Doubt, they probably planned that value out weeks ago and have already spent too much development time implementing it to change it now. How they settled on that amount is beyond me but hey at least it's not 1 credit...

The devs don't seem to consider that players are skipping mobs because mobs give practically no reward for time invested in clearing them. If players aren't doing bonus missions and are skipping mobs, the solution should be to adjust the reward mechanics rather than just forcing players to grind through it regardless. Also (though this might not be the case) it feels like the devs are blaming us, the players, for using these tacticals in a "negative way" when they were being used for their intended purposes!

Supposedly all content in the game will be clearable at that level and will be fairly trivial using the highest gear rating available to the least favourite/acceptable gear track (solo players) which I think was 326 or so. However, if that's the case why do nightmare players need higher gear scores anyway? Is master mode content balanced around the same level as story mode content? It's just so vague and dumb.

So to get this straight, not only do the affected combat styles lose abilities and utilities, they also lose variety in their tacticals - and receive nothing in return? Also...Fanged God Form? Negative playstyle? It was the ONLY thing making combat and carnage at all viable, and even then they were worse than bother other disciplines in all content. The solution? Rework it....right? Oh nope...it's being removed completely. So remember that Vulkk interview where the dev basically said to trust that the team can balance things? Apparently balance = remove and sweep under the rug. What. Sure, yes, I know that some of these are being baked into the combat styles - but that's happening for all combat styles. Every combat style has ability morphs - it's just now apparently some disciplines will have both ability morphs AND tacticals while the others only have one. Having essentially two tacticals (morph + a new tactical) would likely be op, but it opens room for something new. Tacticals were supposed to be rotation defining things that change the way you play a combat style. They really should have been reworked instead of flat out removing them. Giving players 100 credits in exchange is just another kick in the shins when the devs could have so easily made a token that lets you trade for a different tactical for free. 7.0 - where the amount that has been expanded is less than the amount being removed. There better be some really good plans for the rest of the year or bye bye subscription for another year or so. Practically every single new piece of information about 7.0 brings more and more frustration.

I don't remember exactly what was changed to carnage/combat but I do remember it being more fun to play than on live for me at least (and I wasn't using fanged god form when testing on the PTS cus the devs waited this long to say which tacticals were staying).

Well, idk for certain if they are nightmare players, but that is definitely the target audience for 7.0 so isn't that swell. lol

Honestly if we had ability morphs for all 4 discipline abilities instead of the 2 we get in 7.0, I'd be down for removing tacticals. The only difference between the new ability morphs and tacticals is that tacticals are apparently worth 100 credits...

This!! I've basically got 2 days for 7.0 to prove that player feedback was actually acted upon and then I lose my life to Warhammer 3

I literally asked for this information over 6 months ago on the PTS multiple times and didn't use tacticals when testing for this exact reason.. This invalidates basically any single target testing that AP powertechs and vanguards have done on the PTS and the removal of fanged god form is completely unwarranted considering how much of a joke that spec is (not to mention the over-pruning of marauders and sentinels). I'm fine with the nerf to stealth - but it gives even more reason for trash in flashpoints to provide adequate rewards for time invested in eliminating them. Are we getting any new tacticals as compensation for all of this in 7.0 or are we flat out just losing a tonne of options for utility and rotations??

This is why (studying interaction design and UX etc) I really don't understand how BioWare are going about their design approach. It has elements of different processes such as Genius Design and User Centric Design. However, GD relies on you deeply understanding the wants and needs of your users - which has been very hit and miss. E.g. weapon outfitter has been wanted for years and is finally coming, shared mob tagging, 2 combat styles on one character etc. Meanwhile, most players are losing the ability to mod their gear and weekly missions are resetting every week whether you completed it or not. UCD has appeared to some degree, but the final phase has been mostly ignored - rapid iteration based on user feedback. The team to their credit have focused on the correct problems - too much RNG in gearing, high time to kill in PvP, class imbalance in operations, difficulty balancing - but then seems to only develop a single solution (bearing in mind we've had no access to any other potential solutions that were drafted and scrapped and thus the users, the ones actually playing the game, have no say in what the new systems consist of). I've talked enough about pruning before so I'll use the example of gearing: New gearing system - mostly removes RNG but also removes player choice, is very convoluted and splits the playerbase into separate sections. Players - majoratively negative feedback. Response - A few tweaks to make it slightly less grindy. No changes at all made to the system as a whole. It is still a convoluted mess that gatekeeps all but a tiny percentage of players while requiring a half dozen new currencies. It doesn't matter how much feedback is gathered when there is no design iteration. If the users don't like the solution, changing the colour and a few values here and there doesn't change the fact that there are still several different tiers of gear all requiring different currencies that drop from different content and cap out at different rates with different rarities - and most aren't customisable. Sure it makes it a bit more manageable, but I'd rather a healthy back and forth design process that results in a solution players want to participate in, than a solution that players learn to deal with. This is why I loved "play your way". 6.0 felt like the devs really cared about what each player wanted to do and designed a process that accommodated that and made everyone feel equal. Now in 7.0, the devs are playing favourite to the 1% and saying that you have to play their way to get the best rewards. I understand that the number of devs actively developing the systems is likely very small, but that's even MORE reason for why users need to be able to provide feedback before a single line of code has been written! More effort designing and taking feedback will result in a better final product. There likely is some form of UX team at BioWare otherwise they wouldn't bother with forum managers at all, but I really do think that they are going about it wrong (who knows, maybe they do collect feedback extremely early on from the mysterious and sacred "discord server" I keep hearing about). I did read the Vulkk interview earlier and the whole thing just boils down to - trust us we know what we're doing - which didn't fill me with much hope, but hey maybe they'll think about some of the great questions that were asked (even though some of the questions I actually wanted answers for got completely ignored). I really do hope the extra month or so of development time, feedback evaluation and reflection actually did something and surprises me when I log into 7.0. Fingers crossed at least.

