No Dual Spec: Something Better

WoW Classic Cataclysm Classic Discussion
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TL;DR: Reducing respec fees solves more problems than dual spec would.

Dual spec is something that some people are asking for for TBC. Some people are against it. However, what people aren’t talking about is the actual problem(s) that it aims to solve, and/or whether it does a good job of solving that (or those) problem(s).

The Problem.

As I see it, respecc’ing maxing out at 50g/per is a high enough cost to prevent a lot of people from doing it often. Whatever the intended design decision here, whether a gold sink or whatever, it has merely only succeeded at preventing people from respecc’ing regularly.

I posit that this is not the intended feature, as further expansions have removed gold-value barriers from talent changes.

A Solution.

On the TBC Beta, respecs capped out at 50s. Even though we could basically print gold on the Beta, for some reason they decided to cap respecs at 50s. This made it very easy to respec, and even enjoyable.

Cap respecs at 50s, allowing anybody to respec whenever they want without the prohibitive gold costs.

Why Not Dual Spec.

Sometimes people make a claim that respec fees are intended to be a gold sink, and adding a dual spec feature with a fee would act as a gold sink. Respec fees only act as a gold sink if people are using them regularly. A lot of people avoid respecc’ing due to the fees, so it actually acts as a deterrent, which is a design flaw that should be corrected, not doubled down on.

Additionally, dual spec rewards some classes while punishing some others. Classes whose raid roles are fulfilled with a single spec are not required to maintain multiple builds and gear sets, and are free to use an additional spec for their liking. Other classes are required to maintain more gear sets, and additional PVE builds, rather than the “play as you like” style that can continue without a dual spec, but with lower respec fees.

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This 100%. This would also hopefully solve all the dual spec haters with the “but now my guild will make me do this” even though that’s a social/guild issue and not a dual spec issue. Also if you think it’s a “gold sink” you are mistaken lol all these people who farmed in classic have 20k + gold pretty easily and it won’t put a dent in their purse. It’s only a gold sink for new players and why would you want that?

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50g for a respec is absolutely INSANE. Especially considering how much gold is worth in the classic era. I agree–50 silver for respeccing would be a HUGE improvement.

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#nochanges

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^^^Flagged as spam.

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50g is easy to get… we are talking about tbc here. 50g is doing 4-5 daily quests or one heroic (without being bad and dieing).

In classic 50g was harder to make but still not overly so.

If you have to respec PLAY the game and you will have the gold to do so.

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Personally i think the bigger barrier to respecing is having to setup your tree, bars, and possibly ui. That’s why i don’t respec more often personally.

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You would think so! I got really used to doing this on the Beta, and now it’s not a big deal at all, but there are/were addons for managing this, that make it trivial, for anyone who cares.

I actually really enjoyed being able to respec without worry, such that I would be able to try out whatever builds I wanted, and find what worked for me.

Personally, I went with setting up macros with some skills commented out for some specs, so I knew what to put where.

E.g.

/showtooltip
/cast Last Stand
#/cast Death Wish

Death Wish is commented out, but I’d put that in if I went with an Arms or Arm/Fury build, and Last Stand is commented in (or uncommented, i.e. active) for a Prot build.

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Honestly, I’d say if they want to keep the price high but still make a change, they could make it so respec price decreases every 24 hours/daily reset, by it’s 5g amount. So, if you’re respeccing a few times a week, one day might be 50g, the next respec might only be 35g.

This would still keep the respec price “up there” but people who respec once every few days would still see a decrease in price. This also still works as a gold sink.

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Sure, that’d work, but it still leaves the question of, “Why?” Why would you want to prevent or discourage people from respecc’ing and exploring their class?

EDIT:

I mean, it’s clearly something they’ve removed from #Retail for a reason, and I assert that it’s corrective design.

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It’s not meant to deny them the ability to respec, it’s basically one of those “be careful with your build, but if you mess up, at least the price decreases faster!” types. This would appease both arguments. One would say “Okay, it still keeps the price high, close enough to #nochanges” and other say “Well… I do respec somewhat often, so any decrease in price is a good thing!”

As for Shadowlands, there was no need for it anymore because a huge QoL on there was allowing you to just do it anywhere and prevent you from having to go back to towns. Remember, Shadowlands normally puts a lot of emphasis on QoL.

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50g is pretty much nothing in TBC. It’s really just the inconvenience of having to reset at the trainer that is the concern. I don’t mind either way, but that’s mostly the problem.

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The current talent system in #Retail isn’t new to Shadowlands. It’s been like that since… not a very long time after Dual Spec was added.

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I only call it Shadowlands because retail has always been a weird word. Why are we calling it retail when it’s a paid service by the company and not a private server anymore, to separate the two? Call it weird for me, but I’ll always refer them by their expansion, e.g. Shadowlands VS TBCC.

I know it’s not new, I was only pointing out that the change you’re asking for is going from 0 to 100. It makes sense on beta to be dirt cheap, as long it allows people the options to respec and find bugs, play with specs, etcetc.

Edit: typo

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50g in TBC is actually a much more appropriate number. It should have been like 10 or 20 gold in Vanilla.

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Yeah, I agree with this. This only affects the people staying on Classic since TBC money is so easy to get, especially when people see people on their epic flying mounts.

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Actually, it’s not much of a change at all. It’s merely changing the respec fee. It’s much less of a change in design, coding, or gameplay than any of the other proposed changes such as Dual Spec for example, which has game-changing impact.

Yeah… Retail is a weird word. I remember catching myself on Beta with, “K. Going back to Retail WoW Classic now.” And thinking… hrmm… what does that even mean?

:slight_smile:

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Yeah :laughing:

Yeah. The only reason I was suggesting that was to appeal to both audiences, but it’s hard to be a fence sitter at times. Heck with it, give me dual spec so I can have my Enhancement build and Resto build on hand :slight_smile:

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Well, that’s exactly it. Dual spec, imo, is game changing, and doesn’t actually solve the problem of wanting to have different specs for different content for everybody. It might solve that problem for some subsets of people playing some classes in certain ways, but…

It merely displaces the issue that there is a deterrent to respecc’ing, by way of the price being too high for many people to take advantage of it. Now, if you had a case to make for why people shouldn’t respec often or at all, then this might be a different story, but I don’t think it’s the intended design, and I don’t think the current system works as intended at all.

Dual spec merely displaces that for some people. It doesn’t prevent the need to respec for different content though.

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I honestly think this will fix itself when TBC actually releases and we go into it. Like many stated earlier, once we hop on dailies and such we’ll be rolling in cash. I know when TBC was live I had 6 of my characters with epic flying, so 50g feels like nothing when comparing it to that.