clavarnway

With a game like WoW where they try to push two very different aspects of the game (PVE/PVP) how can you say the gameplay experience is not enhanced by the ability to respec (whenever you want)? It's just punishing players if Blizz won't let them do their best in PVP and then turn around and do their best in PVE.

http://sigs.guildlaunch.net/sig.php/1424974uXyta.png

 

• Adoriele

Because gameplay experience and relative ease are opposed. Would you say that the gameplay experience is enhanced if they make Illidan farmable in Kara gear? No. You get more satisfaction out of the game because it's hard. In a similar fashion, you identify more with your character because of your talents. I have, for three years, played Balance. I got Hurricane as a talent (granted, about a month before it became trainable and Moonkin form replaced it in the tree). I love playing Adoriele because she's Balance. If/when talent points become useless due to the relative ease of switching between them, the ability to identify with your character gets lost. What makes Adoriele different from any other druid if all they have to do is head to the trainer and respec with no associated cost?

If they remove the reason to keep your talents relatively static, they remove any need for them at all.

 

Nezralix

Although I used to feel that a player should have some attachment to their spec, I definitely don't feel that way anymore. There's too much difference between PvE/PvP specs (and healing/damage specs), which is a situation that they don't appear to be interested in changing. So long as that remains the case, it doesn't make sense to put any kind of serious lockout on shifting between them unless they intend to force people into one aspect of the game or another, or force people into relying very heavily on alternate characters.

 

Tunch

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're in the vast minority here. MANY people want to be able to enjoy the PVE world, and the PVP world on their one character they love. That's just not possible without respecs (excepting certain dps classes, and even then you can't get into heavily competitive arena with even a PVE warlock spec).

 

Nezralix

Totally agree with this. Part of the reason I have no less than seven level 70 characters is that I've been trying to find one that I can enjoy that lets me participate in PvE and PvP without respeccing all the time. If anything, the fact that I have to play different characters for different parts of the game detaches me from the character I'd prefer to play.

 

Chir

It's one of the biggest thorns in the side of this game in my eyes - I miss the days on my priest of simply switching gear after a raid, setting up a group & doing some pvp - No hassle, no worries.

The addition on offensive/defensive talents tailored for pvp leaves a situation that simply changes the issue from gear to talents. Everyone has the gear, it takes a few weeks to get a satisfactory set - no longer can you say that it's impossible to compete in pvp due to gear. What you can argue is that no player wants to feel like a 3rd wheel or be inefficient when playing, it's like turning up to Huhuran and taking your spot in "the wall" only you have a passive -100 NR penalty.

Working on the switchable tabs idea:

Why not have the ability to purchase two tabs, individual talent spec's can be trained for each one. The player can purchase a tiered switch plan - Tier 1 (400gp a month): 2 hour CD on talent switching. > Tier 2 (100gp a month): 12 hour CD on talent switching.

The players who have large play sessions can do the daily heroic and instances/raid and then get back to pvp after they have finished without penalty, the more casual pvp'ers have the option of being able to squeeze in that quick pvp session before or after the raid/instance runs in the time they have.

Groucho Marx - "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana"

 

flyingtoastr

From a "fun" standpoint respecs suck. A a person who enjoys both raiding (Holy for BT, Ret for Hyjal/T5/T4) and PvP (Holy for Arena, either one for random BG weekends) I find myself respecing a ton. It isn't fun to have to run to Ironforge every raid night and spend another 50g to maintain my raid spot.

However, from a practical standpoint respec costs are nearly required in the game. As of right now there are only two constant things to curb inflation in WoW: respecs and repairs. You can say that the large "gold sinks" are designed to also do so, but as a one time cost there is a point where they are no longer effective at removing coin from the economy. From that perspective, allowing free respecs would lead to rapid inflation and soaring prices in the general market, as gold is so easy to make but with nothing to spend it on.

I could see the addition of one large "gold sink" tab for your talents. A 5000g cost to save one spec that you can switch to for free seems reasonable to me. You would still have to pay to spec another way, but you could then quickly and free of charge switch back to your other spec. It still keeps inflation in check by maintaining a respec charge, but it also makes it easier to swap from PvE raid spec to PvP Arena spec for much less cost.

