Regarding Goblin Brainwashing Device

[Jamey]

Hello there!

I'm here to talk about the recent changes to the Goblin Brainwashing Device. I would like to first clarify that the Goblin Brainwashing Device was never meant to allow people saving a specialization with only 1 talent point spent, essentially allowing infinite free talent resets. That being said, our reason to change the behavior of the item isn't simply "bug needs fixing". (We have frontstabbing for a reason)

The main reason is as follows:

While we encourage experimentation of different specs and builds for any class a good portion of players using this "feature" (read bug) were not actually doing any of the sorts. Players would reset their talents mid-raid, sometimes up to 10 times per raid to get specific benefits per fight. This is not something we consider healthy for the game especially if this trickles down to expectations that raiders should always pick the optimal min-max spec.

With the new edit of the item, aforementioned is still possible except it will have a cost bound to it by having to reset your talents. (At the cost of 5 gold per reset max as before)

However, there is nuance to the issue:

We realize that this has hit hybrid classes harder than non-hybrids as they are usually expected to fill different roles with different specs which was not the intention of this change.

Therefore we intend to do a second few edits on the Goblin Brainwashing Device:

• Changes already live:
  • Specs will no longer be reset for characters who are not level 60 and level up. This was never intended and was a bug.
  • The Goblin Brainwashing Device will start with 2 spec slots as before.
  • Two extra spec slots are purchasable. Unlocking the third spec slot will cost 100 Gold. Unlocking the fourth spec slot will cost 200 Gold.
  • Players who were hit by the reset due to the level-up bug will get 2 free talent resets.
  • Players who have purchased the Goblin Brainwashing Device from the in-game shop in the past 6 months can issue a refund for this item by opening a ticket in the next 14 days.

[Fresharugula]

Big +1 for offering a refund opportunity after such a big change to an item many people sent real money on

[Enziszero]

So after some problems, a GM told me to "wait for an announcement".

I waited, and here's the announcement, so I put up a ticket again.

Again, the GM just told me "wait for an announcement", closed my ticket, and is just straight up ignoring me.

The GM is Othram

Seems super rude to ignore, especially in customer service.

[Rowrow213]

Does this mean the last 4 changes will be up next week?

[Jamey]

Does this mean the last 4 changes will be up next week?

Correct.

[Kord24]

Jesus, if that was your reasoning, there are SOOO many better ways to fix it than that. Just put a cooldown timer on using it to an hour. Problem solved. No more min-maxing in raids and you don't stomp on all the people using it casually for fun and to fill needed roles in dungeons and raids. Instead you turned it into a BS cash grab and stomped on all our fun while doing it. Hybrid classes need a minimum of 3-4 specs (heal, tank, dps/solo/grinding, etc). You just forced them to pay extra for something they already thought they paid for. Super disappointed in the devs on this. You say you aren't a AAA shop, yet here you go acting like EA...

Seriously, who was being hurt by the way it was? Literally no one. Please consider switching it back to how it was.

[Enziszero]

More discussion with the GM Othram...

He kept ignoring so I setup another ticket. Since I wasted my natural free respec due to setting up this device "incorrectly", it's now 5g, which I don't have, and won't for a long time. I have no idea if these changes will allow me to setup the dual spec that I literally spent real money on.

From the second ticket:

Othram: Greetings! I'm unsure where you would like help on.

Me: I just want to set my dual spec. Based on the announcement, I have no idea if my case will get fixed or not.

Othram: There is nothing I can do for you, please save up your gold in order to set a spec.

I don't know what to do right now. I gave you guys money. I want to set a dual spec. GM's argue or ignore like Othram, or just tell me to "wait". Not sure if I can truly "refund" either. You still have my money b/c there's still the 200 game points on my account.

[Jamey]

More discussion with the GM Othram...

He kept ignoring so I setup another ticket. Since I wasted my natural free respec due to setting up this device "incorrectly", it's now 5g, which I don't have, and won't for a long time. I have no idea if these changes will allow me to setup the dual spec that I literally spent real money on.

From the second ticket:

Othram: Greetings! I'm unsure where you would like help on.

Me: I just want to set my dual spec. Based on the announcement, I have no idea if my case will get fixed or not.

Othram: There is nothing I can do for you, please save up your gold in order to set a spec.

I don't know what to do right now. I gave you guys money. I want to set a dual spec. GM's argue or ignore like Othram, or just tell me to "wait". Not sure if I can truly "refund" either. You still have my money b/c there's still the 200 game points on my account.

