Dual Talent Spec

[voidillusion]

- Forcing people to stay in town and spam chat to find teammates. That's unacceptable by 2019 standard, every game stopped doing it because no one enjoys being forced to not play the game and only spam a chat. You can't even leave the town to do stuff at the same time, it's absolutely idiotic today. But here's the deal, I personnaly don't mind, that's my opinion, like many people who played vanilla I did this a lot and I wouldn't mind doing it again. But that's just my biased opinion of oldschool WoW player. The fact is that every game stopped doing that because it's outdated and we have the technology to make time saving match making which is objectively better. My opinion and reality are not the same.

/join 4 *enter*
"Welcome to World Chat"

You can now spam, or look out for spam while leveling/doing other stuff in the open world, enjoy.

[Swalload]

/join 4 *enter*
"Welcome to World Chat"

You can now spam, or look out for spam while leveling/doing other stuff in the open world, enjoy.

And get who? That place is fucking empty or only has people questing and not interested in running dungeons. Everybody knows natural selection made it so people looking for groups were in town, not out there doing other stuff.

[voidillusion]

And get who? That place is fucking empty or only has people questing and not interested in running dungeons. Everybody knows natural selection made it so people looking for groups were in town, not out there doing other stuff.

For someone who claims knowing "Objectively what is true" you seem to know little

[Swalload]

For someone who claims knowing "Objectively what is true" you seem to know little

I get that a lot from "people like you".

[Akka]

- The game was ugly by 2004 standard, compare it to other games that came out in 2004, it's not pretty.
- Class design was absolute garbage.

Reminder about what I said :

The only part that would be laughable would be the graphics and some parts of UI. The gameplay would be slow, but some people actually like it precisely for that, and the one I would prefer would be the TBC version, which is nearly from the same period.

Yeah, well, I consider them to be mostly objectively worse (save, as I said, in graphical quality and some parts of the UI).

So the graphical part I already agreed (save for the new models, which I find a mixed bag).
As for the class design, you're partly right and mostly wrong. Yes, there were definite improvement to make (the reason why I prefer TBC, which was not perfect but the closest ever reached in WoW), but on the whole I find it superior to today. Many of the "flaws" you point are only flaws if you take the PoV of "everything must be competitive in raid output", while the design in Vanilla came from a very different mentality where spec were seen more as a "each one has its niche" and where raids weren't the end-all, be-all of the game.
Class design in Vanilla had much stronger identity, much more down-to-earth abilities (so not magical animated swords for a warrior which is supposed to work on martial skill) and much more real variety.
Your "objective" affirmation fails here.

- Quests were terrible, even Jeff Kaplan said it, he had very little time to make them and rushed almost all of them. If players are forced to wait 15+ minutes for a respawn, there is something terribly wrong. Not to mention all the animal part collecting quests that turned into memes of bears who don't have livers and shit like that, if it was well made every bear would drop 1 and the amount required would be tweaked to fit the amount of time the devs want players to spend on that quest. Here my opinion and reality are the same, I hated most of the quests and they were truly bad (not all of them but most).

I will accept some truth in how quests were objectively much more basics, but their simplicity also allowed them to be less intrusive and more able to participate in worldbuilding.
I will happily admit that Vanilla quests were inferior to TBC, WotLK, Pandaria and some part of Cata, but I'll take them over WoD, the rest of Cata and Legion any time, because the later ends up too much into "cinematic quests" which break the immersion, ironically enhance the "static" aspect of the world by being only partially dynamic (and as such highlighting the limitations by only partially lifting them, attracting the attention on what doesn't change) and cringy, Hollywoodesque shitty dialogues full of one-liners.

- Stats and itemization made no fucking sense. Mail items with strength after lvl 40, like why the fuck? That's objectively bad.

