Yeah that’s my main issue with this. There is a danger that TBC classic becomes “TBC flavoured retail”. However there is already game content in retail that caters to that - we don’t need a dedicated game for it. Edit: It already exists as a component of the retail game.
The promise of TBC classic was that the game should conform to the spirit of the original game. I took that to mean that it would be closer to the original than a TBC skin on retail. The more QoL changes that get made the closer we get to the TBC retail skin.
The game is old and outdated and needs changes and fixes that weren’t possible in ye olde times.
I play on my Druid main and I’ve respec’d 7 times this week because we couldn’t find a healer or tank. Later we can’t fill whichever role I’m not playing. Sitting around shouting in LFG because our warriors and paladins don’t want to respec tank, or the priests and shamans don’t want to respec to healer is getting old.
People here are proposing Dual Talent Specialization /because/ it was added later as a fix to a problem that previously, and now once again, existed. Blizzard will do as they please, considering Seal of the Martyr now exists on TBC. They have shown they can and will patch in skills/features from later expansions.
That I accept. Dual speccing is not one of those changes. The tech existed for dual speccing in TBC and yet they didn’t implement it. They brought it in for WoTLK.
I’m going off memory but I recall the devs giving reasons for not implementing a dual spec option mainly around making choices more impactful.
Edit: I don’t believe dual specialisations fit within the game objectives and design of TBC. It is my view that adding it breaks with “the spirit of the game”.
The devs back in the day even commented on why they didn’t implement a cross realm LFD tool (like the WoTLK one). They wanted to maintain server community engagement. These things were game design decisions and not technological limitations.
If you were on Windseeker and needed a healer and asked me, I’d heal for you. I’d even ask my guildies or people on my friends list to fill in the extra spots.
/shrug I don’t play retail and I played vanilla from almost day one. I also don’t hate retail or the people who play it. I just don’t find it fun. Just as I don’t hate Grand Theft Auto or the people who play it. I just don’t find it fun. You don’t know me at all. One reason I’m only 63 is I’ve spent time away from outlands to heal a pug in ZF, ST, and BRD in the last week. For no xp and no gold payment. And that’s a big difference between us. You think adding dual spec is bad for the game and the massive increase in tanks and healers charging gold for a dungeon run is good for the game. I have the exact opposite opinion
If I am pvp speced, yes I could to change specs to do dungeons . If I am full damage spec on my hunter for raids I could make heroic dungeons smoother by specing into some CC talents.
I have the option to change specs be more efficient at what I am doing. Doesn’t mean I do, but I can change specs based on content to be effective.
Same thing happens for tanks and healers they CAN change specs, they don’t necessarily have to, but they could to be just that bit more effective at what they are doing.
The problem is your viewing this as “have to” you don’t have to do anything, you could raid, pvp, grind, exc with no talents at all, gear is the main effecting factor. And I regularly grind gold even without “having to” respec. I could respec to become more efficient at grinding as well. But I chose not to. You are confusing “have to” with “chose to”.
My guild actually has a volunteer donation pool for our tanks and healers respec costs. Some of our healers want to be dps, so we pay for their respecs when we need them to go heals, same with our tanks.
And our tank and heal shortage for heroics and raids were fixed in guild, who would thought! Lol. And it’s not like it’s expensive, if everyone donates one daily quest worth of gold a week (fishing/cooking dailies are out) it easily covers the costs. But hay, clearly this issue must be fixed by the game devs instead of players talking to each other and working it out, lol.
Added to this - it’s game gold, not real money. Abstractly it is a gaming lever, a tool for leveraging game perks and advantages. It is the tool designed for achieving game goals such as respeccing and such. If you want to dual spec, farm more gold. That’s the in game mechanic for doing so.
Many tanking classes have the tools needed baseline for tanking. The talents improve it. You can get defence capped with no talents, you can have your dps watch their aggro, and CC targets and get through just fine. It will be slower, but it’s doable.
Minor drawbacks like completely nullifying hybrid specs - which primarily exist to solve the QoL problem of have impactful and costly spec decisions in game? You remove the impact of making specialisation choices and you remove a lot of what many people find compelling about specialisations.
The end of that line becomes the retail implementation: minimalist talent trees with clear role definition and pared back to only flavour impacting choice. It’s not a small thing.
Sometimes the choice is to respec or not do the dungeon at all. IN my opinion that’s bad game design. Every day there are people who can’t do a dungeon when some of them could if there was dual spec. I would like to heal on my druid but the choice I made was to not heal on by druid because it’s not fun to quest or farm in a resto spec. So now there is one less healer on my server and less dps will get to group and do a dungeon. I’m not the only person who might tank or heal if there was dual spec.
Some things are possible to do but not fun to do. I could heal in feral spec if the group was high enough and played well but it’s not fun for me to do it. I can quest and farm in resto spec but it’s not fun for me to do it. There are people who would tank or heal if there was dual spec but in that spec it’s not fun to quest or farm. So they choose a dps spec and do not tank or heal. That affects everyone on their server as the tank and healer shortage gets more and more severe.
Or don’t roll a tank or healer and you avoid the need to respec. That’s why I’m choosing to dps on my druid. I like to heal but the costs are too high in several ways for me to do it. I’m not the only person that makes that choice and then there are less tanks and healers and less groups doing dungeons
I mean this with all due respect, but requests like this - for dual/respec spec tools outside of the current one in game (gold) remind me of arguments to implement a “pvp” mode toggle on pvp servers. I get why you may want it and why it would be convenient but it is ultimately at cross purposes to this particular edition of the game.
