I play a game called "Action Taimanin", which is a silly little action game where I can play scantily-clad ninja ladies with gigantic hooters. I get a lot of pleasure from their lavish use of jiggle-physics, and I think it's safe to say I'm not the only one. And yet, If I were to claim that by DEFINITION a game must offer scantily-clad ninja ladies with enormous hooters, that would be the height of absurd arrogance. That's not the "definition" of what a game is, that's just what I personally enjoy. Everyone has the right to their own opinion, but not their own facts and "definitions".

I suppose you imagine yourself to be the heart surgeon in this analogy, right? But where do the developers fit in? You know, the actual employees of the "institution" we are discussing, who are officially authorized and empowered by upper management with the delicate "surgical procedure" of updating the game code? Surely they are the doctors in this analogy. And I'm not bitterly complaining they're a bunch of morons, you are. Now there are a million reasons an MMO isn't a hospital, so this isn't a great analogy. But considering that it started as your analogy, there's only so much I can do to repair it's flaws.

Look, if I'm getting heart surgery, I want the surgeon to have "the bare minimum training" to be proficient in his role. That is a context where it's amply justified to have extremely high minimum standards, and not lower them to pander to random, un-invested dilettantes who wouldn't take doing heart surgery seriously enough. But nobody goes to a hospital for FUN, either. Hospitals don't ask random patients what they can do to attract "more casual doctors". Surgeons don't mock people who don't have a doctorate, like the very fact that it's the "minimum" requirement for their job makes those people utterly worthless scum. Well wait, I take that back. Maybe some surgeons do that. But they're jerks. Swtor is a "massively" multiplayer online game. BioWare has a financial incentive to keep it that way. The developers already decided to lower the skill floor to attract more casual players, before I joined this forum to check out how "Combat Styles" was progressing and heard about it. If you had ever asked for my sympathy that the game you've spent time and effort to learn is going to change, maybe I could have shown you some: but it's hard to be sympathetic when you're belittling the difficulty of learning the game, when that is the very same investment you are clearly butt-hurt about being eroded.

What is "the bare minimum"? Who gets to define it? I've completed six of the original class stories, and I'm working on finishing the last two. These are officially considered "achievements" in the game, and it even reminds me of these achievements in my login screen, with glowing gold frames around the class-icons I've completed. I'm too old and cynical to think they're objectively AMAZING achievements, but at least in the game's own opinion, I've done a lot more than "the bare minimum". Or if I tried to explain everything I know about this game to my wife, in order to get her opinion of whether I've done "more than the bare minimum", I'm sure she would very quickly reassure me that it's a LOT more than the minimum of what she ever wanted to hear. Suffice to say, the onlly people ranting and raving with naked contempt about how utterly I've failled to try hard enough are.... well, TRY-HARDS. When reasonable people come into this discussion and gently chide me that "try-hard" is an inflammatory thing to call someone, I almost feel guilty. But then I deal with someone like you, and the feeling evaporates. Now I just want to point you out to those people, and say "this is a try-hard".

Who are you, my boss? If you are offering to PAY me to "apply my brain" to some tedious chore I wouldn't enjoy, quote me some hourly rates and I'll think about it. Otherwise, I really don't care how indignant you are that I'm not doing my HOMEWORK for a game about space wizards with laser swords.

Oh no, you found me out. I actually hate using all this ridiculous hyperbole, but you have to understand that when my bosses at BioWare hired me to post on a forum about this game I've never played for even a second, they absolutely insisted on it. I tried to warn them that this would seem extremely unusual and suspicious, since as we all know most people posting their own genuine opinions on the internet are far too stately and refined to resort to anything as barbarous and uncouth as "hyperbole", but they didn't listen. I probably shouldn't admit all of this to you so openly, but since I'm going to get fired now anyway, why should I try to hide it? The real truth is, EVERYONE on this forum is a paid employee, except you. Even the people who pretend to agree with you here are fully paid imposters, hired exclusively for the purpose of lulling you into a false sense of security. I never really understood WHY BioWare goes through all this elaborate trouble to deceive you, I got stuck in traffic on my first day and showed up late for my orientation seminar, all I know for sure is that the lizard people in charge are VERY concerned with stopping you from grasping the full extent of their insidous plans to... yadda yadda yadda. You know, typical corporate agenda stuff. I honestly kind of dozed through most of it, even after I showed up. I mean, I just WORK for the shadowy lizard people. They didn't pay me enough to CARE!

