With near universal approval can we get a response about dual spec please

WoW Classic Cataclysm Classic Discussion
501

I’m not sure it’s useful for discussion to completely speak for the dev teams of older WoW when we actually have no idea as to their nuanced thoughts on the subject.

We don’t know what they thought or wanted at a specific point in time without them specifically telling us.

All we have is what was, as a base guideline that is the underlying foundation behind this project: a recreation of what was.

Adding dual spec removes an element of what was a significant consideration of life in TBC, and I can’t get behind that.

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502

Do you think I’m wrong? Don’t you find it odd that the respec cost was never changed through to WOTLK, even as the availability of gold increased at minimum ten-fold?

Dual-spec didn’t come out with WOTLK. It was added in a later patch. So why did Blizzard feel the need to add dual-spec when the relative cost to respec would have been minuscule compared to what it was the 5 or 6 years earlier when they chose that price?

If the 50g respec has some overarching and grand purpose that is integral to the game, then the only way to recreate the same effect for TBC right now would be to raise respec costs to 500g.

Do you think that would be an improvement to the game? Do you think that is what the players want?

503

If you don’t like changes then why are you still playing TBCC? its not even the actual TBC of 2007 since they’ve already changed so much, oh you’re a Hypocrite lol :rofl: so once you go back playing retail I’ll go too but not as a sub.

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504

Yeah, we should just ignore what developers say because we don’t have the ability to read their minds!

:exploding_head:

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505

Because it’s still a game that resembles TBC. Introducing dual spec is yet another step away from that.

Wrath of the lich king classic will likely include wrath of the lich king features, such as dual spec.

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506

It’s no less odd than the subscription to WoW still being $14.99 since 2004, or the default video game MSRP still being 59.99. It just became a standard (until it was done away with completely).

In fact the answer to your question is right within your question.

Once they added dual spec, it was clear that the 50g cost was not intended to truly be a “barrier” anymore. Not only dual spec but coupled with increased gold earnings, WOTLK game design made it clear that respeccing was pretty much made to be non-factor.

That’s fine. That’s how they did WOTLK. This is not WOTLK though.

I also do not accept the argument that the respec cost needs to meet your arbitrary standard, that you made up right now, to make sense economically. It’s plainly clear that the mere 50g cost puts plenty of peoples’ panties in a knot.

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507

Zipzo’s go to is “They did it in Wrath so we can’t do it here.”

Just bring up Seal of the Martyr which was implemented in Wrath. Easy.

He’ll move the goalposts at that point. He’ll probably say this was to balance the game or something, thereby dismantling his earlier statement that “It wasn’t in TBC.”

Then, once you accept that principle and try to make a similar gesture toward dual spec, he’ll move the goalposts back to his original stance.

He’s going to do this back and forth with you guys. What’s going to come down to is that he’s okay with changes so long as they’re acceptable to him. That’s his standard.

Otherwise, he’ll stand on #NoChanges.

That’s what you’re in for, @Redshadowz.

This is Zipzo in a nutshell:

“Change is good for TBC, but changes will hurt TBC!”

508

https://www.bluetracker.gg/wow/topic/eu-en/8041844862-talent-dual-spec-qa-with-ghostcrawler/

Nethaera : Why are we allowing players to dual spec after all this time?
Ghostcrawler : We really felt like this was a great way to increase the flexibility available to players and encourage them to take part in more aspects of the game. To use just one example, some players like to participate in both raids and Arenas, which is awesome behavior that we want to promote. But, there are some talents which are more useful in one part of the game than another. Currently, players have to pay respec costs and go through the process of setting up the desired talent spec and action bars whenever they switch.

The new system makes this a much more logical process, saving on time and cost and allowing players to easily move from one aspect of the game to another.

If the 50g respec cost is good for the game then the only way for us to enjoy its benefits is to adjust it for inflation.

The point I was making is, if Blizzard raised respecs to 500g, it wouldn’t be embraced by the playerbase as a way to stay true to original game design. It would cause massive numbers of people to quit the game.

509

Or people would buy more gold.

At which point, they could introduce the WoW Token.

510

If the 50g respec was really good game design they should have given every class a raid spec that was both their only viable raid spec and was useless in the open world/pvp.

That way at least respeccing would have applied to everyone equally.

511

The interview question isn’t illuminating anything that isn’t obvious to either of us already.

