What are your thoughts on ability pruning?

[Lium]

My thoughts are that SWTOR needs it badly, but I know a lot of folks probably disagree with that. On my Combat Sentinel I have two rows of action bars and every single ability on them is important. Whether they're combat abilities, defensive cooldowns, or buffs. All are important.

 

And in PvP, it's hard to hit the right key in time because things happen MUCH faster. Modern MMOs released in the past three years or so, have actually taught me how to keybind because there's only about four abilities on the quickbar, so it's super easy to bind everything. (And in games like Tera, DCUO and WildStar, there's no tab targeting so you have to bind.)

 

SWTOR, though, is still using an antiquated UI. And Combat is a difficult spec to play correctly. I should also mention that this isn't a really big issue on my sorc/sage or my merc or commando because those classes have really simple rotations.

 

But sentinels and marauders can be a little unforgiving if you mess up the rotation. ESPECIALLY in PvP. So, I'm hoping for a prune.

[JediJuliusDavin]

I honestly enjoy the number of abilities in SWTOR. In fact, I wish the classes had one or two more. We've seen pruning before and some specs losing abilities that weren't needed. I was kind of disappointed to see Vanguards/PTs lose Full-Auto/Unload, Commandos/Mercs lose Stockstrike/Rocket Punch and Sages/Sorcs lose Double Strike/Thrash though since they were kind of cool to have in my opinion.

[Pirana]

It's always been overkill. They even dumb-ed it down by highlighting which button you could possibly hit next, aka, too many abilities, Personally, I don't mind it, but it's also not needed. I know it's only a game, but in real life, you don't fire a specific gun ten different ways. Obviously having multiple abilities adds to the allure of the class, but it's still overkill.

[Kaedusz]

But sentinels and marauders can be a little unforgiving if you mess up the rotation.

Isn't that the whole point. That's a good thing.

 

Generally speaking all classes have several main abilities which are on the main bar. The rest are short and long situational offensive, defensive and mobility CDs. They are easy to be binded on remote binds like for example F1,F2, shift something, etc...

 

The game doesn't need pruning. If anything, the saber classes need more melee abilities, for action and animation purposes if for nothing else.

 

All you need is practice, mara/sent isn't one of the classes that have too many abilities. Their number is low even and are easy in that regard. Their difficulty comes from knowing when to use what, and developing quick intuitive muscle memory ,not the number of abilities, lol.

Edited November 20, 2017 by Kaedusz

[BoySaber]

I agree. One quickbar should be enough for every advanced class. And those skills should have an inbuilt specific tree, that way we can customize each skill and have different builds, they also need to be fun and have nice animation and to be different from each other yet within the class theme, that way you never feel like you are short on skills. But quickbar unlocks are still a thing so ... it will never happen.

[LordFell]

One of the things that kinda bugs me about my Jedi, is virtually every ability has an icon that looks like a blue running figure swinging a lightsaber, or just a lightsaber.

 

I would actually appreciate it if they changed some of the colour coding; combat abilities in blue, movement abilities in purple, defensive abilities in green, utilities in yellow.

...or something like that. Probably every class could benefit from a comprehensive colour-code overhaul in this way.

 

But there is definitely room for a prune. My Combat Medic is a solid case for this. I run 3 action bars, and they are ALL stuffed. I also have two side-bars for abilities I use frequently but aren't combat abilities. These, also, are kinda full. There are some definite places where abilities ought to be refined, retooled, combined, or turfed. For example, my Scoundrel has two different abilities which are: I shoot you in the leg, with my shotgun, to impair your movement... except they have slightly different function, so I can't really justify pruning this myself.

[ZionHalcyon]

Here's the thing.

 

On the forums, you won't run into casual players - you tend to run into vets who have been here a while and are used to how things are. Therefore you won't get much of an opinion from people who just want to maintain the status quo.

 

Personally, I think ability trim could be a good thing. However, it is something that can only be done if EA/Bioware is going to aggressively market - because when you pare down something to make it more accessible, you will always risk pissing off those who will say it was better when it was harder, when what they really mean is they want everyone else to go through what they went through to master the game - its the old saying, miserly loves company.

[Rion_Starkiller]

I prefer complexity over 4-button twitch. This isn't Overwatch. Nor is it a console game.

[sayNih]

In PVP, it's not humanly possible to use more than 12 abilities without the use of a memory aid. PVPers make compromises and prune their rotation down to a manageable number.