Speaking of fighting games, I've been thinking about mentioning one I heard of a few years ago called "Dive Kick". It's a fighting game with literally just two buttons... "Dive", and "Kick"... but by all reports it distills the challenge of a more conventional fighting game into just those two buttons. Of course, I don't expect SWTOR to get THAT minimalist. But the bloated lists of overly-specific powers they have definitely need trimming, and while that isn't the can of worms I expected them to open when I first heard about "combat styles" it makes perfect sense in hindsight. if they're going to make ANY changes as massive and fundamental as "combat styles", they might as well make ALL the big changes they expect to last them for the next ten years. No sense in breaking it up into two entirely separate disruptions for people to complain about. I'm sure the devs know that if they **** this up badly enough, they might not be around "for the next ten years". That being said, I play a lot of Star Trek online, an MMO that's slightly older and never as massive as SWTOR, but it's still chugging along eleven years later despite the endless wailings of doom-sayers claiming that it was about to shut down since day one. They complain that every big change will ruin the game, or they complain that the LACK of changes proves that the devs have abandoned the game. It can be exhausting, if you take their warnings TOO seriously. On the other hand, ESO proves that "re-thinking long-standing design choices" (that originally amounted to "let's copy the way WoW does it") also has an UP side. Maybe you can find some people who "miss the original ESO", but you can barely hear them over the clamor of newbies who weren't even around back then.

Being educated is not something I'm trying to "prove", as if brandishing a diploma would somehow buttress my thesis that this game has too many buttons. I assure you, the fact that I actually am very well educated is exactly as genuine as it is irrelevant.

I came to this forum simply to learn about how "combat styles" was shaping up, only to discover it was overwhelmingly dominated by crusty old grognards incredulously demanding concrete proof that anyone who thought this game has too many buttons even EXISTED. So I decided to share my opinion. And mind you, the point I'm here to prove isn't incredibly elaborate: it is merely that I EXIST. So here is my suprised face that now you're trying to bully me into submission. You want me to leave, so that nobody contradicts your preferred narrative that "nobody" has a problem with all the buttons in this game. Nobody who's opinion you deign to listen to, anyway. This may be the last time I bother to respond to your shallow prevarications, but rest assured I'm not leaving, and I kind of enjoy how clearly that annoys you.

It's true that I picked a rather old post to argue with, in order to make a point I already had in mind. I will completely concede you were right about that part. But I didn't pick that old post "at random", I made a very sincere and honest attempt to look for a legitimate example of the exact attitude I was in the mood to argue with: and even looking at your post a second time, I fail to see how I misunderstood it. This is what you said: "The rotation for Fury is 12-13 inputs max. You can buy a mouse with 12 buttons on the side, literally bind your abilities 1-12 and press the buttons in sequential order. I fail to see how that's too difficult for a person who's able bodied and of sound mind." It still seems to me like you actually said exactly what I was in the mood to argue with, especially when I take it "at face value". And if you don't like your words being taken at face value, what other value should I take it for? Is it such a terrible thing, that I took you to mean what you actually said? If you DIDN'T mean to say that learning fury is easy because it can literally be simplified into pressing a sequence of buttons in a pre-determined order, maybe you shouldn't have said it is in almost those exact words. But if you now want to clarify that you actually meant something entirely different, by all means please explain it now. And please bear with my apparently crippling disability, that I only understand what you SAY.

This is not a coherent argument that any part of my opinion is actually WRONG, you merely don't care to listen to it. But I in turn don't care if YOU aren't listening, so why did you bother to write this?

