Please do not ruin SWTOR in the expansion

[Khartu]

Was really sad to hear that you are making extensive changes to classes in the new expansion. It's not so much the mix-n-match nature of it as the changes to the current classes. Ability pruning? WoW did that and it was a disaster, something still talked about derisively to this day.

 

I would much prefer minor changes so that my Powertech feels like my Powertech with minor balancing and minor changes. I remember when you removed the ability to do hybrids something many players loved. That was the first time I quit SWTOR. I'm back with a vengeance have tired of the constant negative changes in WoW. Please don't WoW my Swtor.

[timovdt]

can't agree more with the post above i left wow to come back here since wow ruined its classes with pruning.

even tho there are some useless spells they are verry rare , you have what the new sorc skill that can maybe go but for that class thats about it

 

guardian maybe force push it has some niche use's on the revan fight but could perhaps be turned into a utility but thats about it there and its not even bad just the least usefull in most case's

 

assasin realy has no useless skills same for sniper you can maybe merge one or two if the cooldowns into one there

 

sentinel/mara is fine

 

Merc is also fine just needs a bit of number tuning same for pt

 

Operative could use a few ablilties to be removed to make them more balanced to face in pvp but thats prolly the only class that needs it and not because they are useless but to many things that are to good

 

like there are classes that need MORE skills like sorc like vanguard

 

sorc still lacks a defensive that i can use whithout giving up offence (think merc reflect mara 99%dr)

 

if antyhing spend some time on reworking one or two specs that are never played because of there gamplay

like try to fix operative so they are more popular in PVE imo focus is another spec that could use a rework so its not realy a copy of the mara version or do it the other way around if you want to guardian tank could have some of its defensives updated to be more in line with the other tanks , they feel a bit to mutch of a blob of stats imo

 

But please do not prune like wow it is the most dumb thing you can do and it WILL kill your game

[ForfiniteStories]

They can simplify rotations, but removing utility is pretty silly. But hey, if they can balance content around these changes, then I'll be fine with any of the changes they make. If anything they do can help liven up PvE, I'm all for it. Edited August 11, 2021 by ForfiniteStories

[FumikoM]

Yeah. The last thing I want is to play my sorc post 7.0 and notice that she can’t do as much damage anymore because I’m forced to choose between dps and survivability. I need what what she has now on her lightning spec and I need to be able to heal and shield myself for some bosses. Otherwise they would have to make a tuning pass for all mobs and bosses and lower their dps and HP to make up for it. I really don’t want fights against enemies to take longer.

[xordevoreaux]

Yeah. The last thing I want is to play my sorc post 7.0 and notice that she can’t do as much damage anymore because I’m forced to choose between dps and survivability. I need what what she has now on her lightning spec and I need to be able to heal and shield myself for some bosses. Otherwise they would have to make a tuning pass for all mobs and bosses and lower their dps and HP to make up for it. I really don’t want fights against enemies to take longer.

 

I survived the release where sages and inquisitors suddenly required more power to heal and healed for less, I'll survive 7.0

[Nihaelis]

As I said on the PTS, I am okay with ability bloat getting trimmed down. I firmly believe that 24 or less (18 or 19 really) active abilities are all that's needed and anything more is just excessive and redundant. I know not everyone agrees with this, and that's fine, it's just my personal opinion so take it for what it's worth.

[Kalnarius]

They can simplify rotations, but removing utility is pretty silly. But hey, if they can balance content around these changes, then I'll be fine with any of the changes they make. If anything they do can help liven up PvE, I'm all for it.

 

Honestly there were quite a few useless utilities that were not used by either PVE or PVP. But current utilities seem to be integrated into the classes as passives or passives that you have to choose from later down the road. As this new system is kinda utility/class tree system going forward. Utilities as know them will cease in a manner of speaking for new Utilities in a different system. The concept of utilities is not going away it will be just integrated into your spec trees.

[OddballEasyEight]

What it feels like to me (without playing on the PTS, just reading what is written about it) is that they're essentially trimming away the abilities that aren't relevant to your chosen path.

 

For example, if you're a DPS on a class that can also be a Healer, you'll end up with a couple of healing skills that you'll rarely ever use.

 

Same thing with a DPS on a Tank class, you'll have a lot of taunts and such that you don't use.

 

I get the feeling that what they're going for is to lock those abilities away to the actual paths they're useful in.

 

So, only the Tank path will give you the Tank skills. The DPS path of the same class won't get those.