This part is simply wrong. Not the part that itemization was all over the place, but your affirmation that it's a bad aspect of the game. It's mostly again a symptom of you only looking at it from today's perspective (so locking yourself into a mindset, hence the "narrow-minded", which was not an insult but an, well, objective constatation ) and missing the larger design perspective of Vanilla which wasn't limited to raid and output.
First, the much larger variety in classes means that there was seldom actually useless stat (strength on mail is very much sought for by enhancement shaman). Only real absurd stat distribution was strength/agility on cloth, everything else could be useful for someone.
Second, many stat that would be considered useless in the raid-centric, ultra-specialized vision of today weren't necessarily then. One example I like is that spirit was actually pretty rad for leveling as a warrior. Because the requirements for leveling are not the same as the ones for raid.

- Forcing people to stay in town and spam chat to find teammates.

Another example of you being wrong. Needing to put in effort and to communicate with people is actually GOOD for the game. It makes people more involved in the common effort, it allows to filter the more anti-social ones, it encourage to notice how people act and to avoid them or look out for them and so on.
That's a perfect example of how your claim of "objective" is factually wrong and show that you just missed the bigger picture and confused a narrow vision with reality.

You probably get the point, I don't want to make this an even bigger wall of text. Bascially it's like we're both looking at a red apple. I say it's red, you say no, and you ask for proof.

Oh, I get the point. And what I see is rather : You see a red apple, you conclude that if it's red and doesn't show stains it must be good, and you claim "this apple has a good taste, I'm objectively right". I see that you only see a pretty partial aspect and jump to hasty conclusion while ignoring other important aspects (like how it tastes), and dispute your claim of objectivity.

The core differences that make many people prefer Vanilla to today's WoW is that today is more about instant gratification and a smooth experience, while Vanilla was more about superficial inconvenience which created deeper involvement and gratification. Your "objectivity" so far stop at this current WoW level, superficial fun that doesn't last and doesn't fill, and you seem to completely miss the point and the fun of Vanilla design. That's not objectivity, that's just stopping skin-deep in analysis and yet thinking you've seen everything you need to conclude.

I get that a lot from "people like you".

Maybe there is a reason many people point that your pretense at "objectivity" are arrogant, and that's not because they are all dumb ?
Honestly, the number one reason people end up narrow-minded is that they are so convinced they are right, they don't bother to have a second look at what they believe, and they end up making themselves wrong. Being so adamantly convinced you know the "objective truth" is the surest hint that you actually don't.

[Swalload]

Reminder about what I said :


So the graphical part I already agreed (save for the new models, which I find a mixed bag).
As for the class design, you're partly right and mostly wrong. Yes, there were definite improvement to make (the reason why I prefer TBC, which was not perfect but the closest ever reached in WoW), but on the whole I find it superior to today. Many of the "flaws" you point are only flaws if you take the PoV of "everything must be competitive in raid output", while the design in Vanilla came from a very different mentality where spec were seen more as a "each one has its niche" and where raids weren't the end-all, be-all of the game.
Class design in Vanilla had much stronger identity, much more down-to-earth abilities (so not magical animated swords for a warrior which is supposed to work on martial skill) and much more real variety.
Your "objective" affirmation fails here.

I will accept some truth in how quests were objectively much more basics, but their simplicity also allowed them to be less intrusive and more able to participate in worldbuilding.
I will happily admit that Vanilla quests were inferior to TBC, WotLK, Pandaria and some part of Cata, but I'll take them over WoD, the rest of Cata and Legion any time, because the later ends up too much into "cinematic quests" which break the immersion, ironically enhance the "static" aspect of the world by being only partially dynamic (and as such highlighting the limitations by only partially lifting them, attracting the attention on what doesn't change) and cringy, Hollywoodesque shitty dialogues full of one-liners.

