Warlords of Draenor Professions Concept Thread

[xazrael]

Hey guys. Here making another concept thread. This time on the profession system.

Warlords of Draenor Professions

Blue Quotes:

we have been thinking whether giving players access to all professions or not on one character. Most players just mass swap toons for different professions anyways.

Our profession system needs intensive work to remain competitive to other MMO's

Patch 6.0 Warlords of Draenor

*All profession levels removed from the game.
*Each profession now has 5 ranks/levels
*You can increase your rank in a profession by crafting things from that profession
*In order to "unlock" the profession and become rank 1, you must complete an initiation quest. (tutorial)
*No limit to how many max rank professions you may have.
*Upon obtaining a new rank, you will be granted various "simple" recipes, but rare recipes must be obtained from questing, auction house, or NPC vendors.
*All simple recipes make items not usable by players.
*Lower level players may trade low level materials for materials found in Draenor (Peacebloom --> Warbulb)
Rank 1: Basic Common recipes. (Ex. Draenite Platehelm - White Quality)
Rank 2: Basic Uncommon recipes. (Ex. Flaming Draenite Platehelm - Green Quality)
Rank 3: Intermediate Common/Uncommon recipes (Ex. Haeleum Platehelm - White Quality) + Basic Profession Special (Disenchanting, Milling, etc)
Rank 4: Intermediate Uncommon/Rare recipes (Ex. Flaming Haeleum Platehelm - Blue Quality)
Rank 5: Advanced Rare/Epic recipes (Ex. Flaming Warlord Haeleum Platehelm - Purple Quality) + Full Profession Special

*These are just the basic recipes used to level the profession. These will be items asked for in quests, rather than sold on the AH.

*Profession Daily
*Every player has access to complete 1 daily quest per day.
*A random daily quest is offered for each profession. So you can choose the one you want to do.
*Quests may include crafting almost any item, and delivering it to a place around the world. (you might not have access to that recipe yet.
*Upon completing the daily, you will be awarded with exp, exp in the profession of the daily, profession token(s), and a reward bag
*Profession Tokens are used to purchase rare/epic recipes from vendors. You can complete a daily in Blacksmithing, and use the profession token to buy a Jewelcrafting recipe
*The reward bag contains gold, and a chance for some rare materials for crafting. (Blue quality gems/ore/herbs)
*The gold/exp/pro exp/tokens are increased for more difficult dailies (a daily for crafting a uncommon awards 1 token, very small exp, and 10 gold) (a daily for crafting a rare awards 2 tokens, small exp, and 25 gold)
*Among all the profession dailies, there will be roughly 2 profession dailies that work for each rank.
ex. The blacksmithing daily requires you to craft an item from rank 4, while the jewelcrafter daily requires you to craft a rank 1 gem. There should be 1 more profession using a rank 4 item, and 1 for a rank 1 item.
*You get different dailies than another player.


Vendors
*A vendor for every profession can be found in main cities.
*They will each have a daily (but only one can be done a day)
*All recipes bought with Profession Tokens
*Also a profession trader vendor will be available, to which you can trade many lower level materials for high level ones.
*People who are interested in recipes no longer obtainable, may visit the legacy crafter. He sells recipes for gold.

Bonuses
*All professions have their personal bonuses removed (extra sockets, epic gems, synapse/rocket boots, etc)
*You obtain 1 skill point for each rank you have in a profession above rank 1(max 15.)
*You can reach the new profession skill tree from the professions tab.
*You can put your skill points into 9 different categories.
-Movement Speed - (0/3) increase your movement speed by 5%
-Nimble Limbs - (0/3) increase your haste by 1%
-Toughness - (0/3) decreases durability damage taken on items from death by 2%
-Muscle Bound - (0/3) increase your critical strike chance with weapons and spells by 1%
-Durable Coating - (0/3) increase your armor by 2%
-Killer Instinct - (0/3) decrease the damage you take from players by 1%
-Inner Springs - (0/3) reduce damage taken from falling by 20%
-All Out Crafting - (0/5) increase the profession exp you gain by 2%
-Master Of Arms - (0/3) increase your mastery by 1%

*You can respec at anytime (out of combat) by just removing a point and replacing it.

Jewelcrafting
*Revamped completely.
*All previous gems removed from the game.
*All gems are now scaled to the level of the person that uses them.
ex. Deadly Draenite Onyx gives 2 agi and 4 crit to a level 5, but gives 30 agi, and 60 crit to a level 100.

[ComputerNerd]

I say a simple NO to the talent system.
Picking and choosing them per-fight is what will happen, making the issue of the talent/glyphs system many times larger.
The old talent system had no real choice, and in many respects nor does the current one have as many as it was supposed to.
Adding in combat bonuses WILL make some of them simply superior, and therefore no-brainers.

I agree that in an ideal world removing the per-profession combat perks would be a huge improvement, a vast portion of what engineering consists of is those gimmicks and removing them would gut the profession.
That is an easy sounding task for most, but not for engineering.

