New Combat Styles Info (08/19/20)

[Darth-Obvious]

Some new information about Combat Styles was revealed during an interview with (Game Design Director) Chris Schmidt on the SWTOR Escape podcast.

 

 

• You'll be able to select 2 Combat Styles per character if you're a Subscriber and will be able to switch between them via Loadouts. Currently these choices are permanent but that could change in the future. They want to encourage people to still play alts as opposed to being able to do everything on one or two characters.
   
   
  
• You can't switch combat styles while in a phase or combat, ie PVP, OPs, Flashpoints, etc. One reason for this is to prevent people from queuing as a Tank to get grouped quicker and then switching their Combat Style once they get in the phase leaving the group without a Tank.
   
   
  
• You don't unlock the ability to use a second Combat Style until you've completed your Chapter 3 Class Story. They don't want to overwhelm new players with multiple Combat Styles.
   
   
  
• Utilities, as we know them today with points, will be gone and replaced by a tree structure that you'll be able to make choices within. Some of the existing Utilities will be rolled into the base abilities as well as the choices within the new system. The new system will make choices by default to prevent situations where players would forget to assign utility points. The player will be able to customize those choices from the default choices once they unlock though.
   
   
  
• Mixing Force & Tech Styles. This is currently not possible due to technical limitations that exist at this time. It's something that could change in the future though.
   
   
  
• Once you unlock Dark 5 and Light 5 in your Legacy you'll be able to use the Dark/Light Combat Styles on any of your characters. So, if you're a veteran player that has Dark 5 & Light 5 unlocked you'll be able to choose all of the Dark & Light Combat Styles during Character Creation. Your current alignment won't matter unless you're a new player who hasn't gotten to Dark 5 or Light 5 yet.
  

 

 

Be sure to check out the full interview here for even more info. Starts at 30 minutes in.

 

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1123759409

Edited August 20, 2021 by Darth-Obvious

[Darth-Obvious]

Ah, LordCamTheGreat beat me to the punch on this topic by a few mins as I was typing this out

 

There's a much more detailed breakdown of all the info in that topic which you can find here.

 

https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=996447

[LordCamTheGreat]

Ah, LordCamTheGreat beat me to the punch on this topic by a few mins as I was typing this out

 

There's a much more detailed breakdown of all the info in that topic which you can find here.

 

https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=996447

 

Always good to have multiple people giving breakdowns in case one person missed something, I rewound that stream so many times trying to understand and squeeze out all the details.

[Alithia]

I am all for ability pruning, e.g. incorporating slows and stuns into other abilities, but was this combat style system necessary? By now old players no all stories and for new players everything is new.

 

I don't see the benefit of this at all.

[Darth-Obvious]

Always good to have multiple people giving breakdowns in case one person missed something, I rewound that stream so many times trying to understand and squeeze out all the details.

 

Yeah, I rewound it multiple times to thinking I had gotten it all down in my head to write out but I often had to rewind it to get more clarity or make sure I was getting it down right.

[Phazonfreak]

I am all for ability pruning, e.g. incorporating slows and stuns into other abilities, but was this combat style system necessary? By now old players no all stories and for new players everything is new.

 

I don't see the benefit of this at all.

 

The benefit will be in the option to add new Combat Styles to the game and the possibility of mixing Force and Tech Combat Styles some time in the future. By separating story progression from combat mechanics they lay the groundwork for future updates.

Edited August 20, 2021 by Phazonfreak

[Baletraeger]

Will I be able to make multiple loadouts to cover multiple disciplines? For example, If I choose Merc and PT as my 2 Combat Styles, can I set up loadouts for AP, Shield, IO, and Bodyguard, which are all going to have different gear and tactical sets?

[Darth-Obvious]

I am all for ability pruning, e.g. incorporating slows and stuns into other abilities, but was this combat style system necessary? By now old players no all stories and for new players everything is new.

 

I don't see the benefit of this at all.

 

The one benefit that stands out to me is being able to switch to different styles depending on the situation or areas. For instance, if I'm doing Solo PVE content with my Guardian or Juggernaut combat feels quite slower or feels like it's taking longer to kill mobs to me than it does a Sentinel/Marauder or Sorcerer/Consular and so there will be situations where I can switch Combat Styles on my Guardian/Juggernaut to make certain situations go faster or be a bit more tolerable than they would be other wise.

