Why has Blizzard failed at professions ?

[Osmeric]

Just wait for the F2P transition. Professions will open up snazzy powerful gear or mats from the $$$ vendors.

[Alydael]

Two Reasons Really:

1) They aren't very creative. Most of the time- they just keep the same type of recipes- they just add more stats or levels. That's just really not engaging.

2) It seems like they don't want crafters to make really good gear. You can easily find better gear in most places in the world and will probably already have mostly better gear when you hit max level. At that point- why would you spend time crafting a piece of gear lower than the ones you (and most other players) already have?

They should tie the gear making profs to transmog in some way. At least then, people would bother crafting.

What I think Blizz should do (I know they won't do this because its just too much work for them) is every tier- make a unique look crafted set that you can only get through crafting. This will create something worth crafting and something worth selling (make it boe). Maybe all the ingredients can't be gathered- maybe you have tp get some ingredient or recipes through questing as well.

As for the other profs-

Alchemy- probably one of their best. I would add more "effect" potions ("turns the user blue", "makes the user glow" etc)
Roll enchanting and inscription into one prof.
Engineering- tough one. If they are making a tinkerer class (who knows?) kill eng as a prof and roll some of it into the Tinkerer class. If not- have it make toys, gadgets, and items that other profs have to use to craft their sets.

[Byleth]

Let people have access to all gathering professions then 1-2 crafting professions as standard is what is needed.

Totally agree. There's no reason not to expand on this.

[cozzri]

Crafting professions were the most fun when they were tied in with raiding and legendary items; gathering rare materials from across the world and in dungeons to craft Thunderfury felt sooo epic. The game needs more of that.

[Nightstalker]

Crafting professions were the most fun when they were tied in with raiding and legendary items; gathering rare materials from across the world and in dungeons to craft Thunderfury felt sooo epic. The game needs more of that.

Farming Searing Gorge dozens of hours and then finding enough alchemists for daily CDs was quite epic indeed. I mean really, no sarcasm and such.

Also: For most of the time in WoW crafting was just milking jewelcrafting, every other profession was just as relevant/irrelevant as it is now.

[callipygoustp]

I thought Bliz was on the right path with WoD crafting.
- You could wear up to 3 pieces of crafted gear.
- The gear was tradeable.
- The max quality of the gear was upgraded "content" patch to "content" patch.

All professions, maybe not engineering, were capable of making money during WoD: armor, weapons, trinkets, rings, potions... I made a killing on the AH during WoD. And this one note, how many player made items I sold during WoD, speaks volumes to how well done it was.

That was a pretty solid system. Shame they moved away from it.

[rohoz]

That was pure gating. Nothing more.

oh so you want to craft raid quality max level gear the second you get training with AH mats, gotcha.

[Playintrafic]

Blizz has put no effort into developing a gameplay loop based around crafting thats why professions are trash.

Look at FFXIV there is TWO different loops of gameplay around crafting. The gathering system is actually enjoyable, with collectibles, "mythic" nodes and an a rotation for gathering good items.

Then you have the crafting where you need to "crit" the item to get it good enough to use really. SO you have to put in effort, have good gear, and learn what you are doing to craft.

With blizz gathering is just a chore, crafting is just a progress bar.

[gutnbrg]

i cant remember the last time i crafted a piece of gear from my tailor that i actually used at any point in time, and the only thing i crafted as an engineer are the goggles bc i want a higher chance at the schematic dropping from Motherloade.....however we are how far into the xpac and the schematic still hasnt dropped for me and i prob have enough mats for 3-4 mounts......professions are complete shit and it sucks

[Makemesweat]

I really think that end-game gear made via professions should be relevant past "i just dinged max and this is the best I can get". Make patterns again that only certain people can get & utilize to make gear that everyone wants.

[Musta]

oh so you want to craft raid quality max level gear the second you get training with AH mats, gotcha.

Thats totally NOT what i said. its incredible how mmo champion foruns can twist your words.

[Daan]

The only reasons to skill professions are useless due to soulbound crafts or titanforged gear, or locked behind low drop recipes (like MK2 and Xiwyllag).

[rohoz]

Thats totally NOT what i said. its incredible how mmo champion foruns can twist your words.

Okay, so what do you want? You complain about "gating" and having to get patterns and materials, so what do you want?

[Laqweeta]

I'd like to see profession bonuses make their returns. Gives incentive.

[Azerate]

Unless you just came back and don't have your profs at max. Then you have to craft a LOT of expensive in materials, low level, outdated, so not even sellable crap just to get to Nazj stuff. Nazj recipes should start at 125 skill. Since 385 ilevel benthic is basically free for freshly dinged alts, putting out ilevel 370 or lower crafted gear is a waste of time. They just go directly into the scrapper.

If you just came back the grind is way shorter than ever before because you don't need to touch profession progress of previous expansions at all.

[Lei]

If you just came back the grind is way shorter than ever before because you don't need to touch profession progress of previous expansions at all.

I am not talking about the shortness of it. I'm talking about leveling up bfa's professions with the new level cap from scratch. Nazjatar recipes need 145 skill point to learn. But to reach that skill point, you have to craft now outdated, useless, and expensive stuff, just to reach the new items.
So on my hunter for example who is an alchemist, I had to craft a lot of old flasks (rank1) with tons of Anchor Weed just to reach the skill point where I could learn the newer flask recipes. Luckily I have a herb/miner druid alt as well so it only costed my time, but for example Tailoring is the worst probably. Especially considering how these are alts with no rep and only accessing the base recipes (rank 1, some learned rank 2s but they grey out very fast).

The old system was better in a way that you only had one rank for the recipes (1-2k gold rank 2-3 recipes say hi), they needed less materials, and the new expac's recipes started where the old expac's recipes became harder to level up. So WotLK recipes started where BC recipes were still not raid recipes. There was an overlap.

The new system could be good. But adding more levels after the "hard" recipes was a mistake imo. Or not putting the overlap lower (125 skill point)

[Firedemon]

Easy...

1) Titanforging/Warforging invalidates most crafting items
2) Even without tittyforging the items generally suck in comparison to actual drops
3) They are soul bound

Thinking they failed is a failure. They don't want professions to be good. It is too guaranteed to exist in their current loot pinata treadmill bullshit.

Heh, them sucking compared to actual drops is not the biggest issue. Though at least 1 bis should be available long term.

The biggest problem is that by the time you can craft an item you already have far better items.

[Dolus]

Professions were murdered in WoD. Ever since that time, Blizzard has attempted to put a band aid on a gushing wound.

[probert]

its simple:

- professions are not allowed to provide BiS items to distract from end game activities (PvP, Raiding)
- game design has gutted the leveling process and RPG aspects of the game in lieu of raiding /pvp (see above)
- remaining category of relevance would be consumeables and cosmetics
- raiders resent 'grind' or non-raiding activity, and thus consumeables are highly limited
- blizzard's current revenue model of in game sales is largely cosmetic based, and they also tie long reputation grinds/acheivements to cosmetic rewards

TLDR; blizzard's design intent means professions can't be relevant.

[Androsobi]

I think Blizzard could use ESO crafting system as an example. What do you think?