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trade skills... really??? seriously?!?
Souldrainer
Member Posts: 1,857
So, I am playing the Shattering and enjoying the new quest content quite a bit, but the game now has a massive gaping wound in it where trade skills used to be. Levelling some new toons, I find that I an constantly outpacing my own trade skills... even gathering ones like skinning keep me constantly... and I mean *constantly* grinding grey content. The ones that produce items, like leather working and smithing are even worse. It's either grind mats for endless hours essentially, forcing you to level new content at the same old pace as vanilla. This, in my opinion, is an epic failing of the game. With the revolutionary new skill systems we will see in games like TOR, it's downright horrible. How did this make it past alpha testing?
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Comments
I don't know where you have been since Vanilla but this problem has existed since the BC expansion. I know it is frustrating but it is something many have dealt with by simply putting off tradeskills until they hit (or are near) the level cap.
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With BC it was pretty bad, but could be managed. With Wrath, it was getting pretty ugly. Now with Cata, the technique you mention seem to be the only correct way to do it. Sadly, any trade skill system where you can't level your trades with your character is flawed. The way the materials are set up in WoW thought, it is just broken. They may as well delete the system if they are going to neglect it to this level.Error: 37. Signature not found. Please connect to my server for signature access.
My biggest disappointment with Cataclysm that they didn't fix crafting. The main reason to choose a profession is for the buffs you get, not what you actually produce imho.
Wait I'm confused. Are you saying you're upset because you're leveling too fast and can't keep up your trade skills simultaneously so that the new zones you enter cater to your trades? If that's the case, it's always been that way. I remember having to scour the barrens for copper mines when I was clearly way past the barrens and their mobs. Old news. And in a way it's meant to be this way. It's a secondary part of the game, you can easily play WoW without getting up any trade skills, and enjoy it. Choosing to get up these skills will slow you down, without a doubt. I don't really see the problem, unless I'm misreading or misinterpreting what your problem is.
I think it sucks, but this has always been the case for WoW. It wasn't quite so bad in vanilla because getting dungeon groups to finish your group quests was drastically slower, but ever it was still there. I only play a few months at a time, but every toon I have ever leveled to the end game has hit max level then gone back to the newbie zones to catch up on my crafting.
hmm what you've just said makes perfect sence to me.
First I will say that it was not that way. In vanilla, if you paid attention you could level trades with your character. Secondly, you can call everything in the game a "secondary" part except killing mobs. You can reach 80 without chatting, buying/selling, doing any quests, raiding, joining guilds/parties, or pvpin... at all! Does that mean all these aspects of the game should be ignored by devs? Lastly, I will point out that, as I have said above, it has gotten a hell of a lot worse than it ever was before, to the point of being broken IMO. You talk about barrens? If you just level casually and hit every single node you see, you will find yourself backtracking to the level 10 zone when you hit 80.Error: 37. Signature not found. Please connect to my server for signature access.
I'm not playing now so I mean it could be completely terrible, but to be honest, when I was playing, I didn't even figure out professions existed until a higher level. I always had to backtrack no matter what, all the time. Mining, engineering, blacksmithing, it was always a backtracking game. Maybe that was my play-style, level first and do secondaries later. So in my case, I wouldn't see a difference...You're going to extremes. Chatting goes along with doing dungeons/questing, which is essential for someone who wants to level faster. If a person does no quests, and completely grinds it all out, then that's their choice to ignore it (which few people do). In that case, maybe you'll keep up with your professions. Guilds and parties are for your benefit so you have people to just hang out with consistently. PvE servers exist for people who don't want to PvP. All of these aspects are addressed when possible, but some take precedence...Like, they'd definitely prefer to address PvP over professions, probably because it's more fun and people look for it more than professions in deciding a game. I'm not saying it's not a complete bore to do, get your professions up...grind it out...fly around looking for the herbs in low level zones...but in my opinion, it's always been that way. I also doubt I'd be backtracking that far, I think your questing takes precedence over gathering, and there are obviously a lot of quests to do. So if you vary it up, it can work. If you find it too much, just go back to it later. No one is saying do everything at once, it's usually terribly hard to do. You can try, but obviously it's not working, and WoW didn't promise that you'd be able to do everything at once effectively. It's just whatever you want to do, you do it to the best of your ability.
They need to overhaul crafting in general.
I cannot honestly say "it has always been like this" cause I do not remember.
I know it has been like this, however, for a good while, so this is definitely not something that started in Cataclysm.
I remember that it gets better in the "other" continents just by virtue of having less resources to hunt, so it is easier to gather them.
I also would like to see a revamp of the trade skills, because I also feel they are good at the top level, but they are a bit lacking in the levelling up part.
It is true that most will now level up with either no trade skills or just 2 gathering professions to get the buffs and the money from selling materials and then dedicate to it seriously when they get to top level (and that is one primary reason why, for example, copper sells for so much.. or why a Silver Bar costs about 5x than a Gold bar even if Gold is an higher tiered material.. as there are plenty of silver based recipes and few on silver).
Still, some changes were made. There are some new recipes here and there, quite rarely though, and they did work on the high end of the spectrum on crafting (oh man, alchemy can now change you in to a DRAGON?? Awesome!!), but a revamp would be very appreciated ^^
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
Yeah it's nowhere near perfect or engaging, but it is what it is. You can burn out collecting it, but make 1000's of gold as well. Can't help but hope for change for the better.
Considering the amount of reviews and people that have pointed out the grind in WoW concerning 'some' areas then this should not be surprising for people who have taken the time to check before they play. The grind for such things as tradeskills has been around and commented on since people began making things in WoW (ie. launch of original game). I have not played since BC, but even I remember out pacing my trade skills.