 

I would support some ability pruning, but not as far as WOW did.

 

Many of us would like to see role-inappropriate abilities removed: DPS should not have shields, Tanks should not put out dps, ranged should not have reflect...

 

And it's not 3 roles: Stealth and CC are separate roles, and should be in the -40 dps target range.

[Toraak]

I think some pruning could be a good thing, however 1 bar isn't enough abilities. I think you could get it down to 2 full bars, or 2 1/2 bars. Beyond that I think is not necessary. (and lets face it even out of 2 1/2 bars many of the abilities would still be situational).

[TinaLovesHan]

No thanks. WoW combat is incredibly boring and the same for everyone.

[LordFell]

I would support some ability pruning, but not as far as WOW did.

No thanks. WoW combat is incredibly boring and the same for everyone.

I think it would be fair to say that the biggest reason I'm not playing WoW right now is how badly their ability prune was. After Warlords of Draenor, I would rate all my characters (and I've got at least one of everything over on WoW) anywhere from "doesn't even function" to "functional, but not any fun."

 

...I think it's important to look at over-all buttons. Someone said that in a PvP setting 12 buttons was about max... I think PvE mechanics have room for more complexity... so, I'd think class reworks should aim for 20 to 30 buttons.

 

Look for redundancies (like, the two different leg-shot abilities Scoundrels have (seriously why two?)). Or, Knights & Warriors have two different variants of Force Leap... if they do the same thing, use the same ability.

 

Another option would be to use the Mastery system to give us customization. Maybe "these" abilities are the Advanced Class abilities we get... maybe these other abilities are options that we can pick... and, where classes have multiple abilities that could (and should) be combined, maybe we can also pick masteries to decide which ones are combined or how they are combined.

[Draqsko]

Here's the thing.

 

On the forums, you won't run into casual players - you tend to run into vets who have been here a while and are used to how things are. Therefore you won't get much of an opinion from people who just want to maintain the status quo.

 

Personally, I think ability trim could be a good thing. However, it is something that can only be done if EA/Bioware is going to aggressively market - because when you pare down something to make it more accessible, you will always risk pissing off those who will say it was better when it was harder, when what they really mean is they want everyone else to go through what they went through to master the game - its the old saying, miserly loves company.

 

The problem is, they trim and add in the wrong places.

 

I'll give you an example, guardian. I main a guardian and play all 3 specs. Focus has been the most awkward rotation since 2.0, while Vigilance has been the smoothest. It also always had at least 1 less button than Focus, and 2 if you played it right since you almost never used Combat Focus due to focus flooding.

 

Vigilance has been the spec they've removed or slotted in replacement abilities, while Focus has had more abilities added that further separated out single target damage from AOE damage. Does that make sense to you that an already simple rotation gets simpler while a complex one gets even more nutty?

[Elessara]

I would not support this. It's one of the things I hate about newer games. They limit you to at most 8 abilities (sometimes as few as three). Personally, I LIKE having options. If you don't want to use more than X number of abilities than put only those abilities you want on the bar and leave the rest blank.

 

And PVP should NEVER be a determining factor on what or how many abilities we have. SWTOR is not a PVP focused game.

[SteveTheCynic]

They even dumb-ed it down by highlighting which button you could possibly hit next

That's not what the hightlight means.

 

The highlight (white glowy frame) means that the highlighted ability has been "touched" in some way by an interaction with a previously-used ability. Example: The Gunnery Commando ability Vortex Shot makes the next Grav Round activate instantly instead of its normal 1.5 second cast, so Grav Round is highlighted to show that something has modified its behaviour. Grav Round can finish the recharge time / cooldown of Full Auto / Boltstorm, but that's now all it does, so Boltstorm does not get a hightlight. It used to cause a highlight, when Grav Round ALSO gave it a 10% damage boost.

[Deewe]

Couple of things here:

 

All classes doesn't require the same amount of buttons for decent rotations. With some you can sit comfortably with 5 buttons and for others 3 times more.

 

The combat UI is messy, so unless you are that into a class you have no clues if you have to wait to use your proc till it caped the stacking or should land it immediately.

 

The buffs and cleansable debuffs are lost in a myriad of icons with not even a static position, making so most players vaguely know when to use buffs or debuffs appropriately.

 

You can have much fun with way less buttons : OverWatch, Paladins, GuildWars, Wildstar.

Now thing is in all but one of these games the combat is positional based.

