Why has Blizzard failed at professions ?

[kail]

It baffles me as well. What exactly is so wrong with unique perks tied to professions? What's wrong with allowing some endgame crafts that require a good sum of mats to make? What was wrong with slot upgrades (BS making gemslots, Tailoring making back/shoulder enchants) that keep the profession relevant in the market?

I could go on but I am definitely on the boat that sees professions have nosedived in design during recent expansions. I don't recall a more rewarding moment than when I crafted a Stormherald for my PvP warrior in tBC.

[Greyvax]

If they add anything remotely useful to professions (remember blacksmithing sockets?) everyone will start crying how they're "forced" to re-roll blacksmithing to stay competitive.

[gutnbrg]

herb alcy is has been my best money maker in legion I had all my main recipes rank 3 and made tons of money selling things like invis pots for 50g and all kind buffs pluss health pots but in BFA i can make more gold most times selling herbs

so im wasting my time leveling alch?

[Biomega]

so im wasting my time leveling alch?

Alchemy is probably among the most decent professions in terms of money/time. It's still unlikely to net a solid profit until you're SUPER into playing the AH (and if you are, chances are your time is more valuable doing something else there) but for self-supporting a raiding a habit it's probably the top choice.

At this point, the question really is what professions are actually meant to achieve. They squeeze a little extra gear out of raiding every now and then, but for a lot of people that's not even all that good of an investment. Professions rarely make a real profit except for a handful of very dedicated people. Professions aren't particularly fun to level, either, since you're essentially just staring at the AH and a moving bar for half an hour until you're maxed. They add almost nothing to character identity anymore, don't come with particularly useful and/or unique perks (with very few exceptions), and apart from engineering, they offer basically no additional dimensions for your character's gameplay or development.

The system would need a complete, fundamental overhaul - and that's precisely why Blizzard is not going to do anything with professions. They're not worth the investment. They're one of a large number of clumsy, antiquated gameplay systems that WoW is laboring under, and with each and every one of them Blizzard simply says "eh it's not worth the effort, is changing professions really going to bring back any players". The problem being, of course, that making that same call a hundred times adds up to a whole lot of disappointment.

[gutnbrg]

Alchemy is probably among the most decent professions in terms of money/time. It's still unlikely to net a solid profit until you're SUPER into playing the AH (and if you are, chances are your time is more valuable doing something else there) but for self-supporting a raiding a habit it's probably the top choice.

At this point, the question really is what professions are actually meant to achieve. They squeeze a little extra gear out of raiding every now and then, but for a lot of people that's not even all that good of an investment. Professions rarely make a real profit except for a handful of very dedicated people. Professions aren't particularly fun to level, either, since you're essentially just staring at the AH and a moving bar for half an hour until you're maxed. They add almost nothing to character identity anymore, don't come with particularly useful and/or unique perks (with very few exceptions), and apart from engineering, they offer basically no additional dimensions for your character's gameplay or development.

The system would need a complete, fundamental overhaul - and that's precisely why Blizzard is not going to do anything with professions. They're not worth the investment. They're one of a large number of clumsy, antiquated gameplay systems that WoW is laboring under, and with each and every one of them Blizzard simply says "eh it's not worth the effort, is changing professions really going to bring back any players". The problem being, of course, that making that same call a hundred times adds up to a whole lot of disappointment.

well i dont support a raid with my alch, so i guess ill just start selling herbs instead of lvling it

[Biomega]

well i dont support a raid with my alch, so i guess ill just start selling herbs instead of lvling it

Yes, for most people that will simply be the better way if you just want to make money.

[macatk]

Alchy/Herb is the best combo for making money because they support each other as in you need a lot of herbs for Alchemy recipes and if you dont want to make the the money making invis/pots/flasks/water breathing/ water walking, ect you can sell the herbs for good to great gold esp when there is a new expansion.

So if I can money on a recipe I do that if there is more profit selling the herbs do that with rank 3 spells in legion I was making item and getting some added recipes plus the rank 3 recipes are made for a lot less mats so there cheaper to make.

BFA FU the professions buy letting people make BFA recipes right out of gate and if your someone like me and you spent a lot of time and thousands of gold getting profession maxed Blizzard just cut your balls with the new profession splitting Legion and lower and BFA using there own leveling skills where someone new can come into the game and make BFA recipes right off by signing up with the trainer and even tho I still have my Alchy/Herb person there are almost no recipes that I will get to rank 3
do to dumb people selling there items for less than they costs so all I do is sell BFA herbs but as I have enough gold from past expansions I not even interested making a little more gold.

[Battlebeard]

I don't like the 3-star system of patterns. But other than that, professions have never been better.

I am a LW and I love that you can craft boots and legs that match what we can get in the raids.

[Sencha]

It baffles me as well. What exactly is so wrong with unique perks tied to professions? What's wrong with allowing some endgame crafts that require a good sum of mats to make? What was wrong with slot upgrades (BS making gemslots, Tailoring making back/shoulder enchants) that keep the profession relevant in the market?

I could go on but I am definitely on the boat that sees professions have nosedived in design during recent expansions. I don't recall a more rewarding moment than when I crafted a Stormherald for my PvP warrior in tBC.

Can't agree more. There are countless ways to make professions useful and engaging but no... they prefer to make bland and uninspired instead.

[D3athsting]

Try both crafting and gathering professions in ffxiv and see why blizz failed (hard)

[Teph]

Just take a look at inscription. Deleting stacks of 200 blue ink, because its completely useless and a waste of space. They either don't care, are understaffed or are highly incompetent.

