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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsWhat about respec costs?
by Elizabeth Harper 
Aug 16th 2007 at 6:24PM
I've heard a lot of arguments in favor of making it easier to respec your character. After all, a particular talent build may let you get into raids but not solo effectively -- and that's never fun. Or perhaps it lets you grind effectively but gives you no viability in your favorite PvP battleground. The ability to respec lets you switch from one speciality to another and allows you to do many things viably -- but at an increasing cost of gold each time you do so. Currently, the cost for a respec maxxes out at 50 gold, which seems like a high enough amount that it's not a completely trivial choice. However, on the forums, poster Murlourin suggests respecs need to more expensive and difficult to obtain. The argument? With the daily quests available in Outland, the gold to respec every day can be easily obtained, making talent differences essentially meaningless, since an interested player can flip back and forth quickly. And while Blizzard has said that they want careful thought to be put into your talent selections, currently they're telling us that they believe respec costs are still fine. Well, here's the chance to voice your opinion -- is gold so easily obtained in Outland that the respec cost has become meaningless? And if so, is that a bad thing for the game as a whole, or does it just allow hybrid classes more versatility?Filed under: Analysis / Opinion
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Hidden_Agenda Aug 17th 2007 10:08AM
The only change I would like to see is for talents to not be locked in after repeccing until you close the window and you are prompted to confirm you want the changes to be made. Would make the occasional miss-click not so horrifying. Would also allow for looking through your various options without having to pop open a web browser to find a talent calculator.
ben1778 Aug 17th 2007 10:08AM
To help out the lower level people trying out different specs, why not scale the respec cost with the player's level? They scale the cost of the spells and abilities when you are training, so why not the respec costs?
I'd like to see a 100g cap on respecs at lvl 70, but your respec cost should drop 25% for each month you don't respec. That way you can experiment with specs at any level without having too much of a cost, but at the same time discourage the people who flip specs constantly.
Aladek Aug 17th 2007 10:32AM
just give me 150 talent points... no not everyone, just me
Xarom Aug 17th 2007 10:55AM
I'm so happy that I rolled a warlock first and have only done a couple respecs to tweak my build since I started playing. I make all my coin on my warlock.
However, 50g is too high, especially for those very players that we all rely on the most, pure healers and pure tanks. If healer or tank is their main they bear the costs of changing back and forth which further puts a strain on their time to level another dps character by having to farm gold through respeccing.
For low level spec testing just copy to the ptr and respec over and over since it won't affect your live respec costs. Ask for some gold on the ptr if you have to (when there aren't rich premades).
There really needs to be an additional spec/trained abilities spec slot that is changeable at an NPC, like others mentioned something like a stable master. Having to visit that NPC would prohibit arena abuse. Perhaps doing a longish quest around level 40 would be good or maybe make them purchaseable for a decent amount like 300g-1kg for the first slot then more for the second slot.
Larinda Aug 17th 2007 11:25AM
I think blizzard just uses respec costs as another way of removing gold from the game (in other words, it's an economic adjustments, not a game play requirement).
Without some mechanism to remove gold from the game the economy would become far too inflationary.
Since people like to respec, making them pay for it is an excellent economic control (making it, along with repair and reagent costs a form of in-game taxation on the user base).
That being said, like all taxation systems, it imposes a burden on an un-intended population segment, in this case the tank/healer and dps/healing hybrid classes who must (over)specialize to adequately perform raiding tasks.
Taxing someone for an optional (read, luxury) item is a very popular taxation system. Taxing someone for something they need (the spec to farm the money to pay the tax) is not popular.
The root problem is still over-specialization in the talent trees, making some classes (prot warriors and holy priests) unable to effectively pay their taxes.
Velline Aug 17th 2007 11:28AM
many people commenting seem to be missing the point that some are trying to convey with respec costs. The majority who are complaining, imo, who have trouble are not the people tweaking their specs for optimization of their playing style. They are the people who enjoy pvping as well as raiding. And many of the ideas proposed would not help them at all. The current respecc situation may have worked pre-BC; but as already stated, with the introduction of arenas it makes it impossible for this to be a good idea any longer.
I personally am a holy priest, but I would like to be viable in arenas as well. But, even to heal in an arena well enough I would have to respec, because a healing raiding build is much much different than a healing pvp build. The same goes for holy paladins, yes holy paladins are viable in both raiding and arenas but they are very different specs in actuality. Also as a holy priest I can not grind for this gold at all, it takes hours for me to do anything as my smite crits for about 900 on many mobs :P. So, upon raiding my repair bills are around 25g when I'm completely broken (and some nights i have repair more than once, such as learning a new boss or trying to down a boss for the first time) add that on to the many mana pots I need, as well as elixirs that wear off every time you die; plus candles for buffing (since I'm our only priest with spirit thats a lot) that's a lot of gold. As well as the fact that my guild raids 4 nights a week for 4 hours each night. I would like to spend the remainder of free time between work and school to be able to pvp or something enjoyable not spend an hour or more grinding motes or doing dailies which are hellish as a holy priest.
Muse Aug 17th 2007 11:41AM
In early wow, there was no cap on the fees for respecs, and no gradual reduction of fees if you didn't frequently use the respec ability. The price used to constantly increase to "x" (I'm guessing, 'however high people could get the fees to before the change was implemented'), with absolutely no chance to let your character sit at that spec for a while and let the price drop.
So, hearing people say that 50g is too much to respec... I guess I've always thought a 50g cap with a gradual reduction of fees from lack of use was a great deal. I have a 70 shadow priest, and as a few other people have mentioned, I just play her as that spec in any situation. You adapt without having to totally revamp your talents -- maybe just switch to healing gear or find groups in which a shadow priest would be wanted.
