Developer Update: Introduction to Disciplines

[Hacar]

Really... You guys are actually going to repeat the same Garbage that World of warcraft came up with, cause they decided to became lazy and cheap by making all characters stupidly simplistic... I tell you what, if you guys make it where all I can do, is choose between the 3 sub class (for example Combat Medic, Gunnery, Combat Specialist.) Then I and most people that share my beliefs of making their characters unique, Will unsubscribe and quit playing all together.

 

Might as well... If you guys are getting to lazy and cheap to work on balancing and expanding talent tree's, or finding out how to further increase customizations for character build... Why should we pay you money and play

Edited October 7, 2014 by Hacar

[Anthyea]

I am a subscriber who has been playing since beta, I really liked the class talent tree. I have had fun experimenting with all of my toons. If this is going to be a dumb down like WOW I am moving on to a new game. So sad

[Janith]

This BLOWS! This is just to kill hybrids and dumb it down for remedial players and 3 year olds

 

Kills hybrids? Sign me up...

[Skywalkke]

Is there New Playable Specie comin?

i pre-order immediately if is.

[Drake_Hound]

More info need to be released but prepare for a backlash.

 

i understand the trouble game developers have with always trying to balance, and there workload and ego has been inflated beyond believes.

But remember why you made the game, it is to feel people appreciating and having fun.

Not making them dumber and less free, you took on the burden to work in a less well paid industry to entertain people.

Even sometimes at your own cost, and sadly it seems people are not appriciating your work as you pour ypur heart and soul into it.

 

But making such a huge change to a game that is nearing 3 year and slowly gaining momentum .

Is a very unwise strategy, especially holding a carrot within reach and then just snap it away at the last moment.

To replace it with a thread/hamster wheel version.

It going to royally make a lot of people unhappy.

 

That I even take so much time to write this, in a logical and sensefull manner.

Says it all, even if emotionally am not even involved with this change. If I don't like the change I simply stop playing.

Now for people who are emotionally involved, especially those people who were noobs and learned this complex system, they are involved, without those backbone who quit, you will have gaping issue in a lot of guilds.

So release more info and think it over before pushing this change onto players.

 

Sadly this is one thing that should have been discussed with players before hand, instead of doing all that hard work.

It isn't optional this time.

[-Damask-]

You better not overlook other essential elements that are long overdue. Like being able to discern my attack icons from those of other same-class payers in a a raid. Nobody, I don't care how good they are, can discern their own corrosive dart when there are 5 others floating around RANDOMLY on the boss's debuff bar! That's such an insane oversight I honestly can't believe that any of you devs actually play the game! How the hell am I supposed to even find my icon when there's 15 other players in the raid and they all have 2 or 3 RANDOM floating icons on the boss?!? How hard would it be to make the player's dubuffs populate the bottom row only??? And then make them populate from right to left based on their order in the abilities page, so each one has its own set spot... I can't imagine that would take more than a few hours to code. But NOOOOOOO you want to sit there and develop hideous cartel gear (that has maybe 1 or 2 decent looking boots in the whole game) and cater to baddies and noobs who have 1 or fewer toons and may or may not subscribe. Screw all the founders, if they are still here after all this fail they must just be too stupid to leave, so why develop for them any more?

 

You need to revamp the epic fail that is the dye system! Once again if you had just copied Guild Wars or Wildstar we would have been fine, but nooooo you had to do your own thing and end up with the absolute worst system in existence anywhere! YOU KNOW MOST ARMOR HAS MORE THAN TWO COLOR REGIONS RIGHT???? My favorite pair of boots in the game is ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS as a cartel item to me because of this stupid white stripe you added right down the front that WONT DYE!

 

Also I hope you stop reusing icons already. FFS some things have the same icon for 3 or 4 different things! Two of the augmentation components have identical icons for gods sake! It literally takes 30 seconds to import into photoshop and change the color. Are you all so lazy you cant do that? Do you think that little of us you cant even give us separate icons for separate items? corrosive slime and oil slick; hydraulic overrides and the def relic proc, both are identical icons and both can and do appear on screen at the same time! This crap has got to stop. And then when you have a place where you SHOULD use the same icons, like pub/imp mirror abilities, you DONT! You make two complete sets to confuse everyone.

