world feel more cohesive. And I think thereā€™s so much potential in there for crafting, especially with the inspiration stat: what if I run RFD while Iā€™m a blacksmith with high inspiration - could I perhaps be inspired to craft Death Speaker Blackthornā€™s amazing sword? This was just a random example but what if inspiration allowed us to craft items/cosmetics from older expansions? Thereā€™s a ton of unused colours for Sunwell weapons, for example. Let us craft them - you could even make them use dragonflight mats AND sunmotes for extra uh, sunwell-ness!

5 Likes

What I might add if there will be alpha or beta, could you please add a vendor for crafting materials like ores, herbs etc. Itā€™s really hard to test professions and how they work if you donā€™t have access to that or have to farm it.

And I 'm pretty sure, how complex professions will be now, they will need some testing and trying out.

4 Likes

While on the topic of old expansion professionsā€¦

Due to the way Chromie Time and scaling works now, itā€™s impossible to level Classic Skinning from 250 to 300 outside of the Darkmoon Faire quests. (Itā€™s been reported hundreds of times in Bug Report, General Discussion, and talked about on other sites)

Is there any chance this could be looked at in Dragonflight, since I assume itā€™s too late to fix it for 9.2.5?

I know itā€™s a minor thing that probably only affects a few, but Iā€™ve seen a lot of newcomers frustrated with it, as well as some people who farm old leather for rare mogs and such.


Also, Iā€™m very happy with how much communication youā€™re giving. Thank you. <3

4 Likes

That does sound cool - but only if I can run them solo which is my preference :slight_smile: I would be frustrated it they tied it to timewalking or something.

3 Likes

Same - I donā€™t really like having professions being tied with group content - be it PvE ort PvP. As a recipe collector the Legion RBG win r3 patterns were and still are something that makes my eye twitch rather violently.

1 Like