They eventually added it for the reasons mentioned, it was a glorious “nice-to-have”.

It’s just that benefit did not exist in TBC and so it feels wrong, for the purpose of experiencing the hardship that TBC is actually capable of providing, to simply circumvent that existent hardship simply because gamers of today aren’t capable of doing the same things gamers of retail-TBC were able to do: just deal with the way it was.

I too look forward to WOTLKC, dual spec will be a real nice feature to have.

I never said the 50g respec cost was “good” for the game…it’s simply accurate to how things actually where, so to be more specific, it’s “good” for the purpose of recreating how things were…which I imagine is still the point of the project?

If Blizzard was tempted to raise the respec cost to 500g, do you think I would be happy with that? Considering it was never actually like that? I don’t really understand your last point. I would be completely against such a thing.

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512

Thing is, raid specs were far more nuanced, incredibly so during Wrath. I think Death Knights had several variations. Currently, Mages have about 6.

I recently respecced my Shaman from Enhance to…Enhance. Particularly do go from Resto Enhance to Elemental Enhance since I have enough hit to disregard the 3% I get from Nature’s Guidance.

While specs were highly relegated to the roles of tank, heals, and dps, those were only attributed colloquially. They game never really defined tanks according to what classes you were, but rather what role you had. So a Mage would tank in HKM. Warlocks tank multiple bosses that use Shadow or Magic damage.

And now Shamans are tanking Karazhan:

513

You could apply this to way more than just specs.

For example, in Classic, some classes had to put way more effort in to their raid prep to perform even at an acceptable baseline (think Ferals and MCP, for example).

Does that mean I was trying to get Blizz to nerf/change/remove MCP?

I understood going in to character selection, that some classes simply have it rougher, by design. I made my choice accordingly.

Same with this expansion. We know what it’s in it. What’s to come. We know what features it has, and what it will/won’t have. So you make a decision, accordingly, to either play here, or play somewhere else. Not cherry pick all the things that you think were bad design or poorly thought out by current game development standards and have it removed or modified…after you made the choice to play here.

And you see that’s the reason pro-dual spec arguments come off very entitled. It’s almost like, you handwaved all the required reading of what playing TBC is all about, just signed your name at the bottom to get in to the game, and then start hammering for changes to the contract that you didn’t even read.

It feels intrusive, selfish, and unfair of you, in regards to those of us who knew what we were getting in to, and it is what we wanted when we rolled here.

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514

They said they wanted people to be able to play the game.

And world buffs still existing is accurate to how things actually were. Tinnitus also didn’t exist. No same-faction queues either.

You keep flipping back-and-forth between “intended game design” and “that is how it actually was” when it suits your argument. It is obvious to me that you don’t really care about either, you just want the 50g respec for some reason.

And since I’m a rather cynical person, it makes me wonder, how does it benefit you? Why do you spend days arguing on forums about something that you know would actually be an improvement to the game, and would solve(at least partially) many of the problems plaguing the game. Such as the current miserable state of arenas/pvp, lack of tanks, etc.

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515

Looks like a previous thread was deleted for some reason…but wanted to keep my reply to you, Ziryus:

Well, there’s also reasons why a DPS would switch to another DPS. Like if you’re in a caster-heavy group, an Ele Shaman would be preferable to an Enh Shaman. Same goes with Feral DPS versus Balance DPS.

Could be you Warlocks wanna go Demo for that extra Stam Buff from the Imp. Could be you’re a Rogue who wants an Improved EA build and then a “pure” DPS build on the side. Could be your Warrior wants to go Fury after he gets Warglaives but also wants to go Arms for when your raid needs the debuff.

Lotta new options.

516

I’m not flipping between anything, my stance has been quite firm.

The intended game design of original TBC and the intended game design of TBCC are not identical, this is where you’re conflating the issue. I don’t know exactly what the intended game design of retail-TBC was, I can’t possibly know. I don’t have the visionary-devs available to interview, they’ve certainly got enough problems to deal with right now, and not all of them are even still at the company. However, the “intended game design” of TBCC is quite clear: it’s intended to be as close to retail-TBC as is reasonably possible…

…with the now additional caveat that they have openly admitted that they are for some changes.

