Correct. Would I still play? Maybe - probably even. But I think it would further water down the experience and erode the games identity and offers very little benefit in doing so.
Isnât that the practical effect of the tank shortage?
It wonât fix the tank shortage.
Not this again. A partial solution is still a solution.
Itâs barely even a partial solution.
Iâd like to see some evidence that a significant portion of players who donât currently tank would choose to do so regularly if they had a second spec.
They didnât in WoTLK. Tank shortages remained a big issue such that they even offered badge rewards for people to Tank.
Agree to disagree.
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It offers very little to you, to others though is has quite a lot of benefit.
Death Knights are universal approved also. Make it happen with Dual Spec.
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Actually, it offers a lot to me in terms of convenience. I PVP and Raid, I help out guildies in dungeons. Thus end up respeccing a lot. Iâm not swimming in gold. Itâs a big inconvenience for me personally - but there are lots inconveniences in TBC, the game is built around them and itâs what I signed up for.
What concerns me is the game has very little content outside of all these grinds. As it is we are running out of things to do and people are raid logging. Removing more grinds makes us zip through whatever content there is faster. We simply donât need that.
Now, sometimes I pug tank though I hate it because pugs are getting more and more obnoxious as the gear up and start thinking theyâre gods gift. I do it because itâs something to do while farming primals and stuff and I donât want to waste gold on a respec for strangers (I farm fine as prot).
If I had a dual spec Iâd basically never pug tank - Iâd continue grinding at quests and primal farming while waiting for groups in my off time and then dps in groups.
Dual spec would offer a heck of a lot to me personally, too.
I donât want to have the option to have it though. Just the option existing, hurts my experience, since everyone else can do it, and now Iâm instantly less effectual than every other player who chooses to have itâŚso of course I have to have it.
Your best solution is having death knights instead of dual spec.
Death Knights can tank in any spec and they are really good at it.
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And pvp too!
Ultimately I think preserving TBCâs identity (as much as possible) is important. Thus, changes should be reserved for things we know will resolve problems properly (not just band aids) and only for problems that run counter the intended goals of TBC.
Respec fees are a developer created imposition - theyâre clearly meant as a disincentive and are not accidental or unintended outcomes of another mechanic.
Every restriction in the game is a developer created imposition, donât you think?
The reason why you canât heal as Warlock, or why you canât tank as a Shaman (YOU CANâT, STOP IT).
Yes, definitely, but it has to do with the RPG element here.
You canât reset your specialization. You have to go to a trainer to do it. Over time, it becomes harder to change your specialization, that is why it is more expensive.
A good example is the hunter pet trainer, where they say it clear to us.
Diablo 2 was even worse. Once you spent a skill point you could never go back / reset it.
Ultimately I like the idea of having dual spec, I just think that overall it would add more problems to the game rather than any benefit.
And the reason is simply the same why they have changed LW. It will impose dual spec to everyone and then some people in the raid will have to have 2 specs ready for raiding. Then think about this being mandatory to several people. Today LW isnât, but it was going to be mandatory (based on everyoneâs opinion against keeping LW the way it was).
I just donât see dual spec being something in TBC that will definitely fix any problems in the game.
Not all of them are intentional in their outcome. For instance you could argue world buffs were intended to give players a fun bonus but that their impact on raiding was unintended.
But I think itâs safe to assume that if the developers coded in a cost for respeccing they intended it as a means of stopping people from constantly switching spec.
Or they intentionally added in a method to respec which was actually revolutionary at the time when games had no respec concept but simply hasnât aged well and dual spec is a better way to achieve their original goal.
It wasnât the first game to come out with a multi spec model - not by a long shot.
It wasnât released in a vacuum, it was discussed for and argued about on the forums years prior to its release. As was the cost of respeccing. They had plenty of time to align its release to when WoTLK prepatch happened if they were confident class balance wouldnât be an issue.
Did any of WoWâs competitors in 2005 have the concept of respecs? Not in any game but in the MMO RPG area.
I had it in my head that Rift came out earlier than it did. Appears it was released after WoTLK. So you may be right.
Even so I find it odd that such a talked about feature was added a few weeks following the release of Nax v2 and the major class rebalance of the WoTLK release (involving the baselining of many previous niches).
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Raids werenât definitely scaled around having world buffs (all of them), however back them none of them thought of using it in that scale.
What happened in TBC?
Blizzard removed the ability of using world buffs in raids, and they toned down a bit the raids to work around that change.
Thats Wrath of the Lich King. Where you have Death Knights.
Canât add the first without the second.
EDIT: also LFG has to be added. So the triple solution:
- Death Knights
- LFG
- Dual Spec
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Actually youâre accidentally correct.
EverQuest had a respecialization.
Itâs likely that the original WoW devs took inspiration from it for the 50g Respec cost, due to the part of the process in EQ where you could give the NPC 50 coins (even though itâs a scam), and most of them were endgame EQ players before WoW.
https://everquest.fanra.info/wiki/Respecialization
So yeah, literally, WoW took the idea from an older game.
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