Blizzard Comments on the Work Order System in Patch 10.0.7, No Mats; No Make Addon

[Lumy]

Blizzard Comments on the Work Order System in Patch 10.0.7

It is great that people can now do Work Orders without their materials, but now we, the crafters, need to cooperate with Blizzard to apply a function of reporting obvious trickery and foul play.

We see a lot of Work Orders where it is just people hoping that the crafters press through the menu too fast without noticing that they accept that the customer has no useful materials of their own, nor is their tip befitting the cost.

We need management and reporting tools now for the Work Order system.

• A function to sort who has materials, and who does not.
• A function to sort for a minimum amount of materials needed (0%/25%/50%/75%/100%)
• A function to disregard Primal Flux when making Work Orders (So customers cannot just drop X amount of flux to hope that is enough.
• A function to report obvious attempt at trickery/foul play (Work orders where they just add 5 flux, 10g, and hope you use your materials by accident.

Thank you so much for the feedback! We are aware of the issue where you cannot easily differentiate orders that provide reagents from ones that cannot and are working on a fix to get the same sortable column into the public orders tab as exists in the guild / personal order tabs, where it tells you if all/some/none of the reagents are provided. This should allow you to easily sort and avoid orders that don’t provide all reagents if you so wish.

As far as orders that don’t include reagents and have a poor tip, while it is possible that some players are intentionally trying to deceive crafters into making recipes at a loss, in most cases it is likely a matter of customers learning the changes to the system and experimenting with what orders will get filled. We anticipate that with time, players will learn what orders they can get filled and which ones will not.

It is important to make sure crafters have all the information they need to avoid accidentally crafting something at a loss if they did not intend it. We do predict that in some instances crafters will intentionally choose to do this in cases where they can earn skill from doing so. That said, we will be carefully watching how this change works out. We are also looking into improving the clarity of the order interface to make sure it is as clear as possible which reagents are being provided by the customer and which by the crafter. Meanwhile, you will always get a confirmation dialogue if you are about to spend some of your own reagents on an order to make sure you are aware of what you are doing.

Finally, philosophically we made this change for a few reasons.

• We would like to open the system up as much as possible to player choice and allow the market to help determine what orders are fulfilled and which ones are not.
• The primary purpose of the public order system is to have a low barrier to entry for players to get their items crafted. Removing the need to buy your own reagents helps with that, although it does leave the onus on the customer to provide a reasonable commission. This is something we will also be keeping an eye on.
• We would like to see more public orders to allow more crafters to have a chance to fill them. Lowering the barrier to post orders should help with this. As players learn the system, we are also hoping the ratio of orders that include an ample tip to be worth filling also increases. Finally, we have been looking at adding new recipes that provide opportunities to use the crafting order system, for instance the Curios released in the latest patch.
• To this point, filling public orders has required very little consideration, particularly if there aren’t many, because it was guaranteed profit as all reagents were provided by the customer (this section was slightly clarified through an edit). With the introduction of variations in reagents, the choice of whether to fill an order or not will hopefully become more interesting, where crafters are weighing costs of reagents and skill gains against potential profits or losses from filling the order.

Finally, while this thread has not mentioned the prospect of allowing public orders to specify quality, I have seen other posts that have. I want to re-emphasize that the reason we are not doing this is were we to, nearly all orders would move to be public, and most if not all would be set to require maximum quality. This would remove the opportunity for lowers skill crafters to fulfill public orders, as well as undermine the crafter gameplay and interaction that comes from building a business and getting customers to send you orders.

Thanks and as mentioned above, we will continue to watch how the crafting order system unfolds and iterate. Your feedback is always appreciated!

-Drough

No Mats; No Make Addon
While Blizzard has acknowledged the issue of differentiating work orders that provide reagents from those that do not, it may take some time for the developers to iterate on the system and implement an appropriate fix.

As a temporary workaround, a new addon called "No Mats; No Make" has been developed to add the Reagent Column in public work orders (similar to how it is already displayed in the guild and personal work order tabs). While using the addon, each request will show whether it includes "All", "Some" or "None" of the reagents required to craft the item, without having to click on each work order to see the details.

No Mats; No Make Addon

[Aleksej89]

thank god we have mod makers to provide band aids, otherwise we would be stuck with blizzards glacial pace.

[Ealyssa]

This was such a stupid move from Blizzard...

[OokOok]

Honestly, modders are the only reason the video game industry is still alive.
I don't know a single game that is released in a state that doesn't need modders to fix the problems and add solutions that the developers are too lazy or dumbfounded to do themselves.

[Dristereau]

Well let's be realistic you see more, but it's 99/100 that are going to not be worth doing because the tip is practically nothing or doesn't come close to covering the material cost. I've enjoyed seeing 20 on my alt's low pop server repeatedly not getting filled daily, but it's also people trying to maliciously get items without spending anything, because that's what the community is like in general.

If they wanted to add quality to Public Work Orders what they could do is add incentives, say if it ends up Rank 5 you offer an extra 2000g. It could persuade people to do things more if there was an increased price/reward for things. I requested a Profession Accessory last week, offered Mats + 1000g and said in the note I'd send 2000g extra for Rank 5. Got a Rank 5 back so sent the Crafter the 2000g extra. Doesn't need to be a hard specific request for Rank 5s, just an optional incentive from people if it is.

