Regarding Goblin Brainwashing Device

[Dasitmane]

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.

This really feels like a "you think you do but you don't" moment from them.

[Slen23]

Edit* I just confirmed it is fixed, my old talents are back! Thank you, this is all I wanted.


am with this guy, he asked you a question. Are we actually getting refunded to hard cash? I don't want points or to play on your server any longer. This ridiculous patch is what should be documented as ruining your pvp server release. You can't stop my progress a week into a fresh server launch by completely deleting my paid for secondary talents then have your GMs tell everyone they are not going to at a minimum reset their talents RIGHT NOW for free. I rolled a crappy holy priest only due to the option I had to talent switch, and you took it away then beat ME down for it after. I am lierally stuck in limbo until you give me talent resets and my goal of staying ahead of the lvl curve has been stripped. I left Blizzard due to bad customer service, but so far yours is far worse.

RESET POINTS NOW not next week wuth even another sorry gift for next week as well.

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.

[Blackduck]

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.

Agreed. There's hardcore raiders with 99999999 gold in the bank that don't care about spending 50g on respecs every raid so if you wanted to discourage that behavior adding a cd to the device would have been a good idea. This is about getting players to spend more gold.

[Foobs]

I appreciate the change. Thank you. It's a very compromise.

[Helppu]

4 specs is extremely generous, and even for hybrid classes it's pretty much 1 spec more than they really need. And if for some reason you need to change one of them, it's only 5g.
No one, and I literally mean no one needs that amount of flexibility that the device once had. If someone is requiring you to change specs 10 times a raid, it's really a time to look for a new guild, or if you are the one requiring others to change specs 10 times a raid, you should consider leading the raid or class better, since no encounter in WoW required a single spec change mid-raid in order to succeed.
Turtle wow is the best thing that has happened to the vanilla wow community, yet you keep looking at this gift horses mouth to look for anything that might displease you.
To lash out to the devs for fixing a bug and blaming them for "No fun allowed" is beyond ridicilous, everyone who owned the device knew that the 1 talent point abuse was not how it was intended to work.
If you still feel angry, maybe try outside air for a change, maybe call your relatives or friends, perhaps try a different hobby, since it's quite clear that you have been playing this free game for way too long.

[Thol]

Trolling a bit but that's how we got current retail WoW, always chasing more convenience. WotLK only added dual specs and now we have 4. We're on the path that already led to current retail, history is repeating itself.

[Elesion]

I'm torn. I do think the proposed changes take off the edge and make the device workable in a lot more situations than with only 2 slots.

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.

I do have to agree with others that limiting the device to 2 slots with no unspent points does a poor job of achieving the stated goal. Hardcore min-max raiders will blow a lot more on consumables than on respec costs at 5g and as such will likely continue to do it. So the "unhealthy" element remains, all the change does is inconvenience more casual or poorer players.

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. [...]

• Two extra spec slots are purchasable. Unlocking the third spec slot will cost 100 Gold. Unlocking the fourth spec slot will cost 200 Gold.

This in particular makes the whole thing somewhat iffy. "Our intention was not to hit hybrids harder than other classes, so our new fix is to hit hybrids harder!" If you recognize that some classes need additional slots more than others - why make them paid? It just means some classes are pushed into paying for the slots a lot more than others. It's still a kind of hybrid tax, now it's just a one-time cost instead of a repeating thing. Don't get me wrong, this is a good step in the right direction and a vast improvement to the current situation with only 2 slots. But as a hybrid player I'm having a hard time feeling very thankful for the privilege of having to pay more to get back the ability of using all the specs my class offers.

[Jc473]

Trolling a bit but that's how we got current retail WoW, always chasing more convenience. WotLK only added dual specs and now we have 4. We're on the path that already led to current retail, history is repeating itself.

Well, we're actually moving the other way; infinite respecs ----> quad spec. As I've mentioned repeatedly, this is still very convenient especially when respec costs are capped at 5g. I guess people are just going to have to acclimatise to this new 'power level' instead.

I do feel sorry though for the genuine casual players who like to experiment with builds in a non minmax way. I guess that's just the collateral damage when preserving the idea of players having to make tough and meaningful choices in a RPG.

[Greese]

I think this is an acceptable compromise. Additional slots should satisfy the needs of the silent majority. The vocal minority that actually spend a lot of time theory crafting different specs will have to farm a little extra gold if they want to constantly try completely different specs.

It discourages ultra min-max in the raiding scene. A longer CD punishes everyone.

It doubles as a raw gold sink to help keep inflation down (the longer a realm is active the more inflation creeps up, removing gold from the economy helps keep things stable).

Yes, the "bug" existed for a long time, but it probably took a long time of observation to determine if it was causing damage to the long term health of the game.