Tokens or something similar to gate the recipes might not be a bad idea, so there is some differentiation between players.
I am thinking though perhaps a specialisation not unlike those in alchemy or the old blacksmithing has potential.
If it was possible to offer a small number of items to the specialisation, ideally consumables, buff items, or a perk to the crafting, such as extra results or reduced materials requirements.

I am wondering if not being able to learn everything could work.
Where perhaps some "tiers" of recipes might have a learning limit, say with a collection of 10 similar recipes, you can only learn 2 or 3 of them.

Per-profession BoP materials to perhaps add value again, such that they are worth more than the traded materials.
You can't roll if you don't have the profession.

Full level scaling would force the actual recipes down to some really minimal number.
I disagree with that, and think instead an item you craft should remain superior or at least competitive against a scaled-down higher one.
Making craftings affordable and feasible to be crafting at a given level range they are aimed at is a pretty big ask, but I think it would hugely increase the demand for those items.
Making gear during levelling should be way more feasible than it is now.
The rank system you propose has you crafting trash items which which simply won't be desirable.

The trading up has potential.

[xazrael]

I say a simple NO to the talent system.
Picking and choosing them per-fight is what will happen, making the issue of the talent/glyphs system many times larger.
The old talent system had no real choice, and in many respects nor does the current one have as many as it was supposed to.
Adding in combat bonuses WILL make some of them simply superior, and therefore no-brainers.

I agree that in an ideal world removing the per-profession combat perks would be a huge improvement, a vast portion of what engineering consists of is those gimmicks and removing them would gut the profession.
That is an easy sounding task for most, but not for engineering.

Tokens or something similar to gate the recipes might not be a bad idea, so there is some differentiation between players.
I am thinking though perhaps a specialisation not unlike those in alchemy or the old blacksmithing has potential.
If it was possible to offer a small number of items to the specialisation, ideally consumables, buff items, or a perk to the crafting, such as extra results or reduced materials requirements.

I am wondering if not being able to learn everything could work.
Where perhaps some "tiers" of recipes might have a learning limit, say with a collection of 10 similar recipes, you can only learn 2 or 3 of them.

Per-profession BoP materials to perhaps add value again, such that they are worth more than the traded materials.
You can't roll if you don't have the profession.

Full level scaling would force the actual recipes down to some really minimal number.
I disagree with that, and think instead an item you craft should remain superior or at least competitive against a scaled-down higher one.
Making craftings affordable and feasible to be crafting at a given level range they are aimed at is a pretty big ask, but I think it would hugely increase the demand for those items.
Making gear during levelling should be way more feasible than it is now.
The rank system you propose has you crafting trash items which which simply won't be desirable.

The trading up has potential.

Bonus, well, I was trying to make it so that for combat, it would make sense which ones u would take. Considering you can max out 5 of them with the 15 points, it would probably make sense to take crit, haste, mastery, movement speed, and the armor, with the armor easily being replaced by maybe the reduced durability from death. Then for crafting, you just take 5 and put them into the crafting exp one. But I suppose after I am thinking about it, it does sound pretty trivial. I just know, that if you don't offer bonuses to professions for raider, they most likely won't do them (me for one probably), but you also need to give them choices otherwise they will do it, then never touch it again.

I actually love the specialization feel that alchemy gives, as well as preferring the old BSing. My system could do this, by gating the recipes even further. Such as when you buy a specific recipe, the other one is unable to be learned. (BSing can choose between a mail helm, or plate helm, or like it the past, can make a sword, axe, or mace.) Hell, you could do this for basically every profession. I mean, technically engineering used to be that way (goblin or gnome), but usually it was a no brainer choice.

With not learning recipes, I just feel like old recipes are just useless data. I mean, when is the last time a Blacksmither has made an arcanite reaper? So removing them from the game essentially frees it up. I look at my tradeskill screen now, and the list goes on and on for recipes. I hate it.

I like the idea of the per profession BoP's, maybe those basic recipes I was talking about, could be to make these instead? I know that doesn't really make it BoP anymore tho. I do like the way inscription works, where you have to craft ink, and then craft the glyph, essentially making a better material, that can then make the item you want.

With the full scaling on crafting (jc mainly), I don't feel the same. I again look at my JC and see a bunch of gems I will literally never will make again. But I do see how this could make it boring in the future when you just keep using the same stuff. Maybe just gate the scaling? Any gem made from Wotlk would scale from 1-80, Cata, 1-85, MoP 1-90. WoD 1-100. You could then remove all the Classic, BC, and a bunch of the WoTLK recipes. Maybe that would work?

