Dragonflight Professions Interview with SoulsoBreezy

Live Posted 2022/11/16 at 7:11 PM by Archimtiros

SoulsoBreezyGeneral Highlights

Archaeology is a cool profession that would match well with Dragonflight, and we can look forward to "something cool there", but the initial focus was on revamping primary professions, which took priority over cooking, fishing, or archaeology. That said, while fishing and cooking don't have specializations (yet), they do have several new additions including stew pots and spear fishing!

Glyphs are exciting to play with, but being able to customize ability visuals makes it harder to tell what's happening in certain situations (such as PvP combat), so there are no specific plans right now to allow visual spell customization via glyphs, but they recognize that many players would like that functionality.

Rare recipes which unlock unique transmogs are also something they want to lean further into.

Crafting Endgame Gear

Professions should be a major source of powerful gear, but they don't want maxing professions to be the most important activity for every player in order to get the best stuff. If the gear were were soulbound, you'd have to be that profession to use it, and they don't want every Warrior to be a Blacksmith. On the other hand, being too much completely unbound crafting gear means filling as many slots as you have gold. Crafting Orders are the compromise.

Beyond normal reagents, every piece of major crafted gear will need a Spark of Ingenuity, which players will earn over time throughout the expansion. The first will be earned automatically during a campaign quest to unlock the Engine of Innovation. Once the season begins on Dec 12th, a second quest will award a second spark, with a new step every 2 weeks until the player has earned a total of five sparks. At that point, players will be able find Bottled Essence from virtually any activity to create more. They're meant to be rare though, and modeled after Legion legendaries, with the intent of players finding one every couple of weeks.

Most professions crafted gear requires one spark, though two handed weapons will require two (RIP Fury Warriors).

Upgrade materials require Primal Infusion, which are created by combining Depleted Primal Chaos, which drop virtually everywhere, and Primal Focus, which should drop from every Heroic boss and comparable activities (~Mythic +11 keys, PvP rating boxes). The Mythic version, Concentrated Primal Focus should drop similarly from Mythic raid bosses and higher level Mythic+ keys/PvP rating boxes.

A single Primal Infusion will also be awarded at the end of each of the four renown tracks, as well as for the first defeat of Raszageth on any difficulty, allowing even solo and casual players who otherwise wouldn't be doing Heroic level content to obtain a limited amount of Heroic item level crafted gear.

Crafted gear won't be able to convert into set pieces using the Creation Catalyst, though this is on purpose due to the recrafting system allowing you to change the secondaries and quality of crafted gear, as well as upgrade the item level. They don't want players losing out on those investments, which wouldn't have any impact if the item were turned into a tier piece - there should be plenty of other sources of gear to use in the Catalyst.

The general intent is that players will be able to continue to use and upgrade their profession gear in future Dragonflight seasons, though new recipes may also be introduced to create more options.

Professions Specializations

Professions specializations cannot be respecced, though you should be able to completely max out all of them. They aren't necessarily intending every player to do that, but their reasoning is to make the decision impactful - if it's too easy to respec, it loses the identity of specializing in smithing helms versus weapons or whatever you chose to invest in.

There's a lot of front loaded knowledge built into the specialization system, since each time you craft a new recipe you should gain a knowledge point. That should serve as a form of catch up, but a key feature is that you don't actually need to max out every single specialization - you should be able to craft the best stuff from a specific discipline without investing in every single specialization.

Crafting Orders

Crafting orders should be expanded to include old world (previous expansion) recipes at some point, but no ETA right now.

Crafting orders are purposefully limited so that one or a handful of players cannot run the entire market, forcing crafters to pick and choose which commissions they decide to take. There is a fallback however, as any order which is about to expire (~2hrs remaining) won't count against that limit, allowing underpriced or less desirable commissions to still be fulfilled.

Basic materials are available on the region-wide auction house, but crafting orders aren't.