 

Machinator

If you want to count respecs as a gold/time sink, then you need to make it so that it applies to everyone equally. The people that dont have to respec get an extra 100g a week? But the only way to do that is to make it so all specs are viable in PvP(they said they wont do that), or make PvE specs different from PvP specs so everyone has to switch, which I doubt they will do. There have been lots of reasonable suggestions here.
I know blizz has said they want players to have an attachment to their spec, but the game hasnt turned that one is enough for everyone to enjoy both parts of the game.

"Information is ammunition."

 

moowalk

Make it so you can freely switch between 2 specs provided they both have 31+ points in the same tree? Preserves 'character identity' and allows you to take pvp specific talents for bgs.

 

• Playered

The goldsinks like excessive respecing (and repairing) are more prevailant on those who PvP and do high end PvE aswell though, of which they need to do more content (dailies) to allow them to keep up with the cost of it.

Whereas people who do just PvP tend not to have many goldsinks beyond a couple of gems and a new round of enchants per season, they dont really tend to respec nearly as often.

People who don't really 'care' and just do things for fun are not really the type to be respecing for the most optimal spec for each thing they do either.. so again the cost is not going to be that high.


If anything they should try and lessen the amount for people doing both the furthest level of 'content progression' to try and balance it out somewhat.


There shouldn't be a 'punishment' for experiencing more of the game, the bosses dropping more gold (which I hope continues into WoTLK) should go somewhat towards helping this issue, and fair enough removing respecs shouldn't really be expected but the way it works is somewhat 'wrong' despite the "If they do more content they should have a higher upkeep to do it" thought-line.

 

flyingtoastr

Unless they start implementing repair bills and consumables for Arenas PvPers are already saving a fair amount of gold a week compared a raider. No one makes you do both PvP and PvE, but to do so you are going to either A) not be as effective or B) have to spend some money. Since most raiders enjoy doing some hardcore PvP on the side and are willing to spend the money it does act as a god removal system and is effective in that regard.

Not everything has to be equal. You can PvP as a PvE spec, you'll just have to live with not getting to the top.

 

Jonny_Monroe

Another example of problems with this is the arcane mage, who needs very little +hit to reach the cap, but will be forced to take far too much hit on current 'generic' caster DPS cloth. Hell, even mage sets come close to being too much. On the other side of it, frost/fire mages don't want our spirit. The ideal solution for generic items of course is for blizzard to identify universal stats for any given armor type and load the items on that, then leave ample amounts of sockets to allow different classes to fill in the bits they need. Of course, there arn't many universal stats for something as varied as DPS cloth. Locks don't care about INT, nobody except arc mages wants SPI... the only stat that everyone really wants is spell damage. Some classes avoid haste, some avoid crit.... Not a great situation for building a universal gear setup.

A working example may be feral loot. Lose the bonus armor, add a socket in its place and introduce a +armor gem (blue, most likely).

OMNOMNOM.

 

Nezralix

You're right, this is currently the case. You do realize we're talking about a hypothetical, right? There's absolutely nothing about the current model that suggests that it was the product of divine inspiration.

No... it doesn't act as a god removal system at all. It just rewards players with gold to burn.

 

Linnet

I'm not sure. I don't think it's that unusual for warriors to respec between arms for arenas and prot for instance running. That isn't especially hardcore (probably the edge case because there is one notably strong PvP and one popular PvE spec for the class).

Its desirable for PvP that people can respec a lot, to encourage trying new strategies and adapting to tweaks in various PvP balancing patches. The PvE game has previously encouraged people to identify with their spec and not make radical changes, as opposed to something like Guild Wars where frequent respecs are an important part of the game. So probably they need to decide where they want to go with this.

 

PSGarak

If talent specs are trivial to change it removes the point of having them in the first place. Why should (eg) sinister strike cost 45 energy base if you will always have a 40-energy version if you ever intend to use it in the first place? If you can swap talents as easily as you can swap gear, or even within an order of magnitude, their existence isn't really justified as something that enriches the game in any meaningful way. I'm not using gear swapping as an egregious example, I mean that directly--there's no need for two parellel systems of character differentiation and specialization unless they're sufficiently different. There used to be a split that talents were a 'permanent' part of your character and gear marked progress as well as specialization. As inflation increases, talents become asymptotically closer to simply being an extension of the second set of gear you keep in your backpack. Being able to switch specializations obviates the reason for specializing in the first place.

