What is the inherent reason to have only dual spec

[Khaza-R]

I know there is a sweet awesome add-on now. But for instance, the reason Blizzard "adopted" questhelper into their core game was "because you shouldn't have to have an add-on to make a system work" or something like that.

They've said they plan on working on saving talent layouts, action bars, etc. They feel like it will alleviate people's requests for tri-spec.

[freakyduck]

While a third spec is not needed it would be extremely convenient to me.

While you may not think any of the reasons given against tri- or more spec are "good" or reasonably acceptable, Blizzard doesn't think "extremely convenient" is good enough either. If "extremely convenient" is the ONLY reason to implement a tri-spec, they aren't going to do it. It has to serve more purpose than simply making things a LITTLE more convenient. As you have pointed out, as others have pointed out, it really doesn't take that much time to respec with the current system, and it would take more time to implement than it's truly worth to satisfy a mere convenience.

Besides "no good reason not to..." is not a valid argument for anything. As has been pointed out in this conversation, that "reasoning" can be applied to many of the things we have in the game and to many of the things we don't have in the game, still doesn't mean they SHOULD be implemented or removed.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

They've said they plan on working on saving talent layouts, action bars, etc. They feel like it will alleviate people's requests for tri-spec.

I don't understand why they are against tri spec then... Its like they are ALMOST going to give it to us, but don't want to call it tri spec, out of spite.

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While you may not think any of the reasons given against tri- or more spec are "good" or reasonably acceptable, Blizzard doesn't think "extremely convenient" is good enough either. If "extremely convenient" is the ONLY reason to implement a tri-spec, they aren't going to do it. It has to serve more purpose than simply making things a LITTLE more convenient. As you have pointed out, as others have pointed out, it really doesn't take that much time to respec with the current system, and it would take more time to implement than it's truly worth to satisfy a mere convenience.

Besides "no good reason not to..." is not a valid argument for anything. As has been pointed out in this conversation, that "reasoning" can be applied to many of the things we have in the game and to many of the things we don't have in the game, still doesn't mean they SHOULD be implemented or removed.

Blizzard invented the term "extremely convenient" .. I just don't understand why they are putting the boot down here.

And there have been better arguments for it than "no good reason not to."

[Dormie]

Perfect example of how the playerbase always wants more more more. I'm sure before we had dual spec that only having one was 'tedious' and 'uninteresting' right?

[MrHappy]

so choice of what to play still matters vs everyone is a jack of all trades and masters of none.

[DSRilk]

So they implement tri spec.

Next?

'Blizz, why do I run out of mana when I change specs? This is pointless, please change it. QOL.'
'Blizz, why do I need a reagent to change glyphs and talents? This is pointless, please change it. QOL.'

Appeasement is a never ending, and ultimately fruitless battle.

You are aware there's a difference between appeasement and improving the game UI, right?

When you go to google's site your cursor is placed in the search form field. Why, to "appease" whiners? No, because it's a better UI. You gain ease of use and lose nothing.

Just like adding the possibility of additional saved specs. You gain ease of use, and if you stick a cooldown and gold cost in the UI (like with glyph reagents, btw - which has an arguable purpose, unlike limiting specs), nothing is lost. One could argue that by making it less irritating to, the gold sink does a better job and thus it would be even better than it is now.

Tri-spec is not a new feature. It's a better UI to an existing feature. My DK has three specs right now. It's just that to activate one of them, I first need to deathgate twice.

[Breccia]

It hurts NOTHING.

Yes it does. It hurts the concept of meaningful choice.

It benefits EVERYTHING.

No it doesn't. As mentioned before, some classes (such as mages and rogues) get nearly nothing from tri-spec. Others (such as warriors and priests) get limited benefits. Who does it benefit? Half the characters. The other half get to watch people having fun, using a property that they can't benefit from.

I don't want to drag you through the same raid another couple weeks to gear up all three of your specs, when the rest of us already have all the gear we need. That also includes the bads in LFR. It's not fun for me to do the same raid even past "to death" because you aren't finished with it, even though everyone else is. And I can't imagine it's as much fun to get your third set of gear in the same raid, either. I'm guessing it's getting old. I'm guessing you'd rather be doing something else. I'm also not interested in taking you back through heroics or the raid to practice your third spec, when everyone else knows their job perfectly in both of theirs.

