Not everything seems to be going according to plan in the development of Patch 11.0.7 of World of Warcraft. One feature is now being postponed and will only arrive in 2025.
Some features in World of Warcraft have been criticized for a while, including the professions system. It is quite complex, and those who take the time to understand it can earn a lot of gold and have fun. However, one aspect of it continues to cause frustration even in the second expansion since the introduction of the new system. Once a profession knowledge is spent, it cannot be refunded.
This is what to expect in the next patch:
What is the problem with the professions? Professions have become quite complex since Dragonflight. There is not just one big decision like “Blacksmith” or “Armorsmith”, but a complex talent system that is filled with profession knowledge.
The big problem here is that the distribution of talent points (“profession knowledge points”) is permanent. If a tailor has initially invested a large amount in crafting profession gear and then realizes that they actually prefer to produce meaningful gear for PvE, they are out of luck – or will have to invest a lot of time.
There was no “second chance” here. The distribution was permanent.
Ultimately, this limitation isn’t that bad. Because eventually, a crafter can do everything in their profession, but this can take many months – many only reached that state in Dragonflight a few weeks before the launch of the new addon.
Respec should improve professions, but is not coming for now
What did Blizzard have in mind? In Patch 11.0.7, Blizzard intended to introduce a feature that allows for a “respec”, meaning a new distribution of profession knowledge. This would likely benefit anyone who allocated their points somewhat carelessly, as they were unaware of the permanence of their decision – or those who invested in completely useless specializations.
What exactly was it supposed to look like? No precise details about this feature were available yet – it wasn’t even ready for testing and nothing reliable could be derived from data mining. However, it seems clear that redistributing the knowledge points requires some restrictions – either a long cooldown of several weeks or a certain cost factor, such as the loss of some knowledge points.
Otherwise, anyone would simply redistribute profession knowledge permanently, depending on what they want to craft at the moment. This would undermine the system where players can earn a reputation for having completed a certain specialization.
How exactly the feature will look, we will likely find out at the earliest with the PTR of the next major update, namely Patch 11.1, which is expected to land on the test server no earlier than late Advent. Currently, WoW still has some issues – such as lags caused by your teammates.