[lordjust]

I started to put people on ignore that start orders with no or missing mats. I can't be bothered to install tsm or some other add-on to scan the ah to check if the commission they offer will cover the mats at all so I and other crafters exclude people from the crafting order system and other activities.

What needs to happen is to link the crafting order system with the ah. If you create a public order and don't have the mats yet, make it buy everything you didn't provide from the ah as part of your order. It saves the customer time to run back and forth to the ah to buy stuff or calculate the cost of mats before buying, without relying on tsm.

Also, people are wanting since day one to specify the quality of the craft for public orders. Yes, low level crafter can't do the high level stuff and more people will want to get max quality. But with the limited amount of public crafts you can complete, max level crafters will want to complete max rank requests. With a limited amount of people being able to complete those requests, they'd want a high commission and people will start requesting lower ranks for less gold which gives lower level crafters a chance to to orders.

At the moment public orders are still dead or worse because now orders show up but most don't have mats.

[Mendzia]

Wow.
Such great new professions system Blizzard that obviously works perfectly as intended...
It is actually funny how both this and interface overhaul need addons made by random people to fix many broken/nonfunctional things.

[xnickybx]

*We wanted to give the chance for low skill crafters to steal your commission.

Fixed it.

[Loveliest]

As much as I hate the new crafting system (esp since I'm on a dead server where it takes ages to find a crafter), "attempt at trickery/foul play" is a bit silly. If you have the option, how is it trickery, not like every random player knows or cares to check the prices of mats. Sure, probably some do it on purpose, but doubt it's everyone. Personally, I sent a crafting order to my alt for ring gem upgrade and didn't send the gem dust, assumed I had loads on alt; didn't, went to the AH to buy some and was very much surprised to see how expensive it was. Proper crafters are under the illusion that everyone knows everything about crafting, which couldn't be farther from the truth, especially with the new system.

[bjoerninger]

thank god we have mod makers to provide band aids, otherwise we would be stuck with blizzards glacial pace.

what a bright comment. who exactly do you think offers this API again?

[Loveliest]

but it's also people trying to maliciously get items without spending anything, because that's what the community is like in general.

Or, you know, you might want to invest your money in it to get skillups on a crafter that needs that.
I only send work orders to my own alts, but there was a point to this even if poorly implemented. People were whining they don't get craft orders and saying that without them they can't skill up. Not everyone needs to be a horrible person because it doesn't suit you specifically.

[Mysterymask]

Honestly, modders are the only reason the video game industry is still alive.
I don't know a single game that is released in a state that doesn't need modders to fix the problems and add solutions that the developers are too lazy or dumbfounded to do themselves.

The Majority of console games? (not all)
Most Fighting games (Mods are usually cosmetic)
honestly with the exception of like wow or a handful of waiting for a patch games (Chrono Cross Remastered and Digimon Survive spring to mind) I can't think of too many games that you needed a patch to even play?

[kranur]

In the time it took to write that bullshit explanation they couls have added a fucking filter to exclude orders without mats.
Also, they can add recrafts with specified quality .... and still have the same amount of initials crafts.
This is what happens whem the game is designed by idiots who don't play it to see how it actually is.

[woofpup]

Simplest solution is to eliminate the work order system and return to one that supports using the auction house to sell items.

[Nymrohd]

In the time it took to write that bullshit explanation they couls have added a fucking filter to exclude orders without mats.
Also, they can add recrafts with specified quality .... and still have the same amount of initials crafts.
This is what happens whem the game is designed by idiots who don't play it to see how it actually is.

You shouldn't even need to play it to see the problem. You don't push a change without spending some time to think how it could go wrong.

[Puri]

It's absolutely fine that you can list items without mats. When I was leveling my professions I also created trial chars to craft items with their sparks, only to vendor them afterwards.

The issue is that the (default) ui fails to reflect that information although it actually is passed through the API.
There should be a default column that shows if all mats are provided in the list, and we should be able to filter by it.

Also their reasoning why they don't allow to set a quality for public orders is true, but it is also backwards:
"most if not all would be set to require maximum quality. This would remove the opportunity for lowers skill crafters to fulfill public orders, as well as undermine the crafter gameplay and interaction that comes from building a business and getting customers to send you orders."
But the simple reason that there are practically no public orders is that you cannot set a minimum quality.

But now with public orders where you don't have to provide mats we have a fix in place for low level crafters: They can and have to provide their own mats for public orders. But when the customer provides all mats he should be allowed to set a minimum level.

[RobertMugabe]

I dislike this whole system in general. Crafting in general just feels so convoluted.

[Mamut]

thank god we have mod makers to provide band aids, otherwise we would be stuck with blizzards glacial pace.

If not Blizzard they could not do anything.

[Geckoo]

Honestly i like the intention behind the change. I don't mind crafting something for someone else using my own materials as long as the commision is apropiate, but the change has flooded the system with orders with no reagents and low commision with no way to filter. Once they add the filter and the market adjusts things will be better and i believe more people will end up both crafting and putting more orders than before the patch.

[neescher]

"We would like to open the system up as much as possible to player choice"

And yet, it's still not possible to set minimum quality for public work orders, the ONE feature the system needed from day one.