Sniper - Commando - Operative

[Jelina]

My PTS experience was short-lived I'm afraid as it was not what I'd anticipated it might be. I created a sniper and ran through Ord mantel and had intended on stretching further throughout the story-line. I also wanted to jump on my 75 Commando I had set for HM-healing and push it through various content so that I may provide you with meaningful feedback.

 

Leveling as a sniper again from the start was quite nostalgic and fresh in a way considering the new content in place. All in all though, looking past new UI/menu content, no change in my opinion. My commando however, upon selecting a secondary combat style it immediately turned into something I hadn't anticipated.

 

1. I selected 'Operative' and once enabling its combat style I was unable to switch back to 'Commando'. I tried relocating through different phases, ship, planets, etc., in hopes to fix this but, was unable.

 

2. Also, upon selecting the secondary combat style ~ all of my armor was stripped from my toon and I was unable to reequip. I assume this is because it is 'Heavy' and 'Operatives' use other ~ I get that ~ again, just something I hadn't anticipated.

 

My expectation for enabling a secondary combat style was that I would inherit new abilities that would compliment my already existing ones which I could use as an enhancing feature. I didn't anticipate loosing all of my commando abilities only to acquire operative ones solely as if my toon was an operative in the first place.

 

3. Regardless, the combat style proficiencies selection (or restrictor) is a nice set-up but, is somewhat counter intuitive as it pertains to selecting compared abilities. Allow me to explain: My gameplay style is diverse in that as a healer I will focus on healing however, through appropriate power management I will contribute to the fight with all appropriate abilities; ie, cryo-grenade, sticky-bomb, etc. When these abilities are matched against other selectable abilities that necessarily don't coincide then it makes it difficult to determine the loadout I want in place to anticipate a rotation I may want to apply.

 

Thank you for providing the PTS functionality and the opportunity for me to provide you with some feedback. I've read a few threads in hopes of locating similar experiences to mine and unfortunately didn't locate any. This is not to say that someone hasn't already discussed this and sorry if I missed it. I've played swtor since launch and have thoroughly enjoyed the game through its evolvement over the past decade. Hopefully you all are able to pull this all together by February, and continue pushing forward that will facilitate player growth, experience, and adventure.

 

Lastly, concern yourself not with the destination; but instead, embrace the journey. Thanks Again!

 

-Mes

Edited December 23, 2021 by Jelina

[Sikssix]

This I agree, especially coming in expecting to be a sniper with let's say a big *** cannon and still do sniper stuff. But instead you just basically swap classes completely. This had me real confused for a bit until I realized, "oh, it's just class swapping on one character. What about the 15 other characters I have made?"

[Jelina]

Leveling the Sniper was going good ((Note: on Hutta, not Ord)).

 

Problems began surfacing when I was experimenting with my 75 Commando.

 

My Overarching Concern:

Why grant a secondary combat style when once enabled removes all primary abilities just to replace them entirely with the secondary ones? That "IS NOT" enabling anything which could accurately label as secondary; it's just professional swapping! Also, when once enabled/selected ~ all appropriate gearing specifically aligned with the primary combat style is then removed and not allowed to reequip.

 

Recommendation:

Utilize the existing combat styles recently created and do not replace secondary with primary; but instead, when selected ~ mesh them both somehow. I stress somehow because it's not my place to spell this out for Devs as to what styles should be available (and not) upon enabling. Finally, for the combat proficiencies themselves: the row selection of "1 of 3" takes away some essential proficiencies but doesn't facilitate comparable ones which defeats the intent.

[Toraak]

Leveling the Sniper was going good ((Note: on Hutta, not Ord)).

 

Problems began surfacing when I was experimenting with my 75 Commando.

 

My Overarching Concern:

Why grant a secondary combat style when once enabled removes all primary abilities just to replace them entirely with the secondary ones? That "IS NOT" enabling anything which could accurately label as secondary; it's just professional swapping! Also, when once enabled/selected ~ all appropriate gearing specifically aligned with the primary combat style is then removed and not allowed to reequip.

 

Recommendation:

Utilize the existing combat styles recently created and do not replace secondary with primary; but instead, when selected ~ mesh them both somehow. I stress somehow because it's not my place to spell this out for Devs as to what styles should be available (and not) upon enabling. Finally, for the combat proficiencies themselves: the row selection of "1 of 3" takes away some essential proficiencies but doesn't facilitate comparable ones which defeats the intent.

 

The entire point of having the secondary combat style was never to mesh the 2 styles together, but to allow us to have the ability to have 2 different classes that we could swap to.

 

For an example I could choose Merc if I wanted ranged dps or healer and choose a Vanguard or PT as my 2nd combat style to have the option to tank or Melee DPS. If BW allowed the meshing of the 2 different combat styles it would make a complete disaster out of any kind of class balance.

Edited December 24, 2021 by Toraak

[Jelina]

If BW allowed the meshing of the 2 different combat styles it would make a complete disaster out of any kind of class balance.

 

Exactly! Thank You!

[Aries_cz]

Mix-and-match of abilities was never the intent, though admittedly, the initial announcement made it look that way.

Even if we skip over all the balance issues that would create (imagine going up against someone who looks like a commando, cannon and all, only for them to suddenly drop behind cover and start sniping you), it would also require a massive effort from animation teams to get all the abilities to play nice with all weapons (which would be pretty ridiculous like Sniper doing Snipe with assault cannon).

 

As for armor, with all armor these days being Adaptive (I think only some of the old content still drops "weighted" armor), stripping you out should not really be an issue (and you still will be carrying 2 or more set of gear, if you will be utilizing the system).

 

For the switching issue, I am pretty sure it was because your bag was full. Happened to me as well, and I had no idea why I could not switch (there definitely needs to be an error/tooltip saying why can't you switch)