This part is simply wrong. Not the part that itemization was all over the place, but your affirmation that it's a bad aspect of the game. It's mostly again a symptom of you only looking at it from today's perspective (so locking yourself into a mindset, hence the "narrow-minded", which was not an insult but an, well, objective constatation ) and missing the larger design perspective of Vanilla which wasn't limited to raid and output.
First, the much larger variety in classes means that there was seldom actually useless stat (strength on mail is very much sought for by enhancement shaman). Only real absurd stat distribution was strength/agility on cloth, everything else could be useful for someone.
Second, many stat that would be considered useless in the raid-centric, ultra-specialized vision of today weren't necessarily then. One example I like is that spirit was actually pretty rad for leveling as a warrior. Because the requirements for leveling are not the same as the ones for raid.

Another example of you being wrong. Needing to put in effort and to communicate with people is actually GOOD for the game. It makes people more involved in the common effort, it allows to filter the more anti-social ones, it encourage to notice how people act and to avoid them or look out for them and so on.
That's a perfect example of how your claim of "objective" is factually wrong and show that you just missed the bigger picture and confused a narrow vision with reality.

Oh, I get the point. And what I see is rather : You see a red apple, you conclude that if it's red and doesn't show stains it must be good, and you claim "this apple has a good taste, I'm objectively right". I see that you only see a pretty partial aspect and jump to hasty conclusion while ignoring other important aspects (like how it tastes), and dispute your claim of objectivity.

The core differences that make many people prefer Vanilla to today's WoW is that today is more about instant gratification and a smooth experience, while Vanilla was more about superficial inconvenience which created deeper involvement and gratification. Your "objectivity" so far stop at this current WoW level, superficial fun that doesn't last and doesn't fill, and you seem to completely miss the point and the fun of Vanilla design. That's not objectivity, that's just stopping skin-deep in analysis and yet thinking you've seen everything you need to conclude.


Maybe there is a reason many people point that your pretense at "objectivity" are arrogant, and that's not because they are all dumb ?
Honestly, the number one reason people end up narrow-minded is that they are so convinced they are right, they don't bother to have a second look at what they believe, and they end up making themselves wrong. Being so adamantly convinced you know the "objective truth" is the surest hint that you actually don't.

I agree that having more flavorful itemization would greatly help WoW and in some cases during older WoW it was great. Not so sure about vanilla, I remember too many times recieving items with spirit and wondering wtf I could use that for. Also in TBC raids a bunch of warriors were stacking leather items because they had better stats for them, that just sounds wrong. The stats did become way too simple, I really enjoyed the time where we had multistrike and reforging and stuff like that tho.

Communication to build group? Please. "Come to bank I'll inspect you" is not really communication. It was forced interaction due to lack of tools or infrastructure at best. I'm not wrong, you're wrong. Forcing people to waste time by staying in town instead of doing anything productive is fundamentally wrong. There is not one single design document about any game that suggest it would be a good hting to make people NOT PLAY. Stop saying that I'm wrong, I'm absolutely not wrong about it, you are wrong and you need to learn that what I'm saying is a fact. There's no "agree to disagree". You are objectively wrong about this no matter how you feel about it, and what I say is true. Got it? The apple is fucking red, no one tasted it, your example doesn't even work.

[Alkizon]

@Akka
*applause* How did you manage to put it so shortly? I'd be cruelly stuck on clarifying need/demand for social interactions/punishment, their separate role throughout the system and criticizing assertion that "old quest system is bad" (it's interesting that they at least doesn't require $hitty phasing and meet requirements and rules of sandbox, both in design and organization)... and this doesn't even concern issue of new disgusting models about flaws of which I can talk endlessly

[Akka]

It was forced interaction due to lack of tools or infrastructure at best.

And that's a very good thing for a social-based game, which is pretty self-evident for anyone who look at how the added convenience ruined the social aspect of WoW.

Also, a pretty important detail : there was, either at the end of Vanilla of beginning of TBC, an OFFICIAL "lookingforgroup" world channel that was easily joinable and was used massively (you would automatically join it by clicking on a meeting stone/innkeeper). Blizzard was retarded enough to remove it to force people to use their automated tool. I would totally support its rebirth in Classic, because it allows to keep the enforced necessary communication while lessening the "you can't play while looking for others", which is the only part of your argument against manual creation of groups that is actually true.