 

But, sadly, it seems that they are also missing the utility of some of these things for the other paths.

 

It's always handy to have a healing spell on a DPS, for example.

And some things are useful for extra movement speed in short bursts and so on...

 

At least that's the feeling I get from this.

[arunav]

As I said on the PTS, I am okay with ability bloat getting trimmed down. I firmly believe that 24 or less (18 or 19 really) active abilities are all that's needed and anything more is just excessive and redundant. I know not everyone agrees with this, and that's fine, it's just my personal opinion so take it for what it's worth.

 

This is peculiar to me - how did you arrive at 18 or 19?

 

17 feels right to me.

 

Or 9.

 

BW, please make all the advanced classes you spent millions of dollars designing and testing before launch and make them work with either 17 or 9 abilities. I feel that's correct.

[Nihaelis]

12 to 24 is about the range I like to stay in. My number of ideally 18 to 19 comes from...

 

One Interrupt (1)

 

One to two CC's (3)

 

Two to three defense cooldowns (6)

 

One movement ability (7)

 

One to three self buffs or group buffs (10)

 

And then around 8 or 9 core priority abilities for dps, healing, tanking or whatever. (18 or 19 total active abilities. More or less.) For SWTOR I'd prefer fewer abilities with better animations, particularly for the classes that use Saber combat as alot attacks right now are just dull, dull, dull!

Edited August 12, 2021 by Nihaelis

[Ardrossan]

The game is too easy, having less DCDs might make combat more interesting. I play an immortal jugg tank and it take 5 players to bring me down in a wz.

 

I'd like to give mercs their flamethrower back, but beyond that idc about pruning. PTS is losing its mind as usual.

[arunav]

The game is too easy, having less DCDs might make combat more interesting. I play an immortal jugg tank and it take 5 players to bring me down in a wz.

 

I'd like to give mercs their flamethrower back, but beyond that idc about pruning. PTS is losing its mind as usual.

 

That's not because of DCDs - it's the tactical items and set bonuses that were newly added in 6.0.

 

The DCDs for Guardians/Juggs have all been in the game since 1.x (2012), except saber reflect (2.0 - 2013), and Blade Blitz (4.0 - 2015).

 

PVP did not have the problem you're referring to in 2015, after all the current ones were available. In fact, 4.x is generally considered the best PVP era the game ever had.

 

There are other reasons BW is making the changes they are to class combat. DCDs are not a primary one, even if cited in a BW PR post. It makes no sense.

 

Lastly, SWTOR isn't a PVP game. It's primarily a PVE one, with several instanced 8v8 PVP modes and ranked arena seasons that barely anyone plays. They don't even make new 8v8 game modes since 2016, the type of PVP that is most often queued for ("regs"). The idea that classes are being redesigned for PVP is either absurd or incredibly ill-advised.

Edited August 14, 2021 by arunav

[Tsillah]

That's not because of DCDs - it's the tactical items and set bonuses that were newly added in 6.0.

 

The DCDs for Guardians/Juggs have all been in the game since 1.x (2012), except saber reflect (2.0 - 2013), and Blade Blitz (4.0 - 2015).

 

PVP did not have the problem you're referring to in 2015, after all the current ones were available. In fact, 4.x is generally considered the best PVP era the game ever had.

 

There are other reasons BW is making the changes they are to class combat. DCDs are not a primary one, even if cited in a BW PR post. It makes no sense.

 

Lastly, SWTOR isn't a PVP game. It's primarily a PVE one, with several instanced 8v8 PVP modes and ranked arena seasons that barely anyone plays. They don't even make new 8v8 game modes since 2016, the type of PVP that is most often queued for ("regs"). The idea that classes are being redesigned for PVP is either absurd or incredibly ill-advised.

You make some very good points. My take on it is that they're doing it to make the loadout templates easier for them to make.

 

if you've noticed the level progression is now exactly the same for each class, meaning that all ACs get new skills at the exact same level and since there are fewer skills to consider the template also doesn't need to consider as many skill slots as there are now. And it's clear to me that utilities are going away altogether.

[RameiArashi]

I am currently playing WOW while I wait to see what they do to SWTOR.. WOW has changed a lot since I tried it out 9 years ago. New races, a second new class, losts of expanions.. Instead of messing around with existing class abilities they should be adding Droid Master and Beast Master to SWTOR,

 

A few things i don' like about WOW: you cannot play it in order, They force you to start out with Battle for Azeroth only after you get a character to level 50 doing BFA are you able to send other characters to the previous expansions.

