Breakfast Topic: How do you want WoW crafting to change?
by Andrew Ross 
Oct 3rd 2011 at 8:00AM
Face it: WoW crafting is boring. Learn a recipe, put in the materials, click to create. Repeat again and again to skill up and get new recipes. The end. We have exciting-sounding skills such as engineering and alchemy, but we have no experimentation and little customization! While we've gotten crafting dailies to make the skill-ups a little more fun outside the usual materials grind, Blizzard should probably update how crafting skills work.
Personally, I'd love a system that favors some creativity. Imagine if materials for alchemists were in certain classification: increase or decrease, physical or mental, strength or speed, endurance or power, etc. If you mix an increase reagent with a physical, mental, or power one, you'll make a strength potion. Choose decrease, mental, speed, and endurance, and maybe you make a consumable potion that lowers mana/rage/energy/runic power/focus to targets within the blast radius. No premade recipes, just players experimenting with the game. I can see a similar situation for cooking (mm, spicy chocolate gator bacon!).
Gathering could be redone a bit, too. Imagine if you could break down items to get certain materials, sort of like enchanting. Skinners can break down leather for rare hides, miners can melt down armor to retrieve rare minerals, herbalists could ... pick mushrooms out of pies?
What would you like to see change in WoW crafting? Dyes added to change armor color results? Choosing blades and hilts when crafting a weapon? RP leather armor and whip options tied to custom emotes for those nights in Goldshire?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Jamie Oct 3rd 2011 8:07AM
I've always felt like crafting classes (Blacksmiths, Tailors, Leatherworkers and to an extent Engineers) should be allowed to "disenchant" or disassemble their work to have a chance at getting some materials back.
mazca13 Oct 3rd 2011 8:14AM
Yeah, I've often thought that would be an interesting mechanic. I remember from playing Dark Age of Camelot, one could 'salvage' a piece of armor or a weapon to get some of the metal used to make it back, and the same could be done to dropped items. It would be an interesting way of adding choice - an unwanted raid drop could be disenchanted for shards, or salvaged for material.
Othor_NL Oct 3rd 2011 8:27AM
how about being able to repair your gear by using the trade skill (BS, LW, Tailoring) + appropriate mats (Ore, Leather, Cloth)?
Naraxis Oct 3rd 2011 8:38AM
I've always wanted the option to do this as well. I've recently been playing Dragon Nest which just came out of its open beta test and fully launched recently. In Dragon Nest there are devices called extractors that sit outside every dungeon portal that let you put unwanted greens and blues and oranges (WoW purples) into it along with a bit of money and it spits out crafting materials or comet dust which let you purchase items that make your weapons and armor better.
Smashbolt Oct 3rd 2011 9:13AM
Funny you mention that. Early in the Cata Alpha (I think), they datamined out a tailoring ability called "unraveling" which would let you take apart cloth gear to get back cloth and various elementals. To counter the amount of mats recycling that would happen, the higher level tailoring recipes at that time required waaaaaaay more volatiles than they do now.
No clue why they got rid of it. I thought it was a good idea.
Windswept Oct 3rd 2011 12:33PM
If they allowed those proffessions to 'disenchant' items for materials then blizzard would have to make it so either
A. There is a way in the LFG everyone has a fair chance of getting those 'disenchanted' materials.
or B. Remove the option where if there is an enchanter in the group people get to roll on 'DE'ed' items.
Personally, I never like the change where they 'forced' enchanters to disenchant.
brain314 Oct 3rd 2011 8:05PM
"how about being able to repair your gear by using the trade skill (BS, LW, Tailoring) + appropriate mats (Ore, Leather, Cloth)?"
Considering how much raw materials go for on the AH, It would more than likely be cheaper to repair your gear normally by forking over the gold.
Revnah Oct 3rd 2011 8:08AM
Hmhm... I guess I'm a minority here but I really love crafting in WoW. Maybe I have a secret obsessive-compulsive streak, lol! Finding the mats and seeing that (2) or whatever number which shows me how many of an item I could craft, especially while levelling, makes me feel like I've just accomplished something major.
I know I know, I'm easily entertained ;-)
Jamie Oct 3rd 2011 8:22AM
I've only really had that feeling from Engineering. Because there are just so many parts to these things. You almost get the feeling you're building a contraption.
Even Engineering feels a little simplified, but then no one wants to have a tonne of fused wiring hanging around, so perhaps it's a good thing it's part of every engineering item.