 

And you better get rid of that ******** "cant respec while queued for pvp" nonsense! You ruin Rage spec for pvp so I have to go Vengeance, fine, whatever... But I shouldn't have to LEVEL as Vengeance just because i want to queue for pvp while leveling! Total bull****, NO REASON WHATSOEVER a solo player shouldn't be able to change spec before they accept the queue pop! At the very least just copy wildstar and give us dual spec so we can quickly and easily switch back and forth.

 

This better not be your futile attempt to coerce more f2p players to sub. If someone cant handle not having decent abilities at LEVEL 10 then they're not patient enough to play an MMO! Let them play mass effect where they can hack the game with coalesced editor and give themselves infinite ammo and uberdamage. I know in theory this may sound like a good idea, but if history has taught us anything its that you devs always deliver the absolute minimum on your promises and it ends up being a huge disappointment for dedicated and loyal players. Instead of using the PTS for what it should be used for- a way to test whether or not people actually like the changes, its solely a way for hardcore players to play content early, and what bugs they do report are usually not fixed, and what things people tell you they hate are never changed back.

 

And we still don't have any decent legacy droid gear! The only legacy gear in game has terrible stats and it is still bugged and HK has been out for a very long time! But preferred players and noobs who dont have more than one character or cant afford to get HK on their alts dont care about that so why bother to fix it right?

 

Fix the thousands of bugs in game already. Then I may get excited about the next round of bugs, err, expansion.

Edited October 7, 2014 by -Damask-

[Oxidsed]

The overarching issue with talent trees is the illusion of choice: you have to spend 5 points in a given tier to get to the next tier but there are 8 possible places to distribute those points in a given tier, but three of those places (usually a 3 point skill) is either:

 

- not well balanced compared to the rest of the tier (the benefit is not as good as the others)

- situational (read PvP vs PvE, or leveling vs end-game)

- or both of the above

 

So that skill is no longer a legitimate choice. Yes it exists and players can choose it, but no half-intelligent player would.

 

Or on the flip side you have "tree defining" skills; skills/talents that (for all intents and purposes) HAVE to be taken in order for that class/spec to be effective. Why are those skills even a choice? Just give it as a trained ability and be done.

 

Not to mention the occasion when one has to decide between the lesser of two evils/bad choices.

 

Eliminating the former and simply granting the latter, streamlines skill trees. is this "dumbing down" the system? Strictly speaking, yes it is. But it is doing so because the system is overly complex to begin with. Some enjoy that complexity, most don't.

 

Agree.

Tree defining talents should be a given, there is no choice in picking something you have to take. Can you imagine an arsenal merc who "chooses" not to take heat seekers or tracer missile... the spec just wouldn't work, or a healing merc who doesn't take kolto shell or the DOT component on kolto missile. It is not "dumbing down" a game by taking "non-choice" talents and making them given when you select the corresponding spec/discipline. It just makes it easier.

 

The challenge will be to give meaningful choices in the remainder of the discipline selections and utilities to set up specs where there isn't the one only cookie cutter build, but some genuine decisions that affect rotation (say from an ammo/heat/force perspective) or abilities that buff the individual or the group.

 

Looking forward to more details!

Edited October 7, 2014 by Oxidsed

[Oxidsed]

edit - double post Edited October 7, 2014 by Oxidsed

[Drakoswar]

Good riddance!

And as for all you people writing about "unique builds", you do realise that no sane person wants to play with inept dpses? Unless by "unique build" you mean the one you googled out to be a decent hybrid, with parse numbers conveniently put on that guide that you uniquely found in the vastness of interwebz, just like the myriads of other players before you.

 

I can tell from this post you have no clue how to build a mixed build. I have a build for a sorc that out dps's any other sorc that is "pure" if there is such a thing. When you run with people you don't even know and they want to know what you're doing and how you did it you know you have a good build. Its okay I love killing types like you in game so I can hear you cry.

[Karkais]

No. Please no.

 

This is a replacement for the current skill trees. You didn't invest any credits in your skill tree.

 

Actually respecs cost credits.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Karkais

[Arlechino]

I have to say I love this idea, this new change. I'm not usually a big fan of change, but this one offers, beyond everything else truly special about SWTOR - a bit more identity, standing out from the normal talent tree in other mmo's.

So thanks again, Bioware, for making amazing games, including this one

[Karkais]

 

2) this is not a traditional mmo. This game puts extreme emphasis on the rpg aspect of mmorpg.