I'm not wrong, you're wrong. Stop saying that I'm wrong, I'm absolutely not wrong about it, you are wrong and you need to learn that what I'm saying is a fact. There's no "agree to disagree". You are objectively wrong about this no matter how you feel about it, and what I say is true.

Well, I provided many examples of how your affirmations are only true in a specific context and with a specific set of mind (so not "objectively true"). You can expand your points of view or double back on being childish and claiming you know better and anybody who disagrees with you is wrong.

As I said :

Honestly, the number one reason people end up narrow-minded is that they are so convinced they are right, they don't bother to have a second look at what they believe, and they end up making themselves wrong. Being so adamantly convinced you know the "objective truth" is the surest hint that you actually don't.

I've nothing to add, I've done my part, spent quite a bit of time and efforts about it, the rest is up to you

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Duel spec is one of those features of modern WoW that honestly is pretty good. But in classic you played a role. Mike comes on an you know Mikes a healer and joins up. Duel starts to make to where everyone can be almost everything at anytime. Some of the magic of being that role in classic is lost by what I do actually consider a good system that was added later in the game. So imo it should stay out of classic just to retain how it was even if sometimes that feeling is frustration.

[Triceron]

My idea was to add a template you could save for your character for any time you choose to change specs. An in game talent manager would save so much time instead of plopping in a build manually every time your raid needs a clutch healer or offtank or something.

Costs would be the same, dual spec would not be in the game, but you coyld at least save a template of your character if and when you want to respec.

[Maudib]

Dual spec is in Vanilla...

You roll a toon with one spec... then roll another with a different spec. You can switch between specs by logging out of one toon and into another.

[anon5123]

Would absolutely love dual spec in vanilla. Forcing people to do one thing with their character is not "fun" or "interesting" or "flavor", it's just a limitation of the time.

Look at Diablo 2; for over 10 years you could not respec your character at all. If you messed up a stat or skill choice, gg retard, deal with it or reroll. But then in 2012ish, they added a way to respec your stats/skills, and it was pretty much universally loved. It didn't "destroy class identity" or any of the other negative shit the doomsayers are complaining about here. And it didn't take long to farm either, maybe 30-45 minutes of farming those specific Hell difficulty bosses to get the 3 items required, and you can completely respec your character.

So why is it a bad thing in WoW? I don't get it. Forcing the player to do ONE THING and only that one thing, due to prohibitively high respec costs...yeah, no, fuck that. It does not make you "think about your talent choices" because everyone just goes with cookie cutter specs. It does not make you "feel emotionally attached to your spec" because vanilla class design is based around the class as a whole, not individual specs. A "fire" mage and "frost" mage only have 2 or 3 different spells that the other spec doesn't have. A "holy" priest and "disc" priest are almost exactly the same, save for Disc having Power Infusion and slightly lower healing.

I play a Paladin right now and would absolutely love dual spec so that I can have my healing spec, but also have a proper tanking spec, or a proper ret spec as well. I hate being pigeonholed into doing one thing because paying 100g every single week to change to a new spec and then change back for raids, is prohibitively expensive.

Respec costs are just an artificial limit on the player's options, hence why they were lowered and then removed with the addition of dual spec.

Dual spec is in Vanilla...

You roll a toon with one spec... then roll another with a different spec. You can switch between specs by logging out of one toon and into another.

Oh yeah lemme just sink another 200 hours into a new character just so I can play a different spec, that is a great idea

[Unholyground]

They should remove the respec cost while leveling only, that would have no effect on the overall game.

[Jervaise]

No changes.

[Nasudor]

No dualspecc just results in one thing:

Group making will take way longer.