A lot of people are talking about the major problem, but they're talking about it as if it were an immutable part of game design: that PvP and PvE (and solo and group and raid, and BG and arena) talent choices are so far away from each other that respecs are necessary for basic functionality in either area. This, in my mind, is actually the core problem, that causes the need for respecs in the first place.

If the difference between combat and mutilate was smaller (like it will be next patch) rogues wouldn't need to respec to PvP, if they're willing to take a 5% raid damage hit. If UA spec did more damage, or destro was more PvP-viable, a warlock could have the second-best for both without having to respec. If holy shield was 21 instead of 31 points into protection, paladins could spec fully into full heal spec and still have the tools to tank 5-mans, or raid trash, and wouldn't have to respec ret for farming.
The larger problem is that these two smaller problems, spec fluidity and hybrid viability, can't be solved independently. If the difference between a raid and PvP spec drops from 15% to 5%, and respecs are still only 50g, people will pay that price. And specs can't become more permanent without serviceable multi-purpose specs avaiable.

TL;DR Specialization is meaningless if it can be changed on a whim. Needing to respec in the first place is an aspect of class balance and talent design that needs serious overhaul.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Garak.png

 

Nezralix

You're definitely overstating the power of simple availability of respecs. Being able to change your spec in combat with the press of a button, like you change your weapons... that would certainly render talents meaningless. But that you require a trip to a capital city ensures that you'll be limited to your current talent set in any conceivable combat situation, and won't be bringing the power of the other talent trees.

I see what you're getting at. Some of the power in any given tree should be at least a little bit shared in other trees; a healing tree should get some spell damage or melee damage bonuses somewhere in it. Any one tree shouldn't have massive penalties to large parts of the game, which traditionally is the problem with healing or tanking specs. They should continue to work on addressing this issue.

But if people aren't necessarily restricted to talent specs based on gold costs, then at least they won't feel quite so penalized if they periodically respec to handle those areas of the game that their primary spec is weak in. With the added benefit of making tanks and healers less scarce for small group content.

 

Shadout

They could allow for free respec from your Preset spec A and Preset spec B, and then, when you wanted to change one of your presets, it would cost a bigger amount of gold than it does today, like 200g. 50g is already pretty cheap for what was probably the original intent behind the respec cost (not making people respec on a whim, never getting attached to any spec), whereas the intent probably not was to make you crappy for one part of the game without a respec (e.g. "all specs should be viable").
It would be pretty much like the old system, just having 2 primary specs, while keeping the "annoyance of respeccing", whenever you actually wanted to change those specs.
At least personally, I dont think it would do the game any good to open up for totally free respecs with no restrictions.
Not to get too much into that type of discussion (flame war potential!), but the argument of removing any barriers in a game just because its not fun, and a game should be fun 24/7, hardly does any good for a game like this. There has to be some sort of cost/reward ratio, sometimes the cost is gold, sometimes its time spent, and other times it might be difficulty. While giving stuff for free might be fun in the short run, its probably not a way to keep the game fun in the long run, and that is true for free respecs too.

Still, these days I somewhat hope they will allow for a free respec as the one described above, just to avoid the current rebalancing of the classes to fit the arena system, which has a generally negative impact on the game imo. Not all trees should be perfect for pvp and/or pve at the same time, and trying to balance them for both, probably just end up harming them for both.
Contrary to PSGarak, I think making all specs within 5% of each other for PvE and PvP will trivialize the talent system more than anything else. Talents should give access to very specialized and class defining stuff that will be pretty impossible to balance for different types of gameplay.
Then at least, easier respecs are to be preferred.

That would only really benefit some classes and do nothing for others. Making it maybe even more unfair than it currently is.

 

crimsonsentinel

Frankly, I'm just hoping that the playable version of WoTLK that will be showcased at the blizz invitational will have some more juicy details that the meager tidbits we've gotten so far.

 

• Chicken

Technically speaking if I could have two talent trees I could actually quite easily swap in between a healing and tanking spec depending on the encounter; at least, once patch 2.4 hits. I'd need to ask a mage for a portal and a warlock to summon me back, but that'd be a few minutes and you'd get someone that swaps in between a full Holy and full Protection build. The same applies to some extent to other tanks as well, it's not as likely to happen for people in other roles.