I don't want any guild that wants to try some progression to tell Bobby the Shaman, who has never healed, "Bobby, shamans are better at healing this fight than priests, so you have to heal this fight, and we know you can because tri-spec. Yes I know you've only ever done ranged and melee damage, but this fight needs shaman heals so you're going to provide them". I don't think that's fun for Bobby. And I doubt it's fun for a raid leader to tell someone to do something they're not good at and don't want to do, either. As someone who's done WotLK, I've heard this argument. "We need a disc priest because asborbs. Absorbs are OP for this raid." Now do that to every class in the game that can heal and/or tank. With tri-spec, it will happen. Saying "well just don't do it" isn't valid, because it will happen to other people.

I don't want to take the idea that classes are already built on a cookie-cutter spec, that so many people play very similar things, then remove any remaining barriers and make all paladins the same as all other paladins, all warriors the same as all others, etc. Even the barest whiff of uniqueness is more fun than being the same as everyone else.

I don't want a low-performing spec of a pure DPS class to be ignored, because all DPS can always run all 3 specs, therefore the class is fine. In a world with no specs, there'd be no reason to buff MM if Surv was doing well. Everyone would just switch to Surv, and people who like MM and don't like Surv can just not have fun.

Why are there two factions, Horde and Alliance, that can't interact?
Why have travel time between locations? Why even have a cooldown on Hearthstone? Why not just POOF you're there, anywhere, all the time?
Why do I only get 2 professions? Why do I have to level them 1-600 when I'd rather be killing monsters or PvP?
Why do we get 2 items per raid boss to distribute?
Why can't the item I want drop from the boss the first time?
Why do I only get 3 Coin Rolls per week when I can easily kill six bosses or more?
Why is the mount only at Exalted? Can't I just have it now, and not do 3 weeks of dailies?
Why do I need gold to buy things from NPC vendors? Can't I just have whatever I want, since it's not affecting anyone else?
Why is imperial silk on a 24-hour cooldown? Why can't I just make a billion of it, and flood the market with 28-slot bags? And lightning steel?
Why can't all my mounts fly? And swim, like the sea turtle? And carry passengers?
Why isn't my PvP gear as good in PvE, and vice versa? Can't I just have all my 553 raid gear also have PvP Resil and PvP Power?
Where's my second meta-gem socket?
Why can't I be a Forsaken for this fight, and a Tauren the rest of the time? What do you mean, $25?
Why are Burdens of Eternity so hard to get when they're random to use anyhow?
Why do I have to do XXX on all my characters?
And why don't all my characters share their banks and gear? What's this "soulbound" crap, I want my warlock to use my mage staff.
Why do I have to move out of the fire? My DPS falls if I move. I want to stay here, and just not take damage.

Because sometimes choices are supposed to have impact. Consequences. Differences. There are supposed to be things you deliberately choose not to do. Having full access to everything all the time would (a) take too long and (b) be pretty bland and boring when you got it. WoW is about as streamlined for convenience as I've ever seen it: we have dual-spec, 310% on all mounts, pets and achieves are shared between toons, many profession specializations removed, etc. But there are still meaningful choices left, big ones, that affect how you play the game. Faction is one. PvP vs. PvE is another. Spec should be there, too.

[Deficineiron]

Perfect example of how the playerbase always wants more more more. I'm sure before we had dual spec that only having one was 'tedious' and 'uninteresting' right?

actually it could become a potentially serious gold sink if you changed between pvp and pve specs regularly.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Perfect example of how the playerbase always wants more more more. I'm sure before we had dual spec that only having one was 'tedious' and 'uninteresting' right?

It was certainly tedious. Going all the way back to SW to change from prot pally to ret pally for that extra DPS on raids that only require 1 tank... very tedious.

As if I'm too stupid to just change from using a 2h proficiently to using a shield, where I literally have to be taught every time I want ti change LOL

[DSRilk]

And it seems you're not going to provide any further insight beyond you believe it's needed.

So it is clear you've never done UI work. You don't improve a UI because it's needed, you do it because it improves the customer's experience. The types of changes you make are the ones that make life easier for your client without going against the goal of the app. E.g. auto-focusing on a search field on your site - all good. Limiting the number of things you can search on to a dropdown menu - bad, because while it makes it easier, it limits the user's ability to actually search. Similarly, adding additional spec support makes an existing feature easier to access with no downside.

