ETA on Advanced Class change?

Powertech and Mercenary are DIFFERENT classes. You could classify bounty hunter as a class, but that makes powertech and mercenary no less there own SEPARATE classes.

That is according to the devs, not just my spin. If you doubt me, go back and read the thread. The links to the devs quote have been posted.

Your confused. They are different advance classes. You continue to confuse AC with class.

You can ignore this all you want, but according to the devs, AC's are DIFFERENT classes.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel Erickson

"The advanced class system exists because we’re already making the game story-wise bigger than every other game we’ve done put together. We pretty topped out at eight. It’s already huge and ridiculous, but for an MMOG, we wanted more classes than that for a variety of gameplay. Each of the advanced classes is basically a full class that we would have done."


Originally Posted by Daniel Erickson
"We had alot of internal debate whether to release the advanced classes, and people need to understand they are "works in progress". We have a very complicated class system. The advanced classes are TOTAL class systems by themselves. You can't think of other games where you have little offshoots.
Obviously, the ideal is that people don't ever need to respec their Advanced Class. There are additional measures we are putting in place to improve the communication about that choice to the player before it happens. Ideally, we would also allow you to 'test drive' the AC , but that's fairly expensive and unlikely to happen. It's more likely that we stick with a short period (a few levels) during which you can change your AC class for a credit cost before it locks in. We might attach other limiters than just credits (e.g completely disable the option past level 20 instead of a very high cost of credits.). That's what testing will determine."



A few things from our point of view (the devs):

"Your Advanced Class choice very much defines how your character plays from the moment you choose it. Their impact is more akin to that of a different class in other MMOs than that of a different 'spec'. A Sith Sorcerer is very, very different from a Sith Assassin.


As mentioned before, the ability to respec your skills is definitely in the game. At this point, it costs credits but has no other requirements or limitations. The exact cost will be fine tuned, probably until ship, in conjunction with the rest of the economy - so giving precise numbers at this point isn't helpful.


We haven't made up our mind yet about the availability of an Advanced Class respec. We are evaluating all options (no Advanced Class respec, fixed cost respec, respec cost increasing with level, etc.).
A lot of thought currently goes into the consequences of Advanced Class respec - if we allow it, it will require players to relearn their entire approach to combat (which they learned over many many hours before) and replace the majority of their equipment, so it's not a thing we would want the player to do lightly, or just out of curiosity.

Ultimately, testing will tell us what we'll go with for launch, but even then - MMOs change, new content is added, player preferences emerge and change, so this is likely one of those topics we will be frequently discussing even after launch to ensure the design matches the expectations of our players and does not introduce unwelcome side effects.

With all this said - thank you very much for your continued feedback and thoughts on the topic. We are actively reading and discussing the topic frequently."

You do not want to debate. If you truly wanted to "debate", you would take the time to read this thread and find the reasons that he, and others, have posted countless times describing why allowing class changes could negatively impact the game and should not be allowed.

Your refusal to go back and read this thread to see the reasons that have been posted countless times falls into the category of LAZY, which considering the source, does not surprise me.

You continue to ignore the devs own statements:



Do you think that you know more than the devs?

But back OT:

The argument that they share primary stats is way off base.

DPS:
Primary Stat: STR, AIM, CUN, WILL
Next: PWR
Next: CRIT
Next SUR

Heal:
Primary Stat: STR, AIM, CUN, WILL
Next: PWR
Next: CRIT
Next SUR

Tank:
Primary Stat: ENDURANCE (Note how that is not STR, AIM, CUN, WILL)
((In no particular order to keep from having a tank stat fight))
Defense (Note how that is not PWR)
Shield (Note how that is not CRIT)
Absorb (Note how that is not SUR).


So, by logic given in this thread. DPS/Heal should be interchangeable based on stat allocation, and they are.

I have read this thread many times. No one is right or wrong were all simply debating why or why not. Judging by your posts, your not here to debate, your here to put others down because they dont agree with you. Were not lazy, we are trying to explain why this feature would be beneficial to the game. Did you know you can have a discussion without calling others names? Try it sometime.

Is daniel erickson still here?

Those opposed to allowing class changes have explained many times why allowing class changes would not be beneficial to this game.

Many advanced classes can already switch between dps and tank or dps and heal. Enumerating the differences between the parts of the trinity is irrelevant. Saying "but people shouldn't be able to swap roles ever" is also irrelevant because that functionality has existed since day 1. The stats are the same between the advanced classes and most of the gear is, also (my guardian, marauder and sentinels have often swapped entire legacy sets). Interestingly, most, if not all, of the arguments I've seen against allowing AC swapping so far would apply equally against allowing the respecs we have now (switching from Vigilance guardian to Focus guardian for example) and that is as close to proof that the naysayers are wrong as I can provide. Respecs have not destroyed this or any game I'm aware of. I would guess that almost everyone with a bit of experience has used them at least a few times, actually.

Devs didn't intend to allow AC swapping?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...OmWk47c#t=316s (5:20)