wow Blizzard on the Crafting Order System

[Staff 1,488]

Blizzard have commented on the Crafting Order system, it's successes and failures, as well as potential improvements they see being needed. 

Crafting Order System (Source)

To speak a bit to the original question of this thread:

“Are the devs sure that the crafting order system is a success?”

The crafting order system is by no means perfect. There are many ways we would like to improve it over time. We have been having many of these discussions internally, as well as listening to feedback from all of you. Since this is such a new system though, we don’t want to make any snap-judgements and make big changes before giving things a chance to settle and seeing how it develops over time.

We do believe that the system has been successful in one of its core goal though - to enable crafters to make soulbound, useful gear for players at all levels of play. This elevates the overall value of professions within the game and helps to deliver on the fantasy of being a crafter creating valuables for yourself and others.

It has also been successful in providing a new way to for crafters and customers to interact, one which is inherently more social, and when you get to use it, hopefully more satisfying than previous ways to do so! But again, very much not perfect!

As far as the public order system goes, it seems to be working well as an easy way to get something crafted for yourself if you aren’t worried about getting the best quality and want it quickly. This was always its intent. We definitely wish that as crafters, it was easier to find public orders to fill. Unfortunately even though there are quite a few public orders going through the system, given the minimal effort it takes to fulfill a public order and the relative number of crafters around to fill those orders, there will almost never be many orders up an any given time with the way it currently works…they get filled too quickly and easily.

We are looking into ways to have more orders to fulfill though, because for most, we think it tends to be a pretty satisfying activity and a great way to earn skill and a bit of gold when you can find an order to fulfill.

We also think the guild / personal order side of things are working moderately well. These methods allow players to connect and get their items crafted with more control. There are several issues we would very much like to improve though, including:

1. Helping better connect customers and crafters. There is nothing wrong with a bit of effort to get the best gear, or to attract customers. This is currently mostly accomplished through trade chat though, which while it does have a nice social component to it (something we love to see more of), it is by no means an ideal way to find a crafter for a specific item, or a customer to craft for.

2. Helping better support interactions between players who are depending on inspiration to reach a higher quality level.

We suspect that as players finish getting their high end crafting gear and complete purchases of other one time uses for Artisan’s Mettle, players will be more willing to use Artisan’s Mettle to guarantee higher quality crafts. That will help, but even then, inspiration will always be a useful way to get max quality gear crafted. The crafting orders system is not supporting this as well as we would like it to, since as a customer, you cannot place an order and know exactly what you will get - you need to rely on a handshake deal that your crafter has the inspiration they promised when attempting to craft items for you.

In addition, there will be lots of other quality of life features we will be looking into to help making it smoother to use, easier to learn, and more.

As always, thank you for the feedback. We will continue working to improve professions in general and the crafting order system in specific! Meanwhile, happy gathering and crafting!

-Drough

[MiNiGiANT 26]

RNG based crafting thats what ppl need...

[Sanderkun 1]

  The problem with the system is that crafting is still quite gate kept. With most classes of armor missing  parts of low level (61-65) sets are still inadequate as an alt gearing option. Alternately, since mats/recipes are locked behind content that group leaders are requiring a minimum ilvl for players still only have the games own systems for catch up making it difficult to break into mid-high end content. Honestly the amount of work required to gear even for regular Mythic Dungeons is more time consuming than it should be forcing players to essentially make a part time job of playing a game they pay for.

  That in its self is a slap in the face of the original game design which actively discouraged players from binge playing and advocated them to not ruin their real life with game play. The average player has work, and family which they would have to neglect to participate in the high end content where all of the good rewards are locked.  Blizzard seems to forget that the money that keeps the servers on comes from those jobs people have to work. And, the future of the games longevity comes from players who have brought their children into the game as they have become old enough. Not everyone can afford to be a professional gamer or content creator. Over the last two xpacks that's exactly who all the better and best content was designed for not your bread and butter subscribers.

[Helvorn 57]

Makes me wonder who tested this on beta and how this system could go live. People are not interested in RNG when it comes to crafting orders. This was DOA from the start. The open orders are not filled too fast so nothing shows up, there are just none. Because nobody spends precious materials (and tons of gold) by "trusting" somebody can actually craft the best quality.

[ArthasStormrage87 52]

I feel the gearing is in a lot better position than it has been previously, although I do feel the rank 3 titan matrix should be a lil more obtainable. It would be so nice to be able to find 1 or 2 while lvling just so you got something to look forward to when you hit 70 instead being ripped off on the sparks crafts. Also it would be nice to have all of the wq gear scale with your lvl, my lock alt is ilvl 369 and some wq gear shows up 372 while 80% of it shows up like 4 or 5 ilvl s under everything I’am wearing. The professions are fun now that I understand them, but not being able to refund knowledge points sucks *filtered*. Hell if you don’t want it abused cap it to only being able to refund 10 a week. That way ppl that misused points don’t feel like their prof is useless!