The no time/workforce argument is invalid though, because they could just add a trader for blue to red ink and be done with it. Truely mindboggling.

[Feanoro]

It baffles me as well. What exactly is so wrong with unique perks tied to professions?

Because Blizz made them wildly imbalanced such that some perks were effectively worthless, while others were damn near mandatory. They removed perks when they realized they sucked at coming up with good ones.

[Th3Scourge]

I don't like the 3-star system of patterns. But other than that, professions have never been better.

I am a LW and I love that you can craft boots and legs that match what we can get in the raids.

How do you come to the conclusion that they have never been better? The crafted gear is replaced after one raid and (AFAIK) doesn't WF/TF, there are no combat benefits from crafting professions anymore and don't offer anything unique. Gear is too abundant for crafted gear to matter.

Crafting professions are completely failed systems right now. I don't even know why I bothered to craft by Blacksmithing gear when it got replaced after 1 raid and a few M+ runs. Since there is no passive combat benefit from keeping Blacksmithing, what is the point of pouring resources into it?

Crafting professions haven't really been good since TBC. At least in Wrath you had spellthreads/armor patches that gave a bonus for a tailor/BS etc

[Battlebeard]

How do you come to the conclusion that they have never been better? The crafted gear is replaced after one raid and (AFAIK) doesn't WF/TF, there are no combat benefits from crafting professions anymore and don't offer anything unique. Gear is too abundant for crafted gear to matter.

Crafting professions are completely failed systems right now. I don't even know why I bothered to craft by Blacksmithing gear when it got replaced after 1 raid and a few M+ runs. Since there is no passive combat benefit from keeping Blacksmithing, what is the point of pouring resources into it?

Crafting professions haven't really been good since TBC. At least in Wrath you had spellthreads/armor patches that gave a bonus for a tailor/BS etc

I think it's great non mythic raiders can craft Mythic ilvl gear (415). And it's a good thing it can't WF/TF as that already ruin the game.

[Th3Scourge]

I think it's great non mythic raiders can craft Mythic ilvl gear (415). And it's a good thing it can't WF/TF as that already ruin the game.

For a non-mythic raider to craft the 415, they need 200 Breath of Bwonsamdi's, which is 20 Heroic kills, or 200 normal kills. Given that all M10+ drops 400 items that can titanforge, plus cache with 410 gear and heroic BoD dropping 400 items, you're probably more likely to get an item for those slots that are 400-415 well before you can craft even one 415 piece. The drops have the added benefit of titanforging up to 425 which isn't out of the realms of possibility.

Most non-mythic raiders have not cleared Heroic BoD (~2500 guilds have downed Jaina on Heroic globally) and considering it's been out for roughly 4 weeks I'd imagine that even non-mythic raiders will be some way from crafting both 415 pieces (or more if they are dual crafters) means that every week that passes is another opportunity to get an item of similar or greater quality, at a fraction of the cost

It's actually a terrible thing that they can't WF/TF and other sources of loot can, because it diminishes their value compared to other sources. If you want profession gear to matter, they need to either WF/TF, or remove WF/TF altogether

On top of that, crafted gear cannot socket and all other sources can.

[NPI]

For me, it seems that they wants us to spend time with proffessions too, increasing the /played time which they chosed as key performance indicatior.
I had to spend at least 30 mins on my inscriptor character just to make the daily stuff (milling + making ink from pigments). I think thats the main purpose of expulsom too.
You have to create tons of bracers then destroy them, just to make expulsom, for 340 gear. This is nothing but waste of time.

[Zyrinx]

Honestly from afar this looks like a time/budget issue.

"We need to cut dev cost by 5%"

"How do we do that without altering the endgame?"

"Bye, professions."

I mean no idea if that's true obviously, but it sure feels true.

[Loveliest]

So yeah, that's what I'd like to see really. A true player housing system that Incentivises doing Dungeons, quests, pvping, raiding In order to get decorations

Me too. And I swear to god, if I hear "but it isolates players" one more time...

- - - Updated - - -

IMO, Blizzard does not view this feature of WoW to be worthy of their attention.

Pretty much. I'm usually not this bitter, but do you know how many blue posts there are on the EU professions forum? Since its inception? Zero.

[Biggles Worth]

What kind of team do they have at Blizzard? Do they ever think to themselves, I wonder if we should change professions entirely?

Should professions be just to make money? Or to give the player base what they love about Diablo and POE -- Gear and strength!!

Bring back sockets, bring back enchants on everything! Bring back making cool armor that takes weeks to make and you can compare it to Mythic plus plus!

Bring back having to get mats from all xpacs and you have to fly all over the world to get the stuff.

Bring back patches for the pants that make you tougher, bring back spikes for sheilds, Have some new and cool ideas that make people go WOW

The feeling you got when you heard they were gonna make DIABLO 1 gear again in Diablo 2

Boom

Aok

I've had a simple design that is useful that took no thought beyond taking a poop on the toilet.
Make it so every armor profession can craft a piece for all their corresponding armor slots.
All the pieces are BoE.
When you kill bosses they can drop a BoP orb. You use that to craft armor pieces. Depending on what difficulty you are doing, you get an orb based on that. An orb for LFR, an orb for normal, heroic and mythic. This way you craft the gear progression you are working on and not beyond. Mythic raiders can craft mythic raid quality gear and use or sell it. Everything is fair since it's based off your progression.

[Catblob]

Try both crafting and gathering professions in ffxiv and see why blizz failed (hard)

Obnoxious grinds where the end rewards absolutely don't justify the time and materials used to reach the end?