Profession lack "depth"

[SodiumChloride]

This is one of the frustrating things about WoW. There are things which could be so much more, but aren't.

Professions in WoW are basically a mat list plus a button you push to make the item.

There is zero "lore" behind any of the created items - no "the weapon has this element, forged into it this particular way, giving it this property". There is no history behind the weapon patterns either - "this weapon design started in that time period, rumour by a certain sword-smith".

You don't really feel like an artisan of your particular craft.

All the professions forums talk about is making gold ...

edit: Dang it! Grammar error in title. ><

[Priestamgpwn]

Well I dont want to be a douchebag or anything but if you want lore along with your items you can do Archaeology. I thinking blizzard first needs to do some reworking of the profession leveling system and make some of them more useful gold wise altho they are doing that
( engineering now and back when you could only hope for those extra motes/primals/eternals/volatiles ). When they fix this stuff i would mind some lore and maybe even some effects/animations for example: Getting infused with lightning,breathing fire ,stone flask making a cover around your gear with some small/medium spikes, etc.

[SodiumChloride]

Well I dont want to be a douchebag or anything but if you want lore along with your items you can do Archaeology. I thinking blizzard first needs to do some reworking of the profession leveling system and make some of them more useful gold wise altho they are doing that
( engineering now and back when you could only hope for those extra motes/primals/eternals/volatiles ). When they fix this stuff i would mind some lore and maybe even some effects/animations for example: Getting infused with lightning,breathing fire ,stone flask making a cover around your gear with some small/medium spikes, etc.

All Archaeology ever yields is "this is historical object was used by famous person once".

Doesn't not make you feel much like a craftsmen when you piece it together ... only an archaeologist.

The only thing current professions are actually tuned for is usefulness (do players use the crafted items?) and gold making (tied to the usefulness of the crafted items). It could be better, but what you asked for is already being done - just not perfectly.

[Raven]

People wont care if 1 sword are made by world of warcrafts most famous swordmaker and made of gold and jewels and some unknown elementium from a dying sun and infused with power of 100 000 mages and demon blood and another sword is made by someone unknown random guy and made of clay and sticks, they will pick the unknown guy´s clay stick sword everytime if that one have higher dmg and dps.

[SodiumChloride]

People wont care if 1 sword are made by world of warcrafts most famous swordmaker and made of gold and jewels and some unknown elementium from a dying sun and infused with power of 100 000 mages and demon blood and another sword is made by someone unknown random guy and made of clay and sticks, they will pick the unknown guy´s clay stick sword everytime if that one have higher dmg and dps.

Just like people don't read quest text and care who they are killing as long as they drop loot right?

That would explain the nigh endless arguments over lore in the General Forums ...

Just because some players don't care, doesn't mean everyone doesn't.

[imoom]

well, they lack depths even when not considering lore aspect.
Since you dont use anything you craft except the "standard bonus stat", it comes down to which item you want another 180 mainstat on. which is really boring.
IMO every profession should have 1 slot where it can make a BoP BiS item. upgradeable or w.e per tier. anything really to make it more interesting then it is now is needed.

[SodiumChloride]

well, they lack depths even when not considering lore aspect.
Since you dont use anything you craft except the "standard bonus stat", it comes down to which item you want another 180 mainstat on. which is really boring.
IMO every profession should have 1 slot where it can make a BoP BiS item. upgradeable or w.e per tier. anything really to make it more interesting then it is now is needed.

IMHO, ideally we should have been able to alter the characteristics of the items we make by varying the materials and creation process - e.g. how long you heat a blade in the furnace before quenching. But that's probably beyond Blizzard.

Lore is easy and doesn't affect game mechanics.

[Urza29]

it may be to late in wow's lifespan to create something truly epic from the professions, and even if they did it would take a lot of resources, time and stuff that they always say "are used for more important stuff, like raids" thats their answer to everything, they only focus on the really important stuff, and apparently raids/content is far more important than old professions

I think they should overhaul the whole system next expansion, i always found it stupid to have to stand in 1 spot and craft 10 of the same item for points, if anything the game is extremely bloated by sheer amount of patterns, things you can craft, and the levels for those items are so spread out its not even worth time or effort to make anything till level capped, usually, because the gear from random dungeons (blues with random affix) and or heirlooms are 100x better, with no cost or effort

They should separate every say 5 levels out in the gear in each profession, make stuff for say level 5 (since cant "learn" a profession till level 5..right?) make stuff for level 5, level 10, 15 etc, rather than 10 things at level 10, 0 till 20 and 2 till 25 etc like it is now, needs to be consistent and brought together, streamlined so that you can aucutally use the gear if you wanted, it wont be super outdated, only by the next 5 levels or so, hell they could make it every 10 and make each "tier" items really awesome, that you want to craft

For mats, cut out a lot of random crap while making the costs proportionate to the item, why does it take 20 bolts of cloth to make a bracer, and 10 to make a chest? (probably not that skewed, but you get the point)

Also for leveling, if you were to make just ONE item at every 10 levels or so, make it give you like 10 points or 5 points, no more of the nickel and dime make 10 items go back to trainer, make 10 items, make each skill point mean something, rather than just trash to vendor or DE (and none of the lower level chanting mats sell for much anyways, so usually end up just vendoring them a few silver, thus feels like you are wasting your newly crafted item)

If they do it every 5 levels, then make each item worth 5 points, maximum of say 25 per 10 levels, so at level 5, you could have a crafting skill of 25 till you are level 10, and also make really good items worth 10 points, but take more mats, make said mats drop in dungeons also, so can combine it with leveling in dungeons as we all do with alts anyways, thus streamlining it all together, maybe make rare parts or mats from a particular boss, would make a very interesting item hunt and make you feel professions are not just a button you hit and go afk

I think they should remove the leveling from making mats like cloth into bolts, or leather into bigger leather, i mean that's part of the profession you should learn, but just easy free points, always felt you weren't really learning anything though

make more items that have random affix, no more static items, every 5 levels, make 1 item of every slot, that has a random affix, so you can craft your "perfect" set if you wanted, with trial and error, and gaining points along the way. There should be crafted weapons of every type too, with proper stats, like hit and crit etc, even at low levels they are useful. Make a ton of new items with unique looks so that even if you dont really need a new weapon replacement, at least can transmog your current into that shiny new cool weapon

....i could go on...but longpost is already long