Having said all that, I'd still be in favor of allowing multiple talent specs with the game as it is now. I'm just saying that a trip to a capital city might be a bit too small of a barrier for people.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

Assassyn

They could always put the "stable master" npc that will change between your two pre-set specs out on some remote island or something. If it was really a problem they could even disable summons there like netherstorm.

 

Krag

The easiest way to counter repeated changes to talents during a raid, would probably be to just put a one or two hour cooldown on changing at the "talent stable".

 

• Adoriele

And then the general complaint would be that it takes too long to change specs, rather than the current complaint of it costing too much.

Also, Garak explained my thoughts on respeccing with a lot more eloquence than I could have. Having the ability to easily change your talent points makes them worthless. Need a Moonkin tank on HKM? Send one of your druids to the trainer to respec, summon them back. You only lost 2 minutes, tops, as he can reallocate the talents as the raid buffs (Or, with a mod like Talented, instantly). Need him to heal for Gruul, send him back again. No cost to the talent swapping allows things like this to become commonplace.

How many people are arguing that the inability to freely respec is a problem for those who are only interested in one aspect of the game, be it PvP, Raiding, or small group/soloing? Blizzard has made it quite clear that their intention is that if you want to be the best at something, it's going to cost you in another area. They've already made steps to allow all specs to work in solo play, notably with the change to damage on healing gear, so the only real divide comes to Raiding vs. PvP, and I see no reason why they should drop the model of forcing a player to either choose which area to be the best in, or pay a tax for the ability to be the best in both.

 

Nezralix

Raiding guilds are still going to expect focus specs, and not only that, many raiding guilds still do exactly what you suggest now if the need is there, so I certainly don't see this argument holding any water.

Many people *are* complaining that they'd rather not pay large sums of money on respec costs to participate in Arenas, and you can read the suggestion that "everyone should shell out 100g per week to get Arena gear on the side if they want to enjoy PvP" all over this forum. You can just as easily see on this forum how unpopular it is to participate in Arena games without a pure PvP spec (emphasizing survivability in 95% of cases); you can see how many players look at their guildmates as worthless hangers-on if they raid with a PvP spec. It's clearly not just an issue of "being the best" at one or the other, it's an issue of choosing to exclude yourself from one half of the game if you're not willing to pay the cost. And God forbid you decide you want to do some PvP between raids, thus requiring two or three sets of respecs in a week.

So again, we arrive at the conclusion that it's just a reward for players with the gold to spend, and thus particularly taxing on the less hardcore crowd, and a non-issue for raiding guilds.

EDIT: Out of curiosity, what spec are you?

 

Peekaboo

I agree with those who say that the armor types make the itemization overly complex. Its especially silly now that many pvp items have more armor than a lighter-weight armor. That and in most raids and even heroics being up one class in armor isn't going to make any difference to how long you can take a hit.

Merging leather and mail would make so much sense. Then give hunters and shamans an armor bonus talent (either passive or active).

 

flyingtoastr

You can participate in PvP as a PvE spec, you just won't do as well. If you want to be the god of PvP you are of course going to have to respec. The same goes for PvP to PvE. Unless Blizzard wants to make every spec possible perfect in every area of the game (in essence, just removing the talent system) you're going to have to do some talent switching in either min/max senario. You don't have to exclude yourself from PvP because you have a PvE spec, you just need to understand "hey, I might not break 2000 unless I'm willing to pay for it", just like in PvE where "hey I might not break top 5 if I don't start buying flasks and using haste pots".

Again, if you remove respec costs you are removing the largest source of inflation control in the game. With the daily cap being raised to 25 in 2.4 you will be looking at people easily making more than 200 gold a day without farming a single primal. If there is nothing left to spend it on (AH buyouts are not taking money from the economy, as most of it is simply shuffled to another player) it will destabilize the economy and gold will be worth less and less and prices will increase to match falling value (making it much harder for newer players).

Yes respecs suck, but they do serve a very important purpose.

And seriously, if you can't make time to do the two Skettis and three of the BEP dailies (there's your 50g) there is something wrong. Gold is no longer a precious commodity, and with dailies replacing the need to actually farm it isn't terribly difficult even for the most casual players to keep a nice surplus.