Let's take this claim at face value: the only thing you need to do to play a fury is press 12 buttons, always in exactly the same sequence, over and over. That's it. That's your entire "rotation", and there is no deeper skill to it. And learning the rotation "isn't hard", because it's so predictable. Well, that sounds pretty shallow and boring to me. If there's never any actual variation in what power you activate next, why not just have ONE button you press twelve times? Or maybe you could just press it once, and go get a snack while your character plays out the pre-determined "rotation" without needing any further input from you? Having a class that you can play by just pressing one button would be dumb. I want "less buttons", sure, but I don't want a class that could be collapsed into literally a SINGLE button with no loss of game-play complexity. But now here you are, arguing that all thease buttons "aren't that hard to learn" because the game is actually EXACTLY that dumb and meaningless, just below the surface. I am not implressed by the idea of learning a game where the "challenging" part is navigating a complicated interface, to ultimately accomplish something predictable, trivial, and stupid. That's the exact opposite of what I want. I want a deceptively simple INTERFACE, to a game that has hidden layers of nuance and complexity. it should be "easy to learn, but hard to master", not tedious to learn, and stupid to master.

No, it doesn't. Reducing the ridiculous number of buttons is the main thing I care about, but that does not mean ipso facto it's the only thing the devs are DOING. There are a number of ways the devs could reduce the number of buttons, without significantly reducing the overall utility of the class. Most obviously, they could fold several existing "situatonal" powers into a single new power, that is as good OR BETTER than the sum of it's original parts. But the devs also have an entirely different agenda they're working on at the same time: they want to to "give the player more choices". And here we're talking about character BUILDING choices, rather than "which of these million buttons should I choose between pressing every split second, to avoid getting brutally murdered in PvP by someone who's been playing this game for ten years?" Saber throw is a core skill for the guardian class as we currently know it. As a mark of how utterly basic it is, even *I* regularly use it on my guardian, and would notice if it was suddenly gone. And mind you, the devs won't be eliminating it for ALL guardians, they're "letting you choose it" if you want, but that means you get locked out of two other things. I can't recall what they are, but they are "equally significant" powers, which is entirely the point. That's what makes the choice "meaningful". This is hardly a new design concept. The very fact that you have to choose a class at all is the first and most basic "meaningful choice" in the game, that's been around since day one. But it is entirely predictable that players who are used to having ALL of the core class skills are butt-hurt that the devs will now make them "choose between" them. It's the monkey's paw approach to granting somebody's wish for "more player choices". Not to mention, as much as I want to reduce the number of buttons, even that is getting side-tracked what they actually announced, which is the ability to equip different weapons on all the classes. I hope they haven't forgotten that entirely!

Yeah, the FIRST time I tried out this game was a long time ago, I think maybe it was even back when it was still a subscription-only game, and as you say the progress was slower and harder. This did not inspire me to rise above my slacker attitude and "git gud", it inspired me to lose interest, and find something else to play. And that was back when the "git gud" mentality was unquestioned and inescapable monoculture across the entire MMO industry: Modern casuals have a much wider variety of casual-friendly games vying for their attention, if this game rubs them the wrong way. Much more recently, it occurred to me that my ancient account I hadn't looked at in years might still technically exist, and maybe I could give it a second shot. I was thrilled to discover that not only did the account exist, but it had been accruing a monthly allowance of cartel coins for having a security key the ENTIRE TIME, so I had a lot of fun spending those coins to kit myself out. If the game had not made the improvements they needed to retain me on my second try, I would not be here now answering grognards who ask "how do we know anyone ACTUALLY leaves because there are too many buttons?"

I'm working my way through the original story content on all classes, to unlock Legendary status. That is my goal, and I'm pretty good at achieving it efficiently. I've got orange customizable equipment for every slot account-unlocked in my collection, a well-equipped stronghold with account storage I can warp to right out of character creation, and Shae Vizla as a companion (unitl I ditch her for someone who doesn't constantly yell "clean up this mess!" and "this was too easy!") So please understand, I'm not stupid, or unaware of how I could learn more. I'm just LAZY. When I'm starting each new alt with perfectly customized equipment and a level 20-something companion, I could probably finish the game using just the attack powers I get at level one. it's nice to have a good AOE on top of that, but it's hardly "essential", and learning how to interrupt enemy attacks is even less important. It won't speed up the rate I complete story content nearly as much as space-barring through the more tedious conversations, ignoring side-missions entirely, and keeping up my XP buff. I have a portable skill-training hologram in my collection, and I STILL can't be bothered to check for new skills every level. When I do check, I usually have a dozen waiting for me, because if I haven't said it enough yet there are too many frikkin' powers in this game. I might take a cursory glance at their descriptions, but unless I notice a giant, high-damage AOE attack with no cooldown, why should I get exited? It's just a few more powers, in a game that already gave me too many. Time to tuck them away in a less-used toolbar, and promptly forget about them. I've got conversations to space-bar through, people! I've always had some vague notion that once I've finished ALL the class stories, I might go back actually pick one of the classes to go back and actually learn to play it "properly". Probably sorcerer, because I've already stumbled into being half-competent at it without really trying. But even with Sorcerer, when I take a closer look at ALL the powers I could be using, it just fills me with inertia. Now that the devs are talking about changing everything soon, I'm definitely holding off on studying details of how it currently works.

