Since #nochanges is kaput, can we have Dual spec please?

[RobertMugabe]

i somehow missed the seal of blood thing
as a blood elf paladin during TBC i fully agree with this change!

alliance ret paladins were pretty sad looking at horde raid logs and really wanted to go horde
it wasn't like "horde racials are op", it was like "blood elfs are doing 20% more dps and don't go oom as fast, well shit"
having seal of blood made you viable as a dps, enabled you to get into WF group, it was not 3-5% dps as people say

this is a valid example of #somechanges

Yeah if I remember correctly it wasn't even just "don't go oom as fast", but mana suddenly became a non-issue completely for blood elfs in group content. Basically the seal would slightly damage you, which was actually beneficial as paladin's had a passive where being healed restored also some mana. This was a complete game changer.

[clevin]

Strictly false. Respeccing is potentially the largest gold sink in the game, and drastically changes the economy as one of the few recurring ways to remove gold from the economy. The state of an economy then alters gameplay by shifting the importance of various activities.

The economy is not gameplay.

[Nak88]

Can you link your sources on the 70%?

Check Staysafe, MadSeasonShow or WilliE polls and you will get the point.

[xGLxAnubis]

The economy is not gameplay.

"The state of an economy then alters gameplay by shifting the importance of various activities."

Hopefully the important part was made clear there for you.

[Deferionus]

Flightcost increase won't do much, first off because less people are going to use Flightpaths in TBC and second because they would have to increase the price to insane levels.
Let's say somebody respecs twice a week, thus removes 100g per week, imagine how many flightpaths you'd have to take (or how huge the increase has to be) in order to meet a similiar removal of gold.

Disregarding that one of the reasons why people want dual spec is because it saves them gold and thus time, if you respec twice a week for 100g total, you'll break even with the dual spec price in less than 3 months, afterwards you save gold and potentially save even more gold because you now can respec whenever you want to.

Trying to get dual spec while also attempting to keep the gold removal aspect is nonsensical because people want dual spec to save gold, putting that tax (which it quite frankly is) onto elements where virtually everybody is affected (such as the AH) also causes uproar from people who aren't going to bother to respec, why should somebody who never intents to respec deal with a bigger AH cut because some people want dual spec?

Of course, arguments regarding saving bars and whatnot exist, but you'll have addons to certainly solve those issues.

Because the game community ultimately benefits from having dual spec. Even if you do not use it, if you try to do 5 man dungeon content the availability of dual specs means it is easier for you to find a tank or healer. If you do arenas your arena partners benefit. I would say 80-90% of the player base would directly or indirectly benefit.

And yeah, you may not use FPs as much, but you still have old world fps, you still have alts, and you will use them when you want to take a piss and fly from Shattrath to area 52.

For the game's health it is very much a good decision to add dual spec, and if you must compensate for the gold sink, increase other values (ah tax, fp cost, repair costs) or decrease elsewhere (gold drops, grey vendor amounts, etc).

- - - Updated - - -

Exactly. And even the gold issue is not true. People didn't really have a problem with it back then and they surely won't now.
Hell even in classic raiding naxx with all the consumables costs close to 1000 gold per week (less now that flask prices dropped) and people are fine with it and this assuming it doesnt take over 4 hours. Spending 200g on respecs in a time where gold is much easier to come by is hardly a problem.

People just want the convenience and disguise it in whatever form they can to justify it.

The most popular change when WOTLK came out was dual spec and it was a highly requested feature in BC. I wouldn't say "people didn't have a problem with it."

[Kralljin]

Even if you do not use it, if you try to do 5 man dungeon content the availability of dual specs means it is easier for you to find a tank or healer.

And if some guys plays only within his guild that has designated tank players, the benefit is nonexistant.

There is a reason why dual spec wasn't in the game from the getgo, because the game was supposed to encourage you to socialize around other people, not treat them as disposeable.
Why can argue whether this design is good or bad, but that the lack of dual spec (or the ability to easily respec in general) was certainly not an oversight, not even in TBC.

I'm for a solution that works for PvP, because that's a point where it absolutely hurts people, but the super flexible dual spec as it has existed in Wotlk should not be in TBC.

And yeah, you may not use FPs as much, but you still have old world fps, you still have alts, and you will use them when you want to take a piss and fly from Shattrath to area 52.

Do you really want to further entertain this silly idea?

