PTR Changes to Enchanting

[Xentronium]

https://twitter.com/ryanaeckles/stat...11624116117510

If this change goes ahead with loot put in lockboxes it's going to be annoying to farm mats on a non-rogue enchanter. More busywork.

[isaac2314]

Personally, I doubt it's really about reacting to the new zone level scaling system. They didn't merge Burning Crusade-Lich King materials, or Cataclysm-Mists materials. How are we going to level Enchanting during 300-375 and 450-525 then?
It's possible BC and MoP items DE into BC/MoP materials no matter their ilvl, but if that's the case then why not do that with Vanilla items too? Silverpine Forest/Northern Barren/etc. mob drops DE into Soul Dust, Desolace/Stonetalon mob drops DE into Vision Dust, etc.

Right now this still doesn't solve other problems. Say that I want to level up starting from Blasted Lands. Going by what they said - that is, what items you get will be the same no matter the ilvl - I should get Runecloth and Thorium Ore and Rugged Leather from the zone. How do I level up my professions from fresh with these materials? I'd still need to either buy the right materials or farm them by going to the "correct" zones.
If Blizzard thinks the case above is a serious problem and change it so that materials (cloth/ore/herb/leather) are level-dependent, then where will we get the lower-level materials? Most players would only be able to gather the highest-ranked materials of Vanilla. Or is Blizzard going to redesign the entire professional system from 1-300? Light/Rich Thorium, Light/Rich Rugged Leather, Light/Rich Runecloth for everything?

I suspect this is simply an attempt to simplify a system that has been too complicated for the normal player ever since we got past Vanilla. although no doubt the zone-scaling gave the problem some urgency.


As someone who sells these stuffs I am unhappy with this move, and as someone who likes RPG elements I am saddened by the direction we're going. I understand that uninformed players are often fleeced for gold when they try and learn professions the old-fashioned way - going by my Copper/Bronze/Dusts sale figures, there's probably a lot of them, people who forget or never bothered to learn these details and wasting non-trivial amounts of gold. This is a move that will benefit these players, yes. But it also makes the game less like a role-playing game with many fascinating details.

[Lucetia]

https://twitter.com/ryanaeckles/stat...11624116117510

If this change goes ahead with loot put in lockboxes it's going to be annoying to farm mats on a non-rogue enchanter. More busywork.

Except take that with a grain of salt. There are so many reports on what people get in 30-60 minutes:

1) Few greys (with 2-3x gold increase)
2) Lockboxes
3) Tons of greens
4) Reagents

Overall from my experience it seems that fewer things drop, just with a higher gold price attached to it so it should balance out roughly equal.

[Lochton]

Opinions ?

Welcoming changes, hope all gets turnt into the new kind, and not just disappear.

[Lucetia]

I don't like this idea one bit. With the reagent bank you shouldn't have clutter. Homogenising professions and turning them into the way they are done in Legion is absolutely awful because Legion professions were the worst thing about the expansion.

Why though? You know your argument does nothing because you don't preset a problem exactly. Just an opinion that doesn't hold weight nor does it seem like you understand why the changes are going through.

[Teri]

I don't like this idea one bit. With the reagent bank you shouldn't have clutter. Homogenising professions and turning them into the way they are done in Legion is absolutely awful because Legion professions were the worst thing about the expansion.

Old materials were gonna be a mess with level scaling regardless.

Leather/Cloth still drops as their original right now(zone specific, not level specific). Herbs/Ore are still in the same zones/areas too.

Disenchanting is different then other reagents as it requires item-level. Sure you could craft stuff for dust or a rare essence, but Vanilla blues are just a pita to make.

Now it might be possible to properly level enchanting while leveling, previously you'd just outlevel your dust/essence type so fast as there's just lots of types.

And no, Waiting till Legion to level enchanting is not the solution, and confusing for new players.

Stopping XP to get certain blue shards isn't a solution either.

[Jetstream]

I don't like this idea one bit. With the reagent bank you shouldn't have clutter. Homogenising professions and turning them into the way they are done in Legion is absolutely awful because Legion professions were the worst thing about the expansion.

The problem with Legion professions is how many hoops you gotta jump through to get the patterns, not the number of mats.

Between 3 and, like, 6 mats per prof per expac has bee normal since Burning Crusade.

[Lucetia]

The problem with Legion professions is how many hoops you gotta jump through to get the patterns, not the number of mats.

Between 3 and, like, 6 mats per prof per expac has bee normal since Burning Crusade.

You aren't really jumping through hoops. You do a quest line that you make progress in for the recipe. If you want the higher versions then yeah you need to do more work/hoop jumping.

[Jetstream]

You aren't really jumping through hoops. You do a quest line that you make progress in for the recipe. If you want the higher versions then yeah you need to do more work/hoop jumping.

You do an incredibly long quest line for each profession that requires multiple dungeon runs in order to get any recipes at all.

It's obnoxious.

[isaac2314]

As I said earlier, I'd still much prefer Blizzard make Disenchanting results depend on the items themselves rather than ilvl (especially since this is what they're doing to all other materials), but I can see why they made this change if Disenchanting can't be changed that way.

With the impending ilvl squish, it's entirely possible that, even without the zone scaling, Vanilla items will no longer have enough differentials in ilvl to Disenchant into 5 separate categories (Strange/Soul/Vision/Dream/Illusion Dusts, etc.)