Now you see why the AH is so popular.. lol Most of the AH economy is alts buying mats, so they don't have to waste hours in a zone they don't want to be in looking for nodes to harvest.. Due to that reason alone you'll NEVER see Blizzard address that issue and correct it by adding nodes or increasing node respawn or even offering more ttries per node to increase skill.. End result is professions in WoW are past-time hobbies easily masterd.. Hell.. Take a look at chef.. You can level all the way to grand master in 30 minutes, and make one thing that is worth a crap to end gamers...... FISH FEAST!!! 1 bloody recipe = EPIC FAIL.. in my opinion..
This problem has indeed existed since the original release of the game. It would've been interesting to see it changed in Cataclysm, but I suppose they simply didn't come to think about it.
It's not an easily fixed feature either, because simply increasing the pace at which you gain skill-ups or increasing node spawn rates would probably make changing your professions at the maximum level a little bit too easy. The other simple option, making leveling slower, isn't really a realistic option so the only possibility left would be to completely rework trade skills.
I really cannot say I am surprised. Every major change to WoW has been drastically for the worse.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
They fixed the biggest issues, which was that no-one made something that was useful while leveling, aka a blue item.
Now a blue item levels up 5 (or was it 10?) of your crafting rather than 1. So sometimes it is worth to go and make that blue item.
Also, gathering prof now gives exp so they fixed the biggest issues for Cata.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
You just said the ONE thing they changed about crafting that actually made a big difference. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if it's for the better or not. It was nice when I was about to hit 80 on my last alt and didn't feel like dungeon stomping that last few bubbles. But it's also going to be part of the reason people outlevel harvesting zones so fast.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Not that you'll ever sell that blue item to anyone else than the npcs, most professions are still utterly useless except for that secondary advantage each has.
You could just redo profressions as buffs that got better as you ground materials and noone would notice.
I recall buying the blue stuff while leveling my alts. If you worked the market it definitely was possible to create a niche.
Even with heirlooms, I bought various twink items cause 30mins less on level X was worth it as my main can make triple the gold of that item in the time saved.
TBC had the other extreme where crafted gear lasted all the way to the endgame. Not sure if that's a good way though.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Well, to keep your tradeskills up, do it like this:
- make sure that you don't level exclusively by the dungeon finder. Level some with the dungeon finder, then gain some levels by question, and so on. The more you use the dungeon finder, the harder it gets.
- keep an eye on how high your tradeskills are. If, before you reach level 60, they ever drop below yourLevel*5, stop levelling and search resource. Level*5 is the absolute minimum. It allows you to harvest most nodes in the area you are in, but most of the stuff you can produce will be worse than what you can find otherwise.
- the number of resource nodes is now huge. Spending half an hour to an hour every 10 levels or so just to find resources should be enough to keep your skills up to date
- levelling your tradeskills is the easiest when you have it slightly higher than actually usable for you. So, that for example, you can create items requiring level 42 when you are at lvl 40. Why? Many people either ignore their tradeskills or have them lower than what makes sense. And at the same time, resource nodes in dungeons often have very high levels compared to the tradeskills of the people entering those dungeons. Which again leads to even people with the right tradeskills beeing unable to harvest those nodes. If you make sure that your tradeskills are on a relatively high level compared to your own, it will be much easier to keep them there, compared to dragging them after you, because you are able to harvest all those nodes in dungeons which most people can't. And harvesting those gives you obviously more skill points, more xp and items. In addition, some professions, such as engineering, have no level requirements on their items, just skill requirements. So you can run around and one-shot elite enemies of your level if you have a gnomish death ray early on, for example. Also, it helps you to level faster if you keep crafting items higher than your level, and start equipping them as soon as possible, since you then have always good equipment.
- of course you can also buy resources at the auction house. That doesn't work for all skills though, since some can only be raised by harvesting
And, as a final note:
Some time ago I maxed jewelcrafting and insciption for the first time. And... they are insanely boring professions. Unless something changes, I'd never give them a char again.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
I recently started a brand new toon. In the time it has taken me to reach level 66 I have also leveled my blacksmithing and mining. I have no idea what the OP is talking about as my trade skills are totally appropriate for the level and zones I am currently adventuring in.
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This seems to be a result of character levels coming faster. Experience from pvp, dungeons, quests and many other things have increased. This is done for various reasons, but I'm not sure the same should be done to crafting.
It isn't like they are difficult on their own to level up to near max levels. Im not sure that making tradeskills easier to level would really solve a problem.
Never really found it to be a big deal. Tradeskills always lagged behind unless I actually invested time and effort into keeping it even with my current level. Aweful lot like RL, my painting skills suck ass because I have to work all the time. Oh crap something realistic in Wow, time for revolt!
This ENTIRELY depends on much time you spend leveling versus gathering. This applies to every mmo I've played for 10 years.
At the end of my 7-days trial my Troll Druid is level 36, all trading skills around 200 (including cooking, fishing, First Aid).
Yes, there is so much exp in this game now. I mostly did green quests. Went through Durotar, Azshara, eastern half of Ashenvale, Northern Stranglethorn and part of South Stranglethorn.
I began with Herbs and Alchemy. At level 25 I had 2,5 gold. I wanted to buy some equipment and Glyphs. This caused me to make my first video ever - bad quality, don´t hate me.
Because of this I swapped Alchemy with the Glyph-job, I don´t know the english name now.
Now at level 36 I bought all bank slots etc and still have 630g. There were Herbs everywhere in Stranglethorn. I don´t know if this was also changed in the Shattering, but I can´t remember of finding that much resources there pre-Cataclysm.
Sorry for partially missing the point of the thread.