Side note. If you DONATED to Turtle to get points then in my opinion that money is gone. You didn't buy anything. They are offering to refund points, which is more than generous in my opinion.

[Anadrol]

So I spent 350g on an item that offered me certain characteristics, now those characteristics are no longer there, you give me the option of spending more gold (300g in total) for something not so good but viable.

Don't you change the initial price of 350g?

That means you give me a more expensive product (650g en total) but with less utility than the previous one, great.

[Jc473]

So I spent 350g on an item that offered me certain characteristics, now those characteristics are no longer there, you give me the option of spending more gold (300g in total) for something not so good but viable.

Don't you change the initial price of 350g?

That means you give me a more expensive product (650g en total) but with less utility than the previous one, great.

I think players just need to accept that the previous iteration should never have existed and those who got to experience it for a long time were lucky.

The baseline is Vanilla. TWoW have added 5g capped respec costs and quad spec for 650g. This isn't 'viable', this is extremely convenient!

[Bimjeam]

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.

• Changes to go live on next maintenance server update:
  • 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.

What if you already paid for the respects and have specs that you’ll use to 60 now? Do the free respecs stay there until they’re used or do they go away after a X amount of time?

[Nerfedwar]

Thumbs up to the Devs, good compromise.

[Krotux]

People are such babies honestly. 4 is already too many but better than infinite respeccing I guess

[Ortogs]

Good decision even if I think 4 specs is too generous! Lol

[Enhox]

JJust put a cooldown timer on using it to an hour. Problem solved.

proposed fix is overly complicated. Go simple.

[Weiro7]

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.

Be it experimenting or having the ability to switch between roles to fill a dungeon spot (both healthy things), paying a sizeable fee for it feels quite punishing, namely during leveling. New players that don't know which talents to initially pick and later learn they picked wrong also feel frustrated because they're already unable to buy all spells - just a bad gold sink design.
-> The idea of free respec during leveling makes a lot of sense to me. It really should be a thing on Turtle, since casual+fun server is what you're aiming for.

About the argument of "good portion of the players are abusers that force everybody else to do it"..
1. People in "tryhard raids" are usually tryhards themselves and want to use their best spec as topping meters is their way of having fun (dps). Or they just want to make the raid progress with least issues (tanks). This is just forcing both the "healthy" and "unhealthy" players to spend extra hours grinding gold, leading into faster burn-out.
2. You can find a different raid group to join, there are even chill Naxx pugs now, if you're looking for "casual".
3. On a tryhard scale from |Fast mount in PvP --- Potions --- World Buffs| free convenient respec is between the first two imo. You buy it once for a decent amount of gold and spend little time setting it up before some boss fights. And we've got even more potions to grind for with 1.17.

If anything, this bug-turned-feature should get more developed. Aside from free respec and 2 savable trees at lvl 1-59: Just add your option - to buy more slots - so that people don't have to click 50x to make a slight adjustment but can for example save 3 full builds (PvE, PvP, that one raid boss,..) 5/5/11, 0/1/0 and build from there..

Free respec was a beloved QoL feature of the server no matter the level/content and people wanted it even thought it was gated by 350g/20€, so it should stay.

[Sayg1234]

This is so infuriating. Can I have my $USD back?

[Chinsack]

The way that I was reading this is that its not even going to be free to swap back and forth between two fully fleshed out specs? or if you swap into a spec with 1 point, it will trigger the cost?

[Ryo3000]

4 specs? That's pretty damn good

I don't get the people complaining about how it's hurting the casual player base that was trying out different specs and

Guys... How many specs do yall need to try things out? Like damn

How often are yall switching specs that having 4 slots isn't enough?

[Gantulga]

Hello there!

People suggested making the respecs free at the trainer NPCs while keeping the 5g cost at the device. This would effectively accomplish what you mentioned while allowing the rest of the players do planned, free resets in cities.

[Borefficz]

4 spec slots is a good change.

[Elesion]

The way that I was reading this is that its not even going to be free to swap back and forth between two fully fleshed out specs? or if you swap into a spec with 1 point, it will trigger the cost?

The change is simply that all saved specs cannot have unspent talent points. Switching between them is still free. And resetting your talents is also still possible, but costs 5g (1g first time) as it always has.
The cost comes into play in two ways: People who had incomplete specs saved needed to set up full specs so they had to spend gold to reset their talents. And as a bug people who would level up would get their specs deleted (since their +1 talent point meant they were incomplete) so they had to spend gold too to get them back and saved again (for which they will get free resets as compensation apparently).

Guys... How many specs do yall need to try things out? Like damn

How often are yall switching specs that having 4 slots isn't enough?