 

excuse me????

[Revan_Uchiha]

I can tell from this post you have no clue how to build a mixed build. I have a build for a sorc that out dps's any other sorc that is "pure" if there is such a thing. When you run with people you don't even know and they want to know what you're doing and how you did it you know you have a good build. Its okay I love killing types like you in game so I can hear you cry.

 

Same, I feel like my madness hybrid is going to die with this update. I spent WEEKS balancing and re balancing that build, maintaining the High dots and burst dps of madness, and the force (mana) management of lightning, now I'm putting out about 1.2x the damage I see from any other sorc build, and so long as I don't need to heal I NEVER fall under about 78-80% max force, and now this? I was hoping to just get 5 more skill points, maybe an ultimate 5 point skill at the top of the tree that increases with the points but this? nooooooo.

 

on the optimistic side... maybe this new system will be friendlier to hybrids, because those are the most fun. we're always expected to "pick a tree" and it's very simple and linear that way, which is nice.... but some of us prefer to experiment and find ways to exceed and do things differently... if I want to lay down death field on a group, hit them with force storm, then finish them all with an instant chain lightning, or tag them with death field, affliction, and crushing darkness, then chain off force lightning, instant lightning strike, and slap them with another force lightning at 2x speed while my DoTs eat their face, then I should be able to....

 

DON'T STIFLE MY CREATIVITY!

[el-vato]

Can't wait to see in how many ways this will break PvP

 

that would be rather interesting indeed

[xAZUREx]

Will SWTOR get an on site armoury and a discipline builder before release so we can start experimenting and planning out what to use? Also what will happen to crit rate in the level update?

[Karkais]

Now maybe when PvPers whine about balance BW can mess with it without making a class completely worthless in PvE.

 

The change should have no effect on the devs ability to create such a thing. Devs can still screw it up just the same as before. PVP and PVE specs are still not separate. This system might make it less likely that devs overlook something since they have less permutations to look at, but the new system technically has only as good balance as devs are capable of creating in the first place. And they will overlook something, always.

[-Damask-]

He's a noob. That's what they do lol. I have a hybrid build for pvp, it doesn't top any dps charts but its utility is unmatched and I do more for the team than most others. This is nothing more than biofail's attempt to keep people from making up their own specs. If they actually let people test the game out for a decent amount of time before they go live they could avoid these issues, but they don't have the budget for that. They don't have the budget to redo the trees either. Any good ideas they might have will not be fully realized because of their ridiculous manpower shortage. Plain and simple. Sure the level 15 f2p people will love it but I'm guessing a lot of players who have one of every class who play multiple toons and multiple roles in ops will probably hate it. Hell most of these devs only have one or two 55s.

[Karkais]

If we cannot be allowed to choose our own skills anymore, why the F do we even have a leveling experience in the *********** first place??

 

I'm willing to bet real money that many of the people in favor of this change will be severely disappointed in the amount of options available to them once the change hits. I have seen this same kind of thing too many times.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Karkais

[Drakoswar]

Okay, previously you were able to tweak a point here or there. Now, however, you have 3 tiers of utility abilities, 7 abilities in each tier, and you can choose 3 out of 7 from each. Yeah, sure, much less class diversity. What's your problem again?

 

 

Yeah sure, WoW is a completely ruined game atm

 

 

Did you speak to each and every WoW subscriber who left the game? I guess not. How then can you possibly know why did people leave?

 

 

Anyone that defends WoW needs to uninstall SWTOR. WoW was lame from day one. Lets just hope they don't do the same here so we will end up seeing more of your kind.

[Drake_Hound]

If we cannot be allowed to choose our own skills anymore, why the F do we even have a leveling experience in the *********** first place??

 

I'm willing to bet real money that many of the people in favor of this change will be severely disappointed in the amount of options available to them once the change hits. I have seen this same kind of thing too many times.

 

Me too I have seen this so many times, the people vowing for the change are the ones who cry wolf the loudest.

 

Well it is a shame they put so much work into it already, they have no choice but to put it trough.

This was something they really should have asked the community.

Just like internal discussions probaly were heated about the topic.

 

You can't imagine throwing something like this live, with people who gotten bored of WoW system.

to just be confronted with it again, well I won't be suprised if wow is going back to skill tree system.

While swtor got stuck with this failed wow experiment.