Everything you need to know is described in the main post. Please don't go off-topic. You will get 2 free talent resets if your device reset and you weren't level 60 yet.

[Jstansberry]

Very happy to see a compromise on this change. However, I think I agree with what someone noted above that a cooldown increase would have been preferable if the issue was min-maxing per encounter for raids. Having to pay another 300g because you are a hybrid class is quite painful. There is still the issue of hybrid classes being punished much harder than others with this change.

[Enziszero]

Everything you need to know is described in the main post. Please don't go off-topic. You will get 2 free talent resets if your device reset and you weren't level 60 yet.

A GM previously advised me to refund the device and wait for an announcement. I did his suggestion. I've got 200 points in my account. As such, I don't know if I can repurchase the device, as per his suggestion, and get 2 free talent respects.

Not sure how it's off-topic asking for a yes or no. My ticket should be there for you to read, and I'm assuming you guys save logs of GM conversations with people. I literally can't get a direct yes or no anywhere. Not sure what else you want me to do.

Edit: Are you Othram?

[Norseric]

Could you please add a way to label or name the slots?

[Olivine]

Specs will no longer be reset for characters who are not level 60 and level up. This was never intended and was a bug

If this was unintentional and identified as a bug then why did it take so long to fix? I bought the respec device over 6 months ago where many people at the time, both ingame and in the discord were pointing out the free respec. Just seems strange timing to fix it not even a week after the PvP fresh realm comes out where many people will have bought it intending to use it as such.

Though it is not unusual for seemingly easily fixable bugs to remain unfixed for a long period of time: https://github.com/slowtorta/turtlewow- ... ssues/3051

[Pando]

Great solve! As a healer, I appreciate the ability to have multiple specs and think extending it to more than just take 2 with a trade-off of gold makes perfect sense as you invest in your future specs by no-longer needing to pay the 5gold.

[Kord24]

Very happy to see a compromise on this change. However, I think I agree with what someone noted above that a cooldown increase would have been preferable if the issue was min-maxing per encounter for raids. Having to pay another 300g because you are a hybrid class is quite painful. There is still the issue of hybrid classes being punished much harder than others with this change.

Compromise? If you consider "compromising" making people pay them more money to get something they already paid for to be worse than it used to be compromising...

Don't understand the people defending the dev's cash grab on this one...

[Jc473]

Seriously, who was being hurt by the way it was? Literally no one. Please consider switching it back to how it was.

Read the post again. They literally said the raiding scene becomes less healthy if there is a potential pressure for people to respec for each boss or trash pack. This pressure exists for both minmax guilds and casual ones. Any time a casual guild is struggling with a boss, people will eventually start to think "why don't we respec for this one?". This was exactly the same for world buffs; people will start pressuring others to get them.

Jesus, if that was your reasoning, there are SOOO many better ways to fix it than that. Just put a cooldown timer on using it to an hour. Problem solved.

They probably see the opportunity to introduce a decent gold sink.

Instead you turned it into a BS cash grab and stomped on all our fun while doing it.

You say you aren't a AAA shop, yet here you go acting like EA...

How has it been turned into a BS cash grab? They've just said they will refund anyone who bought it within the last 6 months. Doesn't sound like the actions of a AAA shop to me! For the people who bought it before that, well, they got 1-2 years worth of value from it and will continue to get value (even, if less) from the fixed version. You can't tell me that people who spent real money on the initial iteration wouldn't have gladly spent this money on the fixed one. It's still a fantastic item.....

Hybrid classes need a minimum of 3-4 specs (heal, tank, dps/solo/grinding, etc).

First of all, nobody 'needs' to play like this. Secondly, the people who choose to are either minmaxers or not casual. These people are most likely able to (or willing) to grind the extra gold to buy the 2 additional slots and/or be able to play their 5th/6th/7th spec variations.

[Jc473]

Compromise? If you consider "compromising" making people pay them more money to get something they already paid for to be worse than it used to be compromising...

Because those people have been getting way more value than intended from the broken version for more than 6 months...

[Lexiebean]

Don't understand the people defending the dev's cash grab on this one...

Cash grab? You have to pay gold for the additional slots, not IRL money.......

[Jammyxx]

Paladins are not healthy for the game running around 1 shotting people with Holy Strike, but they still haven't been nerfed. The Divine Shield nerf was a joke

[Jpcaixiao]

cooldown is better way

[Kord24]

Seriously, who was being hurt by the way it was? Literally no one. Please consider switching it back to how it was.