I'm not disagreeing that 4 slots is decent and with a little getting used-to probably fine 98% of the time. But it's not outlandish to use more than 4 either. It really depends on how active you are and what you want to do. I count 9 different legit druid specs that each have their place and their use (moonkin, feral tank, feral solo farm, feral raid dps, moonglow heal, tree heal, balance pvp, tanky healer pvp, true hybrid pvp). There are minor variants and nobody will use all 9, but 5 can easily come into play even if you ignore certain aspects (like balance spell dps) entirely. I might want to tank, to solo farm, to heal and then I already have to decide for PvP whether I want to save an AV spec (tanky healer) or a BR spec (true hybrid). I will admit that with 4 slots you can cover most situations, but definitely not all.

[Whalemilk]

I can’t believe people are upset about this. Clearly a bug and not intended.

[Queenoona]

Thanks for the information, I think opening it up to allowing additional specs via added cost is a reasonable compromise and will help with the desire to add in more gold sinks. They're not required but many players will want this feature.
Hopefully going forward we can see this kind of communication come out prior to or alongside the changes to provide a place where feedback can be consolidated and players can understand the reasoning for such big changes/fixes.

Thanks turtle team! Looking forward to the Alt Tier gear and Upper Kara.

[Quidoba]

The main reason is as follows:

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.

@Jamey. Come on man! Don't you see the logical mistake you are making here.

Based on your explanation, you seem to be implying that forced min-maxing during raids is not "healthy" for "the game" (i assume you mean players and community). The implication is that a more casual approach to raiding that doesn't require such min-maxing is preferable.

But, by adding a gold cost to the min-max behavior you have identified, you are actually making the situation LESS "healthy" by your own implied preference for casual playstyle. You have just added a time-sync(ie gold) barrier to accessing this behavior, but not actually prevented it.

Put your money where your mouth is. If you actually think the current situation is as bad as you say, and you think it is important enough to address, then add a 30 minute cooldown on any respec using the device. If you can't follow through with that, then just admit you were wrong, and revert the change all together. Or better yet, give us all some more convenience and just remove the 5g respec cost for any spec reset once you've bought the brainwashing device and move on.

Why on earth are you guys spending so much time on drumming up these stupid contentious situations, and not more time working on cool and fun features.

[Phil29]

If the abuse problem mainly comes from raiding, link the brainwashing device with the instance ID to prevent trash raiders from ruining the whole community experience. Allowing people to buy more spec slots seems like a way to encourage that type of behavior.

What about the casual player experience who wants to experiment many specs without carefully following a guide? The first time I tried the device, I might have used it to respec about 6-8 times without playing, just for the thrill of spending talents point wherever i felt them cool and to try making a build work. I could have use a talent calculator but having the possibility to do it directly in the game with no cost was awesome.

Having a longer cooldown can solve the raiding issue but is again very damaging to classes who can fill different roles. I made a druid on the new pvp server and was looking forward to use the device to fill many roles in pve as either tank or heal or dps. Find a group, pop the device and make a spec that fits the group. There are also pvp considerations to take into account and before going into a bgs, I would have wanted to change pve points into the pvp spec i wanted to play that time. Both a long cooldown and a gold sink makes playing druid paladin, shaman and maybe even warriors very annoying in that regard. You're both removing the possibility for experimenting and the versatility of these classes.

In my opinion, the device was a great addition into the game and the free respecs/talent switch added a lot of value to the gameplay of many classes. I am very saddened to hear about this change and although I totally understand that something needs to be done about to abuse in the raiding environment, this new approach just don't seems to be the way to solve this issue.

I don't have a solution that would help much but I just wanted to share my perspective. Thank you team for the love you put into this game and I look forward to see how this will be dealt with. Cheers!

[Bloodphobos]

Bad change, and especially terrible implementation, which destroys the spirit of vanilla Plus where you get new talents/items and enjoy the constant search for new build variations.

You claim it's about preventing min-maxers, but they will still have the opportunity to have 4 builds and will continue to min-max, only now for 5G, so the true reasons are not about fighting min-maxing but an attempt to dig into the raiders' golden pockets. If it were a genuine desire to combat min-maxers, you should have added a cooldown period for changing talents/items.
I kindly ask you to revise final solution and as "a mediocre solution for everyone": make free respec/reset talents each 4-8h and make 5g for respec/reset talents if it's already on CD

And what if this device was purchased 6 months and 1 day ago? Why can't people like them refund their points, as they paid real money for what has now lost its original meaning and, as a result, its value. This doesn't seem fair to people who bought this device over 6 months ago.

[Quidoba]

Before we go making such major decisions based on hypotheticals, I think we should at very least first establish that there exists, or ever has existed, a single guild on TWOW that actually forces mid-raid respecs that constitute a marginal min-max decision.