So I guess engineering goes far enough to ensure there aren't too many pieces but just enough.
loop_not_defined Oct 3rd 2011 10:23AM
I just want to clean up the sorting for a lot of these professions.
What if Blacksmithing/Leatherworking/Tailoring had separate "tabs" at the top for all Plate/Mail/Leather/Cloth recipes? You could then sort them into slot sub-categories within each tab. Plate: +Chest, +Feet, +Hands... Mail: +Chest, +Feet, +Hands...
What about Enchanting having a separate tab for enchants, so that you could then sort them into sub-categories? +Enchant Chest, +Enchant Boots, etc.
Couldn't Alchemy break the Elixirs category down into separate Battle, Guardian, and Miscellaneous categories? What about Transmutes having their own "tab"?
What if Jewelcrafting had a separate tab for all the cuts, instead of shoving everything into one giant list?
V Magius Oct 3rd 2011 12:09PM
@loop
I might be misunderstanding, but I think that interface exists. On the top right of the window is a filter. It can filter for "have materials" and "skill up" along with filtering the recipes. Blacksmithing, I can choose Weapon->1h sword->main hand.
Tirrimas Oct 3rd 2011 12:19PM
@loop:
Advanced Trade Skill Window.
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/advanced-trade-skill-window.aspx
loop_not_defined Oct 3rd 2011 2:28PM
I'm already aware of Advanced Tradeskill Window, but I've had it *lose* all my settings so often (over the last few years) and setting it up is such a time-consuming pain that I've given up on it.
Don't really see why the default UI can't be more organized than it currently is.
Quasimofo Oct 3rd 2011 8:11AM
I'm kind of tired of spending over a hundred gold to get the mats for a yellow recipe because it's all I have left, creating a useless item, and watching all that money be wasted because I failed to get a skill-up.
Twelve damn times in a row.
Shao Oct 3rd 2011 8:19AM
This is why I'm having so much trouble getting tailoring to 525. Forced to make lousy PvP gear, and sometimes, no guarantee of skill-up.
Kethael Oct 3rd 2011 8:14AM
The creation of BoA items has all but destroyed crafting. If you make any kind of armour or weapons - may as well create an enchanter alt to DE them all because they're absolutely redundant.
I would have liked there to be a point to crafting items - even old world items from vanilla and BC - maybe donate them to a faction (Aldor and/or Scryers) for example, to gain reputation. Especially the old epic recipies that dropped in old raids.
When I used to play (thank you Cataclysm) I used to love farming for rare, world drop enchants, or recipies that dropped from bosses and mobs in instances and raids. Now, as soon as a new patch comes out, there is no point, unless you're a completist - because no-one wants anything that you create. There is no market for it unless it is absolutely current and therefore incredibly over-priced.
Blizzard killed crafting. Just another in a long line of things they killed to make the game "better". There's a dichotomy in there somewhere.
Arbolamante Oct 3rd 2011 8:31AM
I've seen games that have crafting factions. Though whether that's an incentive depends on the rewards.
Fundamentally, crafting needs more utility and more flexibility. Right now, everybody makes exactly the same things. There needs to be more (as in more than zero) ability for crafters to play around with stats, appearance, etc. And there needs to be more utility items and fun items to make.
Naraxis Oct 3rd 2011 8:45AM
@Arbolamante I completely agree with you. In my reply up towards the top of the page i mentioned the game Dragon Nest, a game that i believe has fixed some of the redundancies of WoW. In certain dungeons you can acquire the base armor for a class specific piece, for example, a Goblin Dress. This Goblin Dress can be taken to a blacksmith and turned into several variations such as a Goblin Dress (Brutal) which gives it strength and crit and anything else you might think is brutal. While players have no crafting abilities and must go to an NPC to craft things WoW might learn from this system of taking a base armor and then having a player craft it into a variation that they want or want to sell.
Narayana Oct 3rd 2011 9:15AM
@Naraxis
There's already some of that in WoW, though. Blacksmiths can make extra sockets, tailors can embroider their cloaks, engineers can tinker with belts and helms, etc. Everyone can reforge their gear.
The issue that WoW has to contend with is balance. Because players are limited to 2 primary professions, Blizzard has to ensure that these professions are somewhat balanced so that players are not forced to choose a particular profession for their class. If you go too far the other way (say, let a blacksmith put sockets on another player's armor) then you actually detract from the profession: all of a sudden it's not important to BE a blacksmith, it's good enough to just know one.
Blayze Oct 3rd 2011 1:42PM
@ Nara
Like how Scribes are now, yeah? :P