I actually agree with the op. if you played an AC from the beginning at level 1 you would get a feel for the class from the beginning. You would know before level 10 if you like it or not, therefore rerolling wouldnt be an issue. By level 10 you dont actually know the playstyle of the AC because you cant experience it until AFTER you make the choice no matter how much consideration you put into it.

 

I think they need to give you at least a one time only option to switch ACs or even an option to pay (real life cash) to switch. Even something like after 10 levels (at lvl 20) your trainer asks you "were you satisfied with your training?" And you are given the opportunity to either continue as ur AC or have a one time only swap.

 

Edit: would you buy a car after only reading up about it and listening to the car salesmen tell you about it... Or would you take it for a test drive first.

 

The other option might be at lvl 10 while choosing your advanced class you are transported to a simulator where you are given the main features of each class and do some set quests to get a feel for each class before making your choices.

Edited May 5, 2012 by Razdek

Wouldn't mind the ability to pay the NPC that allows you to pick your AC to change it again at any point in the game. I re-rolled Jedi Knight maybe.. six times because I've gotten bored and wanted to play a new playstyle for a while while still being a Jedi.

 

Because of this I ended up eventually just getting sick of the Jedi story and am currently playing a Consular (Sage). This seems to be a real issue with me because I've been playing since early-access and have never been able to reach 50 because I get bored. Highest I ever reached was 40.

Edited May 6, 2012 by JediKnightJax

I would just like to point out... in Final Fantasy XI... you can change your class at ANY Nomad Moogle or at your current Mog house... so yes there was an MMO that allowed it, and in fact allowed Sub Job which is what I miss the most about that game. That being said, I sadly just fell into this problem with my Consular... Bleh, time to reroll!

I think one of the problems with the argument here is getting into semantics. Some argue that ACs are a set, unique, defined class equivalent to the base class in other games like WoW, while others argue that they are more like specialisations, like specs in WoW.

 

I can understand if BW wants ACs to be the player's primary class, and on its own I have no problem with that. I have no real desire to change ACs on any of my toons. However, I can understand the argument about having the freedom to change your mind.

 

For example, if I roll a Warrior in WoW and I find by level 10 that I don't like it (yeah, some people would say to play it through to see what it's like later in the game, but I don't want to), then I can just re-roll a different class - maybe a paladin or something...

 

This is different than if I have a warrior that I specced Arms at level 10 and decided at level 15 that I really want to try Fury instead... A quick visit to a trainer and I'm respecced... I pick up my new spec-specific talents and skills, and off I go.

 

So the question is, where do ACs fit? I mean, this argument has gone on for 50 pages and no player can authoritatively state what category ACs fit - class or spec. Only BW can do that.

 

Having said that, I would ask those against being able to change - why do we need to have 10 levels of generic grinding, only to totally have to change our playstyle anyway once we get our AC? Wouldn't it make more sense to simply do away with the generic core classes (which if ACs are classes, then core classes aren't really classes anymore, are they?) and start from level 1 in your AC? Less grief, players get a feel for the "class" quicker, and can maybe have a bit more fun in the first few levels instead of spamming the few generic skill you get to start with.

 

Don't get me wrong - I personally am happy with the class system, and I deliberately chose my ACs for the roles I wanted my toons to fill, based on plenty of googling. I don't think there is one toon I would change even if I could. However, that's just me, and I don't presume to push my preferences onto another person. If they want the ability to change AC - even if only in a short window after unlocking ACs (say up to lvl 15 or 20), then why not? How does it hurt anybody to allow people that freedom?

 

People aren't just interested in consequences of choice - but freedom of choice is also an issue, and both are perfectly legitimate.

To be honest I was completely against respecs except for within your chosen AC. However, that was back when BW was saying that your choice would affect your story somehow. Well either that got really dumbed down or BW just changed their mind about the two different stories and did away with the idea all together.

 

Personally, now, I am all for respecs in all forms within the archetype. IF and only IF the stories were truly different would I be against this, because after having leveled a Merc, it was like pulling teeth while watching the grass grow when leveling my PT.

 

Just my two cents...

Ac is your class.

You NEVER EVER IN ANY MMO can change from Mage to Rogue.

Deal with it.

Bioware told you 10 times over (I just put a char above ten yesterday) that AC is permanent and CAN'T BE CHANGED.