I'm not talking about role swaps (DPS -> healer, dps -> tank) which are totally covered by 2 to 4 saveds specs. I'm strictly talking about a culture of enforced min-maxing. Are we just making this up?

I've never hear of this. I'm not aware of any speed-running guilds trying to get world firsts, etc.
TWOW seems like a fairly casual server. Can any guild masters corroborate this serious problem as presented by Jamey? Do you have edicts from on-high dictating players move a couple talent points around before each pull? Do you analyze dps logs so intently that players feel peer pressured to do this?

Or are players just doing what they want to do, and having fun?

[Jc473]

You claim it's about preventing min-maxers, but they will still have the opportunity to have 4 builds and will continue to min-max, only now for 5G, so the true reasons are not about fighting min-maxing but an attempt to dig into the raiders' golden pockets. If it were a genuine desire to combat min-maxers, you should have added a cooldown period for changing talents/items.

The point of the change is to deter raiders from respeccing a ridiculous number of times in a raid. I can assure you, on top of their expensive weekly raiding consumes, they will definitely not want to add the 20-40 extra gold required from recklessly respeccing. Instead, they will just rotate through their four specs, covering different role types (dps/tank/heals), as and when required. If there are guilds who will ask their members to still spend this money respeccing in the raids, they will be the absolute tiniest minority and the pressure to copy these tactics will be nonexistent.

Bad change, and especially terrible implementation, which destroys the spirit of vanilla Plus where you get new talents/items and enjoy the constant search for new build variations.
I kindly ask you to revise final solution and as "a mediocre solution for everyone": make free respec/reset talents each 4-8h and make 5g for respec/reset talents if it's already on CD

Yes, it is a shame that the casual folks wanting to experiment have been caught in the crossfire. It's been mentioned before, but if this current solution is truly unsatisfactory, perhaps respeccing at the trainers should be free. You want to freely experiment with talent builds? Well the 'price' would be to have to travel to the trainer. You want to have the convenience of respeccing out in the wild? Well, for 650g, you can have quad spec but you will be paying if you want to create additional specs on the fly.

And what if this device was purchased 6 months and 1 day ago? Why can't people like them refund their points, as they paid real money for what has now lost its original meaning and, as a result, its value. This doesn't seem fair to people who bought this device over 6 months ago.

Well, the line had to be drawn somewhere and some people were always gonna get the raw end of the deal. However, those people still enjoyed about 6 months (or more) of unintended value from this item. So they should consider themselves lucky, to be honest.

[Pocas]

Hello

If the problem was to change the talents every boss in a raid you could change the CD to an hour or maybe more time.

The device is really good while leveling becuase you can try different talent builds and at low levels 5 gold is too much. Why you just let the charge to respect incremental with your level, what I mean for lv 10-40 50 silver instead of 5G(remember you need to save for your riding skill), 40-60 1 gold each time. When you reach level 60 free respec as reward for reaching max level, 5g afterwards.

With regards to the new slots, they are expensive for fresh 60s, make the third slot free and the forth 200-250g . So hybrid classes can try all their possibilities.

Foe people who bought the device during sale, are you going to refund 200 or 100 credits??? I know you should get what you pay, but you cannot buy anything with that amount now.

Regards

[Imonobor]

THANK YOU!
3th and 4th specs are a godsend for hybrid classes!

[Bloodphobos]

Bad change, and especially terrible implementation, which destroys the spirit of vanilla Plus where you get new talents/items and enjoy the constant search for new build variations.
I kindly ask you to revise final solution and as "a mediocre solution for everyone": make free respec/reset talents each 4-8h and make 5g for respec/reset talents if it's already on CD

Yes, it is a shame that the casual folks wanting to experiment have been caught in the crossfire. It's been mentioned before, but if this current solution is truly unsatisfactory, perhaps respeccing at the trainers should be free. You want to freely experiment with talent builds? Well the 'price' would be to have to travel to the trainer. You want to have the convenience of respeccing out in the wild? Well, for 650g, you can have quad spec but you will be paying if you want to create additional specs on the fly.

Agree, very good solution with free respec at trainers.

[Tylerthetroll]

You saw your population having fun again huh? I don't see any problem mentioned that this change will fix. Its literally impossible to change your spec 10 times in a raid unless your in there for 5 hours? I have raided with over half of the progressed English speaking guilds and have never seen this be abused unless you would call a druid having to respec to HT because there is more than one druid healer in the raid abuse? I think the only people you will be hurting here is the everyday player. This wont stop anyone who knows what there doing from doing anything that there currently doing. Its weird to add a gold sink to an item that was purchased with real currency. I hope you guys rethink this decision and come to a similar train of thought i never post on here to complain about anything but this is a really bad "fix".

[Snnail]

Good move and it means the dev knows what the gamers want.