There are a few things to consider. One, what is the current state of balance in 6.0? Two, what did each combat style lose going into 7.0? Three, what did they gain? In 6.0, it's generally accepted that Operatives have the best HoTs and worst burst. Mercs have the highest burst. Sorcs are somewhere in between. For AoE, Operative has the strongest sustain, followed by Merc and then Sorc. Sorc and Merc have better burst AoE. In 7.0, Mercs have to opt into more of their defensives than the other two and have to choose between extra mobility or more powerful defensives. Sorcs have to pick between super bubble and pulling allies. Operatives have to opt into their 2nd mobility tool and lost a tonne of self healing options - but that doesn't matter as much due to their new AoE ability morph. Merc ability morphs are incredibly underwhelming compared to what operatives and sorcerers get imo. Operatives gain an incredibly powerful AoE heal on top of their already super strong sustain - but their burst potential is still more limited than the other two. Because you have to target yourself to generate the AoE heal, it partially makes up for losing self healing options. Mercs have a much more difficult to use AoE morph and their kolto shell buffs are just kind of there (chances to not use up a shell etc). Sorcs can further buff their strong single target sustain or tech fairly heavily into AoE by spreading resurgence and morphing dark infusion to heal two targets. With all that in mind, here's where I think things stand: Operatives are the best AoE healer by far. Your strongest single target heal can be spammed as an AoE as long as you are targeting yourself and standing inside your team. On the other hand, their burst is still low. Mercenaries are still the best burst healers, but don't really gain a lot from the new morphs compared to the other two healers. Their AoE is mostly unchanged due to how hard it is to use the new AoE morph - but it was already fairly decent. Sorcerers are the most versatile as they can now decide whether they want to tech harder into single target healing, solidify themselves as the best dual target healer (dark infusion + roaming mend bouncing between two targets), or push for better AoE heals by spreading resurgence (as a sorc healer main, my main wish for 7.0 was better AoE and we got it). Ultimately I think that most ops teams will start with an operative, especially in higher level content where "everyone is a melee class". Picikng between Merc or Sorc comes down to personal preference. Mercs are easier to play than sorcerers because you still have a tonne of defensives that allow you to mitigate incoming damage without reducing your ops heals. Sorcs have worse burst than mercs, but higher single target sustain potential (mixed HoTs + burst) and are the most versatile with all the new morphs. You can see what your team is bringing and switch your morphs to go more into AoE, single target or dual target sustain. This got kinda long sooo TLDR: Operatives are amazing but lost stealth res and most of their utility based self healing Sorcerers gained more versatility and can tech into any healing style (AoE, single sustain, burst) Mercenaries are still the best burst, but gained the least in 7.0

As long as the mistakes still make them money, they don't really count as mistakes to Bioware/EA so why bother learning!? /sigh

As a first hand example of how ignoring player feedback affects the playerbase, my entire guild quit the game when Galactic Command launched. I took a break for a while and I'm the only one consistently still playing the game at this point. There needs to be much better communication between the players and the developers. It's good that the devs are setting milestones for feature releases (such as the pvp update coming later) because it theoretically means that they can focus on getting one thing right at a time rather than releasing everything at once in an extremely buggy and unfinished state. That being said, there are already major hurdles that the devs seem to be refusing to acknowledge for whatever reason and the gearing and pruning changes still feel unfinished.

Well....maybe? You could already mix and match all the sets on the PTS and couldn't hit accuracy cap with base gear. It's possible that the devs have rebalanced what parts are in each set to allow players to hit the 110% cap but we just won't know til launch. Also don't even get me started on accessories. The devs haven't even addressed the fact that you can't change what stats the legendary implants give you afaik so gearing might end up being even more restrictive. All this for the sake of pleasing the 0.1% nightmare raid players! (Am I salty? Yes.)