Edited January 10, 2023 by ArthasStormrage87

[swotam 19]

I've been so disappointed with the new crafting system that I've basically stopped having anything to do with it. On my server it's a complete disaster. No public work orders, barely any Trade chat traffic, virtually everything I can craft sells at a loss and I can't craft any BOP item at a level that's high enough for people to care. Blizz has singlehandedly made me not care about crafting for the rest of the expansion, and I feel that the hours and hours I spent levelling toons to be crafters in DF was a complete waste of my time. It's a terrible system that never should have gone live in the current state.

[Migol 433]

If they want crafting to continue to work and support the Work Order system, then a tuning pass over crafted gear is very important.

Exhibit A) Jewelcrafting  Lariat is by far the most sought after Crafted Piece in the game right now.     It has a BiS status for, well, nearly everyone.     

Exhibit B) By contrast, take inscription as an example.   The trinket decks are an extra layer of difficulty to get what with the low chance of getting an Ace even after a ton of crafting and a -HUGE- bunch of specialization points.    But...none of the decks are worthwhile!     To my knowledge, none of the Decks even crack top 10 status on trinket BiS lists.    They're remarkably undertuned.  

Similarly, Inscription's staff and offhand crafts are very mediocre compared to regular drops or pvp rewards (which are entirely easier to get and don't require all the specialization points).   

 

[Arcling 898]

Interesting, at first many people praised these changes, but it seems now more people are starting to dislike it. I haven't liked this system from the start: rng, materials from other professions are required, hard to skill up. It's great for super farmers (and gold sellers as well), but for casual players not so much.

Public work order system is already dead. Zero orders on anything and this is on one of bigger EU servers.

[Helvorn 57]

12 hours ago, Arcling said:

Interesting, at first many people praised these changes, but it seems now more people are starting to dislike it. I haven't liked this system from the start: rng, materials from other professions are required, hard to skill up. It's great for super farmers (and gold sellers as well), but for casual players not so much.

Public work order system is already dead. Zero orders on anything and this is on one of bigger EU servers.

In theory it looked quite fine, in comparison to the old crafting system. But the honeymoon phase is definitely over after just a few weeks. People hated to grind AP and renown for covenants. Now, the same old grind is back again its just called professions. I´ve played many mmo´s and nowhere I have seen such an amount of time gating.

More and more people realize they cannot compete with the min maxed auction house dwellers. Either you can craft BIS or you just waste gold by playing the game.

Public order system was DOA as you wrote. This should have been included into the auction house, if you want BOP stuff you provide the materials and thats it. But without guaranteeing top quality crafting orders are a complete failure.

 

 

Edited January 11, 2023 by Helvorn

[Teufel 331]

19 hours ago, Arcling said:

Interesting, at first many people praised these changes, but it seems now more people are starting to dislike it. I haven't liked this system from the start: rng, materials from other professions are required, hard to skill up. It's great for super farmers (and gold sellers as well), but for casual players not so much.

Public work order system is already dead. Zero orders on anything and this is on one of bigger EU servers.

It's fine enough I think, the only part that I severely dislike - leveling the majority of professions past 65 without it is nigh-impossible.

...well, maybe a periodic talent resent for profession would be nice. Something not abusable though, like you can reset once you get, say, 40 points in (trivial enough with all the one-time bonuses), and to reset again you need to get 40 more. Helps with people not used to it from sitting with a screwed up profession.

[Migol 433]

On 1/10/2023 at 12:21 PM, Arcling said:

Interesting, at first many people praised these changes, but it seems now more people are starting to dislike it. I haven't liked this system from the start: rng, materials from other professions are required, hard to skill up. It's great for super farmers (and gold sellers as well), but for casual players not so much.

Public work order system is already dead. Zero orders on anything and this is on one of bigger EU servers.

Well, on an odd thing I see plenty of public work orders for more mundane stuff, like the treatises from inscription for spec point gains.   That's all on public work orders.    Not seeing anything tho on the equipment though which again is just so sub-par compared to other sources like M+ or raiding or even pvp.

[Arcling 898]

28 minutes ago, Migol said:

Well, on an odd thing I see plenty of public work orders for more mundane stuff, like the treatises from inscription for spec point gains.   That's all on public work orders.    Not seeing anything tho on the equipment though which again is just so sub-par compared to other sources like M+ or raiding or even pvp.

There is nothing for jewelcrafting for me. Then there are some weird ideas like inscription equipment that is bop, so even if I make it, I can't sell it and no one is ordering it.

[Migol 433]

2 hours ago, Arcling said:

There is nothing for jewelcrafting for me. Then there are some weird ideas like inscription equipment that is bop, so even if I make it, I can't sell it and no one is ordering it.

Well...lariat if you can afford the recipe lol.    But yeah, system is tied to professions which like I said, really need a tuning pass on the created items they can make to be competitive.     Would also be great if we could cut down the profession glut in terms of quality types...I stacks of 3 of each herb quality, 3 of each ink, runes, writhebark runes, etc etc.    Bagspace is getting scary hard.