Rock-scissors-paper in 7.0 means no dominant play style

[Carba]

In the game rock-scissors-paper there is no dominant choice. Done right, 7.0 should have the same quality. Every play style crossed with every possible tree choice set should have some other play style that can defeat it, all other aspects being the same. i.e. same gear, same player skill, same group support. Going into a PvP contest, you can choose among 2 play styles, 3 disciplines, and about 10 tree choices, which is about 60 unique combinations. Maybe 10% of those will be competitive. If so, then every PvP match starts with the players choosing among the 6. In 1x1 PvP the opponent has 6 choices also and if balanced half should be competitive. That seems to me like a tall order for devs since it may be an over-constrained design. In 4x4 PvP the team composition is even more complex. There are 60^4 combinations, with may be 10% competitive. That's over a million team choices. That seems to me doable for balance. No team should be dominant over all other teams, everything else being equal. The trick is to find the combo that works best against the most other possible combinations.

[Baletraeger]

Class balance in an MMO is never going to work. There is always going to be dominant classes, specs, builds, especially when you have a trinity system, stealth, etc to differentiate what each class can excel at. The only way for them to get close to parity is by making all the classes identical mechanically but different cosmetically, which will basically kill the game. But who knows, with the changes coming in 7.0 maybe they getting closer to making that the reality of combat design for SWTOR in the future. Hope there is anyone left to queue with you if that happens.