Really concerned about ability pruning.

[Quietstag]

I've tried this game a few times over the years, and speaking as a new player, it really does feel like you get a ton of abilities for no reason. Before even finishing the first planet I'd have several that it seemed I was never going to touch, or ones that serve a very similar function to each other. I've played around on the PTR and it feels a lot more streamlined and comfortable to me. But I haven't had years of this game to get attached to all the old abilities. I played WoW for a while and I liked the pruning though. I'd rather have a shorter list of meaningful abilities then a ton of ones that never get touched. I kind of like having to make choices as I level as well, as it means I'm picking what I want to be good at, rather than just having a tool for every possible situation. I'd guess for new people coming in, like me, this is going to be a good thing.

[Ghost_Spectre]

They maybe doing because they are getting ready to make the game compatible for Steam Deck or Xbox. This is the only thing that makes business sense with all the time and resources they’ve pumped into doing it. If they aren’t doing this and it’s just another change for the sake of change, then some people at Bioware should start looking for new jobs in the mobile app industry because swtor development shouldn’t be used for their personal training dummy.

 

Funny that they HAVE to do that. Why? Because FFXIV is playable on PlayStation and they didn't prune any abilities. PS players aren't whining about it. What they are doing is simply dumbing down the game for those who don't have the cognizant ability to play a game with the kind of abilities that SWTOR has. In other words, they are catering to those who would be unable to handle our current skill system. Much like games like ESO or Neverwinter and the others who have 6 or 7 active abilities using up to 7 keys for interfacing with the game.

[TheVoyant]

They haven’t. Losing two abilities out of dozens isn’t pruning. Going from dozens to say ten, that is pruning. Swtor has way too many abilities anyway. Btw, my sorcerer and juggernaut lost no abilities that I use, my assassin lost two.

 

This is personal preference though, I utilized every skill when playing sorc and it made it immensely more fun then PTS. For example Volt Rush is a crucial part of my build on 6.0 as we run no healers often, its smart offheal is critical. Yet now I can't pull a mob and teleport back like I used to, removing a fairly simple tactic bc... Having teleport and volt rush is a bad idea suddenly?

 

There are so many games where you don't have abilities to get creative its a downgrade to reduce tactical gameplay, its fine if your not that type of player but for those of us who like challenging ourselves... Having less skills is never a good thing.

 

If you don't use em, of course you don't miss em bc you don't know what you were missing!

[Rion_Starkiller]

I wouldn't agree it's too easy exactly, but that it's too different. SWTOR was at least originally mentioned in marketing as being a game with groups of enemies you can easily dispatch, rather than a few chonky ones, this to make you feel more powerful. I think the leveling experience in its current form does accomplish that feeling, if maybe slightly too much. But once you get to the "real" content (FPs, for example, like you mentioned) this principle changes somewhat. It's no longer about you feeling powerful. It's about you working together with others. And your abilities suddenly fail you for efficiently cutting down enemies; not unless you coordinate your actions properly with the group, which you've had no practice doing. This game missed an opportunity I'd say to give you 2 or 3 companions instead of the one, like most BW RPGs. With that amount, you could at least get closer to practicing the game in a similar way to how it'll be when you do group content. With the 1, you get used to being the big cheese, the rambo, especially with default healy god companions, you don't even have to reflect much at all, just pull and work it out from there.

 

It's kind of strange too because vet FPs were nerfed to allow role neutral, but this really only works as all DPS if you have a bunch of big cheese players who got good through trial by fire solo. It doesn't fit players who are practiced at the trinity of tank/heals/dps, used to being able to focus on rotation and dodge circles and that's it.

 

I guess what I'm trying to get at is, the game modes are pretty vastly different sometimes, even within what you'd think is the same type. Like vet FPs do not have the same expectations as role-enforced. And that causes more problems than a lack of forcing players to become solo pros.

 

Yeah the conundrum of game balance vs skill level. I do think that vanilla game should be somewhat more difficult via gearing, companion influence, and levelling, but I suppose it depends who is the target audience for vanilla stories. If it's new players from other MMO's, I think the vanilla game is too boringly easy to hold their interest. If the target audience is children, then I suppose game difficulty is just right.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Rion_Starkiller

[oblakoff]

The only problem with the pruning is that it didn't went far enough. Every spec needs to lose at least 3-4 more abilities for combat to feels more fluid, not like we are back at WoW circa 2007.

[jedipattawan]

They've done a good job at make a lot of abilties passive and baseline from the past.  There are maybe a few more as a Jedi Knight that seem to be clutter.  Imo it would be better to make abilities as exciting and fun to use as possible without needing any overly complex rotation or excessive keybind usage.  Not sure where things are in this game or what those at the top end think, but imo too much clutter these days feels bad.