 

Now having many buttons looks fun, though good people get used to one or two rotations and that's it. In the end it does not makes the combat more situational than other games with less buttons, it just gives you the impression as you have more animations and particle effects.

 

Then what's frustrating in SWTOR is the abilities are locked behind a cool down, making the combat more like spamming useless skills while waiting to be able to activate an efficient one.

 

All in all would love the skill to be pruned to way less provided the combat feels less restricted.

[LordTurin]

In PVP, it's not humanly possible to use more than 12 abilities without the use of a memory aid. PVPers make compromises and prune their rotation down to a manageable number.

 

Lol what exactly do you mean by 12 abilities/memory aid? I don't think any pve rotations have that many different abilities in them (though some come close) but in PVP on my operative I can use up to 31 different abilities and I don't think I use a memory aid (again, not sure what that is, but I don't think I use it).

[PorsaLindahl]

And PVP should NEVER be a determining factor on what or how many abilities we have. SWTOR is not a PVP focused game.

 

While I agree with this sentiment, they have always nerfed classes (what they call rebalancing) based on PvP. And with every "rebalance" they've done, the classes have all changed positions on the dps and heal charts. All those "Sorcs are OP" "Nerf Sent/Mara", etc., are all PvP complaints that have repeatedly led to rebalancing. Sorcs/Sages used to be top heals, then it went to BH/Trooper, then Scoundrel/Agents, and it keeps flipping every few months because they can't balance them to make them all equally efficient. I told them in beta that they needed to get rid of Expertise, and that having a sole stat for PvP would only cause problems with balancing with PvE.

 

So while TOR is not a PvP focused game, it does have a very vocal PvP player base.

 

OP: I don't think we need any pruning. I think we've been pruned enough. It was bad enough that when they raised the level cap to 60, they nerfed us to the effectiveness of level 50 and made us "earn" back the power they took by reaching level 60 because at level 55 all classes were "over performing". Yeah, okay. Then, when the cap was raised to 65, they took away abilities that we already had, only to give them back when you hit 65. And they did it again when they raised to cap to 70. I was looking for Rocket Out on one of my level 65 BH's when I came back last month and realized it wasn't there, and that it had been moved up in the tree. I thought WTH is wrong with these people? Are they on psychotropics?

 

So, in my opinion, no. I don't think we need to be pruned. I've played games with just 4-8 buttons and wished I had more abilities, or slots to use the other abilities that I unlocked.

[Elessara]

While I agree with this sentiment, they have always nerfed classes (what they call rebalancing) based on PvP. And with every "rebalance" they've done, the classes have all changed positions on the dps and heal charts. All those "Sorcs are OP" "Nerf Sent/Mara", etc., are all PvP complaints that have repeatedly led to rebalancing. Sorcs/Sages used to be top heals, then it went to BH/Trooper, then Scoundrel/Agents, and it keeps flipping every few months because they can't balance them to make them all equally efficient. I told them in beta that they needed to get rid of Expertise, and that having a sole stat for PvP would only cause problems with balancing with PvE.

 

So while TOR is not a PvP focused game, it does have a very vocal PvP player base.

 

I'm aware the devs have often rebalanced around PVP. They shouldn't have done that either. Any abilities that were rebalanced for PVP should only affect PVP and not affect PVE at all (I know they don't but they *should*). It's one of my biggest annoyances with this game. Note: I am aware that not all of the rebalancing of classes was due to PVP.

 

But regardless of the loud nature of the PVP community, SWTOR is still not a PVP focused game. Reducing our abilities to 3 or 5 or 8 or whatever silly number just because of PVP would very much decrease my enjoyment of this game. As I said, I personally like having options. I like having situational abilities. I like having the freedom to choose what to use when. A poster above said reducing the number of abilities will make combat less restrictive and all I can think is, wait what? Reducing the number of abilities restricts you to using only those abilities and thus makes combat MORE restrictive not less.

 

Sorry, got a little ranty there.

[Pirana]

That's not what the hightlight means.

 

The highlight (white glowy frame) means that the highlighted ability has been "touched" in some way by an interaction with a previously-used ability. Example: The Gunnery Commando ability Vortex Shot makes the next Grav Round activate instantly instead of its normal 1.5 second cast, so Grav Round is highlighted to show that something has modified its behaviour. Grav Round can finish the recharge time / cooldown of Full Auto / Boltstorm, but that's now all it does, so Boltstorm does not get a hightlight. It used to cause a highlight, when Grav Round ALSO gave it a 10% damage boost.