 

That being said I think there's a bigger problem overall with the overall feel and flow of SWTOR's solo PVE content. I think this is most apparent in the Skytrooper filed corridors of KOTFE where it feels like you're running through areas and enemy placements that were designed for a character action game but instead you're using a more methodically paced combat system that seems at odds with the world it's placed in at times.

 

For PVP, Ops, and FPs it's not so much an issue because those things are much structured or based around the game's mechanics/combat in a way that open-world PVE or solo PVE isn't. Group Content in SWTOR feels like Chess to the Hungry Hungry Hippos nature of World/Solo PVE content.

 

SWTOR's story and solo PVE content feels like it always has been and always will be at odds with its group content. It feels like there are the more casual players that just want to play through the story and solo content but don't want to necessarily deal with all the MMOness of SWTOR and Combat Styles feels like its more aimed at that audience.

[Darth-Obvious]

Will I be able to make multiple loadouts to cover multiple disciplines? For example, If I choose Merc and PT as my 2 Combat Styles, can I set up loadouts for AP, Shield, IO, and Bodyguard, which are all going to have different gear and tactical sets?

 

It's unclear. They mention after the interview that was the one big question they were kicking themselves for not asking.

[LordCamTheGreat]

I am all for ability pruning, e.g. incorporating slows and stuns into other abilities, but was this combat style system necessary? By now old players no all stories and for new players everything is new.

 

I don't see the benefit of this at all.

 

You might not want to replay stories and not care about new players, but giving a new or old player the opportunity to play a class story and choose from a pool of 4-8 different gameplay styles is completely in sync with the "play as you want" memo that has been pushed for the past few years. It's not necessary, nothing new added to the game is, but it enables greater degrees of flexibility in how you play your characters.

 

Further, as it stands right now, we will not get new classes because it would take way too much time and effort to create a new class. However, if you break the link between base classes and advanced classes, you instead create a more nebulous pool that you can add new combat styles to at any time without needing to make a new level 1-50 story, new companions, voice work etc. Not only does this new system grant an unprecedented amount of choice in the way you play your story in swtor, it opens up a vast amount of space in the future for new advanced classes that you can play on any character within your tech/force sphere and maybe even outside that. The devs did allude to breaking the force/tech divide in the future.

[OlBuzzard]

For now it seems to me that the best way to approach this is to run some of my "alts" through in each class before running my "mains". That way if something is messed up .. My mains wont be the guinea pig that's caught up in this.

 

Hopefully the new gear we need wont be hidden.

 

Aside from that I will continue to keep an eye on this with "cautious optimism".

 

I would have preferred a lot more fun and content over this

[Alithia]

A new player doesn't know how the Sith Warrior or Inquisitor story will go anyway.

 

You could always add a 3rd Advanced class.

 

As I understood it my Sorcerer can't become a Marauder. If I want to play Assassin I have an alt for that. I can understand it for people who don't want alts and now have technically 4 advanced classes as a Sith.

 

Still, I don't see the overall benefit of this feature. Will it bring old players back and new players in? Still, only thing I want is weapons in the outfitter.

[OlBuzzard]

The one benefit that stands out to me is being able to switch to different styles depending on the situation or areas. For instance, if I'm doing Solo PVE content with my Guardian or Juggernaut combat feels quite slower or feels like it's taking longer to kill mobs to me than it does a Sentinel/Marauder or Sorcerer/Consular and so there will be situations where I can switch Combat Styles on my Guardian/Juggernaut to make certain situations go faster or be a bit more tolerable than they would be other wise.

 

That being said I think there's a bigger problem overall with the overall feel and flow of SWTOR's solo PVE content. I think this is most apparent in the Skytrooper filed corridors of KOTFE where it feels like you're running through areas and enemy placements that were designed for a character action game but instead you're using a more methodically paced combat system that seems at odds with the world it's placed in at times.

 

For PVP, Ops, and FPs it's not so much an issue because those things are much structured or based around the game's mechanics/combat in a way that open-world PVE or solo PVE isn't. Group Content in SWTOR feels like Chess to the Hungry Hungry Hippos nature of World/Solo PVE content.