How much has a single flight to cost when you want to turn it into a serious goldsink?
If a flight cost me up to 5g, i'd consider think twice using it when i already have epic flying.

At which point, the only thing you've achieved is to make even less people use the flightpath, not even a goldsink because aren't using it.

The idea in regards to alts isn't good as well, because new players without any gold, which will absolutely need flightpath to get around, draining the accounts of the rather poor people even more.

[Segus1992]

I'd find adding dual spec less weird than what they're already doing giving Alliance spells that were horde only "fuh balunce reasons".

Especially given it's for ret paladins, possibly the least relevant spec in all of TBC.

Yes, it's interesting how it was pointed out as the biggest point of faction imbalance, when the real problem is going to be the huge need for Shamans on Alliance, which are going to be even more scarce on Classic TBC than it was in original TBC.


I'd be down for a dual spec, but I do agree that some caveats should be implemented. Maybe it could put Resurrection Sickness on you when you swap?

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No, the only reason dual spec was added was to not require people to go to their class trainers for a respec everytime they changed role. You're completely rewriting history here.

Nobody cares about the gold. Its about the nuisance of going to sw or og everytime you wanna do a different thing in wow. Also a 1k gold price tag is not really saving much.

I definitely cared about the gold when dual spec first came. I also cared about not having to remake bindings and talents every time I swapped. I didn't really care about swapping while doing dungeons, and that's the only thing that'd REALLY change the game in TBC, as you'd be able to easily change the amount of healers on a fight per fight basis in raids.

[mercutiouk]

Lets try this:

If they made the dual speccing expensive enough to be a serious enough consideration to not mess with the economy in some way...

Would folks be happy to have it?

There's a lot seem to assume that EVERYONE will be paying to respec twice a week and dual spec would then not be taking that money out of the economy. What's more likely is there's a lot of folks who will just play with their chosen spec and be "happy" stuck with it.

Stick a BIG price on dual spec and there's probably a net reduction in the amount of money in the game economy.

On the flipside you likely get LOADS more tanks available for dungeons, everyone gets to have more fun and... yes... probably generate more gold from more dungeons so there's that aspect of gold in the economy too.

It would perhaps be a decent push back to the endless farmbots in dungeons making shards for cash though. More ppl getting worthless drops from more runs would mean farmbots would have reduced income. Supply would be higher so shards cheaper, less money from endless botting in dungeons.

There seems to be a lot talking like there's only a couple of variables in play when.... dual spec would make a significant difference in many ways.

[Exkrementor]

I didn't really care about swapping while doing dungeons, and that's the only thing that'd REALLY change the game in TBC, as you'd be able to easily change the amount of healers on a fight per fight basis in raids.

What would be the difference to original tbc then? You use your hearthstone to shatt, take the portal to og, ride to your trainer, click all your talents and then put all the spells on your bar again (but there are addons for that so that step is optional) and when you are finished a warlock will summon you back to the raid. Its not hard to do, it only wastes time. Also raid setups are pretty fixed. Its not BFA where you play some bosses with 6 healers and some bosses with 3.

Dual spec MAINLY exists to save you time and it should be in classic tbc.

[Segus1992]

What would be the difference to original tbc then? You use your hearthstone to shatt, take the portal to og, ride to your trainer, click all your talents and then put all the spells on your bar again (but there are addons for that so that step is optional) and when you are finished a warlock will summon you back to the raid. Its not hard to do, it only wastes time. Also raid setups are pretty fixed. Its not BFA where you play some bosses with 6 healers and some bosses with 3.

Dual spec MAINLY exists to save you time and it should be in classic tbc.

I told you why, in the rest of the post you quoted but edited out. Are you for real?

[ozzynclyde]

I really could care less otherwise. Little things like that don't affect my decision to play. Quite frankly, if this is worth raging about like some are, please just dont play and go meditate or something.

[Niwes]

Dual spec and faction/server transfers.
please and thanks!

yep. would have no problems with that.
its other things that would make me cry for #nochanges.
Dual spec and the option to rethink my choice 1,5 years ago in Classic... is definetely none of that things.

[Flarelaine]

Check Staysafe, MadSeasonShow or WilliE polls and you will get the point.

Those are polls. They may give you numbers on participants, but the post I replied to made claims about the playerbase.

[Exkrementor]

I told you why, in the rest of the post you quoted but edited out. Are you for real?

No you did not. Dual spec would be expensive so there is no real gold advantage. Are you for real?