Still, also as I said earlier this doesn't solve the problem of Burning Crusade/Cataclysm materials. Maybe Blizzard is implicitly assuming we'll get enough materials leveling through 60~70/80~85 that we'll no longer need BC/Cata materials by the time we're level 71/86?

[Lucetia]

Still, also as I said earlier this doesn't solve the problem of Burning Crusade/Cataclysm materials. Maybe Blizzard is implicitly assuming we'll get enough materials leveling through 60~70/80~85 that we'll no longer need BC/Cata materials by the time we're level 71/86?

Though do realize that this is only the second pass of the PTR I believe and they just now put this in. So there might be another build that includes future ones. Also the other thing to remember is Vanilla would be much harder to go back and farm mats for because of the different levels. You can go to any dungeon/zone in Burning Crusade and get Arcane Dust, etc. While going to Wrath to get Infinite Dust, etc. Each expansion area still gives 1 type of dust / shard / crystal. So nothing really changes in that aspect or is affect.

[isaac2314]

Also the other thing to remember is Vanilla would be much harder to go back and farm mats for because of the different levels. You can go to any dungeon/zone in Burning Crusade and get Arcane Dust, etc. While going to Wrath to get Infinite Dust, etc. Each expansion area still gives 1 type of dust / shard / crystal. So nothing really changes in that aspect or is affect.

It's reasonable, although you can imagine Vanilla split into five "expansion zones" - Strange Dusts/Linen/Light Leather/Copper expansion zone, Soul Dusts/Wool/Medium Leather/Silver zone, Vision Dusts/Silk/Heavy Leather/Iron zone, Dream Dusts/Mageweave/Thick Leather/Mithril zone, and Illusion Dusts/Runecloth/Rugged Leather/Thorium zones.

Right now this is partly an imaginary separation but also grounded in reality - zones and materials are already to some degree split into these five categories (Enchanting, Tailoring and Leatherworking, in particuar, have a clear fivefold division).

It shouldn't take too much work for Blizzard to just tweak some things so that each Vanilla zone belongs exactly and entirely to one of these five categories, and that there is enough zones in each category. Each of these categories would then behave just like Outland or Northrend - everything in it drops material appropriate to the "expansion" level, and only those materials, regardless of ilvl or player level.


.....But yeah, it wouldn't be very intuitive. It'll also involve some amount of re-designing material drops in some border-case zones, but that's a much lesser problem.
Still, Blizzard already re-designed Azeroth once back in Cataclysm. What's another, much smaller round?

[Bumbac]

IMHO, they should do more and they also should clean up other professions too. There's just too much clutter after all these years.

I agree. Having just 3 base brackets for 1-60 is enough plus couple of rare types. Like 3 ore, herb,and gems categories, 3 types of leather cloth and pigment.

[FelPlague]

thank fuck.
1 cloth every 10 levels is fine
but enchanting was fucking horrible 6-9 items per 10 levels... it was just too much

[isaac2314]

I agree. Having just 3 base brackets for 1-60 is enough plus couple of rare types. Like 3 ore, herb,and gems categories, 3 types of leather cloth and pigment.

It could work, but it'll be awkward like people said over on r/woweconomy: crafted armor/weapons are very often named after their materials. If we're squishing ores and leathers and cloths too, how will it make sense to make "Linen Vests" or "Heavy Copper Broadswords" with some other stuff?

It can work - and going by what Blizzard did over the years I doubt they'll let something like this stop them. But it's still awkward.

PS: also rare Ores/Leathers/Cloths at 60/70/80 are rather complicated. You can axe them all, sure. But you'll either have to axe the entire professional system around rare crafted transmogs or you'll need to redesign it. I don't want to say this is a slippery slope towards making WoW a MOBA/Arcade game/League of Legend but it totally is /sarcasm

[Bumbac]

It could work, but it'll be awkward like people said over on r/woweconomy: crafted armor/weapons are very often named after their materials. If we're squishing ores and leathers and cloths too, how will it make sense to make "Linen Vests" or "Heavy Copper Broadswords" with some other stuff?

It can work - and going by what Blizzard did over the years I doubt they'll let something like this stop them. But it's still awkward.

There already are some names that makes no sense. I do not remember the exact examples but surely there are some chained, linked gear that looks made entirely out of leather or leather gear that looks made of metal. Mail gear used to be made by blacksmith, now it is job of leatherworkers that outside of dragon and turtle scales makes no sense.

[isaac2314]

There already are some names that makes no sense. I do not remember the exact examples but surely there are some chained, linked gear that looks made entirely out of leather or leather gear that looks made of metal. Mail gear used to be made by blacksmith, now it is job of leatherworkers that outside of dragon and turtle scales makes no sense.

True, but I don't personally think the solution is to break it even further. The Chain/Plate problem was already bad enough (and still partially unsolved); having to modify all references to materials would just be hellish.

[Bumbac]

True, but I don't personally think the solution is to break it even further. The Chain/Plate problem was already bad enough (and still partially unsolved); having to modify all references to materials would just be hellish.

Maybe we can get herb vendor for those specific mats for crafted armor/weapons named after their materials. They will be vendor mats only from now on and used only on special crafts

[isaac2314]

Maybe we can get herb vendor for those specific mats for crafted armor/weapons named after their materials. They will be vendor mats only from now on and used only on special crafts

Damn, I'll admit it's not a bad idea - at least this way you get some RPG flavors preserved.

[Explicit Teemo Nudes]

I don't like this. There's great money to be made from low level mats.