If they wanted to. But why would they want to? I want them to because I have no spec where soloing is easier than having a pocket healer, but what’s in it for them?
The point of constraints is to incentivise different ways of playing. Not having dual spec makes people who might prefer solo play if given the easy option consider grouping with a buddy. That effects the whole game and the way people engage with it.
Except you can’t explain how it actually affects you beyond simply knowing it exists.
What actual negative impact does it actually have on your game play?
Blizzard killed this with TBC. As soon as they killed elite quests in the open world they effectively removed the only incentive to actually be a tank/heal for open world content. Well for 1-60 content at least.
And on that note dual spec directly promotes different ways of playing, so if that was what you actually cared about dual spec would be what you want.
And here we come full circle and the discussion comes back to design intent.
There’s no good or bad ways to play. There is only what players do and what the developers intend them to do with a given mechanic.
You think it’s time for a different design focus good for you. I think that time is in about 12 months when the WoTLK prepatch gets delivered.
I mean I fundamentally disagree. Having dual spec opens up a tremendous amount of potential player interaction. Being able to flex into a role easily would be a huge boon, especially on low population realms where tanks and healers are in short supply.
I’m pretty sure you would be able to find more pocket healers if more people could flex into that role. Whether they would want to pay the respec fee for you is another story.
It reduces the authenticity of the product, that which is promising to provide authenticity.
It actively makes my product worse.
And what TBC proved back in the day is you can’t force people to use respec costs andwhat lack of dual spec actually does is just discourage participation in multiple areas of the game.
Which is of course why they added dual spec in the first place.
Fair enough. I don’t think it’s resolvable, we both have fundamentally different ideas on how ds would pan out.
Except we know how dual spec works out, it’s not a new unknown feature.
WoTLK != TBC.
We don’t know. And not all of us are impressed by how it did pan out in Wrath. Even so - I won’t campaign not to add it in wrath. I just don’t plan on playing Wrath. It’s not a game I like.
You telling me that the feature was in a version of the game I don’t even like does nothing to convince me it’d be good to add into TBC classic.
It also restricts others. Why bother levelling more characters when you can just have one that does everything? What is the incentive in developing a hybrid spec that suits my play style when I can just swap between archetypal roles? (As a Druid main) where is my identity as being a jack-of-all-trades class when now everybody be can one?
I’m not saying these are reasons Dual Spec shouldn’t be in the game but they are considerations. Different does not always mean worse but it doesn’t always mean better, either.
But then you would have to explain what is so different about Wrath vs TBC that would make dual spec not work in TBC. But raid comps work the same, as do dungeon comps, dual spec was never usable in arena, so yeah… just not seeing these massive differences.
Yeah man, I love having to pick certain days to do PVP and PVE. Love turning down my friends for bgs cause I don’t want to waste 100g respeccing because of raid nights.
Super fun. Totally not an annoying feature that drives players away from the game and kills PVP
As someone with multiple level 70 alts and all the gold I need, the desire to play or level an alt has everything to do with what I want to do on that character, and not what I’m unable to do on another. I can’t get bird form for herb/mining on my paladin, I can’t do ranged DPS on my paladin. Dual spec wouldn’t stop me from making my alts.
I think the word ‘restrict’ is misused here, because you are losing nothing. I do appreciate your measured and considerate replies.
Funny story.
I brought up this topic with some non-WoW mates in another game just to get their blunt opinion on the subject with all context removed. The convo went something like this:
Me: "okay so Blizzard did this thing where they have classic servers which are meant to be like, a copy of the older versions of WoW.
Mate: “so it’s like you’re going back in time, yeah”
Me: “yeah kinda, so there are some people who want certain things to change from how they were, like they don’t like this or that and want to make it new and improved, basically, like adding things from the newer versions that people liked and were popular features”
Mate: “well hold on, if you do that how is it a copy of the old version?”
Me: “well they would say that it’s not important enough of a thing so adding or changing somethings are like, negligible”
Mate: “so like I think if someone wants to play the old version that means they want it to be exactly like how it was right?”
Me: “yeah, more or less, but some people like a lot of it but maybe don’t like some of it and want that stuff in particular to be edited to the new stuff”
Mate: “so then why not just play the current one at that point, like, I guess I don’t see the point”
It was super interesting how in 45 seconds I was able to prompt a reasonable, logical understanding of the situation from someone who didn’t even play WoW, when I can’t seem to get through to these people over the course of months lol. I guess WoW players are a special breed 
It’s actually hilarious that you’ve come in and said this, nominally to support Dual Spec but in reality underming 2k+ posts of advocates arguing Dual Spec would help tank/healer shortage and detractors stating people would just use it for PvP.
Did you just completely miss his point?
Which is that people have different pvp and pve specs?
If you value your class identity over your spec identity and/or role in the holy trinity, then I think that’s a completely fair perspective and I respect that.
I’d contend there are other people who don’t feel the same way as you, considering how hostile a response I had from previous suggestions to level alternative characters. But maybe I’m the minority - I go out of my way to level tanks and healers because I enjoy the diversity of roles as well as playstyle.
Amazing that people play different aspects of the game and enjoy different things, and having a feature that would discourage that would be damaging for the game as a whole.
Guess everyone should just go back to raid-logging
This is what Riger was saying earlier - two specs still isn’t enough.
If you have a PvP spec and a Healer/Tank Spec, you still can’t grind or solo effectively. So how does Dual Spec increase the availability of Healers and Tanks?