Roll a new char, it takes about 5 or 6 hours. Less if you skip the conversations you already know now.

 

Wrong! FFXI was a class changing game where you could play thief, then switch to paladin, then switch to warrior, and so on and so forth. So there ARE MMOs where you can change your class. He might be from one Never speak in absolutes, the universe has a way of coming back to bite you when you do.

Ac is your class.

You NEVER EVER IN ANY MMO can change from Mage to Rogue.

Deal with it.

Bioware told you 10 times over (I just put a char above ten yesterday) that AC is permanent and CAN'T BE CHANGED.

Roll a new char, it takes about 5 or 6 hours. Less if you skip the conversations you already know now.

 

No... your class is "Agent" your role is Operative or Sniper.

 

Try playing Rift, you can change your role once every 5 sec.

 

Never liked the Advanced class system in this game.

No... your class is "Agent" your role is Operative or Sniper.

 

Try playing Rift, you can change your role once every 5 sec.

 

Never liked the Advanced class system in this game.

 

The only problem is that the Operative revolves around the Tactical Advantage procs while sniper revolves around cover. The operative is also melee damage and healing where as the Sniper is long range DPS. Completely conflicting game styles that I don't want people just testing out at high levels.

The only problem is that the Operative revolves around the Tactical Advantage procs while sniper revolves around cover. The operative is also melee damage and healing where as the Sniper is long range DPS. Completely conflicting game styles that I don't want people just testing out at high levels.

 

Likewise for Sorcerer and Assassin (my Assassin is only level 30, of course, so if they spontaneously become very similar in play style to Sorcerers during those 20 levels, my apologies) and, well, fairly much all of the classes. Simply because some of the skills are shared does not mean they the classes are 'the same'.

 

I can see why people would want to be able to change their classes: it's easier, it's quicker and Bioware nerfed X class or Y spec into the ground and now it's un-playable in PvE/PvP.

 

This topic's going to be argued until the cows come home, but I can bet you anything that if Bioware did implement this, vast swathes of people would fill the General Discussion forums saying that they're unsubbing because Bioware broke the game is catering to 'casuals' and 'bads'.

Someone asked earlier, way earlier, why the base class matters. They are the base line story for ur character, they aren't going to make a story for each advanced class. If you made a mistake in adv class u need to live with it or re roll. I refretted my jugg at about 32 but I stuck with it because I didn't want to start over again. And there are some games that allow class switching, but those games are generally failing, but they do exist. Honestly if bw adds adv class change I would dislike it yet I would be changing anew of my chars classes.

Like I said before tho, live with it or reroll

Wrong! FFXI was a class changing game where you could play thief, then switch to paladin, then switch to warrior, and so on and so forth. So there ARE MMOs where you can change your class. He might be from one Never speak in absolutes, the universe has a way of coming back to bite you when you do.

Sorry bud, you're trying to mislead people with what you're saying about FFXI. While you could technically change your class in FFXI, you still had to level up each class on its own.

 

If you were a level 30 WAR (Warrior) and wanted to play a BLM (Black Mage) instead, then yes, you could go to your Mog House and simply change your class (BLM was available at the start, but many classes had somewhat involved quest chains to unlock them). However, if you had never played BLM before, then you would not be changing to a level 30 BLM, but rather a level 1 BLM.

 

In effect, FFXI was no different than TOR. While you could technically change classes, each different class still had to be leveled independently. Therefore, the only difference from the FFXI system is that you kept the same character (name, race, inventory, etc.) between classes, where on TOR you use a separate one.

I've been playing the Imperial Agent for a few days now. At level 10, after much consideration, I decided to go operative over sniper because it seemed like a cool class that snuck around and then stabbed people. However, after awhile I decided that operative was much too slow and had pitiful damage output, so I just thought to myself "well I tried out operative and didn't like it, I should probably go sniper". That's when I found out that YOU CAN NEVER CHANGE YOUR ADVANCED CLASS. Why wouldn't Bioware let players change their advanced class. At this point I was level 18 and if I wanted to go sniper I would have to repeat about 3 days of work. I have loved this game so far, but this is the first major issue that I have run into. I hate myself for saying this, but WoW did it better.

 

Perhaps next time read the fine print when your trainer tells you can't change your class once you choose your path. But in hindsight you would never have known what you like until you play the class. If you chosed sniper over operative than you might have made the same complaint.