Crafting orders are server specific in order to help achieve the feeling of fulfilling a community role. Being the best scribe or helm smith within a smaller pool of players allows players to build a customer base and reputation on their server, rather than diluting it by competing against the entire region. If this proves detrimental and doesn't work out, they can always expand the system later on, but they don't want to start too wide and be unable to pull it back.

Comment by kabookiejoeJust let us farm any zone with archaeology without having to proc other zones (EK/Kallimdor)

Like farming tor'vir non stop or trolls etcComment by ScaryfoxI'll give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the primary professions since I've used that Talent Calculator. I'll notice if cooking and fishing get specs and Archaelogy gets no new additions. Still, I do think that's a good compromise for the Crafting Orders.Comment by ArcNitemareWhen I saw 'decision impactful ' I cringed. After the whole 'meaningful choice' situation with the Covenants in Shadowland Blizz is the last group I trust to think that is a good idea.Comment by nephrite"but being able to customize ability visuals makes it harder to tell what's happening in certain situations (such as PvP combat),"

Then disable cosmetic glyphs in PvP?Comment by Xaethron"but being able to customize ability visuals makes it harder to tell what's happening in certain situations (such as PvP combat),"

Then disable cosmetic glyphs in PvP?Comment by hamhelth213 When I saw 'decision impactful ' I cringed. After the whole 'meaningful choice' situation with the Covenants in Shadowland Blizz is the last group I trust to think that is a good idea.Comment by infek"but being able to customize ability visuals makes it harder to tell what's happening in certain situations (such as PvP combat),"

Then disable cosmetic glyphs in PvP?Comment by SaadiaGlyphs should be personal, it doesn't have to show to others, hence if you loose visibility on fight (PvE or PvP) it's a personal choice (that I'd make)Comment by VinceVegaGlyphs should be personal, it doesn't have to show to others, hence if you loose visibility on fight (PvE or PvP) it's a personal choice (that I'd make)Comment by ZombbySo for someone who wants to control their server's market on BiS necklaces,Comment by LedarenWhen I saw 'decision impactful ' I cringed. After the whole 'meaningful choice' situation with the Covenants in Shadowland Blizz is the last group I trust to think that is a good idea.Comment by LedarenGlyphs should be personal, it doesn't have to show to others, hence if you loose visibility on fight (PvE or PvP) it's a personal choice (that I'd make)Comment by Dauntless86disable cosmetic glyphs in rated pvp. they know this is the answer, and has been for *years*. so what the real question is, is why don't they do it?

Glyphs should be personal, it doesn't have to show to othersComment by Ledarendisable cosmetic glyphs in rated pvp. they know this is the answer, and has been for *years*. so what the real question is, is why don't they do it?

Glyphs should be personal, it doesn't have to show to othersComment by TigonIIII still see the "Glyph" system to be a giant missed opportunity, as they could easily go the Path of Exile route with regards to visual effects, where one could buy a "Spec" visual overhaul on the store, which would change a lot of spells/abilities to show up differently. A perfect example would be a Fire Mage buying and applying a "Blue Flame" visual overhaul to all their spells.
Glyphs should be personal, it doesn't have to show to others, hence if you loose visibility on fight (PvE or PvP) it's a personal choice (that I'd make)Comment by FlanellJust let us farm any zone with archaeology without having to proc other zones (EK/Kallimdor)

Like farming tor'vir non stop or trolls etcComment by WheelieWattWhen I saw 'decision impactful ' I cringed. After the whole 'meaningful choice' situation with the Covenants in Shadowland Blizz is the last group I trust to think that is a good idea.Comment by kaylep"There is a fallback however, as any order which is about to expire (~2hrs remaining) won't count against that limit, allowing underpriced or less desirable commissions to still be fulfilled."

Am I stupid or is this destroying the whole market? So everyone can just underprice as hell and all they need is more patience cause they just have to wait till it got to <2h and every crafter will do it for free money. Why should anyone not underprice then?