[Deferionus]

And if some guys plays only within his guild that has designated tank players, the benefit is nonexistant.

There is a reason why dual spec wasn't in the game from the getgo, because the game was supposed to encourage you to socialize around other people, not treat them as disposeable.
Why can argue whether this design is good or bad, but that the lack of dual spec (or the ability to easily respec in general) was certainly not an oversight, not even in TBC.

I'm for a solution that works for PvP, because that's a point where it absolutely hurts people, but the super flexible dual spec as it has existed in Wotlk should not be in TBC.

Do you really want to further entertain this silly idea?

How much has a single flight to cost when you want to turn it into a serious goldsink?
If a flight cost me up to 5g, i'd consider think twice using it when i already have epic flying.

At which point, the only thing you've achieved is to make even less people use the flightpath, not even a goldsink because aren't using it.

The idea in regards to alts isn't good as well, because new players without any gold, which will absolutely need flightpath to get around, draining the accounts of the rather poor people even more.

The "silly" idea is not to put all of the gold sink in one area to where it feels punitive to even use that feature. If a flight path costs 1g, making it cost 1g 20s is not very noticable. You amplify that 20s over 5000 flight paths taken, and thats a large gold sink to help prevent in game inflation. You then put some of the cost into materials needed to buff (I cant remember the names off hand), and then thats another portion.

If respeccing is 20% of all gold sinks in the game, you just simply increase the gold sink values across 10-15 other sinks so no one sink suddenly becomes over tuned to where no one wants to use the feature. It really isn't that hard of a concept to understand. I am not saying ONLY increase the cost of flight paths and increase them significantly. That was just a single example of something you can slightly increase to keep gold inflation down. And my numbers are entirely made up for how the game's economy would look far as gold sink percentages, etc. Blizzard devs would have to look at beta numbers to do the appropriate adjustments - I am only providing a concept that would work if dual spec was implemented and gold sink adjustments were necessary to make up for the loss of 50g a pop respecs.

And hell, it's probly just as easy to cap respec costs at 5g each and call it a day.

[Uvania]

i actually think i will skip TBC Classic if we dont get dual spec this time around since both my holy priest and resto druid has been parked for months now since i can't be bothered to play them due to respec costs to do anything else then healing dungeons and raids...

[Kralljin]

The "silly" idea is not to put all of the gold sink in one area to where it feels punitive to even use that feature. If a flight path costs 1g, making it cost 1g 20s is not very noticable. You amplify that 20s over 5000 flight paths taken, and thats a large gold sink to help prevent in game inflation.

Now do the math how long you have to play in order to take 5000 flight paths and compare it to the amount of gold spent on respeccing within the same timeframe without dual spec.

Would you say these two amounts are even remotely equivelant?
If i respec once per week from PvE to PvP and back, that's 100g, assuming a cost increase by 20s, i need to take about 500 flighpaths within one week to achieve the same amount of gold removal.
This amount of nonsensical and shows how many layers of minor cost increase you'd have to attach to virtually anything, which is just a desperate attempt to obfuscate players from realizing that you take their gold.

If respeccing is 20% of all gold sinks in the game, you just simply increase the gold sink values across 10-15 other sinks so no one sink suddenly becomes over tuned to where no one wants to use the feature.

Your idea of attempting to keep the goldsink aspect of respeccing while also introducing dual spec is nonsense, i've already said this in my very first post.

People want dual spec because it saves them gold, reintroducing the goldsink aspect through other means results in players losing that gold they saved through dual spec, your solution defeats the purpose of dual spec, which is to save gold.

[Deferionus]

Now do the math how long you have to play in order to take 5000 flight paths and compare it to the amount of gold spent on respeccing within the same timeframe without dual spec.

Would you say these two amounts are even remotely equivelant?
If i respec once per week from PvE to PvP and back, that's 100g, assuming a cost increase by 20s, i need to take about 500 flighpaths within one week to achieve the same amount of gold removal.
This amount of nonsensical and shows how many layers of minor cost increase you'd have to attach to virtually anything, which is just a desperate attempt to obfuscate players from realizing that you take their gold.

Your idea of attempting to keep the goldsink aspect of respeccing while also introducing dual spec is nonsense, i've already said this in my very first post.

People want dual spec because it saves them gold, reintroducing the goldsink aspect through other means results in players losing that gold they saved through dual spec, your solution defeats the purpose of dual spec, which is to save gold.

