SWTOR is finally going through some class/ability pruning!

toljar

Check it out, there posted about the Jedi Guardian and what changes are coming. This is going to happen to all the classes to remove the outstanding ability bloat that has (in my opinion) plagued the game since release and only gotten worse as the game aged and new abilities were put in.

Article to explanation: https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9954874#edit9954874

Mendel

Interesting.  Odd that they only gave the community a 1-day notice (and react) before putting that in place.  And it only impacts a single class for now.  I can't tell if this is rushed or not.  I hope it's not and introducing a substantial change to a single class won't unbalance the game completely.

Iselin

Mendel said:

Interesting.  Odd that they only gave the community a 1-day notice (and react) before putting that in place.  And it only impacts a single class for now.  I can't tell if this is rushed or not.  I hope it's not and introducing a substantial change to a single class won't unbalance the game completely.

That's only in effect on the PTS. I've played in many PTS where changes are made with 0 days notice. 

Nebless

Mendel said:

And it only impacts a single class for now.    I hope it's not and introducing a substantial change to a single class won't unbalance the game completely.

They said they were going to do the classes one at a time.  I guess so people could concentrate on just the one and give their feedback.  I'm sure after X amount of time they'll do the next class and so forth.

If I had to guess it's all part of the changes that will come about with the Legacy of the Sith Expansion at the end of the year.

Gorwe

So not a fan of this. Does SWTOR need a round of SYSTEMIZING of rotations? YES. (some rotations involve 4 skills and some 12+...lol wut?). Does it need ability prune and overall ability gate? NO.

But for all of you who keep mentioning this mythical "skill bloat" in swtor, care to give few examples?

Scot

Can anyone name one MMO where a major reorganization of skills/powers occurred and it was a resounding success? I can't, there are always new issues to replace the old ones.

Also doing this one class at a time, how long before this is finished, four months, a year? That is a lot of hiatus right there.

Wizardry

IMO the entire structure needed a rework as it was just real bad in many areas.

Originally i tried every class to at least 30 and did not like any of the classes.Also the changed tree ideas at 30 were also imo not very well done.

Combat was atrocious,it was like some noob system designer designed it.The 3 on a tree idea copied from the EQ days was also very lame to see over and over.Each npc should operate on it's own AI an not be scripted together as a 3 some all reacting and moving at the exact same time.

The zones were very linear and the itemization was very weak.Crafting was weak,the instance missions idea was very weak,the entire game looked like  each division ran out of time and money and had to just rush to put it al together.
I had very distinct design ideas i wanted to see from an epic IP game such as Star Wars and NONE of those ideas were delivered.

I even opredicted what the 3 choice idea would be like before i played the game and i was right,a very weak system.

Then maybe one of the worst immersion breakers was the red light green light rooms..../sad very sad.

For some unknown reason idk maybe shills but the STORY was hyped way beyond it's worth.An oftemn conspiracy theory story every time.it was like i already knew what was coming up as i waltzed to the next so called leaders room where i knew someone or myself was going to take him out lol.

Fennris

They're releasing one "high level" advanced class test every two weeks or so.  There are eight of them assuming we aren't also going to do the mirror classes.  The expansion is going live by end of year.  There's also supposed to be a "deep dive" for each of the classes.  The PTS preview is very rushed - there's no UI changes, we can't make any choices with our builds, we can't see any of the style or loadout terminology or even review our builds on our character sheets.  It looks a lot like they've just started working on the expac.

All that we're apparently testing is if we can do specific daily quests with their class builds that are missing many of the abilities we've had since 2011.  Very few experienced players are remotely happy with what we're testing.  If swtor was a publicly traded stock I would short it heavily.

FrodoFragins

Fennris said:

They're releasing one "high level" advanced class test every two weeks or so.  There are eight of them assuming we aren't also going to do the mirror classes.  The expansion is going live by end of year.  There's also supposed to be a "deep dive" for each of the classes.  The PTS preview is very rushed - there's no UI changes, we can't make any choices with our builds, we can't see any of the style or loadout terminology or even review our builds on our character sheets.  It looks a lot like they've just started working on the expac.

All that we're apparently testing is if we can do specific daily quests with their class builds that are missing many of the abilities we've had since 2011.  Very few experienced players are remotely happy with what we're testing.  If swtor was a publicly traded stock I would short it heavily.

I decided to check their forums after seeing this.  The pruning is definitely what's bothering most people it seems.  Some were conjecturing that it was probably being done for consoles but I don't know how accurate that may be.

For someone who doesn't do endgame like me, the changes really won't be a huge deal.  But I don't see it as a positive that's for sure.  Quite a few people are equating it with the NGE and I can see why.