I am also a pre-order, here since launch player. Own 2 accounts which are both subbed, 44 characters overall, 32 of those 44 are 55-60. I can confidently say I've given more money to this game than most and sunk more hours into the story than most. I am not thanking Bioware for this change. I -would- be thanking them if this was a singleplayer RPG that I bought DLC for every so often. This is supposed to be a MMO and they are essentially focusing on the non-MMO part of it. SWTOR already had good story but it was mediocre once the story ended. That weakness isn't changing. In fact it is getting worse. Unless they come up with a story that never ends and updates once a month to justify the subscription, which is extremely unlikely.

I am not a raider nor a PvPer. Tried them both for long periods of time and it just wasn't enjoyable. I enjoy the story of the game, but I wish it had things to do after the story ended without having to raid or PvP. This is SWTOR's biggest flaw. Its story has always been good. The leveling experience has always been good. Everything else has always been bad/neglected. This expansion is gonna make that problem worse. This is essentially a single player RPG we're paying monthly for. It doesn't make sense. Bioware needs some innovation here. They need to go outside the box and do something new for the endgame that has to do with story. Not Ops or PvP. If you're gonna neglect the traditional themepark MMO aspects then you better break the mold and do something different to sustain your players as opposed to half measures. The half measures being making old Ops current level content, releasing new ops every year maybe, etc. Story, as we know it, doesn't sustain. Again, this opinion comes from someone who is not a raider nor a PvPer. My entire SWTOR experience has revolved around leveling characters to experience the story again and again, as well as roleplaying. Bioware is digging themselves a huge hole.

I like this direction Bioware is going in.. but they need to do more than that. The story ends at some point and we need content to keep things fresh. Something that is not Ops, that is not PvP. If your focus is going to be on story then story needs to be part of my experience with SWTOR ever day I log in. It can't be done when I hit 65. Star Trek Online and Neverwinter keep things fresh by using player created content and quests, so there is always story at hand. WoW now has Garrisons which is a game within itself. SWTOR is still a MMO. It needs to cater to that.

I have those binds on my bars for other classes that actually use those keybinds. Just filling up the space with other stuff on classes that don't. I play every class and spec (actually have 43 characters total across two accounts) so I try to keep my UI and keybinds uniform across all characters. Not that you know me but I feel like I have earned the right to a valid opinion on this matter considering how much emphasis I put on efficiency in my UI. Have even gone as far as to research a user's psychology when it comes to UI arrangement. The stuff like transportation, stance toggles, items etc are not the ability bloat I refer to. Anything that is an actively used ability on those bars, and there are so many they spill out into the same bars I use for non-important things.

I too would like an increase in the 22 character per server limit. Honestly, if we have to pay as much as we do for a character slot, why do they need to be limited in the first place?

That may be true for raiding but for PvP they are used quite often.

Those abilities are used with regularity as a Madness Assassin. The stuff that is unbound but on the bars or are my mount/quick travel is not what I am talking about. I refer only to the class abilities.

Another example of bloat that irks me: the abilities that should be auto-attacks. Bioware thought they were making the combat more "actiony" by not introducing auto-attack. Instead they just sucked up a valuable ability slot with its presence. This is Saber Strike, Blaster Fire, etc.

The definition of bloat: to become swollen. Too much. The hotbars are swollen. Necessary abilities or not, that swelling needs to be reduced. We can't just take those abilities off of our bars for relief because we are required to use them: the game is balanced in such a way that not using them would put us at a disadvantage. It is therefore up to the developers to provide us with relief by changing the game so that those abilities are non-existant but their functionality, their contribution to balance, remains. 3 Abilities that have a similar functionality are merged into 1. They perfom the same functions. They have the same mechanics. You just save space. The definition of streamline: to alter in order to make more efficient. Efficiency. That is the keyword. As another example abilities that are conjured simply for the sake of conjuring are prime candidates for pruning. Highly situational abilities. For example classes that have "stun droid" for 60 seconds ability and a "stun humanoid" for 60 seconds ability. That's not necessary. That can be made into one all encompassing "stun for 60 seconds" ability.

Losing the functionality of those abilities and losing the abilities themselves are very different things. No on is asking to lose the functionality. We're wanting that functionality to be streamlined. Smarter. Cleaner. We shouldn't need 30+ abilities to accomplish the same functionality.

Well even if you prefer the traditional ability spam I think SWTOR currently has too much of it. 36 abilities to keep track of is too much. 12 would be a good number. Even 24 would be okay. 36.. that's just silly.

Exactly! Thank you! I had hoped the Discipline system might be addressing this issue in SWTOR, but I think it may just be streamlining the talent trees.

GW2 actually has the most enjoyable combat in a MMO currently, in my opinion. You don't have a lot of skills but the ones you do have are meaningful and there is a lot of depth to them. With those few abilities the combat already has more depth than SWTOR's. The only way I can compare the two combats is via a restaurant anology, being a chef. You are given $30. Would you rather have 1 really nice steak + garnish, or 30 fast food hamburgers? Design issues aside, yes Marauders/Sentinels have some of the worst bloat in the game. Can't just take the abilities off my bars either because then I would be playing sub-optimally. This is a situation of the game needing change, not the player.

It isn't dumbing the game down though. It's a situation of "less is more". If we had fewer abilities that worked differently due to procs or changes of a character's state it would be more interesting than having 30+ situational abilities that do nothing more than give some stat changes or some extra damage at the expense of an ability slot, a keybind and screen space. Just for the sake of fake depth. As for an example this is a screenshot from my UI on my Assassin. Haven't redone his talents since the patch (thus the couple of empty slots). Too much stuff: http://i.imgur.com/e9UtLqT.jpg A lot of that doesn't need to be there if certain things were baked into the class/spec.

Indeed. A lot of the skills should be baked into the class/spec as Procs or as flat stat differences. We don't need an ability for it. The abilities that actually do something interesting should remain, of course.