First off you should be warned that this idea was thought up at 4am while farming a massive amount of Elementium. Thought you should know that in advance incase I sound like a stark raving loon. Also, I'm looking for opinions and suggestions along with any grammatical/spelling/mathematical(I hate math) errors I made; as I may revise this and put it on the official forums.
Ok, many guilds are reaching level 14+ about now, and with this level comes the Guild Perk: Working Overtime. As it reads it gives a 10% higher chance to gain a profession level. From a glance it looks very impressive. Hell a 10% chance to gain anything in WoW is always better right? I however began to mull the idea of this perk over in my head. As everyone who has ever leveled a profession can tell you, RNG is a pain. Outside an orange recipe being crafter you could make ten items before finally getting a skill point. What's worse is that random sting of 10 can happen while the recipe is still yellow, and yellow patterns "supposedly" have a 60% chance to grant a skill point. Assuming your guild has unlocked this amazing perk, that may bump you up to a 70% chance of gaining a point, or will it? One of the problems with this perk is nobody is sure whether or not it adds a flat 10% to you chance (60%+10%=70%) or if it is multiplicative (60% * 10% = 66%). It's only slightly less, but on something that can be as random as profession skill ups that 4% can be quite a difference.
Now that the numbers are out there we can actually ignore them and face a larger issue. How exactly do we prove that the 10%, no matter if it additive or multiplicative, is actually there? How exactly do you test something like this? I guess you could level a profession with a specific amount of materials while under the effects of Working Overtime. Then drop said profession, and with the same amount of materials proceed to level the profession the same way; making sure to record the results of both leveling skill ups and material usage. The only problem with this is once again the RNG involved in profession skill ups. It is perfectly within reason if you were to try this test that you could level the non-perked profession higher or with less mats than with the perk. This in my opinion is a major problem because, while it is unlikely, we may have been given a perk that actually cannot be proven and therefore might not actually exist at all. Also, let's go ahead and be honest about when you level a profession. When I level a profession, and I'd imagine most are like me, I never tend to stray far away from making orange recipes. It is only in small circumstances that I will continue to level a profession while the recipe is yellow or even green. The fact is, everyone knows that a skill up is guaranteed(100%) with an orange pattern; but what does that mean for the perk? Do we have over a one-hundred percent chance to gain a skill point? What use is the perk then?
I did manage to come up with what I think is a perfectly valid and reasonable solution to this "not-so-amazing" perk. Instead of beingwhat if it were to beIncreases the chance to gain a skill increase on tradeskills by 10%.This change would do a couple things for us. First, it gives us as players something measurable. When we see a crafted item give us an extra skill up point instead of one/three/five, we know it is actually there and working. Secondly, this takes some strain off of leveling with large material items. By getting double the points crafting for example Arctic Wristguards, the player is saved 12 Borean leather, and has lowered the overall cost of leveling the profession.Gives a 10% chance to gain an extra skill increase on tradeskills.
Overall, I'd say while it is a pretty rough idea, I think it would be a nice change to not only help players with leveling their chosen profession, but also show them that a perk they have worked for is actually working. Thank you for taking the time to read my evaluation and suggestion for this perk.
Edit 1: Changed possible proc of perk to 1 extra point instead of double the points