I wasn’t sure where to post this, but here seems fine.
DISCLAIMER: I know this is long, but please bare with me. I am not a professional game designer. I made up this system in about half an hour. The examples given are probably not balanced, I just created them to illustrate my point. I’m also not aware of every single detail of the game currently, so if I messed up somewhere, excuse me and please point it out! If you have an opinion on this, or ideas to add, I’d be happy to listen to all of them! I’ll try to edit this post as my opinions change or expand.
Hi! I heard people really don’t like the current customization options we have in BfA to make our characters play just the way we want to play them, and I kinda agree. There could be much more done about that part of the game. I gave it some thought and came up with an idea.
In the past, I already thought about how useless professions are: for the most part, professions like tailoring let you make various cloth items that become obsolete soon after you start doing endgame content. Lately it’s a bit better, but it still won’t last you all the way.
I’ll get straight to the point. I’m going to stick to tailoring with my examples. Currently, if you get your tailoring to max level, you can make something like this:
Sinister Boots of Obsolescence
Item Level 340
Gives stats worthy of a really basic ilvl 340 pair of boots.
World Quests are able to give you a better pair of boots than this. It won’t last you.
In the past, there have already been cases where professions gave you something you could put on an item to improve it. Typically these weren’t all that gamechanging, but I took them as inspiration for the following idea. Instead of the above boots, imagine you get your tailoring to max level and you can make something like this:
Deep Sea Infused Lacing
Use: Apply to a piece of cloth armor to increase its Item Level by 5 (increasing its stats accordingly) and have it grant an addition 10 Critical Strike Rating, plus the following ability:
Whenever you cast an instant ability with a cooldown of 1 minute or more, your Haste is increased by 500 for 10 seconds. Can only proc once per minute.
(This is about on par with whatever azerite armor can currently give us.)
Suddenly, this is something you could use any time regardless of your gear. Of course, the question arises, how many of these could you have on your items? Is there a limit? The answer is: I don’t know. With enough diversity with these “enchants”, this could probably outright replace the azerite armor system, and then you could have one on your head, shoulders and chest, but not two of the same ones.
NOTE: Blizzard will not remove the azerite armor system, that I’m sure of. By “replace” I mean “if azerite armor didn’t exist”.
Another question might be, how is this different from enchanting? Well, enchanting enchants an item of a specific slot. This would improve an item of a specific armor type (and no weapons). For even more customization, I think allowing one tailoring and one enchanting bonus on an item would be fine.
This is not all though. We can go a step further! At max level, a tailor could possibly make something like this:
Silver Lining of the Archmage
Class: Mage
Use: Apply to a cloth armor piece to increase its ilvl by 5. Additionally, you may choose a trait to apply to the armor piece when using this item.
This might be a bit confusing. Let me explain. When you use this item, you pick an appropriate piece of armor, and a UI pops up not unlike the one we have for azerite armor. Here, you’d be able to pick from several traits to apply to your item that change how various mechanics of your class work. For example (keeping to mages):
- Clearly Blasted: Every time you consume Clearcasting, your next Arcane Blast becomes instant cast.
- Growing Flames: Ignite can now critically strike, and when it does, you have a 10% chance to regain one Fire Blast charge.
- Another Icicle: Whenever you launch an Icicle, for each Icicle launched you have a 20% chance to instantly regain one Icicle.
I’d imagine there would be around three different options for each spec, giving quite a bit of customization to how you want to play your class. The above examples are probably not balanced, I just made them up to illustrate what I mean by “class specific”.
My only problem with this was that it may make professions mandatory. But I don’t think that’s the case. Or rather, I think of it less as professions being a must-have, and more that professions would become integrated into the process of character growth. Since most if not all of these items would be sellable, it’d give people with these professions an actual reason to care about it. Those with only gathering professions could still buy these upgrades from the auction house, after selling their gathered material. To those who make said upgrades.
Not all production professions might be obvious on what they’d do under this new system, so I took the time to think of something for each of them:
- Tailoring, Leatherworking, Blacksmithing: The obvious ones, these would provide the item upgrades to the various armor types. I’m not sure where mail armor would fit in though, that one is kind of up in the air.
- Enchanting: Stays as it is, after all, this one can create enchants that can apply to any armor type, as well as weapons, and I would let them stack with the item upgrades, after all, enchants are typically just bonus stats, which wouldn’t clash. Maybe make the enchants themselves a bit more impactful.
- Alchemy: I don’t think this one needs to be changed. Maybe the effects could be improved a bit, just like with enchanting, but other than that: potions are consumables, you always need more, while once you upgrade an item, you don’t need to do it again until you get another item.
- Engineering: Remember those fancy old engineering recipes that let you make equipment with active effects? A mind control helmet, rocket boots, invisibility belt… Yea. This profession would make item upgrades that turn your equipment into active items! (They still have a chance to fail.)
- Jewelcrafting: Similar to tailoring and the like, except this one puts bonuses onto your rings/necklace. Not trinkets though. Those already tend to have their own passive effects. Plus it would still make gems, so there’s that.
- Inscription: I had to check if this profession is still a thing at all. I don’t know what to do with this one, remove it, or turn it into a secondary skill, I’m not sure. I don’t think I could make this one useful without completely revamping it, or just bringing back the old glyph system.
So there you have it. With this system in place, professions would be further embedded into the economy of the game, and make them an actual useful thing to have or buy from while also providing player choice regarding a character’s growth.
I realize most of this would probably require some finetuning, or reconsidering certain parts, but these are the basics. This post got a bit out of hand, I better close it now. Thanks for reading!
Also, sorry for the horrid formatting.
TLDR: Instead of making worthless new boots with tailoring, you make your current boots better, and/or make them provide slight class or role specific alterations to your playstyle.