Maybe I've just played too long to see a reduction of costs as a necessary change. It'd be fun to be able to swtich back and forth, but I guess it's just not what Blizzard is going for with their talent tree concept. /shrug. Two cents.
Chris Aug 17th 2007 3:29PM
One of the neatest things about Asheron's Call 2 was that you could change your build at any time, without any negative consequences. It is a shame that the idea of a respecc costing money is so ingrained in WoW players. It would, in my opinion, increase the playability of the game to allow respeccs to occur at the whim of the paying customer - yes, I said it.
That said, I don't disagree with ideas presented here about having 'slots' available with different builds in them that you could choose from.
zoddie Aug 17th 2007 6:05PM
Would be cool to take my arms/fury warrior and have a Spec Slot to change to full Prot for tanking instances, then when im done back to my pve/pvp spec....wow that would be so efficient its madness that it doesnt exist.
of course they could make that expensive to obtain, like 1,000 gold and a quest, which allows you to have 2 specs you can switch to on a dime real time.
but who knoes.
bbos0220 Aug 17th 2007 7:00PM
I see no problem with allowing for multiple talent specs based on PVE or PVP, while retaining the existing respec costs for each type of spec.
If they incorporated the ability to have one spec for each, then you would normally have a PVE spec, and the PVP spec loads once you enter a BG or Arena match.
This would mean PVE and PVP viability to be relatively locked in, and still allow players the flexibility in end game pursuits.
Birthmark Aug 18th 2007 5:14AM
My favorite idea came from #49. Some expensive quest to unlock unlimited respecs. It would actually save me money in the long run. Hell, a guild could even come togethr to give its healers and warriors the gold to complete this quest. Ofcourse free respecs would be better but that's a comprimise I'm willing to swallow.
Matt Aug 21st 2007 2:37PM
I stopped playing WoW (but not because of the respec costs lol), but I am thinking to start again, and was just stumbling over this website and thought I toss my 2 cents in.
Thank god, respec costs are capped by 50, but in my opionion respecs or even the desire to raise respec costs are putting the occasional gamer in disadvantage. Yea, I know, the occasional player will ever be in disadvantage in WoW, but still. For the uber-pro gamer (and/or the 24/7-no-life player), those 50 gold coins are nothing, but for a casual player those might be a big investment.
I'd like to see a solution like this.
spec your character and have it saved by some NPC for a one-time high prize. In the future you can go to that NPC and restore your old specs you created and saved (and paid for).
With that solution you cannot flyswap specs in BG oder Arena, but have to go see that NPC whenever you want to change your talents. Now you can always freely change your previously saved spec there for whatever occasion for free.
If you have a rogue for example, you might have a assasination/subtlety build for PvP, but you might still have some variation (i.e. having more than one ass/sub build), and having more than one ass/combat build (one with a few more points spend in combat, and vice versa) for PvE.
Save them for a one time high prize and feel free to swap specs at some talent-npc in every major city.
Star Sep 2nd 2007 6:44PM
Ahhh yes...
A monthly respec cap + lowered respec cost that would be more effective than just increasing the cost to respec.
Or possibly the cap for respecing, matches your level. So at level 70 the cap would be 70G to respec, that would be fair to lower levels that want to respec. Of course you start out at 1G, then 2, then 5G, ETC......
@5 that would be far to nice lol, I couldn't expect bliz to make that happen. Although, people actually have 2 mages or 2 warriors just to keep them spec'd differently, this would be the "fix" for that. I've often thought about spinning another priest one holy and one shadow...
BeylinOfCenarius Sep 5th 2007 3:40PM
It's so tiresome how the automatically presumed perspective on everything is from the player who has near unlimited time to play. To keep everything in balance with my life I can only realistically play 2 or 3 nights a week. I enjoy both arena/BG and PvE group play immensely and would ideally play a bit of each within any given week... PvP midweek and dungeon/raid on the weekends. To do this means respecing to max 50G and staying there perpetually. I basically have a single primary view of my character (which seems to be what Blizzard wants to encourage with their respec deterrent mechanism). Unfortunatly this is just plainly not viable with the incredibly competitive arena environment which is a complete min/maxers venue. Hell it's hard enough EVEN WITH an optimal spec.
I have yet to hear Blizzard say that PvP and PvE are meant to be utterly mutually exclusive so why must this penalty apply to that aspect of the game? Each of these modes of play inherently have their own maintenance costs (moreso the PvE though) not to mention all the other things the game is constantly compelling us to do remain relevant. So instead of being able to do what I want to and have fun (which I've already paid Blizzard for), I'm being forced into boring repetative game play to further "earn" the right. Oh, and don't forget that 50G isn't just 50G. The 2 specs I swap between have me repurchasing 2 or 3 talent only specs at every Rank. 50G is more like 80-100.
Money grind should be there for people who can't raid/group and want to gradually gear up by buying purples on the AH or earning their mounts etc... not punishing casual players for being casual and trying to have variety in their play. I mean wasn't PvP included for that exact reason!?!? NO, Blizzard has just become just as gear and reward obsessed as the lifers who pour every spare hour of their lives into the game, and don't even know what fun is anymore. This respec cost is just another brick in the wall that keeps casual players from being able to enjoy the game and from keeping their characters at all relevant. The game doesn't just reward those who imbalance their lives by playing too much, it actually punishes those who don't.
Drop the respec costs or change our specs. The first would be a million times simpler. The 2 swappable specs idea would work just fine for me also. Better yet, go a step further and focus more on fun game play and lateral experience rather than obsessive linear progression and mind numbing grind. This game keeps trying to become a job and I'm itching to quit.
BeylinOfCenarius Sep 5th 2007 3:41PM
to Birthmark (#21)
AMEN!!!