Yet another WOW critcism thread

I don't intend on this being an angry rant, just wanted to throw out my ideas for improving WOW because at this point I'm still not seeing all that many improvements that are making this game one that should be revisited when the new expansion comes out.

I'm a casual player that is more interested in doing solo content which has been reinforced to continuous crappy experiences with guilds and other social aspects of the game. I am not a hardcore raider by any stretch of the imagination, definitely average at best. I know the ideal rotations for the different classes and know how to gear properly for progressions. Ok, enough of the who gives a f*** autobiography.

I know WOW is an MMORPG, multiplayer being the key word, so complaining about solo content might be a bit ironic but we all have our own preferences and there isn't a stand alone non MMORPG out there that provides the same level of variety that WOW does. Skyrim was fun but you can only play it for so long without resulting to wasting hours of time with mod demoing.

Changes to Profs:

Get rid of cooking, fishing (only so far as getting cooking ingredients is concerned), first aid, inscription and enchanting (possibly jewelcrafting as well). I know this is extreme and may sound ludicrous but hear me out. Just include the necessary stat numbers on the gear so you don't need to waste time coming up with bonuses you gain through prof grinding. No more enchanting items. If certain profs like engineering didn't require gems I would get rid of Jewelcrafting and item sockets, but given mining is still a viable prof it might be unnecessary. Let potions give stat bonuses and ability bonuses if need be, it only needs to come from one source. I'd get rid of alchemy too but given it provides bonuses other than specifically stats (like underwater breathing) it gets a pass.

Profession grinding is a massive time sink that outside of the WOW environment would be considered insufferably monotonous by the majority of players. I mean honestly, why the hell would any sane person want to spend hours doing virtual fishing? That sounds like an app some old fart would play while sitting in the Dr.'s office waiting for his yearly prostate exam. The same goes with cooking. It's a fun novelty at first but eventually it becomes just as boring as fishing. Fishing however for contests at least has an appeal, especially if you can be pitted against other players. Fishing as a quest requirement is also fine because you are actually doing something that will net you experience, loot and gold and furthering the storyline.

If there has to be some degree of prof. grinding at least make it for those that are focused on creating armor and weapons. Also, if you are going to do daily CD's for certain ingredients then at least make the armor and weapons more powerful, like identical to the lower level LFR gear but with a weaker stat bonus so that LFR will still net you the better gear without there being a huge gap. Also make prof. leveling via quests more viable so you kill two birds with one stone. And while they are at it create some really kick ass armor and weapons (talking more about visuals) that are only available via profs that will still make epic looking transmog gear.

The only way I could see keeping all profs is if the ingredient gathering is specifically tied into the new Garrison feature. Have your NPC's do all of the work and let them return with a number of ingredients each day that is reasonable and would rival having to go out and farm for hours. This would still give the option to farm on your own but wouldn't force you to do it because the number of ingredients you net via Garrison workers isn't abysmal. If a day's worth of gathering nets you the same amount of ingredients you could obtain via 10 minutes of farming on your own it's a joke.

Make it so that you can trade goods with other garrisons but the ingredients gathered via your NPC's can't be put on the AH. This gives players with different priorities, options. Either sit back and let your NPC's do the work and focus on other things or focus your time on farming the ingredients yourselves to make money on the AH. If you are in a hurry to level up your prof you can still do it the old school way but those who aren't in a hurry can still reap the benefits of this new feature. I think it's a win win and makes the Garrison that much more appealing.

I'd also leave the farm idea in the past unless you can have a similar NPC setup that tends your gardens for you.

Alright this post is long enough, I'll address other stuff in future posts.

If WoW is pissing you off then I'd say its doing what its designed for.

@Lulu_Lulu:

At this point watching the cut scenes and cinematics is more enjoyable than playing the game. Still get to find out what happens while still having some semblance of a life.

WoW hasn't been fun in a long time ever since they dumbed down raids. WoW's whole raison d'etre.

• You do realize you can just buy gems and enchantments from other players or the AH right?
• JC and enchanting exists to give additional customization over your items.
• Those armor and weapon crafting professions are the least interesting of all professions. They can barely pass for crafting, they are more like a merchant that require material rather than money. And find by far the least ammount of customers of all professions.

The professions do exist for a reason, you may not like them, but removing them would only dumb down the game further and remove some of the rather interesting enchantments they do have. However, they could do stuff to tone down on the grind quite a bit by redesigning the entire profession leveling experience. In early levels all crafting only gives one skill, instead of having a blue give out as much skill as a yellow, have them hand out more skill points. That would be a lot more clever than just removing them.

Fix what is broke, don't remove it.

@ChaosDecides: You missed 2 important things.

1) Some people like having professions.

2) You don't have to have any professions.

Pretty much this, my professions suck and yet I don't want them removed or have them further dumbed down, just fix the grind they require.

This has always been the case.