[Cheekun]

Its not like having to reconfigurate one of your dual spec settings to get third spec is anything important. There is no reason to not have 3spec system.

A two spec system allows people to be different even amongst pure dps classes. In some ways it also focuses a player to (generally) only focus on any two given specs at a time.

Furthermore, this would quickly accelerate over time. If you recieved tri-spec in an update tomarrow you could bet that in a year or two people would be clamoring for a quad spec system. You'd never be able to statisfy everyone, (people who both PvP and PvE would probably want something like six spec slots). Tri-spec would most likely also devalue the way trainers and the talent system was overhauled, because you could use your third spec to quickly swap between builds. The ease of using tomes to quickly change between talents and glyphs was in some ways a more convient application of a "spec slot"

Back before the great talent overhaul, you could get a massive diversity in talents. You could build a spec with a few points at the top of other spec trees and create some niche to your talent loadout. But now, with talent chocies being pretty linear, and changing them as easy as a tome use, i don't really see a need to spend the development time around building an additonal spec "loadout"

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

actually it could become a potentially serious gold sink if you changed between pvp and pve specs regularly.

I remember it was hard to keep tanks for the very reason of price. Tanks already had a high repair cost due to being the first to die, and being the most hit. The thing is, sometimes you were (loosely) required to change specs on fights that needed only 1 tank.

I just remember pre-dual spec... many guilds sort of "paid" the tanks to ... tank. It was INSANELY expensive. I raid tanked, it was unfun and tedious to switch all the time.My poor wallet =[

- - - Updated - - -

A two spec system allows people to be different even amongst pure dps classes. In some ways it also focuses a player to (generally) only focus on any two given specs at a time.

Furthermore, this would quickly accelerate over time. If you recieved tri-spec in an update tomarrow you could bet that in a year or two people would be clamoring for a quad spec system. You'd never be able to statisfy everyone, (people who both PvP and PvE would probably want something like six spec slots). Tri-spec would most likely also devalue the way trainers and the talent system was overhauled, because you could use your third spec to quickly swap between builds. The ease of using tomes to quickly change between talents and glyphs was in some ways a more convient application of a "spec slot"

Back before the great talent overhaul, you could get a massive diversity in talents. You could build a spec with a few points at the top of other spec trees and create some niche to your talent loadout. But now, with talent chocies being pretty linear, and changing them as easy as a tome use, i don't really see a need to spend the development time around building an additonal spec "loadout"

Trainers are in no way meaningful, can we be serious please?

Again, what would be wrong with 6 specs? Again, Rift has this very feature. I know it more than two, not sure what the number is.

[DSRilk]

If you're gonna go tri-spec, you might as well just get rid of specs all together. Just three flavors in a big general pool of traits you can pick from willy-nilly. "Choose three of these three options" really isn't a choice at all.

My opinion is that if you really want to use all three specs of a class, just roll an alt.

Neither of those statements make any sense. Tri-spec already exists. You just have to talk to a trainer first. Spec is already "pick one of three" options. It's the exact same thing that exists today. And as for rolling an alt... that's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Tri-spec exists. You just lose your action bar without an add-on and you have to be standing next to a trainer to swap.

[blackblade]

Tri-spec is not a new feature. It's a better UI to an existing feature. My DK has three specs right now. It's just that to activate one of them, I first need to deathgate twice.

It adds a bit of depth to the world if I need to go somewhere to do something. One of the problems the game faces is Immersion vs Convenience. Some things made sense, like not needing to camp out front of the gates to WSG to queue and requeue for the instance, It's unrealistic to have to run to the WSG gate, the AB gate, and the AV gate (though AB and AV are pretty close together) if I wanted to queue to all three.

Or blacksmiths needing to find an anvil to make items, or miners needing a forge to smelt bars. They're subtle nods forcing you to interact with the world. If you take them away, the world gets smaller.

