Profession system revamp

[Vasti]

With all the catch-up mechanics and the low amount of uses that old enchants/crafted items/gems/etc see I was thinking it was time the whole system got a revamp.

Like most things in WoW professions only matter at the max level, before that it is just a minor benefit at best, or at worst a time-sink.
Would it not be much better if professions were much more useful during the leveling process and were less about who buys all the lvling mats from AH instead and more about who actually goes out in to the world to actually perform that profession?

What if low level mats can be gathered by anyone? Whether you are a herbalist and alchemist at lvl 3 and happen to come across a bronze mining node, you can still mine that node.
Gathering professions however, do give you a bonus to the yield. A miner might gets 5 bronze ores, but a non-miner might only get 1-2 bronze ores.
Levling a profession is also removed. Instead of levling the profesion it matches your current character level. So in order to craft new recipes or gather highlevel mats you just need a character of the appropriate level.
But what would stop a person from switching professions to gather mats and then back to craft an item? Well for starters, each profession comes with a ramp-up time. The first day of your profession you can craft/gather items to a maximum level of 5, the second day, 10, then 15, 20,25,30, etc. So it will take 18 days before you will be able to craft lvl 90 items or gather lvl 90 mats. (Ofc if your character is for example at lvl 57, even after 100 days he can't gather or craft items above lvl 57) And you can't just sit and wait, no to get the 5 lvls of increase you will have to do that professions daily quest.

If you stick with your profession, this ramp up time is not a limiting factor, but it protects invested players from being usurped by players who would constantly switch professions now that the levling aspect has been removed.

What are the benefits:
-No more trivial levling, which is maybe nice at the start of an expac, but becomes only about gold shortly thereafter
-No more wasted nodes during lvling for alts/new players, as everyone can gather low level nodes/herbs/etc (minus the profession perks of increased yields)

Let's talk about the second benefit.
What's so good about this? Well not much, but that is why I propose to have NPC's with each profession!
Say you are a mage with herbalism and alchemy, but find a lot of cloth and have enough to make a new item for your character. At max level this is fine, but as a low level character, whether on a new server or a new player, it is hard to find someone to spend the time to craft what you need or it becomes too expensive for a new player. So to fix that, the new player can just take his mats to this NPC and have the NPC craft it for a fee that is proportional to the level of the item. This way new players can still use the old recipes that most players CBA to waste time on.
In order to keep max level professions as they are, the NPC's only have access to the recipe's of the previous expansion. So currently they can create Cata stuff, and when WoD is released they can do the MoP stuff.

Problems with this revamp:
-If everyone can gather everything from a previous expac (even at a reduced yield) competition for nodes can increase dramatically, causing people to drop gathering professions all together.

Solutions:
-Balance the increased yield so that it is only beneficial to mine/pick a node if you happen to come across it, not as an active way to gather materials for a non-gathering-professions-character
-Besides increased yields, characters with the gathering profession have additional benefits: They have access to certain phased nodes that only people with the profession can see. Only they can track the nodes on their mini-map. They gather faster than non-gatherers. Only they can find the rare items within nodes (others only get the basic ore, plants, etc. No gems or pets or whatever)
-To combat the fact that leveling characters might not come across enough mats during leveling to make use of them, the required mats for old content recipes (every recipe from a previous expac) will be reduced.


It looks a bit complex at first, but that is only because a lot seems to change, but when you think about it, the only things that really changes is how professions level up and that low-levels will have easier access to other professions through gathering their own mats and NPC's to craft the items for them at a not-ridiculous cost.

Remember, they can only gather materials from the previous expac. No current-content nodes will be gathered by non-gathering-players. No current content gems/weapons/armor can be cut/crafted by people without the profession.

This change is for two reasons:
-Make professions useful while levling
-Remove the stupid leveling process of professions Which is either: Buy all the mats from AH = gold requirement OR gather the mats (old content and new content) yourself = time requirement. Both of which are horrible and are better replaced with the ramp-up profession daillies and professions levling with your character.

Do you think this would work?

[piin]

while i sympathize with you about the time/gold requirements, this is still an MMORPG and character growth and progression is the ultimate carrot dangling in front of us. I would actually prefer no profession perks for raiding or ones that are perfectly balanced so there is no "oh crap, leatherworking is OP, I have to switch and level it this patch." If they removed the end game perks, I would love to see a way to make it relevant throughout the leveling process. I don't agree with letting just anyone farm nodes etc though.

[Vasti]

while i sympathize with you about the time/gold requirements, this is still an MMORPG and character growth and progression is the ultimate carrot dangling in front of us. I would actually prefer no profession perks for raiding or ones that are perfectly balanced so there is no "oh crap, leatherworking is OP, I have to switch and level it this patch." If they removed the end game perks, I would love to see a way to make it relevant throughout the leveling process. I don't agree with letting just anyone farm nodes etc though.

Everyone can only gather lower level mats. For RPG purposes it is comparable to me being able to build a wobbly table not anywhere near as awesome as a real carpenter would be able to. I might be able to get some ore from a mining node or pick some leaves from a plant without destroying it, but not nearly as much as a real experienced miner or herbalist.

[Nebria]

one point I liked about guild wars 2 was that your character had each gather skill. to not ran into the problem that you go out and find nothing - because everybody can gather everything - you also have your own "version" of mince/tree etc that only you see and can gather.

[iriecolorado]

Agreed. Gathering should be a secondary profession that every character has, just like Fishing, Cooking or Archaeology. I'd also like to see them do away with profession bonuses. It seems to over-complicate things with things when adding new recipes or growing professions as an expansion ages. Lastly, I'd like to see crafted gear on-par with raiding gear for that tier. As a tailor, I'm crafting a set of epic robes for the 6.0 patch. I'd like to see RNG thrown into the mix and have a ~75% chance to craft something of 'Flex' quality, a ~20% chance to craft something of 'Normal' quality and a ~5% chance to craft something of 'Heroic' quality.

[clault]

Agreed. Gathering should be a secondary profession that every character has, just like Fishing, Cooking or Archaeology. I'd also like to see them do away with profession bonuses. It seems to over-complicate things with things when adding new recipes or growing professions as an expansion ages. Lastly, I'd like to see crafted gear on-par with raiding gear for that tier. As a tailor, I'm crafting a set of epic robes for the 6.0 patch. I'd like to see RNG thrown into the mix and have a ~75% chance to craft something of 'Flex' quality, a ~20% chance to craft something of 'Normal' quality and a ~5% chance to craft something of 'Heroic' quality.

The giving everyone a gather ability might be cool. The fact that the nods would probably be harder to find is a counter to the over flooded market. It would kill a huge market on herb/mine nods. I don't think it should be easier if everyone has it, it should be harder to lvl if everyone has it.

I don't think it would make much sense about the gear. Maybe rings/trinkets. But full socket gear like robes and shit is stupid. I would just farm cloth and sit and make robes until I got all heroic gear. 5% chance for Flex tho is more like it. That would make the market higher. Or maybe even something like the inscription BoA staffs where you need to craft 50 Cool down items to actually make it. So it takes some time.

I don't think the problem is getting items or making gold. The problem with professions is just the sheer amount of USELESS shit there is.

[Deleted]

I think lvling is a nice side to lvling in the main storyline.

I think it's smart of blizzard to simplify the game aggressively, but I think removing lvling for profs is possible to go overboard.