As for crafting the trash items, it sounded better when I was typing it out. But I do see the issue. First off, since you can only do one daily a day (duh), you would end up with a ton of items you would just end up vendoring. But then again, you already do that when not crafting blues or epics. Unless you have disenchanting. Well, since you do have the chance to have DEing, maybe make them BoE then. (and able to use) However, you would have to chance disenchanting to give you specific materials for what you are disenchanting, otherwise enchanting mats will be everywhere. Maybe disenchanting a piece of plate made with BSing, gives you a few enchanting dust, and maybe some ore? Or disenchanting some cloth gear, will give you dust and some cloth?

[Deleted]

I haven't really had the time to sit down and make up my mind about the idea, but good Lord... I really enjoy when people take their time to do a really thorough suggestion for an upcoming change. Well done! At first glance it seems like a very neat idea.

It seems like there's a lot of balancing going on, which isn't Blizzard's favorite thing to do. Also, if one wasn't too fond of the profession-concept, he'd miss out on things like movement-speed and fall-damage, which seems kind of unfair. The boost you get with todays professions isn't that big of a deal. It's required for raiding, sure - but not for leveling, soloing and exploring. I think a lot of people would feel like they're missing out on something...

English isn't my native language, but I hope it's understandable. Great post!

[ComputerNerd]

The problem with the stuff you wont make again, is that nobody wants it once it is outdated, once it is not for the current expansion.
It is simply too expensive to craft or buy for someone levelling through the content at the level it is aimed at.
Which is exactly what my suggestion is about.

The whole idea of that, and the anti-trash suggestion is to make gearing and crafting feasible through actually buying stuff that makes up holes not filled through random dungeons drops or quest rewards.

What professions can you actually level while you level your character ?
First aid perhaps is the only one.

Brings the professions back to being meaningful for someone other than yourself before you max it out.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

So what you're suggesting is we rip out professions and just re-implement them as a system of talents?

No. You completely misunderstood the blue quotes. They're saying we need to update the system, not rip it out and rebuild it from scratch.

[Al Gorefiend]

Players having to have max level on all professions in order to remain optimal is what will happen.

You have a rogue with the so-called "Bonuses" because he plays 24/7 and has all professions maxxed, then you have a rogue who barely has enough time to max leatherworking.

Which one does the raid leader choose?

Keep working on the concept though, Professions do need a rework and Blizzard needs ideas.

[Amerissis]

I'm sorry, I stopped reading at 'daily'. Worst idea ever, dailies for professions.

[LilSaihah]

I'm sorry, I stopped reading at 'daily'. Worst idea ever, dailies for professions.

Dailies for professions are great, provided they're not the only way to progress. They worked just fine as skillups for Fishing and Cooking, at least in Cata. Nothing to write home about, but they are a way to soften the blow to your wallet.

Anyway, on topic; where is crafting lacking?

I think the most important problem with crafting is probably the auctionhouse. It's very obtuse to use, and the non-modded auctionhouse is not easy to use. Mods can only take it so far. Needs changes to be made both suitable for higher volumes, both buying and selling, and with more features in mind (buy orders would be nice). GW2's trading post is easy to use and a lot more powerful than WoW's; that's a good place to start copying from.

2. Profession bonuses are a complete circumvention of the point of tradeskills. You shouldn't be penalised for not wanting to get up a tradeskill. It's not for everyone; so what, who cares? Let people go without tradeskills if they so desire. Making them mandatory just increases the amount of legwork a player has to make to get into the endgame. Delete the things.

3. The levelling process is not particularly interesting. Outside of quests, which are very occasional, there's not really much to it; make things get skillups. Consistent daily elements would probably help a lot to address this.

4. The endgame isn't very interesting. Get patterns as drops from raids, or from the raid's rep vendor; that's it. Some kind of more in-depth pattern creation might be nice.

[Matt0193]

I just want ToR's crafting system; Reverse Engineer what you make to learn a better version of it. Stats are randomised so you don't see specific items being made because they're just clearly BiS. Each new tier a new crafting tier is unlocked so crafting remains relevant. Crafted gear should be equal to previous tier normal while being worse than current tier normal so that it can be used as a catchup system while not negating previous content entirely (Since it's random stats you learn with each new improved pattern).

As it stands, crafting patterns are used barely for the start of the expansion as only a few people have the money to splash out or the time/resources to make their own. Professions should be fairly relevant throughout the expansion, not just making profession perk items and so on

[Ninotchka]

I want crafting integrated into the garrisons.

I want to park my alchemist in the alchemist shop, and when I want flasks and potions I just have to interact with that toon. A profession window pops up, and I can craft anything that I have the mats for in my inventory, and I can do the daily cooldowns if I have the mats in my inventory too. Same with my JC and enchanter and scribe and armoring toons.

I adore Guild Wars' crafting interface that bungs all crafting materials into a server-wide bank accessible by all toons, but it seems like that would be a pretty massive coding effort for Blizz. Would be fabulous if they could implement that, though.

[Spiffums]

So what about all the time and gold spent on massing the alts with maxed professions? Do you have to redo all those on 1 toon?