ETA on Advanced Class change?

Heh, I stand corrected on that one. I honestly thought I'd read every post from the OP to this one and had never read one post asking for a free change 'at will'. I must of glazed over some of the more absurd posts.

And, Option 6 is indeed there... although I would say the others all carry a cost of some sort.

'At will' was carrying the connotation in the post I was responding to of having no cost or limit and being able to be applied anywhere and at anytime. I would strongly argue against this as it starts to open up the possibility of exploiting the facility to swap AC in much the way Field respect was being used to change spec in certain WZs. Although that exploit has been removed from the game now.

I guess it shows that no matter how many times you can read something you can gloss over the information that doesn't necessarily match up with your own argument.

Still, overall I feel placing in the ability to swap AC for a cost and with a time restriction (maybe even a location restriction as well - fleet or personal ship) restricts the desire to AC too often and removes the 'At will' component entirely.

It would be interesting to know the position posters are arguing from with regards to their own stable of characters and the sort of time they are able to place in the game and whether this influences their position.

Just charge 5 or 10 million credits for it so it is extremely rare.

This thread is proof new MMO'ers are ruining mmos.

...and old MMOers are trying to destroy the industry as they resist change, as they always have done.

It's the same old story naturally. The guy in the middle is the one that suffers the most as a result.

I understand the point you are trying to make, but I respectfully point out that when the devs have made a statement and have since said nothing to contradict that statement in any way, pointing that statement out is neither silly nor pointless. This is especially true if the statement is not a statement that something will "never happen". The last statement from the devs regarding AC's being different classes has not been contradicted by the devs. This was a very definitive statement, btw, and not one using terms such as "likely" or "probably".


Regarding things such as visual progression and being able to visually identify classes, they have allowed differing armor looks to be available to all classes while still retaining the ability to visually identify a class, for the most part, based on the weapon the character wields. Are there some exceptions to this visual identification by weapon? Sure, there are. A commando, for example, can elect to use a blaster rifle instead of the assault cannon with a minimal loss in effectiveness if healing and a slightly larger loss in effectiveness if DPS'ing. Juggernauts/guardians and sorcerers/sages could be mistaken for one another due to the single lightsaber.

The most recent statement regarding AC changing DID say that it would "likely" happen. It did not say that AC changes WOULD happen and it did not give any indication of a time frame. That stament was made over 6 months ago. Since that statement was made, there have been many content patches and even an expansion, and yet there has been NOTHING further from the devs regarding AC changing. Not one word, not even a hint of a whisper, has been uttered by them since that time about AC changing, despite the numerous threads about this hot topic, including this almost 350 page thread.

If one looks at the total silence on this subject along with their statements during beta and since release that they do not plan to allow AC changing, it is not unreasonable to see this as a possible "soft no". As I have said before, they lose nothing by the "soft no". The players who want to change their class are likely still paying and playing, as evidenced by the number of subscribers in this thread who want to change their class. The devs know that they will likely lose a number of subscribers if they allow class changes. How many will leave is something that is anyone's guess. If that statement was a "soft no", BW keeps both those players who want to change their class continuing to pay and play by giving them a "sense of hope" while also keeping those against class changes continuing to pay and play by not allowing class changes.

We have no way of knowing whether this is something the majority of player base wants. Even in this thread, we have a few who are adamantly against allowing class changes and a few who are equally in favor of allowing them. We also have some have posted a time or two on one side or the other. I would say that there is not even a clear majority in this thread. Since the forums typically represent a vocal minority of the player base, I would suspect that there is even less of a clear majority when looking at the player base as a whole.

Well, it is just my opinion ratajack, which you and I know means next to nothing. Just because I am of the opinion it is silly does not make it so.

Because note...they may still view it that way, and I have NEVER once seen them say that ACs are not classes. That is an important distinction. Though I have never seen them directly say they are, they certainly have implied it on many occasions...fundamentally different class designs...thats pretty close to saying it's a class of it's own.

So, you have a point there. You could say it is LIKELY because they have never contradicted it. But in fairness they have not DIRECTLY (to my knowledge) said they were flat out classes, nor have they said they were not.

The finality of saying "the devs have directly stated your AC is your class, they will never allow AC change, and they have never indicated anything to the contrary" is not really accurate IMO. Its a bit more gray than that.


Well, to be clear, it was a response to the idea of allowing armor to have mods again as an alternative to an appearance system. That is how they responded. They did not want Jedi to be wearing Commando gear, or visa versa, and said it would never happen. No light armor class wearing heavy armor, etc. But it has....visual progression in that respect has been "thrown out the window", so to speak.