Read the post again. They literally said the raiding scene becomes less healthy if there is a potential pressure for people to respec for each boss or trash pack. This pressure exists for both minmax guilds and casual ones. Any time a casual guild is struggling with a boss, people will eventually start to think "why don't we respec for this one?". This was exactly the same for world buffs; people will start pressuring others to get them.

Hence the 1 hr cooldown suggestion...

Jesus, if that was your reasoning, there are SOOO many better ways to fix it than that. Just put a cooldown timer on using it to an hour. Problem solved.

They probably see the opportunity to introduce a decent gold sink.

So many better ways to do this that don't make the game less fun...

Instead you turned it into a BS cash grab and stomped on all our fun while doing it.

You say you aren't a AAA shop, yet here you go acting like EA...

How has it been turned into a BS cash grab? They've just said they will refund anyone who bought it within the last 6 months. Doesn't sound like the actions of a AAA shop to me! For the people who bought it before that, well, they got 1-2 years worth of value from it and will continue to get value (even, if less) from the fixed version. You can't tell me that people who spent real money on the initial iteration wouldn't have gladly spent this money on the fixed one. It's still a fantastic item.....

Hmm... I did just notice that this was in game money and not donation shop points. I guess I rescind that part of it, but this still heavily punishes hybrid classes and eliminates the explore new specs aspect of it. Still don't understand what was wrong with the way it was. My guild clears AQ40 and all the lower raids without any of the min-maxing. We only respeced for fun things like trying to 2h solo tank Garr or trying to do other stuff we have on farm in different fun ways. Personally I don't really see the problem with letting guilds min-max if they want to, but if that really is a problem, the 1hr cooldown was a much better way to handle it. Free respecs was a breath of fresh air on this server. Everyone I ever talked to thought it was one of the best features of this server and they just took it away.

Hybrid classes need a minimum of 3-4 specs (heal, tank, dps/solo/grinding, etc).

First of all, nobody 'needs' to play like this. Secondly, the people who choose to are either minmaxers or not casual. These people are most likely able to (or willing) to grind the extra gold to buy the 2 additional slots and/or be able to play their 5th/6th/7th spec variations.

Don't understand this one. I'm am no where near a min maxer and would consider myself fairly casual. Free respecs can be used for so much more than min-maxing. It encouraged so many fun things I'd never try on a different server. It was just a fun feature and encouraged trying uncommon specs to see what else worked over cookie cutter builds. On a hybrid class especially it was so much fun. Vanilla should have been like this.

[Kord24]

Paladins are not healthy for the game running around 1 shotting people with Holy Strike, but they still haven't been nerfed. The Divine Shield nerf was a joke

What does this have to do with anything we're talking about here?

[Kord24]

Don't understand the people defending the dev's cash grab on this one...

Cash grab? You have to pay gold for the additional slots, not IRL money.......

Yeah, I mis-read that one. My bad. Thought it was donation shop points

[Eiszahn]

I honestly think this is a terrible change in every way imaginable.
If this is all about raid encounters restrict the reset either via long cd or by having it only "free" pre 60.
All the min-maxers will STILL do the same they did before if required by their guild/raid team.

I for one on my naked challenges change specs (especially when i try new things) a lot and bought the goblin brainwashing device for exactly that reason.

Reconsideration regarding this more than awful change would be appreciated.

[Eiszahn]

Don't understand this one. I'm am no where near a min maxer and would consider myself fairly casual. Free respecs can be used for so much more than min-maxing. It encouraged so many fun things I'd never try on a different server. It was just a fun feature and encouraged trying uncommon specs to see what else worked over cookie cutter builds. On a hybrid class especially it was so much fun. Vanilla should have been like this.

I would love to upvote this honestly but i dont even know if thats a thing here.

[Tlwdssd]

The main reason is as follows:

While we encourage experimentation of different specs and builds for any class a good portion of players using this "feature" (read bug) were not actually doing any of the sorts. Players would reset their talents mid-raid, sometimes up to 10 times per raid to get specific benefits per fight. This is not something we consider healthy for the game especially if this trickles down to expectations that raiders should always pick the optimal min-max spec.

this is players playing how they want...if its unhealthy for the game, why has the server grown as much as it has? I'm sorry and even though I like the changes you made to it here, it still seems like punishing players for wanting to min/max their class. This actually allowed players to use different specs for different fights to try something new and this change makes it so people feel more obligated to stay a certain spec.

[Uatu]

So after some problems, a GM told me to "wait for an announcement".