Another game I play is Elder Scrolls Online, where you have two swappable "power trays" with six powers per tray (five "normal" powers, plus one "ultimate" power.) Thus while you're in combat you only have six power buttons plus a swap key to keep track of, to access twelve slotted powers. I wouldn't wildly overstate how amazing I am at that game, but I didn't struggle to learn what "all the buttons" do. The class I'm closest to being half-decent with in SWTOR is Sith Sorcerer. I used to mostly just spam "force storm" over and over, but then I noticed it procced instant casts of "lightning bolt" and "chain lightning", and I took advantage of it. The list of buttons I found worth pressing expanded, and by now I'm thinking of actual strategies, like: if I've procced an instant lightning bolt, but chain lightning is ready to fire, I'll start the chain lighting first even if it isn't an instant cast, because once chain lightning is on cooldown the instant lightning bolt might refresh it, giving me two chain lightnings for the price of one. I'm sure that's all very basic strategy by tryhard standards, but the point is that I started out by mashing a few buttons, and noticing the synergies when they happen. It's hard for me to notice the synergies that never happen, from buttons I never press because there are just too many of them. That's how I can "learn to play", and still have fun. And if it isn't fun, don't count on me getting deeply invested in "doing it right", because I play games to have FUN.

Hi, I'm technically not a "new" player, but I'm very casual: probably the most casual person posting here. In fact, I dare say anyone more casual than me probably hasn't even bothered to find out this forum exists at all. But I did bother to find this forum, for the singular purpose of complaining this game has TOO MANY BUTTONS. In order to establish my "casual credentials", such as they are: I've completed most of the class stories by mashing a small number of my most obviously effective attack powers over and over, and sometimes MAYBE pressing another button to recover from being stunned, if I can bother to find it. On the rare but annoying occasion that I meet a boss with an insta-kill mechanic, I have to google what obscure power I need to use, probably for the very first time, to interrupt it. Suffice to say, when try-hards rant about how terrible it is that you can complete the class stories "without even learning how to play the game", I assure you, they might as well be talking about me personally. But if you are asking for statistics, here are the last three achievements I earned according to Steam: Completed Chapter 2 as a bounty hunter (4.9% of players have this achievement) Completed the story missions for the bounty hunter on Belsavis (4.7% of players have this achievement) Completed all story missions for the bounty hunter on Voss (4.5% of players have this achievement) I'm probably the laziest, least-skilled, most casual player who has bothered to log into this forum to express my opinion at all, but by the standards of an actually NEW player who decided to try out this game on steam, I'm a *********** elite veteran. A lot of these new players try out the game, and decide not to stay. They generally don't log into these forums to explain why, but I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say their reasons fall into two broad categories: they get bored of the content, or they get annoyed by the gameplay. As a ten year old game, SWTOR has content for miles, not to mention it's pretty much the only game in town if you want to play a Star Wars themed MMO. That leaves the game-play, and that's the part where being a ten year old game ISN'T such a great advantage. As I've said, I've gotten pretty far in this game without "actually learning it", by the standards of try-hards. When I toy with the idea of "actually learning it", I get turned off by the fact that there are just too many buttons to keep track of. It's so completely obvious and self-evident that this is the biggest barrier to entry in the game, when you're looking at it from the perspective of someone who hasn't ALREADY HURDLED IT. I don't think the try-hards actually "doubt" it is a challenge, they just judge anyone who fails to RISE to the challenge. I'm glad to see the Devs have enough sense to realize this "GIT GUD" mentality doesn't create an inviting environment for new players. And the new WALLETS that come with them, not to put too fine a point on it.