 

Either way an Operative is a kick *** class. Try leathality spec or stealth. Beside DPS you can also be a healer with Operative. A sniper is just dps.

Even something like after 10 levels (at lvl 20) your trainer asks you "were you satisfied with your training?" And you are given the opportunity to either continue as ur AC or have a one time only swap.

I think this would be a great solution

Edited July 1, 2012 by KahlessUK

Its an architectural decision. They decided to go this route early in development and now its pretty set bro.

 

***? architectural huh? you maybe wanna re-think using that word when describing AC's? lawl pretentious people crack me up

There should probably be a training room type thing with some training dummies or holographic gangsters or something that you could test out an Advanced Class, but it would also give you temporary use of some abilities of the class, an option below the choices to inspect or select a class could be a Test button that teleports you to, for example the Operative training room, where you can sneak around and backstab holographic swoop gang members, heal wounded Imperial Troops and you would have a handful of the generic Operative abilities to allow you to do this, but you could also go to the sniper training room, where you could be in a long hallway type place where you could test out the increased range you gain as a sniper and use the interrogation probe, and use some other sniper abilities. You just stay in as long as you need to to get the idea of what the class does as well as get a preference for which advanced class you like to play more, instead of just going off of what the description describes.

I think this would be a great solution

 

i don't people need to read and then deal with what they picked. If reading is too hard for them and they just skip everything the game tells then then they need to start over.

 

I for one am sick and tired of MMOs catering to the lazy whiny little brats that want everything without doing anything.

 

It says THIS CANNOT BE CHANGED when you pick you AC so deal with it. Leveling 1-10 takes 2 hours its not like you lost a month of your life.

It says THIS CANNOT BE CHANGED when you pick you AC so deal with it. Leveling 1-10 takes 2 hours its not like you lost a month of your life.

 

Leveling 1-10 takes 2 hours. How much does leveling 1-50 take? Or getting full Rakata/BH or WH gear? Re-roll is an option if you've spent a week or two playing (no point talking about having just reached level 14/15), but not if you have spent a month or even more. As many other players, I have spent months on my main and I have no intention on just re-rolling and letting all this go to waste.

Advanced class change should be implemented and NO, it will not destroy the game - just add more freedom of choice to it. Again advanced class change, not sage->sentinel, trooper-> gunslinger change (some people seem to not understand what others are asking). Basic classes are the same (notice the separate trooper / vanguard tabs in the ability menu?), no matter the AC you pick the story is also the same.

"But WoW doesn't have it", WoW doesn't have ACs and besides, why should they just stick to what WoW has? Have it implemented but at a cost - a couple of million creds, a lengthy quest perhaps? Something that makes you work for it, not just get it straight away. Also, have a lockout period of a month or the ability to change it just once.

I think there was a game which got a system which we could use.

 

For example. You leveled a LvL50 Vanguard. And you got Rakata Gear.

Now you can reset your level to LvL10 (your Gear can be stored). And you level to 50 again (with a Commando). From this Point on you can always switch between Commando and Vanguard.

Problem solved. Only disadvantage for you is that you can't join raids for up to two weeks while leveling.

 

I think I would appreciate this System. The more I think about it the better it sound

At this point they should just do away with base classes. Let's have 8 playable classes per each faction from level 1, with sufficient warning that Sentinel and Guardian will share the same storyline etc.

 

That way probably nobody would keep asking for being able to switch from a mobile melee self-healing stealth class to a static ranged class on the fly.

I think they should definitely allow players to change to the other Advanced Class. Atleast once, if they accidentally picked the wrong one or were ignorant about it. It's just skillsets and weapon proficiencies. I don't see why they couldn't implement it.

This is a common argument concerning the issue of advanced classes: "other games don't let you go from warrior to mage, so swtor should not allow people to change their advanced class."

 

This argument, fails to take into consideration the nature of SWTORs class system and how fundamentally different it is from those other games. SWTOR has a base class system that splits into different advanced classes at level 10. WoW, on the other hand, forces the player into a class that will be the same from lvl 1 to cap. While this has been criticized it actually allows the player to make decisions concerning play-style and roles faster and more efficiently.

