Two Ranks of Reagents
Including herbs, ore, leather, missives, and more, reagents used to craft items are being reduced from three ranks to just two. With 1-star bronze rank materials used for crafts that aren't dependent on quality and the current 3-star gold ranks prioritized for those which are, the 2-star silver rank were left in an awkward position of being only sometimes useful.
Rather than 1-star bronze and 2-star silver, the Alpha UI suggests reagents will now come in silver and gold qualities.
Because a lot of this is not testable yet, it's not entirely clear what quality of gear players will be able to make using lower quality reagents instead of the higher rank, but getting the lesser used versions out of player inventories is a great quality of life improvement!
Two Ranks of Consumables
Similar to reagents, crafted consumables are also being consolidated to just two ranks in Midnight.
The Alpha still shows five ranks, though the profession updates have not yet been advertised for testing.
In an interview with MrGM, Senior Game Director Ion Hazzikostas confirmed the change, commenting that the middle rank was often ignored anyway in favor of the more cheap or powerful versions.
Three Ranks for End-Game Crafts
Although this change has not made its way onto the Midnight Alpha just yet, powerful end-game crafted items will also be reduced from five to just three ranks of quality.
The Alpha still shows five ranks, though the profession updates have not yet been advertised for testing.
Previously reported by Taliesin & Evitel during the during the Midnight reveal at Gamescom this past August, the rational is simply that the majority of players never care for the lower ranks anyway. Rather than simply having one rank, this change will still allow crafting skill and reagent quality to play a part in crafting high-end gear that players may use for months to come, while eliminating a few of the extraneous middlemen.
During the same interview with MrGM, Senior Game Director Ion Hazzikostas shared some comments regarding a newfound philosophy for three tiers of crafting complexity in Midnight:
Senior Game Director Ion Hazzikostas
We're happy overall with how the big rework that went into Dragonflight has played out, in terms of adding a lot of depth to professions for crafters who really want to make trade skills a part of their character's identity, and also in terms of engaging with them very important even as consumers for a wide variety of players. I think both of those things were not true prior to Dragonflight.
However, we've lost some things in terms of approachability of crafting. I think while there is that depth, that's also a daunting amount of complexity for some people who just like the idea of making stuff, but don't necessarily want to have to download a guide. And so I think we'd like to move towards a world where there are perhaps three tiers of complexity. I think that the current level of complexity is appropriate for long-term item crafting. If you're making armor, you're making a weapon, you're making an item that someone is going to use for months or that you are going to use yourself for months, then all of that depth, all of that customization makes a ton of sense. Does it make sense to have that same level of complexity for a potion that you're just going to drink and not think about again? Probably not.
Then at the far other end of the spectrum, gathering is something that I think we want to be nearly universal for anyone who wants to do it. And we're not quite there yet, but I think as you look at how changes to the system continue to unfold, we're probably going to be continuing to nudge things in those directions.
Profession-Specific Artisan's Moxie
The formerly universal Artisan's Acuity will now become a profession-specific currency called Artisan's Moxie. Used to purchase various recipes, this change eliminates the desire for hardcore goldmakers to repeatedly learn and abandon different professions to obtain extra acuity early in the expansion.
Pick your professions and stick to them!
Sparks Are No Longer Fractured
Fractured Sparks are also going away.... sort of. Instead of getting a Fractured Spark of Starlight each week and combining them into full crafting sparks, players will be able to earn one full Spark of Radiance each week and crafted items will simply require two instead of one (or four for two-handed weapons). The result is still being able to craft a single end-game item every two weeks, just with one less step along the way.