Gold sinks in MMORPGs are a necessary function. The economy is a part of gameplay. The amount of gold being inflated in turn trivializes the accomplishment of unlocking epic flying and other parts of the game.

The point of potentially adding dual spec isn't to ultimately save the player gold, it is to remove a barrier to players participating in parts of the game. If a player does not participate in arenas, doing 5 man dungeons, or raiding, it should not be because they choose not to because it would cost them 100g to do it which they have to spend time farming back. The choice not to do something should be because you don't want to participate in it. The removal of a gold sink would dictate making adjustments to keep the economy intact.

What you think is 'nonsense' is just you not understanding, or agreeing, on the role of economic parts of an MMORPG.

To the flight path topic again, it is just ONE change out of 10-15 you would make. There are a significant number of other knobs you can adjust numbers on, as I mentioned, such as grey vendor amounts, reagent amounts, ah tax amounts. And absolutely the purpose is to make players not realize you are taking more gold, otherwise you would make another activity feel as oppressive as respeccing, which is NOT the intention.

In summary, the point of adding dual spec is to remove a psychological barrier to participating in gameplay activities, not save players gold. Gold in the economy would be heavily inflated without respec costs, and to preserve the economy, other gold sinks are adjusted to keep gold income/removal roughly equivalent to the actual TBC expansion, without adding psychological barriers to other activities.

[Kralljin]

Gold sinks in MMORPGs are a necessary function. The economy is a part of gameplay. The amount of gold being inflated in turn trivializes the accomplishment of unlocking epic flying and other parts of the game.

The difference is massive goldsinks have always been optional (and because of how respec costs add up, it qualifies as massive), if you didn't want to respec because of cost associated with it, you just didn't and kept your gold.
When you move that goldsink into every aspect of the game where you can cram it into, you remove the choice of the player to engage with a goldsink.

100g/week is nothing to scoff at, if you mostly raidlog, then you have little income, meaning you'd have to go out and farm gold even more often regardless of whether you're interested in dual spec or not, only because some people wanted to dual spec but also still have the goldsink aspect.

The point of potentially adding dual spec isn't to ultimately save the player gold, it is to remove a barrier to players participating in parts of the game.

The sole barrier that prevents a player from doing so without dual spec is their unwillingess to pay gold.

What you think is 'nonsense' is just you not understanding, or agreeing, on the role of economic parts of an MMORPG.

The goldsink part isn't nonsense, the nonsense is your attempt to get your hands on dualspec and shift the goldsink into other areas, because you want to turn an optional goldsink into something that's unavoidable, regardless of your own preferences.

In summary, the point of adding dual spec is to remove a psychological barrier to participating in gameplay activities, not save players gold.

The psychological barrier is the inherit unwillingess to spend a currency, which is a pretty basic behavior.

[Deferionus]

The difference is massive goldsinks have always been optional (and because of how respec costs add up, it qualifies as massive), if you didn't want to respec because of cost associated with it, you just didn't and kept your gold.
When you move that goldsink into every aspect of the game where you can cram it into, you remove the choice of the player to engage with a goldsink.

100g/week is nothing to scoff at, if you mostly raidlog, then you have little income, meaning you'd have to go out and farm gold even more often regardless of whether you're interested in dual spec or not, only because some people wanted to dual spec but also still have the goldsink aspect.

The sole barrier that prevents a player from doing so without dual spec is their unwillingess to pay gold.

The goldsink part isn't nonsense, the nonsense is your attempt to get your hands on dualspec and shift the goldsink into other areas, because you want to turn an optional goldsink into something that's unavoidable, regardless of your own preferences.

The psychological barrier is the inherit unwillingess to spend a currency, which is a pretty basic behavior.

So to summarize, we both agree gold sinks are necessary and that the gold cost causes a psychological barrier to many players on the frequency at which they will respec. We disagree on a fundamental level on the value of moving the gold sink from respec costs to other gold sinks in the game for the benefit of allowing players to more freely change to a tank or healer specs in an effort to mitigate the tank and healer shortage BC will suffer from and to allow higher rates of participation in TBC arenas/raiding.

For the record, I will likely not respec a single time in TBC. I have one character I will raid with and another I will PvP with. My opinion, is that it is better for the game as a whole to implement dual spec despite it not originally being in TBC. And you have your's, so there you go.