Correct, and to add to that, the race change was implemented as mentioned in that comment...but AC change was not. That may mean nothing....but I hope it means they decided against it.

And yes, to my knowledge I have not seen any yellow comment on the matter since.

If it's not unreasonable to see that, you have to have reason with the folks that say "they never actually called it a class", " they have said it will likely happen" and so on. Reason must be applied to both views.

To ask for some interpretive leeway but then close the door on that for the other side of the argument is self serving IMO. The entire argument, pro and con must be open to reasoning.

I agree. I certainly have no idea. Only Bioware would be privy to those kind of metrics, if any, I would suspect.

I am not going to go back over 340+ pages and search through the countless other threads to look for something that you can find on your own. I will suggest you look for posts made by TridusSWTOR and PeterTLJ for starters, though.


What you are asking to do is explore a DIFFERENT class to it's full potential. You currently have that option in game. It does require you to actually level that different class, but you can explore any class to it's full potential. Asking to level one class but explore a different class is an "entitled" behavior, IMO.

As I have stated before, any ONE individual who changes their class may never affect my personal gaming experience. Allowing class changes, however, will likely affect the gaming experience of every player in this game, some for the better and some for the worse. Just to name two examples, we have explained that although there already exist those players who are "bad" at playing their chosen class or who do not respect "social convention" regarding loot rules, allowing class changes will likely increase the numbers of players who would fall into either of those categories. More players will have no concept of how to play their "new" class and the whole "loot rules" fiasco is opened up to the players who will then have the excuse of "I might change AC" to try to justify not adhering to "social convention". Can those players be kicked and/or ignored? Yes, but why should the players against class change be put in the position of having to kick and/or ignore them?

I can only speak from personal experience. I have many characters, some of which are max level. Wile I have one main server with 12 characters currently, I have many others spread across several servers. None of them are "abandoned". I play all of them, although most of my limited time is spent on my main server. I have at least one of each "base" class, although I do not have one of each AC.

Due to real life, I do not get much time to play. My time is extremely limited. If I am lucky I get maybe four hours to play Monday through Friday, most weeks not even that much. On the rare weekends I do not have to work, I might get to play for a few hours each on Saturday or Sunday, if I am lucky. I do not see this limited time as a justification to allow class changes, though, since there are no time constraints for reaching max level. I am not one of the "have to have it now" crowd. I know that my characters are not going to be deleted if they are not max level in a week or two. I have been playing since early release and I still have characters that have not reached max level. Foe me, it is the journey and not the destination that is important. If I want to play one of the classes I do not yet have, I will create one and level it, however long that takes.

To be fair, I have not said that the devs directly said that they will never allow class changes. I have said that the devs have stated that AC's are fundamentally different class designs and that they see them as different classes, which is pretty direct, IMO, and that they have not contradicted this statement. I have also repeatedly acknowledged the statement that AC changes will "likely happen".



My point was that they found a way to retain the visual identification while at the same time allowing more flexibility in appearance. In that instance there were able to satisfy both sides of that particular issue, those desiring more flexibility in appearance and those wishing to be able to visually identify a player's class, for the most part. It will be much harder to satisfy both sides of this hot topic, though.

I hope this means they have decided against it as well, but time will tell. As one poster points out, the devs can change anything at any time, including their minds.


Point taken. I do, however, think that the statements regarding AC's being different classes are much more definitive and less open to "interpretation" than the statement that AC changes will "likely" happen, especially when those statements regarding AC's being different classes have not been contradicted and there has been nothing further regarding AC changing.


This is true, although posters on both sides of this issue would have us believe that their side is the majority.

Yeah, no worries on this one. A little hyperbole crept into my own response. One of the dangers of skim reading some aspects and babysitting I suspect

I'm not asking to level one class but explore a different class. I'm saying it would be nice to be able to explore both Advanced Class options of the same class without having to relevel.


I have a funny suspicion that those in favour of these two points tend to play outside of a guild. These are only issues that effect those that regularly play in PUG groups.
Easy fixes for these situations are: join a guild, put good players on your friends list, put bad players on your ignore list, talk to people before the start to confirm looting priority, kick bad players from the group, be understanding that this may be someone's first MMO and they may not know the given conventions and take the time to encourage them to be better players.
But these looting issues are already rife in the game and have plenty of threads regarding them. I doubt it would be a significant impact. And, controversial I know, I don't disagree with folk that Need on everything whether the character they are currently on can use it or not. After all their time is just as important as anyone else's and with legacy gear you can transfer mods across to alts that could be using it.I find this acceptable behaviour in a PUG, but not in a Guild environment.