Whenever a post on WoW.com mentions the new looting system added with patch 3.3, the comment section invariably gets filled with enchanters complaining about the new option to disenchant loot automatically. For those of you not familiar with the new system, I'll explain it. If there is an enchanter in the party, then on the loot window, next to the greed option, is a disenchant option. If someone picks this option, they roll against other people who picked disenchant and greed, and if they win, the item is automatically disenchanted for them and they receive the resulting mats.
When this system was first announced, I for one, was excited. I had always found it to be an incredible pain to roll greed on items that dropped, hoping no one else would roll greed because they missed me telling them not to, disenchanting the items, having everyone else roll on the shards, and passing them out. It took too long and there was too much room for misunderstanding. After a while, I stopped telling people I was an enchanter and just rolled greed with everyone else, disenchanting an item if I won. With this new system, it is all automatic. It's painless, easy, and in my own personal opinion better.
Still, the naysayers still exist, and some arguments seem to come up consistently. For example...
This new system takes away our choice!
Think for just a minute; what was our choice before 3.3 came out? We could choose between two options.
1. Take all of the items, disenchant them, pass out the shards
2. Do nothing and only disenchant the items we get, so we are the only one who get shards
These days, this is our only choice: Let others roll on shards from all gear that drops. If you ask me, it combines the best of both of the previous choices. After all, we are just as likely to receive shards through this new system, and it allows others to receive shards as well, but it is just as painless as the second former option. I suppose from the sole perspective of the enchanter, the new system is just as good as the second former option, since he'll likely get the same number of shards regardless, but we need to think about other people as well. The fact is that other people need shards so that they can get enchantments, and this new system affords them an easy way of doing so without creating an inconvenience for us.
The market is going to be flooded with enchanting mats, lowering the prices!
Again, we need to think of more people than ourselves. Sure, we'll be making less money off of the enchanting mats we sell (personally, I keep all of my mats so that I can enchant new gear, but I am starting to have a lot of them laying around), but we need to think about the people getting those enchantments. They need the enchantments so that they can perform at their best, so in a way, enchanting helps raid progression. If enchantments are easier to get, then perhaps raid progression will be easier as well. Not a very convincing argument, I know, but these days, dailies are the best way to make money, anyways.
I shouldn't even bother leveling enchanting now!
This is a flat-out lie. I can tell you that there are still great benefits to enchanting, even if we can't personally disenchant drops (was that ever a benefit?).
1. There needs to be an enchanter in the party for the disenchant option to appear. This new system isn't replacing us; it's streamlining what we used to do.
2. We are still needed to perform those enchantments. It's not like people can apply enchantments themselves if they have the necessary mats.
3. You can still enchant your own gear. In a world where so much emphasis is placed on enchantments, I see this as the biggest benefit of enchanting. When a new piece of gear drops and we win it, we can put an enchantment on it there and then. We don't need to go through the hassle of buying the mats or running heroics and hoping to collect them through the new disenchant option, and we don't have to go through the hassle of finding an enchanter and tipping him afterward. I'm amazed at how easily enchanters forget that simple fact, for it is the one reason why I am still an enchanter.
In short, to my fellow enchanters, calm the heck down. This new system benefits everyone, even you.
Friday, December 11, 2009
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Seriously I don't think you have though much about the market or have worked the market much if you think that the arguements against a mandated d/e policy are weak.
ReplyDeleteLet's address the enchanting issue. There are scrolls, use them, sell your enchant on the market.
Next, when it came to instances i didn't offer my services as an enchanter unless asked. This means that I can greed roll and d/e for myself. Now I d/e greens and blues for anyone for no fee. There is a significant increase in the ammount of GCE and LCE from this one thing alone. Tanking the market and reducing my profits.
I personally like having thousands of gold available to me. I spent thousands of gold leveling this skill. Why on earth should I not profit in any way possible from it?
You're right in that I haven't given much thought to the market or worked the market much. My experience with the market is limited solely to selling things on it, and even that isn't a very big source of my income. Most of my income comes from dailies, so I have never had much motivation to give the market serious consideration.
ReplyDeleteAs for your questions of why you "shouldn't profit from it," I can't say. As you can see from my post, I see the real benefit of enchanting to be non-monetary, and that's why I spent thousands of gold leveling this skill, and why I will keep it even though the market has tanked.
Still, if you are correct that this change is not beneficial for enchanters (as seems to be your opinion; I apologize if I am incorrect in that assumption) then within time, enchanters will drop their profession for something else. With fewer enchanters running around, there will be more groups who can't choose the DE option, lowing the supply of mats, bringing the prices back up. Also, with fewer people to do enchantments, the "supply," if you will, of enchantments themselves will go down, meaning we may be able to start charging for rare enchantments again. This is only a guess as to what may happen, but given time, this issue may be self-correcting.