I was actually open to this initially, but the problem is Blizzard is not just hit-and-miss with their changes, they more-often-than-not extremely bungle things up (case and point…look at PvP), and what’s worse, they opened with “changes” that I already had a visceral negative reaction to (the 58 boosts and the deluxe pass).

The Paladin one I was OK with…the only measurable effect in game that it has is giving Alliance a better chance at gaining ground in population, which is a massive issue for us right now as we all know. Belfs still have unique racials, so it’s not like all Paladins are the same. They probably intended it to be flavorful between Alliance and Horde but they messed up by making Seal of Blood pretty much critical to performing as a Ret Paladin. So this to me was more of balance change that…while it does lessen the “TBC-ness” of things, doesn’t really harm the TBC experience for any actual player.

Drums changes I also reconciled with, because we understand them more widely for how they would need to be used in an end game environment, and the players spoke at large that this would be a very toxic raiding environment that encourages…undesirable sorts of gameplay.

It’s the same thing with the regen compensation change (or more known as the “Troll Blood” situation). All evidence points to the Troll Blood situation being actually accurate to how it was back then, it’s just that simply nobody abused it the way today’s players were ready to, and when that happens the needle shifts up in to a realm where that behavior becomes expected. We now know since Blizzard spoke to the actual dev of that patch, that it was completely unintended, so we actually do know that empirically.

So in a weird way, the drums changes and the troll blood changes sort of…ironically make it “more like” how TBC was for a vast majority of people because these weren’t widely (or in troll blood’s case, at all) either known about or abused as much as they would be today if they were left unchanged.

That was all Blizzard’s thought process, I imagine at least. These changes were made in order to address a potentially serious balancing issue with things that you might consider were actual oversights back then.

So those changes, I can feasibly understand, conceptually.

Respec cost however, is very different. Not only is it a feature that has already existed since Classic Vanilla and so it’s design is clearly purposeful and clear (they would have changed it by now if it had undesired results), but it contributes character management choices in a noticeable fashion that is inherent to the Classic Vanilla and Classic TBC experience. We cannot attribute respec costs existing to a mere oversight. Blizzard of today could very well wish they were able to go back in time and do it differently, but that’s not really relevant.

World buffs from vanilla in TBC raids? Also an understandable oversight that they decidedly to retroactively change. Am I for it? On principle, no, but I can understand it and reconcile with it.

It’s important to know the distinction between what #nochanges players are able to reconcile with, and what is simply not an option to touch/modify.

Learning this dichotomy and where all the features fall on this venn diagram will definitely bridge the gap in misunderstanding between you and us, instead of constantly feeling like the goal is to catch us in a consistency trap for being #nochanges on x but not #nochanges on y, because that circle is endless, we can all observe.

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517

Oh yeah it definitely opens up a lot of options, and I thought that was one of the things people liked about classic, having options.

518

Easy to find:

https://warcraft.blizzplanet.com

You can even refine the search:

https://warcraft.blizzplanet.com/?s=dual+spec

The intended game design is this:

Now, @Redshadowz, pay careful attention to this:

This is key to understanding Zipzo. Every change that he is okay with begins and ends at what he wants and what he is willing to reconcile with.

He has no objective stance. This is all based on what he wants. When he can’t move the goalposts anymore, this is what he resorts to.

And he’ll continue on that circle.

First it’s “It was in Wrath!”

Mention Seal of the Martyr.

Then he says, “It’s okay because balance and stuff.”

Then mention the contradiction between saying that and also vying for “I want TBC as it was.”

He’ll move the goalposts back.

All he has left after that is, “Muh feelings!”

There’s also contradictions such as this:

Which comes sometime after he already said this:

See how he goes from saying, “I don’t know anything!” to “I know they changed it because…”

Then look at this:

Oh, so it’s players now. First it was him, but now he’s extending this to everyone.

519

The 50g respec cost was in the game three to four years before TBC launched. Thus the 50g respec cost was not an “intended game design” of TBC. It was “designed” long before Vanilla even launched, and never got changed because min-maxing culture didn’t really exist in original Vanilla so it never became a big deal.

Blizzard acknowledged that raids were never designed with respec costs as a factor. Nor were WOTLK raids balanced for dual-spec. The only thing Blizzard ever said for why they added dual-spec was to allow people to enjoy more aspects of the game.

Or to put it another way, the 50g respec prevents people from playing the game. Which is something anyone with a working brain understands.

520

dual spec wasnt in tbc