[Suggestion] Removal of gathering professions

[Deleted]

Gathering professions in MoP and the upcoming WoD Expansion

With the introduction of the Farmer fraction in MoP and the ability to farm any raw materials, given that you have the reputation, the prices of raw materials drastically dropped. If we compare effort with commodity return, farming at the Halfhill is the most effective way to gather materials and this without having the required profession. On top of that, gathering is much more easier, because Pandaria is small, compared to the rest of Azeroth, and the nodes mostly are concentrated around a small part of the Land. Another factor are Bot farmers, that increases the overall supply of products. In WoD we have a even an improved system, the Garrison.

The consequences of farming without profession

As stated previously, the prices of raw materials dropped down drastically. In terms of gold they can't keep up with crafting professions. Crafting professions mostly are protected by daily cooldowns on processed goods, where supply and demand keep a healthy balance, thus the price too. The only solution for characters with gathering professions are: farming gold, farming and selling tons of raw materials, alts with crafting professions, reroll profession. Either the solution is farming hours for their own demands or rerolling.

For crafting professions life is easier. They can fullfill their own demands with farming, or buying for cheap prices from the AH. Their daily based cooldowns allows causal players to produce gold with low time investement and also protects their revenue. This design is worthwile.

Solution

Naive solution: Removing the ability to farm without profession.
Partially would solve the problem, but also cut deep in the Garrison and farming expirience. Also no protection against bot farmers.

Average solution: Exclusive products, that can exclusively skinned or gathered.
Better solution, but no protection form bot farmers. Giving the ability to craft a daily based good would solve this issue. This products can't be part of the Raid requirement (Flask/Gem/Enchantment/Potions) or it would be a threshold to raiding.

Good solution: Removing gathering professions and fusing it with their respective crafting professions (Skinning: Leatherwork, Herbalism: Inscription/Alchemist, Mining: Blacksmithing, Engineering).

Blizzard stated that they would remove every benefical bonus of professions for Raids, so you can choose anything you want, rather than rerolling your professions again. Therefore gathering professions lose yet another beneficial factor. So, why not fusing them together? How it would work? Like Enchanting, which has its disenchanting profession build in, or like Tailoring, except only people with Blacksmithing/Engineering can gather i.e. ores. It would solve the problems stated above, you would reduce the amount of "farming alts", which is bad game design anyways and it would simplify professions. Other than smelting, gathering professions doesn't bring anything exclusive with them. They are plain and boring. In my opinion these professions are obsolete and doesn't contribute to the fun part of professions.

[Deleted]

I like the idea of fusing the professions.

[mikoslav]

I like the idea of fusing the professions.

I would vote for it with both my hands.

[medievalman1]

Guild wars 2 doesn't have gathering professions, but gathering is done by anyone with the proper tool in their inventory... and I dislike it, quite a bit. So, gonna have to vote "keep gathering professions".

[Deleted]

Guild wars 2 doesn't have gathering professions, but gathering is done by anyone with the proper tool in their inventory... and I dislike it, quite a bit. So, gonna have to vote "keep gathering professions".

The question is, why are you disliking this? And not everyone can gather, only who has the appropiate crafting profession.

[Debased]

"Protection against bot farmers" lol. I for one believe they're the reason many craftables are remotely affordable.

[Pandapuncher]

I posted a long thread about how gathering proessions should be merged into their respective regular professions. and posted it on the suggestions forum, didn't garner any responces though.

[ro9ue]

Yeah they should move skinning/gathering/mining to the crafting professions. Shouldve been done long ago.

[Pandapuncher]

with the amount of real-time events going on in WoD, i would love to be able to be on my main and not a farming alt when exploring draenor, so I can participate

[medievalman1]

The question is, why are you disliking this? And not everyone can gather, only who has the appropiate crafting profession.

The answer is complicated, in great part because I simply don't know for sure. There are a number of things that could be the reason, some I can't validate with actual data. Thus I wasn't going to list them, but since you asked...

Reasons I can't validate with data, at all... so...:
1) Mat prices for most mats (not so applicable for endgame mats) were trivial for experienced (and thus more wealthy players) but were a pain for new players.
2) Requirements for crafting professions seemed a bit higher than what they could have been had not everyone, literally everyone, been able to farm for those mats on every single character, thus reinforcing the cost, either time or money in getting mats.

Personal reasons I don't like it:
My whole setup revolves around my pure dps classes (who generally have to wait in queues) farming to give me something to do.

Arguable theory reasons:
1) The economy itself is driven in large part by the separation between crafting and gathering. The fact that crafting lends more utility to gameplay means there is a sacrifice for those investing in gathering. Basically, the reasons people don't want to do gathering makes it a commodity on the AH.
2) Combining the professions lower the number of permutations of unique character/profession combinations (not necessarily a bad thing depending on your perspective, but not one generally sought out by mmo's)

Now, after rereading the OP, I have some thoughts:

It appears that the main contention here isn't about crafting professions, but about gathering professions being trivialized. Perhaps I'm making an assumption here, but this is what I see, the problem isn't exactly clearly stated. (*side note: any and all factors related to bots will be that much greater when absolutely every single character can gather based on crafting professions*). If that's the problem, don't choose a gathering profession.