 

SWTOR's story and solo PVE content feels like it always has been and always will be at odds with its group content. It feels like there are the more casual players that just want to play through the story and solo content but don't want to necessarily deal with all the MMOness of SWTOR and Combat Styles feels like its more aimed at that audience.

 

No disrespect intended ...

 

But there are some of us who are "casuals" .. prefer solo ... but would also prefer a gaming experience similar to where SoV was when it was first released. ( Without the bugs).

 

I still say that these changes would have been better done either BEFORE 7.0 ( to prepare for it) ... and more fun and content with a genuine celebration of the 10th anniversary.

 

[/shrugs] Oh well. I will just simply keep my mind set to "cautious optimism" . Hoping from the best .. but skeptical of some of what I see as well.

 

Time will tell.

[LordCamTheGreat]

A new player doesn't know how the Sith Warrior or Inquisitor story will go anyway.

 

You could always add a 3rd Advanced class.

 

As I understood it my Sorcerer can't become a Marauder. If I want to play Assassin I have an alt for that. I can understand it for people who don't want alts and now have technically 4 advanced classes as a Sith.

 

Still, I don't see the overall benefit of this feature. Will it bring old players back and new players in? Still, only thing I want is weapons in the outfitter.

 

You could add a 3rd advanced class or you could just add another combat style that any of the 4 force using classes can use. If you add a 3rd advanced class, you would need to make a whole new character to play them. If you add it to the combat style pool, you could just pick it as your 2nd or 3rd combat style on an existing character (I imagine the devs would allow you to replace a style or add another slot when new combat styles are created).

 

Your sorcerer can become a marauder if you pick marauder as your second combat style. Your inquisitor cannot be a warrior because those are different class stories.

 

Yes you can have an assassin as an alt, but you could also make an inquisitor and pick both sorcerer and assassin for your combat styles and swap between if you decide you just want to stealth past some mobs.

 

I have multiple of every advanced class and I am excited to play through the stories again in a new way once combat styles come out and create combinations of classes on my current characters.

[Alithia]

What about companiosn?

 

Say I play the Inq story as a Mara. Will I now get Khem?

[Alithia]

At least it is something new that they can advertise. I'd rather see people exit WoW to SWTOR instead of to FF14.

[Darth-Obvious]

What about companiosn?

 

Say I play the Inq story as a Mara. Will I now get Khem?

 

None of the story stuff will change based on Combat Styles. A big part of this initiative was to uncouple the gameplay/combat from the story.

[LordCamTheGreat]

What about companiosn?

 

Say I play the Inq story as a Mara. Will I now get Khem?

 

Your companions are tied to your base class, not your advanced class/ combat style.

 

An inquisitor is a base class. A marauder is an advanced class/ combat style.

 

So as an inquisitor, you play the inquisitor storyline and get the inquisitor companions and voicelines, but with the new system you can choose to use the combat style of a marauder, juggernaut, sorcerer, assassin and their republic mirror classes once someone in your legacy has light 5.

 

Base class = story, companions, voicelines, spaceship.

Combat styles = combat + combat animations.

[Tsillah]

What about companiosn?

 

Say I play the Inq story as a Mara. Will I now get Khem?

You'll still be playing the Inquisitor story and the companions are actually part of that story.

 

Don't forget your class is still Inquisitor and your advanced class or combat style is then Marauder.

[SithKoriandr]

A new player doesn't know how the Sith Warrior or Inquisitor story will go anyway.

 

You could always add a 3rd Advanced class.

 

As I understood it my Sorcerer can't become a Marauder. If I want to play Assassin I have an alt for that. I can understand it for people who don't want alts and now have technically 4 advanced classes as a Sith.

 

Still, I don't see the overall benefit of this feature. Will it bring old players back and new players in? Still, only thing I want is weapons in the outfitter.

 

I'll be able to reroll (as I've done multiple times - get to end the roll another) a new Consular, who I can start as a single blade melee user!

 

I'll be doing this for all the classes, because, now I can level them with the class I want for them.

 

Mind you, this doesn't mean I don't care about weapon choice. I still wish for an Infiltration Spec that can use a single blade lightsaber, but until said time...Juggernaut or Guardian spec it is!

[Tsillah]

It's interesting that in two threads that essentially say the same I notice different things in both threads lol.

 

It's interesting that you can shoot lightning and be light side or vice versa once you have dark V and light V unlocked on your legacy.