Oh don't worry I've been here every time they said they were thinking about it or had weapon outfitter on their list of features to make etc. Guaranteed players are going to be upset because the weapons will be tied to outfits and you won't be able to mix and match the current outfitter and a separate weapon outfitter - at least that's how I am fully expecting it to work. Hijack the current system rather than allow for more customization. Considering I was saying on the forums how the devs didn't have enough time and would likely delay the expansion back in June/July, I am taking everything they say with a big grain of salt and do not expect this expansion to be in a fully functional state for the remainder of the year - at least not in the way that the devs or players intended. It sucks. The initial announcement stream was awesome. Practically everything since has killed my hype. At this point I just want the expansion to come and rip the bandaid off so I can get used to a far far worse gearing system / pruned abilities sooner.

The one saving grace is the fact that weapons are being added to outfitter, so it doesn't matter what weapon you actually have equipped - moddable or not. However, that won't even be available when 7.0 goes live...

I've been playing on the 7.0 PTS since it first came up. The issues that players are complaining about now have been there since the start. In fact, they've gotten WORSE over time. The update about gearing feedback scratched the tip of the iceberg but completely left out the fundamental issues that people are rightly annoyed/concerned/frustrated about. The build also isn't 7 weeks old because the devs don't do any work over the holiday break. I fully expect to barely notice a change between what I've been playing on PTS and what goes live. It's half baked and will be for the next year while the devs figure things out.

Will have to see exactly how the values turn out when it goes live. I find it weird that the devs wanted to cut down on time to kill by pruning dcds, but then massively inflated health pools again.

Glad that some changes have been made to the gearing grind, but there's still a long way to go. Also, considering how this whole expansion was supposed to reduce if not remove RNG from gearing, I sure did see a LOT of "random" gear being granted as a solution to solo players and alt characters not getting enough gear... It's great being able to use different parts from different "gear sets" to adjust stats, but last I checked you cannot reach 110% accuracy with the base gear due to the way tertiary stats were calculated, so if that doesn't change...just admit that it was a half baked idea and reintroduce mods. While I understand the intention, there is absolutely no point in making a set of recommended gear for players, if those same players need to go outside the "recommended" sets to get the stat distributions that they actually need. Maybe it's time to remove gear entirely and let players put points into stats instead to get exactly what they need...perhaps that's the plan for 8.0 already hmm.

This is the first level increase where I feel like we should have instead lost levels instead of gained them. It feels absolutely awful levelling up on the PTS because so many levels are bare now that a smaller number of abilities and passives are being stretched over a larger number of levels. The devs have said they are pruning abilities so they can balance things better and reset the baseline, but it's half baked and will likely remain in the state it was in pre-holiday break tbh. I expect to see the results of pruning and gear changes etc in a year or two's time - unless the devs do their usual "no wait, time to roll the dice and pick another gear/level system again". At least by that time we might see a new combat style or two since the devs are open to that!

This would be a nice quality of life change. A potential option is instead of the completely and utterly pointless "damage" "support" "survivability" numbers or whatever they are on the character sheet, the class buffs could be displayed there (though I'd prefer to just have the normal stats we have on live easily available). Another option is putting them into the legacy window as a "legacy buffs" thing or the general abilities tab as permanent passives.

Boosting to 80 does completely and utterly defeat the purpose of testing the levelling experience. Player - "Oh yeah levelling was soooo easy cus I just played through the whole story starting at level 80." Devs - "Ok great we got literally no feedback at all! Here have a reward!" It's ridiculous but it's not as if the earlier PTS stages were clear about what to test anyway.

Is the enrage ability still on the PTS though? Last I checked during the most recent phase that wasn't a thing anymore. That or it's just really really buggy and is failing to proc for me... I really didn't like the Rage specific enrage ability so if it is gone I'm glad they removed it - but now it's just normal enrage and they don't get a discipline specific effect beyond generating some extra rage. If the devs wanted to go further into having rage as the burst spec there are plenty of things that could be done to make it interesting without consuming 12/12 rage and nuking your entire rotation.

This. I love Rage but it is just a flat out worse version of Fury. I prefer playing Rage as the rotation is much easier to setup (don't have to rely on building extra resource pre-fight), but Fury just does more and does it better. Rage even uses the Fury tacticals because they are better.

This would be a pretty nice quality of life change. Vengeance already have an equivalent for hew that makes it free and that lasts for much longer. Rage still feels like the underdog out of the two specs on the PTS and lacks some of the extra utility that vengeance grants (CC immunity during leap, bonus damage reduction at all times etc), so hopefully it gets a bit of a boost.