 

Semantics.

[Icykill_]

A small amount of pruning could be done and some abilities could be combined or made into Passives... especially for some classes that have a lot of over bloat

[DorkTrooper]

Tanks should not put out dps

 

My tanks would be pretty boring just standing around shielding the heck out of themselves and tossing out a taunt or two. DPS is most of how you gain and keep aggro.

 

Unless you're talking specifically about PvP, in which case the Skank Tank thing could be broken/fixed by not allowing people to queue as tanks in damage spec gear.

 

As far as abilities go, I like the current number of abilities and variety between classes. If you don't want to use a lot of active abilities, go for sniper/gunslinger instead of mara/sent. In fact, I wouldn't mind more active or proc group buffing/support abilities on more classes.

 

I've played WoW, and I find the 4-button rotations there are boring. My hands-down favorite class to play in any game, mechanics-wise, is the warden in LotRO. Only 3 main attacks and a proc (plus some ranged pulls), but you can build attack combos on a mix of stats depending on your role (crit, threat, and shield/heal for tanks, etc.)

[Kaldron_Fell]

No.

 

The point is this: you can be decent pressing only a few select buttons, but to be truly good, you have to master all your abilities. That is as it should be. I know you're not asking for a single "win" button, but if I had only 5 buttons to press, I'd bet bored AF in no time. That's the reason I switched my mara to fury actually, the other spec I had before that was just way too boring to play due to only having a few select abilities.

 

There are specs with a lot of abilities that you don't have to use. A Marksman sniper for instance only has a few really important buttons to press. If you want fewer abilities you need to use, perhaps that is a better choice for you then.

[BenduKundalini]

I take pride in my mastery of that complexity, and the muscle memory that has built over the years.

 

And apart from pride it's just more fun. This is not an FPS.

 

I also play ESO and god do I HATE having only one or two action bars. (just the one till level 15 !)

 

side note : the secret to learn to play different classes is to keep the same keys for the same functions (opener, bread & butter, minor CD, oh-****-moment-cd, dot1, dot 2, execute), etc. My first week on a second class was a headache I reckon. Then this smoothed out things.

Edited November 18, 2017 by BenduKundalini

[psandak]

In my experience (I have played all the classes, but not all disciplines), abilities can be categorized into:

 

• Core: 5 to 7 abilities that are the core of the class; every guide says these are the abilities you use ALL THE TIME
  
• mod and/or enhancement: 3 to 5 abilities that either modify other abilities (e.g. make them instant, grant boost to impact [damage/heal more], etc) or enhance the character for a time (e.g. a significant alacrity, or critical chance boost). In short fights you rarely have time to use these abilities, but in longer fights (i.e. PvE ops bosses) they are "part of the rotation."
  
• situational: 5 to 7 abilities that are used in specific situations (stun break, CC, cleanse, "raid buff", etc); these are abilities you may not use but you better have them accessible in case you need them.
  
• alternate role: a number of abilities that the class has access to but the role being filled does not require their use (i.e. a dps having taunt [because the AC can also tank], or a healer with myriad damage dealing abilities, or a DPS with a couple of healing abilities); this could be considered a subset of situational but IMO they are different enough to warrant their own category.
  

 

First let me just state, I am neither for or against pruning. While I have become accustomed to all of the abilities the classes have and I am OK with them as is, I can understand that a newer player could have an information overload episode with all the abilities we have access to regardless of what class one plays.

 

With that out of the way, the best category to prune would be the mod and/or enhancement: Do the math and incorporate what they do into the ability they modify or give the class a general boost based on constant up time rather than burst up time.

 

Examples:

• why do we need vortex round to make grav round instant cast? Vortex damage and functionality can be incorporated into grav round
  
• why do we need mental alacrity for a short burst of alacrity? Give sorc/sage a passive ability that grants a consistent boost to alacrity.
  
• why do jugg tanks need four DCDs? incorporate three of them into the survive-ability of the class and leave one for those "oh **** I'm gonna die" moments
  

 

However, the flip side to this is that it may not be that easy; by making these changes, encounter challenge can be thrown outta whack. For example: if they removed the DCDs from tanks then burst damage from Ops bosses might need to be curbed because that burst damage may be predicated on tanks having those DCDs available; tanks do not need overall better mitigation but need significant increased mitigation in specific moments.

 

The point is that while ability pruning may be prudent, it may not be as simple as we think to implement.