 

And of course nobody around you will notice the difference lol. I do find it interesting that Lucasarts allows this. Since I have both light and dark V unlocked, I might just create a new jedi knight with sage combat style and go use ds powers like I don't care lol. It's completely ridiculous but hey they allow it and I might do it just for kicks. Though I probably won't level it very far. It's hilarious but only for a short time I'd think.

[Darth-Obvious]

It's interesting that in two threads that essentially say the same I notice different things in both threads lol.

 

It's interesting that you can shoot lightning and be light side or vice versa once you have dark V and light V unlocked on your legacy.

 

And of course nobody around you will notice the difference lol. I do find it interesting that Lucasarts allows this. Since I have both light and dark V unlocked, I might just create a new jedi knight with sage combat style and go use ds powers like I don't care lol. It's completely ridiculous but hey they allow it and I might do it just for kicks. Though I probably won't level it very far. It's hilarious but only for a short time I'd think.

 

I think Lucasfilm allows it to the same degree they allow the other lore-breaking stuff that's just viewed as cosmetic over time.

 

For instance races, during development and at launch everything was very locked down but once the legacy system got introduced and new races were added the lore of your race didn't matter, especially since the things you were doing as your class were superseding your race. If you were a Jedi you were the Hero of Tython, Bounty Hunter = Grand Champion and so on.

 

It feels like when certain elements are first introduced they're very locked off and separate but over time everything kind just becomes a cosmetic choice.

 

SWTOR also not being part of the canon and timeline-wise being so far away from the movies probably allows for certain freedoms for Bioware although obviously not complete freedom.

Edited August 20, 2021 by Darth-Obvious

[WHTJunior]

Since I have both light and dark V unlocked, I might just create a new jedi knight with sage combat style and go use ds powers like I don't care lol. It's completely ridiculous but hey they allow it and I might do it just for kicks. Though I probably won't level it very far. It's hilarious but only for a short time I'd think.

 

I think it will be interesting for LS Inquisitors, who will not have a lightning attack, to figure out how to obtain the datacron on Korriban. The correct response will likely still be to shoot lightning at it, but it will be a slight disconnect if your character has no abilities that match. That will ultimately affect every cutscene from that, to reaching Khem, to the Thanaton fight, where a LS Inquisitor will display lightning powers, without the player being able to use those powers. If the opposite is somehow true, that the cutscenes get updated for LS Combat Styles, how much work would that be?

[SithKoriandr]

I think it will be interesting for LS Inquisitors, who will not have a lightning attack, to figure out how to obtain the datacron on Korriban. The correct response will likely still be to shoot lightning at it, but it will be a slight disconnect if your character has no abilities that match. That will ultimately affect every cutscene from that, to reaching Khem, to the Thanaton fight, where a LS Inquisitor will display lightning powers, without the player being able to use those powers. If the opposite is somehow true, that the cutscenes get updated for LS Combat Styles, how much work would that be?

 

Except through the Heroic Moment.

 

Not to mention, don't all force users get Force Choke option in KotFE? Inquisitor doesn't have force choke, but they don't shoot lightning at Tora.

 

One can story it as, they have the ability but it's not an ability they care to use often.

[Darth-Obvious]

I think it will be interesting for LS Inquisitors, who will not have a lightning attack, to figure out how to obtain the datacron on Korriban. The correct response will likely still be to shoot lightning at it, but it will be a slight disconnect if your character has no abilities that match. That will ultimately affect every cutscene from that, to reaching Khem, to the Thanaton fight, where a LS Inquisitor will display lightning powers, without the player being able to use those powers. If the opposite is somehow true, that the cutscenes get updated for LS Combat Styles, how much work would that be?

 

Ever since launch characters have displayed abilities or actions in cutscenes that they don't have access to in their skill bar.

 

Not every force class has a Force Push ability but all the force classes use Force Push in cutscenes.

 

Troopers and Agents use blaster pistols in cutscenes despite not having the ability to use a blaster pistol in-game (yet)

 

Since launch Sentinels and Marauders have only used a single lightsaber in cutscenes.

 

They're not going to go back and update cutscenes to reflect Combat Styles. They never had them reflect Advance Classes so they're not all of a sudden now going to go back in and do something that would be even more complicated.

Edited August 20, 2021 by Darth-Obvious