There is no real incentive for Warriors to specc Tank when they normally are DPS. Warriors switch to Tank once 60, get their gear and respecc fury or stay tank. But they will never return to tanking dungeons since they offer nothing in the long term. Since not all warriors do that tank switch, it will just result in a tank deficit since in Raids, tanks arent wanted in the same portion as in 5mans. (Tanks make up for 20% of every 5man, but you dont need 8 Tanks in a 40man which would also be 20%)

[oplawlz]

They should remove the respec cost while leveling only, that would have no effect on the overall game.

Gold is much more valuable in vanilla, so that's not entirely true. Having to either commit to a spec or go without a mount is part of the experience, and will vastly alter your leveling process.

As Akka so eloquently put it, you're accepting superficial inconveniences for deeper involvement and gratification.

[Unholyground]

Gold is much more valuable in vanilla, so that's not entirely true. Having to either commit to a spec or go without a mount is part of the experience, and will vastly alter your leveling process.

As Akka so eloquently put it, you're accepting superficial inconveniences for deeper involvement and gratification.

It only pissed me off in Vanilla, I remember clearly lol.

[Maudib]

Oh yeah lemme just sink another 200 hours into a new character just so I can play a different spec, that is a great idea

It's a game. If you like to play it... then play it. 200 hours playing a game you like is... umm.. PLAYING! If you wouldn't enjoy it... then maybe the game isn't for you.

Otherwise... farm the gold to respec. If you respec a lot... you may find that you farm 200 hours anyway over a period of a year or more.

- - - Updated - - -

No dualspecc just results in one thing:

Group making will take way longer.


There is no real incentive for Warriors to specc Tank when they normally are DPS. Warriors switch to Tank once 60, get their gear and respecc fury or stay tank. But they will never return to tanking dungeons since they offer nothing in the long term. Since not all warriors do that tank switch, it will just result in a tank deficit since in Raids, tanks arent wanted in the same portion as in 5mans. (Tanks make up for 20% of every 5man, but you dont need 8 Tanks in a 40man which would also be 20%)

"Group making will take way longer." Way longer than what? Live? Well yeah... Way longer than it did in Vanilla? Nope... just about the same.

Classic isn't the insta-gratification crap of today's WoW. It was more of an MMORPG... role playing being the operative phrase. Once people get their DPS mains to max and raiding... they will roll alts... and plenty will be tanks.

[Akka]

Look at Diablo 2; for over 10 years you could not respec your character at all. If you messed up a stat or skill choice, gg retard, deal with it or reroll. But then in 2012ish, they added a way to respec your stats/skills, and it was pretty much universally loved. It didn't "destroy class identity" or any of the other negative shit the doomsayers are complaining about here. And it didn't take long to farm either, maybe 30-45 minutes of farming those specific Hell difficulty bosses to get the 3 items required, and you can completely respec your character.

Hey, it's nearly like if you could actually respect in Vanilla if you just paid someth... oh, wait...

- - - Updated - - -

No dualspecc just results in one thing:

Group making will take way longer.


There is no real incentive for Warriors to specc Tank when they normally are DPS.

One of the beauty of Vanilla and the old talent system is that you don't need to be ultra-specialized to do shit. It's the true meaning of SPECIALIZATION : you are "better at", but even the baseline class can manage to do it. It requires paying attention to your group (that's good) and communication (that's good) and not being able to switch at will means that you'll have to adapt to non-perfect situations (that's also good).
So it's win-win-win.

And that's how we did it at the time : we didn't require a prot-specced warrior tank. We managed with a fury guy wearing a shield, or a cat in bear form, or whatever, and we played together to get shit done. Contrary to current WoW where everyone is tunnel-visionning his own "role" (i.e. : playing alone with his nose stuck to his meters) because everything is constrained by the formula.
We even sometimes went with, you'll never guess, something else than the "one tank, one healer, three DPS" ! Yeah, unbelievable I know.

[Teri]

Vanilla worked fine without it, Classic will too.

I did play multiple specs on the same character, gold wasn't as legendary as people make it out to be, you just didn't respec without thinking beforehand.