I do agree that blizzard can do a better job of "remembering" your configurations without the help of a 3rd party addon. The cost is negligable, the reality is that the more "Screens" we use, the less we need to interact and utilize the surrounding world. Realistically, as a tri-role class, you'll know if you're going to be expected to tank or heal, and if you're worried about making your raid wait on you, you can have the appropriate spec ready ahead of time.

The more people are out and about interacting with the world, the more opportunities you get to suddenly bump into random happenings. Flying over a rare-spawn on the way to an instance, tapping a world boss on the way to your raid, bumping into an old friend infront of the meeting stone summoning your guildies to said raid. Maybe you bump into a lowbie getting ganked and take two seconds to save the day.

These things are what make an MMO massive, and help them feel like living worlds. Adding more "Menus to navigate and dispense my every need" only serves to combat this. Things like Dual spec are fine because they're limited, but the more reasons to go out into the world removed because it's convenient to have baked into the UI the smaller the world gets.

[mmines]

I don't care about the gold cost, it's just a hassle going to the trainer and moving all your buttons around everytime (and I do that a few times a week)

When they had tested a tri spec (which they did internally) they found that people were really only using it to be able to save button layouts so something we might see in the future is a way to save button layouts.

As far as the tri spec goes I think it's one of those things that would be nice for some people but going to your class trainers for at least one thing just needs to stay in the game for the sake of preserving their value and an older wow. Back when we couldn't change talents on the fly I would probably have gone with a tri spec but I don't really think it's needed right now.

Also I see someone saying there's an add on that can save your bars, what's that called?

[Totle]

Because classes have 3 different specs? As a druid I have balance/resto as my two specs. But I additionally have 489 ilevel tank gear and would definitely queue for heroics/LFR if I could swap to my tanking spec. But I can't and so everyone else gets longer queue times because of one less person. And I'm sure there are many others in my similar situation. There is no good reason to not allow 3 specs or unlimited specs short of Blizz just doesn't want it. They say they want your choices to be meaningful but that is a load of shit. Your choices haven't been meaningful since...ever.

Additionally, allowing you to freely change any specs/talents would encourage people to try off the wall things. This happened a ton in GW1 where you could freely swap any talent/skills/etc anytime you were in town with no cost and it caused no harm to the game. It in fact promoted new and exciting builds. This is not as big anymore due to the change in talent trees though.

What's stopping you from making a tank spec?

1) Go to trainer
2) Get rid of one of your specs
3) Learn new talents
4) Fix your bars
5) Queue as tank

Don't like tanking anymore? Go back and do it all over again. If you go to Stormwind/Ogrimmar/Dalaran for the AH, you can certainly stop by your class trainer.

[Ranker]

Its not like having to reconfigurate one of your dual spec settings to get third spec is anything important. There is no reason to not have 3spec system.

Its not like it's hard to respec your off spec. It's not needed, And I for one hope they never do tri-spec. Or if they do they wait until they have the same loot system they have for LFR/Flex in dungeons. I can see it now at the start of the xpac, I need that for my off-off spec... Sorry I don't need nor want drama in my dungeon runs next x-pac.

[DSRilk]

Tri-Spec is neither wanted or needed. Two is plenty to get you by, any more is not convenience it is coddling.

You can argue it isn't needed. You have to be brain dead to think it isn't wanted. Read just one page of posts. And please explain how giving me a button instead of making me click the same button twice and watching two load screens is coddling. Am I to infer that if I make you go through three portals and load screens to get into a dungeon then that dungeon is harder or somehow better than one that only requires one portal and load screen? Do you not realize that my third spec is literally obtained by death-gate and load, click on trainer, death-gate and load? Really, it's coddling me to allow me to bypass two unnecessary load screens? Because that's all adding tri-spec to the UI does...

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Trainers become unnecessary once they did the overhaul. You no long had to visit them to train spells, because Blizzard something like "it made it too much of a hassle to have to fly back to a city every few levels to train up a new or improved skill" ..... this same logic should apply.

[DSRilk]

This post got completely ignored, so I'm quoting it.

Tri-spec isn't in because it can have negative effects, especially for semi-hardcore guilds.

Raid Leader: Hey, it would really help if you were survival spec for this fight instead of marks. If only there were a tri-spec option...
Hunter: <hearth><retrain>Warlock, can you resummon me, please?
Raid Leader: Oh, right. Never mind, we can already do this at will, it's just annoying.