 

Conversely, SWTOR has you play through a fundamental class arbitrarily for 10 levels. This is why there are no flashpoints until lvl 10. In some cases, these first 10 levels have absolutely no relevance to the eventual switch being made at lvl 10 when choosing an advanced class. For instance, the Inquisitor base class plays nothing the assassin. So, once you choose assassin and play it for the first time at lvl 10 you are screwed. I though some portion of the base style and function of the Inquisitor would be retained in the assassin build but it really wasn't.

 

Had I known that I wasn't going to enjoy the assassin at lvl 10-15 then I would have promptly switched to sorcerer and leveled to 10 to try it out beyond lvl 10. However, as many of us can probably agree, stopping to lvl a new character while your friends are blasting through levels each day is a major setback should you want to get capped and engage in endgame material.

 

While this system was intended to provide choice, it actually restricts choice. In reality, there are 16 classes in the game. Why not just have these 16 classes available at lvl 1 , have their play-style accurately represented from the start, and allow players to get to know them faster rather than delaying the most important choice a player has to make about his/her character?

 

I think that while this system was implemented with good intentions, it has proven to be ineffective for many and should be revisited in the near future. I, for one, would much rather play a sorcerer than an assassin. I would love to see an option to change advanced classes. As is, my 50 assassin is just sitting there and it will probably be difficult for me to maintain a high level of interest in the game. My friends have all quit the game, I have come back for a month to test the 1.3 patch. I will probably move on to something else though as it seems that this game is having difficulty in meeting the most basic of needs.

 

Can I also say that for a new game SWTOR has one of the most confusing gear systems. What stats are important for the assassin class? Which of the four different choices available are right for my assassin? The sorcerer uses willpower but so does the assassin. Shouldn't as assassin look different from the sorcerer?

 

The class system already needs an overhaul in this game. Its a bit convoluted IMO.

Edited July 12, 2012 by jepurv

Ac is your class.

You NEVER EVER IN ANY MMO can change from Mage to Rogue.

Deal with it.

Bioware told you 10 times over (I just put a char above ten yesterday) that AC is permanent and CAN'T BE CHANGED.

Roll a new char, it takes about 5 or 6 hours. Less if you skip the conversations you already know now.

 

Im pretty sure i had one character in FFXI and 16 level 90 jobs....

I've been playing the Imperial Agent for a few days now. At level 10, after much consideration, I decided to go operative over sniper because it seemed like a cool class that snuck around and then stabbed people. However, after awhile I decided that operative was much too slow and had pitiful damage output, so I just thought to myself "well I tried out operative and didn't like it, I should probably go sniper". That's when I found out that YOU CAN NEVER CHANGE YOUR ADVANCED CLASS. Why wouldn't Bioware let players change their advanced class. At this point I was level 18 and if I wanted to go sniper I would have to repeat about 3 days of work. I have loved this game so far, but this is the first major issue that I have run into. I hate myself for saying this, but WoW did it better.

 

1.) It tells you that two times in seperate windows when chossing the advanced class.

 

2.) Dont think of Imperial Agent as your class, its merely name for the tutorial. You chosse your class at level 10. Its the same concept as in Aion for example. In aion you choose Warrior and with level 10 you become Guardian or Gladiator.

 

Again: IA is NOT your class, Operative is.

 

Greetz,

Uvi

 

PS: I wished BioWare would let us pick the advanced class at the character generation. That way nobody would ask for changing their classes.

Really?

 

Wow let you change from a lvl 18 warrior to a lvl 18 paladin?

 

Pretty sure you couldn't do that in WoW, so I'm not sure why you'd make a statement like this, because that's what you are asking to do.

 

They allowed race change and faction change, nothing more then that.

 

The thing that people seem to do is make the mistake of thinking the respecc'ing in wow is like AC changing in swtor....some people can be like that i guess.

1.) It tells you that two times in seperate windows when chossing the advanced class.

 

2.) Dont think of Imperial Agent as your class, its merely name for the tutorial. You chosse your class at level 10. Its the same concept as in Aion for example. In aion you choose Warrior and with level 10 you become Guardian or Gladiator.

 

Again: IA is NOT your class, Operative is.

 

Greetz,

Uvi

 

PS: I wished BioWare would let us pick the advanced class at the character generation. That way nobody would ask for changing their classes.

 

Dude, look at the date when the OP posted the thread.