I waited, and here's the announcement, so I put up a ticket again.

Again, the GM just told me "wait for an announcement", closed my ticket, and is just straight up ignoring me.

The GM is Othram

Seems super rude to ignore, especially in customer service.

He is very bot like

[Uatu]

Suggestion: could it be possible to have an option to rename specs somehow? As a warlock have one called
SM/RUIN ->
DS/RUIN ->
TWINS TANKING ->
FULL DESTRO ->
So it's not spec, safe spec, spec, safe spec. I can't count how many times I've clicked safe spec by accident

[Jpcaixiao]

It was just a fun feature and encouraged trying uncommon specs to see what else worked over cookie cutter builds. On a hybrid class especially it was so much fun. Vanilla should have been like this.

Can’t agree more

[Laeka]

So can you take a look from other side? Did you ever use addon "talantsaver", or how many time it take to make new spec with hands? it about 30-60sec or ever more. Didn't you think it not that what called min-max? But now.... but now you helped those min-maxers to do their min-maxer's gameplay easyer, 300g it nothing for thos players, and 5g for other unstandart spec too. But it have meanance for casual players... And now minmaxers can momentalty jump to 1 of 4 spec without waiting. Those players against who YOU create this change now very glad, what can not be say about other 98% players who just experiment with their casual gameplay... So you make upsad most of your gamers (even those who have 5g for respec. it just some unconfortable to pay for it) and and brought joy to those whom you fought against, good job....

[Kord24]

I honestly think this is a terrible change in every way imaginable.
If this is all about raid encounters restrict the reset either via long cd or by having it only "free" pre 60.
All the min-maxers will STILL do the same they did before if required by their guild/raid team.

I for one on my naked challenges change specs (especially when i try new things) a lot and bought the goblin brainwashing device for exactly that reason.

Reconsideration regarding this more than awful change would be appreciated.

Exactly this. Min-Maxers will just pay the 5g (plus the extra 300g) and keep on doing what they've always been doing. This just punishes the casual players who don't have boatloads of gold but still want to have fun trying new things and playing the game different ways. Hate this decision so much. Yes it's nice that you can save up to 4 builds now. Yes it's better than Vanilla was. Who cares? It's so much worse than it was and no matter if it's 2 or 4 saved specs, it still doesn't keep the best part of how it was. There's no room for experimentation now. It's just 4 cookie cutter builds now instead of 2. Just totally a step in the wrong direction...

[Mackylol]

It was just a fun feature and encouraged trying uncommon specs to see what else worked over cookie cutter builds. On a hybrid class especially it was so much fun. Vanilla should have been like this.

Can’t agree more

100% agree.

But I am guessing that twow's side business needs more customers. The only gold seller that somehow never manages to be silenced.

[Dangboyy]

One would think that the World Buff in raid VS no World buff in raids, would set precedent on how issues that change player behavior in game so drastically, would be communicated in advance and would allow players to vote on such things. The options chosen in previous debates.

Even though it was not meant to work like it did, and it worked like that for very long time. It made players comfortable with it and it was certain know-how. With no communication and straight change it made players feel alienated toward the gms and devs. Took away the feeling of cozyness and overall lowers the trust the players have for the future of realm. Gives u the feeling, just like the blizzard does. "No Fun Allowed vibes".

With discussion before changing things, it allows players to vent out and prevents and feelings of power abuse or being ignored. Of course some people will never be happy.

The current change feels like small band-aid on ship that started leaking water in. Dont feel like we should change something that works, if you are worried about people changing spec every 10 mins, put restricions on how many times in raid instance you can respec, or put cooldown on it. No matter the change people that abuse things will always find a way to abuse. The only way to stop abuse is to make sure it s not time effective for raiders to wait out the cooldown or so. I dont claim to know the right way to go about this. I only wish for discussion before changing things that make me and other players feel frustrated. With not much time to play, worrying about 5g changes to enjoy the game as different spec that dungeon que needs or in pvp, just feels frustrating and silly.

[Neinnlive]

You guys have a hard job... but i appreciate your work.

You have to hit those decisions so this game wont become retail 2.0. I hope you keep strong on this.

[Xudo]

You guys have a hard job... but i appreciate your work.

You have to hit those decisions so this game wont become retail 2.0. I hope you keep strong on this.

Totally agree. It is easy to add things and buff. But it is real pain to nerf something. Even if it necessary.

[Reploidrocsa]

up to 4 specs? Yeah, that's acceptable, i like that