Interesting how I called you trustworthy a few times and you’re acting like I said the opposite.
Very strange.
You know what? I honestly don’t believe you.
Yet you still asked?
That’s on you, I guess.
You may be speaking for the majority (I don’t know if you are or not), but that doesn’t make your proposal good game design. Ultimately I would hope that Blizzard will make decisions more based on good game design than on popular opinion.
Either way if they put dual spec in I’d still play the game. I just think it would create a meta and balance changes that run counter to the original design philosophy of TBC. I’m not convinced that most players appreciate these implications and if they did it may not be as popular.
Edit: One implication that doesn’t get appreciated is that there is more of a rock/paper/scissors design to classes and specs in TBC than there was in Wrath. Adding dual spec will mean different classes and specs to the current meta will be in demand for raids based on the ability to configure optimal builds for specific content.
A tank can pug a dps easily, and just as easily replace them. Tanks make friends with healers and dps, but they want a good healer as a friend more than a dps. You have to stand out as a dps for them to really want you back.
Yeah that’s why they redesigned all the BC dungeons and raids when wrath came out to account for dual spec. You just couldn’t do them any more in a game designed without it.
Neither does it make it a bad game design. But that wasn’t the question here. He linked the part where I was saying “I think I am speaking for a lot of people …” and he said “No!” as he doubts that.
Both can go hand in hand - but popularity is more important as this holds the player in the game. They have shown what happens if they don’t listen to the player base and make the game based on their vision (minimum content for maximum dollar). People are hating retail. Why? Because of the time sink, the questionable pvp and so on, but mostly because the classes aren’t fun to play. I don’t know a single player who says “I love playing xxx, it’s soooo much fun.”
So yeah, I highly believe that not the time sink etc. is what player wants. It’s the class design (talent trees, buffs, other individuality), the old raids, more personality and charme, etc. The time sink is actually what let players leave the game. Or see it the other way: When the game is fun and your class is fun, you are playing it more anyways. So time sink is not needed, neither wanted.
So dual spec is not a bad design, it doesn’t destroy the game etc. It helps the player base without changing too much of the core. I know that some people might disagree here, but I also know that a lot of people agree with me.
First of all, as I named it as one reason for dual spec, those guys told me that an unperfect build doesn’t matter. Raid guilds take anybody. So how would dual spec change that?! If it doesn’t matter at all, they will still take anybody in the future, no matter of dual spec.
And second: How could it change the meta. The specs don’t become stronger or something and since it’s only two specs you also can’t change your build matching perfectly for any boss.
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Being able to choose different specialisations for different encounters has obvious implications to the meta I think.
For example, you could currently blast through most of Kara easily with 2 healers, but you’d struggle to get Nightbane down with only 2 healers. It is easy to conceive of guilds ditching a pure dps slot (say a Mage) for an Ele Shaman with a Resto dual spec.
That’s just one predictable outcome, not counting unforeseen implications. It seems pretty obvious to me that dual spec adds another dynamic to raid comps - changing game play options and not just QoL.
Sure you could counter that by locking your spec in per instance - but that requires forethought to see this implication in advance and design a counter to it. Dual spec is clearly not something you can just rip from WoTLK and plug into TBC without doing some serious analysis on potential game impacts.
Edit:
Sure. You’re not wrong. Most guilds won’t be exploiting it in the way I describe above though some will. For most it probably won’t matter - probably. It’s hard to know for sure how much potentially gameplay changing adjustments will matter. But I reckon if they added dual spec I would still play and would still have fun. It would just be a more watered down TBC experience - with some new niche exploits introduced. Not game breaking but not in the spirit of TBC.
The main contention I have with this is that it is a potentially gameplay impacting change and thus should be considered with great care.
Not to mention it kills the viability of hybrid specs for raid, smite priest, boomresto, eleresto talent builds would all become obsolete because the flexibility they offer is no longer needed at all with dual spec.
This presumes that the player-base are fully cognisant of the full impacts of the change and that the change remains popular after it is implemented. I think that’s a pretty big IF.
It’s something I’d rather employ a team of game designers, software architects, and BA’s to investigate, rather than market researchers.
What even is the meta right now?
Dual spec. Thumbs up. Much support
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As I have said, you are only having two specs, so you can’t choose the perfect setup for any encounter.
So if it doesn’t change that, why not implement dual spec, as it would help a lot of people and therefor the player base overall. Everyone benefit from high activity on their realms, at least a million times more if the player would otherwise logout, because they don’t wanna farm the gold to be able to change their spec.
Why do you think they never removed it since the implementation in wrath or why most private TBC server implemented dual spec sooner or later? Because it IS that popular and wanted! ^^
See, how could dual spec change that… 
While I find that the cowards retreat, please add me!
Thanks in advance.
No but you can choose a more optimal one of the two.
Because it was a well designed and integrated change in Wrath. They redesigned classes away from rock paper scissors and toward mix and match by making many of the talented niche abilities baseline and giving all classes access to key buffs and abilities such as AoE, interrupts etc … They literally designed dual spec and the expansion around the idea of players adopting multiple roles with one class and having less class specific niches.
Coward? Well, you might think so, or you scroll up and read for yourself why I decided to do so. 
So don’t dare to judge that if you haven’t read the whole conversation!
It’s easy to achieve the same without me adding you to the list. Just don’t talk to me. But as long as you don’t start to insult, ignore everything I say while accusing me of ignoring your arguments at the same time and all the other crap I’ve been trough with those ugly birds, I see no reason for that.
Well, yes and no. I think there are possibilities to avoid that. For example that you can only switch to the other spec in a major city. Sure, the min maxer might still do it then with warlock portal action and stuff, but they could do the same without dual spec, right?!
That might be true to some degree, but the expansion wasn’t build around the feature. I also don’t see where the feature could harm the game play in any way in TBC right now. You are acting like the game will explode with dual spec or something. It won’t! All it does is to remove a time sink factor, because you don’t need to farm gold for 30 minutes first, before you can do some bgs/arena…
True - minus 50g and some fiddling around the costs more time. But yeah point taken.
Not intentionally. Let me say up front - it’s not a game breaking change, the game will not explode.
But I don’t believe it offers as much benefit as you think it does, and I don’t think it is a change that comes free of consequence. Some of those consequences are not easily foreseeable. It does dilute the TBC feel of the game and I’m not convinced there’s enough benefit to justify it. I don’t accept that it will be some sort of silver bullet to tank and healer shortages in pugs.
I don’t think the lack of being able to spec Tank on the fly (or heals) is stopping people from doing so for pugs but rather I think people simply don’t like putting themselves into roles that require them to guide and take responsibility for the progress of strangers.
In terms of the TBC game design, it was very much based on the guild model. Similar to EQ in this regard, in TBC players were meant to be part of a guild and there was minimal support for pugging. The design of the game encourage differentiation and finding a “niche” within a guild or committed team setting (such as Arena teams).
WoTLK had pretty much the opposite design objective - open the game up to more casual interaction and grouping. So Dual spec seems at odds with TBC but fits within the design philosophy.
I mean sure it has alot of posts but it has a terrible like to comment ratio which is what gives the thread the positive light. If anything it just is a very contentious thread.
I see 70 likes on the op’s comment supporting dual spec and nothing near that, about 13, on the comments against it. As usual those against it just lie.
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I don’t trust blizzard to do anything more than just slap it on with the original Wrath variant and call it a day. We can discuss compromises and while some of them might be more agreeable I fear that we would ultimately get the worst version of it where you could just swap after a few seconds of casting and then spend some time drinking to be at full mana as long as you were out of combat.