And the most annoying feature is allowing higher level characters to go to racial starter zones enter PVP mode and kill quest givers and vendors. People actually sit there waiting for a low level player to approach the NPC before they one shot the NPC to death. If you are fooolish enough to be in PVP mode they will probably kill you too,

 

If WOW is killed off it will because its developers and publisher are having legal troubles.

[Darth-Obvious]

I am currently playing WOW while I wait to see what they do to SWTOR.. WOW has changed a lot since I tried it out 9 years ago. New races, a second new class, losts of expanions.. Instead of messing around with existing class abilities they should be adding Droid Master and Beast Master to SWTOR,

 

It's unlikely that SWTOR will ever see a full on new class, however a pet class is the thing I've seen several people suggest over the years that would actually be something notably different in terms of gameplay instead of things like "Dark Jedi" or similar class suggestions people say because they're more interested in the story of that class than the gameplay.

 

Unfortunately, something like a new pet class means they would need to devote a lot of time and resources to a single feature as opposed to being able to develop multiple things at a time the way they do for major updates.

 

Even if you forgo the new class having their own unique class story you're still talking about having to make tons of new art assets in terms of armors, weapons, animations, UI, a class ship, not to mention having to balance it out against every other class, adding vendors for it, new VO for NPCs to acknowledge it, etc.

 

Looking at the way SWTOR was built/designed it makes me wonder if they ever planned to add new classes because the amount of work required to do so involves things like story and VO that other MMOs don't have to deal with.

[SithKoriandr]

It's unlikely that SWTOR will ever see a full on new class, however a pet class is the thing I've seen several people suggest over the years that would actually be something notably different in terms of gameplay instead of things like "Dark Jedi" or similar class suggestions people say because they're more interested in the story of that class than the gameplay.

 

Unfortunately, something like a new pet class means they would need to devote a lot of time and resources to a single feature as opposed to being able to develop multiple things at a time the way they do for major updates.

 

Even if you forgo the new class having their own unique class story you're still talking about having to make tons of new art assets in terms of armors, weapons, animations, UI, a class ship, not to mention having to balance it out against every other class, adding vendors for it, new VO for NPCs to acknowledge it, etc.

 

Looking at the way SWTOR was built/designed it makes me wonder if they ever planned to add new classes because the amount of work required to do so involves things like story and VO that other MMOs don't have to deal with.

 

Now they can make a pet combat style.

[Darth-Obvious]

Now they can make a pet combat style.

 

While it avoids a lot of the problems I mentioned it still requires quite a bit of work notably in terms of new animations.

 

Now if they went the route of taking a fairly simple set/spec of animations like that of the Madness Sorc, removing the VFX associated with them, and having the pets attack in place of the VFX as your Sorc is constantly making the existing hand motions towards the enemy then that I could see happening because that would be easier to do but it of course wouldn't be what people want or expect from a pet combat style.

 

And see that's probably always going to be a problem or issue. Additional Combat Styles if added will probably be super simple and fall below expectations of the things people imagine in their head for that particular thing like a pet combat style.

[Iceslasher]

I agree with you, if they are planning to "prune " our characters rather then being able to choose from trees like it was implied, there may be a big problem. I also quit wow over that. I played a hunter there. They removed my ability for dual wielding and left me with just a bow " I am still perturbed about it to this day,( it took me a VERY long time to get my pole arm from nightmare bosses that was suddenly sitting useless in my inventory. ) I went back once when a friend pushed me to try it when the panda's popped( bad move farmville and pokemon o.O really). Anyways when Revan popped, I was upset they took away my orbital strike from my operative ( originally we couldn't use it indoors or in pvp which was fine ) and changed the way we played our operatives wholesale. FYI that "balance crap" is bunk. A nice con they proved was a con during the "summer of pvp" fail.. where they removed all healing potency, destroyed mercs and snipers to the point where no hm ops nor fp's could be done. The proof , it was all crap was the fact that only warriors and tanks sins could go through an operation, I am supposing that allowing mauras , jugs and sins to heal themselves was a good idea? So they didn't need healers or dps ( same with pub side?) . They slowly fixed it after that immensely horrifying show of incompetence. This tragedy was not repaired prior to a lot of people quitting, they returned slowly but I am hopeful they will NEVER repeat that failure ever again. But removing skills or nerfing Hunters, Agents, and Sorcs again would be an immense travesty. Lets hope they aren't going to repeat history all over again. Edited August 16, 2021 by Iceslasher