So... Why don't we have Tri-Spec yet?

An oldie but a goodie! :D

The question used to be, why don't we have a way to keep a spec for PvE and PvP? And to a lesser extent, wouldn't it be great if I could swap roles with my hybrid if needed without having to hearth and make everyone wait on me?

Those are the specific reasons for why we agreed with the sentiment of those questions, and dual spec now exists in the game. It's great (kind of) that some people have found uses for it outside of that, having two slightly variant builds of the same spec for different situations, however, it's not our intent with multiple specs to encourage that type of gameplay, and thus it's not our intent to offer tri or quad or quint, etc. specs.

Obviously having an array of possible specs to choose from would be convenient for any number of reasons, but it would also encourage situations where people are using it to shift their builds around for each individual encounter or task. Those are the kinds of options that quickly stop being options, and instead become a requirement. And as they become a requirement our necessity to design and balance around it changes it from a nice convenience option to a core piece of the game design puzzle.

A lot of people like to throw the phrase 'slippery slope' at us when we make certain changes, and dual spec is actually truthfully one of those systems. Once we have two specs, why not three? If three, why not four? But, we have our hiking boots on, and don't intend to lose footing on this just yet. BUT sliding down muddy hills is a lot of fun, so you never know.

Thanks for responding to this thread, Bashiok, and providing your thoughts.

Unfortunately, I don't think your point made above is conclusive, as this is essentially what top-tier guilds are already doing for raiding content. Furthermore, many people are already shifting multiple times per day/week for pve/pvp/farming/etc. Implementing a spec-manager (similar to the gear-manager) would not cause people to start doing this constant shifting, it would make a significant quality of life improvement for those of us who are already doing it anyway.

I recognize there is a fine line here between convenience and inconsequential, but I think the developers of WoW need to also be very careful that WoW doesn't get passed over by newer gamers which are instituting features playing are asking for in order to preserve an idolized form of either the way the game used to be, or the developers think it should. This decision feels like an easy one to me in that is provides additional convenience and play-style options for players without degrading a core game mechanic. Others, obviously, disagree.

P.S. My hat is off to those who are contributing thoughtfully to this discussion.

Aside from the veiled warning that our game is going to die if we don't offer more convenience options, I like your post. Thanks for making it. :)

03/01/2011 3:02 PMPosted by Precarious

I wasn't trying to insinuate that WoW will die if certain convenience options aren't made, I think it would take much more than the lack of multiple specs to do that! :)

YUH HUH ... meanie

I think the fundamental nature of this debate comes down to a philosophical disagreement as to whether:

1. Players should have convenient access to all roles capable of being fulfilled by their class. With more flexibility and more access players will experience more portions of the game and an annoying "time-gating" mechanism of respecs at the class trainer could be joyfully done away with.

OR

2. Players should be "time-gated" from having convenient access to all roles capable of being fulfilled by their class. Doing so will keep players from feeling the need to min/max their spec in all situations as well as retains the original feel of WoW in which a spec decision was more meaningful. Having the barrier of time and inconvenience in place, while not preventing players from respeccing "at-will" does induce considerable negative influence to not do so.

Well I think you've nailed it. And obviously we're in that second camp for the most part, but we think there are some changes that could be made so people in the first camp have some of that inconvenience lessened a great deal without creating a situation where we're really encouraging everyone to have a bunch of specs for really specific situations. Yes, people min/max, they always have, even before dual specs existed, but really opening up the system for pure min/maxing is damaging to some of the basic ideals of what we want specs to mean for the game and the (vast majority of) players. Again, there are quality of life improvements that have been discussed and we'll probably act on at some point, but it's very unlikely to be additional spec slots.

It's a tough situation because a lot of the reasoning here is explaining the feeling of the game. The feeling of what a player thinks and sees as they move within each menu, and work within each system. The ceremony of the experience. Those are tough things to put into words let alone convince someone is important to the game. An almost impossible feat to some degree because some players just don't care. Nevertheless, it's something we have to work to keep intact, lest the game crumble to a spreadsheet.

03/01/2011 3:52 PMPosted by Orissa

Again, there are quality of life improvements that have been discussed and we'll probably act on at some point, but it's very unlikely to be additional spec slots.

If no additional spec slots are planned, then can we at least get some way to save a "template" for other specs? You can still require us to go to the trainer, pay for a respec and spend dusts to scrub out old glyphs, but we get to save a talent allocation and an actionbar set up.

Can this be a good compromise at least?

Totes.

Totes McGoats.

This is the argument against tri (or quad or whatever) specs?

Really?

You're damn right I don't care. That's a completely invalid "argument". That's as worthless as the idiots in this thread "arguing" that we shouldn't have it because we've never had it.

There's no ceremony of the experience, there's the time consumed by the experience, the hassle of the experience, the "my friends don't want to wait 30 minutes for me to respec, reglyph and reset my bars in order to do this BG, so they're going to go ahead and do it without me" of the experience.

Honestly, before I read these responses I hadn't even given this much thought...I just didn't pvp. Now that I'm reading these responses and seeing that it's basically some arbitrary "feel" bull that nobody except some guy in a cubicle in Irvine cares about (and that doesn't actually exist in the game anyway)...now I'm annoyed by it.

Perfect example, thank you for posting. I mean that sincerely because you show how you approach the game, what you think of the systems, and what you expect of them. Unfortunately/Fortunately we have a lot of different types of people playing the game. Unfortunately for you because we have to keep them in mind and you think they're all idiots (and also it'd probably be super easy to just make a game that appeals to a very small subset of players). Fortunately for us because we have a really awesome game that appeals to a wide variety of players, and they're (hopefully) enjoying that the game holds a lot for them.

You could argue that we're wrong, and y'know, not to be a jerk but we'll just have to thank you for your opinion and continue making the decisions we think are right for the game as a whole.

03/01/2011 4:53 PMPosted by Grigs

@Bashiok: It seems most everyone here wants tri-specs

Since the OP has half as many Dislikes as Likes, I'd have to disagree with that assessment. :)

And no, we're not interested in opening up game design decisions to popularity contests. or creating an expectation that polls influence change. There's already a pretty strong (and false) sense of entitlement placed on 'volume'.

Talking about things with you, reading conversations, and really weighing the entire situation is a far more useful metric.