[-Damask-]

Yes except the devs do not represent the real players. They don't represent the founders who have at least 8 55s and can play multiple roles and specs well enough to do NiM content. People who actually know what the major flaws in the game are and care about seeing them fixed. The devs represent the CFO and any choices they make are based on that which makes EA the most money the quickest. They would gladly lose 1000 founders to gain 2000 new subs, even if those new subs were gone inside of 6 months. Short term quarterly gains is all they care about. Same reason they released the game way too early and ruined any chance it had to become something great.

[Karkais]

This was something they really should have asked the community.

Just like internal discussions probaly were heated about the topic.

 

You know what? You are absolutely right. They kind of already did "ask the community". Community said: "these hybrid builds are the best. We want them."

 

So INSTEAD of adjusting their design goal according to that and taking that hybrid build as the basis of character development, they are gonna say: "No, sorry, we don't want you to have that, because its not the same build that we want you to have." Thats it. Its not the same build that devs wants us to have so we can't have it.

 

"Instead we are going to give you this new window where new dots will be unlocked on this one convoluted line according to your leveling progress, and you can pick one of these other cool icons on the right side to give you +1% to pyrotechs fire damage or something equally braindead."

 

Did anyone take a look at that pic? It has grand total of two different icons in multiples on the right side. I sure hope its just a mockup and not a prediction of things to come.

[-Damask-]

lol TBF it does say "Art Mockup, Work in Progress" right across the middle

 

But if history has taught us anything, the skills we really want are going to be just one or two points away in the wrong tier and we wont be able to reach it because of some stupid restriction.

 

And where the **** is the free respec button?

Edited October 7, 2014 by -Damask-

[Drakoswar]

No, what is comical is that you've deluded yourself into thinking that your opinion matters any more than his, hers, mine, or theirs.

 

!.) "Hybrid" builds are ineffective and often result in players missing integral parts of a tree because they can't see what's plainly in front of them. This results in endless complaining that spec a is better than spec b and spec c is so weak it should be removed from the game.. so on and so forth.

 

Case in point: Vigilance pre 2.6 had everything it needed to be extraordinary, but players wouldn't spend the points in the tree. No, they'd rather have that extra armor boost or that increased crit chance on Dispatch. By doing that they weakened the overall spec, as the talents they normally skipped are extremely effective.

 

2) This is not a traditional MMO. This game puts extreme emphasis on the RPG aspect of MMORPG. The skill tree setup was always a bad idea for this type of game but you couldn't implement an open talent system in this era of gaming. The new discipline system seems to fall somewhere between the two and it's a fine compromise.

 

3) Again, this is less MMO and more RPG.

 

4) It's actually "seems".

 

Now that you've made yourself look sufficiently ignorant, please take your unwarranted insults elsewhere.

 

Yet I find myself still here having to listen to the ramblings of non-pro. I get paid for my game time and my option is listened to by many game companies and developers included this game as well. So in the end who's will be listen to? Your postings on a useless forum post or mine? I think mine will be when I'm back in the office tomorrow morning. Best of luck to you and your thoughts.

[Drake_Hound]

I am against this change not cause it would affect me, but it would affect people I pvp with or against, it would affect people I play with once a week, those sweet people having fun counts more to me, then developers woes taking the easy way out of things.

 

So if this is such a big improvement why cover up the pyrotech tree example with all generic icons,

Give us the run down how it would be as a example so we as gamers can atleast predict the side effect.

 

Look wow tried this system and failed! Failed bigtime CATA was already disatisfying the customers.

But MOP changes really ended it, even if more people flocked back to MOP then at start of Cata.

The people who went back also left it in a hurry, you do not change CORE mechanics once people got used to it.

Expecting them to just eat it up, especialy not in a 500k sub system. Losing 100k means fallout of lost friends are great. Remember how barren it was during Failstar and ESO periods.

 

Look how full it is during stronghold, now people who leave cause of these changes are the smart ones.

Those people are smart enough to say, why bother when you do not give a drat about my opnion and devotion.

Even casual wants something they can learn or feel they have mastered. Became beter in over time.

Not just some system that puts everybody at equal footing. And no real choices.

You know since the nerfing of my powertech hybrid, which was more a pve dps spec anyway.

My dps is roughly the same in full pyro (cause of the buffs to pyro) but I get bored .

Playstyle or fun is more important then boredom. Who really cares how you do your dailies as long you have fun doing it.